When asked about his CV, Lutz Pfannenstiel can do worse than provide a global atlas. Before his career regained a certain appearance of stability and normalcy for nine years as scouting and sporting director at TSG Hoffenheim and Fortuna Dusseldorf, the 47-year-old German had reveled first-hand with the global game in almost every corner. of the world.
The former goalkeeper remains the only player to have given the impression of being a professional of the clubs of the six FIFA continental confederations. His travels have taken him to Malaysia, England, South Africa, Scandinavia, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Albania, Brazil and more. He trained the Cuban national team and controlled Ramblers FC, a club in Windhoek, Namibia.
“The curious resume has helped me a lot to become who I am, because I have a global and foreign approach,” Pfannenstiel said. “I used that word, if I translate it from German, I call it ‘intercultural competition’. It’s not when you go to 50 countries on vacation and you’re there for a week. If you live in this position and get to know the culture and the people, it is something absolutely different.
“It means that when you now communicate with players, agents, clubs, from all over the world, you perceive a lot more who they are, where they come from,” he continued. “It gives me much more to be able to convince players to come and play in my club, because I can refer to things in anotherArray”
Pfannenstiel is now in a position to use this intercultural skill in one of football’s most exotic destinations, MLS. After a relative eternity at home in Germany, Pfannenstiel is on the move back and on Monday he was announced as the new sporting director of St. Louis City SC, the expansion club expected to start playing in 2023. He is the owner of Carolyn Kindle Betz’s first technical appointment, and will be guilty of “all operations on the field,” the club said, adding the hiring of coaches and players and laying the groundwork for an academy.
The city of St. Louis unveiled its call and logo last week and has lately been building a stadium west of downtown St. Louis.
Pfannenstiel in February to leave Dusseldorf and said there had been talks with several clubs in several countries, adding Newcastle United and Inter Milan. So what attracted a guy who was all over Central America and on the side of mlS expansion? Pfannenstiel said his resolution was particularly informed through his experience at Hoffenheim, a club he joined in 2011. He was fifth in Germany in 1999–2000, but rose through the ranks of owner Dietmar Hopp, earning a promotion to the Bundesliga. . 2008 and his first appearance in the UEFA Champions League in 2017.
“I spoke to St. Louis and Carolyn and it was the most compelling concept for me, yet it all reminded me of the starting point at Hoffenheim,” he said. “Literally, we start on a blank sheet of paper. There’s no academy, no school, nothing here right now. So we can start from scratch and incorporate all the concepts of what I’ve learned into football.” for the past 30 years.
Much of this blank sheet of paper will be true to the academy, Pfannenstiel said. He is ahead of schedule to begin and intends to put at least one, if not more, academy team in the box before the MLS team starts in 2023. St. Louis has been generating American internationals for decades. Now comes the possibility of staying them at home as professionals.
“Not only are they doing this to earn an MLS name and be like a franchise that only needs to win each and every week,” he said of the City property. “They believe that the concept is to give each and every one in football a chance, like getting rid of the concept of paying even though each and every one plays out the window and using football as a tool for the other residents of St. Louis to the same page, inspired me.
“These fair words – ‘Football capital’ – we have a very rich history of football skills here: smart football at the best school, smart football at school. Not only in St. Louis, but also in the region, all this without delay seduced me through the concept,” he added. “For me, going somewhere to have compatibility with structures that already exist and to go to them was not as exciting as getting to a place where you can realize your concepts and bring all your pleasure and experience to create. So, for me, I literally fell in love with the St. Louis concept and made a decision contrary to the biggest clubs and opposed to the major leagues and said that St. Louis and MLS were the position I was looking to be.
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As for the construction of the list, St. Louis City will not be a destination club for foreign players who sign their final contract, Pfannenstiel confirmed. He has played and worked with men in remote corners of the world in the hope of making his way on a larger and brighter terrain. These are the players you’ll look for, whether foreign products or academies. And he needs to start soon. Pfannenstiel said the league’s resolution of delaying the city’s exit from 2022 to 2023 would help him gain a concept of the local skill that will be held (to the extent the pandemic permits).
“Moving it for a year is like a convenience scenario because we can focus on our bread and butter, and it’s the local guys, the local talent,” he said. “[An MLS list] deserves to be a very interesting smart combination, however, we must focus on the young people, turn them into better players and give them the opportunity to be transferred to Europe if they are ever smart enough.
“We also want to be part of the experienced MLS players who come here and do their job, and when it comes to the foreign approach, I’m more in the direction we’re bringing hungry young players who want to expand and still can.” take the next step, ” he continued. “We may have one or two experienced players who have also completed something, but I’m not necessarily a big fan of bringing here surely big names at the age of 36. We prefer players who are hungry.”
At the moment there is no timetable for appointing a head coach, but there is still time. Pfannenstiel has some room for manoeuvre and time to get comfortable in a new position, anything in which you have a lot of experience. He said signing several players and lending them in 2022 was already something I was thinking about, the decisions they’re probably still a long way off. He is also committed to hiring experienced staff at MLS, but is not sure that this will be done in the form of a technical director/general manager or a manager. However, be assured that Pfannenstiel’s handling with the e-book is in full swing. You’ll be able to paint world football for a “good mix,” he said.