Manager aged 29 leads Hoffenheim to third in the Bundesliga with 88 players older than him in German top flight
Julian Nagelsmann has progressed from being a youth team assistant to Bundesliga manager in eight years
JULIAN NAGELSMANN has taken Germany by storm after guiding Hoffenheim to third in the league at the age of just 29.
Having been born in 1987, it means that there are 88 players in the German top flight who are older than the Hoffenheim boss.
Hoffenheim are unbeaten this season in the Bundesliga, winning five of their nine league matches, leaving them only four points behind champions Bayern Munich.
Nagelsmann was set to become a professional footballer after playing for both 1860 Munich and Augsberg at youth level.
But reoccurring knee injuries prevented him from pursuing a career as a player and he studied business administration at university, before transferring to become a sport science student.
Nagelsmann then moved into coaching and began as an assistant coach working with Augsburg’s youth team in 2008, where he briefly worked under Borussia Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel.
He then moved to 1860 Munich as an under-17 assistant and stuck with this role for two years before Hoffenheim swooped in and made him their own under-17 assistant.
After a year he was promoted to the position as Under-17 boss and a year later he was then boosted up the ranks and made the club’s assistant manager in 2012.
He became the youngest assistant ever in the Bundesliga at the age of 25 when he was asked to be part of Frank Kramer’s interim staff in December 2012.
Nagelsmann was then taken out of the first team and appointed as Hoffenheim’s Under-19 boss, where he made a real name for himself.
During his time in charge of the youth team, he became the youngest boss to guide a team to the Under-19 league title, which came in his first season in charge.
And then in 2016 his incredible rise through the coaching system was rewarded as he was handed the job to become the manager of Hoffenheim at the age of 28
Making him the youngest person to ever manage in the Bundesliga.
