Footballers are often told to live in the moment, but Merlin Röhl has done something more interesting than that: he has tried to keep the moment. His new photo album, Behind the Lens: Life with Everton, is exactly what it sounds like — a first-person visual record of life inside Everton, built from the small details that usually disappear as soon as the final whistle goes.
That alone makes it a striking release. Röhl is not packaging himself as a superstar with a polished brand machine around him. He is presenting a collection of memories from his first year at Everton, and doing it in a way that feels personal rather than performative. The photographs were taken at Finch Farm, in the dressing room, during recovery sessions, and around matchdays. In other words, this is the stuff supporters rarely see, but which tells you plenty about what life at a Premier League club actually looks like.
Röhl said the idea came from discovering a love for photography two years before the book’s release. That matters because it gives the project a proper point of view. He is not just taking pictures for the sake of it. He is, in his own words, trying to hold on to memories that normally just go away. That is a simple idea, but it is a powerful one. Football careers move quickly. Training, recovery, travel, matchday routines — they blur together unless someone stops to document them.
A different kind of club record
There is also something appealingly grounded about the timing. Röhl joined Freiburg from Ingolstadt in 2022, came to Everton on loan in 2025, and then joined permanently in the summer of 2026. That is a short span of time, but enough to make his first season in Merseyside feel like the beginning of something rather than just a stopover. The album reads like the work of a player settling into a new place and deciding to pay attention to the details before they vanish.
And the details are the point. Röhl talked about photography as something he enjoys away from football, especially on days when training has already taken plenty out of him. He described it as a way to relax, to walk, and to find something that gives him a feeling a bit like playing itself. That may sound small, but it explains why the project has some charm. This is not about reinventing the sport. It is about noticing it from a different angle.
There is a broader value to that too. Some proceeds from Behind the Lens: Life with Everton will support the Everton Multi Academy Trust, which gives the book a purpose beyond nostalgia and aesthetics. Fans get a rare look at the inner life of the club, and a community project benefits as well. That is a tidy outcome for a book that is really about preservation — preserving moments, preserving atmosphere, preserving the less visible parts of football before they are gone.
Röhl is a 24-year-old, 6ft 3in midfielder with 60 appearances behind him at Everton, but this release shows another side to the modern player profile. Not everything has to be framed through goals, tackles, or transfer fees. Sometimes the most revealing thing a footballer can do is show what the job looks like when nobody is looking. Behind the Lens: Life with Everton does exactly that, and it gives Rohl Everton a personal stamp that supporters will remember for reasons far beyond the pitch.
