Julian nagelsmann women what to expect from jose mourinho. "He is ripped off in all areas.
He does certain things in the coaching zone with calculus," said the RB leipzig coach ahead of the champions league round of 16 first leg at tottenham hotspur. If the portuguese’s infamous mind games come to pass, nagelsmann plans to play on wednesday (21.00 a.M./DAZN) hold his own – until the referee intervenes. "Then we both sit on the tribune and eat a sausage sandwich," said the 32-year-old with a grin.
In a way, nagelsmann is fascinated by mourinho. "He has an aura that can captivate you. I am very much looking forward to meeting him someday.During his time at hoffenheim, the saxony coach was even nicknamed "baby mourinho" by tim wiese. That was meant quite positively. But the comparisons are lame. "I don’t think our philosophies are identical," said nagelsmann, who demanded a "certain degree of craziness" from his team on wednesday. For mourinho it will be the 59th. K.O.-be game, for him the first.
Here the actually always good-humored leader of the leipzig tempofubballer, who likes to intoxicate himself with his own offensive spectacle. There, the chief cynic from portugal, whose style of play in recent years has often been confined to the destructive, is still in charge of the project. And on winning titles.
While nagelsmann’s statistics include the championship with hoffenheim’s u19s, mourinho alone has already won the champions league twice with different clubs. In addition, there will be a total of eight championships in portugal, spain, england and italy. In short, the man no longer has anything to prove to anyone.
Nevertheless, a wave of euphoria did not exactly take hold of the spurs fans when the 57-year-old succeeded mauricio pochettino in mid november. After a bit of a slump, however, tottenham has turned the corner and has gone seven games without defeat across all competitions. And that without the injured sturmer star harry kane, who will also be missing in both games against leipzig. "We had our difficulties without harry, but we have now found a way to play well without him and to score goals," said mourinho after the 3:2 at aston villa. The outstanding goalkeeper, former bundesliga professional heung-min son, will be absent on wednesday – he broke his arm during the game.
Leipzig also not at its best in what is probably the world’s most modern soccer stadium. While spurs are short in attack, nagelsmann is running out of defenders. With willi orban and ibrahima konate missing for long periods anyway and dayot upamecano serving a yellow suspension, the 32-year-old will have to make up a defensive line without a central defender.
Because the stage is still too rough for ethan ampadu, an emergency solution with national players lukas klostermann and marcel halstenberg as the central building blocks of a back four was the most sensible option. A decision is not expected to be made until wednesday morning. "It’s also about my gut feeling," said the coach. In principle, he wanted to offer personnel with whom various basic arrangements were possible.
However, what has caused RB the greatest concern is that tottenham have now adopted the mourinho style of football. The spurs do not play particularly already, have only in exceptional cases more ball possession than the opponent, but win in the end. This pragmatism, which puts victories above everything else, also gives the previous year’s finalist hope in the royal class. "I’m in good spirits. Our coach has been in this situation many times and his experience will help the players," said former international and tottenham defender ledley king. Nevertheless, leipzig will be a difficult task.
Mourinho, whose new, extremely short haircut was the talk of the town, had a personal impression of leipzig’s quality during the 0-0 draw in munich. "That’s a good sign that a start coach like him does that himself. He has his feet on the ground," said nagelsmann. He was curious to see which face of mourinho he would meet.