Salzburg coach Matthias Jaissle wants to take a “cheeky” approach to the last 16 against Bayern. The native of Nürtingen once played a great duel with the Munich side himself, then fate struck and he had to rethink. As a young coach, he now also draws inspiration from the All Blacks.
World champion? Why not? In March 2009, the Rio title is still five years away, and apart from Philipp Lahm, the defence also has a long way to go from the eventual final. Jerome Boateng won’t get his first senior international until autumn, Mats Hummels will have to wait almost another year, Benedikt Höwedes even two more, Shkodran Mustafi plays for Hamburger SV’s U17 team. At the time, one of the DFB’s men of the future was Matthias Jaissle, a young man from Hoffenheim, a team on the rise.
The promise, however, only lasted until 21 March 13 years ago and TSG’s home game against Hannover. Hansi Flick, Jogi Löw’s assistant at the time, sits in the stands in the brand new Sinsheim stadium and watches Jaissle, a central defender trained by Ralf Rangnick, fast start, good player opening, strong on the header, extremely willing to learn. Above, Flick notes his impressions, below, Jaissle twists his knee badly. Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament, the beginning of the end as a professional, barely a week before his 21st birthday.
It takes a year and a half until his comeback, followed by a meniscus operation and ankle problems, and finally a ruptured Achilles tendon. At the age of 26 and with only 31 Bundesliga games, his playing career is over. The memories of the promotion to the Bundesliga and the furious autumn championship in 2008 remain, but Jaissle is even more marked by the moment when the doctor told him: “This is not going to work out.
“Ralf already saw a coach in me when I didn’t even know about it “
After that, he “fell into a hole”, Jaissle says, and to this day he still finds it “a great pity not to know where my limit would have been”. He quit football in 2014, the year when Boateng, Hummels, Höwedes and Mustafi celebrated their greatest triumph in the Maracana. It takes Jaissle months to pick himself up again and take several courses of study at once, including a Bachelor’s degree in Sport Business Management. “Just playing golf and meeting up with friends would have been a bit boring. “
Jaissle worked his way into scouting and immersed himself in preparing match analyses, eventually becoming a youth coach for Rangnick in Leipzig. “Ralf already saw a coach in me when I didn’t know anything about it,” says Jaissle. He assists Alexander Zorniger for two years at Brøndby in Copenhagen and then returns to the can company. First to the academy and after a few months as head coach of FC Liefering, the Red Bull farm team in the 2nd division in Austria, Jaissle was promoted somewhat surprisingly last spring to succeed Jesse Marsch in Salzburg.
“Brave, cheeky and confident” against the “outstanding package” Bayern
It’s an experiment. “Football of tomorrow” is the motto in Salzburg, it sounds like a laboratory for the future. The 33-year-old Jaissle takes over a squad with an average age of not even 23, a dozen teenagers among them, talents from Croatia, the USA or Mali. The German striker Karim Adeyemi will soon become the top star, but Brenden Aaronson and Mohamed Camara will not be playing in Austria for too long either. Just against Jaissle’s ex-club Brøndby in the play-offs in August, the team manages to make it to the group stage of the Champions League, and with ten wins in the first ten competitive games, he sets a new club record as coach.
In the red-white-red Bundesliga, Salzburg are now as commanding as they are dutiful in first place, with a 2-1 win at Rapid Wien in their first game after the winter break on Friday. In the Champions League, the club with the youngest team in the history of the competition made it to the last 16 for the very first time, finishing second in the Wolfsburg group behind Lille OSC. And there they will face Bayern Munich at home in the first leg on Wednesday.
Jaissle wants to tackle the game “courageously, boldly and self-confidently”. Because of course, on an outstanding day, his team also has the chance to annoy the big power from Munich. “The Bayern squad has nothing but absolute top quality from front to back, plus a world-class coach, that’s already an outstanding package,” Jaissle says respectfully.
There are some things Jaissle hated as a player
He still knows Julian Nagelsmann, who is only a year older than him, from his days in Hoffenheim, and they write to each other now and then. “You can only take your hat off to his coaching career. First he saved Hoffenheim in a very difficult situation and led them to the Champions League, then he was successful in Leipzig, and now he is doing an outstanding job again at Germany’s biggest club. All that at this age. It’s just great how Julian is doing it.” But Jaissle himself hardly needs to hide either.
Attacking the opponent early on “to stress him to the maximum” is his plan, even against Bayern. Aggressive pressing and counter-pressing – that’s what he himself practised to exhaustion under Rangnick. But not everything was better in the past, there were some things he hated as a player. “Video sessions that lasted longer than an hour. Or forced team-building activities.” So the white-water rafting and the popular hut evenings at the training camp at the Wilder Kaiser.
2008 Jaissle keeps Klose at bay, but is late with Toni
Jaissle wants to do things differently. It is true that Salzburg’s young talents also pay penalties if they are late. But there is also an employee box in the professional wing, from which players draw requests from the employees and fulfil them. He is particularly interested in the topic of leadership. “I always try to think outside the box and talk to board members from the business world, for example, or get inspired by extreme athletes.” He also enjoys reading non-fiction books and biographies, for example about brain research, about Apple founder Steve Jobs or about the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby team. “You learn a lot about cohesion and team leadership.” After all, he not only leads his young players, but is also responsible for a staff of 30.
They are all looking forward to the duel with the great FC Bayern. Jaissle himself remembers it from his playing days and calls it “the biggest game of my career”. Back in December 2008, the match between sensational league leaders Hoffenheim and the Munich team was broadcast in over 160 countries. It was a fast-paced Wild West game in the arena, Rangnick had previously wanted “not the jerseys, but the scalps” of the opponents. Jaissle largely keeps Miroslav Klose in check, but is two steps too late for Luca Toni’s late 2:1.
In the round of 16, his young outsiders should now be better on the ball. The young coach often is anyway. He can no longer do competitive sport today because of his Achilles tendon, but Jaissle still paces the coaching ranks. “My playing career was so short, so maybe now I’m catching up on some things on the sidelines. So at least I’m still getting some mileage out of it.” And he stays fit. After all, his path as a coach has only just begun.
