The other way up – an interview with Jan Zimmermann and Ingo Preuß

A sweet smell is already in the air when you enter the sport department’s office in Brackel. There can be no doubt: the bakers have been to BVB – there are waffles on sticks. The pleasant aroma even makes its way under the fire door. Once in the kitchen, Ingo Preuß’s gaze wanders over the spread. “No cream?” asks the sporting director of the U23s. The question remains unanswered, but Preuß quickly realises he will have to make do without the squirty cream on his waffles today. He has no interest in dipping his fresh waffles into the liquid chocolate provided. Jan Zimmermann also enjoys the waffles without any extras. The new U23s coach has been in office since February. Since then, he has been striving to do exactly what the waffles have done today – make a good impression. But, of course, for him, it is about far more than that.

Jan, you completed your training as a football coach in 2019. What was your main motivation to become a coach?

ZIMMERMANN: “I think I had more natural talent as a player than several others, but I’ve realised I never had a coach who explained why we should do things the way he was telling us to. In training, I was always just waiting for us to practice shooting or play a game, which I enjoyed, but I never actually made the link from training to the proper matches. I later asked myself the question: ‘Why did you never really make it a player?’ As a coach, I understood what I could have used as a player. That’s why I decided to do things differently as a coach myself and to make my players understand why and what you are training during the week, what added value you can create for yourself and for the team. It essentially boils down to three things: What do I know as a coach? What does my team need? And what can I teach them? First, I completed a normal education. At the same time, I was a football coach, and realised that I was enjoying it. At some point, I realised relatively quickly that I wanted to become a qualified football coach, but my goal was not to become head coach of a professional team. My goal was to get all the licenses so that I could decide for myself whether or not to go in that direction. I just wanted to try it out.”

You were previously at Hannover 96. Before that, you were at TSV Havelse and Germania Egestorf/Langreder. What experiences from your career to date can you bring with you to BVB?

“At the end of the day, the job of being a coach has a lot to do with experience. It helps that you have experienced a lot of situations before in order to be able to assess them. I have over ten years of experience in dealing with many young players, which is of course an important point here at Borussia Dortmund. Of course, it is always about results, but the game at the weekend is only a small part of the work. You see the lads almost every day, and want to help them in their personal development, because they are also striving for that during their sporting development.”

You have an 18-year-old son. Most of your players are only slightly older than him. How much of the father Jan Zimmermann is in the coach Jan Zimmermann?

“As a coach, I have to look at performances on the pitch, but I always try to see them as people. I’m getting older, so that gap between me and the players is getting bigger and bigger. I think so anyway. It doesn’t hurt to have experienced certain things with your own child, because I know what outside influences are acting on the boys at that age. That does not always have something to do with football. I want to be in constant contact with the boys. The more I know about them, the better I can assess things and figure out why some things are working or not. In the end, it’s also about creating an environment in which they feel comfortable playing football with fun and confidence.”

When you took over the U23s, the team were 16th in the 3. Liga. They had scored just 17 goals in 21 games and had suffered 12 defeats. There are certainly easier jobs with better chances of success. What piqued your interest in the role?

“After my last job at Hannover 96, I thought hard about what the next step might be for me. As a big club with professional structures, Borussia Dortmund are of course very exciting for me and for my personal development as a coach. I had a very good, open and honest conversation with Ingo Preuß and like to go with my gut feeling – and that has almost always served me well in life. From the very first conversation, I got the feeling that I really wanted to do it. And I see a lot of potential in the team.”

Was the good feeling you had validated after the first few weeks at BVB?
“Definitely. How openly and warmly I was welcomed, how helpful everyone was, how close we have become in such a short space of time – those things were surprisingly positive and made getting started much easier. I enjoy working with everyone here – Ingo Preuß, Edin Terzic, Sebastian Kehl and Otto Addo. We have regular, very close and good discussions. I try to support Edin and the first team as much as I can as coach of the U23s.”

Ingo, after Christian Preußer’s departure in February, you had to find a new coach quickly. What were the key criteria?

PREUSS: “I met with Jan in a restaurant in Düsseldorf. On his laptop, he showed me some facts and statistics about our team that won me over. What he showed me, based on the data, was very interesting and informative, but you cannot base the decision of whether or not to hire a coach for our U23s based on that alone. Above all, I also have to get the impression that this is someone who can get on with the players. I always put a lot of emphasis on that when choosing a coach.”

Michael Skibbe, Horst Köppel, Theo Schneider – there is a long list of prominent coaches of the Borussia Dortmund U23s. In the recent past alone, five coaches from the Black and Yellows have made the step up into the Bundesliga or the English Premier League in Hannes Wolf, David Wagner, Daniel Farke, Jan Siewert and Enrico Maaßen. However, that was not a factor in his decision to join the Black and Yellow, assures Jan Zimmermann. “If you look at my career, apart from my brief spell in Hanover, I have always worked in places for an extended period because I have felt at home there. I would not have taken the chance here in Dortmund if I had the feeling that I would not fit in well here. I feel very comfortable and don’t have the goal of going anywhere else in the near future,” says the 43-year-old. Nevertheless, the BVB U23s have proven to be a good springboard for careers – for coaches as well as for players.

Ingo, your job as sporting director of the U23s goes hand in hand with regular personnel changes. What qualities are important to you when it comes to signing players?

PREUSS: “It is very important for me to stress that I do not make the decisions alone. We do this together. The coach, the scouting department and I all make suggestions, and then we talk about potential new signings. To me, it is only right that we do this together, because it is enormously important to get different opinions and I am not someone who believes that everything I do is always right. When choosing a player, it is important to us that he absolutely wants to play for Borussia Dortmund. In the past, we have brought in footballers who get a glint in their eyes every day and are proud to be able to play at BVB. That also applies to the lads who join us from our youth teams. They need to have that same feeling. They can’t be resting on their laurels – they have to be happy every day that they are at BVB.”

At BVB, all of the lads are good footballers, but only a few manage to make the jump to the very top. What is the decisive factor when it comes to a player ultimately making it or not?

“There is no silver bullet for this, because too many factors play a role. It’s about talent – that’s the be-all and end-all. It’s about coming with the right attitude and everything that goes with it. Today, this is often summed up by the buzzword ‘mentality’, but that also includes the luck of having the right coach and joining a team that works and then being brought through there. Of course, you also have to remain injury-free. If you are not healthy, you have no chance in the first place. You need to be at a top level physically to make it in the Bundesliga. If all these factors come together, you have a good chance.”

“You have to be effective on the ball. I want to create a framework in which players feel comfortable.”

Jan Zimmermann, 43, began his coaching career as player-coach at 1. FC Germania Egestorf/Langreder, helping guide them into the Regionalliga. After seven years, he moved to TSV Havelse, who he brought to the 3. Liga. He also lifted the Niedersachsen-Pokal with Havelse. From July to November 2021, Zimmermann was coach of second tier side Hannover 96 in his home town. 

In recent years, our talented young players from the academy have made it into the professional game time after time. That creates a high level of expectation – including for the U23s. Is that actually justified?

“If we were to get one player into the first team squad every season, that would be a great result. That is almost impossible, because in the U23s, we do not usually get players who go directly into the first team squad. Instead, we tend to have players who are there to work their way into other leagues using us as a kind of second-chance education. Most of the top talents make the jump straight into the first team, like Jamie Bynoe-Gittens. Jadon Sancho did actually play a few games with us in the U23s, but all these guys also signed contracts with the first team straight away. Then, of course, there are also players like Ansgar Knauff. He played for us for many years in his youth, and then came to the U23s. If, as in his case, you can accompany their development so that they ultimately make it into the professional game, then that is exactly what our U23s should be there for.”

Why is this “second-chance education”, as you call it, so important for players who can’t jump straight from the U19s to the first team?

“Because it’s primarily about playing at a certain level and having to consistently deliver performances week-in, week-out. In the U23s, these players can experience what it is like to battle for points, fight against relegation or win promotion. All of this will help with their development.”

Is this season, however strenuous it may have been so far, particularly valuable for the players?

ZIMMERMANN: “It is great experience for the young players in particular. From the outside, the 3. Liga is often underestimated, but it is absolutely a professional league, in which our young players have to compete against adults with a chip on their shoulder and in which every mistake is punished hard. It is of course a fine line and it’s hard to say what is better for the development of young players – playing for promotion or battling against relegation. In my view, however, it absolutely makes sense to let the players play at the highest level. They can get a lot out of that.”

Why is the 3. Liga the optimal league for the players’ development from the club’s point of view?
ZIMMERMANN: “For outsiders, it is often difficult to understand that our U19s have always been very successful in recent years, but it is still difficult for these guys to make it in the 3. Liga. You can ask yourself the question: ‘Would the Regionalliga be easier as the next step for these players?’ But then you also have to ask yourself: ‘Do you want to train players for other clubs or do you want to see which players really have what it takes to play for the first team in Dortmund?’ The jump from the U19s to the first team is huge, so the 3. Liga as an intermediate step absolutely make sense.”

PREUSS: “I would like to underline that completely. No matter how old they are, the players who stand out from the crowd over a long period of time in the 3. Liga can also make it in the Bundesliga. There are plenty of examples of that in our country. Players like Steffen Tigges, Ansgar Knauff, Kerem Demirbay, Jonas Hofmann, Marvin Ducksch, Tobias Raschl, Immanuel Pherai or Marcel Halstenberg come to mind. It is simply possible to say with a greater degree of certainty that a player is ready for the first team when they are playing in the 3. Liga than in the Regionalliga West, although that league should not be underestimated either, as academy players are always flooding into that league too.”

The U23s has a pivotal function at Borussia Dortmund. They are the link between the academy and the first team. That makes the work challenging in several ways. Talented youngsters from the U19s like Nnamdi Collins and Tom Rothe are there to gather valuable experience and match practice. The same applies to the players from the first team squad who have not been getting much game time recently or are coming back from an injury. But that is not the only premise. Despite the overarching idea of helping bring players through, the U23s are subject to the rules of competition. They have to get points in the 3. Liga – that is a demanding task.

Jan, as coach of the U23s, on the one hand, you have to be loyal and do everything you can to support the first team and the U19s as far as possible. On the other hand, you also have your own goals and ambitions. What do you make of this balancing act?

ZIMMERMANN: “You know roughly what to expect when you get involved with it. At BVB, the doors are open in both directions – there is a constant dialogue with the first team and the U19s. In addition, we have our top talent coaches. In the end, a lot of it comes down to internal communication, but also the right communication with the players. For me as a coach, it is very important to create transparency, to explain to my lads that changes in the starting line-up or training groups from week to week do not necessarily have anything to do with performances. Even after a really good game, we may make some changes, for example because a player from the first team squad is with us. That is just part and parcel of it. I accept that, and if I communicate it to my players rationally, they accept it too. And it has to be said: BVB have so many talented players that I am always able to put a good team out on the pitch.”

In recent weeks, the playing style of the U23s has your fingerprints all over it. What philosophy do you expect the team to embody in future?

“As a coach, you always have to look at what skills your players have and how they can make the most of them so that the team plays successful football. I think we can now see quite well that it is about moving the ball quickly, playing with purpose on the ball and being compact without the ball. It is about refining that and getting consistency to our performances in the long term.”

You were an attacker during your playing career. To what extent does that flow into your basic ideas?

“My philosophy is that you have to be effective on the ball. I am not a coach who likes his team having the ball for three minutes, but just playing back and forth in their own half. I want people to be able to tell that the team’s aim is to score goals. I want us to be active and not just stand around our own penalty area, hoping that our opponents don’t come up with any smart ideas. You can do that even if you don’t have the ball by active running. That doesn’t mean that we always run forward straight away, but that we have a clear idea of how to get the ball to the goal, and if we do not have it, where and how to win it back. In the 3. Liga, it is about minimising our own mistakes and punishing mistakes from our opponents. Since I have come here, our passing accuracy has actually gone down because we want to take more risks in the final third and pose a greater threat to the opposition’s goal, and when you’re doing that, one or two passes might not make it to their intended target. But for me, it is about playing with purpose. Some teams have 60 percent possession of the ball and wonder why they lost the game despite being so dominant on paper. For me, it is important to play with purpose in the attacking third.”

To what extent can you stick to this philosophy when there are significant changes in personnel in the U23s year after year as the players get older?

“The longer I am here and the better links we have with the first team, the easier it will become. I hope that based on the summer pre-season and a good dialogue with Edin Terzic, we will be able to adapt our playing style to that of the first team. We are already in the process of making the transition much easier. After all, it is not just about first team players coming down to us to get match practice, but of course, we also want to open the door for the boys who are doing well with us and deserve a chance with the first team. The closer our footballing philosophy is to that of the first team, the easier it will be for our players to break through at the top.”

But that is something for the future – until the end of May, Jan Zimmermann and Ingo Preuß will be focusing on securing the U23s’ survival in the 3. Liga. After the interview, the photographer needs a few more snaps of the pair. As the rain is pouring down in Dortmund, the original idea of getting a picture of the two on the pitch is a no-go. Instead, they move to the lounge of the scouting department. There is a bowl of nuts and almonds on the table. “We sometimes have a squirrel in our garden at home. So the other day, I threw him a few almonds to eat,” says Ingo Preuß. His wife had then admonished him and told him that squirrels should not eat almonds because they contain hydrogen cyanide and it is toxic to them. “So I picked up every single almond off the grass.” His work with the U23s may sometimes seem reminiscent of the story with the squirrel – done with good intentions, but then something does not work as imagined, and he will have to step in to take corrective action. Just like this season’s change of head coach…

Speaking of which… As Jan Zimmermann is a trained insurance salesman, have you actually taken out a policy with him to cover yourself if you don’t manage to stay up?

PREUSS (laughs): “Of course! You don’t usually have a guarantee, but of course we have taken out that policy. After all, I want to enjoy my retirement if things don’t turn out well…”

Author: Cedric Gebhardt
Photographer: Mareen Meyer

This article comes from the BORUSSIA members’ magazine. BVB members can receive BORUSSIA free of charge every month. Click here to register to become a member.