Matthias Jaissle makes tumour & ACL admission as Newcastle United challenge proves 'tougher than expected'
Matthias Jaissle has opened up candidly about his playing career and start to life at Newcastle United.
Matthias Jaissle has admitted imposing his ideas on Newcastle United was 'tougher than expected' - but persistence has defined his journey to this point.
Jaissle has overseen just one defeat in his first seven matches in all competitions, but the 38-year-old has found it harder to implement his ideas as quickly as he would have liked.
After replacing Eddie Howe midway through a chaotic summer that saw Newcastle lose several key players, a period of transition was inevitable.
The Newcastle head coach believes there have already been signs of the football he wants to build, but accepts his side remain some distance from the finished product.
“I think there were elements in games where we saw a lot of the things we were looking for. There were also phases in games where we were not happy and satisfied.”
Jaissle has made clear his frustration at Newcastle's lack of training time, particularly during pre-season, when friendly matches were scheduled every few days after his arrival.
“Considering the circumstances, and we need to remind ourselves always, as well in the coaching staff, because we have these high demands, that we are not long here now and we don't have too much training time.
“So it was tough. It's really tough, tougher than expected, to get the stuff and the principles implemented into the players' heads.”
The recent 4-1 defeat at Leeds United underlined the work still to do, but Jaissle remains encouraged by the bigger picture.
“Considering all these things, we're doing good," he admitted.
'The style will work'
While implementing his philosophy has proven difficult, Jaissle's conviction in his methods has not wavered.
“The style will work anywhere," he said.
At Al-Ahli, the German's intense, vertical football came under scrutiny before helping deliver two Asian Champions League titles.
“They questioned it in Saudi Arabia," Jaissle added. "'Can you play that style when it is 40 degrees outside? Can you play it when players are maybe not at the physical level that you have had before?
“We showed it is possible.”
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Overcoming adversity
Jaissle's experience of adversity began long before his career in professional football. At five years old, he suffered a tumour in his neck which left his ability to play football uncertain.
"I couldn't move my neck side to side. I was only five years old but I learned a lot about life already," he revealed. "How important it is to be healthy and how grateful you can be to be healthy and to follow your dream.
“It was not clear I would be able to play football at that age.”
Jaissle recovered and later joined the academy of boyhood club VfB Stuttgart. At 16, however, a major injury kept him out for almost an entire year.
“I think that gave me the discipline in life to really fight," Jaissle explained. “At that age, you are usually going out, partying, you could quit in that period, but I carried on.”
Jaissle eventually left Stuttgart to begin his professional career with Hoffenheim. By the age of 20, he had established himself as a first-team regular and earned a Germany Under-21 call-up.
“I had just become a Germany Under-21 international player, and I was about to be called into the national team for the first time.
“That was the next step.”
Then came the injury that changed the course of his career.
“When I made my debut in the first team, after seven, eight months of playing regularly for Hoffenheim, I ruptured my ACL, my meniscus, the cartilage, everything.
“I was done.”
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He then smirked as he recalled: “I listened to the stories saying I could be back in four months and I fully believed.
“After four months, I was still in a wheelchair!
“I kept fighting a lot, and I kept the dream for longer than the doctors kept it. They gave me early hints that it would be better, maybe, to study or do something else.
“I did in the end. Maybe in retrospect, [I waited] too long.
“But at least now I can always wake up in the morning and say I did everything, even longer than they recommended.”
Forced to quit
Jaissle had to call time on his playing career at the very young age of 26.
“I was forced to quit,” he insists. “I actually had a period where I was not knowing what to do! I was also struggling for a couple of months, really down, tough to get motivated, tough to get your own rhythm again.
“As a footballer, [coaches] tell you - I tell them now what to do - from morning till evening, and then you lose that structure, so it was not easy.
“Then you come out with the support of friends, family, and coaches, and then you find a new purpose. For me, in the beginning, it was clear I wanted to have something with football again, not necessarily being a coach.
“It could have been sports director, athlete manager, agent, whatever. I started studying different things: sports management, athlete management, football management. I was quite busy.”
It was Jaissle’s former Hoffenheim manager, Ralf Rangnick, who handed him his big break in coaching at RB Leipzig.
“I started as an assistant coach for Sebastian Hoeneß, the current coach of Stuttgart and then I became an assistant coach there as a trainee, joining him, I knew because we played together in Hoffenheim.
“Afterwards, I should have gone to the sports director, administrative department, and so on, and circling around, commercial, whatever, marketing.
“But I had so much fun in the first six weeks as an assistant coach, and Sebastian told me it would be nice to stay, so I didn't move on. After two weeks I felt, ‘Wow, I have joy back in life, not only studying and reading. I have a new purpose’.”
Even when his body and doctors forced him to step away from football, Jaissle found a way back to the top through his new passion for coaching. After working in youth football, as assistant at Danish club Brøndby and head coach at Austrian second-tier side Liefering, Jaissle got his first big break as a manager with Red Bull Salzburg, whom he managed to two Austrian Bundesliga titles and the knockout stages of the Champions League.
It was that determination, resilience and character that attracted Newcastle United to Jaissle. Sporting director Ross Wilson had identified the German as a potential candidate to replace Eddie Howe and, after speaking to him for the first time, knew he had found his man.
A different challenge at Newcastle United
The challenge Jaissle now faces at Newcastle is, of course, entirely different to those he faced earlier in life.
But the experiences that shaped him long before he became a coach have clearly influenced the way he responds when plans are disrupted or progress proves difficult.
“I would say for sure that makes you the person you are, in whatever aspect it is," Jaissle said.
“The belief that you can overcome every obstacle. Every setback also has a positive side as well.
“If you overcome these challenges, then you usually become stronger, more resilient.”
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Sometimes life, while it might not feel like it at the time, leaves you better equipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead.
One part of Jaissle's Newcastle experience has already surpassed expectations.
“They also told me about the atmosphere at St James' Park, but that exceeded my expectations. You have to be there to feel it. If you are part of the game, you see it, and you hear it.
“The banner for me was really special.”
A recovering Newcastle squad has proved tougher to mould than Jaissle might have expected. Yet the supporters have bought into him, and so have the players. Difficult moments have already been worked through, and there will be more to come. Jaissle has spent much of his career learning how to respond when the path ahead changes unexpectedly.
That resilience now sits at the heart of the job he is trying to do on Tyneside.