Nils Petersen has played in the Bundesliga since 2009 - FC Bayern in 2011/12, SV Werder Bremen from 2012 to 2015, then SC Freiburg, where he became the club's all-time top goalscorer. In 2016 he won Olympic silver with Germany. In other words: he is one of the players for whom the plan worked. Which is exactly why his answer to our first question carries weight.
How important is it to have alternatives in case professional soccer doesn't work out?
“It's incredibly important. I don't think that's just an empty phrase. … You always need to have a plan B.”
He lists the ways it comes apart: players who don't make it, who get injured, who don't reach the level, who fall through the cracks. The share who reach paid soccer, he says, is very small. But the years spent chasing it are not lost either - discipline, patience, acceptance and teamwork all carry into whatever comes next.
You graduated from high school yourself, at the sports school in Jena. How important is such an education?
“During my life as a soccer player I always thought I didn't need my high school diploma. Now I'm suddenly over 30 and think luckily I have my high school diploma, luckily I have something in my pocket where I've already proven to myself that I can do it.”
The diploma opens doors, he says - to study again later, to take other paths, to write applications. And the playing time runs out faster than it looks from inside it: the day arrives when the income stops and the interest fades, a new chapter starts, and there are another 30 to 40 years to fill before retirement.
Do you have experience with players who have done soccer scholarships in the USA?
“I envy the fact that you can do that, because I'm so close and connected to home. … It's simply a completely different kind of soccer, a completely different kind of life and different kind of togetherness.”
German players watched Schweinsteiger and Torsten Frings go over, he says. He later got to know Frings, who told him about American soccer and the travel the games involve - something he could listen to forever.
What is the best way to get quickly accepted in a new team and a new country?
“The easiest way is through performance. … Spend a lot of time in the beginning to be present in the locker room, look for conversations, but still remain authentic. … That's the way it is in a soccer team.”
Don't act extra cool or overly excited if you are the quieter type, he adds - players notice that quickly. Eat with the team, take part rather than shutting yourself away, and stay yourself: then, in his experience, everyone helps you.
The conversation was led by Chris Griebsch for Athletes USA. Petersen's bottom line is not that the professional dream is wrong - it's that the players who handle the odds honestly are the ones who end up fine either way. A US scholarship is one of the few paths where the two plans are the same plan.
From the Athletes USA archive - first published March 2021
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