Oct. 16, 2024, was a historic day in both English and German football. That day, Thomas Tuchel was appointed England manager and held his news conference at Wembley. The former Chelsea boss intended to pay tribute to the gravity of the moment by quoting Pelé, saying, “Wembley is the heart, the capital and the cathedral of football, and I think he was absolutely right.”
Coming off a disappointing stint at Bayern Munich, Tuchel might not have been thinking of how significant his appointment was for German football, but rather was merely grateful for another chance to show his managerial prowess. The fact that a German will be leading the Three Lions into the 2026 World Cup is historic. A decade or two earlier, it would have been unthinkable — and not just for reasons of rivalries or politics.
Until the 2010s, successful German managers who were tempted to work abroad either went to a neighbouring country or possibly Spain. Jupp Heynckes won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 1998, but he was an exception. Respect for German managers beyond the borders of the Bundesliga has grown immeasurably in the past 15 years, and, of course, it has a lot to do with Jürgen Klopp.
Ever since the charismatic coach joined Liverpool in 2015 and awoke the sleeping giant, just like he had done at Borussia Dortmund, doors have seemingly been propped open for German managers. The Premier League and Championship have developed a certain appetite for their leadership.
“Klopp has a role to play, but I think it is an inevitable way of how English football works,” said Jonathan Harding, author of “Mensch: Beyond the Cones,” a book about the German football system. “Everyone wants to find the next big thing.”
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As of this writing, there are four managers whose first language is German in the first two divisions in England. Fabian Hürzeler has done a tremendous job in succeeding Roberto De Zerbi at Brighton & Hove Albion, while Austrian Oliver Glasner is reaching new heights with Crystal Palace and Daniel Farke, now at Leeds United, is on his way to achieving promotion to the Premier League for the second time after doing so with Norwich City in 2019. There’s also Danny Röhl, manager of Sheffield Wednesday having previously been on the coaching staff of Southampton and Hansi Flick’s Germany.
Before them, the likes of Ralph Hasenhüttl, David Wagner and Jan Siewert were also coaching in England. It is not surprising that the trio all are somehow connected to Klopp or Dortmund, given how influential Klopp’s run at Anfield was. His tenure created the idea of a certain manager type that could transition easily from Germany to England and be successful with an exciting brand of football, connected to the positive perception of Gegenpressing and transition football.
“When we talk about the influence of one particular German coach in England, then we must name Jürgen Klopp, who because of his specific personal skills, including his communication skills, his rhetoric and football intelligence, became kind of a trailblazer,” said Erich Rutemöller, a former manager who oversaw the German coaching education amid reforms in the early 2000s following Germany’s disastrous Euro 2000 campaign.
Among many others, Rutemöller taught Klopp and Tuchel when the pair were aiming to achieve the highest coaching license in Germany. While the 80-year-old cannot stress often enough how important Klopp has been for the entire German coaching scene, he also acknowledges the significance of the educational system.
“Immediately after World War II, we began [to install a coaching education system],” Rutemöller said. “Sepp Herberger conducted the first football teacher seminar in ’48, so it is pretty interesting how long this development has been going on. We were surely pioneers in Europe.”
Taking youth coaches seriously
As football progressed and the DFB, as the German football association is known, was trying to stay ahead of the curve, the coaching education became increasingly comprehensive and also complex. The courses prepare aspiring coaches for how life will be once they are in the dugouts, including extensive media training and exercises in public speaking. However, classroom seminars alone are no guarantee of success.
“The improvements within the national football culture over there — I know past generations viewed German football internationally as clunky, functional, etc., but that’s not the perspective I’ve had growing up in the Klopp era,” said Stephen Russell, a PhD researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University studying performance analysis and indicators in conjunction with Manchester United. “As far as I’m aware, there were a lot of changes in youth development in the national setup.”
Among those changes, one stands above the rest, according to Harding.
“One thing that is not talked about enough is the under-19s football in Germany. What it does to coaching is it changes pathways,” he said. “German coaches have the chance to develop, and clubs look at these under-19s coaches as serious candidates.”
The likes of Farke and Wagner developed their craft with Dortmund’s reserves while knowing that they were being watched by first- and second-division teams at home and abroad. Reserve teams are usually set up as under-21s and under-23s sides, integrated in the league pyramid in Germany, with the reserve teams of Bundesliga clubs usually competing in the third or fourth tier.
“I think German football is also a pretty good canvas to showcase your skills if you’re interested in a move to English football,” Stephen Russell noted. “I think it’s stylistically more relevant than other top-five leagues (in Europe). As the style requires physical traits a bit more, it’s an easier transfer to English football. A median coach in Serie A or LaLiga is much less likely to have had the opportunity to show off how they handle physical intensity within their squad and against them than a median Bundesliga coach.”
No fast-tracking former stars
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The cultural shift within German football has brought with it the rise of coaches with less-than-impressive playing careers, or in some cases, no playing career at all.
“It cannot be overstated how significant the [Julian] Nagelsmann appointment was,” Harding noted.
Nagelsmann became TSG Hoffenheim manager at the age of 28. While he had become a household name in youth football, he had no esteem in the wider public because his playing career ended when he was lacing his boots for FC Augsburg’s reserve team in Germany’s sixth tier while he was in his early 20s.
Elsewhere, former professional players, especially those who once were the face of the domestic scene, are often granted coaching opportunities shortly after their retirement — with at times catastrophic results. Frank Lampard is proving at Coventry City that he might have what it takes to be a successful manager in the Championship, but only after failing at Chelsea, the club he starred for as a player, and Everton. A case of too much too soon, perhaps.
There was at times belief in Germany that good players should be naturals at coaching, too, but that mindset has changed entirely, in part thanks to the likes of Nagelsmann and Tuchel.
“They are separate professions — player and coach,” Rutemöller said. “Some can do both, but I’m convinced that Xabi Alonso buckled down during his education and attempted to achieve the licenses and learn so much that goes beyond his knowledge as a player.”
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Tuchel refuses to answer question in German at Wembley
Thomas Tuchel says he only wants to answer questions in English “out of respect.”
The next big thing
The networking that comes with an impressive career on the field or from family connections can help in the first steps of a manager’s journey, but they aren’t an automatic meal ticket any longer. Nevertheless, the latest up-and-coming coaches who have emerged in the Bundesliga are Dino Toppmöller and Sebastian Hoeness.
Both played at a decent level, albeit never in the Bundesliga, and have well-known names: Dino being the son of longtime Bundesliga manager Klaus Toppmöller and Sebastian being the son of former Hertha Berlin manager Dieter Hoeness and nephew of Bayern Munich powerbroker Uli Hoeness. And yet, these two needed to prove themselves the hard way, and have done so.
Toppmöller and Hoeness could lead the charge of a new generation of German managers alongside Nagelsmann, who despite his already-impressive résumé is only 37 years old. Eintracht Frankfurt manager Toppmöller and VfB Stuttgart boss Hoeness have already been linked with various clubs. The latter has been talked about as a potential successor to Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen, but he extended his contract at Stuttgart through to 2028 on Saturday.
Even below the top level, though, German and German-speaking coaches seem to remain a hot commodity. Just last month, Scottish Premiership side Motherwell hired Michael Wimmer, the former Austria Vienna manager and assistant to Pellegrino Matarazzo at Stuttgart.
“If it works out, you look like a genius at the boardroom level,” Harding said when looking at the appetite of Championship clubs for relatively unknown managers from Germany, but the same logic can be applied to a club like Motherwell.
If it doesn’t work out, then everyone involved can go back to what they did before, but with the increasing number of German coaches making the leap to clubs abroad, it is rather likely that we will see more following in the footsteps of Klopp and Tuchel in the near future.
