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When Julian Nagelsmann became TSG Hoffenheim coach in 2016 at just 28, he once explained his view of football and his profession. "Many good coaches can develop a plan before the game and pull it through," Nagelsmann said. "But the really good coaches change the plan after seven minutes if it's not working."
Since this season Nagelsmann coaches the team of RB Leipzig. Now, the 32-year-old has the opportunity to add a new sentence to his message: "And the right, really good coaches manage to combine their own plan with that of the club and make it a success, even if both plans actually work seem contradictory. "
Is RB even a candidate for the championship?
RB Leipzig started very well under Nagelsmann in the new Bundesliga season and was the only team to win all three games. On Saturday they will receive as leaders Bayern (18.30 clock / live in the SPIEGEL ticker, TV: Sky). And one wonders: Can Leipzig with Nagelsmann the Munich in the race for the championship be dangerous?
The answer is: If Nagelsmann and RB Leipzig manage a balancing act. When the still young coach manages to merge his ball-oriented style with the club's philosophy of radical switching play. But that is complicated.
DPA
In 2016, Julian Nagelsmann became TSG Hoffenheim coach at only 28 years old
In Hoffenheim, Nagelsmann changed his team three, four times during a match. His team was supposed to control the game and generate excess power for their own passing game. Hoffenheim had more possession than most other Bundesliga clubs.
An intervention in club DNA
RB Leipzig plowed so far with a completely different approach by the league. Ralf Rangnick established as a sports director and also as a coach a clear philosophy: RB teams should combine speed with intensity, hunt the opponent for their own ball losses and play quickly after ball gains forward again.
Nagelsmann may not be a ball possession idealist like Pep Guardiola or Peter Bosz. His tactical instructions, however, always focused on playing with the ball. Rangnick, however, thought football in Leipzig primarily as a game against the ball. Nevertheless Nagelsmann followed in Leipzig on Rangnick. The ambitious RB project did not want to miss the country's biggest coaching talent.
In the first few weeks at RB, Nagelsmann emphasized that he wanted to adapt his philosophy to the working method in Leipzig. At the same time he also said: "In phases of triple loading, it is not wrong to have phases in the game in which the ball runs in its own ranks, to reverse the RB DNA to get 100 percent on the field."
The example Hasenhüttl
Nagelsmann dreams of a combination of the best of both worlds: "My idea of playing with the ball reinforces the idea of opposing possession," he says. The ball possession phases should already prepare the Gegenpressing with ball loss. His team is to excel in all phases of a football match: own possession, in possession of the ball and in the moments after ball winning and losing.
But this balancing act is not without danger for the coach. Only a few teams succeed. Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool is just as much a part of it as the World Champion team from France.
DPA
Ralph Hasenhüttl (center) failed in the 2017/18 season to emancipate himself from RB Leipzig Gegenpressing
In Leipzig, once a coach failed in trying to emancipate the team from the switching game. Ralph Hasenhüttl wanted to make Leipzig less predictable in the 2017/18 season. Leipzig conceded more goals conceded (with 53 the fourth most of all teams in the season) and finished in sixth place. Rangnick replaced the Austrian in the season on it and turned the wheel back: Under him RB was third - also thanks to the 29 goals conceded best defense in the league. And Leipzig moved into the cup final.
Nagelsmann says, "I do not want to belittle what was here before, I would make three crosses if I also finished third." But he also suggests that this is not enough for him alone: "But it's about to evolve." And Rangnick is not in Leipzig anymore.
Sabitzer as an ideal player for Nagelsmann
Especially for the players, Nagelsmann's idea is complex: they need to know when to make the game fast and when to calm down, when to play vertically, and when to let the ball go. This is one of the toughest tasks in modern football, where decisions must be taken under adversary pressure in milliseconds.
Game intelligence, adaptability, technical class: all this is what players need for Nagelsmann's football of the future. Even in Hoffenheim, some of his pros felt overwhelmed. In Leipzig, Nagelsmann should demand even more.
SASCHA STEINBACH / EPA-EFE / REX
Marcel Sabitzer (front) is the ideal player for Nagelsmann's ideas
A player who is particularly predestined for the new Leipzig duet of Gegenpressing and ball possession, is Marcel Sabitzer. The midfielder is fast, aggressive in the ball recapture, but also ball safe and quite imaginative in the passing game. Nagelsmann made him his extended arm in the square.
Leipzig have been able to win only eight of their eight matches against Bayern. Most recently, RB lost the Cup final in May 0: 3. Now there is the next opportunity to improve the statistics. As far as the formation is concerned, Leipzig is now harder to calculate. After Nagelsmann first had his 5-3-2 system known from Hoffenheim played, he finally switched against Mönchengladbach to a 4-2-2-2; a system favored by Rangnick, which Nagelsmann practically never used in Hoffenheim.
It will take weeks and months to judge how well Nagelsmann can realize his vision. But one thing is already certain: On Saturday Bayern will meet an RB team that they did not know so well.