Former Germany international Lewis Holtby – preparing to launch a coaching career of his own following his retirement this summer – has named Thomas Tuchel as his main source of inspiration. Speaking to Kicker in an extended interview, Holtby credited his former Mainz trainer with helping turn him into a Germany international during the 2010/11 Bundesliga campaign.
The 35-year-old – who currently resides in Hamburg – called time on his playing career this summer following NAC Breda’s relegation from the Eredivisie and intends to move directly into coaching. Holtby will begin working toward his DFB B and A coaching licences. The ambition is hardly new.
Holtby coached youth players at hometown club Sparta Gerderath twice a week while still an 18-year-old second-division professional with Alemannia Aachen. His subsequent professional career exposed him to 26 different head coaches and provided no shortage of material from which to construct his own philosophy.
Lewis Holtby on Thomas Tuchel’s influence
“I think I can say that [Thomas Tuchel was my best coach] without offending anyone else,” Holtby told Kicker. “Tuchel turned me into a national team player during the 2010–11 season in Mainz. His tactical acumen back then – how meticulously he dissected our opponents – was phenomenal. But I found his empathetic nature just as important.”
“You’ve heard it from me,” Holtby responded when pressed about how connecting Tuchel with empathy wasn’t something heard very often. “What does empathy mean? It means that someone senses how the other person is feeling and what they need at that moment. Tuchel always knew exactly when to push me hard and when he needed to give me a hug or crack a joke. That’s how he had a huge influence on my development.”
Holtby on other coaching influences
“From my perspective back then as a very young player, I have to say: Yes,” Holtby said when asked whether Schalke’s Felix Magath lacked the empathy he found in Tuchel. “It somehow always felt as if he wanted something bad for me. Constant pressure, the hard training, and during conversations he would sit opposite you and simply say nothing for a very long time.”
“With hindsight, however, I actually see things differently,” Holtby continued. “I can understand now what he was trying to achieve. With many players, that was exactly what produced a now-more-than-ever reaction and an explosion in performance.”
“There’s a lot,” Holtby said when asked about additional influences. “Tuchel’s meticulousness, obviously. Magath’s feeling for when a team needs a setback so that it doesn’t get carried away with euphoria. From Christian Titz [at Hamburg], definitely the ability to make individual players better.”
Holtby also highlighted Mauricio Pochettino’s “detailed training work” and, even more importantly, his personal approach to players.
“That way of creating a connection is something I would very much like to adopt as a coach,” Holtby said. “A locker room – ideally an entire club – should be like a family. That means warmth. But it also means telling each other the truth clearly and directly.”
Holtby additionally credited Huub Stevens with possessing a keen instinct for knowing when a team required criticism, while remembering Bruno Labbadia as “clear, consistent and loving.”
“Everyone could learn something from his work ethic,” Holtby said of Labbadia. “He was the first one there and the last one to leave.”
Holtby on the lessons gleaned from young stardom
Holtby also reflected on how his own rapid rise shaped the type of coach he hopes to become.
“I was 18, 19, 20 years old and came up very quickly,” Holtby said. “Then these private sponsors come along and simply offer you amazing things – and I don’t even mean money. You get to drive a show race against Sebastian Vettel on the Red Bull track, you’re out on a jet ski for commercials and so on. For a young guy, that’s an interesting, exciting world.”
“At the same time, I was constantly moving because of the club changes: from my childhood bedroom at my mother’s house to Bochum, then Gelsenkirchen, then Düsseldorf,” Holtby continued. “And, in 2013, the kid from a village of 4,000 people suddenly found himself in London, playing for an incredible club and earning a hell of a lot of money. I sometimes ask myself, ‘How is a young person in their early twenties supposed to remain normal through all of that?’”
“My life simply wasn’t normal,” Holtby concluded. “So how was I supposed to make rational, reflective decisions in every single moment and with every statement I made?”
Asked whether such factors remain underestimated in professional football, Holtby offered an emphatic response.
“One hundred percent.”
The experience now forms a central part of the philosophy he hopes to take into coaching.
“That’s why I’ve made up my mind for my future role,” Holtby said. “Before we go out onto the pitch and talk about tactics, the first question to a player has to be: How are you doing as a person? Is everything okay at home? As a new signing, are you coping in a completely unfamiliar city?”
“These things are fundamental,” Holtby concluded. “For the person and, therefore, for their sporting development.”
