‘I get used to it, I train through it, even though there are some days you cry through it’: Coping behaviours and adaptation of two West African footballers in Germany

Abstract

Elite African players are a major group in the growing international football talent market, especially in Europe. Through qualitative interviews, this study examined the coping strategies and adaption practices of two West African athletes in the process of transition into German football and society. Examining the players’ narrative through the interpretive biography approach, the findings highlighted subjective adaptive and coping practices, as well as the role of the structures of talent development systems. The strategies included both problem-focussed and emotion-focussed strategies, namely training in a European-modelled football system, culture learning, multilocal belonging, rationalisation and acceptance of circumstance, reconstitution of self-identity, and social support. The key contributions demonstrate the impact of West African football academies on the experience of transnational migration, and the ways a transnational African athlete may redefine his conception of self to make sense of his experiences.