This makes me want to cry. This is what I wrote to Daniel Levy last week on why Nagelsmann was critical to his legacy (I explained last year here how he owned Jose in those matches so cut that out) – sorry it is a bit long:
- He never blames players. He does not complain or whine when things don’t go his way. This is the trait of all the world’s best sports leaders.
- His team is not as talented as Southampton, yet he has competed for league titles and the Champions League in the last two seasons.
- He was missing his three best players (Upamecano/Laimer/Angelino) against Liverpool and two against Bayern Munich in the last month and was competitive in both matches (and made no complaints pre- or post-match).
- He will employ the best system to take advantage of the skills of the players that are healthy and available. In the first half of the 2019/2020 season, they had the best press I have ever seen, they absolutely suffocated opponents. They were then forced to sell their best pressing player in the winter window (Demme). After this, their press did not work anywhere near as well the next two matches, so Mr. Nagelsmann then tried several systems until he found another one that worked best.
- He is the best tactician I have ever seen at breaking down teams that “park the bus”. If a team plays like Everton and spreads 6 across the back line, covering the back post, he has devised a couple of plays where he isolates and attacks a centreback with 3 players (one of the plays is just absolutely brilliant, Kane/Son/Dele would tear teams apart). He is always looking for a way to pull apart a defence and attack a single defender.
- If a team plays in a 4-4 stack, he will pull them to one side of the pitch, have the opposite side fullback make a back post run and curl a cross over the defenders to the open player. Jose would say this is terrible because if the ball doesn’t clear the defenders, you are badly exposed. But, Mr Nagelsmann has his holding midfielder slide over to cover for the fullback. Jose would then say that isn’t ideal because you have a holding midfielder defending a winger in space. Not with Leipzig. He has trained Adams, Laimer, Mukiele and Haidara to play at holding midfield AND fullback – all these players can cover for a fullback and there is no drop off in defending ability. Klopp has even adopted this play this season, which makes sense because he has the best crossers in the world and Fabinho or Milner can cover the fullback role well.
- The future of football is having versatile players that can play multiple positions and swap as needed during play. Pep Guardiola is the architect for this on the attacking side and I believe Mr. Nagelsmann is leading the way in finding and training players and devising systems to succeed with this on the defensive side.