Merlin Röhl's Journey: Behind the Lens with Everton
Merlin Röhl’s Everton life, usually measured in tackles, passes and late runs into the box, now has a second frame: the click of a camera shutter.
Two years after discovering a passion for photography, the 24-year-old German midfielder has released a collection of images titled Behind the Lens: Life with Everton – a visual diary of his journey from Bundesliga prospect to Premier League regular, and from newcomer in Liverpool to someone who is starting to call Merseyside home.
A footballer chasing memories
Röhl doesn’t talk about apertures or lenses first. He talks about time.
“I think memories. I can hold on to something that normally just goes away,” he says. For a player whose weeks are built around training blocks, matchdays and recovery, the camera has become a way of slowing everything down.
Sometimes, he admits, it is simply about joy.
“I just enjoy playing football so much and I can't do it the whole day, so I'm trying next to the football to search for some things where I can feel a little bit like when I am playing football.”
The search has turned into a serious side project. What began as a hobby now has its own spine and cover, its own place on supporters’ shelves.
From Freiburg to Finch Farm
Everton first brought Röhl in on a season-long loan from Freiburg in 2025, then moved quickly to make the Germany under-21 international a permanent signing over the summer. At 6ft 3in, he arrived as a versatile presence – capable of operating in several midfield roles and even filling in at right-back, as he had done across 60 appearances for Freiburg after joining them from Ingolstadt in 2022.
On the pitch, he offers height, energy and tactical flexibility. Off it, he offers something else: a player’s-eye view of a Premier League club rarely seen with such intimacy.
His camera follows the rhythm of his working life. Inside Finch Farm. Along the corridors of the dressing room. Through recovery sessions and those quieter, in-between moments when players drift, headphones on, between drills and meetings.
The album tracks journeys with teammates, the build-up to home games, the hush of away trips. It is the world supporters talk about endlessly but rarely witness up close.
Liverpool through a different lens
Röhl’s photographs do not stop at the training ground gates. When the boots are off and the GPS vest is back on its peg, the camera often comes out.
“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 explains.
Those walks have taken him through Liverpool’s parks and along its beaches, into side streets and open spaces that have helped him settle. The city appears in his work not as a postcard backdrop but as a place being slowly learned – a bench here, a stretch of sand there, corners that gradually become familiar.
For a young player moving countries and leagues, it is a way of building a map that isn’t drawn in tactics or opposition analysis.
Dressing-room trust and one missing subject
Any camera in a professional dressing room needs permission as much as it needs focus. Röhl admits there was a barrier to cross at first.
“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. The trust he has built in midfield has carried over into his photography. “I have a good relationship with all my teammates and that helps a lot to get some nice pictures.”
The images benefit from that ease. Teammates no longer stiffen or turn away. They joke, they relax, they let the lens in.
There is, however, one notable absentee.
A key figure at Everton has yet to appear in front of Röhl’s camera: his manager, David Moyes.
“Maybe I will ask in the future,” Röhl says, half-laughing between ambition and self-preservation. “But maybe I'm a little bit scared to affect my starting position.”
Some subjects can wait.
Giving something back
Behind the Lens: Life with Everton is not just a personal project. Part of the proceeds will support the Everton Multi Academy Trust, backed directly by Everton Football Club and Everton in the Community.
For a player still in the early chapters of his Premier League career, it is a gesture that stretches beyond the frame – a recognition that his story now runs alongside those of young people growing up in the same city he is learning to photograph.
On the pitch, Röhl’s job is to read the game, anticipate space and act decisively. Off it, he is learning to read light and shadow, to capture the small details that vanish once the whistle blows.
The question now is simple: how long before the man who picks the team steps in front of the lens and becomes part of the story too?
