Declaration of love: Julian Nagelsmann and the DFB selection

A night, albeit one spent mostly awake, lay between the final whistle in Stuttgart and Julian Nagelsmann’s appearance in Herzogenaurach on Saturday afternoon. But anyone who saw Nagelsmann sitting there on the podium would have thought that the European Championship quarter-final against Spain had only ended a few minutes ago. Nagelsmann fought back tears and lost this battle when he spoke about the 1:2 defeat that ended the tournament for the Germans.

“It was very emotional with the fans yesterday,” said Nagelsmann, “we would have liked to give them more.”

Nagelsmann’s voice breaks

A commonplace sentence, but when Nagelsmann said it, his voice suddenly broke. Clearing his throat didn’t help; it was softened by tears. Nagelsmann cut his answer short and looked at the table in silence. But the next question came straight away from the audience, and it wasn’t directed at DFB President Bernd Neuendorf or Sports Director Rudi Völler, who were also sitting up there, but at him again, Nagelsmann.

“Shit,” said Nagelsmann. Short pause, and then: “No, okay, I’m here.”

There is a lot in this little sentence. It is a good headline for the ten months in which Nagelsmann will be in charge of the national team.

He never ducked away

In fact, Nagelsmann has always been there, he never ducked away, not even in difficult moments, of which there have been a few. “Okay, I’m here,” no national coach has brought this sentence to life as much as Nagelsmann in the past twenty years.

The author of the 2006 summer fairytale, Jürgen Klinsmann, certainly did not. He was a master of self-limitation; whenever he had the opportunity, he flew to his adopted home of Huntington Beach, California. Joachim Löw often disappeared for weeks in the Black Forest, and when he was on duty with the national team, he remained friendly and inaccessible. He won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but what do we know about this master coach as a person? That he likes to drink espresso, or two, but otherwise? Hansi Flick was more approachable, but he saw himself purely as a football teacher, weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of four- and five-man chains. That absorbed him completely, especially since Flick could not decide between a four- or five-man chain until the end, which ultimately cost him his job.

The first since Beckenbauer to shine beyond the football world

Nagelsmann is the first national coach since Franz Beckenbauer to have an impact beyond football. He gets involved in social debates and is convinced that the national team can convey values ​​that are important for living together. “We need more community spirit,” said Nagelsmann in Herzogenaurach. “If we stick together as a country, we can ensure that many people are better off.”

One could consider this a mere Sunday speech and question which principles from professional sport can actually be transferred to society, whether this subsystem with its million-dollar salaries does not follow its own logic – but at least someone had raised their voice and felt responsible for more than just the next team line-up.

With a strong sense of mission

It was not foreseeable that Nagelsmann would take on the role of national coach with such a sense of mission when he took over from Hansi Flick in September last year. He was unfamiliar with his new job and never tired of stressing how much he missed the daily work with a club team. Many observers and the DFB also assumed that Nagelsmann would quit after the European Championships at home and take over at a top European club. Liverpool, Barcelona or Bayern, there were enough vacant coaching positions.

Nagelsmann’s change of heart took place in secret. His contract extension with the DFB in May was a surprise, but, as we now know, only logical.

Since the dismal games in autumn, since the defeats against Turkey and Austria, Nagelsmann has grown into the team like no other before. Back in November 2023, Nagelsmann’s reputation as a coach was at stake. His dismissal from FC Bayern was only six months ago, and there were increasing calls that Nagelsmann was a show-off, not up to a big task, neither in Munich nor in Frankfurt at the DFB.

March brought the turning point

Then March came, Nagelsmann changed his tactical concept and the team won against World Cup runners-up France and the Netherlands. That was the “big bang” as Joshua Kimmich later said, and suddenly everything seemed possible, even at the European Championships.

Nagelsmann had the team behind him, not only through precise coaching, but also through empathy. He even made the third substitute goalkeeper feel important to the team’s success.

Nagelsmann himself may not have realized how much he cares about this team until Saturday, one night after the defeat against Spain. In Herzogenaurach, he spoke of his players as if they were sons, even though some of them are hardly younger than him.

A warm word for every player

He praised Robin Koch, the only field player who did not play at the European Championships. The way Koch said goodbye to him, without any resentment, without any reproachful undertone – “absolutely selfless, great class,” said Nagelsmann. He also spoke about Ilkay Gündogan, “our quiet leader,” who stayed in the camp until the very end because a captain is the last to leave the ship, like on the high seas. He also included his two assistant coaches Sandro Wagner and Benjamin Glück in his acceptance speech, two people he “absolutely trusts.” And the staff in general: “There has never been a team in which I did not feel like I had to replace someone because they were detrimental to the overall success. That is the case with this team.”

This could have continued for hours at the press conference: call out a name to Nagelsmann – and the national coach would have found warm words for each one, combined with a little story from the camp.

Nagelsmann has gone through an astonishing transformation in the last few weeks. For a long time, it was said that he could not “get out of the dressing room”, as it is called in football jargon. He, the tactics nerd, lacks a feel for group dynamics, and pushes himself too much into the spotlight. At FC Bayern, they still say this today.

Julian Nagelsmann has given up his peacock-like ways

The European Championships have shown that this image, which sticks to him like a tattoo, is no longer true. He has lost all of his peacock-like qualities. He no longer makes punch lines that he himself finds the funniest, he no longer wears garish clothes that the tabloids can interpret for days.

He cries in front of the camera. He is not embarrassed, he does not flee from the situation. Not even when his voice breaks. Not even when it feels like shit, as he calls it.

He is there.