Early shift then straight to the penalty area: Anna Klink’s unusual daily routine

By seven or eight o’clock, Anna Klink is often already at work. Whilst people elsewhere are still waiting for their first coffee, the FC Bayern Women goalkeeper is already sitting at her computer. Two hours later, she heads to the Campus for training, after which she usually returns to her desk. If she knows she’ll have little time to spare the next day, she sometimes gets some work done in advance. The 31-year-old doesn’t make a big deal of it. She calls it timing. And it sounds as though she's carefully negotiated her daily routine rather than simply conquered it. Yet a regular 40-hour-a-week job alongside football is anything but ordinary.

“I work full-time, but I’m also very flexible when it comes to my schedule,” she says of her job. Klink works in administration, in HR. She completed her apprenticeship as an office administrator at the pharmaceutical company Bayer. She undertook her apprenticeship under a scheme that combined work and football: twice a week, she was given time off for her morning training sessions. After completing her apprenticeship, her current employer, Covestro, recruited Klink. Her boss supported her sporting career – despite the early training sessions, the move to Basel and, finally, the move to Munich.

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Klink’s job sometimes gives her a healthy sense of perspective. “You can get too caught up in things, especially in elite sport,” she says. Two misplaced passes or a goal conceded can really weigh on your mind. For the 31-year-old, the computer is almost always waiting for her at home – and with it, a different sort of task. She says this helps her in particular, because she tends to overthink things. At the same time, the work allows her to look ahead: “Once my football career is over, another challenge will be waiting. I’m glad that I’m already somewhat prepared for it.”

Leverkusen: a club that was a part of her coming of age

Klink joined the Bayer 04 youth set-up in 2009 at the age of 14. At just 16, she made her Bundesliga debut against HSV. She stayed for fourteen years, becoming the first-team goalkeeper and a leader. She made 179 competitive appearances for the Werkself – a club record that still stands today. What’s the first thing that springs to mind when she thinks of the club that was her sporting home for so many years? “It’s become a bit like family.” The club “helped raise her”, alongside her parents, says Klink, who grew up in nearby Engelskirchen. “I came of age there.” That’s a whole different unit of measurement to the length of contracts: the time between the ages of 14 and 28, from youth player to grown woman.

Klink experienced promotion and relegation, good times and bad. In 2017, she was part of the team who were relegated to the second tier, but they came right back up the following year. In the 2021/22 season, Bayer reached the DFB Cup semi-finals and were only knocked out on penalties by Turbine Potsdam. In 2023, she ended up moving to Basel in Switzerland. Leaving Leverkusen was “anything but easy” for her, she said at the time. She remains on good terms with the club’s management – Fernando Carro, Linda Schöttler and Achim Feifel – as well as with former teammates to this day.

In Munich: Experience doesn’t have to be loud

In 2025, after two years in Switzerland, Klink moved to Munich. She had long been the number one in Leverkusen and Basel; she describes her role at FC Bayern succinctly and with a smile: “Number three.” Klink is a quiet observer, she says, and is there when she’s needed. The young goalkeepers don’t necessarily need to learn from her in sporting terms – they are world-class goalkeepers. What she can offer lies more on a personal level: experience and the perspective of a player who has seen a fair bit in the world of football.

Klink also keeps in touch with the goalkeepers from the reserves – and regularly gets out on the pitch herself. What does she want to pass on to the young goalkeepers? That you shouldn’t leave the joy of playing behind when you’re between the posts. That’s what she admires most of all in Bayern’s number one, Ena Mahmutovic. She says she’s never seen that “childlike abandon and intuitive style of play” in a goalkeeper before. Klink hopes that many goalkeepers will hold on to precisely that: the courage to trust their own instincts – and the joy of keeping a clean sheet.

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Playing for Bayern means doing your bit

In 2025, Klink made a conscious decision to step out of her comfort zone. It had been clear to her from the outset that her role as a player in Munich would be different – and that was precisely what appealed to her. The move to a club she had admired since childhood brought things full circle. Not least because her role model, Manuel Neuer, played for FCB when she was a child. When she signed, she said she wanted to bring her experience to the table, work with the young goalkeepers and play her part in the team’s success. A modest statement, but no small ambition: she wants to be of constant help in training, in group dynamics and in day-to-day operations.

A reunion with no holding back

On Sunday, FC Bayern Women host Bayer 04 Leverkusen in the DFB Cup round of 16 (kick-off: 15:00 CET). Klink describes the Werkself as a high-intensity side. Coach Roberto Pätzold places great importance on the team being physically fit and maintaining a high tempo for the full 90 minutes. “Not many teams can manage that.” The league game in September underlined that impression: Bayern won 3–2 in Leverkusen after the Munich side had twice gone behind. Alara scored the winner shortly before the end – just as she had done two years earlier at the same ground.

Klink is also expecting a tough challenge in the cup. Leverkusen will “give it their all for 90 minutes”. The team can be “awkward” – which, in football terms, is definitely meant as a compliment. She finds the Rhinelanders’ progress very exciting. Leverkusen have strengthened their squad, have plenty of young talent and are competing for the top spots. So on Sunday, two truths will clash: For Klink, Leverkusen is a club that shaped her; for Bayern, Bayer 04 are the opponents on the road to the quarter-finals. For the record player, it's a rare opportunity to bring her past and present together in a single match. On Friday, Klink might still be checking her diary or replying to an e-mail; on Saturday, she'll take part in the final training session. But then Sunday will be entirely devoted to the cup.

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