The Wisconsin men’s soccer team has just wrapped up its Monday practice at the McClimon Complex.
The team looks at ease, smiling and joking around. The players are comfortable in their environment. But there are two who would have every excuse not to be.
Goalkeeper Philipp Schilling and midfielder Noah Leibold have played soccer for most of their lives, but they have far less experience speaking English, going to an American university or even playing a style of soccer different from the one they grew up on.
Schilling and Leibold are both in their debut seasons for Wisconsin after being recruited from Germany to play for the Badgers.
Schilling, a 22-year-old graduate student, is living in the U.S. for the first time while Leibold, a 20-year-old freshman, hadn’t lived in the country since his second birthday.
Together, their collective histories could make for an awkward, nervous and difficult transition process.
The truth, however, is that both players have taken to their new home swimmingly.
On the field, they have earned the trust of coach John Trask. Schilling, an athletic and technically skilled goalkeeper, is now the undisputed No. 1 in net, and has brought hints of “sweeper-keeper” goalkeeping to Madison.
Leibold, a tactically sound player able to dictate the goings-on of the midfield, has started five of the Badgers’ seven games and believes he has the composure to temper the chaos of collegiate soccer.
“College soccer games can get really rough,” Leibold said. “There are phases in the game where I’m literally standing on the field saying, ‘what the hell is going on right now?’”
However, for Schilling and Leibold, playing well on the pitch is easier than acclimating to life off of it.
While they both went through the growing pains of learning a new language early on, they feel relatively comfortable with English now, as they become adjusted to using it in real life rather than school.
Additionally, while they both miss their family and friends, the two seem to have an overwhelming amount of support in Madison.
Leibold emphasized the role of the academic advisors, praised the medical staff for helping him overcome small knocks and thanked senior defender (and fellow European) Matej Radonic for housing and feeding him for a week.
Though some of the cultural differences have required Schilling and Leibold to do some adjusting, other things have made their acclimation processes easier. One of those things is the professionalized structure that NCAA Division I sports offer its athletes.
After ending their careers with esteemed academies TSG Kaiserslautern and FSV Mainz, Schilling and Leibold most recently played for amateur teams with far less organization, missing out on many of the advantages they had at their disposal as kids.
Since coming to Madison, Schilling and Leibold have enjoyed returning to an organized structure, as Wisconsin’s large athletics budget allows for film study, convenient travel, and other perks.
“They take care of us and make sure we’re doing the right things to be prepared for the game, such as ice baths or getting the right nutrition,” Leibold said.
Schilling and Leibold are also blown away by the convenience of life at Wisconsin, as they are able to go to class and then head to practice just a short distance away.
Such a luxury isn’t usually possible for an undergraduate student in Germany; Schilling used to travel around 60 miles a day, taking a train to class before trekking to practice.
“Here you just have everything on one campus,” Schilling said. “You go to school, take your bike and then go to practice, and the way it’s set up is just way better.”
These advantages came as less of a surprise to Leibold, whose father attended Indiana University and explained to him beforehand the lifestyle of American college campuses.
Though Schilling and Leibold both recognize many of the perks that drew them to Wisconsin, their respective journeys to Madison were vastly different.
For a long time, Schilling had no plans to come to the U.S., feeling a little intimidated by a potential move and the language difference he would encounter. However, after graduating from university in Germany, Schilling became more open to crossing the Atlantic and finally committed to Wisconsin shortly after meeting coach Trask at a showcase in Germany.
“From the moment I met him, I was pretty sure I wanted to go here,” Schilling said. “It’s a great university, it’s a great program and there’s a great coaching staff as well.”
While Leibold didn’t immediately jump at the chance to play in the U.S., it was an idea rooted in his head much longer than Schilling’s.
Leibold estimates that he made contact with an agency three or fours years ago, but decided at the time that he wanted to exhaust his chances of going pro and had some maturing to do in Germany.
He became certain of his decision to play in the U.S. about a year ago when he made the bold decision to redshirt a season in Germany in order to preserve his NCAA eligibility.
“The fact that I redshirted in Germany shows that I completely wanted to come here, because in Germany, if you redshirt, you’re pretty much gone,” Leibold said. “I don’t think another team would’ve accepted me because I wasn’t playing when other people were.”
Regardless of their respective journeys, both Schilling and Leibold are Badgers now, seemingly comfortable in their new environment, regardless of its many differences.
It’s true that the two are no longer in a country where soccer reigns supreme, but they enjoy living as normal people and having to work for attention. Yes, the college season is more physically demanding and arduous than in Germany, but they will have the spring to recover.
According to Leibold, it may even be true that Germany’s style of play is more tactical and adaptive than that of the U.S.
But despite the minor culture shock Schilling and Leibold are both going through, they’re going to be just fine.
After all, the ball spins the same everywhere.
UWBadgers.com contributed to this report.
