Saturday, September 18, 2021
After talking to the NFL coach
Nagelsmann wants a revolution on the square
By Stephan Uersfeld
Julian Nagelsmann is only 34 years old. He will work in football for a few more years. So it is not surprising that he is concerned about the development of the game. The Bayern coach wants to learn something from other sports. Also to make his job easier.
What kind of good times were those? At that time under clinical corona conditions. No annoying fans who influenced football from the outside. Instructions that everyone in the stadium can hear. Heavenly conditions for coaches and players. Not for those who get over emotions. But certainly for those who work out every detail, plan every move and want to influence it from the outside. This is a paradise for the then Leipzig trainer Julian Nagelsmann, who also lives from emotions, but has also earned a reputation for himself through his in-game coaching.
It’s been like this for some time now: the fans are back in the stadiums. Not all of them yet, at least not in Germany, not in the Bundesliga. But even there, the maximum of 25,000 spectators ensure a noise level that makes communication difficult, changes it, and sometimes even makes it impossible. The coaches now have to summon their players again to give them instructions. Valuable seconds are lost, power is needed for runs on the outside line. It doesn’t have to be, says Nagelsmann now. He has an idea. What if the tactical clues float across the playing field as audio signals in the future?
The 34-year-old is based on the NFL, American football. In an interview with “Münchener Merkur” he explains: “Football is a team sport. For that reason alone there is a parallel to football. Football is incredibly advanced in terms of technology in communication with players. In other words: the quarterback hears the coach on the field . Football is incredibly advanced in the specialization of coaches on team components. As a football coach, you can get an incredible amount out of that. ”
Fruits of the US partnership
Nagelsmann gained this knowledge not only in the first games on the way back to normal, but also after an exchange with Andy Reid, the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. Clark Hunt is one of the owners there. And he’s a big soccer fan. The 56-year-old was one of the most influential figures in the early stages of Major League Soccer, the US professional league, and he is still the owner of FC Dallas, which has had a longstanding partnership with Bayern Munich. It’s about player development, youth development and the exchange of ideas.
So it happened last week. Ideas were exchanged and Julian Nagelsmann later put forward some thoughts. Especially the communication between coach and player. He said: “This is something we absolutely need in football. Ideally, with a connection back so that the player can communicate with the coaches: It’s extremely loud in the stadium, you don’t have a stop-and-go game like the one in the one Football. There is no time-out, there is only half-time to discuss tactical matters with the players. ”
Such communication is currently not provided for in the DFL statues. But Nagelsmann is not an enemy of innovation. He has never been. Not at Hoffenheim, not at Leipzig and now not at Bayern either. He wants to develop football. And can imagine “something” in the jersey that allows players and coaches to communicate at any time. Even when the spectators roar, the stadium is boiling and nobody understands anything anymore. The “something” in the jersey makes it possible. Such an advance would currently have less chance in Germany, even if Nagelsmann wants to break up traditions, as he says. So it’s practical that the partner club plays in the USA. Football is different there, a younger one and not burdened with the heavy ballast of the years. So that players and coaches can finally understand each other again, even when the curve is raging.
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