Former assistant coach of Nagelsmann
“If you think slowly, you have a problem”
June 5, 2026 – 7:17 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Julian Nagelsmann is a coach who demands a lot from his players and the coaching team. A former companion confirms this.
The upcoming World Cup requires a lot of detailed work from the German national team. Because one thing is clear: the DFB team does not have the highest quality compared to other nations. But in Nagelsmann, Germany has an extremely demanding coach – sometimes even an overwhelming one.
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“Julian has an incredibly quick mind. He doesn’t just talk quickly, he thinks extremely quickly and if you think slowly, you have a problem,” says Robert Klauß in the t-online podcast “Julian Nagelsmann – The Youngest One”. Klauß was assistant coach under Nagelsmann at RB Leipzig.
“That means you have to be extremely attentive, you have to think along, you have to think ahead. What could he want? As his employee, you have to anticipate in the moment. What is expected, what is required, be prepared for certain scenarios so that you simply feel comfortable in your work,” Klauß continues. Nagelsmann’s quick thinking could also be overwhelming for his coaching team.
Nagelsmann like Rangnick? Klauss sees differences
Klauß found working with Nagelsmann challenging, but also extremely beneficial. Before the current DFB coach came to RB, Klauß worked with Ralf Rangnick – another coach who left big shoes to fill in Germany and is now heading to the World Cup as Austria’s coach.
Klauß sees a difference between the two football coaches primarily in training preparation. “It was the case that I learned a completely different perspective from Julian when it came to being a coach, because he worked out so much himself as a coach and was so creative in terms of planning training, designing the match plan, ideas about how we play football, what we can do.” Rangnick didn’t work quite as creatively and didn’t give quite as much input, especially because he was also a sports director in addition to being a coach
Due to Rangnick’s role as sports director, Klauß says: “That’s why Ralf was more of a higher-level figure in his work as head coach. And Julian is much more of a coach. Trainer in the sense of a coach. Developing players, bringing in ideas about how we want to play football.”