{"id":45079,"date":"2022-07-26T13:19:43","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T11:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2022\/07\/26\/lothar-potthoff-led-the-steinmuehlen-womens-soccer-team-to-a-bronze-medal-at-the-state-championship\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:35:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:35:47","slug":"lothar-potthoff-led-the-steinmuehlen-womens-soccer-team-to-a-bronze-medal-at-the-state-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/07\/26\/lothar-potthoff-led-the-steinmuehlen-womens-soccer-team-to-a-bronze-medal-at-the-state-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Lothar Potthoff Led the Steinm\u00fchlen Women’s Soccer Team to a Bronze Medal at the State Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will women\u2019s soccer finally gain more recognition thanks to this year\u2019s European Championship and the German team\u2019s strong debut? At Steinm\u00fchle, at any rate, they\u2019re already a step ahead on this front. There was a huge success here\u2014and everyone is celebrating it! After winning the district and regional competitions, the Steinm\u00fchle girls in Competition Class IV (born in 2010 and 2011) took a surprising but well-deserved third place at the state competition in Gr\u00fcnberg (as we reported). \u2014 Bronze, then, at the Hesse finals of \u201cYouth Trains for the Olympics\u201d! <\/p>\n

In addition to the girls, whose skill and total dedication contributed to this success, one man also played a key role: Lothar Potthoff. He is the athletic director of MSG Marburg\/Weimar; he accompanied the Steinm\u00fchlen girls to all their competitions and prepared them exceptionally well for this tournament. He was supported by Carlotta Weber from 6th grade and Julian Arnold from the MSG coaching staff. \u201cThis is a huge success! Of course, the girls wanted to go to Berlin for the national finals. But after some initial disappointment, the joy of finishing in third place now prevails,\u201d the coach summed up. His team was ultimately on the verge of reaching the final when, in the semifinals, they were unfortunately defeated in a penalty shootout by the eventual champions from Gymnasium Oberursel. <\/p>\n

\u201cNext year, we\u2019ll be competing in Competition Class III with this team and we\u2019ll see how we do,\u201d says Lothar Potthoff, already looking forward to the upcoming competitions. He is a coach through and through and has previously coached a school team at Steinm\u00fchle\u2014\u201cthe ones who are graduating this year.\u201d <\/p>\n

He began his career in soccer at an early age, starting out in his native Sauerland and then continuing in Marburg\u2019s Waldtal and with the veterans\u2019 team in Niederweimar. In 1988, he began working with youth. <\/p>\n

The trend of more and more girls playing soccer has developed over the years. Female players brought their friends along, and the association promoted soccer for women. Due to a lack of all-girls teams, female players often play on boys\u2019 teams. This is possible up through the B-Youth division. <\/p>\n

“There are very strong women’s teams in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain that play in front of crowds of 80,000 to 90,000 spectators.” Lothar Potthoff criticizes the DFB’s policies, under which “old white men have long belittled women’s soccer with little respect.” <\/p>\n

The former principal of the Ebsdorfergrund Comprehensive School in Heskem can neither understand nor condone this. He sees how much fun the girls in their Steinm\u00fchlen jerseys have playing soccer and is glad that there are always opportunities to practice locally. For him, life as a soccer coach five days a week has become an integral part of his life; it helps him unwind: \u201cWhen I\u2019m on the field, everything else fades away.\u201d Social connections are important to him.<\/p>\n

But the retired history and politics teacher cares deeply about other things as well, which he sees being put into practice through his work as a soccer coach: \u201cTeam sports counteract the trend toward individualism, foster a sense of community, and encourage the assumption of responsibility. You help your opponent back up, and you\u2019re there when extra hands are needed. After all, you can\u2019t carry a goal all by yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will women\u2019s soccer finally gain more recognition thanks to this year\u2019s European Championship and the German team\u2019s strong debut? At Steinm\u00fchle, at any rate, they\u2019re already a step ahead on this front. There was a huge success here\u2014and everyone is celebrating it! After winning the district and regional competitions, the Steinm\u00fchle girls in Competition Class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports-health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49330,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45079\/revisions\/49330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}