Nagelsmann’s incredibly rapid career progression and his success as the youngest permanent
coach in German top-division history has been well-documented. What’s far less well-known,
however, is just how good a player he had been before a botched knee operation finished
his hopes of a playing career at the age of 20 - and that many of his coaching principles
were informed by his personal experiences.
The key to understanding the RB Leipzig coach’s extraordinary ability to hit a chord with
players lies in the maturity and empathy he had already shown as an adolescent.
Nagelsmann was born in Bavaria and scouted by 1860 Munich at the age of 15 in 2002. Munich’s
second-biggest club were known as one of the best developers a talent at the time, a real
hotbed of up-and-coming pros. Nagelsmann, a tall, elegant centre-back, shared a dressing
room with top players like the future United States and Borussia Monchengladbach winger
Fabian Johnson, the Bender twins Lars and Sven and Julian Baumgartlinger, who are now
all at Bayer Leverkusen.
Former teammate Christian Traesch recalls Nagelsmann helping him to settle when he joined
as a 16-year-old from his hometown club MTV Ingolstadt. “He was this incredibly funny,
outgoing guy, with a wicked sense of humour,” he remembers. “He welcomed me to the team
with real warmth. We immediately clicked.”
The pressure to succeed can make for a pressurised, egocentric environment in academies but 1860’s
ethos was different, recalls Benjamin Kauffmann, another of the club’s former youth players
who would become a close friend of Nagelsmann. “There was a huge emphasis on signing youngsters
who had the right attitude and character. There were no divas and no troublemakers.
We were a really tight-knit unit, a super-cool band of brothers.”
Traesch (nicknamed “Trashy”), “Nagel” and Kaufmann, now a midfielder at fourth-division
SV Pipinsried, all went to the same class in the Rainer-Werner-Fassbinder-Fachoberschule,
a comprehensive secondary school in nearby Giesing. Nagelsmann excelled, but not by virtue
of hard work.
“He had the knack of achieving maximum success with minimal effort because he could listen
in class and take it all in,” Traesch says “He was a super bright guy.”
Nagelsmann’s keen perception allowed him to take things easy and entertain the classroom
with an endless array of jokes. “The whole class couldn’t help but laugh about his
quips, and even the teachers didn’t mind when he was making fun of them — he did
it in such a charming way that they never got angry with him,” Kauffmann remembers.
“He could really win people over.”
As they got older, the three of them often shared a ride in Nagelsmann’s black Opel
Astra, singing along to Westlife at the top of their voice.
On nights off, they frequented Kunstpark Ost, a now defunct collection of clubs in an industrial
area of Munich that catered to wide variety of musical tastes. “It was a different time
then,” Traesch says, “you could do these things — within reason.”
In the dressing room, too, Nagelsmann understood things more quickly than most. “He hung
on the words of the coach and took everything in. Because he was so switched on and focused,
he solved problems before they truly arose. I hardly ever saw him make a tackle. He was
always in the right position, with plenty of time to win the ball.”
At a time when German football was weaning itself off its age-old dependency on the sweeper
system, Nagelsmann was looking like the perfect modern centre-back. “His build-up play was
outstanding,” Traesch says. “He played these fine vertical balls to the midfielders
and oozed class.”
While Traesch tried to emulate Arsenal’s Patrick Viera, Nagelsmann modelled himself
on John Terry. Traesch, who now plays for Al-Wasl in Dubai, and Kauffmann were convinced
their friend was destined for a career in the Bundesliga but a persistent back problem
kept him out of the side for extended spells.
Having been promoted to the under-23s at the age of 19, Nagelsmann never managed to play
a competitive match again. Shortly after his career was officially over, fate delivered
an even worse blow. His father Erwin passed away, aged 56, following a short illness.
Nagelsmann’s two friends believe the tragic loss of his father forced him to grow up quicker
than his peers. “He was always more mature than most but the extra responsibility he
had to adopt on behalf of his family had a huge impact on his development,” says Kauffmann.
The combination of his keen intellect, a larger-than-life persona and his strong emotional connection
with players was unique, TSG Hoffenheim’s sporting director Alexander Rosen told The
Athletic.
After a spell as an opposition scout for FC Augsburg’s second team under the guidance
of Thomas Tuchel, Nagelsmann became a member of Hoffenheim’s academy coaching staff in
2010. He was quickly made the under-16s coach and then kept steadily progressing, winning
the club’s first under-19 championship in 2014.
“The under-19s championship reinforced our belief in him but it wasn’t that important,”
Rosen says. “We had seen from the outset that he was very special. He’s loud, extrovert
and very funny. Infectious. He gets the team and the whole staff to buy into his ideas.
The moment he enters the room, you know he’s around. Whether it’s on the training pitch,
during dinner with the team, or in the changing room — he has a huge effect on people, thanks
to his tall frame (6ft 3in) and his aura.”
Rosen describes Nagelsmann as a fastidious worker who is “obsessed with details”
and sports an “incredible knowledge of the game”. While some felt that his appointment
as head coach in 2016 in the midst of a relegation battle smacked of desperation or a PR campaign,
the club claim they were assured of his suitability.
Hoffenheim survived and shot up to fourth spot in his first full season the year after.
Nagelsmann, Rosen added, is “brutally” ambitious. “He always wants to do better
and to win. That sets the tone for his team. I remember when he said that he wanted to
be a contender for the championship with Hoffenheim. Some thought he was being unrealistic but
he wanted to push his players.”
Making players play well, the very essence of coaching, is a theme that comes up frequently
when you talk to those who know him best. Nagelsmann is a tactics buff and an enthusiastic
early adopter of new technology, such as giant video screens and drones in training. But
when it comes down to it, his work is rather old-fashioned, closer to teaching.
“Julian is able to explain to players what they do right and what they do wrong — and
he always gives them concrete solutions. They respond to that,” said RB Leipzig sporting
director Markus Kroesche. “The key thing is: every player knows exactly what they’re
supposed to do on the pitch. Julian issues very clear, effective instructions in a very
concise manner that’s easily understood.”
Serge Gnabry, the Bayern Munich and Germany forward, credits Nagelsmann with fine-tuning
both his mentality and the technical aspects of his game when they worked together at Hoffenheim
in 2017-18.
“I had heard that he improves players and that’s what happened to me,” Gnabry says.
“He kept pushing me. All the time. There was an enormous amount of feedback and the
training was great. He showed me many situations on video, telling me that I should make runs
between and behind the lines rather than come deep that often, for example. He really changed
the way I saw the game and he taught me to analyse myself much more.”
Kroesche adds: “Football teams have a good feel as to whether a coach can help them perform
and overcome their problems. With Julian, nothing is put on. He’s very straight and
honest with his players. Authentic. And it comes down to four things: he has a tremendous
amount of social capital, he can recognise and maximise a player’s potential, he can
make players better and he can effectively intervene during games. His changes at half-time
against Bayern Munich (in the 1-1 draw at Leipzig last September) were a good example
of that.”
Having been outplayed in the first half, Nagelsmann took off wing-back Lukas Klostermann for defensive
midfielder Diego Demme and changed to a back four. Leipzig were able to defend higher and
put more pressure on the ball. By the end of the game, they were unlucky not to have
won it.
Rosen homes in on the same point. “One of his greatest qualities is the ability to read
a game. It doesn’t take him long to recognise patterns of play and the spaces that appear
— and more importantly, he’s able to change things, implementing ideas that his team will
have prepared for during the week.
He’s the complete package.”