I cover German soccer, particularly the Bundesliga, and the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA’s ascendant super team. When I was 13, England’s Daily Express published my first clip. It was an exclusive interview with Franz Beckenbauer, the soccer legend of Bayern Munich and the New York Cosmos and ambassador of the 2006 men’s World Cup. I remember him saying that Wayne Rooney (20 at the time) would be the break-out player of the tournament (yes, it was really that long ago). Between 2018 and 2020, I worked on the sports desk of FOCUS Online, Germany’s largest online news portal. I also wrote game reports on the 2019 women’s World Cup for Copa90, profiled Brooklyn’s Bruce Brown for the New York Times, wrote about Kyrie Irving for SBNation’s NetsDaily, and hosted Marie’s Bundesliga Minutes, a weekly YouTube program, for the Transfer Exchange Show.