Julian Nagelsmann on the sidelines: "I think we can hurt our opponents more with our own possession."
Photo:Peter Schatz / Peter Schatz / Pool / imago images
It's been a little over a year since Julian Nagelsmann was introduced as the new trainer of RB Leipzig. One of the first topics that was discussed at the time was the question of whether and how it would change RB football, this style that was geared towards chasing and pressing and conquering balls. He loves this type of RB, said Nagelsmann at the time. It will be the basis of the game under him too. But he also has a few approaches of his own. And they affect your own possession of the ball.
Anyone who saw the quarter-finals of the Champions League against Atlético Madrid (2-1) last Thursday comes to the conclusion: Nagelsmann was serious. And has been quite successful in developing the club as a footballer.
Leipzig from the game against Atlético was different from the one that had been runner-up in the Bundesliga in previous years. Old Leipzig mastered pressing and counter pressing like few others. But there were also limits if the opponents' tactical responses were resolute enough.
You can't win the ball if you have it all the time.
When Red Bull hired Ralf Rangnick as sports director in 2012, the clubs in the group committed themselves to Rangnick's game idea. Put simply, it read like this: To destroy an opponent with many passes is a difficult thing, especially when you don't have top players on your team. In the seconds after winning the ball, however, the chance of scoring is high, even for teams that are inferior in football. So Rangnick proclaimed winning the ball as a credo.
Ralf Rangnick in 2018 as a Leipzig coach: winning the ball as a credo
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpaThanks to this style of play, the coach once rose to the Bundesliga with Hoffenheim. When Rangnick left the club in 2011, one of the youth coaches in the club was called Julian Nagelsmann.
Pressing, conquering balls, countering - this style has shaped the Bundesliga for years. The stronger a team, however, the sooner the opponent will let them have the ball. And the more difficult it will be to switch to attack.
When coach Ralph Hasenhüttl tried in Leipzig in 2017/2018 to adapt RB football, a little more in the direction of FC Bayern, it did not go well. After finishing sixth, Hasenhüttl left the club. Sports director Rangnick had previously reprimanded that we had to return to "our way", to "our football". Hasenhüttl now works in the Premier League, where he led FC Southampton to eleventh place.
Rangnick has meanwhile not only left Leipzig, but the entire Red Bull group, a move to AC Milan has failed. And Nagelsmann managed to make the team his own in just one season. With pressing and counter-pressing, but also with a plan for those situations in which the opponent's goal is not straightforward.
Against Atlético, RB opened the game from behind, using position changes and passing patterns to get into the opposing half in a controlled manner. The team changed their formation again and again, they found playful solutions to occupy the opponent in his half.
Is the time for specialist teams over?
Back against Tottenham Hotspur in the round of 16, Leipzig was the team that had significantly more possession and made significantly more passes.
Against Madrid it was the same. Leipzig played 628 passes against Atlético. That's more than Atalanta and Olympique Lyon played in their quarter-finals - added together. That's more than Bayern, more than Barcelona and Paris. Only Manchester City passed more often in the quarter-finals: 638 times.
Perhaps the great days of those teams that are particularly good at one aspect of the game, but only that, is over.
Last season Ajax Amsterdam was the surprise team in the Champions League. With a Dutch school style focused on game control and passing. Ajax marched to the semifinals. But then it failed at Tottenham, a team that was not world-class in any phase of the game: not in possession of the ball, not in defense and not even in switching to attack or defense. But the Spurs were good at each of these phases. Ajax failed unlucky with a goal in stoppage time. But it also failed because it was unable to defend deeply. That was exactly what was needed in the final phase.
Jürgen Klopp: Title also thanks to deceleration
Photo:Bob Leverone / AFP
Another example: Jürgen Klopp. He too was a long-time advocate of the pressing and counter-pressing school. With this style he led Borussia Dortmund to the championship in 2011 and 2012. With Liverpool FC he did not make it all the way to the top in the Premier League. But since he adjusted the way his team played by giving them longer periods of possession, Liverpool won game after game and became Champions League winners and champions.
In terms of dominance, Liverpool and Leipzig are of course worlds apart. The development that RB is taking seems to be similar.
Whether Leipzig will keep control of at least some phases of the game in the evening in the semifinals against Paris Saint-Germain (9 p.m.; Stream: DAZN; live ticker SPIEGEL.de)? Uncertain. Because part of the truth is that Atlético feels comfortable defending their own goal over long distances and letting the opponent take the ball. PSG, on the other hand, does not know that from Ligue 1. The Parisians want to have the ball themselves.
Leipzig will try, however: When Nagelsmann spoke about the semi-finals on Monday, he said that it would be about getting into the Paris third of the field, to get stuck there - with the ball at his feet.
"I think," said Nagelsmann, "that we can hurt our opponents more in our own possession."
Icon: The mirror