The reality of being married to a professional footballer can be difficult. Wives and girlfriends – better known as WAGs – are constantly fighting to prove they are more than just trophy wives.
They are persistently put in a box, and it’s not one that they always enjoy. Yes, WAGs are known for what their husbands do on the football pitch, but they have their own lives too.
Take Victoria Beckham, for example. A megastar in the music world, winning five Brit Awards with the Spice Girls. She was, and still is, far from just ‘David’s wife’; she has her own uber-successful career in her own right.
Not only this, but being the partner of a professional player who is constantly travelling around the country, or even the world, to do their job, can feel very lonely. Louise Redknapp once stated that she felt ‘invisible’ at times while married to former Tottenham and Liverpool star Jamie, and ultimately, the pair got divorced in 2017.
It’s fair to say that being a WAG is not always as glamorous as it looks.
Lisa Muller, who is married to Bayern Munich legend Thomas Muller, has now opened up on how she gets treated being the wife of one of German football’s greatest-ever forwards. Spoiler alert: it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Thomas Muller’s wife Lisa (right) has claimed she no longer cares what people think of her
Lisa, 36, has a somewhat successful sporting career herself as a professional dressage rider, winning a variety of competitions, including the Stuttgart Masters in 2019.
Over the years, though, as her husband racked up a series of accolades, people often saw her as just his wife, not as the athlete she is.
This used to frustrate her hugely, and she would often feel the need to prove herself to banish those views from people’s minds. These days, though, she places no value on what people think and just lives her life.
Speaking at a campaign event via Bild, Lisa said: ‘At first, I tried for a long time to fight against it and say: I’m more than that, I can ride. Now I don’t care anymore.’
Thomas and Lisa met in 2007, while the former was still in the Bayern academy, looking to make a name for himself.
They were only 18 years of age when they first came across each other, but they didn’t hang back, getting married only two years later.
The majority of the Mullers’ marriage has been spent in Bavaria, where Thomas spent 17 years playing for the Bundesliga’s most successful club, and Lisa regularly rides.
However, the dynamic of their marriage changed due to Thomas’s move to MLS side Vancouver Whitecaps. Lisa opted to stay in Germany despite the move, with the pair now living 5,200 miles and over a 10-hour flight apart.
She continued: ‘As an athlete, he knows how much I live for my sport. As an athlete, I know how much he lives for his.
‘The decision to continue working on two continents wasn’t easy for us. We wouldn’t leave our stud farm unattended for a year.’
Lisa has always made it clear that she won’t throw away her career by moving away from Germany, just because of potential opportunities for Muller.
Lisa has her own successful career as a dressage rider and she also owns a farm with Thomas
She has too much going on in her homeland. Not only does she regularly ride and work at her own stables, but alongside Thomas, she has a rather interesting entrepreneurial venture.
The couple own a company called EU Insemination Station, a breeding farm for their horses, and it’s fair to say it brings in a more than healthy amount of money on the side.
In the summer of 2015, rumours were ramping up that Thomas was close to joining Manchester United from Bayern, which would have been a huge move at the time. However, Louis van Gaal has since said that Lisa blocked the move due to her desire to stay in Bavaria.
Van Gaal said of Lisa’s involvement: ‘In 2015, it would have been possible if his wife had been a little more open to a transfer abroad.
‘At least that was the reason Thomas gave my assistant Marcel Bout, who had had all the conversations with him, why the transfer had been rejected.’
Outside of riding, Lisa is trying to expand her horizons, challenging herself by getting involved in politics in Germany.
Last year, Lisa, who hails from the Miesbach district, is now part of the Christian Social Union party and has completed an internship with the Bavarian State Parliament. She was even asked if she would consider running as a candidate for their next election.
However, she declined because, in her own words, she was ‘too much of a chicken’.
Despite all of this, Lisa still feels there are people who downplay her intellect before even having a conversation with her.
Lisa has always made it clear that she won’t throw away her career by moving away from Germany
‘It’s sometimes quite amusing,’ she added. ‘I’m always considered the dumbest person in the room.
‘Sometimes it’s nice to be considered the silly one, then you can impress people more when they talk to you.’
Politics will continue to play a big part in Lisa’s life moving forward, even when Thomas inevitably moves back from his venture across the pond.
‘The CSU is my political home,’ she has told Antenne Bayern radio station, and in the future she may just turn from party member to candidate.
Then there can’t be anybody who can call her the so-called ‘dumbest in the room’.
