EHe knew that the reporters waiting on Säbener Strasse in Munich that Tuesday morning wanted to see him. He knew they wanted to film and photograph him. He probably knew they wanted to interpret whatever he was going to do over the next 15 minutes. And although – or because – he knew that, Thomas Tuchel gave them a moment in the public part of his first session as FC Bayern soccer coach that you could see, film, photograph and then also interpret wonderfully: a kick in the ass.
Of course, it was just a joke made by the coach (the photos and videos revealed: he lovingly suggested kicking Leroy Sané’s buttocks), but because he was joking with this player, the sports reporters immediately put their interpretations on the Internet : Is Thomas Tuchel the right coach to consistently get the best out of a player like Leroy Sané, highly talented but also highly complicated in some respects?
It has been interpreted constantly since Thomas Tuchel rose to the top of international football city by city, club by club, team by team: Mainz, Dortmund, Paris, London – and, more recently, Munich. He won the Champions League, but never in the long term the favor of the powerful men who ran his Champions League venues. As an interpreting sports reporter, one could therefore see the latest constellation differently: Is FC Bayern, who meets Dortmund in the top game this Saturday (6:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky), really the right club to constantly do the best get out of a trainer like Thomas Tuchel, highly talented, but also highly complicated in some respects?
Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidžić seem to be confident on Säbener Straße – because Tuchel, with whom they were in contact there in the summer of 2018, has continued to develop. (The board members should also be sure, because they have continued to be criticized since they communicated the release of their dream coach Julian Nagelsmann in a very clichéd manner.) “There is always a personal development behind it,” said Kahn in the first press conference with the new coach when he raved about his CV. One thing Kahn didn’t say: How did the coach develop?
You can interpret that. But you can also document it city by city, club by club, team by team – with the help of the most important events and the most important testimonies of those who worked with him there.
Chapter I: FSV Mainz 05 (August 2009 to June 2014)
When Volker Kersting, who is responsible for youth football in Mainz, hires a new U-19 or U-17 coach, he sends him to his manager’s office shortly beforehand. “Normally,” said Christian Heidel, who works in this office, the “NZZ”, “such conversations last ten minutes”. He just wanted to know what type of coach the coach was. Does it fit, doesn’t it fit? On the day in 2008 when Kersting sent Thomas Tuchel to the office, it took more than an hour.
“I’ve never had someone like that sitting in my office before,” Heidel said. “It was the most interesting conversation I’ve had with a U-19 coach up to that point.” Why? “Thomas’ style alone: very self-confident, but anything but arrogant.” It was about football, leadership, team leadership. As early as September 2009, Heidel then released the coach of the professional team – and hired Tuchel. “I got a lot of beatings in the media,” he said: “And a few weeks later we were fifth in the Bundesliga.”
