Andrea Schaller (born 14 September 1976) is a German former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who became an academic specializing in

sports medicine Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...

as a professor at the

German Sport University Cologne The German Sport University Cologne (Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln, DSHS) is a public university located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Founded in 1947, it is the only higher education institution in Germany focused exclusively on ...

and

Bundeswehr University Munich image:Eingangsbereich der Universität der Bundeswehr München.jpg, Entrance to the university University of the Bundeswehr Munich (, UniBw München) is one of two research universities in Germany at federal level that both were founded in 1973 a ...

Football

Schaller played football as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

. She played 18 matches in the

Frauen-Bundesliga The Frauen-Bundesliga (German language, German for ''Women's Federal League''), currently known as the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of league competition for women's association football in Germany. I ...

for

SC 07 Bad Neuenahr SC 07 Bad Neuenahr was a German association football, football club from Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate. The best-known section within the club was its women's football team, which was founded in 1969 and won the German Championship ...

, from 1999 through 2005, and made one appearance for the

Germany women's national football team The Germany women's national football team () represents Germany in international Women's association football, women's football. The team is governed by the German Football Association (DFB). The Germany national team is one of the most succ ...

in 2000. She was also part of Germany's squad for the women's football tournament at the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

, but did not play in any matches. Looking back on that time in a 2020 interview, she describes it as a period of failure, self-doubt, and injuries.

Academic career

Following her athletic career, Schaller became an academic researcher in

. As an undergraduate, she studied sports therapy at the

and epidemiology at

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf ( HHU; ), named after German poet Heinrich Heine, is a public university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, which was founded in 1965. It is the successor organization to Düsseldorf's Medical Academy of ...

, and began working as a sports therapist. She completed a Ph.D. in 2009 on the relation between sports medicine and the

International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is a classification of the health components of functioning and disability. The ICF received approval from all 191 World Health Organization (WHO) member states on May 2 ...

. From 2016 to 2018 she worked for the IST-Hochschule für Management in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, in 2018 she became a professor at the German Sport University Cologne, and in 2023 she became Professor of Health, Workplace Health Promotion and Prevention in the Department of Human Sciences at

References

External links

* 1976 births Living people German women's footballers Women's association football goalkeepers SC 07 Bad Neuenahr players Germany women's international footballers Place of birth missing (living people) {{Germany-women-footy-bio-stub