Julian Nagelsmann is a person in demand with managerless Chelsea and Tottenham now battling for his signature – however who precisely is the younger coach and the way has he amassed such a stunning fame?  

The German, who wears make-up to press conferences, idolises John Terry, arrives to coaching on his skateboard and leaves on his bike, was sacked by Bayern Munich whereas snowboarding within the Alps solely in March – rapidly changed by Thomas Tuchel – however he might quickly discover himself within the Premier League. 

The availability of the vegetarian 35-year-old, the go-to coach for Gen X hipsters in all places, is critical for each Daniel Levy of Tottenham and Todd Boehly of Chelsea, following the exits of each Antonio Conte and Graham Potter respectively.  Nagelsmann was the person Levy needed to Switch Jose Mourinho in 2021, solely to find Bayern have been effectively forward of the sport and had him tied for the next season. Now, he is within the operating to switch Potter at Chelsea – it is understood that preliminary contact, by way of intermediaries, has already taken place.

Before joning Bayern, Nagelsmann was the person everybody needed, having turn out to be the youngest coach in Bundesliga historical past on the age of 28 with Hoffenheim, whom he saved from relegation in a great-escape-type end to the season.

He took that staff into the Champions League, was interviewed for the Arsenal job as Arsene Wenger’s alternative however the board thought appointing a 31-year-old for such a job was a step too far and he ended up at RB Leipzig, whom he took to a Champions League semi-final — he misplaced to Tuchel’s Paris Saint-Germain — and second within the Bundesliga.

Quite what to make of his Bayern profession is puzzling. They received the Bundesliga final yr (just about customary) and, regardless of latest poor kind (in Bayern phrases, meaning eight wins and two defeats within the final 10 below Nagelsmann) they’re locked in a duel with Borussia Dortmund.

The German giants have a superb Champions League report this season and face Manchester City within the quarter-finals, although they misplaced at that stage towards Villarreal final season.

Nagelsmann has all the time caught the attention, as soon as chatting confidently in a press convention about how plucked eyebrows and make-up made his droopy eyes look higher. ‘Women are always allowed to look nice, so I thought that you can do it as a man too,’ he mentioned.

As a Millennial coach, he must be the perfect man to narrate to younger gamers. ‘I want to be the same Julian in the free time as the Julian on the pitch so, if I want to go out of bed in the morning and want to go with my skateboard, I don’t take into consideration the headlines,’ he mentioned.

Yet there may be simply the trace of the illiberal hippy about him. All the outward signifiers say chilled, laid-back 30 one thing. Yet he’s obsessional and demanding about tactical self-discipline, with some Bayern gamers privately suggesting that he overcomplicates the sport.

Joshua Kimmich, the Bayern captain, spoke fondly of him on studying of his sacking. But he did not gel with the squad. He fell out with veterans Thomas Muller and Manuel Neuer, who’s older than the coach. And he by no means actually received over the Gen X gamers.

But any coach who leaves his spouse for the reporter who lined Bayern Munich for Bild Zeitung, Germany’s equal to The Sun, goes to battle to determine belief in a dressing room.

Eyebrows have been raised — and never essentially sculpted ones — when his relationship with Lena Wurzenberger was revealed, fittingly in Bild itself. She has since left the function. But it’s fairly the eye-opener to search out out your coach has actually been sharing a mattress with the reporter tasked with sourcing the dressing room secrets and techniques for Germany’s best-selling and most aggressive newspaper.

Another characteristic of Nagelsmann is his admiration for English soccer and Terry. When I spoke with him in Munich final yr he was adamant concerning his most influential participant.  

‘When I was a youth player I played with [team-mate] Christian Trasch and always he called me John Terry — “Johnny” — because I was central defender. In these days John Terry was one of the best central defenders. There was one season when he did not lose a single duel. He was brave with his head, which was the main topic with me.’

It led to a comical state of affairs when RB Leipzig performed Aston Villa in a pre-season pleasant when Terry was coach there, with Nagelsmann making an attempt to elucidate to Terry that he was his childhood hero.

‘He looked at me weirdly,’ mentioned Nagelsmann. ‘But he was kind of a role model because he was a great central defender and he loved to defend. And it’s an important subject for me and for my gamers — after I speak to a defender I say, “Your name is defender, first of all you have to defend”.’

What both Chelsea or Spurs might get is an identical degree of positional obsession to a former supervisor of each golf equipment, Conte, however with a way more possession-dominant focus and crucially an intent to get the Ball ahead rapidly. 

‘I want short distances between the players, because you can change the game very quickly in ball possession, the ball moves very quickly and that shows the way [sets the tone] for counter-pressing, which is the most important topic. I only think about winning the games, not to try to avoid mistakes.

‘If we see the space we try to speed up the game, have some counter-attacks after your ball possession. And if you lose the ball, to be very, very aggressive in the counter-pressing. But if you have ball possession, it’s all the time about discovering the nice place behind the ball, very shut distances between team-mates. If you’ve gotten a philosophy for having the ball, then you must be superb at counter-pressing. If you’ve gotten the ball and also you’re worse in counter-pressing, then you’ll get one counter-attack after one other and also you concede a whole lot of probabilities and the video games will probably be very exhausting.’

On the plus facet, the London golf equipment now have the prospect to recruit a person who might be a generational expertise. The query mark could be whether or not he’s somewhat Ralf Rangnick — nice at forming sides with hungry gamers prepared to simply accept his tactical buildings at younger, disrupter golf equipment like Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig however much less at residence with the celebrities at conventional golf equipment.

But whether or not Nagelsmann is able to leap from frying pan to fireplace fairly so rapidly stays the important thing query.