How Matarazzo and Mislintat are shaping Stuttgart

"We want to annoy the Leipzigers," Stuttgart's director of football Sven Mislintat said this week. "We are expecting to face a very ambitious opponent."

The problem for RB Leipzig is that their ambitious project isn't the only one in the Bundesliga. In sharp contrast to their defeat to Mainz on the opening day, Stuttgart's 5-1 hammering of Greuther Fürth has set the tone nicely. Having exceeded expectations last season by finishing ninth, Stuttgart's ambitions for this season are even greater.

"We have an outstanding coaching team with a lot of attention to detail, where the focus is on systematic development," Mislintat told Stuttgart's official website. "Thanks to good structures and processes, we are in a position to win games — even if we lack the maximum quality in the width or top players due to injury. That gives us a very good feeling."

The structures and processes Mislintat refers to are the ones he established at the club he arrived at in 2019, following an unhappy two-year stint in England with Arsenal. While humility may not be his key quality, he has certainly succeeded in establishing a framework within which Pellegrino Matarazzo, the club's head coach, has been able to thrive.

Influenced by Nagelsmann

Matarazzo, a 43-year-old American-Italian, is one of the brightest young coaches in Germany. Having spent seven years working in the Nuremberg academy and then a season as Julian Nagelsmann's assistant at Hoffenheim, he has risen up the pyramid, gaining a reputation for an exciting and progressive brand of football.

"Julian and I have similar ideas about football," Matarazzo told ESPN last year. "He filled in one or two gaps that I had and also solidifying a few ideas that I had. Things that he did were similar to how I thought they should be done."

There were few finer examples of Matarazzo's penchant for expansive football than the win against Greuther Fürth, with his favored 3-4-3 formation — also Nagelsmann's prime formation — seeing Croatian winger Borna Sosa picking up three assists and left-sided defender Marc-Oliver Kempf scoring twice. It was a performance that Nagelsmann himselfwould have been proud of.

Dynamic duo

The scale of the impact that Matarazzo and Mislintat have had on Stuttgart shouldn't be understated. A famed club had turned toxic during some turbulent times, culminating in their relegation in 2019.

Alongside director of sport Thomas Hitzlsperger, who was also appointed in early 2019, the pair needed just a season to get Stuttgart back in the Bundesliga and establish an environment where players can excel rather than rot. A Fahrstuhlmannschaft — elevator team — no longer.

Matarazzo and Mislintat are constantly heard extolling the need for "positive energy," using the mantra "step on the gas." And it's clear that while Matarazzo is a reasonable and empathetic guy, he demands a lot from his players.

"People may say that we have fulfilled expectations and probably exceeded them. Of course, I am curious but I try to avoid expectations," he said "I focus on the daily work, on how to take the next step and improve.

"We are one of the teams in the Bundesliga doing well with limited resources. It is important we continue to make good decisions so that more will be possible in one or two years. If we need to sell one or two key players in the summer, we need to make good decisions on future talent, and develop that talent."

Sustainable future

That's where Mislintat comes in. The man responsible for having shaped Dortmund's last title-winning squad has identified the players most likely to thrive under Matarazzo. Silas Mvumpa, Tanguy Coulibaly, Sasa Kalajdzic and Waturo Endo are all Mislintat signings and are all doing just that. Even if players must be sold — and Stuttgart know their place in the food chain — it's a model that can put the five-time German champions back on the map.

It's not just the diamonds Mislintat has unearthed that Matarazzo is polishing, but the stars of the future who are already waiting in the wings. Mohammed Sankoh and Ömer Beyaz, both 17, and Naouirou Ahamada, 19, are among the crop of teenagers being nurtured at the club. Mislintat's emphasis on youth with a coach whose vision of the game plays into that appears to be a winning formula.

Few would have put the mathematics graduate from New Jersey and the maverick talent-spotter from Dortmund together, but somehow it just works. Their Friday night visit to Leipzig, a team that beat them home and away last season and are now led by Matarazzo's compatriot Jesse Marsch, is an early litmus test of how far Stuttgart could go this season.