Julian Nagelsmann, the world’s hottest manager
Hjulian Nagelsmann, 33, who skateboards to work, takes on his fellow German when RB Leipzig play Liverpool tomorrow
Julian Nagelsmann laughs as he admits that he is quite an “emotional” character. So emotional, in fact, that he has been known to cry when a player makes his debut.
“There were tears in his eyes and also mine,” Nagelsmann says as he recalls the day, for example, when midfielder Dennis Geiger – who he had coached for six years, starting through the youth ranks at Hoffenheim – played for the first team under him.
“It can be very emotional to develop young guys and put them in the right direction. I love it. I love it when they are players for the youth team and then for the first time in their lives they play in a professional game. They go on to the pitch and they have tears in their eyes and when the referee whistles and the game is over, sometimes they touch my heart and say ‘Thank you so much for this big chance’. I love it.”
Nagelsmann knows his own relative youth still remains a talking point. “When you are a manager in the Bundesliga or Champions League and you are only 33 years old it’s special,” he says. “So it’s normal that people talk about my age. For my work, for the players it has never been a problem and will not be in the future. If I was a guy in the media and there was a manager who was only 28 [when he took over Hoffenheim] I would talk about his age as well.”
The head coach of RB Leipzig – who face a wounded Liverpool tomorrow in the last
16 of the Champions League
– is also, however, the hottest young manager in world football. All the leading European clubs are monitoring his progress as his career continues to impress having led Leipzig to the semi-finals of the Champions League last season and developing them into genuine, attractive Bundesliga title challengers to Bayern Munich.
Nagelsmann also, of course, oversaw Manchester United’s elimination from this season’s competition, qualifying along with Paris St-germain from the group stages, and knocked out Tottenham Hotspur in the last campaign.
He did so with a desire to “entertain” even if – he stresses – “winning is what matters and winning is entertaining”, adding: “I never want to change my offensive and attacking football because I love it and I love it when the fans have an emotional time in the stadium. So I will not change this. But if there is a time when I cannot win like this, then I will have to change.”
In perfect English on a Zoom call, Nagelsmann can discuss at length, and passionately, innovation, data, technical aspects of the game and tactics: from counter-pressing to what he terms “deep pressing” to the use of the giant (six metres by three metres) “video wall” which he invented at Hoffenheim. That video wall is being brought on to the training ground in Leipzig and allows him to “have the players stay in their positions on the pitch while I explain things tactically by drawing on the screen”.
But it is how Nagelsmann gets inside their heads and works on their “trigger points” that really marks him out. Maybe it is partly because his own playing career, as a centreback with Augsburg, was cut short so early – aged 20 – when he suffered cruciate ligament damage and then his father, Erwin, died after a short illness later that year. Nagelsmann was reminded that there were far more important things in life than football and had to grow up
quickly. But he also wanted to stay in the game and, encouraged by Thomas Tuchel, then the coach of Augsburg II, turned to scouting and coaching.
He rapidly climbed the ladder – coaching at Munich 1860’s academy, the under-17s and then under-19s at Hoffenheim, before getting the manager’s job to became the Bundesliga’s youngest coach.
Inside a year, Nagelsmann took them from a relegation battle to the Champions League, then, in 2019, joined Leipzig having, remarkably, turned down the chance to speak to Real Madrid about taking over there because he understandably believed it was too soon.
“I never wanted to lose that time as a player, but it helped develop my character. It’s left behind now and it’s no problem for me,” he explains. “In the end my playing career would not have been as big as my career as a manager. I was a talented guy but I couldn’t imagine I would win a title as a player. Now, I imagine I can do it as a manager and I am going in the right direction.”
Nagelsmann still plays football but only in seven-a-side matches between the backroom staff at the Red Bull Academy next to Leipzig’s stadium. “I want to win every game – soccer, tennis, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “When I play I am very loud. I am very emotional. If there were spectators they would think we were playing for the Champions League title and not just a game between the coaches.”
Loud? Emotional? Expressive? A powerful bond with his players? A commitment to high-energy attacking football? Pressing the opposition? There are clearly similarities with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp beyond their nationality. “It’s always a little bit two managers against each other,” Nagelsmann said as he anticipated tomorrow’s first leg that, because of coronavirus restrictions, takes place in Budapest. Given all the games are behind closed doors, he is not worried about the apparent loss of home advantage. “I am happy that we can do our job,” he says.
Nagelsmann has already analysed all of Liverpool’s games over the past five weeks – and several from the start of the campaign. “It is like drawing a picture,” he says, of how he prepares his team. “And I hope that I will find the right information so that we can win. For example, six or seven years ago Jurgen said in an interview that counter-pressing was his No10 so it’s a big focus for Liverpool and we have to be aware of these situations.”
Tactics matter. But Nagelsmann also talks about how tactics only make up “30 per cent” of coaching success. The rest? “Man-managing,” he says.
“Sometimes it changes a little bit, sometimes you have guys who want to learn every day about tactics but in the end the man-management and relationships with the players are more important.”
With that in mind there are, he argues, advantages to being a similar age to the players. “I know the ideas and I know the trigger points of my players. I know their language and sometimes the language of young guys is special, it’s not like older guys,” Nagelsmann says before explaining what he means by “trigger points”.
“They are different. They depend on their characters. Some just want to have success, some just want to earn money, some want to be the special person in the dressing room, some want to talk to you as a manager every day and want to know your ideas. It depends on their character,” he continues before detailing how he finds them out.
“Sometimes it’s just by talking but there are also tests where the players have to answer different questions and you figure out the potential trigger points. Sometimes there is not just one trigger point. In general I think there are five or six trigger points for everybody and two or three are more important than the others.”
Leipzig have a team of experts to test the players, but Nagelsmann is also heavily involved. “I have to learn as well and spent two semesters studying each part of the human being,” he explains. “There’s nothing special about us [Leipzig], but we are at the top of being one of the most innovative clubs in Europe.”
His biggest challenge as a manager is dealing with the “25 different personalities” in a squad. “And all these players have big aims and want to be among the most successful players in the world.
“They are focused on themselves and that is important and it’s normal. But having to deal with all these different personalities and to put them in the right direction as a team is the most difficult part of my job. But then if you are successful it’s a little easier.”
Nagelsmann is emphatic that being a good coach is also about helping players become good people. “Professional soccer is not that easy for young guys, there are many challenging moments – on and off the pitch – so if you want to develop good players, you have to develop their personalities,” he says. “It’s 50/50. If they are a good player and a bad character they will not have a big impact.”
Unsurprisingly, as many forwardthinking coaches do, Nagelsmann draws on other sports, such as handball and ice hockey, and is openminded to ideas. His current interest is the NFL and whether he can adapt a similar complex approach to setpieces. “I think the playbook in American Football would be a very good idea for soccer,” Nagelsmann adds, while he is also well known for pursuing outside interests – whether that be skateboarding to work, snowboarding, skiing, paragliding or mountain biking. He has, he admits, a lot of energy although he has also spoken about his dream of one day becoming a mountain
‘Man-management and relationships with the players are more important than tactics’
‘I could imagine going to the Premier League but it’s cool to manage in my own country. I love it’
guide in the Alps. “I am a young guy and there are other things I love to do in my life and after I do those things I am totally focused when I go back on the pitch,” he says.
Nagelsmann knows the attention is on him. So will we ever see him follow Klopp and Tuchel and Pep Guardiola – who he stays in contact with regularly – by joining a Premier League club? After all, for such an expressive coach it helps that he already speaks English.
“I have a contract now until 2023, so I think I will stay in Leipzig,” Nagelsmann says, knowing time is on his side. “The Premier League is a very interesting league and I can imagine it could be a big aim to be a big manager in the Premier League one day, like Jurgen, who is very successful. It could be a step in the future.
“But, you know, in soccer it’s not that easy to plan ‘how long will you be a manager in Leipzig? When will you go to the Premier League?’
“I could imagine going to the Premier League. I could imagine staying as a manager in the Bundesliga for my whole career. It’s cool to be a manager in my own country. I love it. But then perhaps in the future we can meet face-to-face in the Premier League, who knows?”