From the Coaching Zone // #8

"Julian Nagelsmann hasn't done his job properly."

Before questioning a coach's work ethic, we should first explain how coaching performance is actually measured.

Sometimes a column doesn't start with a football match.

It starts with a debate.

In a podcast, Didi Hamann says:

"Julian Nagelsmann hasn't done his job properly."

On Sunday, I watch the German football show Doppelpass.

The conversation goes in a similar direction.

Nagelsmann isn't working hard enough.

He isn't putting in enough effort.

Even his decision not to attend the Africa Cup of Nations comes under scrutiny.

I listen.

And after a while, I realise something.

Julian Nagelsmann is no longer the part that interests me most.

A different question is.

How do we actually know what good work from a national team coach looks like?

The longer I've been coaching, the more careful I've become with these kinds of judgements.

Not because coaches don't make mistakes.

Of course they do.

But every meaningful evaluation starts with one simple question:

What is this coach actually responsible for?

Only then can we judge whether they've done their job well.

In football, we often do the opposite.

We judge what's visible.

Travelling.

Stadium visits.

Press conferences.

Media appearances.

Yet most of a coach's work happens out of sight.

Take the debate about the Africa Cup of Nations.

Maybe attending would have added value.

Maybe it was even essential.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Today's coaching staffs work with video, scouting platforms, live feeds, data and specialist analysts.

From the outside, it's almost impossible to know whether being there in person would really have changed anything.

Yet people quickly reach a conclusion.

We mistake what's visible for what's important.

Visibility is not a measure of performance.

Of course coaches should be criticised.

For their game model.

For squad selection.

For substitutions.

For tactical decisions.

That's part of the job.

Questioning a coach's work ethic or professionalism is something else entirely.

Because the moment we claim a coach isn't working hard enough, we're saying far more than we can possibly know from the outside.

We're no longer judging decisions.

We're judging the person.

And the more personal the criticism becomes, the stronger the evidence behind it needs to be.

If someone publicly claims that a coach isn't doing enough, they should be able to answer three simple questions:

Which responsibility did the coach fail to fulfil?

Which performance standard wasn't met?

What evidence supports that conclusion?

If those questions can't be answered, one thing remains.

An opinion.

Not an analysis.

In the end, Julian Nagelsmann isn't the most interesting part of this debate.

What interests me is how we judge coaches.

Because if we don't know the standard we're measuring against,

we're not evaluating the coach's work.

We're simply measuring it against our own idea of what coaching should look like.