The profession of a coach. From the birth of the game to Guardiola and Klopp

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé — even if you are not a sports fan, you are definitely familiar with these names. They have millions of followers on social media, they are among the main heroes of mass culture, they are football stars. Somewhere in the shadows of these luminaries, the profession of a coach has been unjustly obscured. Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling, with the meticulousness characteristic of Germans, describes the history of the coaching profession from the moment football was born, transforming it from a gentlemen's game into a workers' game, and then into a professional sport. This is a detailed account of coaching ideas, innovative tactical solutions, and personalities that influenced the development of the game. You will learn: how the British style of 'kick and rush' was born; what the Danube school is; how the W-M system was created; why total football by the Dutch changed the philosophy of the game; how Valeriy Lobanovskyi was the first to practice a scientific approach to the game; why Guardiola became the coach of Barcelona instead of Mourinho, and what Johan Cruyff has to do with it; how Jürgen Klopp breathed new passion into the game; and many more fascinating pages of football history. In your hands is the story of the people on the sidelines — those who made football what we know it as today.