Former ‘Betze Girl’ Jule Brand heads home to Kaiserslautern for Women’s Nations League Final | OneFootball

Having successfully pushed past France in the UEFA Women’s Nations League semi-finals, the German women’s national football team prepares to contest the Final tomorrow in Kaiserslautern. The opponent? None other than Spain, who eliminated the DFB-Frauen from the Women’s Euros in Switzerland in a semi-final match this past summer.

Bundestrainer Christian Wück’s team will, as always, be relying on the pivotal play of talismanic attacker Jule Brand. An interesting fact few may know about the 67-times-capped international is that she will technically be heading home to her native state of Rheinland-Pfalz to play her very first match in the hallowed German footballing cathedral of Fritz Walter Stadion. 

Brand – a Germersheim native – left the Pfalz at a very young age and had little reason to look back. She moved from the Speyer academy to the Hoffenheim Ladies program in 2018 at the age of 16. Brand would turn pro in Hoffenheim before moving north to represent the famed “She-Wolves” of VfL Wolfsburg. This past summer, she transferred to Olympique Lyonnais. 

Brand grew up not far from the mighty German southwest powerhouse that lords over the Rhineland Palatinate, as well as portions of Baden-Württemberg and Saarland; 1. FC Kaiserslautern. The area isn’t a total desert for female footballers, but most young girls interested in furthering their careers must migrate west to Sinsheim or south to Willstätt. 

Until last year, 1. FC Kaiserslautern didn’t even have an active women’s team. That changed when the 1. FCK reactivated their women’s program after a 40 year hiatus. Women’s football is back in the Pfalz. So is Brand. The now 23-year-old spoke on her homecoming at a DFB Press event yesterday.

“I’m really looking forward to playing atop the Betzenberg,” Brand said. “As I’m from the Pfalz, I had to be a Kaiserslautern fan as a kid. I’ve visited the Betze a few times [as a spectator already]. My grandma and grandpa were Lautern fans. So was my uncle. I went a few times with him. There’s pictures of me, my family, and my siblings on the Betze.

“As I got a little older, I still watched Lautern games, but no longer slept in my Lautern bedsheets,” Brand continued. “I gravitated towards Hoffenheim, but everyone’s coming to the [Fritz Walter] Stadion, including my grandma. I really looking forward to that.“

GGFN | Peter Weis