“Would have killed for you in terms of sport”
Sandro Wagner praises his ex-coaches around Nagelsmann
19.08.2025 – 6:01 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Sandro Wagner has been a coach in Augsburg since this season. Now the former striker spoke about his former coaches-and an incident at home European Championships 2024.
Augsburg coach Sandro Wagner praised several of his former coaches to deal with him. The ex-striker, who ran in the Bundesliga for Hertha BSC, who was TSG Hoffenheim and FC Bayern, emphasized in the “Bild” podcast “PhraseMäher” that the most important thing for a trainer was to understand people.
“The only key why I worked so well among some coaches was that they found access to me as a person,” said Wagner about his time as a player. “And if that was the case, I would have killed in sports on the pitch.” Coach who had found this key to him were Peter Neururer, Dirk Schuster, Jupp Heynckes and Julian Nagelsmann. “I am marching like a 1st at Hrubesch, too for a while at Löw.” The ex-national coach would then have “lost the key to me,” criticized Wagner.
The ex-international made their debut in the national team in 2017, subsequently scored five goals in eight international matches and won the Confederations Cup in Russia. A year later, Löw Wagner did not surprisingly nominate a year later. The attacker then returned from the DFB team. In doing so, he clearly expressed his disappointment with Löw’s non-nomination: “For me it is clear that with my way of always talking open, honestly and directly, I don’t seem to adhere to the coaching team.”
In 2020, Wagner ended his active career after a last stop in China at Tianjin Teda. Shortly afterwards he started his coaching career. First at the SpVgg Unterhaching, which he led to the 3rd division in 2023, then as an assistant to Julian Nagelsmann at the German national team.
In the EM 2024 there was an incident around the assistant coach. After Germany’s departure in the quarter-finals against Spain (1-2 after extra time), the 37-year-old stormed into the referee cabin. The background was a not given penalty for Germany in extension after Spain’s Marc Cucurella had fended off the ball in the penalty area with his hand.
“I had talked to Rudi Völler about the scene and the referees had given him another reason for the scene than me,” said Wagner. It was explained differently on the way to the cabin, so he went to the referees again. The version of the referees was “contradictory and simply wrong”, Wagner clarified. This showed him that “they clearly whistled from second 1 and clearly communicated incorrectly.”