dhe suicide His father still currently works with national coach Julian Nagelsmann. “I often think about that day,” the 36-year-old said in an interview with the Spiegel newspaper and told how he found out about the news. “At that time I was doing a coaching course in Oberhaching near Munich and got my C license there. And suddenly the course director told me to please come out.” The next moment he was standing in front of his father-in-law at the time, “who told me that my dad had committed suicide.”

Nagelsmann He was 20 years old when he lost his father. “That was difficult. My dad didn't leave a suicide note, there was no explanation. But the way he took his life made it clear that his decision was absolutely clear to him,” Nagelsmann said. “It feels very bad for the family “But it helped me to know that he really wanted to die and it wasn't a cry for help or a signal. I think I have to respect that decision.”

“He wasn't allowed to talk about his work.”

The national coach spoke of his strong bond, of an “excellent” relationship with his father, who was in the Federal Intelligence Service He worked, but hardly said anything about his work. “She wasn't allowed to talk about his work,” Nagelsmann said. “That was also the reason why he often said that everything was too much for him. At his work it was not possible to share concerns. In the end, this put a lot of strain on him.” He doesn't know exactly what his father did in the BND. “In any case, he was not in the administration,” Nagelsmann said.

His father was “brave,” “he had to make decisions over and over again at work, knowing that the whole plan could go wrong,” says Nagelsmann, who recognizes some of his own characteristics: “I think I have taken on a lot of things he.”

In an interview with News magazine, Nagelsmann speaks very openly about his father's suicide. The time after losing him marked him. “I was in my early twenties and suddenly I had to take care of the family and manage all the insurance. “Everyday things that at that age you don't even think about,” Nagelsmann said. “I had to make serious decisions, including relieving my mother, who suddenly found herself living in a big house without her partner. With all his memories.”

These decisions have a different dimension than the questions about “whether one or another striker will play from the beginning.” It grew faster. From this he learned: “The worst thing in life is when decisions are not made.”

He also transmits it to his players. “I think I can act authentically in those moments because I've experienced a lot of things in my life.” His father did not want Nagelsmann to go into the coaching profession out of “fatherly concern.” “He wanted me to finish my business studies. But he knew from the beginning that that was not my world.”