World Cup 2026: Thomas Tuchel once supported Julian Nagelsmann

“I didn’t plan it”

How Nagelsmann and Tuchel coached a team 18 years ago

The fact that Julian Nagelsmann works as a coach today is also thanks to Thomas Tuchel. He just doesn’t want to hear a description of their relationship.

Thomas Tuchel and Julian Nagelsmann have a special relationship. The fact that today’s national coach even enjoyed working as a coach is largely due to Tuchel. At the end of his own playing career, Nagelsmann moved to FC Augsburg’s second team in the summer of 2007. One main reason: coach Thomas Tuchel and his training work.

But Nagelsmann didn’t experience much training. He had to struggle with injuries throughout his entire career and ended his career at the age of 20 at the end of 2007. Since his contract in Augsburg still had six months left to run, Thomas Tuchel had an idea: Nagelsmann should analyze the upcoming opponents. “And as a result, I slipped into coaching. To be honest, I didn’t plan on it as a player,” he said in Toni and Felix Kroos’ “Einfach mal Luppen” podcast.

Nagelsmann also reported there that the exchange about upcoming opponents had been interesting – and that he had probably learned more than Tuchel. But he convinced the current England coach. “At the end of the day he said that it could be an idea for me to work as a coach because he thought it was good. On the one hand from his appearance and on the other hand from what I saw. And so I got on the path of being a coach without having planned it.”

Thomas Tuchel praised Nagelsmann at a press conference in 2015, explaining that he recognized early on that he had an understanding of leadership and tactical processes.

However, the current national coach is confused about the name of the two. Nagelsmann made it clear in 2016 that the terms “mentor” or “foster father” were “a little too exaggerated”. Since he was only supposed to become coach of FC Augsburg’s U11 despite Tuchel’s praise, he accepted an offer from his former youth coach Alexander Schmidt.

At the age of 21, Nagelsmann became assistant coach of the U17 team at 1860 Munich. But he couldn’t give up his role as a player so quickly. His then head coach Alexander Schmidt remembers this in the t-online podcast “Julian Nagelsmann – The Youngest One”: “He was an assistant coach, but always with the ball, always with the boys. We’re having a goal-scoring competition here and I’m still playing a little bit.”