There has never been anything like this in the Champions League: three coaches from one country have reached the semi-finals with their teams. German football celebrates its success exactly one year after it was ridiculed for its international performance.
Lisbon (AP) - At the German Football Association, they are almost bursting with pride. For the first time in the history of the Champions League, Hansi Flick (Bayern Munich), Julian Nagelsmann (RB Leipzig) and Thomas Tuchel (Paris Saint-Germain) are three coaches from one country with their teams in the semifinals.
That didn't even happen in the five years between 2000 and 2009, when three clubs from each league made it into the round of the top four. "It's a wonderful, successful moment for German football," said DFB director Oliver Bierhoff. "We are very pleased that not only two German clubs are among the semi-finalists, but also three coaches from Germany and many of our national players." It is also noteworthy that the most successful German coach of the past few years has for once had no part in this. Because Jürgen Klopp retired with the defending champion FC Liverpool in the round of 16 and is now on vacation on Sylt instead of being in the coaching zone at the final tournament in Lisbon.
When Klopp and his "Reds" won the most coveted title in European club football a year ago, not a single Bundesliga club had made it to the quarter-finals in the Champions or Europa League. And now, just a year later, this international success - how could it happen so quickly?
There is no one plausible reason for this. Sure, the German and French teams traveled to Lisbon much more rested than their opponents from Spain, England and Italy because their championships ended early.
But the Champions League semi-final between Leipzig and Paris is first and foremost a game between the beverage company Red Bull against the Qatar state fund and only a long way behind a duel between Nagelsmann and Tuchel. Both clubs were shaped by their investors' money. Among other things, they donated the most expensive player in the world to PSG (Neymar) and raised the "Red Bulls" to this level in just eleven years from their foundation.
The Italian portal "Sportmediaset" called the Bundesliga "Europe's laboratory" in its analysis. Ambitious football teachers have been shaped here for years by strong personalities such as Klopp, Ralf Rangnick and national coach Joachim Löw. And here you are now accepted as a coach even if you don't have a playing career with more than 50 international matches.
What makes a good coach? That is one of the defining questions of this football summer. After Real Madrid (Zinedine Zidane) or Manchester United (Ole Gunnar Solskjær), Juventus Turin also decided last week to entrust their star ensemble to a former iconic player by signing Andrea Pirlo. Big names especially respect big names - that's the calculation behind it.
The reaction of Zlatan Ibrahimovic when Rangnick was about to become the new coach of his AC Milan in early summer also fits in with this. "Who is Rangnick? I don't know who Rangnick should be," said the star striker from Sweden. Since this weekend he should have known: Rangnick is the one who has significantly promoted the careers of Nagelsmann and Tuchel and who once also led Hansi Flick's development work at TSG Hoffenheim to success. Now these three coaches are in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
"That is nice for German football. In terms of teams, it is also important for German football," said Nagelsmann. The 33-year-old also put a "but" behind it. "Basically, I always remember words that German football was hit internationally, which mostly concerned German coaches. And now everything is fine again, it is not like that. We shouldn't live in extremes . "
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