National football team
Nagelsmann allows daydreams – “emergency plan” rehearsed
Antonio Rüdiger (M) was on the pitch with his teammates for the first time during the European Championship preparations. Photo
© Christian Charisius/dpa
Shortly before the European Championship dress rehearsal, Julian Nagelsmann gets tips from a world champion coach. The national coach has already copied his personnel concept. The Real duo brings another European Championship factor with them.
Visit of three basketball world champions, the Champions League winners Toni Kroos and Antonio Rüdiger on the pitch for the first time and the commitment of Julian Nagelsmann, dreaming of European Championship triumph even in broad daylight: Shortly before the European Championship dress rehearsal against Greece, an almost tempting breath of the title blew over the national football team’s training ground. That was exactly what the national coach wanted. The goal dreariness in the Ukraine test was no longer a big issue in Herzogenaurach.
When four schoolgirls asked Rüdiger on the press podium after the training session about his best football experience, the answer was both surprising and fitting. His answer was not Real Madrid’s recent victory in the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on Saturday. Nagelsmann’s defense chief thinks back most fondly of the victory at the 2017 Confederations Cup.
A relatively small title in his collection. But the last one that the national team celebrated before the following three tournament defeats. “That was my best moment,” said Rüdiger about the black, red and gold football nostalgia.
If Nagelsmann has his way, Rüdiger and Kroos, as Champions League heroes, should not only be role models, instigators and motivators in the European Championship squad. “What we can take with us from Madrid is the killer instinct,” said Rüdiger quite strikingly. That mysterious gift of always winning a game will be a welcome skill in the coming weeks.
Nagelsmann allows daydreams
On the home stretch to the opening match on June 14 in Munich against Scotland, everyone is even allowed to think a month ahead with the coach’s permission. “You should dream about it and imagine in the odd daydream what it would be like to be in the final or maybe even win it,” said the national coach on “Spielmacher – the EM podcast from 360Media with Sebastian Hellmann”.
Someone who knows what it’s like to be in a big final and to win it came strolling to the training ground with Rudi Völler on Wednesday. Gordon Herbert, coach of the German basketball world champions, was soon engrossed in conversation with Nagelsmann. There was a lot of talk and laughter. Herbert is a kind of spiritus rector for Nagelsmann when it comes to title issues. The national coach has copied his World Cup principle of clearly allocating roles for his basketball players for the European Football Championship – so far with promising success.
“I recently watched a documentary about German basketball players. You could see the conversations between coaches and players before the World Cup. It became clear that each individual knew their role months before the tournament,” Nagelsmann said recently. Rüdiger likes that: “Everyone knows where they stand, so there are no complications,” he said. He probably refrained from adding that it was different from the last tournaments.
Basketball players role models for Rüdiger
Rüdiger missed a first meeting with Herbert and the two NBA pros Moritz and Franz Wagner from the Orlando Magic because he wanted to take a shower before his press appearance. But he was looking forward to a talk by the Canadian. “The basketball guys have had great success. And of course we can learn a thing or two from them,” said the 31-year-old about the exchange with the Wagner brothers. The Real sweeper is himself a winner of the Herbert philosophy adopted by Nagelsmann. “Julian said about my role that I should be a leader,” said Rüdiger.
Before his successful training guest, Nagelsmann was able to prepare for the last test before the European Championship kick-off with the largest training group to date. He has not had 27 players on the pitch at the same time in the ten days so far. Maximilian Mittelstädt was absent due to necessary load management, U21 guest player Brajan Gruda had muscular problems. After the Greece test on Friday in Mönchengladbach, Nagelsmann will have to reduce his squad to the European Championship size of 26 players.
Should something go wrong in the opening game against Scotland or one of the following matches, Nagelsmann has rehearsed a plan B: “Of course we already have an emergency plan for what happens when there are ten minutes left to play and we absolutely need a goal. We also practiced it beforehand, so that the players know what we have to do now when I call out ’emergency plan’, the procedures are in place.”