Where would Julian Nagelsmann be now if he had turned down the DFB’s offer? On your next vacation with your girlfriend or back on duty at a major club? Before he signed the contract with the association in September, representatives of his management had made it known that their husband had no need for this job. By autumn at the latest there will be offers for Nagelsmann, 36, from the best circles in European club football. He had already spoken to several top foreign clubs in the summer.
In truth, Nagelsmann had long since fallen irresistibly in love with the idea of becoming a national coach. His healthy self-confidence, his inherent thirst for adventure and the prospect of becoming immortal if he was successful left no room for doubt. Before he dared to make his spontaneous comeback, he was only worried about one thing: would people take him to their hearts like the folk hero Rudi Völler, who was so celebrated by the public and the media as a substitute team boss in the 2-1 win against France that it was he embarrassed himself?
Nagelsmann is breathing down his neck
In the meantime, Nagelsmann has quickly learned about the extremes in the life of a national coach. After the first round of international matches, he was seen as the man who would restructure the sacred national team with competence, intelligence and coolness. After the second mission he is confronted with criticism, campaigns and ultimatums. The 2:3 against Turkey and the 0:2 in Austria caused his popularity ratings to drop abruptly, and there was a lot of opposition from the old stars on football television. And Stefan Effenberg promptly addressed the sensitive point: Nagelsmann was sitting on the bench “with what felt like five laptops,” “a Rudi Völler never needed something like that.”
Julian Nagelsmann was an employee of FC Bayern long enough to get to know these public rituals of accusation and condemnation – until the Munich team threw him out in April, although they themselves couldn’t exactly name the reasons. He was shocked, but his inner balance remained intact.
Now, however, he has to realize that he underestimated the crisis in the national team and its depth psychological dimension. He is now required to be a therapist and instructor, but in order to give the players basic trust and the basic concepts of teamwork again in an emergency, he has to discipline his intellectual football mind. In order to teach simplicity, he must first reform himself. Not only his methodological repertoire, but also his reputation is under scrutiny.
Will Nagelsmann be in such demand again next summer on Europe’s top coaching market? The comeback becomes a state exam.