Borussia before coup with Alonso: On the (det) way to FC Bayern


Borussia before coup with Alonso
On the (det) way to FC Bayern

By Tobias Nordmann

The discussion was about Ralf Rangnick and Florian Kohfeldt. In the end, there will probably be a new coach at Borussia Mönchengladbach that nobody has thought of. But which has an extremely sonorous name – and possibly bigger things already in mind.

When it comes to who could train FC Bayern in the next few years, there is no discussion of RB Leipzig’s Julian Nagelsmann. Not even in the club itself. The 33-year-old was already considered a candidate for the successor after the irrevocable withdrawal of “Holy Jupp” (Heynckes) in summer 2018, but was then temporarily removed from the list. In Munich they weren’t entirely sure whether the young TSG Hoffenheim coach was ready for the record champions’ spectacular squad. Now these doubts about the detour Leipzig are apparently hard refuted, most recently sports director Hasan Salihamidzic is said to have asked Nagelsmann’s availability – to the annoyance of coach Hansi Flick.

Afterwards there were public scenes of a disturbed marriage on Säbener Strasse. There were scenes that showed the wild exit scenarios of the title collector Flick. And a new flirt with the German Football Association (DFB) is said to have already held the red rose in hand. Now they have done everything in Munich to regain peace in the relationship. The rose was politely taken from the DFB’s hand and Flick, who had set the small fires again and again, apologized publicly to Salihamidzic.

At least for the time being, the issue of separation seems to have been resolved. From a purely sporting point of view, this is also great news for FC Bayern. Because, apart from the disgrace in the cup against Holstein Kiel, things are still going very well in Munich. And on April 3rd, the championship can be decided in advance, if it goes against RB, if it goes against Nagelsmann.

“Team plays like Xabi played”

Games between the record champion and teams from Nagelsmann have been like job interviews for years. Every personal and tactical trick is particularly observed. In the coming season, the 33-year-old will apparently get a very powerful competitor as an applicant for a possible job at Bayern. Because, according to the “Bild” newspaper, Borussia Mönchengladbach is about to hit a coup with the former world star Xabi Alonso. In the Spanish media, however, people are still treated very carefully. Xabi Alonso is supposed to replace Marco Rose, who will move on to other Borussia, from Dortmund, in the summer. The Spaniard is world champion and European champion (even twice), he has won the Champions League (also twice) and celebrated numerous national titles in Spain, England and Germany. With, and now watch out, FC Bayern, of course.

There he fascinated the club not only with what was then the most dominant game in the history of the Bundesliga – against 1. FC Köln he touched the ball a phenomenal 206 (!) Times in September 2014 (Julian Weigl from BVB replaced him in 2016 with 216 contacts as the record holder) – but also with his strategic skills, with his serenity, his calm, his overview. Alonso orchestrated his teammates like a conductor. At Real Madrid, his station before FC Bayern, they called him “Professor” because he led the game like a scholar. He was considered the creator of the beautiful game.

And this kind of football, which he has so shaped, he is now passing on to young players as coach of the Real Sociedad reserves. Real Sociedad, that is his youth club, the club for which he also played his first games as a professional before he moved to Liverpool in 2004 and matured there into a genius. “The Real Sociedad team plays football with a lot of possession,” explains ntv.de tactics expert Constantin Eckner. “They want full control of the ball and the opposing offensive. You could say the team plays like Xabi did.” The newspaper “Daily Mail” describes the way of playing with “a certain flair”. There are many short passes and well-kept combinations. A successful approach. He and his team are leaders in Group 2 of the third Spanish division.

“Holy Jupp” showed us how to do it

Joshua Kimmich, who is meanwhile the boss in the central midfield of Munich and stands for a completely different kind of football, more bilious in duels and more emotional in leadership, once raved about “France Football” by Xabi Alonso: “The passes with this surgical one Precision impressed me. His reading of the game was amazing. He’s probably the strongest player I’ve ever played with. He always knew what was going to happen before he even got the ball. He was the brains of the team. ” Especially in the Bavarian era under star coach Josep Guardiola. The well-known meanwhile already in 2017: Xabi Alonso, his playing genius on the field, will “definitely” make a career as a coach. Even as a player he thought analytically like a coach and observed exactly what was going on in terms of game design and tactics. The “professor” also learned from other icons such as José Mourinho, Vicente del Bosque and Carlo Ancelotti. With his approach to dominance, he hits the Bavarian mia san mia.

In Munich, they have long since laid the red carpet ready for the 39-year-old to roll out (later). “He has this empathy that you need. Especially with today’s generation of players to spin such a common thread with them,” enthused Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the autumn of last year in the “Bild” podcast “Phrasenmower” and then confessed with clear reluctance: “I think that one day he will be a coach who may be of interest to FC Bayern at some point in the future.” Quite exciting: According to Rummenigge, Nagelsmann once wanted to hire the Spaniard as an assistant. “I knew that Xabi had a request from Leipzig.”

When he said goodbye in the summer of 2017, Rummenigge had only found rapturous words. It goes “one of our best transfers in recent years, a real stroke of luck, a gifted strategist, a highly intelligent man and one of the most uncomplicated players I’ve ever seen. It was a great pleasure to have this gentleman with us in Munich.” Two years later he specified: “We are interested in staying in touch with such people at Bayern Munich if they embark on a career path that affects football.”

Now Alonso and Nagelsmann may be dueling for a (distant) future position in the post-flick time (according to the contract, it will end in the summer of 2023) at FC Bayern from the coming season. But probably only one way (detour) leads to Munich. And should it actually be the one about Mönchengladbach, it would have been prominent before: from “Heiligen Jupp” in 1987.

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