Lina Magull is sitting in a corner crying after the emotional speech by the assistant coach of the German soccer team. “If he makes a speech like that, it does something to you,” says the Bayern Munich midfielder.
The scene comes from the TV documentary about the DFB women that was shown in advance in a cinema in Frankfurt/Main on June 30th. Shortly before the European Championships in England (July 6th to 31st) “Born for this – more than football” gives deep insights into the dressing room and also into the private lives of the players.
“We have huge potential with this huge heart. But I didn’t see it yesterday,” says Thomas Nörenberg, assistant to national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, in a haunting tone in the said excerpt with Magull. “And if we can’t do that, then we have a problem. If we can do that, every team has a problem with us.”
One year of shooting – a lot of private things
The TV series was shot for more than a year by the German Football Association with the film production company Warner Bros. The director duo Martina Hänsel and Björn Tanneberger announced the work with these words: “We turn on the light.” The stories “should let us look deep into their souls, including the pain.”
In contrast to the well-known “Germany. A summer fairy tale”, which was published about the men’s national team after the 2006 World Cup, very personal statements and scenes were not cut out either. Goalkeeper Almuth Schult can be seen with her twins for the first time and Voss-Tecklenburg at home at her desk. And what she yells on the sidelines – for example: “We’re going to shit our pants” – can be heard clearly.