German Coaches....

[Uilleam 5,395]

....are they really as good as German cars?

 

Here's a piece from the Times for the football hipster (you know who you are, Jean-Jacques):

 

FOOTBALL

Thirst for knowledge helps German coaches to stage Champions League takeover

The coaches of three of the teams in the last four have more than nationality in common

Constantin Eckner

Monday August 17 2020, 5.00pm, The Times

Football

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/thirst-for-knowledge-helps-german-coaches-to-stage-champions-league-takeover-53w932gjv

 

When Hansi Flick was the Germany assistant coach under Joachim Löw, he had a lot of spare time. In between scouting potential call-ups and attending countless Bundesliga matches, Flick travelled all over Europe and spoke extensively with the most forward-thinking managers in the game, notably Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp. He became a sponge for knowledge so that when Bayern Munich appointed him as their coach last year he was prepared for the challenge.

Klopp and Flick, 55, shared something in common in that they had undistinguished playing careers. The tireless Klopp played in defence for Mainz in the German second tier while Flick had his best years as a midfield water-carrier at Bayern in the mid-1980s.

Nothing was handed to them once they retired, but they still excelled as managers. Thomas Tuchel, 46, and Julian Nagelsmann, 33, had to go even further to get a foot in the door. The highlight of the Paris Saint-Germain coach Tuchel’s playing career was eight games in the second tier with Stuttgarter Kickers while the RB Leipzig coach Nagelsmann made it only as far the Augsburg youth team before injuries ended his days on the pitch. Despite all that, Flick, Nagelsmann and Tuchel are three of the four coaches in this year’s Champions League semi-finals.

 

Tuchel, who has been under fire at PSG partly due to his strained relationship with Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, could be the most avid learner of the group. Right from the start of his career he would look over the shoulders of the data-analytics pioneers at Brentford and Midtjylland when they were only known to a small circle. He also took it upon himself to read the works of brain researchers to improve his training exercises, as well as studying nutrition nutrition.

When he was in charge of Borussia Dortmund, Tuchel banned his squad from consuming sugar, wheat and cereal products because he noticed how players such as Mats Hummels and Marcel Schmelzer lost weight but benefited by having more energy over the course of a season.

When he arrived in Paris in 2018, one of the main reasons that Tuchel stayed at the team hotel for weeks was because he wanted to instruct the cooks about his preferred menus. He immediately drew up a diet plan for Dani Alves, who was recovering from an injury, and pushed Marco Verratti, the midfielder, to slim down, while also monitoring the sleeping patterns of his players. Tuchel not only requested changes to PSG’s training ground to make more space for physiotherapists and team doctors, he provided the architectural drawings himself.

Even though he has stated that he relies on strict rules, his 2012 talk, entitled Rulebreaker, became an internet sensation, with Tuchel explaining how he was constantly pushing his players during his first years at Mainz.

 

“We were the first to break with old thought patterns [in the Bundesliga] by playing different tactical systems,” he said. “A feeling of inferiority” made him realise that his team could beat opponents only through repeated tactical changes. “Other teams were stuck in old thought patterns, once a 4-4-2, always a 4-4-2,” Tuchel said.

He also analysed that most Bundesliga teams, including his, were playing the ball from the back immediately to the outside and then straight down the wing. “This is safe and convenient,” he said. “The striker can figure it out whether he can make something out of [the pass].” His solution was to cut off the edges of Mainz’s training pitch, creating a diamond shape. “I didn’t want to blow a whistle every time someone played a long-line pass,” he said.

Instead, his players were forced to view the field differently. While studying brain research he learnt that repetition was only helpful if exercises would also break with habits. His team did not do isolated exercises, nor did they train on a full-sized pitch. He varied the sizes, some were 18m wide and 75m long and others 70m wide and 30m long. All of these innovations paid off when Mainz equalled a Bundesliga record by winning their first seven matches in Tuchel’s second season.

Despite the praise he received, he never thought of himself as the most important person in a club. “It is a players’ game,” he said. “We as managers only serve our players.”

Someone who follows the same philosophy is Tuchel’s former scout Nagelsmann. While Tuchel made his mark in the Bundesliga managing Mainz and Dortmund, Nagelsmann quickly became the wunderkind of the German coaching scene. As a teenage defender at 1860 Munich and Augsburg, he tried to emulate John Terry and guide his team from the back like a player-manager. Former team-mates remember that he gave many commands and saw gaps in the opponents’ defence faster than others.

In light of his early retirement at 19 due to injuries, Nagelsmann said: “If I can’t make it as a player, I will become a Bundesliga coach instead.” His keen intellect and obsession with detail made him the hottest coaching prospect in Germany, destined to get to the Bundesliga in his thirties. But instead, he made it at 28, when Hoffenheim promoted him during a desperate relegation battle.

Local newspapers thought Nagelsmann’s promotion was a marketing gag at first, but he proved his doubters wrong and developed a reputation as a tactics geek who, just like Tuchel, would easily switch from a 3-5-2 to a 4-3-3 and back to a 3-5-2 during a match.

Colleagues have acknowledged that Nagelsmann has the ability to identify patterns of play and spaces that appear in the opponents’ formation. To implement his ideas from the sideline he asks his players to adapt to new roles quickly and sometimes reinvent themselves. During his first season at RB Leipzig, he turned the Austria winger Marcel Sabitzer into a ball-carrying midfielder and the dynamic full back Marcel Halstenberg into a reliable central defender. He also advised Timo Werner to no longer hang on the shoulder of the last defender because he was the first to notice Werner’s playmaking talents.

Former players such as Serge Gnabry have praised Nagelsmann for the way he gives them an enormous amount of feedback and changes their perception of the game. He showed Gnabry many videos of his matches and explained how he should position himself, when he should run and where he should go. During his time at Hoffenheim, Nagelsmann asked the club to install giant video screens at the training ground and use drones during practice matches to be able to analyse them from a bird’s eye perspective. His success with Hoffenheim led to numerous offers from all across Europe. Now, at 33, he has reached the semi-finals of the Champions League with RB Leipzig.

 

Tuchel and Nagelsmann, whose teams will face each other tomorrow night, certainly had all the potential and determination, but they might not have succeeded in a different era. German football went through a radical transformation in the 2000s, as the FA had to accept that it had fallen behind other nations with its outdated training methods and age-old tactical systems. The FA found people who established a different culture at the academies and in coaching courses. Young managers were no longer taught to copy what generations before them had done but to go out, study athletic-related sciences and learn as much about various football philosophies as possible.

 

At the same time, clubs put more time and energy into grooming young coaches. Instead of always relying on former first-team players to fill vacant managerial spots, those with the deepest understanding of the game received their chance to prove themselves. “Our training of coaches sets the standard in Europe,” said Frank Wormuth, former German FA’s head of coaching education, a few years ago. “Those in charge of the clubs are giving younger coaches a chance quicker than in the past.”

When Tuchel took over Mainz’s first-team team in 2009 he became a groundbreaker for Nagelsmann and others. Flick, who grew up in the old system but was keen to think outside the box, pushed for change during his time at the German national team and later as sporting director of the FA. The presence of these three at this late stage of the Champions League can be seen as a testament to the quality of German coaching and as a result of a football culture that encourages intellectual curiosity.

 

[compo 6,074]

In my day the Italian coaches banned the old hows your father before the game .

[Rousseau 9,303]

Quote

“Other teams were stuck in old thought patterns, once a 4-4-2, always a 4-4-2,” Tuchel said.

That was around ten years ago; perhaps more so. 

 

Here, in Scotland, it's still the favoured approach. 

 

There are even some advocating that Rangers should adopt it. Dinosaurs...

 

*cough* @DMAA *cough* ?

 

 

[Uilleam 5,395]

1 hour ago, compo said:

In my day the Italian coaches banned the old hows your father before the game .

You will recall the old boxing adage "women weaken legs".

Of course, Willie Pastrano gives the lie to that, as does The Greatest, if we are to believe what we hear and read.

 

 I perused an article, some years ago, which mentioned an informal get together of old boxing trainers, household names in their day, and including among them, Angelo Dundee. The talk came around to the subject of women and boxers, specifically fraternisation before fights.

One of the men present offered a story about Primo Carnera, the Ambling Alp, all 6'6" of him, and heavyweight champ in the 1930s. (You probably  saw some of his fights.)

It seems that the big Italian was so concerned about the deleterious effect of women pre-fight, that, and this is apparently true, for some time in the runs-up to his contests, he wore a thick rubber gasket around the base of his male organ. This he, and his trainer, believed would help him resist temptation, and retain strength and aggression. 

Angelo Dundee thought for a few seconds and said,

"Carnera could have cut it off, and he still wouldn't have been a fuckin' fighter

 

[DMAA 3,602]

2 hours ago, Rousseau said:

That was around ten years ago; perhaps more so. 

 

Here, in Scotland, it's still the favoured approach. 

 

There are even some advocating that Rangers should adopt it. Dinosaurs...

 

*cough* @DMAA *cough* ?

 

 

how dare you

[DMAA 3,602]

2 hours ago, Rousseau said:

That was around ten years ago; perhaps more so. 

 

Here, in Scotland, it's still the favoured approach. 

 

There are even some advocating that Rangers should adopt it. Dinosaurs...

 

*cough* @DMAA *cough* ?

 

 

I give you Julian Nagelsmann

 

https://themastermindsite.com/2020/06/06/julian-nagelsmann-rb-leipzig-tactical-analysis/

[Rousseau 9,303]

55 minutes ago, DMAA said:

I give you Julian Nagelsmann

 

https://themastermindsite.com/2020/06/06/julian-nagelsmann-rb-leipzig-tactical-analysis/

It's still more of a 4-2-2-2, than a 4-4-2, for me. 

 

The style of play is a delight to watch. 

 

If you're advocating that, I'm with you!  

 

I think his other favoured formation, 3-4-1-2, would actually suit the players we have. We have the double pivot, we have wingbacks, Hagi as #10, and now a couple of forwards. We'd just need to draft in another CB. 

[Uilleam 5,395]

16 minutes ago, Rousseau said:

It's still more of a 4-2-2-2, than a 4-4-2, for me. 

 

The style of play is a delight to watch. 

 

If you're advocating that, I'm with you!  

 

I think his other favoured formation, 3-4-1-2, would actually suit the players we have. We have the double pivot, we have wingbacks, Hagi as #10, and now a couple of forwards. We'd just need to draft in another CB. 

Fluidity, that's the important thing. 

Our lot think that to be something the govt puts in the water

[DMAA 3,602]

1 hour ago, Rousseau said:

It's still more of a 4-2-2-2, than a 4-4-2, for me. 

 

The style of play is a delight to watch. 

 

If you're advocating that, I'm with you!  

 

I think his other favoured formation, 3-4-1-2, would actually suit the players we have. We have the double pivot, we have wingbacks, Hagi as #10, and now a couple of forwards. We'd just need to draft in another CB. 

I would call it a 4-4-2 based formation. You know from the type of player I like and the type I don’t like that I favour technically gifted players. And most of the players I don’t like, or I think are overrated, it’s because I think they are not technically gifted enough. So it’s not that I want to play old fashioned football. In reality, 4-4-2 is often a slight variation on the formation already used and I would only favour it if it suited the players at our disposal better. 
 

For example,

 

                              mcGregor

 

Tavernier      Goldson    Helander     Barisic

                     Aribo                 Jack
         Kent                                          Hagi

                        Roofe       Itten

 

That is a very attacking lineup. On the right Kent would operate as a traditional winger aiming to play one-twos and get to the byline,  but on the left Hagi would be all about coming inside with quick one-twos in to the striker on his side, following his pass and vacating the wing, leaving a gap for Barisic to overlap and get to the byline. A big part of what the midfielders would be trying to do is get a pass in to the strikers feet and follow it, hopefully getting the ball back in a much more advanced position. Obviously when out of possession pressing is easy and we would win back possession very quickly because pretty much everyone we play would have no option but to lump it. Our play would be fast, high tempo and all about getting the ball into dangerous areas quickly. 
 

These are just basic ideas but I think you can see it would make good use of our players, allow them to play to their strengths and it wouldn’t be about playing it long to a big guy. And I am only saying it should be used at times, not necessarily all the time. 

Edited August 18, 2020 by DMAA

[Gonzo79 13,545]

I always like the idea of a midfield diamond.  A DM (Jack), two wider CMs (Aribo and Kent) and a No.10 (Hagi), with the FBs getting forward constantly.

 

But I'm not the brightest when it comes to tactics.