“I’m here to learn”
Former Bundesliga coach now owns McDonald’s branches
Updated 12/31/2025 – 10:54 amReading time: 2 minutes
Alexander Nouri knows the ups and downs of professional football. Now the former Werder coach is looking for stability – and finds it in a surprising place.
Former Bundesliga coach Alexander Nouri will be the operator of two McDonald’s branches from January 2026. As the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reports, the 46-year-old is moving from professional football to the catering industry in Herzogenrath in North Rhine-Westphalia and the neighboring Kohlscheid.
“I’m not going to go in there and say: I know how it works,” said Nouri. “I’m here to learn.” The native of the Hanseatic city of Buxtehude is leaving his coaching career behind him for the time being. In 2016 he completed the coaching course as best in his year, and shortly afterwards he took over Werder Bremen.
Nouri was supposed to save the Bundesliga club from relegation; in the second half of the season he and the team remained unbeaten eleven times, won nine and drew two. It was almost enough for the Europa League. After that it went downhill. Only eight games at FC Ingolstadt, 15 at Hertha BSC and another 15 in Greece’s second division at AO Kavala. Nouri has been without a coaching position since March 2022.
In 2019 he told the “Tagesspiegel” with a view to life without football: “You won’t get this emotionality in any office job.” Now, almost seven years later, after months of deliberation, he decided against sport and in favor of gastronomy. Nouri completed training courses, worked in the kitchen and was trained to become a franchisee.
He sees football and gastronomy as comparable: both are about leading people: “In the end, in both worlds it’s about taking people with you. In football it’s players, here it’s employees.” The basic principle is the same: “You have to understand who is sitting in front of you, what drives them, what they need to perform.”