Teacher Petra Winter (Thekla Carola Wied) has been living with her mother Elisabeth (Eva Pflug) since the collapse of her marriage, but in contrast to the older woman she finds herself unable to endure enjoy life at all. She is a perfectionist and has an exaggerated sense of duty and responsibility, while lacking any sense of humour whatsoever, which means that she is trapped in everyday situations with pupils and colleagues. The school caretaker, Christian Brenner (Peter Sattmann), who constantly attempts to strike up a friendly relationship with Petra, is always rejected. Now the director of the school (Steffen Schroeder) hatches a cunning plot which involves appointing the unpopular Latin and German teacher as a football coach for the clearly hopeless school team. The sports teacher (Bruno F. Apitz) has been injured and is therefore unavailable. In fact, everybody on the staff is secretly hoping that Petra will make a complete fool of herself with this undisciplined and listless team. What nobody realises is that football is Petra's secret passion!