Marie-Louise Eta has been appointed as the head coach of German football club Union Berlin, becoming the first woman to hold the role in any of European football’s top professional men’s leagues.

Eta will lead the Bundesliga side until the end of the season after former coach Steffen Baumgart was sacked.

Union parted ways with Baumgart late on Saturday night following a 1-3 defeat away at bottom-of-the-table Heidenheim, a result which left the Berlin side with only two wins in 2026 and in danger of slipping towards the relegation zone.

Eta, who currently coaches Union’s under-19 men’s side, will now take charge of the senior team on an interim basis for the remaining five games of the season before becoming the women’s first team head coach in the summer.

“We’ve had an absolutely disappointing second half of the season so far,” said Union Director of Sport, Horst Heldt.

“Two wins out of 14 games since the winter break, and the performances we’ve shown in recent weeks, didn’t give us the confidence that we could turn things around with the existing setup. We’ve therefore decided to start afresh, and I’m delighted that Marie-Louise Eta has agreed to take on this role on an interim basis.”

Marie-Louise Eta: ‘Bundesliga survival not yet secure’

Eta, 34, will take over immediately. Her first game in charge will be at home to fellow relegation strugglers VfL Wolfsburg next Saturday.

“Given the tight situation at the bottom of the table, our survival in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” she warned. “One of Union’s strengths has always been the ability to pull together in such situations, so I’m pleased that the club has entrusted this challenging task to me.”

While the interim appointment makes Eta the first woman to officially take charge of a men’s Bundesliga side, it’s far from the Dresden-born coach’s first involvement with Union’s men’s team.

Between November 2023 and May 2024, Eta assisted Marco Grote when he took interim charge following the dismissal of former head coach Urs Fischer. She remained on the coaching staff under Fischer’s permanent successor, Nenad Bjelica, becoming the first-ever female assistant coach in the Champions League in the process.

Who is Union Berlin’s head coach Marie-Louise Eta?

As a player, Eta — then under her maiden name Bagehorn — won three Women’s Bundesliga titles and the 2010 Women’s Champions League with Turbine Potsdam.

She also represented Germany from under-15 to under-23 level, winning the under-17 European Championship in 2008 and the under-20 World Cup in 2010, but ended her playing career aged 26 due to a series of injuries.

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In February 2023, she completed her UEFA Pro License, the coaching qualification required to take charge of a professional men’s football team.

Eta is the first woman to take charge of a senior men’s team in England, Spain, Germany, France or Italy, widely considered to be the best five leagues in Europe.

While women have managed men’s football teams in lower divisions before, Eta is the first to take official charge in a top division.

German third-tier club Ingolstadt are currently coached by Sabrina Wittmann, while French second-division club Clermont were managed by Corinne Diacre for three seasons until 2017.

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Edited by: Karl Sexton

Even during his brief hiatus, Fury remained the ghost at every heavyweight feast.

Promoters, broadcasters and rivals all spoke as though he remained in the room.

In north London on Saturday, he was back to his familiarly unpredictable self.

There was an emotional tribute to the late Ricky Hatton, plus moments where Fury appeared to admire his own work mid-fight, and then the other side of his persona – the man who goes on the offensive verbally.

In many ways, boxing missed him and the timing of Fury’s return has been deliberate.

Hours after his win, season two of At Home with the Furys lands on Netflix. By tying boxing to a platform of that scale, the sport has regained a level of mainstream exposure it has not enjoyed since the terrestrial boom of the 1990s.

The streaming platform – with its 325 million global subscribers – will release viewing figures soon, but the Makhmudov match-up could prove to have been one of the most-watched boxing fights in years in the UK.

There would be even greater clamour for Fury v Joshua.

Possible venues are already being discussed. Croke Park, with its 80,000-plus capacity, has emerged as a leading contender.

It would be an unusual setting for the biggest fight in British boxing history – a Dublin stage for an English rivalry.

But wherever it takes place, the location now feels almost secondary. The perfect moment may have passed, yet the fascination refuses to disappear.

Marie-Louise Eta has become the first woman appointed to manage a men’s team in one of Europe’s top five leagues after being named interim head coach of Bundesliga side Union Berlin.

Her appointment until the end of the season follows the dismissal of Steffen Baumgart, whose team lost 3-1 to bottom side FC Heidenheim on Saturday.

Union Berlin, who sit 11th in the 18-team Bundesliga, are 11 points clear of the automatic relegation zone with five matches remaining but have only won twice in 14 league outings in 2026.

Eta, 34, is no stranger to breaking barriers, becoming the Bundesliga’s first female assistant coach, also with Union Berlin, in November 2023.

She deputised for then-manager Nenad Bjelica, who was serving a three-match suspension, during a 1-0 win over Darmstadt in January 2024 to become the first woman to lead a Bundesliga team from the touchline.

Eta, a former Germany youth international and Women’s Champions League winner with Turbine Potsdam, has been working as Union Berlin’s under-19s manager since July 2025 and will become the club’s women’s head coach in the summer.

“We have had a hugely disappointing second half of the season and will not allow ourselves to be blinded by our league position,” said Horst Heldt, Union’s director of men’s football.

“Our situation remains precarious. The performances shown in recent weeks do not give us confidence that we can turn things around with the current set-up. We have therefore decided to make a fresh start.”

Eta pointed to the challenges she faces, with Union seven points ahead of St Pauli, who sit in the relegation play-off spot.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” she said.

“I am delighted the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.

“I am convinced that we will secure the crucial points.”

Eta’s appointment comes more than 25 years after Carolina Morace became the first woman to manage a men’s professional team in Europe when she joined Italian third division side Viterbese in 1999.

Corinne Diacre spent three seasons in charge of Clermont Foot in France’s Ligue 2 from 2014 to 2017, leaving to become head coach of the France women’s team.

In July 2023, Hannah Dingley became the first woman to manage a professional men’s team in English football when she was appointed caretaker boss of Forest Green Rovers, although she did not lead the side in a competitive fixture.

Amid the reports of him coming up to the majors Tuesday, I don’t want to leave any room for ambiguity on this: Yes, you should pick up Noah Schultz.

That’s not true for every prospect call-up. It’s not always worth it to invest in a relative lottery ticket at a position where you’re already loaded, and that’s especially the case in Head-to-Head leagues, where bench space is best devoted to starting pitchers.

But Schultz is himself a starting pitcher, and I can’t think of a league where I couldn’t use another one of those. To be clear, that’s not because my pitching is bad, but because pitching can easily go bad. If you’re not constantly on the lookout for breakout arms to bolster your staff — or even just to mix in on occasion when the matchups favor it — you’re leaving your fate in the hands of fortune.

More than simply being a pitcher, though, Schultz is special. People forget because he put together a 4.68 ERA, 1.67 WHIP and 9.4 K/9 between two minor league stops last year, but it was only a year earlier that he had a 2.24 ERA, 0.9 WHIP and 11.7 K/9. Baseball America labeled him a top-10 overall prospect at the time. I myself called him the best left-handed pitching prospect in baseball.

You see what he’s doing this year? In three appearances at Triple-A, the same level where he had a 9.37 ERA in five starts last year, Schultz has allowed four hits in 14 innings, striking out 19 while walking just two. Small sample, sure, but it’s not without precedent. And you don’t need to look hard to see what makes him so dominant:

That’s six feet and 10 inches of limbs from an almost sidearm delivery, which makes for unfamiliar pitch shapes and shorter reaction times. It’s such an uncomfortable look that it can be difficult to handle even in a non-competitive scenario.

“Just a nightmare for a hitter,” said right-hander Duncan Davitt, Schultz’s Triple-A teammate who got to the majors just a shade before he did. “He’s kind of hard to play catch with sometimes just because it’s funky and it’s hard. He’s going to be a guy when he gets his chance.”

OK, but why not last year? If Schultz is so difficult to read, why did minor league hitters have such an easy time with him then? Well, for one thing, he was hurt, pitching through patellar tendinitis in his right knee that continued to flare up over the course of the season. It likely compromised his mechanics, seeing as he spent three months this offseason at the Boras Sports Institute in Miami to shore them up.

“I’m excited to go out and show it,” he said at the start of spring training. “A lot of mechanical things. I was kind of drifting away from some of the things I had done in the past that we cleaned up. I’m really happy with where I’m at.”

What things? Well, his arm angle is slightly lower now than during his short stay at Triple-A last year. He’s added about a mile per hour across all of his pitches. He also has a new cutter that he’s featuring 21 percent of the time. And obviously, he’s throwing more strikes — way more. I’d be skeptical if it was an entirely new development for him, but he issued just 2.4 walks per nine innings during his impressive 2024 season. The bad 2025 is looking more and more like the outlier.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to buy in, though, is that the White Sox in no way had to do this. Schultz wasn’t in anyone’s sights for a quick promotion after the way he performed last year. The White Sox aren’t contending and could have filled the spot in any number of boring ways. They called him up simply because they believe he’s ready.

“He’s in a good spot,” White Sox adviser to pitching Brian Bannister said Sunday. “The velo’s there, he’s healthy. You can just see his general smile and demeanor. He’s confident with where he’s at right now. The arsenal is there.”

I’m inclined to agree and would prioritize Schultz over any pitchers on the fringes of rosterability in Fantasy. A few examples:

I might hesitate to take Schultz ahead of Connelly Early, but Didier Fuentes isn’t even in the majors right now and Randy Vasquez was barely registering in NL-only leagues three weeks ago. Grabbing Schultz ahead of either is an easy call.

You mean Max Scherzer, the 41-year-old who hasn’t been an impactful Fantasy pitcher in three years and may not be healthy even now? Uh … yeah.

What are we clinging to here? The high whiff rate in spring training that ran counter to the rest of Matthew Liberatore’s career and has evaporated with the start of the regular season? Come on, give me a tough one.

Honestly, yeah. Edward Cabrera has gotten away from what made him so effective last year by leaning into his four-seamer again and is a major liability in ERA and WHIP.

Dropping Grant Holmes or Merrill Kelly for Schultz is A-OK with me. I obviously wouldn’t drop Kris Bubic for him, though, and would probably stand pat with Parker Messick as well (though Schultz has the more upside of the two).

Kyle Harrison is interesting, but he’s not Schultz.

Emerson Hancock might be the embodiment of “fringes of rosterability,” so sure.

Mitch Keller and Jeffrey Springs are both among my sleeper pitchers for this week, but I wouldn’t forfeit a chance at Schultz for a two-start streamer. The season is long, my friends.

Yes, there are some scenarios in shallower leagues where clearing a spot for Schultz simply isn’t possible, but he needs to be rostered in your league even if you’re not the one capable of rostering him. Just be extra sure that you aren’t. Rather than go through every scenario one by one, I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you he ranks 66th for me at starting pitcher.

That doesn’t make him foolproof, of course. There’s really no predicting how a player’s first stint in the majors will go, given the enormous leap in difficulty, so you do need to show some restraint in your FAB bidding. I should also note that Schultz threw only 73 innings in the minors last year and has never thrown more than 88 1/3, so he’ll likely face workload limitations of some kind, whether it’s shorter outings, skipped starts or a soft shutdown like the White Sox implemented with Garrett Crochet two years ago. I don’t, however, think now is the time to worry about it. For now, you secure the asset. You allow him to accrue value. You reassess later.

One final thought: A Tuesday debut lines Schultz up for two starts right away — and with pretty favorable matchups against the Rays and Athletics. For all the unknowns, I don’t think I could resist using him right away.

Lamine Yamal secured Barcelona’s 4-1 win over Espanyol after setting up Ferran Torres for a double and the La Liga leaders took another step toward retaining the title.

Yamal passed for Ferran to score in the 10th and 25th minutes before the teenage phenom ensured the victory in the 87th with Espanyol threatening to equalize. Marcus Rashford made it four for the hosts at Camp Nou in the 89th.

Barcelona capitalized on Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at home to Girona on Friday to increase its lead to nine points with seven rounds remaining.

Barcelona and Madrid will try to overcome losses in the Champions League quarterfinals in their next games after Barcelona lost to Atletico Madrid 2-0 and Madrid fell to Bayern Munich 2-1 this week.

While Madrid will travel to Germany on a three-game winless streak, Barcelona’s attack is clicking as it heads to Spain’s capital needing a big win to advance to the European semifinals.

Barcelona’s fans chanted “Yes we can!” after the match with its team playing at Atletico on Tuesday.

“The team is in a good place. We’ll be ready. We want to go there and fight Atletico,” Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said. “We don’t need a miracle. We need to play our best football.” 
Barcelona’s best play is coming from the 18-year-old Yamal, who leads the team both in goals (22) and assists (18) across all competitions this season. 

Yamal also picked up another record for precociousness after he became the youngest player to reach 100 appearances in La Liga at 18 years, 272 days. That beat the previous mark of Bojan Krkic who played his 100th game at age 20.

Yamal’s other records include youngest player to debut and to score in La Liga.

Ferran ends drought 
Ferran started the season in good form, scoring 16 goals among more starts than aging star Robert Lewandowski. While lacking the clinical scoring touch of the Poland striker, Ferran provided more movement, speed and linked up well with Yamal and his midfielders.

But Ferran then hit a slump and had not scored since Jan. 31.

His goalless run stretched across 13 games in all competitions and finally ended on Saturday when Yamal delivered a corner kick to the far post where Ferran leapt over Carlos Romero and nodded it home.

Ferran celebrated by gesturing with his hands as if they were talking, apparently in reference to the talk in the sports press and social media about his scoring troubles.

He made it a brace when he used a subtle touch to roll a pass by Yamal under on-rushing goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic.

“A forward is always judged by the goals he scores,” Ferran said. “It is true I hadn’t scored in some time but I believed in my efforts and that the payoff would come when least expected.” 
Espanyol makes Barcelona fight 
Espanyol midfielder Pol Lozano put the result in doubt when he used one touch to fire in a rebound of a loose ball to make it 2-1 in the 56th.

But Yamal finished off the Catalan derby when Dmitrovic tried to clear a long pass but ended up knocking it off Yamal, who only had to push the ball into the open net.

“The final score was too lopsided for the game we saw,” said coach Manolo Gonzalez, whose Espanyol remained in 10th. “We had our chances and their first three goals were from our defensive mistakes.” 
Rashford got his goal when he was set up by fellow substitute Frenkie de Jong, who made his first appearance in over a month after the Netherlands midfielder recovered from a right leg injury.

Atletico rotates starters and loses 
An Atletico side with several second-choice players and member of its youth squad lost 2-1 at Sevilla, which moved away from the relegation zone with its first win under new coach Luis Garcia.

Akor Adams and Nemanja Gudelj scored for Sevilla. Atletico defender Javier Bonar scored in his debut at age 20.

Other results 
Elche escaped the danger zone and leapfrogged Valencia with a 1-0 win thanks to a goal by Lucas Cepeda.

Alaves striker Lucas Boye struck late in stoppage time to complete a 3-3 draw at Real Sociedad.

In this round the referees and some teams wore throwback shirts as part of a “La Liga Retro” promotion.

“I think the way wickets are nowadays, you know, the margin batting first or bowling first is not much, but you know, we’ve got a bowl first. I think for us it’s amazing. You know, every win is important and especially when you win like that, it shows the character of a team, you know. But we want to move on from it, you know, take one match at a time and just give our best. (Talks about head-to-head) See, definitely it’s a great boost for winning a match and coming into the next one. But at the same time, you know, you still have to give your best each and every match because wicket might play different, condition might be different. But at the same time, last match when we played, we talked about intent on the field. We always talk about that as a team and that was great to see when we were on the field, we were putting bodies on the line. We are playing with the same team,” said LSG skipper Rishabh Pant.

The Indiana Fever made a series of offseason moves Saturday to surround superstar Caitlin Clark with talent as the team looks to contend for a WNBA championship this year.

The Fever re-signed key players Lexie Hull and Kelsey Mitchell, while adding veteran Monique Billings from the Golden State Valkyries.

Last season, Mitchell averaged 20.2 points, 3.4 assists, and 1.8 rebounds in 31.4 minutes per game, and was a 2025 All-WNBA First Team selection and MVP finalist. 

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Hull, meanwhile has become a fan favorite and part of the Fever core known as “Tres Leches” made up of her, Clark and Sophie Cunningham.

“We saw it on Twitter at some point, and people ran with it,” Hull recently told Fox News Digital of the nickname. “It was funny.”

Hull has also become a close personal friend of Clark, as Clark helped announce Hull’s return to the team on a multi-year deal in a TikTok video on Saturday. 

Billings, drafted 15th overall in 2018 by the Atlanta Dream, played there for six seasons before joining the Dallas Wings, Phoenix Mercury, and Valkyries. Known for her elite rebounding, she has consistently been a key rotational player with significant contributions in both the WNBA and overseas.

The players were signed after the Fever were one game shy of reaching the WNBA Finals in 2025 while Clark missed the entire postseason with an injury.

With Clark set to return, Indiana is keeping its core together while adding veteran depth to bolster its roster ahead of the 2026 season.

The Fever have the fourth-best odds to win the WNBA title in 2026 behind the Minnesota Lynx, the defending champion Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty.

Hull previously teased the Fever’s offseason plans and championship ambitions in an interview with Fox News Digital.

FEVER WIN FIRST PLAYOFF SERIES IN 10 YEARS DESPITE CAITLIN CLARK’S INJURY, ADVANCE TO WNBA SEMIFINALS

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark reacts during the fourth quarter against the Golden State Valkyries at Chase Center June 19, 2025. (Darren Yamashita/Imagn Images)

“I think it’s because we made it where we made it last year without some of our key pieces, and with a lot of injuries, and a lot of, like, this adversity. … Our bench was longer than every other bench. We had more people in the training room getting treatment than any other team, and we still almost made it to the Finals,” Hull said.

“Tasting that and being so close and feeling like we have so much more to give, I think that just changes our mindset a little bit. And it’s not necessarily overconfident, but confident in the fact that we really do have a chance. And we should be playing like every game matters, and we’re preparing for that last one.

“I think it’s very achievable with what we’re going to be able to do with free agency.”

Playing for the Fever has also proven to be a tall task off-the-court, as the massive national attention Clark has brought to the team also results in tension among fans and added motivation among opponents, per Hull. 

“The most challenging part is there’s just so much scrutiny. People have opinions online, and, unfortunately, that’s part of the job and the role that we play,” Hull told Fox News Digital about what’s harder about playing in Indiana since 2024.

“People need to know that everyone’s human. We’re real people. I think when things get blown out of proportion, when things get really personal and there’s personal attacks on people’s character, I think that’s where it gets over the line.”

Hull says she noticed a difference in how opposing players started to perform against her team that year, which she credits to the surge in popularity.

“Because of the fans that we’ve gotten since 2024, with the rise in, I think, like, popularity with the Indiana Fever being like a name that people know. … And there’s a million Fever jerseys and Fever shirts. I think, like, as an opposing team, you’d want to win even more because you feel there’s so many people rooting,” Hull said.

“It’s exciting to have that type of following across the country, and I think, like, for other teams, they have great fans and great people that show up for them, and they want to perform for those people, just like we want to perform for ours.”

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Indiana Fever guards Kelsey Mitchell (0) and Caitlin Clark (22) talk during the first half in Game 2 of a first-round WNBA basketball playoff series against the Connecticut Sun Sept. 25, 2024, in Uncasville, Conn. (Jessica Hill/AP)

The Fever’s season ended in 107-98 overtime loss to the Las Vegas Aces in Game 5 of the WNBA semifinals last year.

With Clark returning from injury, their core intact and at least one new addition, Indiana is looking to finish the job.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Teenage French starlet Paul Seixas completed his impressive Tour of the Basque Country victory on Saturday, while Andrew August claimed the sixth and final stage.

At 19 years old Seixas becomes the youngest ever winner of a World Tour stage race, a year younger than cycling‘s dominant force Tadej Pogacar managed the achievement.

Tadej Pogacar wins second straight cycling world champion title in Kigali

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The teenager finished 2min 30sec ahead of Florian Lipowitz and a further three seconds before Tobias Halland Johannessen in third in the general classification.

American Ineos Grenadiers rider August soloed to victory on a rainy day, with Raul Garcia Pierna in second and Frank van den Broek coming in third to make up the day’s podium.

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Seixas is enjoying a superb breakout season and claimed three stages at the race in a dominant week in northern Spain.

“I’m so happy to take the win, it was not easy today, but I stayed strong in the head,” he said.

“I never gave up and I feel super good … it’s an insane week, three victories, then the GC, what more can we ask for?

“I’m so happy to see I was always there and always strong.”

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Cycling: 19-year-old Paul Seixas earns first World Tour victory

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The Decathlon rider, who has six wins this year, has drawn comparisons to Slovenian superstar Pogacar, who racked up eight victories in his own breakout season in 2019 at the age of 20.

Seixas also became the first Frenchman to win a World Tour stage race since Christophe Moreau at the Criterium du Dauphine in 2007.

Marc Soler, Ben Healy and Mattias Skjelmose formed the day’s break early on and others joined them before dropping away, leaving the trio out in front.

With just under 30 kilometres remaining the chase group, featuring Johannessen, caught them to form a 20-strong breakaway, which Seixas and Lipowitz were three minutes behind.

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Seixas started the day with a 5min 39sec advantage on Johannessen, who he had to keep an eye on with the Norwegian flying up the road.

August attacked from the breakaway to take the lead with little over 10 kilometres remaining and the 20-year-old was able to record the biggest result of his career to date.

Veteran Primoz Roglic started the day in third but struggled badly and dropped out of the top 10.

“Every day was hot and sunny but then we got the typical Basque weather, 10 degrees and rain today, everybody was freezing,” said August.

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Read moreTour de France 2026 routes feature peaks, passes and Montmartre

“The team is racing amazing this year, super incredible to be a part of it.”

This week will mainly be remembered though for Seixas’s impressive display and his significant winning margin.

He also finished as the points and mountains classifications winner and the best young rider.

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It has not yet been decided whether he will race in the Tour de France for the first time this summer.

“I guess we’ll see after Fleche and Liege (his next races). I feel like this week was really awesome and I guess we’ll see next week,” added Seixas.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP) 

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