Nagelsmann: "I know what I owe to the team"

Julian, a direct question straight off the bat: what are your expectations for this season from a purely personal perspective?

"That is not easy to define when you've been so successful in the previous two seasons. All of us at the club are very ambitious and have much we want to achieve. That is also attested to by the impressions made during pre-season and the boys' attitude. Those who know me know that I am always striving for ever more demanding targets. But it won't be much higher than last season in the league. We will give everything to be as successful as we have been."

How will you deal with the challenge of contesting the Bundesliga, DFB Cup and Champions League simultaneously? Did you learn much from participating in the Europa League last season in this regard?

"It was certainly helpful. However, the reason we weren't successful in the Europa League last year wasn't due to the fact we were competing in three separate competitions at the same time, but rather to the many chances on goal we passed up. During pre-season, we put the boys through their paces on Tuesdays and Wednesdays alternately in order to simulate the workload of Champions League participation. And we are not planning to rotate so much this season. We want to try and get the first 16 players through all three competitions. Although we have a balanced squad, we do not have 25 players who are as good as each other. We rotated too much last year, and maybe were a little bit too scared of the workload."

"When one player is better than another, then he will of course play"

Less rotation also means that fewer players will get to play. Do you need to be harder here as a manager?

"With a larger squad you do of course have a lot of decisions to make. There has to be a starting eleven, but the players know that too. I don't have any problem with that since the players know that my selection of one player doesn't mean that I have a preference for that player over another. I make such decisions in the interest of the group based on performance. When one player is better than another, then he will of course play."

Lots of players say that the Champions League stirs the strongest of emotions. What does the competition mean to you?

"It is of course the most important club competition. You can't reach anything higher, especially when you're such a small club like Hoffenheim. We'll have to see who we get in the draw. We're in pot four, and are a real underdog. We could get some real planks as opponents. That would be fantastic. I can imagine that it'll be funny when Hoffenheim are drawn and everybody wonders who we are and where we play. We're looking forward to that." 

Will your style of play change much this season? Do the departures of Serge Gnabry and Mark Uth mean that there will need to be more shots on goal from distance?

"We won't radically alter the way we play. We purchased to that end, for example, midfield players who are a goal threat in Vincenzo Grifo and Leonardo Bittencourt. We were also a real threat on goal from other positions last year, but didn't score too many goals. We've done well to turn everybody into a goal threat during pre-season. We need to deal with the problem that many teams will drop deep against us. To do so will require efforts on goal from distance. That is our project."

Under your management, a number of players have improved and their market value has risen significantly, from which the club continuously profits. Have you given thought to such things?

"I often speak about that with Alex (Sporting Director Alexander Rosen). It is my job to improve players, but you must first find players with potential in order to generate market value. We do that together. I believe we've done well in recent years with how we've put squads together. Alex is good at getting in players for a good price. In that way, high market values are generated that are very valuable for the club. Lots of people are of course talking about the €15 million that we'll earn from the Champions League, and we can also sell players during every transfer window for €80 million to €90 million. We got Kevin Vogt for a very reasonable price as measured against present day fees, and we could sell him for 10 to 12 times as much now. It's often extraordinary. Benjamin Hübner and Andrej Kramaric are further examples."

Dennis Geiger is such a player that was well trained and who then started the whole year through. Do you think there'll be another player this year who'll make a similarly dramatic leap forward?

"David Otto, who was already training with us last year, has improved by five or six classes. He had to complete his high school leaving certificate last year while playing in the U19s, and he trained with the senior team. He was physically exhausted by the end and he wasn't good in the semi-final matches against Schalke for the German Championship. Now he is completely fresh, and I am quite certain as a result that he will be able to make his next step forward in the league. Furthermore, we have other young players like Robin Hack and Justin Hoogma. But whether one of them will continuously start as Dennis did is something no one can predict with certainty. For Dennis, it was like this: in the youth teams he was always the best and all a coach has to do is approach him in the right way. That wasn't always easy in his case, though."

"Nico Schulz is a candidate for the DFB eleven"

Who could be the next national team player from TSG?

(Laughs) "Good question. Kevin Vogt could certainly play in the position in which he plays for us at national team level. Nico Schulz is, in my opinion, undoubtedly a candidate for the DFB eleven. It certainly wouldn't have been preposterous if he had gone to the World Cup."

The team is the star. That saying was formulated by German national team manager Berti Vogts prior to the European Championship win in 1996. In Hoffenheim, people have come to regard Julian Nagelsmann as the star. Do you think that's a problem?

"In recent years, our sporting performance has been personalised massively. The club's and the whole team's successes became Julian Nagelsmann's successes in the public realm for a year and a half. But last season during the crisis, all of the negatives were projected onto my person, something which was ultimately positive for the team. When you weigh everything up, then it was balanced overall. While I had overly critical judgements placed on me, I had already received too much gushing praise. This one-sided coverage is not good though, because I know what I owe to the team."

Do you ever address such issues with your team? 

"I already know what I and my training staff have in our possession. But it's true, the team receives too little praise in public time and again. They have been trying to satisfy a demanding trainer for two years, they always put in a shift in training, never mope about and are certain to demonstrate great power and quality on the training pitch. The team could also say 'Everything he wants with his thousands of rules is just too exhausting for us, he should do his own thing.' But they always go along with it mercilessly. I often talk with the team about the fact that they get too short shrift in the media, and that it isn't right. But the players are able to judge all that correctly for themselves. Nobody suffers terribly from neurosis or something and is completely unable to understand what's going on. I'm not doing this alone, I have an entire club behind me and everybody has his share in our successes, and also in those periods when everything isn't going so well."

"I have to demonstrate this attitude as the manager"

We repeatedly see that you have an incredible amount of fun with football during training. You also like to play all the time. Are you still itching to play?

"Yeah, I've already said that I'll pick myself at some point (laughs). Perhaps it's to do with my age. But I also find that if you wish to convey a sense of vitality and a good attitude towards our sport and that the boys always push themselves to their limits, then you need to have fun yourself in this sport. When I muck around a bit with the boys before and after training, I want the players to see that this sport gives me great pleasure. When I demand of them that they 'Radiate joy', or 'Give the fans something, push yourselves to your limits', then I have to demonstrate this attitude as the manager."

Is being a football manager your dream job?

"Yes, I always wanted to be a professional myself, that's no secret. Then I would have experienced everything from the other side. But when I reflect on how everything panned out, then I don't suppose there are many jobs that are more interesting than being a football manager. I found it great being a player. But as a coach, maybe it's more wide-ranging. You have to prepare every training session and evaluate it afterwards, and you're always in discussion. You're always under scrutiny as a manager. As a player, as part of a large group, you are often able to hide. But as the manager, every step, every word and your entire body language are being assessed, both by the team and lots of other people. It is certainly a demanding job with a steady rhythm of one match per week and soon two. Being a manager is very taxing, but also an incredible job that I wouldn't change for anything."

Key words 'dream' and 'job': do you also dream about football? 

"On occasion, yes, and after matches very often. My wife says that I shout out loud at night. I don't know everything, I can't recall my dreams completely. But I know that I don't just dream about any game, only our matches."