NJulian Nagelsmann spoke to Hansi Flick on the phone recently. It was a “valuable exchange”, he told Bayerischer Rundfunk. And if you believe Nagelsmann, in this exchange with the old FC Bayern coach, the new FC Bayern coach did not address one thing that could also be considered valuable: “Things that might not go that way.”
This Friday (8.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga, on Sat.1 and DAZN), Julian Nagelsmann, 34 years old, is starting his first season as coach of the largest and most important German football club with a Bundesliga game at Borussia Mönchengladbach. It is the main prize of the summer in Munich, where the main prizes actually wear a jersey and not a tracksuit.
As much transfer fee as for him – allegedly RB Leipzig could receive 25 million euros with bonuses – has never been paid for a coach. Not just in Germany, but worldwide. Nagelsmann is said to shape an era in Munich. His contract is for five years. And if you want to investigate what might go well in the future, you should first examine what did not go so well in the past.
On Tuesday, Hansi Flick remembered this past with just one sentence at his first public appearance since joining the German Football Association. When asked what distinguishes a national coach from a club coach, he replied: “You can choose the players yourself – that’s a very good thing.” In the middle he had to grin.
How much say does the trainer have?
If you want to interpret this sentence, you have to understand why Hansi Flick left FC Bayern after 19 months and seven titles, including the Champions League – and changed the analysis level for it. The core of the conflict was not personal, but structural. There were certainly many small questions on which Flick could not agree with the sports director Hasan Salihamidžić. Above all, there was one big question on which Flick could not agree with the most powerful in the club, above all the supervisory board and honorary president Uli Hoeneß: How much say should the Bayern coach be entitled to?
In the Hoeneß era, in which the club must also be located in 2021, the answer has always been: not that much. That was not enough for Hansi Flick, who demanded more power in the squad planning. And for Julian Nagelsmann?
In his first press conference in Munich a month ago, he publicly discussed the question of the coach’s say. “Basically, I believe that when it comes to players, a club always decides first and foremost and ideally does so in consultation with the coach,” he said and then spoke for almost two minutes, during which he said many interesting sentences on the subject . For example: “In the end it is like this: The club pays a player, and normally the half-life of a player is longer than that of a coach.” Or this: “I’m a coach who always takes financial aspects into account . “And this:” The hat should already be on the club. “
It wasn’t just the reporters who listened carefully during these almost two minutes, but also the powerful in the club. For example, President Herbert Hainer, an ally of Hoeneß. He later said in an interview with Münchner Merkur and tz that he liked the way Nagelsmann had reacted to this question. That connects Hainer with Oliver Kahn, the new CEO.
They expect their trainer to understand that they cannot and do not want to spend as much money in the second summer of the corona pandemic and afterwards as their competitors from London, Manchester or Paris. They expect their coach to understand that they have only signed three players so far: center-back Dayot Upamecano, full-back Omar Richards and goalkeeper Sven Ulreich. And they also expect their trainer to understand that they still expect success. In an interview with the club magazine, Kahn said: “We have to get creative and break new ground. That is our job, because we want to continue to be among the top 3 in Europe. “
The conclusion of this summer is that Kahn and Hainer expect this creativity above all from Julian Nagelsmann, their most important transfer. And yet, in the days leading up to the start of the season, it became clear that the coach again doesn’t just want to rely on his own creativity. Allegedly, his club is negotiating with Marcel Sabitzer. A midfielder from Leipzig. And thus a player that one person above all knows and wants: Julian Nagelsmann.
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