In the footballing world you always hear about that wonderkid who is lighting it up at such a young age. Now while Julian Nagelsmann isn’t that young, his rise on a manager front is definitely in comparison.
Last night, Nagelsmann lined up against the man that had a hand in his life changing transformation from being an often-injured player to the in-demand manager he is today; Thomas Tuchel.
Nagelsmann’s story is fascinating and not all that common. In fact, he’s broken various age records after being appointed manager of Hoffenheim in 2016 at only the age of 28.
8 years prior in 2008, Nagelsmann was a youth player for Augsburg, constantly hampered by knee injuries to the point he decided to retire.There, Tuchel approached him with the idea of working on his staff as the opposition scout as Tuchel had noticed Nagelsmann keen tactical mind.
Fast forward back to 2016, the 28-year-old German was standing on the touch line as manager of a relegation looming Hoffenheim side.
Now not only did Nagelsmann save the club from relegation, the following season he qualified them for the UEFA Champions League, the first in clubs history.
Nagelsmann had changed the culture at Hoffenheim, bringing in fresh new ideas on the pitch as well as in his training session where for two hours Nagelsmann would push his team to great lengths to help with control and decision making.
“As a coach, you are almost a psychologist. The mental side of it makes up about 70 per cent of the job. If you know everything about tactics, but are an idiot socially, then you’ll never be successful.” A young Julian Nagelsmann talking to Bundesliga.com in 2016.
Nagelsmann’s progression and notoriety grew in his three and half seasons with Hoffenheim and so to the attention of another club in Germany, RB Leipzig — Germany’s youngest club.
RB Leipzig has been official formed in 2009 in the fourth division of German football. Quickly rising up the division ladder from the 2010/11 season until reaching the Bundesliga in 2016, the same year Nagelsmann became a top-flight manager.
Now, Nagelsmann came out and said he had an opportunity to take the Real Madrid position after Zinadine Zidane left, but choose to stick with RB Leipzig as a better stepping stone for his career.
And it was.
The young, innovative manager stepped into his first season with the youngest club in the Bundesliga, average age of 24, and once again produced wonderful football. Finishing third in the league with only four losses, third most in goals scored and second best in goals allowed. And on top of that, making it all the way to the Champions League semi-finals, after defeating Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals.
Unfortunately for Nagelsmann this year though, Leipzig didn’t have that superstar power that Paris Saint-Germain and his former boss Thomas Tuchel had with the likes of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Angel Di Maria.
At times showing promise in attack, but ultimately unable to finish and stay poised, allowing for mistakes to end their wonderful run.
Nagelsmann has continued the progression of the modern football game. Switching formations from game-to-game depending on the opposing team. Sometimes going with a traditional 4–4–2, other times flipping it to a 3–5–2. Playing out the back, using his goalkeeper as the first attacker and defensively using a high pressure system so that his strikers are the first defenders of the ball. Tactics much related to a manager he admires, Pep Guardiola.
But his genius doesn’t just stop at his ability to play multiple formations and control the tempo of matches. It is also his ability to train players into multiple positions that can have a direct effect in a match.
After Leipzig’s win over Atletico Madrid, American-international Tyler Adams spoke in his post game interview about how he essentially played two positions in the game depending on spaces on the pitch and possession of the ball.
Coming into the game, Adams was placed in a right wing-back role defensively, and when Leipzig would push, Adams would push inward giving Leipzig an option at the top of the box. Exactly where Adams was when he scored the game winner. At times, because of the high line Leipzig plays, centre-back Dayot Upamecano will be darting up the middle of the field like he’s a number 10, playing in passes out to the wings or trying to get them through the channels to the strikers.
At the age of 33, Nagelsmann is structured, stylish, smart and a breath of fresh air on the pitch. Many will point to the fact that he has never won a major title, and I’ll point out that Jurgen Klopp didn’t win a major trophy until his 9th season as a manager. I’ll make note that Arsene Wenger didn’t win a Champions League with Arsenal even though he had a team of invincibles.
Nagelsmann could have gone and coached Bayern Munichs youth, and probably been their manager right now, an easy path to a title. He could have accepted Real Madrid and bought his way to success too, and he would have been slated for it.
But that’s not him.
The first wundermanager and the next in line of great managers to come.
