When Maxi Rall talks about her life in Chicago after signing for its NWSL side, the Red Stars, you wouldn’t think she was having a good time. “It’s really busy, noisy, loud, a lot of traffic,” she says, in that matter-of-fact manner that reminds you she is from Germany. But despite wanting a little more nature to walk her dog in, she is keen to clarify that she is indeed enjoying herself; she’s just living an experience which is quite different to what she is used to.
After all, until her decision to move to the United States in January, Rall had spent her entire career at home, first with Sindelfingen, then Hoffenheim and, most recently, Bayern Munich, with whom she became a Bundesliga champion. Aged 30, she chose to try something new. Some 4,000 miles west, in Illinois, that’s exactly what she’s found.
“It is really different, but that was the reason why I came here to be honest, because I was my whole life in Germany and I knew everything about it there,” Rall tells GOAL. “It was nice, but it was my comfort zone and I had to leave it. If I look at the last five months, it's so crazy to start somewhere completely new. You have no idea how it's going in another country, another culture, another language. I mean, I have to speak in English the whole day. This is different. But it brings me so much. That's why I love it.”