Julian Nagelsmann becomes coach of the German men’s national team. He is supposed to lead the team, which has recently been so fragile, through the home European Championships next year.
Julian Nagelsmann is supposed to be the savior of German football Photo: Heiko Becker/picture alliance
So Julian Nagelsmann does it. The coach in March had lost his coaching position at FC Bayern Munich, is to take over the German men’s national soccer team. As the Picture-Newspaper and the specialist magazine kicker When the agreement with the 36-year-old football teacher was announced on Tuesday afternoon before it was officially confirmed by the German Football Association, a sigh went through the German sports internet.
So someone has actually found each other, who wants to take over the fragile structure of the national team, which did not make it past the preliminary round at the last two World Cups. Nagelsmann should as the successor to the recently dismissed Hansi Flick lead the DFB selection into the home European Championships in 2024. He was hired for quick success.
Nagelsmann has already demonstrated how quickly he can completely transform a team that is deep in crisis during his first position as coach in the men’s Bundesliga. In February 2013 he replaced Huub Stevens as head coach of TSG Hoffenheim.
The club was in second-to-last place in the table. Rarely has a new coach turned a team around tactically as quickly as Nagelsmann. Relegation was confidently secured. Nagelsmann had found his way into a great coaching career. The young newcomer, who had not yet completed his football teacher training when he started his job in Hoffenheim, could see from the start that he was striving for one. He was sometimes said to have a certain arrogance.
Remarkable successes
But the successes spoke for him. He led Hoffenheim into the Champions League, then moved to Leipzig and even reached the semi-finals of the Champions League with the so-called Rasenballathleten in the 2019/20 season. After FC Bayern and Hansi Flick, who had led the team to the triple of championship, cup competition and Champions League the year before, grew apart, Nagelsmann was signed by the record champions, with whom he – unsurprisingly – immediately became champions in 2022.
Leipzig received at least 15 million euros in transfer fees for this. Apparently the deal only came about because Nagelsmann cut corners on his salary, so Bayern agreed to a record transfer fee for a coach. Nagelsmann also accepts financial losses for his involvement with the DFB.
The coach, who signed a contract with Bayern until 2025, is released and could have made around 20 million euros without lifting a finger. At the DFB he will not earn more than 4 million euros until the European Championships, they calculate Picture-newspaper.
He won’t be on the line in too many games until the end of the contract term. This year there are still three or four games that the DFB will play. That’s why it’s halfway around the world. In October we go to America to play games against Mexico and the USA. The international match year ends on November 18th with the game against Austria.
Next year there will be four to five test matches before the start of the European Championships. The Germans have their first game on June 14th. The group phase ends for the hosts on June 23rd. Nagelsmann’s job is to ensure that this isn’t his last game. It certainly won’t be easy.
