Caitlin Clark is excited to make her U.S. national team debut next week when the Americans play in the FIBA World Cup qualifier in Puerto Rico.
It will be Clark's first game play in about eight months since a multitude of injuries derailed her WNBA season with the Indiana Fever in July.
“It’ll probably take a me a second to knock a little bit of the rust off. I’ll probably be a little bit nervous, which I usually don’t get nervous but that probably comes from I haven’t really played basketball in a while," Clark said Saturday. “I’m sure after the first minute of running around on the court, I’ll be just fine. But more than anything, just really excited. I know how much work and how much time I put in to make sure my body’s as healthy as it can be and to get back.”
It's been quite a road back for Clark who played in 13 games last season. She had groin injuries and then a bone bruise in her left ankle. She's been in the gym getting ready, working with the Fever medical team and player developmental staff over the last few months.
“I’ve always been a person that’s going to just rely on my work. I feel like it’s certainly made me work harder,” Clark said of the injuries. “But that’s also probably the part that kind of stunk about it, is I felt like I put in so much time and so much energy going into last season, and then obviously, only appeared in about 13 games.”
Clark has fond memories of playing with younger USA Basketball teams. She recalled being in Colorado Springs in her teens and going into a room filled with jerseys of past American greats.
“My eyes were so wide, thought it was the coolest thing in the world of all,” she said. “(To see) the senior national jerseys of great men’s players and women’s players. It's a 15 or 16 year old's dream of doing that one day.”
Clark knows this is just her first step with the national team. There was an uproar when she didn't make the 2024 Paris Olympic team. She eyes playing on the World Cup team next fall and then in Los Angeles on the 2028 Olympic squad.
“There's a lot to get to that point,” she said. “Obviously that’s my goal, the World Cup before that. There's a lot for me to learn.”
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
FILE - Caitlin Clark (17) brings the ball upcourt during a training camp for the U.S women's national basketball team, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025, in Durham, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley, File)
BERLIN (AP) — As the first and only woman to be appointed head coach of a men's professional soccer team in Germany, Sabrina Wittmann faces more pressure and scrutiny than most of her counterparts.
Wittmann has been the coach of her hometown club, third-division Ingolstadt, since May 2024, when she took over for the last four games of the season. Ingolstadt didn’t lose any and won the Bavarian Cup, and Wittmann made history when she was given the job on a permanent basis that June.
“I opened the door a little for women. And at the beginning I was honestly afraid of closing the door as quickly (again),” Wittmann told journalists in an online call on Friday.
“The whole pressure which I felt at the beginning, I mean, you get used to it," she said. "The best answer to all this is right now I get asked a lot more questions about football than at the beginning. And that’s something I love.”
The 34-year-old Wittmann is focused on herself, her strengths, and what she wants to achieve.
“I wanted to be the best because of me, not because of everybody else … that makes it really natural for me, and authentic. If a woman tries to be a man, or tries to be at the same stage, it’s probably unnatural,” she said.
As a coach she feels it’s “people management” more than anything else, and the hardest part comes with making unpopular decisions. Empathy goes a long way toward easing tensions while demanding the best.
“I feel really accepted. I always felt accepted,” she said, crediting her club and the support she receives from managing director Dietmar Beiersdorfer.
But Wittmann has also experienced negative comments on social media and even in stadiums.
“I try not to be focused on that stuff, because if it comes down to a conversation, positive or negative, nine out of ten are really positive and one is negative,” she said. “The loudest one is sometimes the most negative one, but there are nine people who think it’s a good thing, so I try to focus on that and not make things bigger than they are.”
Wittmann did not start playing soccer until she was 14 years old. She went to Kentucky in the United States as an exchange student, and found work as an assistant coach there through her host mother, a schoolteacher.
“I just fell in love with this job or this part of being in football. Then I went back (to Germany). I mean, I was still playing and being a coach at the same time,” she said.
The game is much more physical in the U.S. compared to Germany, Wittmann found.
“I’d never been in the gym before, so I went to the U.S. we had like gym every day, something we didn’t do in Germany,” she said. “When I came back playing soccer here the girls told me that I play a lot more physical than I did before.”
On Friday, Ingolstadt announced it was extending Wittman’s contract. Entering the weekend, Ingolstadt was 11th in the 20-team division before hosting Verl on Sunday, far from the relegation and promotion places.
“We did a good job in the last two years even if we didn’t get up to the second division, but I think we need to build up something for years,” Wittman said, stressing the importance of long-term planning. “We need to grow healthily.”
Ingolstadt was relegated from the Bundesliga in 2017 and from the second division in 2019. It was promoted back to the second division in 2021 but went straight back down the following season.
Wittmann, who’d watched Ingolstadt in the Bundesliga from the stands as a fan, said promotion had probably come too soon.
“I think the last few years, especially with Didi Beiersdorfer, it was about building something,” she said, pointing out that the team lost 19 players last summer. “Not in a sad way, but (because) we developed players who went up to the second league or even the first league. I’m a youth coach and first of all, it’s developing players. The better the player gets, the better the team is at the end.”
The contract extension comes just over a month after Wittmann got her pro license, the German soccer federation’s highest coaching credential.
“It was a big dream someday having the pro license because it means that you are able to train every team on this planet,” she said.
In 2023, Union Berlin’s Marie-Louise Eta became the Bundesliga’s first female assistant coach, and in 2017 Bibiana Steinhaus became the first female referee in the Bundesliga, but otherwise there have been few breakthroughs for women in men’s professional soccer in Germany, while there are plenty of men involved in women’s soccer. Christian Wück, a man, is coach of the Germany women’s team.
Wittmann acknowledged it was “probably hard to find” decision-makers in the 36 clubs of Germany’s men’s first two divisions who would employ a woman as head coach, but she said she believes it will happen.
“I had a lot of conversations with other decision-makers from other clubs,” she said. “I mean, there’s a difference (between) talking to me and telling me I’m doing a good job and taking the decision. I know that’s gonna be difficult.”
For now, all her focus is on her hometown club.
“One day it’s probably going to happen and I have to leave here, hopefully because I’m able to coach an even higher-ranked team,” Wittmann said. “I do believe that’s going to be hard. I know that, and it’s not going to be easy, but I think five years, nine, ten years, whatever, I hope that things will change, and not only for me, but for every other woman who wants to be a coach.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Coach Sabrina Wittmann from Ingolstadt reacts during the 3. Liga soccer match between FC Ingolstadt and SV Waldhof Mannheim on May 5, 2024. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP, File)
FILE - Coach Sabrina Wittmann gives instructions during the 3. Liga soccer match between FC Ingolstadt and SV Waldhof Mannheim, in Ingolstadt, on May 5, 2024. (Daniel Karmann/dpa via AP, File)
