Alexander Schmidt never gave up his residence on Lake Starnberg, even though he had moved around a lot over the past four years. Last summer, the 56-year-old football coach was once again able to take a job nearby, and last weekend there was nostalgia: Schmidt’s Bayernliga team TSV Landsberg played against league leaders TSV 1860 Munich II, one of his former teams. Landsberg won 4:1, the result was perhaps a little too high.
Schmidt thinks he “won with men’s football” in the second half, but he also had a lot of respect for the opponent: “Great team, great coach,” he said. In fact, the Lions’ offspring are currently producing the only positive news from the club, which Schmidt still thinks is “great”, only: “It’s a shame that everything is so divided.”
Things have been very restless at TSV Landsberg lately. The club, where the former sixties player Sascha Mölders had meanwhile settled, made headlines when it suddenly refused promotion to the regional league with an expensive squad. Then Nico Held took over the football department, an entrepreneur who likes to invest in football in order to network through football in return. Among other things, he is the main sponsor of Viktoria Berlin, the regional league team that recently asked Alex Schmidt as a coach. Schmidt was willing to change because the U18s, which he coached at Austria Klagenfurt, had lost their first division status due to league reform.
Held and Schmidt quickly realized that their networks were similar; for example, both had a past at Türkgücü Munich. Schmidt helped bring former Türkgücü kickers to Landsberg, and when the team still started with just one point from seven games, he also came as a coach – preferring Landsberg to Berlin. Since then, TSV has made a pretty impressive comeback and is in ninth place shortly before the winter break. The promotion in the current season is still unrealistic, “there are just fewer and fewer games,” says the self-confident coach as justification. He has contractually booked three years at home and wants to “attack at the top”. The former second division coach explains that he certainly didn’t come for three years in the Bayernliga.
Schmidt was one of the very few who openly criticized the investor Hasan Kivran at Türkgücü at the time
Schmidt also has experience with investor models. He was one of the very few who openly criticized the investor Hasan Kivran at Türkgücü because he had interfered in sporting decisions (and ultimately left the club to an insolvency lawyer). Nico Held now has a say in sporting matters as head of the department, and a few days before the game against the U21 of the Sixties he was also elected as TSV’s chief financial officer.
Schmidt is convinced that the collaboration will work. And I’m hopeful that the spirit of optimism in Landsberg will lead to a long-term project. Held says: “My main focus is on the topic of youth work and the acquisition of new business partners.” That fits the region. SSV Ulm, FV Illertissen and FC Memmingen, although the latter is only moderately successful in sport, are examples of how football can still function as a social center in areas with down-to-earth but sufficiently large medium-sized companies. “That’s the mentality, the people in the area are very enthusiastic,” says Schmidt, who was born in Augsburg.
At the same time, the plan to maintain the status of a youth performance center in Landsberg may not be completely altruistic. Schmidt is basically overqualified for the job at TSV. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that he cannot sign all the players his network offers, and not because of a lack of change.
One example is the 16-year-old Austrian attacker Jamie Jenni, whom Schmidt most recently trained in Klagenfurt. From Schmidt’s point of view, the Bayernliga would actually be just right for this great talent. However, he is not allowed to sign an underage foreign player without NLZ status. Not surprisingly, Jenni is now in discussion with, to be precise: Schmidt’s former club 1860 Munich.
As a long-time youth coach, Alex Schmidt is predestined to take on several tasks in the club in Landsberg. The campus is still in a very early planning phase. “The most important task now was to bring stability to the first team. Otherwise you do a little bit everywhere, but nothing clever,” says Schmidt. But that is an advantage compared to a club like, say, 1860 Munich: “We have short decision-making processes here,” explains Schmidt, ideas can quickly become reality here.
In contrast to negative examples such as BC Aichach or SV Donaustauf, they could prove in Landsberg that upscale amateur football can actually benefit from an investor model.
#Coach #Alexander #Schmidt #TSV #Landsberg #Landsberg #Berlin
