Countdown to Euro 2024 opener: It's been quite the ride for Julian Nagelsmann since he was sacked by Bayern Munich

After a giddy ascent to land one of the most coveted jobs in world football, there was something almost poetic about where Julian Nagelsmann was standing the moment he discovered he was surplus to the requirements of Bayern Munich last year.

Following a defeat by Bayer Leverkusen in March, he took himself off to Zillertal in the Alps to indulge in some skiing.

The phone call he probably half expected to receive told him not to hurry back. For the first time in his short but spectacular career, he found himself on a slippery slope.

Yet, the 36-year-old had already achieved too much in a ludicrously short spell as a coach to drift for too long.

Despite Nagelsmann’s tender years, his instant availability did Hansi Flick no favours as he slalomed from one disaster to the next with the German national team.

When the axe fell on Flick last September after becoming the first national boss in 38 years to suffer three successive defeats, the man who succeeded him at Bayern Munich in 2021 was only too willing to get off the snow-covered slopes and return to work.

Germany should be thankful that Nagelsmann answered the call. The honour of managing his country in a tournament his nation is hosting may be obvious. But so was the disconnect between a fanbase and a team that’s exited at the group stage of the last two World Cups and the round of 16 in Euro 2020.

With the clock ticking towards the finals, Nagelsmann’s task has been as much about getting a football-mad public fully invested in the national cause again as it has been about improving results.

Charismatic, intelligent and eloquent, he is and always has been a person who can take others with him on a journey.

‘Thirty per cent of coaching is tactics, 70 per cent social competence,’ he once said of his approach. ‘Every player is motivated by different things and needs to be addressed accordingly. At this level, the quality of the players at your disposal will ensure that you play well within a good tactical set-up — if the psychological condition is right.

‘If you respect the players, they’ll respect you. You gain respect by being respectful, so respect other people’s opinions.’

Born in the small Bavarian town of Landsberg am Lech, he played for FC Augsburg and 1860 Munich at youth level before a recurring knee injury caused him to call time on his career at the age of 20.

Thomas Tuchel, the then-Augsburg manager, deployed him as a scout with Nagelsmann also immersing himself in business administration then sports science at university.

He returned to the game as a youth coach at 1860 Munich before taking on a similar role at Hoffenheim. Quickly scaling the ladder there, he was nicknamed ‘Mini-Mourinho’ by the players.

When he was appointed to the top job in February 2016 after veteran Hubb Stevens suddenly resigned because of a heart complaint, not everyone saw the promotion of a man aged just 28 as a feel-good story.

Local newspaper Rhein-Neckar- Zeitung labelled his appointment a ‘publicity stunt’.

The gamble paid off with the troubled team winning seven of its remaining 14 games to finish one-point above the relegation play-off spot.

Having recalibrated the side for the following season, Nagelsmann took them up to fourth then improved on that finish by a place the following year. It was quite the story.

Although the team finished ninth in 2018-19, his reputation as one of the best emerging coaches in the world was solidifying.

RB Leipzig saw him as a hand-in-glove fit and appointed him as their manager that summer. Under his tutelage, the team from Saxony finished third then second in the league and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.

When Flick left Bayern Munich in July 2021, Leipzig put a record £23m price tag on Nagelsmann’s head. It was paid without hesitation.

While the capturing of the club’s tenth consecutive Bundesliga in his first season went some way to justifying that faith, an unexpected defeat to Villarreal in the last eight of the Champions League was a winding blow.

Nagelsmann partially atoned for that by defeating PSG in the last 16 the following season, but all was clearly not well behind the scenes.

With the team that had once been nine points clear now trailing Borussia Dortmund by a point after that loss to Leverkusen, his sojourn to the Alps would not end happily.

‘I was appointed at Bayern with the aim of changing things,’ he reflected.

‘The coaches at Bayern Munich don’t get that much time to develop something.’

While a jittery win over Greece on Friday made for an unconvincing dress rehearsal, few dispute that by placing their trust in Nagelsmann, the DFB have given themselves the best chance of seeing a fourth European Championship claimed on home soil.

‘You can’t buy experience, you can’t learn experience, you have to gain it yourself,’ he stressed. ‘You can’t learn it from a book. You just have to wait and be patient.’