Julian Nagelsmann

Julian Nagelsmann’s biography reads like a tactics textbook turned into a CV. Forced to retire as a player at 20 after meniscus problems at FC Augsburg, he moved into Hoffenheim’s youth setup in 2010 and was inside the Bundesliga first-team dressing room as head coach by February 2016, aged 28 — still the youngest manager appointed in the league’s history. The “Mini-Mourinho” nickname stuck, fairly or not.

The Hoffenheim era (full first-team charge 2016-2019) saw him deliver back-to-back top-four finishes and Champions League qualification at a club whose budget was a fraction of Germany’s elite. RB Leipzig from 2019 produced a Champions League semi-final in the 2020 pandemic mini-tournament in Lisbon and a DFB-Pokal final. Bayern Munich came calling in 2021 with a record €25m compensation fee — still the highest transfer fee ever paid for a manager — and Nagelsmann won the Bundesliga title in year one before a deteriorating dressing-room situation got him sacked in March 2023.

Germany hired him in September 2023 after Hansi Flick’s removal, and the project was always going to be a build to USA 2026 rather than a quick fix. Euro 2024 produced a credible quarter-final on home soil — losing to eventual champions Spain in extra time on a controversial non-handball call — and qualifying for the World Cup went smoothly. The tactical signature has remained constant: a 4-2-3-1 with Joshua Kimmich as an inverted right-back, two No. 10s (Wirtz and Musiala) interchanging between the lines, and aggressive counter-pressing on lost possession.

At 38, Nagelsmann is the third-youngest manager at the tournament. The pressure is also the highest of any in Group E: anything short of a semi-final will be debated in the German press as a missed opportunity for a generation that includes Wirtz, Musiala, Pacho’s compatriots in defence, and a rejuvenated Manuel Neuer. The June 25 game in New Jersey against Ecuador could end up being the most important match of his career to date.