An unresolved confrontation between Nagelsmann and Tokul
The student challenges the teacher to the Paris Saint-Germain and Leipzig meeting
Paris Saint-Germain coach Thomas Tuchel leads his team with a foot injured. EPA
Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann. Father
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The German match between Leipzig and Paris Saint-Germain, which is taking place today in the semi-finals of the European Champions League football, has a special flavor, because it brings together student Julian Nagelsmann and teacher Thomas Tuchl, who was behind the beginning of the first in the world of training 12 years ago.
After beating two coaches in the previous two rounds by eliminating Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho (the 2010 champion with Inter Milan), his English team and the 2019 runners-up Tottenham by winning back and forth, then Argentine Diego Simeone, who reached the final in 2014 and 2016 with Atletico Madrid, puts Nagelsmann His eyes set out to enter history from the widest of its doors at the expense of his compatriot Tuchel and Paris Saint-Germain.
When the 33-year-old faced Simeone in the quarter-finals of the mini-tournament imposed by the new Corona virus, many believed that Leipzig's achievement would stop at this point, especially as he faces an experienced team and a seasoned coach, but the team that was playing in the Provincial League when it was founded in 2009, continued He crawled toppled Atletico by beating them 2-1 in Lisbon.
Thanks to this qualification, Nagelsmann became the youngest coach to reach the semi-finals of the continental championship, and now he is one game away from leading Leipzig to the final in his second Champions League participation, after the 2017-2018 season, when his campaign ended in the first round.
The next hurdle awaiting Nagelsmann and Leipzig is the French capital club, which finally managed to break its contract with the Champions League, and reached the semi-finals for only the second time in its history after 1995, hoping to become only the second French club to win the title after Marseille in 1993.
It was a coincidence that Nagelsmann faced in the last four with the coach who was behind his training beginnings 12 years ago, when he was coach of the reserve team for Augsburg in 2008.
“Sure, I was his player, but that was many years ago,” Nagelsmann commented on his confrontation with Tuchel. right Now. I am like him, ”referring to his meeting with his former coach,“ The matches against Thomas are always interesting because he has a very good idea of how to play football. ”
"I hope I will also succeed in finding the necessary ideas against him so that Shabani can perform the way they played against Atletico," he said. I played against him many times as a coach, but I hardly beat him. Hope that changes now. I will be satisfied if we do well. ” Nagelsmann stressed the need "to give our best performance in order to reach the final."
Friendly exchange is just a manifestation
Nagelsmann was forced to retire at the age of 20 years due to a knee injury, while he was occupying a position before defense in the reserve team for Augsburg, so he asked him to take over the scouting for the benefit of the team.
Tuchel then moved to coach Mainz and Dortmund, with whom he won the German Cup in 2017, before joining Paris Saint-Germain in 2018, and leading the latter to win the league two seasons in a row.
At this time, Nagelsmann was gaining experience by coaching youth teams in Augsburg, Munich 1860 and Hoffenheim who became his first team coach in February 2016.
When Nagelsmann took over the task that was supposed to be entrusted to him (had it not been for Stevens' health) at the start of the 2016-2017 season, according to the contract that made him, at the age of 28, the youngest coach in German league history, Hoffenheim was in the 17th position before the last, but he succeeded at the end of the season By keeping him in the limelight, what contributed to his winning the Coach of the Year award.
Now, after more than a decade of their spell together in the reserve team for Augsburg, Nagelsmann will have a date with history for their two teams aspiring to be in the final scheduled for next Sunday, which will bring them together with the winner from another German-French confrontation between Bayern Munich and Lyon. Nevertheless, Nagelsmann insists that any friendly exchange with Toukhal before kick-off will be mere appearances, because "this is what the media would like to see, except that it does not exist in the real world of football."
Tookel was behind Nagelsmann entering the world of training 12 years ago.