How the Union’s Ernst Tanner helped launch Germany’s soccer coaching phenom

Long before Julian Nagelsmann became one of the most famous managers in the soccer world, he dreamed of being a player.

From his childhood home in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, he traveled across the state of Bavaria to the youth academies of Augsburg and 1860 Munich. In the early 2000s, the latter club’s academy director became impressed by the teenage prospect.

It turned out that like most teens who never become known, Nagelsmann wasn’t a great player. A few injuries along the way didn’t help. But since 1860 Munich has offered coaching license courses for all of its prospects, he was able to find another pathway into the game.

Over the next 21 years, Nagelsmann would rise from Augsburg scout to 1860 youth assistant, then to a range of assistant jobs at Hoffenheim, then to Hoffenheim’s top job in 2016. Three seasons later, RB Leipzig hired him, and he did so well there that in 2021, Germany’s most famous club came calling: Bayern Munich.

Now he has his country’s only job that’s even bigger: leading Germany’s national team into hosting next year’s European Championship.

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It’s a remarkable rise for a guy who’s just 36, younger than some of the players he’s coached. And right now, Nagelsmann is having a remarkable full-circle moment. His second game in charge of Germany, Tuesday vs. Mexico at Lincoln Financial Field (8 p.m., UniMás, TUDN, Fox Deportes), will be played just up the road from the guy who helped launch his career.

That 1860 Munich academy director, it just so happens, was Ernst Tanner. And the guy who brought Nagelsmann to Hoffenheim’s coaching staff in 2010, when he was the club’s director of football, was also Ernst Tanner.

And the guy now in charge of Philadelphia’s team, whose most famous alumnus played for the U.S. vs. Germany on Saturday, is … well, it was no coincidence that Germany held its Sunday workout session at the Union’s practice facility.

“He was always supporting me as a really young coach, pushed me to be a better coach, pushed me to work hard,” Nagelsmann said. “He’s a great guy, I had great experiences with him, great success — and I heard that he’s doing a brilliant job in Philadelphia. So I’m happy to see him again.”

Tanner could tell early on that Nagelsmann had coaching potential.

“It was pretty clear that his body was probably not suited for professional football, but it was always clear that his mind was,” Tanner told The Inquirer. “He always had a very strategic way of how he sees the game.”

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Nagelsmann got some hints, too, and he told a great tale about one of them. He recalled a training session with 1860 Munich’s under-19 squad, where he played from 2004-06. Amid a set piece drill, Tanner came on the field to do some coaching even though he wasn’t a coach.

“He came out on the pitch and said … ‘I’ll show you how to defend set pieces,’ ” Nagelsmann said. “I was his opponent, and he hit me with his elbow. Bloody nose.”

Upon returning inside, Tanner shouted at Nagelsmann: “So you know how to defend set pieces!”

It was, Nagelsmann said with a laugh, “a bad story which I remember. But there are also really good stories.”

Tanner was one of the earliest proponents of the counter-pressing tactical system — gegenpressing in German — that the Union and countless other clubs now use. Nagelsmann has deployed it for most of his career, too, helping the Red Bull empire that owns Leipzig, MLS’s New York Red Bulls, and other clubs take the playbook worldwide.

Then as now, the system was designed as a weapon against wealthier, more star-studded opponents. But when Tanner joined Hoffenheim in 2009, it was still fairly new. As Tanner praised Nagelsmann’s interest in learning the system, he praised Helmut Gross — “the mentor of all of us” — and Red Bulls veteran Ralf Ragnick for being gegenpressing’s true pioneers in the 1980s.

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“Everybody was curious how the methodology behind it was working out,” Tanner said. “[Nagelsmann] was eager to come and to experience something new. … When the staff was moving from Hoffenheim to [Red Bull] Salzburg and Leipzig, they brought it there.”

So what happens when you take the underdog’s tactics to the big dog’s bench? Nagelsmann won the 2022 Bundesliga title and the ‘22 and ‘23 German Cups, but was controversially fired in late March when Bayern briefly fell out of first place. Such are the standards in Bayern’s board room, never mind the team’s lack of a marquee striker at the time.

Then again, maybe do mind it. That board room’s politics are as famous as its trophy cabinet, full of ex-players with big egos.

“Bayern Munich is a very difficult club, in particular if you want to change things,” Tanner said, and that’s not just his opinion. “And if you have guys who don’t buy into that system, then you’re having issues. But even so, I think that the dismissal of Julian at Bayern Munich was not really well thought through.”

» READ MORE: It looks like Alejandro Bedoya and Kai Wagner’s times are up with the Union

Tanner couldn’t help noting with a bit of relish that two months after firing Naglesmann, Bayern threw out CEO Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić — prime examples of those famous alumni in power.

“And they’re still struggling a little bit,” Tanner said of Bayern sitting third in the standings seven games in. “So that tells you that the job Julian did was not necessarily a bad one.”

It remains to be seen whether the complexities of the gegenpressing playbook can be installed in a national team, since national coaches have far less time to work with players than club coaches do. But Tanner is looking forward to finding out.

“It’s very relaxed for me, different than other games in Philadelphia I go to watch,” he said with a hearty laugh. “Of course, I will root for the Germans, as I’m German, but I’m not that emotional anymore. But I certainly wish Julian all the best for that game.”

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Over 55,000 tickets have been sold for Mexico-Germany, organizers said Monday. Add that to the Phillies and Flyers attendances, and the combined crowd across the Sports Complex should exceed 120,000.

SEPTA’s Broad Street subway line will be free of charge for all riders starting at 5 p.m., with extra express trains running from Center City. There will also be expanded late-night service on some Regional Rail lines. And there will be discounted parking at many Center City garages to encourage fans to take the subway from there.

» READ MORE: Free street parking, SEPTA rides planned Tuesday for a big sports night in South Philly