My idea of football is that you have to adapt to players that you have, reveals Domenico Tedesco
RB Leipzig coach Domenico Tedesco has revealed that his belief is that managers need to keep adapting to the team they have and the way the players perform. The former Schalke boss replaced Jesse Marsch in November and has since thrived at the helm, losing just two games in the Bundesliga.
With Julian Nagelsmann leaving for Bayern Munich at the start of the 2021/22 season, many expected Oliver Glasner to become the new Leipzig boss. But things changed as Jesse Marsch was appointed although the American didn’t last long as he was sacked and replaced by Domenico Tedesco in November. Since then, Leipzig have turned their season around and are in contention to finish second on the league table should things go their way.
Not only that, there is a change to the atmosphere at the club as reports indicated that several players were unhappy with things under Marsch. But Tedesco revealed that his idea of playing football is to adapt the tactics to the player that he has and the strength of the squad which is what he has done over the years. The Leipzig boss further revealed that he spoke to the senior players and then changed the system as they wanted to play with more possession.
"My idea of football is that you have to adapt to the kind of players that you have, the strengths you have inside the squad. At Schalke, we had many physical players, we played a lot of counter-attacks and got second behind Bayern Munich because of a lot of matches where we defended very compact, lots of counter-attacks, corner kicks, free-kicks, goals after free-kicks and corners," Tedesco told Sky Sports.
"At Spartak Moscow, I had a completely different team. We had the youngest team in Russia with really good guys who were technically strong on the ball. We had 70 per cent of possession each game. I have to be flexible as a coach, I have to adapt. Here, I have a completely different team."
"When you come to a new club you have to know the team, you have to speak a lot to the senior players, try to find out what was the problem in the past. We changed the system, we tried to speak a lot with the players, we wanted to play a little bit more with possession."