da lvbet： St. Pauli are pushing for promotion, and they're led by their American-born prodigy of a head coach emerging as one of German soccer's best

da bet nacional： Every club in the world is searching for the next Julian Nagelsmann. The hunt is always on for the next coaching prodigy, the young mind that can take whatever failures they endured on the field to fuel them to become geniuses on the touchline.

St. Pauli have found their hidden gem. His name is Fabian Hurzeler, and he was born in America. His country of birth, though, is only a small piece of Hurzeler's story, which is only just getting started. However, the man himself admits that his American heritage has played its part in his success.

And Hurzeler has had plenty of success so far. He's just 31 years old and has St. Pauli storming towards the Bundesliga. To put that into perspective, Hurzeler is three years younger than Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos. He's the same age as Antonio Rudiger and Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. He was teammates with Emre Can as a youth player at Bayern Munich. To have climbed this high this fast at this age? There's something special about him.

Hurzeler has heard the comparisons and seen his name next to ones like Nagelsmann and, of course, he's flattered. Hurzeler, though, knows that all of this is just getting started. He's a coaching prodigy right now, but he has bigger aspirations than that.

"I have to stay humble," he says. "I have to go on my own way. I still have a lot of things to learn. It's not only about detecting things on the pitch; it's also how you treat the media. It's how your impact is in the media and in the world. It's very important that I go on my own, that I try to reflect on my own, and that I go my own way because I can't be the same as Julian Nagelsmann. He went one way, but I'm trying to go the Fabian Hurzeler way. If I can be as successful as Nagelsmann, I will be happy."

Getty ImagesAmerican roots

Hurzeler was born in Houston to a Swiss father and a German mother. His parents were temporarily working in the U.S., where he spent the first few years of his life before inevitably moving back to Europe.

The entirety of his footballing career has been spent in Germany. First, a brief playing career that saw him represent the reserve teams at Bayern Munich, Hoffenheim and 1860 Munich before becoming a player-coach at small-time FC Pipinsried. His coaching career has continued on, first at Pinpinsried, then with the German Under-18s and U20s as an assistant and, ultimately, to St. Pauli.

But Hurzeler still does often think about the U.S. and how his brief time in America as a child impacted him. "I think I always will be connected to the United States because, in the end, it's the land I was born," he says. "I would say I have some typical attitudes of Americans. My character is just open-minded. I'll always be open-minded to everything, to everybody and I try to work hard to reach your dream. I think that's one point that always will be connected to the United States."

Hurzeler used to visit fairly often. He says Miami is his favorite vacation spot, with time spent in the Everglades being one of his most cherished memories. And, this summer, once the 2. Bundesliga season ends, he's hoping for a quick trip to the U.S. as a way to decompress ahead of a potentially massive leap in 2024-25.

"I can say that my goal is to fly to the United States this summer and to look a little bit at the Copa America," he says. "That's my goal. I try to always go on some holidays there because I just love the country. I love the people. I love the adventure. You always can enjoy that. In former times, when we were young, we always did the holidays with our family there. We'd go get a camping car and we'd drive around different cities. It was amazing. We had an amazing, amazing experiences there and I will never forget it."

AdvertisementGettySuccess with St. Pauli

Hurzeler, though, has a lot of work ahead of him this summer. It's one of the consequences of success, after all.

Hired by St. Pauli as an assistant in 2020, he was promoted to interim head coach in 2022 when Tim Schultz was fired. Just two weeks later, Hurzeler was given the job permanently after helping the club return to form, becoming the youngest head coach in the 2. Bundesliga at just 29. That April, St. Pauli rattled off 10 wins in a row, solidifying Hurzeler's place among the best young minds in the German game.

This season, St. Pauli have been even better. With just four games remaining of the season, St. Pauli sit second in the league, one point behind leaders Holstein Kiel. They currently have a five-point advantage over third-placed Fortuna Dusseldorf, with the top two sides earning automatic promotion to the top flight.

Should St. Pauli hold on, next season would mark the club's first campaign in the Bundesliga since 2010-11, and only its third since the start of the new millennium. A return to the top tier would be massive for the club, which has admirers all over the world due to their social culture and political stances.

And Hurzeler is the man leading them there. If he were to take charge of a game in the Bundesliga, he would be the second-youngest coach in the league in last four decades behind only Nagelsmann.

"I think we're not done yet," Hurzeler says. "That's always important to say that because it's also exactly my thoughts… You feel it in the city, of course, and I think that the people, the fans and all the people who support St. Pauli, the team and all the staff members, we try to give our best, and we try to reach that dream."

GettyCommanding respect

It's not easy being a coach, but it's even harder being a coach when a chunk of the players on your team are older than you are. That's the sort of dynamic Hurzeler is constantly working with these days.

Hurzeler knew about that from the start, though. He knew it would be difficult to step into the management role after serving as an assistant. He was also very aware that would be even harder due to his age and inexperience.

"I can say that it's the honest answer: I didn't feel ready at the moment," he says. "At the moment, I didn't feel ready, but I don't think you ever feel ready for a big, big challenge. That was my feeling and what I experienced at that time was to just focus on the things you can influence and just focus on the work. That's my biggest strength."

Hurzeler needed to adjust to a whole new life in the spotlight. The focus was on him from the start given his age, but he also had to adjust to the responsibilities that come with being a head coach. Training sessions, man management, media… all were now his responsibilities and all were things he was learning on the fly.

From the start, he knew how important it would be to win over the players, knowing that he wouldn't necessarily command respect from his resume, so he had to do it with his actions. But he also used his background to his advantage as he looked to earn admiration from a group of players roughly around his age.

"I would say like it's friendly authority," he says. "I've tried to be very open to the players. I tried to give them some ideas on how they could improve. I'm on their level when I talk to them. I'm not the guy who said 'Okay, I'll try to lead from upstairs'. I try to lead and try to use ideas to convince them to do something. I tried to improve them so that they felt that I really cared about their development. I think then they listened more and more and more, and then I feel they really feel it.

"It's very important that you are authentic, that you are real, that you don't try to be artificial in front of them. That was my first my first idea. And the second, of course, you have to be an authority because, in the end, you make hard decisions and, in the end, they have to really recognize that you are the person who maybe hurt them.

"It's not always an easy job as a coach. You have to make tough decisions where maybe some players don't agree, but that's the thing they have to accept. That's also the message you have to transport: that you are the man, the coach, the boss who makes the decision. It's like a balance between the relationship to them also being authority who makes hard decisions."

Getty ImagesBayern influences

St. Pauli are a very, very different club than Bayern Munich. The Bavarians have, of course, dominated German soccer… well, until this season. Even so, there's a certain expectation at the Allianz Arena; anything less than perfection is a failure.

At St. Pauli, though, expectations are different. At times, St. Pauli is less a football club and more a movement, a culture, a state of being. The club's successes and failures aren't defined on the field, but rather in its identity. It permeates through everything the club does.

Hurzeler feels the best of both worlds. Bayern and St. Pauli have a long history together filled with mutual respect, and Hurzeler has experienced both sides, one as a player and one as a head coach.

Hurzeler's time as a Bayern youth player shaped how he approaches the game, on and off the field. He feels a relentless pressure to win and to perform, but to also do it the right way. Winning is the ultimate goal, but getting there is also about how to carry yourself along the way.

"My time there, it created my personality, because I have to be honest, I was there, I think 10-11 years," he begins. "At Bayern Munich, you always have to win. You can imagine you're like 10 years old, 11 years old, you go to a tournament and some people there hate you and some people there love you, but in the end, you have to be successful as a Bayern Munich player.

"The interesting thing is that you don't have to only be successful, but you have to play in a certain way and you have to play a very nice style of soccer. That's what creates my personality and my thinking of my style of play. "