In the past eight days, football Germany has not only been able to gaze in amazement at the quite different faces of FC Bayern. It also saw a trainer who gave strangely fluctuating impressions. First a week ago against Bochum, when Julian Nagelsmann didn’t spend a good part of the half-time break with his team in the dressing room, but on the iPad in the dugout – in a way that has to be demonstratively called, and not to his advantage: when he’s his Wanted to tickle players to be more proactive, he could have done that without putting himself in the shop window.
Then on Tuesday in Paris, when Nagelsmann gave a mostly favorable picture by combining a tactically convincing concept against Messi, Neymar and Co. with confident charisma on the sidelines (although Monsieur Mbappé clouded the picture a bit in the final quarter of an hour). And now on Saturday in Mönchengladbach, when you had to ask yourself after the game what on earth had gotten into this man.
If everything that the reporters noted is true, it is unchallenged in any case, it can be said: Recently, coaches in the Bundesliga have been given a pause for thought for less. It wasn’t just Nagelsmann’s verbal aberrations in the dressing room as such, but also their offshoots afterwards, the snippy to overbearing comments to the referee team and the fact that he didn’t even manage to formulate an unconditional apology, so one that without the prefixed rush of emotions that belonged to sport. All in all: a suada of self-righteousness, even if it was understandable that Nagelsmann was annoyed about the red card against Upamecano after just eight minutes.
At FC Bayern, there are good reasons why they are convinced that Nagels- is an outstanding professional. As such, the 35-year-old enjoys the demonstrative support of the management team, as can be seen in the crisis management surrounding the Neuer interview. However, it would not be surprising if, in Munich in the second year, under the man who was brought expensively from Leipzig, one secretly asked oneself a little more intensely whether he also had the necessary maturity and/or personality structure to put a big club like FC Bayern on course in the long term hold. And increasingly, possibly, how the support of the cabin is actually ordered.
You’ve seen coaches explode trying to take pressure off their team. In this case, however, another impression emerges: that Nagelsmann does not know how to channel the pressure, including on himself. You can put it another way: At Nagelsmann, too much is currently about Nagelsmann. And players, especially those who have already experienced one or the other, have fine antennae for whether their boss is also a sovereign.
Among the many criticisms Nagelsmann received was that his performance was not Bayern-like. What sounds like a question of style is actually an exciting one about sport. Because an image sticks that Munich cannot like at all: that they actually have something to lose this season.
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