Merlin Röhl: Everton Midfielder Captures Life Behind the Lens

The boots come off, the noise dies down, and Merlin Röhl reaches for something other than a football. A camera.

The Everton midfielder has released a new photography collection, Behind the Lens: Life with Everton, a visual diary of his first years on Merseyside that pulls supporters into the places they rarely see and the moments they never usually notice.

What began as a quiet hobby two years ago has turned into a fully fledged project, charting his journey from Bundesliga prospect to Premier League regular – and from newcomer in Liverpool to someone starting to call it home.

Holding on to what football usually loses

Asked what draws him to photography, Röhl doesn’t talk about technique or equipment. He talks about time.

“I think memories. I can hold on to something that normally just goes away,” the 24-year-old says. Footballers live inside fleeting moments – a tackle, a pass, a roar from the Gwladys Street – and then they’re gone. The camera, for him, is a way of refusing to let all of it simply disappear.

Sometimes it is simpler still. “Sometimes it's just me doing something that I enjoy,” he explains. He loves football, he says, but he cannot play all day. Photography became the thing that gave him a similar feeling when the ball is back in the bag.

Everton first brought the Germany under-21 international in on loan from Freiburg in 2025, liked what they saw, and made the deal permanent the following summer. At 6ft 3in, capable of playing across midfield and even filling in at right-back, Röhl arrived as a versatile, modern midfielder.

The photos show something else: a young man trying to breathe in a life that moves very quickly.

From Finch Farm corridors to quiet city streets

Röhl’s camera roams everywhere. Into Everton’s Finch Farm training ground. Through the dressing room door. Across the recovery area. Into the silent corners of a working day that supporters usually never glimpse.

The album tracks team-mates on journeys to games, the tension of the build-up to kick-off, the stillness just before the noise hits. It’s the daily grind of a Premier League footballer, stripped of glamour and framed in natural light.

Away from the pitch, the lens turns on Liverpool itself. Röhl walks the city’s parks and beaches, wanders its streets and tucked-away spaces, and lets the shutter record the places that have slowly made Merseyside feel less like a posting and more like a base.

After tough sessions at Finch Farm, that’s where he goes.

“I had a tough training session in the morning and did all the work that I can do on the pitch and sometimes for me it's to relax, to just go out, walk a little bit and have some photos,” he says. Training drains him. The walks reset him.

Teammates, trust and one missing face

As with any dressing room, a camera can feel like an intruder at first. Röhl admits it took time for his team-mates to drop their guard.

“I think in the beginning it was a little bit kind of a step we needed to overcome, but now everybody is just like completely fine,” he says. Trust built, the shots improved. “I have a good relationship with all my teammates and that helps a lot to get some nice pictures.”

Those relationships now sit at the heart of the project: players in recovery, in conversation, in transit. Not posed, not polished, just captured.

One notable figure, though, is still missing from the frame – his manager, David Moyes.

“Maybe I will ask in the future,” Röhl says, half-joking, half-serious. “But maybe I'm a little bit scared to affect my starting position.”

The line lands with a smile, but it underlines a simple truth: for all the creativity off the pitch, the football still comes first.

Giving something back

Behind the Lens: Life with Everton is not just a personal scrapbook. Some of the proceeds from the book will support the Everton Multi Academy Trust, backed by Everton Football Club and Everton in the Community.

So the project does more than show supporters what happens behind closed doors; it feeds back into the club’s wider work, tying Röhl’s off-field passion to the community that has welcomed him.

From Ingolstadt to Freiburg to Goodison Park, Röhl’s career has moved quickly. His photos slow everything down.

The tackles, the travel, the new city, the new language, the pressure of the Premier League – all frozen, frame by frame, by a midfielder determined not just to play this chapter of his life, but to remember it.