Bundesliga
Bundesliga
20.11.2009 21:38:38
Jürgen Klopp (l.) finished 6th with BVB last season, while Thomas Tuchel (r.) was winning the German U-19 title with Mainz
Two of a kind
When 1. FSV Mainz 05 take to the pitch on Saturday at Borussia Dortmund, it will be a moment of mixed emotions for Jürgen Klopp.
"I have to hurt my former love", the BVB coach said ahead of his first competitive reunion with the club he left in 2008.
"Do it my own way"
"Of course it's a special occasion. I had eighteen wonderful years at Mainz as a player and coach", added Klopp, who incidentally now has three ex-Mainz professionals on the books at Dortmund in Mohamed Zidan, Neven Subotic and Markus Feulner.
His "former love" has meanwhile found a new paramour in the personage of Thomas Tuchel. The Mainz board's bold decision to give a shotgun promotion to the U-19 coach at the start of the season has so far paid off with interest. The 36-year-old Tuchel is in fact very much in the Klopp mould - easy-going, genuine, and mad about about football. "Jürgen left his mark on an era at Mainz", he says, "my aim is to do the same. But I'll do it my own way."
Strong connection with the players
Twelve games in, freshly-promoted FSV find themselves in sixth place - three above Dortmund. "I spend 90 percent of my waking hours thinking about football", admits Tuchel, whose own playing career was curtailed at 24 due to a knee injury.
Another thing he has in common with Klopp is an imaginative approach to motivational techniques. Ahead of his team's 2-1 victory over Bayern München, Tuchel showed them an excerpt from Oliver Stone's American football film "Any Given Sunday." Before they took the field to beat Hoffenheim 2-1, he fired them up with clips of the traditional Maori haka.
In the run-up to Saturday's encounter, the two coaches are understandably adopting slightly variant approaches. "If Mainz lose against us here, it won't be the end of the world for them", says Klopp. Tuchel's response to that is, "We now want to play to win, wherever we go."
"Do it my own way"
"Of course it's a special occasion. I had eighteen wonderful years at Mainz as a player and coach", added Klopp, who incidentally now has three ex-Mainz professionals on the books at Dortmund in Mohamed Zidan, Neven Subotic and Markus Feulner.
His "former love" has meanwhile found a new paramour in the personage of Thomas Tuchel. The Mainz board's bold decision to give a shotgun promotion to the U-19 coach at the start of the season has so far paid off with interest. The 36-year-old Tuchel is in fact very much in the Klopp mould - easy-going, genuine, and mad about about football. "Jürgen left his mark on an era at Mainz", he says, "my aim is to do the same. But I'll do it my own way."
Strong connection with the players
Twelve games in, freshly-promoted FSV find themselves in sixth place - three above Dortmund. "I spend 90 percent of my waking hours thinking about football", admits Tuchel, whose own playing career was curtailed at 24 due to a knee injury.
Another thing he has in common with Klopp is an imaginative approach to motivational techniques. Ahead of his team's 2-1 victory over Bayern München, Tuchel showed them an excerpt from Oliver Stone's American football film "Any Given Sunday." Before they took the field to beat Hoffenheim 2-1, he fired them up with clips of the traditional Maori haka.
In the run-up to Saturday's encounter, the two coaches are understandably adopting slightly variant approaches. "If Mainz lose against us here, it won't be the end of the world for them", says Klopp. Tuchel's response to that is, "We now want to play to win, wherever we go."
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