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Bundesliga Thread

Yousif Arsenal

On Vinai's payroll & misses 4th place trophy 🏆
Trusted ⭐
Dortmund are really German Arsenal ffs every time they close doing something good they bottle it.
 

Toby

No longer a Stuttgart Fan
Moderator
VfB Stuttgart just did the same Arsenal did an hired an assistant as new head coach: Italian-American Pellegrino Materazzo from Hoffenheim. Worked as Alfred Schreuder's co, before that he was Nagelsmann's co, who had brought him in initially.

He comes in as Tim Walter's replacement who had been fired despite a decent start to the season and currently sitting in 3rd, on points with 2nd placed HSV and 3 points off leaders Arminia Bielefeld. The Stuttgart hierarchy reacted to a bad trend in the last 10 league games, in which VfB only got 11 out of 30 possible points, including home losses against relegation battling sides such as Wehen Wiesbaden and Holstein Kiel. There were also rumours about a dressing room split between some players and the coach.

I'm very interested to see what he can do, and despite there being the pressure to reach instant promotion this season, I think it is a fairly manageable situation and one in which you can take risks such as getting an assistant as head coach- looking at the current table, the strong squad and the club trying to use the 2. Bundesliga as a rebuild with lots of young talent and implementing a more offensive playstyle. One also has to take into account the alternatives: There are unattainable guys like Rangnick or Roger Schmidt, then themselves rather unproven guys like ex Stuttgart fullback Magnin of Zurich, and the usual suspects on the German managers' merry-go-round like Korkut, Slomka, Breitenreiter, Doll, etc. you have never proven to be able to actually develop teams after solidifying them. In this whole context I guess it's still a risky appointment, but one which also because of the context comes with a possible big upside. After all Stuttgart is a struggling club in the 2. Bundesliga in the midst of a rebuild towards a longterm overall strategy. Back then Mainz brought in Klopp in a similar situation.

Materazzo also seems a very interesting guy. Born in New Jersey into a lower income Italian immigrant family, got a degree in maths from an Ivy League university, played in Germany during his active days, speaks perfect German, went through all departments of coaching at Nuremburg: Youth coach, assistant, athletic coach, physio therapy, psychological department, developed a concept on how to guide and include youth players into the pro teams, did his badges with Julian Nagelsmann, who brought him to Hoffenheim, and worked as his assistant. Very interesting guy and interesting appointment. Let's see how this turns out. Good thing is the next game is only on the 29th of January, with training resuming on the 6th he will have about 3 weeks to work with the team before the first game.
 

Toby

No longer a Stuttgart Fan
Moderator
https://rasenfunk.de/kurzpass/141

Very interesting interview with Stuttgart's successfull U19 coach Nico Willig who came in as interim at the tailgate of last season. Gives some neat insight in the job of manager. Anyone who speaks German should listen to it themselves, but I'll make bullet points. Maybe also interesting in light of Ljungberg's stint and now Arteta as rookie as Arsenal manager.

Differences between youth and pro coaching:
- talking to and working with the team was very similar; felt he needed to continue doing what he usually does in coaching to stay authentic for the players
- the pressure of losing/winning is a lot higher and costs a lot more energy than at youth level
- working with the media is a big difference; says you need to think about what you want to say, which topics you're going to talk about, how you sell that to the media and keep it in line with what you told the players about these topics; this costs a lot of time and energy, but everything has to work together and you cannot get different messages out there; says he had help from a friend who's working at a pr agency for this stuff

Asked on the importance of tactics when you come in as interim to prevent relegation:
- "It is always about tactics"
- still you don't want to do too much of it cause in said situation you don't have time to develop anything; it's more about breaking tactics down to a level on which every player understands it and can do it
- in a pro team with players from different countries language is massively important: Due to a french mother he speaks French, his assistant speaks Spanish, so they were able to communicate with French and South American players in their own tongue which was a big benefit; specifically talks about "waking up" Congolese player Chadrac Akolo and bringing him back into the fold and getting more from him again due to being able to talk to him in French
- players will feel more comfortable and cared for when you speak their language; and it's also important re: breaking down tactics and getting things across properly
- didn't try to invent the wheel but was trying to find a foundation all players understood and could work with

In light of teams using simple tactics like parking the bus + high balls, he says sometimes it's not about being better than the opponent, but about dragging them down to your level when you are the "worse" team, forcing a certain style of game on them even if that isn't good football, but football in the end is a results based game. Also says there are a lot of better teams with high individual uality struggling against this and it's a key aspect right now how to unlock such teams

I will continue in the next days
 
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