The move is well thought out. Just as it should be for a structured personality like Babett Peter: At the end of the season, one of the most successful German soccer players ends her active career. Her club, Real Madrid, would have liked to extend the captaincy, but the almost 34-year-old is now drawing a line.
“I’d like to be able to decide for myself when I retire – and now is the time after a very successful season as Real Madrid captain.” She would have had a wonderful time in Spain for three years when she switched to CD Tacon in 2019, whose playing rights Real Madrid then took over a year later.
This year, the German defender helped write a piece of women’s football history when Real Madrid played FC Barcelona in the quarter-final second leg of the Champions League in front of more than 90,000 spectators. “We did incredibly well and even had the chance to reach the Spanish Cup final. So I did my development work in Spain and won all the titles I dreamed of in Germany and on the international stage.”says Pete. The 33-year-old wrote on Instagram that it works “an unforgettable trip” end this summer.
Winning the Olympic gold medal stands out
She, who retired from the national team in 2018 after 118 international matches, has become world champion (2007), European champion (2009) and Olympic champion (2016). The defensive specialist from Oschatz in the Leipzig district has also won a series of titles at club level with Turbine Potsdam, 1. FFC Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg.
Looking back, the first thing that comes to mind is the Champions League final with Turbine Potsdam in 2010: “It was definitely one of the most emotional finals I’ve played in.” Of course, winning the Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 was also special, “because before that I had to struggle a lot with bad luck with injuries.”
Ella Masar is already working in the USA
But it’s not just the titles that count for her: “What really sticks in my mind are the great people I’ve met through football. That’s what the sport is about: lifting a trophy alone isn’t that much fun.” Of these personalities she counts Bianca Schmidt, Mary Earps or Almuth Schult, the current goalkeeper at VfL Wolfsburg, for whom she played until 2019.
During this time she also met her partner Ella Masar. The two have been engaged for almost a year, and Masar gave birth to a son 20 months ago. The former American soccer player already works as an assistant coach in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) at Kansas City Current – and Peter will also take a similar path.
After three or four years it should go back to Germany
Even if she can’t talk about the exact details yet, she is looking forward to a smooth transition between an active and professional career: “Getting to know the American franchise system in sports can only help us. I will complete my master’s degree in sports business in October, so that fits in very well.”
She reflected for herself “that I’m in a different stage of life at almost 34 years of age: I have a child, I’m studying and I have responsibilities. I feel that I’m growing out of active football. My team-mates are 13 or 14 years younger.”. And she notices clearly “that life revolves around other things for me”.
Her life partner had already moved to the USA in February, “Our son Zykane was with me until April, now he’s over there too.” The family can imagine working in US women’s football for three or four years, after which they should go back to Germany, “where I see a lot of development potential in women’s football”says Pete. A good project, perhaps in the women’s department of RB Leipzig or at her ex-club Turbine Potsdam, could be interesting, but there are no concrete plans in this direction.
She was world champion at the age of 19
Your wealth of experience is enormous. She was just 19 when she was part of the Germany squad that won their second World Cup title in 2007. Although Peter was not deployed in China at the time, he says: “When you win such a title so early, you initially think that your career can only go up.”
Four years later at the World Cup in their own country, reality had caught up with them. The early exit in 2011 in the quarterfinals against Japan seemed like a state of shock for German women’s football for a long time, but the regular defender not only has bad memories of the home tournament: The opening game in the sold-out Berlin Olympic Stadium or the attention paid throughout the tournament were new territory, “Nobody was prepared for that eleven years ago, and that must have been a bit paralyzing.”
She also learned to appreciate the painful experiences “and learned some life lessons”. Her personal low point was to be at the 2017 European Championships in the Netherlands, when she was one of the leaders and the Germany team lost to Denmark in the quarter-finals. “It was a setback for Germany as a whole, a nation of women’s football.” She has now noticed, especially in Spain, what dynamic development has been initiated.
FC Barcelona has become a pioneer
In this regard, FC Barcelona is certainly a pioneer, setting the standards at club level and beating VfL Wolfsburg (5:1, 0:2) in the semifinals and against in the final Olympique Lyon defend the Champions League title in Turin on May 21. “You do a lot of things right”says Peter and prophesies: “In two or three years, the Spanish women’s league will dominate Europe.”
If someone from the women’s Bundesliga or the German Football Association (DFB) asked her for advice, she would have a clear message: have courage, dare more. “I believe that you can achieve a lot with comparatively little effort at a women’s Bundesliga team. Lyon, Chelsea, Wolfsburg and Barcelona, who invested in women’s football well in advance, have not done it any differently. It’s paying off now. My It would be my wish that in a few years I could be involved at management level and actively help to shape women’s football.”