FREIBURG. Natsue Tamura has never been to Europe. She has never been abroad alone. And German is hardly speaking. But since July of this year Natsue Tamura, 31, football coach from Japan, belongs to the football team of the football club Freiburg. For a whole year, as a trainee trainee.
When Birgit Bauer learned of Natsue Tamura's desire to exchange, he thought of a joke. But the e-mail was genuine, an official of the National Olympic Committee of Japan (NOC) wrote the manager of the Freiburg football women. Meanwhile, the Japanese woman has been here for three months - and Birgit Bauer does not want to let her go any longer: "She suits us." Only with the German language Tamura still struggles, and also speaks English hardly. An interpreter must translate the conversation with the journalist. In everyday life and at work she does not have that. "Before each workout, the Cheftrainer sends a plan, which I then translate to the computer," she says. This allows them to work - at least in the endurance range. For complicated talks about tactics and technology, her German is not yet enough, but she understands more and more. Three times a week, she learns the language at the Goethe Institute. The club helps.
Natsue Tamura is the first Japanese exchange coach to come to Freiburg and the first NOC
exchange coach in women's football at all. So far only men have taken this step, and the program has been running for 30 years. Natsue Tamura, who was four years in the highest Japanese league for Tokyo and Kobe kicked, wanted to go to Germany. "Because Germany is a footballing nation, the sport is part of the culture - just like beer," she says, laughing. This is not the case in the Netherlands, but also the trainers' licenses of the Dutch and English football associations have been acquired. After Freiburg wanted Tamura, who came to football as a child thanks to her sister, because of the many different leagues in which the teams of the SC play.
Before Natsue Tamura came to Germany, she trained the women's football team at the University of Tokyo, which is a very professional university league, compared to German higher education institutions. For several years Tamura was also a trainer at the sports college in Yokohama, later she wants to become a cheftrainer at a big team. Her philosophy describes her, who has studied sports for four years, so: "You can not make a potato salad if carrots are in between." It is about shaping the team and keeping an eye on the big picture, even though they are particularly keen on the achievements of the women's winners, Melanie Leupholz, Sara Däbritz and Laura Benkarth.
The start in Germany meant for Tamura not only a language change. The Freiburg coach, Dietmar Sehrig, put on shorter training times than in Japan. "But he is formulating the objectives more concretely and more clearly," she reports. Natsue Tamura wonders that the women of the SC are working as police officers or sports instructors during the day. "Women's football is more professional in Japan, but Germany is playing faster and at a higher level."
