Jackie Bachteler's Remarkable Comeback as Burnley’s Women's Manager

On Sunday at Turf Moor, when Jackie Bachteler steps into the dugout for the first time as Burnley’s women’s manager, it will feel like a debut. In reality, it’s something closer to a comeback.

Nine months ago, she thought she was about to die.

From dream move to intensive care

The American coach arrived from San Diego in December 2025, full of energy, ready to throw herself into a dual role with Burnley’s women’s first team and the men’s academy. New country, new club, new challenge. The usual turbulence of a transatlantic move — jet lag, long days, winter in England — felt like part of the package.

Then one morning at the training ground, the floor went from under her.

“The whole room spun,” she recalled to BBC Sport. She headed outside for air, but every breath felt like a battle. She knew this wasn’t just fatigue. She called for a doctor.

The men’s team doctor was on site. He checked her over. Her blood pressure dropped. Her oxygen levels crashed. Within moments she was in an ambulance, racing to A&E, convinced this might be the end.

“To be honest, I thought I was going to die,” she said. “I just had this feeling in my body like ‘this is it’. I knew something was wrong.”

At first, doctors treated her lungs and tried to discharge her. She refused to leave. She pushed for more checks. That decision saved her life.

“They checked my blood pressure and it just plummeted. Then I couldn’t walk. I was so dizzy and really confused. I was getting blotches on my skin.

“They did a blood test and all of a sudden four or five doctors were sprinting towards me. I had two IVs with fluids and antibiotics, as well as an oxygen mask.”

The diagnosis: sepsis. A life-threatening condition. A race against time.

Alone with the machines

Bachteler was moved into intensive care. A room in ICU, blood tests every 20 minutes, constant monitoring of her organs. The kind of clinical detail that usually happens in the background of a medical drama. This time, it was her reality.

Her family were thousands of miles away in the United States. Her wife, based in Finland, was grounded by a snowstorm. No familiar faces at her bedside. Just nurses, machines and the creeping fear of what might come next.

“On my third day in hospital, I tried to stand up and I couldn’t,” she said. “The nurses told me not to walk and when you hear that it’s a bit of an alarm bell.

“It was just lung treatment after lung treatment, fluids after fluids, antibiotics and everything else. I had to get help to use the bathroom.

“It was close to when you face your mortality. It just gives you another perspective on life.”

She had to learn to walk again. Coaching, training sessions, matchdays — all of it vanished in an instant. Survival came first.

Rebuilding a life, step by step

Months passed before Burnley could welcome her back. In July, she returned not just as a coach, but as the club’s new women’s team manager. The title sounds triumphant. The reality is more fragile.

She is still not fully recovered. Post-sepsis syndrome dogs her daily life: dizzy spells, crushing fatigue, mental fog, memory lapses, tremors when she pushes too hard.

During a pre-season friendly this summer, the heat hit her like a wave.

“It was so hot with the sun facing the bench. I got up in the second half and it was like when you have too much wine, you get up and you’re like, ‘woah!’

“I was just so dizzy. I gave the instruction, talked to the team and then I went to the cafe on site and said to them: ‘Can I sit in your freezer?’

“I just needed to calm down. Then I started crying because my nervous system is still recovering and it’s just been really, really hard.”

She leans on the people around her. She credits Burnley’s medical staff with saving her life and connecting her with a respiratory specialist. She speaks warmly of a coaching team she calls “phenomenal”, able to take on tasks when her body demands rest. Players have flooded her with messages of support.

The club, she says, has carried her through.

Family, fear and a new reality

The physical battle has been brutal. The mental strain, in some ways, even worse.

She remembers a day in May, when her parents flew over from the US. A simple Sunday dinner turned into another warning sign.

“We went for Sunday dinner and it was loud. I just got so dizzy and they could see it. As we were walking back, I was shaking and I didn’t know where I was.

“They started crying, both of them. I think it was even harder for them. I get emotional any time I talk about my family with this.”

When her wife finally reached her in hospital, the shock was immediate.

“When my wife was able to see me, she just started crying because of the amount of weight I lost.

“I’m really athletic and I’m really fit, but then I wasn’t able to walk. She had to hold me up going down the stairs.”

Even now, Bachteler continues respiratory therapy to rebuild her lungs. Fatigue lingers. The mental fog drifts in and out. Memory slips. If she overreaches, her body trembles. The dizzy spells still come.

“I’m definitely in a good way though,” she said. “I’m about 70 to 80% Jackie again and that’s thanks to the club, the doctors here and the NHS — but it was close.

“If I had gone home that day when the emergency room tried to send me back, I wouldn’t be sitting here today.”

Football, framed by survival

Every day she leaves the training ground with a sense of gratitude that didn’t exist before. A second chance has a way of rearranging priorities.

The job still matters. Winning still matters. But it feels different now.

“A loss is a loss. I really believe in what I’m doing and in the people that I’m doing it with. Now the worst thing that will happen is that we lose a game,” she said.

On Sunday, Burnley host Sunderland in the Women’s Super League 2 at Turf Moor (14:00 BST). For most, it’s a league fixture early in the season. For Bachteler, it’s something else entirely.

It falls on World Sepsis Day.

She didn’t know what sepsis was before it nearly killed her. “I thought it was something you heard on Grey’s Anatomy,” she admitted. Now she knows it is one of the leading causes of death, often missed, often misunderstood.

“I didn’t understand the severity of it and how much it’s missed by doctors. The amount of people that have been affected really shocked me. It’s a silent killer.

“Hopefully I can use the game as a tool to help others recognise the signs and let them know they are not alone. Over 50% of survivors have post-sepsis syndrome.”

So when she walks out at Turf Moor, it will not just be about tactics, touchlines and three points. It will be about visibility. About survival. About using a platform she nearly never had.

“To be standing on the pitch, doing something that I love, that I’ve dreamed of doing every single day and knowing that wouldn’t have been the case almost a year ago, it’s a bit poetic it’s on World Sepsis Day.”

From ICU to the home dugout, from oxygen masks to a manager’s jacket, the journey has already defied the odds. Now comes the next test — not of life or death, but of what she can build with the time she almost lost.