Julian Nagelsmann exclusive: How tragedy helped mould the managerial phenom wanted by Europe’s top clubs

Having suffered cruciate ligament damage, he sacrificed weeks of sleep while wrestling with the decision to prematurely end his playing career. Then, far more cruelly, his father Erwin unexpectedly passed away after a short illness.

“The big dream to become a professional player broke down and this certainly hurt,” the Hoffenheim manager, who first pulled on boots as a three-year-old to join his village side FC Issing, recalls to JOE. “I felt and thought back then that I wasted all my youth, that it was all for nothing. It just felt terrible. First, there was that decision I had to take to stop playing and then, more painfully, was the death of my dad. That changed a lot of things in my family.

“We were a very close and happy household. Along with my elder brother, I have an older sister and we all went on holidays together a lot. We got along very well, and then suddenly, we lost our father. That was a huge cut in my life.”

“I had to organise all things I never thought about before, but that needed to be dealt with. You realise then what it all means. My siblings were away from home and working elsewhere so I took care of most of it. Having to go through all of this helped me to come to terms with it.

“My father was always a very happy man, and certainly would've wanted us to continue to be positive and try to be successful. I managed to find my peace with it: the situation was like it was and nothing could be changed about it.

Nagelsmann circles back to these dark days as the illumination behind him becoming the youngest permanent head coach in Bundesliga history and one of the most coveted managerial minds in the game. The mountain of grief that would have marmalised most offered perspective to the former centre-back, providing him with a maturity that has been indispensable.

“It was absolutely the saddest moment in my life,” he shares on saying goodbye to his ‘geliebter papa’, who was only 56. “I obviously would have preferred it differently, but in the end, all the responsibility helped me in my growth and development as a man and later as a coach.

“You get to know that there is something so much more important in life than football, which is the family. It opens your eyes. It helps you make decisions that others might not be able to take, and as a coach you are faced with decisions constantly.

“You experience and feel a lot of pressure being in this job, but then your private life shows you that there are many more significant things around. I am very passionate about football, and about coaching, but it’s not everything to me. I love it, but it is not life or death.”

Here at Dietmar-Hopp-Sportpark, Hoffenheim’s training ground crammed with innovation, Nagelsmann’s influence and distinction is evident. He has ensured the club are at cutting edge of advancements in the game - from use of the Footbonaut to calibrate touch and control, to the giant videowall installed on the halfway line of the main pitch, which can pull footage off four cameras for real-time analysis.

Mix in his devotion to detail as well as bottomless tactical knowledge and Nagelsmann is often erroneously typecast as a ‘laptop coach’ - all about numbers and formations. He is, actually, quite the opposite. “I strongly believe that if you want to be a successful coach, empathy and taking care of the person behind the player is of greater importance than any tactical aspects,” Nagelsmann notes.

“If you have limited tactical knowledge, you can still be a successful coach. On the other hand, if you have great tactical qualities, but you are not good with man management, you will never be successful. I place great emphasis in giving my players a clear tactical plan to give them help and support in match situations. But the relationship I have with them is very, very important to me.

“I am a coach who always likes to have a laugh, but also talks about personal matters, and who can also take in jokes and make fun of myself. I am not that serious kind of guy. I don’t like when players have a problem or aren’t happy with something, and I think a lot more about that than if a player isn’t able to transmit a tactical plan on the pitch.”

There is evidence of the genial environment at Hoffenheim in the way he interacts with Holger Kliem, the Head of Media, an intern, and sporting director Alexander Rosen following a morning training session.

Nagelsmann’s talent of combining tactical theories with a personal touch was so nearly lost to football.

After having to surrender his ambitions of playing, he went through a “four to six week period where I didn’t want anything at all to do with the game.” That prompted a desire to throw himself into something totally different, with business studies ticking the box and BMW offering him a new route. It was former Borussia Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel, who is expected to take charge at Paris Saint-Germain ahead of next season, that diverted his trajectory.

“I was interested in economy so I studied business science,” Nagelsmann takes up the story. “I passed my mid-term exams and had already been offered a job at BMW in sales. To earn money for my studies, I worked as a scout for Tuchel at Augsburg II, where I still had a contract, but I still didn’t really realise that I wanted to become a coach. When Tuchel later said to me that I should try the coaching route and an offer came from 1860 Munich to work as their Under-17 assistant coach in 2008, I decided to give it a try.

“After a few weeks, there was so much passion and I felt the fire burning in me. I had so much fun being back on the pitch. But this time it was from a different perspective. I sort of had that view already as I watched a lot of matches from the bench due to several injuries, but I never analysed it on purpose with the objective to later become a coach.

“When I got the chance to experience it at 1860 Munich, I knew immediately that coaching was made for me. That is why I also decided to study sports science just to get a certain basic background of what is going on in, for example, the medical department.

“It is helpful to be able to talk about injuries and understand the recovery process. The other reason was that a career in coaching wasn’t guaranteed and I needed to have an option to earn money in another way. In the end, everything worked out a lot more successful than initially planned.”

Quickly, those who worked with Nagelsmann or watched from a distance realised he was today’s tomorrow. He progressed to become the assistant coach of Hoffenheim’s U17s, before taking full charge of the team. He was then promoted to the club’s backroom staff under Frank Kramer in 2012-13.

The season after, he led their U19s to the Bundesliga championship and during this period, Hoffenheim had mapped out their masterplan: Nagelsmann, who had completed a Batchelor’s Degree in Sports Science, would be appointed first-team manager ahead of the 2016-17 campaign.

“The first agreement we made was in November 2015 that I would take over the following summer,” he remembers, with Bayern Munich unsuccessful in their attempts to recruit him as their U23 boss despite a full charm offensive that included a brief meeting with Pep Guardiola. “Things changed when Huub Stevens unfortunately suffered heart problems and I had to immediately step in earlier than expected.”

It was 11 February 2016 when a 28-year-old Nagelsmann was catapulted into the hotseat, with Hoffenheim second from bottom in the Bundesliga. While there was enthusiasm within the club and among the players, the German press were not impressed with Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung labelling it a “PR stunt,” while Frankfurter Rundschau went with ‘Schnapsidee’ - a “crackpot idea” that could only have materialised under the influence of alcohol.

Those assertions were of no bother to Nagelsmann. “My first thought was what a hard and long way we had in avoiding relegation. And my second was that we only had a chance to survive if we played with courage through attacking football,” Germany's 2016-17 Manager of the Season says.

“It was all about winning matches, and not just to defend because we needed points. We then had two nice runs, also heavy setbacks, but we managed to deservedly stay in the Bundesliga. It was only by one point, so it was pretty close, but we shouldn’t forget that there was already a 10-point gap to 15th in the table and were ranked 17th when I started. We also lost to Darmstadt, who were ranked behind us, before Stevens resigned so nothing was in our favour.

“I always liked to take risks in my life, and it was certainly a risk for me to accept the task and for the club to trust me with it and follow my way as well.”

Taking over with Hoffenheim in such a precarious position was taxing enough, but Nagelsmann had to combine the battle for survival with the completion of his coaching qualifications.

“I had to still finish my formation course to get my licence,” he laughs, shaking his head in part-disbelief as he rewinds to a frantic period that saw him secure an A grade nevertheless.

There was no time to pore over his first address as the club’s manager either. “I got the phone call on Sunday night, and the first meeting was at 10am the next day. I didn’t have long to prepare, but I wasn’t about thinking about a lot of words,” Nagelsmann reveals.

“Age doesn’t matter, it is all about having a good atmosphere and relationship with each other filled with respect. And we all needed to have the same objective.”

Nagelsmann does not only obsess over Hoffenheim’s progress, he is a big advocate in doing as much as possible to ensure football’s future generation have as many opportunities as possible. He was the first head coach to join Common Goal, created by Juan Mata and streetfootballworld, which uses the game to generate social change.

“The next step in my career needs to be something special, because I want to underline that I feel very well here. And I have been saying that a lot also in my private life, that I always enjoy coming to work,” Nagelsmann says.