Sliding doors moment is that if Hamburg get promoted instead of St Pauli we probably end up with Hurzeler. Who is a better manager and coach willing to adapt
I still maintain we should’ve tried to get Nuri Şahin when he was still at Antalyaspor. The fact he’s since gone on to be assistant coach and now head coach at Dortmund shows what a talented, young coach he is.
A major complaint of Walter and Rosenior is that they are too stubborn and rigid to their ‘philosophy’. Well, Şahin is a possession-oriented coach who likes his teams to play out from the back but his tactical flexibility and adaptability is why he’s such an interesting coach. He actually will change his build-up approach depending on who he has available and who the opposition is. Against a high-pressing team, he has a 3-2-5 build-up with the left-back tucking in as an extra centre-half with two holding mids in front and the right-back bombing forward almost like a second right-winger. Against teams that sit deep, he uses a 2-3-5 build-up with the left-back inverting as an extra midfielder. Recently, he’s even opted for a 3-1-6 build-up with a single holding mid instead of
two.
This rigid and stubborn approach of ‘Plan B is to make Plan A better’ that Walter, Rosenior, Russell Martin and others have is shooting themselves in the foot. It’s why I rate Şahin, Hürzeler etc. because of how flexible and adaptable they are to come up with solutions instead of just doing the same thing over and over even when it’s not working.
