Miroslav Klose is in his third season in charge of Nürnberg and has the club sitting in a promotion spot in the 2. Bundesliga, chasing a return to the Bundesliga for the first time since 2014. For Philipp Lahm, his former Germany teammate’s progress is evidence of a manager who understands what actually makes a collective function.
Lahm, who shared the pitch with Klose in more than 80 international matches, describes him as a magnificent teammate and a true team player who understood his precise value to the group. A World Cup winner and the World Cup’s record goalscorer from 2014 until last summer, Klose carries what Lahm calls the DNA of a great manager. The decisive quality, in Lahm’s view, is that he does not overcomplicate things: he does not tinker with his core system or formation, he identifies who meets the club’s demands and who does not, and he rarely alters his starting XI.
That repetition has produced a stable core. The winger Mohamed Zoma, who made his Italy debut last month, and the attacking midfielder Julian Justvan get about 90% of the playing time, while the central midfielder Finn Ole Becker secured about 80% before a recent injury. The defensive midfielder Adam Markhiev, a Finland international, is practically ever-present when fit. Klose had to rebuild his defence after summer transfers but appears to have settled quickly on his back four. He also gives youth a chance, sticking by the academy graduates Tim Janisch and Eric Porstner even after mistakes, while the young striker Piet Scobel has featured every single week since the turn of the year. His grasp of the club’s identity is evident, too, in making the local Franconian goalkeeper Jan Reichert captain.
Lahm sets that approach against a wider German trend. He identifies three deviations from what he regards as the standard blueprint: a strange revival of man-marking, Bundesliga clubs granting fewer opportunities to homegrown talent despite maintaining expensive academies, and a vast number of managers with no professional playing background. Such coaches frequently alter systems and formations before and during matches and at times deploy players out of position. Lahm’s most prominent example is Julian Nagelsmann, who, as national coach, he argues hindered his side’s development through constant, fundamental changes.
The blueprint itself, Lahm writes, is visible at the reigning champions of France, England and Spain. At PSG, Arsenal and Barcelona, a core of six to eight players establishes the team’s identity and anchors the XI in crucial matches. Behind them sit three to five remaining regular starters, pushed by four to six squad players, giving a squad backbone of about 16 players. Of roughly 5,000 minutes of playing time per season, core players take about 70 to 85% each, remaining regular starters 50 to 60%, squad players 40 to 45%, with fringe squad places sharing a maximum of 20%. All three clubs reserve some of those fringe places for at least three young talents, often academy products, and give them consistent minutes to test them at the highest level; at Arsenal, the 20-year-old Myles Lewis-Skelly appears to be establishing himself permanently. Ball-oriented defending and rigid shapes, typically a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, are the norm, with like-for-like substitutions to preserve structural integrity. Lahm traces the approach largely to a Spanish coaching philosophy spearheaded by Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Luis Enrique, noting it can also be seen at smaller clubs and with national teams such as Morocco.
Continuity of selection, Lahm notes, is nothing new. For Real Madrid’s Champions League-winning side of 2016 to 2018, nine players started in all three final victories, and PSG won their two finals with virtually identical lineups, the only change coming during their title defence in Budapest, where Gianluigi Donnarumma no longer featured in goal after Luis Enrique parted ways with the Italian. PSG could now achieve a historic hat-trick, which since the tournament’s rebrand in 1992 would make them only the second club to do so after Madrid. In the European Cup era, Ajax from 1971 to 1973 and Bayern Munich from 1974 to 1976 each had seven players start all three finals, a number injuries prevented from being higher, while in Madrid’s five consecutive wins from 1956 nine players appeared in at least three of those finals and three featured in all five.
For Nürnberg, the stakes extend well beyond a single season. The club have been stuck in the second tier since 2014 apart from a single season, and only Bayern Munich have won more German league titles. Their club legend Max Morlock scored Germany’s first goal in a World Cup final, in 1954. Lahm points to a massive catchment area with virtually no local competition, an economically robust metropolitan region around a city of 550,000 inhabitants, and a 50,000-capacity stadium that is due for modernisation. Nürnberg remain a traditional, member-owned club with a vast and fiercely loyal fanbase; to the people there, “Der Club”, as they call it, truly means everything. With Klose in charge, Lahm concludes, the manager’s position is finally occupied in a way that allows something substantial to grow.