“Didn’t understand the exercise”
In this area, Nagelsmann still works in an old-fashioned way
Updated June 8, 2026 – 11:29 amReading time: 2 minutes
Julian Nagelsmann does not shy away from any new training method. However, in one thing he remains completely traditional.
Julian Nagelsmann is a modern coach. And that doesn’t just apply because of his age of 38. Since the beginning of his career, the German national coach has used the latest technical methods and analysis models to make his ideas about football understandable. However, there is one thing in which he is still very old-fashioned: training planning.
“Julian was very creative in the training design,” says Robert Klauß, Julian Nagelsmann’s former assistant coach at RB Leipzig, in the t-online podcast “Julian Nagelsmann – The Youngest One”. Nagelsmann gave Klauß a completely new perspective on being a trainer because Nagelsmann largely designed the exercises himself.
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And he did it in a very classic way. “He wrote it by hand in different colors and then copied it,” remembers Klauß, who still works that way today. “Because I think you’re more creative by hand when you draw things and make sketches.”
“I played for ten minutes and didn’t understand the exercise”
Julian Nagelsmann also tends to make the exercises very complex – sometimes too complex. As early as 2024, Serbian national player Lazar Samardžić remembered such training at a press conference. “We immediately had a game format with eight small goals and six different teams. And if you have the color red, we had to shoot into the third goal. I played for ten minutes and still didn’t understand the drill.”
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Assistant coach Robert Klauß can understand that it was sometimes overwhelming, but “Julian did that consciously.” He followed the credo: “If he tells players ten things, they would only remember five. But that’s better than if he says three things and they only remember one.”
However, there was a specific process when planning the training. The units at the beginning of the week are often the most complicated ones. When it comes to the games, the coaching team facilitates the exercises or just has game forms trained.