Maria Luisa "Mala" Grohs (; born 13 June 2001) is a German

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 plays 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 ...

for

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 ...

club

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

and the Germany national team.

Club career

Youth

As a teenager, Grohs played for local club 1. FC Gievenbeck. In 2016, Grohs joined the youth division at

VfL Bochum Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German professional association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. They currently play ...

, where she played 17 games in the B-Juniorinnen-Bundesliga. At the end of the 2016–17 season, the team got relegated to the B-Juniorinnen-Regionalliga West. Grohs played for Bochum for the next 2 seasons.

Professional

Bayern Munich II

For the 2019–20 season, Grohs moved to

side

. At first, Grohs played for Bayern second team in the 2. Frauen-Bundesliga. She made her debut on 11 August 2019, in a win 4:1 vs

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a German professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The club currently plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German footb ...

second team.

Bayern Munich

On 30 January 2021, Grohs made her debut for the first team, in Bayern victory 13:0 over Walddörfer SV in the

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...

Round-of-16. On 17 April 2021, she made her Frauen-Bundesliga debut, in a defeat 3:2 to

Hoffenheim Hoffenheim () is a village in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It belongs to the municipality of Sinsheim and, as of 2020, it has a population of 3,191. History The village, settled since prehistoric times, and first mentioned ...

. At the beginning of the 2022–23 season, Grohs became the First-Choice Goalkeeper at FC Bayern, starting all the games. On 27 October 2022, in a match vs Benfica Lisbon in the Group-stage of the Champions League, at a status of 2–2 in the 89th minute, Grohs saved a Benfica

penalty Penalty, The Penalty, Penalization, Penalisation, Penalize or Penalise may refer to: Sports * Foul (sports) ** Penalty (golf) ** Penalty (gridiron football) ** Penalty (ice hockey) ** Penalty (rugby) ** Penalty (rugby union) ** Penalty kick (assoc ...

, and minutes later

Georgia Stanway Georgia Marie Stanway (born 3 January 1999) is an English professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Frauen-Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the England national team. Stanway started her senior career at Blackburn R ...

scored the winner in a 3–2 win for FC Bayern.

International career

Since 2017, Grohs was a youth international for Germany on several selection levels. In addition, between 2015 and 2018, she played under the

Westphalian Football and Athletics Association The Westphalia Football and Athletics Association (, FLVW) is the umbrella organization of football and athletics clubs in the German Westphalia area, and comprises 29 districts. The FLVW was created in 1954 through the merger of the Football Assoc ...

in the National Pokal. On 16 February 2017, Grohs made her debut for Germany U16, in a win 2:1 over Portugal U16. 4 days later, she played in a defeat 2:0 to Netherlands U16. On 29 November 2017, she made her debut for Germany U17, in a win 4:1 vs Finland U17. From 30 August 2019 to 9 March 2020, Grohs took part in 6 games for Germany U19. In September 2022, Grohs was called up to train with the German National Team for the first time.

Personal life

Grohs is studying for a bachelor's degree at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

; her initial choice was Aerospace Engineering, but in the end enrolled in Mechanical Engineering. In an interview Grohs mentioned that she would have tried to get into the

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European ...

space programme and train as an astronaut if she had not become a professional footballer. In November 2024 she published that she had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor and that she would therefore be missing from the team indefinitely. As a result, her contract was extended by another year until 2026. In December, she and FC Bayern announced that all medical measures and interventions were successful and that, ideally, she could start training again in January. She returned to team training in January 2025.

Career statistics

Honours

Bayern Munich *

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, 2023–24 2024–25 *

: 2024–25 *

DFB-Supercup The Franz Beckenbauer Supercup or ''German Super Cup'' is a one-off football match in Germany that features the winners of the Bundesliga championship and the DFB-Pokal. The competition is run by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (English: German Footbal ...

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...