Filiz Koç

Filiz Koç — Biography

The pitch and the television screen have both been home to Filiz Koç, a Turkish-German footballer and media personality. A midfielder, she spent years in Germany's lower divisions before returning to Turkey in autumn 2015 to play for 1207 Antalya Muratpaşa Belediyespor, and she has played for the Turkey women's national team. She is also known as a model, actress and sideline reporter. In her early years she used her mother's surname, Heilmann, before settling on her father's name, Koç.

She was born in Ankara to a Turkish father and a German mother; her father, Savaş Koç, had played for Galatasaray, and the family moved to Germany when she was three, after he joined Hannover 96. She began playing in 1997 at TSV Havelse near Hanover and later turned out for Mellendorfer TV, FFC Oldesloe 2000, SC Wedemark and TSV Limmer. She was first called up in 2002 for the under-17 girls' side; with the senior team she played twice in 2009, and after her recall in 2015 she featured in a friendly against Albania and in the UEFA Women's Euro 2017 qualifier against Hungary.

Her media career began with beauty pageants: second place at Miss Hannover at eighteen, and runner-up in the "Miss EM" contest held for Euro 2008, where she represented Turkey. In 2010 she won 75,000 euros on Sat.1's Die perfekte Minute with a freestyle football routine. In June 2011 she played Fadime Gülüc, a murdered Turkish-German footballer, in Tatort: Im Abseits, and she later worked as a sideline reporter on Sky Deutschland's 2. Bundesliga coverage.