Julian Nagelsmann: Germany's hope for Euro 2024?

From star pupil on Germany's famed Fussball-Lehrer (Football Teacher) course less than a decade ago, to the top job in German football. Julian Nagelsmann's trajectory has been rapid — and rising. With multiple media reports saying the former Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig coach is set to take the top job as the choice of DFB (German FA) sporting director Rudi Völler, DW looks at how he reached this point.

Youngest coach in the Bundesliga

A series of knee injuries forced Nagelsmann to hang up his playing boots at the age of 20. At that point, he was playing in Augsburg's reserves under the tutelage of Thomas Tuchel, the former Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach who would go on to succeed Nagelsmann at Bayern. Tuchel spotted his young charge's coaching potential and got him on the Augsburg staff before Nagelsmann moved on to a similar assistant coach role at 1860 Munich.

Always ambitious, Nagelsmann had his sights set on a Bundesliga head coach gig from the start and was keen to observe and learn from the likes of Tuchel and Pep Guardiola. He began his training on the Fussball-Lehrer course in 2015 alongside Domenico Tedesco, who would go on to have success at Schalke, and took an opportunity when an interim role arose at struggling Hoffenheim in 2015. After impressing, he was promised the role by the start of the 2016-17 season, only to see his appointment brought forward to the end of 2015-16 due to the ill health of Huub Stevens. At 28, he became the Bundesliga's youngest-ever head coach.

Coach of the Year 2017

Nagelsmann initially took over with Hoffenheim embroiled in a relegation scrap. After guiding them out of that, he impressed further by leading the team from the small village of Sinsheim, and controversially backed by investor Dietmar Hopp, to the Champions League. A narrow aggregate loss to Liverpool in the Champions League group stage did little to damage his reputation as German coaching's bright young hope and Nagelsmann was named Coach of the Year in 2017, at the end of his first full season.

Though bigger clubs were already sniffing around, Nagelsmann extended his contract with Hoffenheim until 2021. In that season, 2017-18, Hoffenheim finished third, qualifying directly to the Champions League for the first time. But at the end of that season, Nagelsmann felt he'd outgrown the club and left for another controversial side, Red Bull-backed RB Leipzig, one of the few sides with resources to challenge at the top of the Bundesliga consistently.

The move was broadly successful, with Leipzig finishing runners-up to Bayern in 2020-21 and enjoying some decent runs in the Champions League. But it wasn't to last. In 2021, with Flick taking the Germany role, Bayern paid a record €25 million to secure Nagelsmann.

Things started fairly successfully, with a win in the Super Cup followed by the expected Bundesliga title. But a surprise elimination by Villareal in the quarterfinals of the Champions League exposed some cracks that continued to widen the next campaign, as Bayern allowed Borussia Dortmund to gain ground amid rumors that Nagelsmann was distant with his players and had fallen out with senior goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

Nevertheless, his dismissal in March 2023 was a shock, particularly given the financial package he'd agreed. Bayern were still in with a shout of Bundesliga, German Cup and Champions League titles at that point and would eventually win just the Bundesliga after Borussia Dortmund imploded on the final day.

Tactical mastermind

Though Bayern's players sometimes made noises about the complexity of his plans, Nagelsmann's tactical brain has been his greatest strength. He generally plays a style that relies on quick counter-pressing and rapid, short passing. His use of analytics has also been a key factor in his rise, with a giant video screen used at Hoffenheim an early marker of a coach comfortable with innovation.

But it's not just that. "You have to be a people catcher. As a coach, you have to manage to put the interests of the team first, not the interests of the players," he once said in an interview with the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

That attitude can cause friction with some players but motivate others. Joshua Kimmich considers him an "outstanding coach. Easily in the top three of my best coaches." While his Germany teammates Leon Goretzka and Serge Gnabry both improved under Nagelsmann's tutelage.

It appears a question of the right time and the right place for Germany and Nagelsmann, with the challenge of a home tournament enough to tempt Nagelsmann to sacrifice a return to club football for nine months or so, though he will likely not stay with the national team beyond a home campaign at Euro 2024.

"It is a great honor to be national coach. But there I still have a little time, and I still want to be on the pitch every day and enjoy club soccer," he said back in 2020.

At 36, Nagelsmann would be the second-youngest national coach in history after Germany's first coach Otto Nerz. Nerz took the reins from 1926 to 36 and started as a 34-year-old. Expectations will be somewhat higher and his reign will be much shorter, but Nagelsmann looks set to take on the task nonetheless.

This piece was adapted from German.