Asif Burhan and Andre Moita Saravia sit down with FC Basel forward Eunice Beckmann, formerly of the Boston Breakers in the NWSL. Beckmann is currently part of UEFA’s We Play Strong campaign which launched yesterday.
You are one of the stars of the “We Play Strong” campaign. How did it come about? How did UEFA approach you to be in these videos?
First of all it was an honor that they asked me to start this project. I was really impressed by everything. I think it’s a great idea it’s a great project just to show how hard we work in women’s football. That was pretty much the reason, why I decided to work with them together
We’ve seen the trailers in which you play basketball. Is that a big part of your life outside of football?
That’s a really big part. I love playing basketball. I’m more of a basketball watcher to be honest. I like watching the NBA, I’m a big fan of Cleveland, of LeBron James. I think basketball is a great sport, any sport is amazing. Also dancing, I think it’s in my blood, my parents are from Ghana. We love to dance, we love to sing. I guess that’s all we do every day!
The “We Play Strong” campaign is aimed at teenage girls to persuade them not to drop out of the game. How do you see that? Do you think it’s important we can offer girls the same opportunities as boys to pursue a career in football?
It’s a great way to show young girls, talented girls to see that women’s football is growing and also that it’s actually fun to play in. There are so many opportunities we have besides football. I hope that we can inspire them not to stop and keep on working on themselves. It has so many benefits. I think any girl who is really talented should not stop chasing their dreams and just continue playing.
You yourself had to make a choice. You actually worked, when you were younger. Do you think that gave you any special experience to deal with challenges on the pitch which young boys don’t have to face?
I used to do an apprenticeship for three years. It was incorporated into the football. When I played at Bayer Leverkusen, I had an apprenticeship and that was really good. It worked really well together, everything, so if I had morning practice, I didn’t have to go to work, and they were really, really relaxed about it. I’m more of a worker on the field than in the office.
You started in Germany which is one of the biggest leagues in Europe. Then you went to America, where they are ten years ahead in terms of professionalism in women’s football. Now you are in Basle, here in Switzerland, where the league is becoming more professional. What are the differences that you noticed?
Just like you said, women’s football in the US, it’s definitely big over there. Some games were like really crowded when I was playing over there. Here, unfortunately it’s not like that in Switzerland, football isn’t as big, even men’s football. FC Basle they have a huge fan base. It’s amazing, especially in the Champions League and all that but they have some other sports like skiing. I feel like they are trying, especially with the Swiss National Team is doing very well right now. You can see a growth over here in the next couple of years it could get there. People would love to come and see us playing. We have the chance to play the Champions League next season. Hopefully we can get some more people to our little stadium.
You have a lot of younger team mates here in Basle and young girls playing hoping to come into the team. How important is it for you to take them on as an experienced striker and pass that experience on to the younger strikers?
It’s very important to push the young girls. On my team there are so many young and talented girls. It’s so important for them to believe in themselves. I’m trying to talk to them, that they shouldn’t stop believing in themselves. That’s really, really important yeah.
At what age did you start playing football?
I started when I was six years old. I played on a boys team for ten years. Then I was playing with Duisburg for one year in the u17, then for one year in the first team. So that’s kind of how my career started. I think I did my first game when I was 17 years old.
Would you have liked to have got there a little earlier and maybe switched to the girls teams earlier?
To be honest no because I think I’ve learned a lot from playing with boys for that long. I’m a very aggressive player on the field, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I learned that from, playing on the boy’s team. Everything is way faster there and all that. I really appreciated playing on the boys teams for that long.
If in a year’s time you could look back and say the We Play Strong campaign has achieved one thing, what would you like that to be?
Yeah I do, it would make me really happy to see that women’s football is the number one women’s sport in the world and the numbers are just going to go up, all the way up. People come to the stadium every week. I would love to play in front of a packed crowd in Switzerland, even if I don’t play – I’m 26 now- I just hope to see it growing more.
International Women's Soccer
UEFA
