David Raum der kürzlich gegen Armenien debütierte hatte vorher gerade mal 3 BL-Spiele.
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Zur Einstimmung vor den beiden Spielen hier wieder ein exzellenter Aufsatz von Hoenigstein mit Danny Röhl.
Sehr interessant wie er die Situation in der zweiten Saison charakterisiert (Thiago), die FCB Spieler und was bei der NM umgesetzt werden soll.
Exclusive: Germany No 2 Danny Rohl on Southampton, Hansi Flick’s Bayern treble, and getting Timo Werner scoring
[Dan Sheldon and [Raphael Honigstein
Danny Rohl is back in London for the first time since February 2020, in a new job but at the same luxury hotel in the heart of Westminster. “It’s a place of happy memories,” he tells The Athletic. Bayern Munich had a lavish midnight banquet celebration here following their 3-0 win at [Chelsea in the last-16 of the [Champions League at the end of which chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge performed a neat little party trick: he offered caretaker Hansi Flick a permanent contract as a birthday present.
Bayern were then in the middle of a 30-game unbeaten run that culminated in the Champions League final triumph over Paris Saint-Germain in the Estadio da Luz. As Flick’s trusted lieutenant and most important sounding board, Rohl had a huge hand in the win. The 32-year-old, a former video analyst and coach at RB Leipzig and assistant manager at [Southampton oversaw the detailed implementation of a high-pressing game that made Bayern the best side in Europe that season.
When Flick left Bayern to take over from Joachim Low as Germany manager after Euro 2020, his replacement in Berlin, Julian Nagelsmann, was keen on retaining Rohl’s services, but he joined Flick’s mission to turn the national team’s fortunes around. “He helped me grow,” Rohl says of his boss. “He said, ‘OK, you will have the responsibility to work on the pitch’, and this is perfect for me. I want to do my Pro Licence (coaching badge) in the next year, which is a big topic, so I wanted to go with him to the national team.”
Rohl has followed Flick on a visit to London to meet up with Zsolt Low, Thomas Tuchel’s assistant, and watched Chelsea vs [Manchester City and [Arsenal] vs [Tottenham before heading to the French capital to watch Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League game against City.
He laughs off The Athletic’s suggestion that he has gone up in the world since coaching [Shane Long and Charlie Austin at Southampton under Ralph Hasenhuttl during the 2018-19 season. He was highly thought of by the players at St Mary’s and even now, people connected to the club speak glowingly of his coaching ability and general persona. His sudden departure to the Bavarian capital in the summer of 2019 took many by surprise and clearly remains a sensitive subject.
“It’s not an easy topic to speak about,” he tells The Athletic. “When you leave your manager, he isn’t happy. But to have the chance to work for a club like Bayern Munich is one I had to take.
The opportunity to join Bayern in 2019 was too good to turn down and he and Flick have since formed a formidable partnership.
The transition from St Mary’s to the Allianz Arena was one that had Rohl concerned, especially given his age and the calibre of dressing room he was walking into.
“I can remember coming into the room and spoke my first words. At my young age, it was a crazy feeling,” Rohl recalls of his first day in Munich.
“The biggest thing you notice straight away is that in every training session, they want more, more and more. Sometimes, you’ll sit in the locker room at half-time and you’re leading 3-0 and they will still want more.
“At Bayern Munich, you not only have to win the match but also play great football. It’s like gymnastics when you get graded on the technical difficulty and also on the artistic performance.”
The relentlessness of Joshua Kimmich et al was never more apparent than in the [8-2 demolition of Barcelona ), their heaviest defeat in 69 years. A week later, Bayern won their sixth European Cup.
“It was a big dream for everybody,” Rohl says. “You feel in every match that you are stronger and stronger. The confidence goes up and you are convinced you can win the Champions League. [It was crazy to see how the players were very happy to win it. Lewandowski had never won it… at his age (32 at the time), that’s crazy. It was a huge step for all of us. The atmosphere was terrific.”
Things weren’t quite as harmonious the following season, however. Flick and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic didn’t always see eye-to-eye. At times, their disagreements threatened to tear the entire club apart. On the pitch, too, there were problems. Bayern won the Bundesliga more or less uncontested but their susceptibility to counter-attacks saw them concede 44 goals in the league and ultimately cost them the defence of their Champions League title when they were eliminated in the quarter-final by PSG.
Can Rohl explain why 2020-21 couldn’t live up to the previous season?
“We had a lot of matches without a break,” he says. “After the Champions League win, we had two weeks off, then we started again. OK, the first game was an 8-0 win over Schalke and it was great, but then we had some problems with the high back line. It took a bit of time to change something in the players’ minds. We wanted to hold the line and keep the opponent offside, but you can’t do that in the opposition half. That was something we had to adjust. In the second half of the season, it was a little better.”
There was also a perception that Bayern were simply too fatigued to press effectively. Rohl says that is too simplistic: “Pressing high doesn’t mean you have to run more. Normally if you press high, you can win the ball quicker than if you stay deep. I don’t think that was the problem.”
He adds that injuries to key players did play a part (“a lot of players were tired and we didn’t rotate so much. If you take out Kimmich, Lewandowski and (Manuel) Neuer, you have a problem”) and also implies that Bayern could have done with more depth and experience in the squad.
“In our first season, you have 14 players and you can switch [Thiago]and Leon Goretzka. On the wing positions, you have Ivan Perisic and Coutinho, who were good back-ups for Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman. We also had a few young players. Sometimes, young players can have a period when they aren’t so good. That’s normal.”
In April, Flick confirmed that it was his intention to leave Bayern Munich in the summer, two years before his contract was due to expire. After his side beat Wolfsburg 3-2, the 56-year-old told Sky Germany: “I told the team today that I had informed the club that I wanted to get out of my contact at the end of the season.”
The question of where he would go next saw him linked with several clubs across Europe. There were talks with Barcelona and Tottenham also made a move. Flick was tempted to try his hand at another club but in the end, the lure of the national team proved too strong: it was a chance to work with seven Bayern players (Neuer, Niklas Sule, Kimmich, Goretzka, Jamal Musiala, Leroy Sane and Gnabry) again but in the far less politically charged environs of the German FA. “The life-work balance is calmer,” Rohl says. “We have a good relationship with (technical director) Oliver Bierhoff. It makes it easier for Hansi to work and he is really enjoying it.”
The feeling inside the squad is obviously mutual. [Flick was already very popular with the national team players when he helped Germany win the World Cup as Low’s assistant in 2014. His successful spell at Bayern has only deepened their respect for him.
“He likes to communicate with the players and that was, besides his tactical abilities, key in Munich,” Rohl says. “He had a good relationship with all the players. On this level, you don’t just need good tactics, you also need a good relationship with the players.”
Psychology aside, the tactical rebuilding job for Germany bears some resemblance to the one he was tasked with at Bayern. Under Niko Kovac, the German champions had played a hesitant, defensive style that did not fit the characteristics of the side. The same was true of Germany in Low’s twilight years. Looking back at the European Championship, the German FA’s analysts believed that the team had lost its attacking identity amid the manager’s experimentations with formations, strategy and personnel.
“Germany were a little bit of this, and a little bit of that,” Rohl says. “The data showed they weren’t bad, but not good enough to be top. Our goal is for Germany to stand for a certain type of football again.”
“Joachim Low did a fantastic job in the past, but after so long you need something new,” he adds. “Now you feel like it’s a new beginning. We brought a lot of new coaches into the team, which breaks the ice. We are all hungry for a new chapter.”
That hunger was very much apparent in two of the three World Cup qualifiers that Germany won last month. After a lacklustre opener against Liechtenstein (2-0), Flick’s side went rampant, scoring 10 more times against Armenia (6-0) and Iceland (4-0) and keeping three clean sheets. Tougher tests will come but the way the team had played, with high tempo and aggressive pressing, felt like an important marker.
“It was a good start and an important one because everybody is looking to us wanting to see a turnaround,” Rohl says. “The opinion on the national team was not so great. Hansi is an empathetic manager and I hope he can bring people together and the public will stay behind us.”
Flick and Rohl’s plan is a simple one: have Germany play the same way Bayern did during their two years in Munich. There are, perhaps, two slight drawbacks. Lewandowski plays for Poland and they can only meet up with their players for a few days a month.
“We know we don’t have as many matches and training sessions,” Rohl says. “This is a new situation. The first few matches were great and you see immediately there was an improvement and the team were very open-minded for the new style of football.
“It’s good to have a spine with four or five players and then you can improve the other players immediately. The five players know what you want.”
And what about Lewandowski?
“He is an unbelievable player, but now we have to find a new solution for this position,” he explains. “We have other forwards, like [Timo Werner, who can also be a good striker. He needs self-confidence and I hope we can build this up in the national team. We can create an atmosphere for him. The first bit of feedback from him was great.” Werner scored three goals in the last international break, taking his tally for Germany to 19 from 45 games.
Due to their limited time with the players, video analysis and communication will form a central part of their plans to get Germany “back to the top”.
At Southampton, the players were blown away by Rohl’s eye for detail and it didn’t surprise them that he proved to be successful in Munich.
The duo’s first week with the Germany squad started with four video meetings, taking in clips from Bayern’s all-conquering campaign: “We showed them what we want and our principles. It was easy to bring them together in a playbook. We showed them what we expect after winning the ball, losing the ball, building up and against the ball. There were a lot of clips.”
“The players were convinced with our style from Munich and when you win titles, it’s easier to say ‘we want to play this style of football’. The combination between other managers in Germany, Nagelsmann and (Borussia Dortmund boss) Marco Rose, also helps, as they all play a similar style of football.”
Maybe some of the detail is different, but that’s easy. We can bring the players together and tell them it’s only small things we want to do differently. The big stuff is nearly the same.
“It’s a target for us (the coaching team) to have more contact with the players between international breaks. After the matches in November, you have no (training) time or matches until March and it’s important to work with them through video analysis.
“For our philosophy, we have to do it. The players go back to this club, this club and this club and have different coaches. Every coach will want to have something different and then they come to the national team and we need to bring it all together.
“At this level, you have players with a lot of quality. Sometimes, it’s enough to show them a video and they understand immediately. At Southampton, for example, you will need to train on the pitch. It takes more time.”
Between November and March, when the German national team will not meet, the tactical education will continue with the help of video clips from the players’ club matches. But the analysts will be careful to take local context into account.
“We may want our full-backs to attack and go forward, but maybe their club coach will tell them to sit back. It can be difficult,” Rohl says. “You can’t say to the players, ‘You can’t do this and this’. What they do at the club is not our decision or our focus. We can only tell them what to do in the national team.”
The expectation is that Germany will breeze through their World Cup qualifying group, which consists of Armenia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia and Romania. After six games, they are top of Group J with five wins from six games.
“We want to see an improvement over the next year and we have the Nations League in June,” Rohl says. “Then we will see how it works against bigger teams. We can then say we are at this point, but need to improve this and this.”
For the moment, though, “it’s more fun than pressure”.
“I like this,” he says. “The pressure at Southampton, from the beginning, felt bigger because you know that the whole club hoped you would keep them in the league.”
In England, Rohl used to switch off from the day-to-day demands of working at a [Premier League side by jogging with Hasenhuttl in the afternoon around Marchwood, where the club’s training ground is located. The pair would discuss training, the upcoming match and deliberate the starting XI they would pick.
Rohl is yet to convince his current boss to go for a jog. “He said he ran enough as a player,” he laughs. It’s OK though — instead, it’s their job to get Germany moving again.
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Guter Aufsatz von Constantin Eckner
Wusste garnicht das er a) English schreiben kann und b) für die BBC schreibt
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Nur kurz meine Meinung zum Spiel: ja, da weht ein neuer Wind. Der Flick-Fußball ist deutlich erkennbar, mit allen Stärken und auch Schwächen. Es ist ein Wille erkennbar, schnell und vertikal zu spielen, was teils ja auch in Toren mündete. Die Genauigkeit der Pässe ließ aber oft etwas zu wünschen übrig. Die Anfälligkeit gegenüber Kontern besteht aber dabei nach wie vor bedingt durch das hohe Pressing. Es ist auf jeden Fall deutlich attraktiver anzusehen als die letzten Spiele unter Jogi Löw. Inwiefern das dann gegen richtig abgezockte und gute Mannschaften funktioniert - wir werden sehen.
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Man muss aus heutiger Sicht wohl sagen, dass einige Spieler bei Löw seit ca. 2016 nicht mehr so ganz „bei der Sache“ waren. Selbst das schwere Spiel gegen die Rumänen war um Klassen besser, als das meiste von 2016 - 2020. Da haben wir eine große Mogelpackung erlebt.
Wo und warum hat Löw seine Spieler verloren? War es die legendäre Ausmusterung von Müller, Hummels und Boa, die Dreierkette, oder das Außerkraftsetzen des Leistungsprinzips in einigen Fällen?
Mit der Spielweise kassieren wir aber gegen gute Gegner 3-4 Tore pro Spiel.
Gut möglich. Allerdings waren wir unter Löw gegen Gute Gegner auch meist 2. Sieger (Abstieg Nations League, knappe Niederlagen gegen Spanien und Frankreich…)
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Ein schöner Artikel in der SZ.
Besonders treffend dieser Passus.
Der deutsche Fußball hat das nicht geplant, aber er hat jetzt zwei Trainer am rechten Fleck. Auf die Heynckes-Art hätte Flick vermutlich eine Ära beim FC Bayern prägen können, aber sein Ansatz „so viel Pragmatik wie möglich, so viel Finesse wie nötig“ passt noch besser zum Profil eines Turniertrainers, der klare und effiziente Entscheidungen treffen muss. Derweil kann Nagelsmann die von Flick auf klassische Art wiederbelebten Bayern-Spieler taktisch weiterbilden und zum Beispiel kreative Positionen für Leroy Sané erfinden. Man kann sich das wie in der Autoindustrie vorstellen: Für die modernen E-Antriebe braucht es die Ideen einer neuen Ingenieurs-Generation, aber immer auf der Basis des altbewährten Wissens.
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Eine schöne These.
Wollen wir hoffen, dass der Autor in jeder Hinsicht Recht behält.
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Röhl
„Unsere Leitbegriffe sind Tempo, Intensität und Aktivität. In München standen wir für eine Idee mit hohem Pressing, mit zielstrebigem Spiel zum Tor, wann immer es möglich ist. Wir fordern von unseren Spielern den Mut und die Risikobereitschaft, den Ball in die Spitze zu legen an Stelle von Quer- und Sicherheitspässen. Wir wollen aktiv mit dem Ball sein, das heißt: Nicht allein der Spieler am Ball ist aktiv, sondern auch die Mitspieler sind es, indem sie sich entsprechend anbieten und freilaufen, etwa im Rücken des Gegners, um neue Räume zu schaffen.“
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Bilanz Flick 6 Spiele
18:0 Punkte
27:1 Tore
Und die Gegner waren alle auf dem Niveau von Frankreich, England und Co
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Also gegen England Italien Ungarn in der Nations League
Gute Testspiele für die WM
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Dann ist diese bekloppte Nations League wenigstens zu etwas gut.
Ab 2024 dann mit allen 10 südamerikanischen Nationalmannschaften
Puh, hört das denn nie auf?
Mehr Wettbewerbe, aufgeblähte Wettbewerbe, seltsame Wettbewerbe?
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Ja zzt scheint es einige Initiativen der UEFA zu geben sich mit Conbemol enger zu verzahnen.
Gegen die Europäer und Südamerikaner kann die FIFA schlecht anstinken.
Wenn das dazu führt das es weniger Spiele gegen niedrigklassige Teams und dafür mehr auf top Niveau gibt ist es ja ok.
Die Anzahl an merkwürdigen Quali Spielen muss natürlich verringert werden.
Hmm, die Conmebol wäre dafür aber den denkbar schlechteste Stichwortgeber:
Mit der Zehnergruppe haben die ja die Zahl der Quali-Spiele extrem aufgebläht. Früher hatten die mehrere Dreier- bis Fünfergruppen.
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Also ich schaue mir NL Spiele grundsätzlich nicht an. Wenn das jede/r so halten würde, wäre der Spuk bald vorbei
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Kimmich ist zum Nationalspieler des Jahres gewählt wurden.
Glückwunsch Josh. 
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