Jed wrote:
Klopp would've been the perfect Arsenal manager. If only the board were ambitious and forward-thinking.
Tuchel feels like a watered down version of Klopp.
I dont see any similarities in all honesty.
In terms of personality Klopp is much more of an extrovert - I actually think he's a bit of a buffoon but that's just my view - he wears his heart on his sleeve and is very emotional. In other words perfect for a mental club like Liverpool, who's fans will lap that up. From what I can gather, Tuchel is actually under quite a bit of unfair pressure and scrutiny in Germany precisely because he isn't much like Klopp. He's much more matter of fact, quieter and more introspective . And not prone to emotional outbursts or crowd pleasing interviews.
From a tactical standpoint, I don't think there's much of a comparison either. Klopp's 'heavy metal' football is what it is. I admit I do find it enjoyable to watch, but he has one way of playing and even that isn't particularly clever or revolutionary. Boiled down his whole tactical ethos revolves around good players pressing like mad men and then attacking as fast as possible when they get it back. In and of itself that way of playing isn't a problem but I think he's constantly found out because he has no tactical flexibility whatsoever. Sound familiar?
Klopp also has awful problems with injuries to his players because of the way he trains them and has been unable to adapt his methods and stop this from happening. Again, sound familiar?
Tuchel, by contrast, has played every formation you can think of in his time in the Bundesliga. He has had to deal with reinventing every team he's ever managed after every summer because he turns average players into good ones and they leave for bigger clubs. He's built defensively strong teams that sit deeper and play direct, high pressing teams that attack with lightning counters, or a team that monopolises possession and takes the game away from opponents. And he's had to rebuild this Dortmund team after losing Hummels, Gundogan and Mkyhtarian in the summer.
Tuchel also varies his systems, players and tactical approach depending on the opponents they're facing. He's not going to try and play the same way at the Allianz as he would at home to Benfica, for example. Klopp, like Wenger (at least this decade!), just doesn't have the tactical intelligence nor the coaching ability to attempt such flexibility.
When Tuchel left Mainz he took a year's sabbatical before joining Dortmund. And it's this free thinking that excites me. Klopp, by comparison, is completely run of the mill, in my view.
From this interesting Guardian article on Tuchel; https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/07/thomas-tuchel-borussia-dortmund-jurgen-klopp
During his sabbatical, he looked at other team sports, visited the Brentford owner Matthew Benham to understand the role of mathematics and stats in football and versed himself further in the teachings of Professor Wolfgang Schöllhorn. The sport scientist’s theory of “differential learning” contends that players do not learn by repetition and perfecting drills but by adapting their technique, intuitively, to a never-ending stream of problems. At the turn of the century, Schöllhorn’s ideas were adopted by the Barcelona youth coach Paco Seirullo, who later became Guardiola’s mentor.
Tuchel, who puts out every cone himself, has his players practising on slippery, extremely narrow or extremely wide pitches, makes them control the ball with their knees before passes and instructs defenders to hold on to tennis balls to stop them pulling the shirts of opponents. The aim is to make training so complex and mentally demanding that the game feels relaxing by contrast. “At first, we wondered what these things had to do with football but we realised quickly that they worked,” said Neven Subotic. “Some exercises last two and a half hours. But because they always change, it doesn’t feel like that”.
