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The European Leagues & Competitions Thread V2


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7 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

Because Lyon was entertaining every time they attacked City. Its normal to defend against such team. Yet Lyon looked quick and dangerous when they went forward. If you noticed, after they scored 2nd realy quickly after conceding, actualy didnt go park the bus again, but attacked and soon scored the 3rd. 

It's not hard to look "attacking" or "entertaining" when a team is up against a side with a porous defence like City's. So many sides in the Premier League, for example, this season have looked like that against City. Heck, so many of the lesser, defensive sides have looked that way against us!

7 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

Meanwhile Lepizig vs Atletico. Two teams that played bunker for entire match. Neither is offensive like City or Psg, so its not like you have to be extremely defensive. Yet neither took initiative and it turned into a snoozefest. Seriously worst tactics for both. Both were counter attacking, yet there wasnt any attacks😄 And then vs Psg, again they didnt even try to score until after second half when they woke up a little. 

Atletico being negative under Simeone is no surprise at this point and why they chose that approach in a very winnable game against RB Leipzig is puzzling.

In Leipzig's case, I didn't think they were boring against Atletico. They played intelligently by not letting playing into Atletico's hands, which is dominate and let them counter attack. Sure, they might not have played swash-buckling football but they have shown they can play something close to that in past games and let's not forget, they just lost their 34-goal striker. Not easy to reconfigure your side in the space of a month and for big Champions League games. None of the other players are prolific.

As for Leipzig against PSG, well yeah. I guess they were caught in between two minds whether to just attack PSG and risk getting pummeled or contain PSG and play on the break. In the end and on hindsight, you could say they chose the wrong approach. Might as well just take the risk and see what would have happened. But again, they just lost Werner and they don't have anyone else who is prolific in the side. So their attack was always gonna look less potent and it's easy to forget that they aren't on, say, Bayern's level and are playing in their first Champions League semi-final. They can't play open attacking football and have to try and win it in different ways.

8 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

The last part, I give you a thumbs up. Its all about winning. But today, football is won by adventorous teams, days when inter or chelsea park the bus was successful are gone. You may win one game like that, but no more. Atleti won to Liverpool, then went out. Leipzig won to atleti like that, went out too. 

For that reason I expect Lyon wont hold Bayern because they hold City. And final will be won by a team that is not only winning, but winning in style. Its certainly possible and actualy more common these days. Real, Barca, Liverpool were all "entertaining". 

That is debatable. France won the World Cup and Portugal won the Nations League but don't think anyone is calling them adventurous teams. They, especially in France's case, just have quality players to make the difference when it matters.

I'd agree that adventurous teams are more likely to win things but pragmatism can still triumph. It just depends on how extreme one takes that approach. But again, no one will remember how a team plays to win things. They just remember winners. Liverpool might be an adventurous side but they beat Spurs in one of the most boring Champions League finals last season.

And how is Real Madrid considered entertaining? Assuming you're talking about Zidane's Real Madrid, don't think they are particularly great to watch under him. They are pragmatic and the only reason they won 3 Champions League titles in a row few years ago because they had Ronaldo, Modric, Ramos, Bale etc coming up with decisive goals in big moments.

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Paredes was PSG’s conductor – directing Mbappe and dictating play

https://theathletic.com/2007464/2020/08/19/michael-cox-psg-champions-league-final-paredes/

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Throughout their 3-0 victory over RB Leipzig in the Champions League semi-final, Paris Saint-Germain were unrecognisable from the team who struggled to get past Atalanta in the previous round. They offered more speed up front, more pressing in the opposition half and more penetration from deep in midfield. It felt like a completely different side.

And, in a way, it was. There were five changes last night from the starting line-up against Atalanta six days earlier. Most obviously, Kylian Mbappe was fully back from his ankle injury in a left-sided attacking role. More crucially in terms of the result, Angel Di Maria, suspended for the quarter-final, played from the right, assisting the first and scoring the second. There was also a return for Juan Bernat, scorer of the third goal, at left-back, while Sergio Rico came in for injured goalkeeper Keylor Navas.

Another newcomer, meanwhile, was Leandro Paredes in the centre of midfield — and this proved crucial in PSG’s build-up play.

In the game against Atalanta, Neymar felt compelled to constantly drop deep because of the overwhelmingly defensive trio of Marquinhos, Idrissa Gueye and Ander Herrera. But the introduction of Paredes, who had come off the bench to help turn the quarter-final around, provided intelligent passing quality from deep in midfield. Neymar could stay high and receive the ball between the lines, because Paredes was both conducting the play and penetrating the Leipzig midfield.

Leipzig struggled to close down Paredes.

Below is a picture of the tactical battle. Leipzig are in a typical 4-1-4-1 defensive shape — this often looked more like 4-5-1 when they were more compact — while PSG are in a clear 4-3-3. Almost everyone in this picture is in precisely the role you’d expect within those formations, with the exception of Paredes, whose deep left-of-centre positioning gives PSG’s midfield an unusual format.

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This was typical of his positioning throughout the game, and Leipzig weren’t sure how to close Paredes down. Whenever Leipzig’s right-centre midfielder, usually Marcel Sabitzer, pushed forward to try to get to Paredes, Neymar would wander into the space he left behind him.

Here, with the game less than two minutes old, is an example of how Paredes was directing the play. Again, he’s PSG’s deepest midfielder, and in this situation he wants to play a penetrative pass through the lines to Mbappe, at the bottom of the picture. But the striker doesn’t position himself correctly — he stays in the shadow of Konrad Laimer, who is blocking the pass.

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Paredes therefore turns the other way and passes back to Thiago Silva. But what comes next is interesting…

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…Paredes turns back and tells Mbappe he should have been drifting inside, into the left channel, rather than staying out wide. Evidently, he’s not afraid of bossing around PSG’s big names.

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When PSG’s attackers positioned themselves to receive those type of passes, Paredes was excellent at playing them.

Again, in this situation against Atalanta, Neymar was dropping back to the other side of the midfield line to conduct play himself. Last night though, he was largely content staying between the opposition defence and midfield…

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…knowing Paredes could fire the ball in to his feet. This also serves as a good example of how Sabitzer was dragged up the pitch towards Paredes, which created an extra gap in the inside-left channel for Neymar.

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Paredes wasn’t merely good at playing passes in to a player between the lines — he was also excellent at convincing Leipzig he was going to do something different.

After half an hour, here’s another example of him playing as PSG’s deepest midfielder. His two key team-mates here are Neymar, again positioning himself between the lines, and Silva towards the far side. As Paredes has the ball here, Leipzig are in a decent enough defensive position, their body shapes as you’d expect. That includes Dani Olmo, highlighted on the edge of the centre circle.

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But then Paredes opens up his body in a manner that brings to mind Sergio Busquets, tricking Leipzig into thinking he’s about to play the ball square to Silva. Look at the positioning of Olmo now — he’s facing Silva, ready to confront him. Leipzig’s deepest midfielder, Kevin Kampl, also seems to be anticipating that pass.

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But this is a trick, of course. Paredes instead fires the ball between Olmo and Kampl, to the feet of Neymar.

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This continued throughout the first half.

Here’s another example, this time with Marquinhos having dropped into the defence to turn PSG into more of a 3-4-3, leaving Paredes as the deepest midfielder more literally.

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Paredes’s body shape continued to cause Leipzig problems. Here is a similar example from midway through the second half. As Paredes shapes to play this pass, substitute Emil Forsberg is convinced the ball is going out to Thilo Kehrer on the near side, at the bottom of the picture…

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…but it’s whipped behind him, to the feet of Di Maria. Look at the cut of the grass for evidence of Forsberg shifting his position — only a couple of yards, but he’s moving in precisely the wrong direction as the pass goes in behind him.

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Di Maria sucks in an opponent and then eventually, the ball is played out to Kehrer, with Forsberg still hopefully moving back towards Di Maria.

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Paredes also showed great intelligence in helping PSG press high up the pitch.

In this situation, with Leipzig working the ball across their backline, he’s tracking Sabitzer. The danger is that, behind him, Olmo seemingly has space between the lines.

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As Leipzig play the ball across the defence to Dayot Upamecano, Paredes looks over his shoulder, realises Olmo is making a run in behind him into a dangerous position and sees the passing lane from Upamecano is open…

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…and therefore, as Upamecano fires a ball towards Olmo…

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…Paredes slides in, makes an interception, and gets PSG on the attack.

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And Paredes’s pressing proved crucial in the decisive second goal. With goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi playing out from the back, he’s again tracking Sabitzer high up the pitch.

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It’s unclear whether Gulacsi’s terrible pass was intended for Sabitzer or Kampl, but Paredes was in a position to intercept…

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…before sending the ball into the box, which prompted Neymar’s brilliantly subtle touch to assist scorer Di Maria.

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At 2-0, it felt like the game was already over before half-time.

Bernat added the third just before the hour, but perhaps the most notable feature of PSG’s second-half display was Tuchel’s lack of substitutions until the 83rd minute. In fact, opposite number Julian Nagelsmann had made all five of his changes before PSG made their first, which was surely an indication that Tuchel was keeping this starting XI together for as long as possible, ahead of naming an identical side for the final on Sunday night.

He may yet spring a surprise with his team selection, but after this display, you sense Paredes’s place isn’t in doubt.

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‘Radio Muller’ led Bayern to an 8-2 win by 16 Mullers playing Muller football

https://theathletic.com/1996418/2020/08/15/thomas-muller-bayern-munich-champions-league/

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8-2 is the sort of scoreline you get in the first round of the DFB Pokal, in which Bundesliga teams often face amateur sides in rickety grounds with Portakabins for dressing rooms. Yet this was a Champions League quarter-final. Against Barcelona. A win for the ages, sublime, surreal, stupefying.

UEFA’s man of the match Thomas Muller professed himself “still out of breath” from this historic demolition job during the post-match interviews but the 30-year-old quickly gathered his thoughts to explain what he had most enjoyed. It wasn’t his two goals or “the brutal dominance” that surpassed Germany’s 7-1 win over Brazil in 2014 in his estimation. It wasn’t even the notion that this result would send shockwaves of angst to the handful of possible contenders standing in the wake of Bayern’s sixth European Cup win.

No, the thing that pleased Muller most was something that few observers would have noticed on Friday night. “The nicest thing of all,” he said, “was to see players who get on (as substitutes) having the same impact, the same joy, the same work ethic (as the starters).” The man of the match trophy thus belonged to the whole squad, not him, he added.

Thomas Muller, Bayern Munich

Muller’s praise for Bayern’s collective endeavour points to the culture of togetherness that Hansi Flick has bred since he was appointed caretaker and then head coach in November 2019. Getting total “buy-in” from squad players and occasional starters has been one of Flick’s main achievements this campaign. A testament to his assured human touch.

But that’s only half the story, the part that Muller wasn’t too humble to mention explicitly. In his admiration for the substitutes’ commitment, he was really speaking about the qualities that have made him such an exceptionally effective player over the last decade. Untiring, relentless and incredibly smart, this Bayern side followed his lead up front to take a wrecking ball to Barca’s shaky foundations and provoke the biggest collapse ever seen at this level of elite club football.

It was a win won by 16 Mullers, playing Muller football, harrying and harassing the opposition high up until they fell apart. The similarity between the team and the man whose identity they channelled like never before went so far that many seasoned commentators wondered if… Bayern had actually been all that good? The very same question has been asked of Muller since he first burst onto the scene in 2009.

Thin, ungainly, unflashy to the point of looking entirely ordinary, he’s the anti-superstar in the age of nutmegs memes and YouTube compilations. Millions of football fans who don’t support Bayern or Germany are still unsure of what he does and how he does it — other than that it’s invariably right.

Friday night’s match was the fifth time Bayern have scored eight or more goals in a league or European game this century. The only Bayern player involved in all those routs (8-1 v St Pauli and then 9-2, 8-0 and 8-0 against Hamburger SV) — guess who? — was Thomas Muller, triggering Bayern’s ball-hunting pack from his preferred shadow striker position.

Looking back on this decade of unabated Bayern domestic dominance and their international renaissance, football historians will find that it was based on the introduction of possession/position principles under Louis van Gaal, expensive star players bought with new-found riches and a precision pressing game underpinned by the legs and brains of Muller, a man born to run who has come to run the entire team.

The 2013 Champions League winners were the side of fellow Bavarians Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm. In 2020, Muller is the last locally-born hero standing, determined to infuse his side with the club’s unforgiving “we have to be the best” ethos.

Having joined the club as a 10-year-old, Muller is winning mentality incarnate. “It’s only acceptable to be No 1 at Bayern,” he told this writer a few years ago. “It’s always been like that here. I’m used to it and it’s normal for me. I’m a very competitive guy anyway. I’ve never jumped for joy coming second.”

Muller grew up between two lakes in rural Bavaria, a hardcore Bayern fan who found seeing his club win the Champions League in 2001 aged 10 much more exciting than lifting the trophy and the World Cup himself as a player. Bayern is German for Bavaria, and the way he explains it, the character traits of the population and the club are overlapping. Others might consider it arrogance, but he describes “Bavarian-ness” as a feeling of strong self-confidence and deep inner happiness.

“The typical Bavarian in his lederhosen is not at all ashamed to wear a piece of clothing that looks funny to the rest of the world. He feels comfortable in it, comfortable with himself. He knows where he’s from, he knows where he belongs. And he projects that to the rest of the world as well.”

Thomas Muller, Bayern Munich. Barcelona

One of the many things Niko Kovac got wrong was to underestimate Muller’s importance, both as a leader in the dressing room and on the pitch. In the Croat’s deeper set-up without active pressing, Muller was seen as superfluous, not quick enough to play on the break, not cultured enough to circulate the ball in tight spaces.

He considered Muller a mere “emergency back-up” for striker Robert Lewandowski. It’s telling that Bayern reached one of their lowest points in the last 10 years without him, disintegrating completely in their 3-1 home defeat against Liverpool last season. Muller had been suspended for a dangerous, badly mistimed tackle on Ajax’s Nicolas Tagliafico in the group stage, but Kovac probably wouldn’t have picked him anyway as he had settled upon a reactive 4-3-3 system that left no natural space for him. Muller came close to leaving the club in the wake of his marginalisation but then Flick reinstated him as the key player for Bayern’s high-line, high-tempo forward movement.

It was Muller who screamed at his team-mates to press Chelsea’s build-up in the 85th minute of the first leg at Stamford Bridge. Bayern were 3-0 up at the time but he wouldn’t let the team relax. They have won every game in the Champions League since that Liverpool defeat, scoring 39 goals in nine games.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that this Muller-fuelled side has looked particularly muscular since the restart, winning every one of their 13 games in all competitions. Without supporters, some sides have found it hard to generate the levels of energy and inspiration required to play their very best. But that hasn’t been an issue for Bayern at all. Executive chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge suspects that’s down to the strong prevalence of intrinsic motivation within the squad.

The players have reportedly worked incredibly hard in training during the COVID-19 suspension and carried that attitude into the games. On top of that, they’re expertly self-coached. One of the sole benefits of football without crowds is the ability to listen in on the shouts and instructions, and the first thing you understand is that the “Radio Muller” nickname is well-earned. Seeing what he does, in particular, can be tricky to the untrained eye, but at least you can now hear it.

He doesn’t stop talking to his team-mates, constantly firing them up, and sets the tempo and direction of the play. Before a midfielder collects the ball, Muller will have already told him where to play it next. He quite literally calls the shots and the team follows his instructions — not out of fear of dressing-room recriminations but in the knowledge that his ideas tend to be good ones.

Since May, watching a Bayern match has been a bit like going for a 90-minute drive in a car that has saved the same radio station in all 11 slots. All you hear is Muller. Late on Friday, the circumstances might have been otherworldly, but the message he broadcast was the same as it’s ever been: just keep going.

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Nagelsmann, Tuchel and the German coaching prodigies dominating football

https://theathletic.com/1998358/2020/08/18/nagelsmann-tuchel-german-managers-champions-league-semi-finals-leipzig-psg-bayern/

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It only took Julian Nagelsmann 30 minutes to drive from Augsburg to the small town of Gersthofen in January 2008 but it would be the journey that changed his life.

Nagelsmann, 20, was playing as a cultured centre-back for Augsburg’s reserve team in the Landesliga Sud (sixth division) at the time but to be more accurate: he wasn’t playing. A botched knee operation had left him unable to cope on the pitch. His coach Thomas Tuchel, a young managerial prodigy who had himself been an Augsburg player in his youth and had seen his career curtailed by persistent injuries, decided to use Nagelsmann’s apparent talent to read a game in a different way. “He suggested I go and scout an opposition team,” the RB Leipzig coach recalled in a biography of Tuchel by Daniel Meuren and Tobias Schachter.

A nervous Nagelsmann set off to watch TSV Gersthofen with his then-girlfriend, now wife. “It was funny. She was filming the match on a small video camera and I was taking notes. Scraps of paper, a pen and a video camera — that was it. It had no resemblance to the way video analysis is conducted today.”

Nagelsmann came back with a lengthy dossier, unsure if he had fulfilled Tuchel’s brief. But Tuchel was impressed with the way the player had detailed TSV’s movement with and without the ball. Nagelsmann soon retired from active duties to be appointed the official opposition scout and part of Augsburg reserves’ coaching staff.

“Thomas told me I should try becoming a coach in case I couldn’t play anymore,” Nagelsmann said. “He had a feeling that I might be talented, due to the way I thought and spoke (about the game). He said I should definitely give it a go.” However, in an interview with DAZN on Monday, Tuchel refused to take credit for discovering Nagelsmann’s abilities off the pitch. It was more of a happy accident, born out of economic necessity.

“Julian was always injured,” he said. “I would have preferred him to play. Our budget was so small that we told him: ‘You can’t just be injured all the time here. You have to scout opponents’. The reports that came back were remarkable for a young man. He put a lot of work into it. But he went on to have this impressive career path all by himself.” Neither man had any idea that they would meet 12 and a half years later in the semi-final of the Champions League.

Tuchel’s version of the Nagelsmann origin story is very generous towards his opponent but only partially true. First, Tuchel’s extremely sophisticated coaching methods had opened Nagelsmann’s eyes to aspects of the game he had never considered before. Some of the sessions were based on the principle of “differential learning”, the intentional over-complication of processes and tasks with a view of making the actual playing of the game both easier and more purposeful.

At Borussia Dortmund a few years later, Tuchel told his players to control the ball with their knee before every pass. He made defenders train with tennis balls in their hands to stop them from holding on to strikers. In training, his team would play on pitches with the corner-flag section of the pitch cut away, forcing his players to move diagonally towards goal. Nagelsmann said Tuchel’s sophisticated practice regime often left him so drained that he fell asleep on the train home from Augsburg to Munich, where he lived at the time.

Tuchel also had an important hand in helping his apprentice move beyond scouting duties at Landesliga level a few months later. He tipped off Nagelsmann that TSV 1860 Munich were looking for a new under-17s coach. Nagelsmann got the job in the summer of 2008.

But most importantly, Tuchel broke the managerial mould in Germany. Without his success at Mainz one year later, Nagelsmann’s stellar ascent to the top of the Bundesliga might have never happened.

Mainz had appointed Tuchel, then 34, as their under-19s coach for the 2008-09 season. He led a team that featured future Premier League players Jan Kirchhoff and Andre Schurrle to the club’s first (and only) under-19s championship, playing breathtaking combination football.

The seniors were also doing well that season. One year after Jurgen Klopp had tried and failed to lift them back to the first division, they won promotion under Jorn Andersen. But Andersen fell out with some of the players and the club leadership to such an extent that he became the first coach to ever be dismissed in early August, before the Bundesliga had even started. Mainz’s general manager Christian Heidel, the man who had controversially put the ageing defender Klopp in charge eight years earlier, had another one of his crackpot ideas: he promoted Tuchel to head coach.

“People thought we were totally mad,” Heidel told this writer years later. “Tuchel was a nobody: a youth coach without any professional playing background.” Klopp’s miraculous work at Mainz — despite their relegation in 2007, he had taken them to the Bundesliga for the first time and galvanised the whole city to become passionate for football — had taught him that experience was vastly overrated. “The idea of a good coach, at the time, was an ex-footballer who had been on the carousel 10 or 15 years, getting hired and fired every other year,” Heidel said. “Those who didn’t have the right name never got a look in.”

At 35, Tuchel was barely a couple of years older than the players he was suddenly excepted to lead into a tough battle against the drop. With his side-parting and penchant for roll necks, he looked like a student. But any concerns about a lack of authority dissipated after his first team talk. “He only spoke for a few minutes but his charisma and knowledge shone through,” Heidel said.

Some of the regular visitors at the team’s open training sessions joked that Tuchel’s passing drills reminded them of “youth football” but his attention to detail soon had the team playing some fantastically exciting attacking football. “He understood the game deeply and had the ability to communicate his vision effectively,” Heidel said. “We reached a level we had never seen at this club before.”

In his five years in charge, Tuchel took Mainz to the Europa League and amassed more points than any club apart from the “big four” of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke, and they did so with a minuscule budget compared to those teams.

Tuchel’s superb record at Mainz undoubtedly encouraged Hoffenheim to go down a similar route when they moved youth coach Nagelsmann up to the seniors in early 2016. Local paper Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung dismissed the appointment of the Bundesliga’s youngest full-time manager (28 years old) as a “public relations stunt” but were quickly forced to recant as Nagelsmann saved Hoffenheim from relegation and then led them to Europa League and Champions League in quick succession.

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Master and former apprentice are no longer close. There has been no falling out and relations remain cordial but they’re not friends. A source close to Nagelsmann suspects that football aside, they’re simply too different as people. While Nagelsmann comes across as jovial and easy-going, Tuchel can appear withdrawn and obsessive, just like his managerial idol Pep Guardiola.

Markus Krapf, the Augsburg chief executive who hired Tuchel in 2005, says these categorisations are far too broad, however. “I remember Thomas as a really engaging, funny guy who could tell wonderful stories about his own short football career,” he tells The Athletic on the phone in the sports bar he now runs. “As far as the human side is concerned, I can only tell you very good things.”

Nagelsmann is yet to win a competitive game against his former mentor. That might change on Tuesday night in Lisbon. Irrespective of the outcome of this gigantic tussle of managerial wits, it will rightly be seen as a small triumph of the German model, a system that values knowledge, empathy and the ability to help players perform beyond personal experience and status.

It is true that not every promotion of a youth coach has worked quite as well as Tuchel and Nagelsmann have done in the Bundesliga. But it’s no longer seen as particularly noteworthy if clubs put their under-19s coaches in charge of the first team — especially those sides who have limited financial resources. They will now aim to take on youth coaches with a view to grooming them as first-team coaches rather than pick a big name from the carousel whenever an opening arises. It’s seen as good business practice.

Hansi Flick, a former Bayern Munich player in the 1980s who now finds himself leading them in the Champions League semi-final against Lyon, doesn’t quite fit into the same category but he epitomises the idea that ability is a more relevant criterion than public profile. He had not been in charge of a first team before taking over from Niko Kovac last year but had been assistant to Joachim Low when Germany won the World Cup in 2014.

On top of that, as a former sporting director at Hoffenheim during Nagelsmann’s time there and the German FA, Flick has been part of a meritocratic network of coaches and administrators that have shared ideas and helped each other hone their theories to the point that they have begun to take over the world of football.

Tuchel was heavily influenced by Ralf Rangnick during the maverick coach’s tenure at second division SSV Ulm in the late 1990s and it was Rangnick who hired Nagelsmann as his own successor at Leipzig last year. Rangnick’s school of thought — football based on pressing and counter-pressing — has spawned successful coaches such as Ralph Hasenhuttl (Southampton), Roger Schmidt (PSV) and Marco Rose (Borussia Monchengladbach), who have all succeeded as relative no-names.

Nagelsmann and Tuchel have come closest to perfecting the blueprint by adding intricate elements of position and possession football to it. Klopp, too, is part of this conversation. The Liverpool manager won’t make it to the final on Sunday but he’ll recognise at least one of the participants as someone who’s undergone a similar managerial journey to him: from provincial obscurity to the very top.

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‘Sevilla became addicted to success in Europe after 2006 UEFA Cup’

https://theathletic.com/1996174/2020/08/16/sevilla-uefa-cup-europa-league/

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“It was such a big moment,” former Sevilla goalkeeper Andres Palop tells The Athletic of the club’s UEFA Cup victory in 2006.

The Spanish side were not big favourites for that final against a Middlesbrough team led by the soon to be England manager Steve McClaren, and captained by a future one in Gareth Southgate, but they completely dominated and won 4-0.

“Sevilla had gone 60 years without winning a trophy, not having a title to celebrate,” Palop says. “It was a critical moment for the club, the club’s centenary year, and the previous season (city rivals Real) Betis had won the Copa del Rey. To be able to win the UEFA Cup was huge. It relaunched the club, it was like a rebirth. For many players in the squad, it was our first experience participating in a victory like that, on a European level. It filled us with life, with enthusiasm and with character to go on and win more. We became addicted to playing finals, and wanted to have more of those incredible experiences.”

Sevilla were one of the biggest clubs during Spanish football’s formative years, winning the 1945-46 Liga title and three Copas del Rey between 1935 and 1948, but their only other trophies over the next five decades were the 1968-69 and 2000-01 Segunda Division titles. When Palop joined the club from Valencia in summer 2004, they were not even the biggest club in their own city. After ending the long wait for any senior trophy with a European title, the “reborn” team quickly set about changing all that.

The following season, Palop played a crucial role as they retained the UEFA Cup, scoring a 93rd-minute headed equaliser at Shakhtar Donetsk to keep them in the competition in the round of 16. The final was against La Liga rivals Espanyol in Glasgow, and the keeper saved three penalties in the shoot-out to secure victory.

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“You started to get the feeling that this competition could be something sensational for Sevilla,” Palop says. “There was my goal so we could get through the quarter-finals. Years later there was also (Stephane) Mbia’s goal in the last minute, against Valencia, to put Sevilla into another final (2014). There is an aura that is around this competition, for Sevilla, which makes it special. It seems they go hand in hand, and the UEFA Cup or Europa League brings good fortune for Sevilla.”

Palop moved on, and the competition changed its name to the Europa League, but Sevilla came again. They beat Benfica on penalties in the 2014 final, a year later came from behind to beat Dnipro 3-2, and in the 2016 decider again fought back after conceding first, this time to defeat Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

Many players have come and gone over that time — with the likes of Dani Alves, Freddie Kanoute and Ivan Rakitic passing through the Estadio Sanchez Pizjuan — but the remarkable relationship with the competition has remained. Nine of the starting XI which overcame both Roma and Wolverhampton Wanderers to get to this season’s semi-finals, where they play Manchester United at the Stadion Koln on Sunday evening, were recruited just last summer by the club’s iconic sporting director Monchi.

“Monchi is the keystone of this project, of this club,” Palop says. “He is the person who knows best of all what Sevilla football club means. Apart from doing his work magnificently in the offices, he also connects very well with the players, with the team. When a player arrives at the club, there is an environment, a project, you are shown what Sevilla means. Monchi has great respect, so much experience, and everything he says to the players has a huge weight.”

A link back to the first run of wins is veteran Jesus Navas, who played in both the 2006 and 2007 finals as a young winger, and returned after four years at Manchester City to be converted into a right-back and become Seville’s all-time record appearance maker.

navas-sevilla-scaled.jpg

“Navas is the symbol of pure Sevillismo,” Palop says. “He has also adapted very well to what was required. He is already in the history of this club, and will be there forever.”

Palop believes there is a straight connection between Julen Lopetegui’s no-nonsense current side and those coached by Juande Ramos, who won back-to-back trophies, and Unai Emery when they won a historic three in a row.

“Sevilla have had some moments when their identity has changed, tried to evolve a bit in other directions, other ways of playing,” says Palop, who has recently had senior coaching jobs at Segunda B sides Alcoyano and Ibiza. “And it has not worked. The club has a special character, its own quirks. When Sevilla have been decisive, it has been when they have played as they have this season: attractive attacking play, a connection between the players, but also with a lot of commitment and humility.

“Everybody around the club feels identified with that, and the players are enjoying it. The players who arrive here know they can achieve their potential if they all work together, for each other.”

Five times Sevilla have made it to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup/Europa League, and each year they have gone on to win the trophy. They also won the Copa del Rey in 2007 and 2010, the European Super Cup in 2006 and Spanish Supercopa in 2007, all with Palop between the posts.

They have regularly qualified for the Champions League, but things have not gone nearly as well in Europe’s elite competition. Back in Palop’s time, they exited to Fenerbahce and CSKA Moscow in the round of 16, then Braga in the qualifying round in 2010-11. More recently, they have been knocked out at the group stages (2015-16) and by Leicester City in the round of 16 (2016-17). In 2017-18, their most recent Champions League campaign, they beat Manchester United for their first knockout victory since 1957-58, but fell to Bayern Munich in the quarters.

“The experience in the two competitions has been different,” says Palop. “In the Europa League, Sevilla have been able to overcome very big clubs which could easily have been in the Champions League. They have less experience in the Champions League and have shown it a lot of respect, but without having that fearlessness.

“It is about overcoming hurdles, situations where the team can keep advancing. If the team can make a semi-final or final of the Champions League, then they can take another leap forward, and live moments like they have in the Europa League.”

A surprise hero against Wolves was goalkeeper Bono, a Montreal-born Morocco international who is on loan at Sevilla for 2019-20 from Segunda Division side Girona. An injury to first-choice Tomas Vaclik late in the Liga season gave Bono a chance, and he wrote his place in the club’s European history by saving a penalty from his former Atletico Madrid team-mate Raul Jimenez early in the game.

“The penalty saved by Bono was the most critical moment,” Palop says. “Before that moment, Wolves were causing danger on the counter. Afterwards Sevilla were in control, I always believed they would find a goal and win the game. Then, just when we thought we were heading for extra time, came that cross from Ever Banega, and the header from Lucas Ocampos for 1-0.

“Bono has had a difficult year but now he has a lot to win, and little to lose. Saving the penalty will give him lots of confidence for the games to come. There are moments in a competition when you can do something which will be remembered. If Sevilla win this trophy, saving that penalty will go down as a key moment, and Bono will always have that.”

By any rational reckoning, United should be favourites against Sevilla, given the English club’s annual budget is about five times that of the Andalusians’. But Lopetegui’s side go into Sunday’s game unbeaten in 19 games across all competitions, the best run in the club’s entire history. Bono has kept five straight clean sheets. And, well, this is their competition.

“If you stop to think, this could be one of the most important Europa Leagues they have won,” says Palop, who grew increasingly confident of Sevilla’s chances over the course of the phone conversation with The Athletic. “They have knocked out Roma, could beat Manchester United, and then in the final, maybe Inter Milan. That would be something huge for all Sevillismo. Everyone is so excited about that possibility, all the current and former players. We all really love the club, and are connected to it still, hoping they can win the trophy again.”

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