The Big Interview: Ramona Petzelberger
The former Germany youth team international is reinventing herself on the shores of Lake Como after a difficult injury-hit spell at Tottenham Hotspur...
Ramona Petzelberger may be 33 at the end of this year, but there’s a distinct feeling speaking to her that she’s found a new lease of life, after her career was essentially put on hold by an injury sustained just as she was approaching the highest echelons of her time on a football pitch to date.
Now, the midfielder who starred for Aston Villa in the Women’s Super League, captained her country at the 2012 Under 20 World Cup and was on the cusp of a senior national team debut when swapping Villa for Tottenham Hotspur in 2022, is playing for one of Europe’s most interesting clubs, completing her first full season of football since her injury challenges.
The injury itself and the complications which came with it which halted her two-year stay in North London will be discussed, but we start with where she finds herself now, completing her first year with F.C. Como, on the shores of the famous lake it shares a name with, competing for the first time in Italy’s Serie A.
“The life quality here is amazing,” she says with enthusiasm. “I can’t complain about that – or the weather! The project is very interesting. I had some tough years before coming here, so I was just open to a new challenge, to learn a new language, a new culture, and of course to play football!
“I’ve really enjoyed it. There’s plenty to do, there’s been some challenges in the club, but it’s early days in the project and I’m enjoying it so far.”
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If you’re unfamiliar with the Como story, they became the first club to be bought by the well-publicised Mercury/13 group, founded in 2023 by entrepreneurs Victoire Cogevina Reynal and Mario Malavé.
The group aims to own various clubs around the world and establish a firm multi-club ownership business, with the likes of former England international Eniola Aluko involved in the number of partners behind the scenes.
It has put Como on the map, and after the acquisition in March 2024, a full rebrand of the club took place ahead of the new season, and players with international experience such as Petzelberger were recruited, as well as the likes of the Philippines’ Sarina Bolden, Sweden’s Julia Karlenäs and Finland’s former Chelsea forward Adelina Engman.
While Petzelberger isn’t in a position to compare what it’s like to life before Mercury/13, she’s intrigued by what the future holds for a club based in one of Europe’s premier holiday destinations.
“I can’t compare to before, but I would say the structures at the beginning were not that professional, definitely not comparable to the WSL. But since I’m here, Mercury/13 has joined, it’s the first season of a transformation, it needs some structural improvements, but they are very open, interested and invested in how we make things better.
“Where does the investment need to go? What do the players think? What have we experienced elsewhere? they are very open to change. It’s powerful as well because as players we don’t understand the power Mercury/13 has. Their aims are high, the Italian league is not the top league yet, I would say, even though we have top teams, but women’s football doesn’t have the reputation it has in other countries yet.
“With these changes, you can have such a big impact in where you are in the table. So, it’s come a long way, but a long way to go, and all projects need time.”
“I had COVID-19 too, so I was drained all the time, tired all the time, and eventually at the end of pre-season I got injured…”
It’s been a solid first season, finishing seventh for a second successive season after just missing out on a top half finish and qualification for the Championship group after the end of season split, but the record of wins much improved compared to 12 months ago.
It’s baby steps, and recruitment shows Como won’t be following in the footsteps of other clubs who have received heavy investment and signing world superstars, but that this is simply the first in what should soon become a portfolio of projects around the world to inject sustainable financial growth into.
Petzelberger was one of many attracted to both the project and location last summer and admits the combination of the project and the destination was not an easy one to turn down and should prove attractive to other players in the future.
“I love that we have such an international squad and so many cultures, it works very well to be fair. It’s a culture shock, but it does work very well. As you say, the area attracts many people and players, but if we lose a game, we don’t care how beautiful the lake is! But to experience the beauty of this part of the world is of course very nice.”
On her first taste of Serie A, a league which is experiencing rapid growth through the likes of Juventus, AS Roma, Inter Milan and others, she adds, “You can see there is still a bit of a lack of consistency in performances, but I think that is also something you have to work on. The situation when we had pressure games where we had to win, some players are just not used to it, our performances were a bit immature.
“For the club, it would have been a big achievement to get into the top six, it would have set a benchmark and also looks better going into the summer looking to sign players, but in general I think it’s ok, it shows we have to improve though too.”
It brings us onto Petzelberger’s career pre-Como.
After a decade performing well in the Bundesliga back home in Germany, Petzelberger’s performances started to gain recognition outside of her homeland, leading Aston Villa to sign her in 2020 at the peak years of her career.
The attacking midfielder was an instant hit in the Midlands, but after two years admits she felt the need to pursue what at the time she felt was a step up in professionalism, joining fellow Women’s Super League side Tottenham Hotspur, but the move was almost destined to fail from the off.
She takes up the story, “To be fair, it was devastating for me. I had high ambitions, I was around the national team, almost made the Euros squad in 2022, and I just wanted to take the next steps and in Villa I didn’t see the next step I could take.
“I wanted to be in a more competitive squad, even though I was happy, playing well and scoring goals, but I wanted to stay in the Germany squad and had the feeling I needed to make the next step, so that’s why I left.”
On why it went wrong and we barely heard the name Petzelberger during her first 18 months at Tottenham, she continues, “It's a drawn out story, but when I moved to Tottenham the summer was tough already, I couldn’t find a flat, London was very different to Birmingham.
“I had COVID-19 too, so I was drained all the time, tired all the time, and eventually at the end of pre-season I got injured, my tendon on my hamstring, and I ended up coming off in our first game of the season against Arsenal at the Emirates, but it was never really made public. I don’t really know if it wasn’t taken seriously because I’d been training and that was probably my mistake, so people didn’t think it was as bad as it was, and I had those ambitions to make it to the first game because it was the first game post-Euros, the interest was huge, it was the Emirates, but I got the injury and the whole rehab was a mess.
“It took ages until I came back, I got two or three games because I missed the whole season because it didn’t heal properly. It wasn’t easy, it was a bit of a challenge, I wasn’t getting call ups to Germany anymore and it set me back a lot. The ambitions I’d had with Tottenham and Germany, it hit me very deep.”
Petzelberger worked hard to get back fit, and with a change of coach at the start of her second season with Robert Vilahamn arriving from BK Hacken, she hoped for a fresh start which almost arrived, but not quite in enough time to salvage her time in both North London and England as a whole.
“The first year was just not good and that kind of led into the second year,” she admits. “New start, new coach, but I think there was some politics, which I understood because the first year I said my opinion at times, and I don’t think the club liked it that much. I’m not normally a person to complain or demand, but I just felt I couldn’t get back on the pitch because the rehab took so long.
“It was different to what I’d been used to in Germany, the medical departments here worked a bit different, not wrong or right, just different. The second year I did play a bit, but I don’t think the club planned for me as much with the new coach. I tried to deal with it the best I can, train as I could, but it was difficult to get game time, I think maybe with what happened in the first year, but eventually the coach saw I wasn’t too bad when he saw me play.
“Villa actually wanted to buy me out in January, but Tottenham saw I could compete and perform. At the end, I played quite a bit, but it wasn’t what I wanted. At the end, he wanted me to come back and sign for another year with Tottenham, but it was the right time to move on.”
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She does though look back at her four years in England fondly, because it was the first time she’d stepped out of her comfort zone and left Germany behind, something she’d previously had the chance to do, but had never felt ready to until Villa came calling.
“There were many factors why I wanted to do it,” she admits. “The league and football was different to Germany, but I think if you can develop your own game in other areas…like in England it was way more physical, Germany was more tactical based. England was more individual qualities of players than the whole structure of the team.
“Maybe it’s going the other way now with more and more internationals, but that’s how it felt. I did enjoy it, my last two years was challenging, but I did enjoy playing because my teammates were great and the same at Villa, really good people, so I did enjoy it from that perspective and I enjoyed the chance to learn a new culture, work on my English, that was something I wanted to have for when I stop playing. It’s always great for broadening your own horizons, finding new experiences abroad. I never thought I’d play abroad but I’d never regret it, I learned so much.”
On choosing Villa in the first place, Petzelberger adds, “It felt like the right time. I had some opportunities before but never wanted to go, but I got a bit tired playing the same stadiums, same players, same teams. I’d played 10 years in the Bundesliga, so I was interested to try something else, and I just thought, ‘why not?’
“Marisa Ewers was a friend of mine and played for Villa, now she’s Sporting Director, so it was a good transition because she helped me a lot, told me how it is, the plans for Villa. Gemma Davies was the head coach, I had a great first call with her, Eni was there too at the time.
“It was very professional, they prepared clips of me playing in Essen, a video of their idea of how I would play in their team, their identity, areas for me to improve on and where I could help the team. It was very detailed, and I felt like they really wanted me, they convinced me so much.”
Essen had been Petzelberger’s home for the previous few seasons off the back of a successful time with Bayer Leverkusen, her form at both bringing her to the attention of clubs outside Germany.
Through the ups and downs, Petzelberger is reflective on her career to date, and there’s a definite element of just being happy to be back on the pitch and enjoy the final years of her playing career.
“I am from Essen. It’s an area where there is Borussia Dortmund, Schalke, Gladbach, while Leverkusen, Dusseldorf are nearby. Football and coal mining were the main two things, but my whole family was into football, addicted.
“My grandma and mum coached track and field and gymnastics, so I grew up around sport and coaching. We played ball games, including football, and my dad, grandad, cousin all played football, so it was obvious I think I would end up playing a sport, we’d just play in the hall where my mum was teaching.
“I was five when I started in a club with boys, I played every free minute on the street. This was my hobby and still now if I was in Germany I’d be on the street kicking a ball about because I love it so much. I played with the boys until I was too old, then I went to a girls’ team at FCR Duisburg’s youth team, and this was the first time I played with girls. I made my Bundesliga debut at 16, moved away from home, just to play football and from then on, I just stayed playing football.”
On being happy to just be back playing, she adds, “Yes, for sure. It’s been nice to be back playing, I love football so much that it’s a pain when I’m not playing.
“At the end you have to look back, even if you have the best facilities, the most competitive league, if you don’t get the game time you want, is it worth it? Is it too exhausting? I just thought, ‘ok, let me go and enjoy it’, because it’s important, and why I started.”
There is though now on eye on the future. She has taken to LinkedIn to journey her experiences and connect with fellow professionals, as well as continuing to partake in a diploma through the PFA back in England.
“I do think about it, I’m not the youngest anymore!” she laughs. “I was always interested in identities of clubs and why some are more successful than others. I worked in the psychological department of the academy at Leverkusen, it was very interesting because you get an understanding about how things work on an organisational level. How does the atmosphere, communication and culture influence the outcome on the pitch?
“This was where I was first confronted with the structural stuff. I’m interested with what goes on behind closed doors, and this diploma gives me a lot of insights. It is quite Premier League based, but with some international clubs, so a lot of big clubs. It’s very interesting and something I want to learn more about, how can I change the game for the better in the future?”