ZEITmagazin MANN: Thomas Tuchel on his important time as a barkeeper

In ZEITmagazin MANN, football coach Thomas Tuchel remembers the period of his life after ending his active football career due to injury: “There was still no money in the bank, you felt like a professional footballer but were still looking for a job.” Tuchel got a job as a waiter at the legendary “Radio Bar” in Stuttgart:

“I wouldn’t have wanted to drink the cocktails I mixed in the beginning.” For him, working in the bar was good experience: “I slowly developed a new sense of self-confidence in the bar, shift by shift, evening by evening. I overcame my inhibitions of asking strangers if they needed me. And all of a sudden I had the impression: ‚The colleagues just like you for your manner, they don’t know that you used to be a professional footballer, they accept you as you are.‘“ It was in the bar that he also made the decision to return to football and become a coach when hearing that his old club SSV Ulm had been promoted to the first division:”I was really pissed. And angry. I thought: now they’re living my dream. Bundesliga! Where I always wanted to be. I worked in the bar for another half an hour. Then I said to my colleagues,‘I have to go now.‘”

Please indicate the source “ZEITmagazin MANN”. The new edition is published on Tuesday, 5 September 2017.