On the rise with Gladbach Gerardo Seoane talks about Omlin's demotion and the cracker against Dortmund

Gerardo Seoane is currently the only Swiss coach in the Bundesliga. Ahead of Borussia's clash against Dortmund, he takes time out for an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency.

Keystone-SDA

06.12.2024, 14:00

06.12.2024, 16:29

SDA

Gerardo Seoane, after a difficult last season, things are now going better. Your team is currently 10th in the table. What have you tweaked in particular?

Seoane: Last season was a challenge. There was a certain amount of upheaval in the team beforehand. We weren't playing the way we wanted to. In the summer, we worked through the whole thing together. We analyzed all areas, starting with the principles of how we want to play, and made certain adjustments. We also brought in players who have a good personality as well as sporting quality. Another important point is the experience we gained last season. They helped the team to develop further.

You narrowly avoided relegation in the spring. How do you deal with such extreme situations?

In such an enjoyable but also demanding job, you take it week by week. It's part of the business to deal with emotions of all kinds in the best possible way. It's important to always remain objective and analyze events with a bit of distance. I try to give myself the space I need to find a good balance and think about other things from time to time, because the amount of time I spend as a coach is very high. But that's not a burden for me because I simply love doing the job.

Things were still going very badly at the start of the current championship, with just six points from the first six games. Were you worried about losing your job?

I think that we sent out positive signals right from the start of the season with good performances and that most of the parameters were moving in the right direction. But of course the results also had an impact on me. For me, however, the focus is on leading the way and finding solutions. These are my thoughts after both victories and defeats. I always try to get back into development mode quickly.

Your job profile also includes communicating difficult decisions, such as telling Jonas Omlin, the team captain, that he was now only number 2. How close did that get to you?

It's always important to have arguments. Jonas was not yet at 100 percent after his injury, while Moritz Nicolas did his job very well. But of course you build up a relationship with players and there are conversations that are more difficult. But that's just part of it.

Seoane demotes captainJonas Omlin only a substitute at Gladbach for now despite recovering from injury

When you ended your playing career in the summer of 2010, you remained with FC Luzern as a coach. Was it always clear to you to take this step?

Even during my active career, I helped out in the youth department once a week for the last three or four years. It was always my idea to work in the youth team immediately after my career ended - FC Luzern gave me the opportunity to do so. It was very instructive to work with young people. At the same time, I completed my coaching training. Then, step by step, I moved up the ladder. Initially, my thoughts were not focused on being a coach for professionals, but rather on contributing my experience to the training.

In January 2018, you were then promoted to coach the first team. Six months later, you moved on to Young Boys, with whom you won the league title three times in a row and the cup once. Then you moved on to Bayer Leverkusen and now Borussia Mönchengladbach. What do you think is the most important thing to be successful as a coach?

I think it's important to give yourself enough time to get to know the profession. The eight years in the youth system opened my horizons. Then I was always lucky enough to work with great people, be it in Lucerne with Remo Mayer, in Bern with Christoph Spycher, in Leverkusen with Simon Rolfes or now here with Roland Virkus. As a coach, you need the support of your sporting management. You need open, clear communication and a commitment to developing something together. I have really felt this support in my four previous positions. The more transparent the collaboration is, the greater the likelihood of overcoming problems together.

In the Bundesliga, every detail is scrutinized by the media, every word is turned inside out. How tedious do you find that?

This area is part of it, but it doesn't affect me as much because I don't deal with it. I do the analysis with the coaching team and those directly involved in the sport, and we are self-critical with each other. It's part of our job to decide how we want to communicate with the outside world. Every coach has to choose their own way. It's clear to me that I don't have to comment on every topic. I try to inform our spectators, our fans, objectively about how I assess the situation, how I rate the game, what our idea is and not to expose myself on things where my opinion is less in demand.

You led Leverkusen to third place in the Champions League in your first season, but in your second year you were sacked after just eight league games. How badly did that affect you?

Of course, being sacked is not what you want. I saw myself working with energy, enthusiasm and joy, but the club decides. Of course it hit me, I was disappointed because I didn't manage to break the negative trend. But on the other hand, I am not the first and not the last coach to be dismissed. I won't be able to change the mechanisms of this business, even if I am convinced that a coaching team needs a certain amount of time to make changes and that these are interlinked.

After your dismissal, you were no longer coach for almost a year. Was that a conscious decision?

After twelve years as a coach and previously 15 years as an active player, I felt the need to take some time out to regenerate and spend time with my family. But I also used the break to broaden my horizons a little. From mid-March, April (2023), I was open to new challenges again.

Can you be without football?

Immediately after my release, I had practically no contact with football for the first two or three weeks. Then came the World Cup in Doha, where I watched a week of matches. I started in paid football when I was 16, now I'm 46, so that's 30 years in the football business. The job of a coach isn't just about the ball, it's much more than that. You work with young people, with players from other cultures, you have to deal with the media. That's why I can hardly imagine doing a job that has no connection to football.

You have been working with a mentor from the field of management and leadership for a long time. How does that benefit you specifically?

Because our job profile is so demanding, a coach needs support, whether it's contractual or legal. It is also important for me to have a private contact person who I trust 100 percent and with whom I can talk about my ideas in order to be able to develop further. It's also about how I deal with certain situations and what adjustments I can make to inspire my team. It's not about football content, but about how to deal with all the challenges in this job in the best possible way.

You are someone who doesn't express emotions outwardly. Is that something you've learned or are you naturally like that?

I think it's important to somehow manage to channel your emotions, but that doesn't mean suppressing them. I am clearly convinced that it is counterproductive to allow yourself to be guided by emotions when making decisions. You can train yourself to do this by acquiring certain tools, such as taking a deep breath so that you don't immediately react emotionally. It's a constant development.

Finally, back to the current situation. Your team will host Borussia Dortmund on Saturday. Is the Borussia derby a special game for you?

There is a certain rivalry with Borussia Dortmund. As I consider BVB to be one of the top four clubs in Germany in terms of squad quality, the clash is always a challenge. But first and foremost, we're looking forward to playing at home again. We've had a positive run in our last few home games (four wins in a row). The crowd here is very passionate, backs us 100 percent and of course we can feel that.

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