At some point, the conversation had lasted almost half an hour, when Jan Siewert mentally transported himself to his childhood room. He grew up in Hausen, a district of Mayen, about half an hour’s drive from Koblenz. His coach at the time had a huge influence on him, says Siewert: “Even in the C youth team, he called me after every game and asked how I saw the game. I didn’t even know what that was about. I then sat at home and wrote down what came to mind.” That’s basically how Siewert’s coaching career began, which led him to SpVgg Greuther Fürth a good four weeks ago.
One afternoon this week, Jan Siewert, 42, arrives in his office on the first floor of the training center in a black training jacket and sits down on a green cube seat next to a small sofa. White boards with magnets hang on the wall, and the window offers a view of the training areas. These three by four meters have been his domain for a little over a month.
“It feels like,” says Siewert, “I’ve been here for half a year. The time has flown by.” There are a lot of impressions that hit him in his first few weeks before the game against Hannover 96 on Sunday: the start against Karlsruher SC (2:3), then the first away game in Ulm ( 1:1) and most recently the first win against Hertha BSC (2:1). It was only the third that Siewert celebrated in professional football – and that in the 34th game. So far, Siewert has mostly been one of the losers. Before he came to Fürth, he only spent three months on the Bundesliga bench at FSV Mainz 05, and at Huddersfield Town he had to leave after just seven months. He had only won once with both. A statistic that could sow uncertainty, perhaps even self-doubt. But there is no sign of this in Siewert’s trainer’s office.
Fürth’s coach is now talking about development. “If someone stops learning, they are on the wrong path,” says Siewert and then formulates another sentence that says a lot about him: “My job is to bring out the best version of the players. Only then can I become the best version of myself.”
He learned to find out what the character of a team is, says Siewert
These are unusual sounds in an industry in which there are many who push themselves to the fore with a certain broad-mindedness. Siewert, on the other hand, as it becomes clear again and again in the conversation, sees himself as a learner. He also gets better when he interacts with the players. He, Siewert, is one of them. That’s why it helps him to move a team forward. That’s how he sees it. And so there isn’t even a hint of doubt in the conversation. Siewert himself knows that a few years ago he wasn’t as advanced as he is today. “I have also developed through the development of the players,” says Fürth’s coach, “Jan Siewert, who started in Essen almost ten years ago at the age of 32, is definitely no longer the Jan Siewert of today.”
In the meantime, and this is probably the greatest progress, he understands teams better. Which processes are currently underway, what the group needs, which buttons he has to press and when. His feelers have become finer. Siewert says he has learned to find out what the character of a team is and then asks a few questions that he asks himself to understand a team: “What is important? What is the core of the team? And what does that mean for my idea of letting football be played?”
For Fürth, Siewert’s signing is also a return to himself. The SpVgg has actually committed itself to a cultivated ball possession style, but Siewert’s predecessor, Alexander Zorniger, stood more for a sprinter’s style of football that focused on what was important when the others did have ball. With Siewert, the cloverleaf wants to return to the Fürth Flat Pass, which has long since become an identity. When Siewert talks about his idea of football in the office, the word “activity” comes up again and again. This is particularly important to him. He wants his team to force their game on the opponent – and not the other way around.
“I think it’s important that the players push and I push a little.”
Activity is also a central concept because Siewert embodies it with every fiber. He doesn’t just sparkle with energy – it almost shoots out of him. You can notice this in the conversation because he repeatedly uses his hands when he explains himself.
Siewert now explains how he leads his new team. “I think it’s important that the players push and I push a little,” says Fürth’s coach. He means: The players are the active ones – he just accompanies them and helps them on their way. This view is also not very common in football, which is also a world of busybodies and self-promoters. But there is nothing vain about Siewert, nothing stilted.
When he was interim coach in Mainz and was asked what it was like for him to only be in office until further notice, he said: “Which Bundesliga coach isn’t a coach until further notice?” It was a spontaneous counter question and quite a question good answer, refreshing, a bit sharp-tongued, looking deeply into reality. That is also Jan Siewert.
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