Football – Sandro Wagner at FC Augsburg: The gray mouse and the star

Sandro Wagner trains FC Augsburg. It is a bit like Xabi Alonso coach from Bayer Leverkusen – just one step below. Alonso won several Champions League titles in his career, twice the European Championship and is world champion. Wagner cannot keep up. And yet the former striker of FC Bayern and the German national team brings a radiance to Augsburg, which they have not yet experienced in the club.

As a player, Wagner liked to notify by striking statements, was considered a so -called “real type”. Although he only made his breakthrough late, at the age of 28, he established himself as a regular in the Bundesliga, led him to the German national team. “As a professional, I got the maximum out of my skills,” said the Munich native of the Podcast “PhraseMäher” and announced: “I am convinced that I will be more successful as a coach.”

Wagner has prepared

The 37-year-old clever positioned himself for this. First gain half a year in youth work at the DFB and then in Unterhaching before taking over the coaching position of the first team at SpVgg. At the same time, he completed his coaching licenses and won as a TV expert, first at the streaming broadcaster “DAZN” and then at the “ZDF”, many sympathy of the television audience-just like Jürgen Klopp, probably the largest German coach in recent past. An example of trying to follow the young coach. Wagner went back to the DFB with the regional league championship in their luggage-and, as a co-trainer of Julian Nagelsmann, has been one of the faces of the most popular German national soccer team since 2014.

The logical episode? Offers from the Bundesliga. “I have also rejected some inquiries in the past year and a half,” Wagner revealed in the “phrase mower”. At first glance, the promise for the FCA seems all the more surprising. The gray mouse of the Bundesliga, which has always stood for a good defensive in recent years, remained offensive but unspectacular, was never dangerous enough for Europe, but was always too stable to get off – and frankly no one really interested anyone outside of Fuggerstadt. On the other hand, Augsburg also offers a good breeding ground for a first coaching station in the upper house, without the very big media pressure that would have existed in Bremen, Hamburg or Cologne.

The looks hike to Augsburg

For the FCA, the employment of Wagner is actually the greater risk. With predecessor Jess Thorup, the team was never in danger of getting off. Possibly, no, probably a reason for the coach’s commitment, who has no experience as head coach except for a season in the fourth division, is also the glamor factor of Sandro Wagner. “Nobody is bigger than the club, but of course it’s nice if we have people with radiance,” said Managing Director Michael Ströll when he presented his new coach.

And indeed: No FCA press conference was as well attended last season as the Wagner’s Intunit PK. After the successful Bundesliga start, the 3-1 win at SC Freiburg, no journalist really seemed to be interested in the coach of the year, Freiburg Julian Schuster. No, everyone wanted to know how Mr. Wagner experienced his debut.

He preferred to focus on his team: “In a circle with the players after the final whistle, I couldn’t think of anything better, except ‘thank you’,” he said. And the players were happy to give back the praise: “He is simply very good human,” said offensive man Elias Saad after the game. Goal scorer Marius Wolf added: »Sandro is a very good trainer. We have worked a lot since day one, created basics in the first few weeks and are now on the details. We are still at the beginning, but we’ll get better every day. “

The master comes on Saturday

The second game is now against the big FC Bayern: the industry leader and the club in which Wagner spent his youth and became German champion twice at the end of his career. For Wagner, however, it is nothing special: “It sounds stupid, but Bavaria will be a normal Bundesliga game for us.”

There is currently a lot going on at the record champions. There are public debates between sports director Max Eberl, who would like to buy new players, and honorary president Uli Hoeneß, who only allowed borrowing and can enforce this, even though he is actually no longer a leadership position. Players like Harry Kane criticize the lack of squad width and fans look exactly whether the young talents also come to missions. For all of this, the team gambled away in the trophy at third division team Wiesbaden almost a 2-0 lead. Only with a late goal from Harry Kane could they avert the extension. The first question for coach Vincent Kompany at the press conference on Friday before the game in Augsburg was logically: “What do you think of Sandro Wagner?”