The soccer teacher Nagelsmann has a placement problem. This was expressed in an exemplary manner on Tuesday evening in Vienna when it was – once again – about Kai Havertz. It was Nagelsmann himself who brought the name into play when he was asked about the validity of his strategy in the light of the latest findings in the 2-0 defeat against Austria. Before giving his answer, the national coach wanted to know from the questioner how he viewed Havertz’s performance. When the information was generally positive with a view to the Turkey game on Saturday, Nagelsmann said flippantly: “This is the first sensible assessment of Kai Havertz in the last three days.”
So Nagelsmann has the feeling of not being understood. The fact that he burst out like this after just over two months and four games as national coach is, on the one hand, a real nail-biter, but it also says something about the pressure and general irritation that can be felt in this specific situation. But the much more important question is: Does the team understand his ideas, or is there a communication problem there too?
The discussion about this has brought some absurdities to fruition in the past few days, such as the insinuation that Nagelsmann’s technical language cannot be understood. Anyone who claims this is assuming that professional footballers have an (too) under-complex relationship with their profession. However, after the most recent two defeats, one gets the impression that Nagelsmann may not have overwhelmed his team with his game idea per se, but did want too much from them.
Structural imbalance
Implementing a new basic order and trying out a wide variety of personnel constellations – that is one reason for the rapid decline in prices since the trip to the USA, exemplified by the center, where the tidy impression with Pascal Groß alongside Ilkay Gündogan with Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka disappeared, but also because of the constantly reshuffled defensive line. Nagelsmann was forced to do some things, but he didn’t help his players feel safe.
The bigger problems for the national coach lie elsewhere. In the structural imbalance in terms of quality in various positions, but also in the balance between work and art, drudgery and floating among top German executives. If you looked at the protagonists in Vienna, you could see another one in addition to the Austrian triumph over the DFB selection: that of RB corporate football over the German development model. On the winning side, you could see a number of players playing the finest RB football under former RB mastermind Ralf Rangnick. And in German, a national coach with an RB past who lacks the magic shower.
Christian Kamp, Vienna Published/Updated: 0 minutes ago Stephan Löwenstein, Vienna Published/Updated: Recommendations: 12 Christian Kamp, Vienna Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4
Nagelsmann can’t change that quickly, but he can change his idea, which previously consisted of distributing as much playful excellence as possible between the positions. After this led to disaster twice in November, a correction appears to be urgently needed. This is called mediating between ideal and reality. And the aspiration of reaching the final at a home European Championship, which DFB President Bernd Neuendorf formulated as almost self-evident, is difficult to convey under these circumstances.
