Coming good

Grödig was my last chance. My opinion is that, if I had been sacked from that job, my career as a coach would have been finished.

When I arrived at Grödig in the summer of 2012, in the Austrian second division, it was only my third job as a head coach. The first had been with the Red Bull Salzburg second team, in the same division. I had been prepared, yes, but not 100 per cent prepared. At that time, my structure as a coach was not perfect – but I learned a lot, which helped me for the jobs to come.

My second year as a head coach was with Rheindorf Altach. This was my home village. I was born there, and played there, but when I went back there in 2009 the team had just been relegated from the Austrian first division. They wanted to get promoted back up, of course, and in the first year – after changing as many as 20 players – we did a really good job to finish third, only three points off the top.

The club wanted more, though, and after finishing second in my second year – one point off promotion – they sacked me with eight games of the following season left. We were second again, three points behind the leaders. I was shocked, and it was hard, but I had to understand that this experience, again, would help me.

The goal, when we arrived in Grödig, was to finish in the top five. But I thought we could do better. Along with the sporting director, we released about 10 players and brought another nine in. These were players with character, who we thought could play in my system.

At the start of the season, my ex-club, Altach, were the favourites for promotion. At the end of the season, Grödig were champions, with 75 points – 10 better than Altach in second. That meant promotion to the Austrian Bundesliga.

Going into the top league, we had a budget of €3.5m – but I needed to change the team. We had played a possession style of football in the second division, but I wanted to have more of a plan against the ball – and for that I needed faster, more dynamic players. One of the players we changed was David Witteveen, who had been our top scorer the previous season, with 17 goals.

"football is entertainment. crowds come to stadiums to see inspiring football"

We brought in young, quick, hungry players from the second and even third leagues, and it was fantastic. After 28 games of the 2013/14 season, we were second in the table, behind only Red Bull Salzburg – and everybody loved our style of football.

We had some big defeats; we lost 6-0 away at Red Bull Salzburg and at home to Sturm Graz. But we also did the league double over Austria Vienna, who were the defending champions that season, and won away at Rapid Vienna and Sturm Graz. We finished the season third – and then came the offer from Red Bull Salzburg.

Roger Schmidt had left for Bayer Leverkusen, so the club needed to find a new head coach. Grödig is not far from Salzburg, so they saw lots of our games and said they wanted me as their coach.

Ralf Rangnick was the sporting director at that time, and I liked the style of football they played. Football is entertainment; crowds come to stadiums to see inspiring football, and what is that? It is playing forward, and doing it quickly – and for that you need quick players. When you watch the Premier League now, there are so many quick players. Every player is fit, quick, tough, physical.

This was the way with Red Bull Salzburg. They bought and developed young players for the first team, and then sold them for really good transfer fees. Over the years they have produced some top players, including Erling Haaland (above). In my time there, we sold Sadio Mané to Southampton and Kevin Kampl to Borussia Dortmund.

But there were always players coming through in the second row, can we say, and at that time Marcel Sabitzer was one of those. We took him from Rapid Vienna – he had signed for RB Leipzig but was loaned to us – when he was just 20. It was a big step for him, but he developed really well and scored 27 goals for us in all competitions that season. Of course, he went on to play for Bayern Munich and Manchester United as well as Leipzig.

"young boys were a sleeping giant. i saw lots of senior players who were not hungry enough"

Naby Keita was another. We signed him from Istres, in the French second division, when he was only 19. He was another number eight, but from the start I was impressed with his technique, his speed and, for such a young player, his elegance.

Johnny Soriano was our captain and top scorer, and the Brazilian, Alan, was our second striker. Johnny was a very intelligent player with great technique and an unbelievable shot off both feet. He was such a clinical finisher, and because of the way we played it worked fantastically. He scored 46 goals in all competitions, including 31 in the league, while Alan scored 24 on top of that.

We scored 99 goals in the league alone that season, and did the domestic league-and-cup double. As a player with Austria Salzburg, I had always been someone who wanted to win titles, and it is no different as a coach. I was happy to have these titles in the bucket, but I wanted to win more. At Salzburg, though, it was clear that every year the best players would leave the club.

I didn’t want to start every new pre-season with so many new players, especially when faced with the really big challenge of trying to qualify for the Champions League. The club and I had different opinions about the team, but we stayed professional and decided to end my contract.

As a player at Salzburg, I had received an offer from 1860 Munich. At the time I was in my mid-20s, captain of the club, and we had won three titles. Perhaps I was in my comfort zone, so I didn’t go. When I started my coaching career, I said to myself that if I was ever offered to chance to go and coach abroad, I must do it. So, after three months at home, when the offer came in from Young Boys in Switzerland, I knew I had to go.

Young Boys were a sleeping giant in Switzerland. They are a big club, but when I went there Basel had been champions for the past six years. I saw lots of senior players who were not hungry enough, and there was nowhere enough speed in the team. Over the three years we were there, we had to change not only the players, but also the mentality and character of the whole club.

"my start in frankfurt was horrible – We lost 5-0 at home to bayern and then 2-1 to fourth-division ulm in the cup"

In our first season, we finished second, 14 points behind Basel. In our second, we were 17 points behind them. This is a really big difference. Ahead of the third year, at our pre-season training camp, I said to the team: “Guys, I want us to be champions this year.”

I saw wide eyes looking back at me: “Is he crazy?”

Maybe I was, but Basel had changed their coach. Urs Fischer had left at the end of the 2016/17 season, and they had brought in a young coach in Raphaël Wicky. I knew it was not so easy to step up from the second team to the first team, as he was doing, and I saw our chance.

At the end of that season, we had gone from being 17 points behind Basel to 15 points ahead of them. A 32-point swing in one season, and Young Boys were champions for the first time in 32 years. It was a huge success, and that brought me to my next step – this time in Germany.

At Red Bull Salzburg, I had followed a coach, in Roger Schmidt, who had brought the club success. At Eintracht Frankfurt, it was the same situation. In his final season before leaving for Bayern Munich, Niko Kovac had won the German cup – beating Bayern in the final, which was a big surprise. So he left the club, and the best five players also left. There was also a World Cup during the summer, and I had come to Germany, where not many people knew me.

My start was horrible, with two heavy defeats: 5-0 at home to Bayern in the German Supercup, and then 2-1 against a fourth-division team, Ulm, in the cup. After five games in the league, we had only four points.

The club were really supportive, though. ‘Be calm, we believe in you,” they said. “As a coach, and also as a human.”

"jovic, haller and rebic were three great players – we had to find a system for them"

My style of football was different to Niko’s. Of course, to change this style, this mentality, takes time. Niko was a defender, and he wants first that his teams have a clean sheet. I am a coach who prefers to defend in the opposition half, to know that when we win the ball back we have only a short distance to goal. Perhaps there is more risk this way; the defenders worry about leaving so much space in behind them. But if you do the right thing and train it a lot, and use video analysis to convince the players of your idea, then you can see it comes good.

Our sixth league game was at home to Hannover 96. It was a really important game, and we won 4-1. That started an unbeaten run of seven games – we had another run of 11 unbeaten from January 2019 – and belief in our style grew.

When I came to Frankfurt, Luka Jovic, Sébastien Haller and Ante Rebic were all at the club. I started sometimes with one striker, sometimes two, but then I thought: “Okay, these are three great players. We have to find a system for them.”

So I played with three strikers. The first game I did it, in the German championship, was away at Stuttgart in early November. We won 3-0, and it was fantastic. Everybody was happy with how we had played, so we continued in that style, and I think for these strikers our style of football was much better. The good thing is that we scored a lot of goals: Jovic (above) scored 27 that season, Haller 20 and Rebic 10. The bad thing is that they all left us that summer. Luka went to Real Madrid, Sébastien left for West Ham and Ante went on loan to AC Milan.

We ended the season seventh in the Bundesliga, but we also reached the semi finals of the Europa League. In the round of 16, we played against Inter Milan – that took me to the San Siro, and also back in time to the 1994 UEFA Cup final, when I was a player at Austria Salzburg. Back then the final was over two legs; I was suspended for the first leg, which was played in Vienna because our stadium in Salzburg was too small.

The second leg, in front of more than 80,000 fans in the San Siro, was one of the most fantastic games in my career as a player. As an Austrian player, you sometimes watched the big games between the big teams. Suddenly, there I was opposite players like Walter Zenga, Giuseppe Bergomi, Nicola Berti, Rubén Sosa and Dennis Bergkamp.

"in the semi finals, we played chelsea. we went to london convinced we could reach the final"

It was such a tough game, and they started unbelievably quick – but after 50 minutes, after losing the first leg 1-0, we were still in the game. I think I played well – I had one shot on target, which brought a fantastic save from Zenga – but in the end we lost 1-0 again and I think were a bit unlucky. It was a dream for an Austrian team to play in such a game, though. I keep it always in my mind.

Now, 25 years on, I was back as manager of Frankfurt. We had drawn the first leg 0-0 at home, but I had kicked a water bottle so I was barred from the touchline for the second leg. Instead, I had to sit in the stands while my assistant took the game. But we prepared well, and over the 90 minutes of the second leg we were the better team. Luka Jovic scored the goal that won us the tie, and we deserved to reach the quarter finals against Benfica.

In the semi finals, we played Chelsea: a really big team with so many key players. We drew 1-1 at home – Jovic scored again – but we went to London convinced we could win and reach the final. The first half was horrible – Chelsea were so much better than our team and led 1-0 – but we spoke to the players at half-time. We tried to give them confidence, and reminded them that we had a chance to go to the final. Jovic equalised early in the second half, and then we had so many chances to win it.

In extra-time, Haller (above) had two huge chances – one of them, the goalkeeper had no chance, but David Luiz kicked the ball off the line. Instead the game went to penalties, and we went in front, but two of our players missed before Eden Hazard scored the winning penalty for Chelsea. After the game, I spoke with Luiz, who said to me: “Coach, you did a really good job with a really good team and style of football.” I was happy that he took the time to say that to me.

In my second season, as we said, the team’s main three attackers all left. André Silva arrived on loan from AC Milan, and he was a top scorer – a clinical finisher with such high quality in the box. Bas Dost was the second striker; tall, a good header of the ball and a safe finisher in the box, but maybe not as quick.

Despite this, our attacking power that season was not the same as in the first. We finished ninth in the league and reached the semi finals of the German cup, where we played a really good game against Bayern Munich but lost 2-1. We were the better team and had the chances to win; it was an unnecessary defeat.

"together with bayern, i believe we played the best football in germany that season"

There was another good run in the Europa League, though. We had another big English team – Arsenal – in our group. Unai Emery was the coach – a really good coach who had already won the competition three times – and in the home game they beat us 3-0. In the second game, at Arsenal, we won 2-1; after this game, they sacked Emery.

In the round of 32, we played against my old club, Red Bull Salzburg. Jesse Marsch was the head coach by then, but we won 4-1 in Frankfurt and drew 2-2 in Salzburg to reach the last 16. It is always a good feeling to win against an ex-club, but then the coronavirus came and things were very difficult. The players didn’t really want to play the first leg against Basel, and we lost 3-0 at home. That was a really hard time for everyone – the whole sport, the whole world.

Because of Covid, the next season started late, in September. We struggled in the beginning, we had so many draws, but I changed the system and a win away at Augsburg in December started a really successful time. We won nine games out of 10, drawing the other, and made it into the top four.

Then came problems. The sporting director, Fredi Bobic (above), came to me and said he wanted to leave the club. I asked him why – we had such a good relationship, and a great team, and we had a big chance to qualify for the Champions League.

At the same time, Marco Rose had agreed to leave Borussia Mönchengladbach for Dortmund at the end of the season. Gladbach came in with an offer, and that gave me a very hard decision. I had to think about leaving this club, with so much emotion, such great fans, but my decision was to leave for another big club with a great tradition.

Towards the end of the season, after I made the decision to leave, we struggled. We had a really disastrous defeat away at Schalke, who had already been relegated, in our second-last game. They had been really bad that season, but we lost 4-3 and in the end that is why we finished in fifth place. Together with Bayern, I believe we had played the best football in Germany that season. To miss out on qualifying for the Champions League was hard for everybody.

"i have watched a lot of premier league games – it has a style of football i think is right for me"

Three months into my time at Gladbach, the sporting director Max Eberl told me he wasn’t well and that he could not continue. I understood his decision, of course, but he was the one who wanted me to come to the club – who told me we would have a good time and always be fighting for the Champions League places. Max leaving was a disaster for me, just as it had been with Fredi Bobic at Frankfurt.

Gladbach were also a team that liked to play with lots of ball possession, whereas I like quick transitions and to attack. We had different opinions, and in the end maybe I was not the right coach for this team. The results said it all – we won 5-0 against Bayern Munich in the cup, and a few weeks later we lost 6-0 at home to Freiburg! It was the right decision when the club and I decided to end our contract at the end of that season.

In 14 years as a head coach, I had had only one break: the three months between Salzburg and Bern. You get this tunnel vision. After leaving Gladbach, I said to my assistant: “We need a break. In the last seven years, we have done 350 games.”

That’s hard. Managing in the top leagues, there is a lot of pressure, a lot of stress – so, for three months, football was not in my head. I spent a lot of time with family, friends, my hobbies. Then, after the World Cup, I started to watch more games – and since then I have watched so many! That includes a lot in the Premier League, which has a style of football that I think is right for me.  Who knows what happens, but this is a league I would love to manage in.

I have now managed almost 600 games in 14 years as a head coach. When you start, you make many mistakes, but you learn with every single game – and over time the mistakes decrease. You learn being a coach is about more than going on the pitch and running training sessions. You are a communicator, a motivator; you bring your style of football to a team, and for that you need relationships with the players.

I am happy with the coach I’ve become. Now I am ready for the next step.

Author: Tony Hodson

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