(Reuters) – Julian Nagelsmann is the youngest head coach to take a team to the Champions League quarter-finals but any suggestion he or his RB Leipzig players will be out of their depth against Atletico Madrid should be quickly dismissed.
The 33-year-old will take the German aspect to new territory on Thursday and admit that a match with his Athletic counterpart, Diego Simeone, will be a delicate proposition.
“We will have to be and be in control. It’s a European heavyweight, especially in recent years,” said Nagelsmann, who led Hoffenheim to the Champions League before joining Leipzig last year in an interview with Marca.
“Diego Simeone has done a wonderful task with great success. They’re a strong team that we’ll have to explore.”
Nagelsmann’s tenacious team has overtaken Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16 games, winning 4-0 overall, and was transparent in the two matches that, respecting the wonderful European coaches, needs to do things his way.
“I think I’ve evolved my own style, we play the football I love and I play,” he said.
He exudes the quiet confidence of a guy who knows his way, so much so that he rejected a Real Madrid technique in 2018, saying that “it’s not the right step” for his career.
“We agreed that we could communicate in the long run if Real Madrid needed a coach and I available,” he said.
Next week in Lisbon he can climb a building on the list of contenders to Nagelsmann, who at the time of his appointment through Hoffenheim in 2016 was the youngest coach in the history of the Bundesliga.
Leipzig will be a loser to an Atletico who has eliminated Liverpool’s starting back in the eighth round.
Nagelsmann said he is satisfied with the label, but obviously believes that his team, which finished third in the Bundesliga, can continue to riot his feathers.
“They are better known in Europe and we are a young team,” he said of Thursday’s clash. “If I were a Spanish journalist, I would also be one of Atletico’s favorites. I don’t care.
“I need us to put in a functionality and if we go through the Spanish media to say we deserve it.”
When asked if he had dreamed of having the trophy in his hands, he said, “Of course. My biggest dream is to win the Champions League. It’s a long, confusing road. All the remaining quarter-finals are the groups and we.” are satisfied to be here. »
Even the absence of the most sensible goalscorer Timo Werner, who scored 34 goals this season following his signing for Chelsea, upsets Nagelsmann.
“It’s a smart thing that we don’t have to play with 10 men and we can update it,” he said. “Timo is a wonderful player who has scored a lot, but I see other players who were in his shadow who can update him.”
Martyn Herman reports; Edited by Christian Radnedge
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