UEFA•technician looks at Löw

Joachim Löw has reached the coaching summit after leading Germany to the FIFA World Cup title in Brazil last summer. The coaching philosophies that have guided Löw to his position as one of the world's most respected coaches are highlighted in an interview in the latest edition of UEFA's coaching magazine, UEFA•technician.

Löw was interviewed by UEFA's chief technical officer Ioan Lupescu at the recent FIFA/UEFA conference for national coaches and technical directors in St Petersburg, and gives a fascinating insight into what makes a champion coach, the qualities needed for a team to win a world title, the work done behind the scenes and within the German Football Association (DFB) to fashion World Cup winners, and the long and often difficult road that ended in triumph in Rio de Janeiro in July.

"From my point of view, it is not the coach who becomes world champion," says Löw modestly, "it is a team. Not just the players who played, but the whole squad, and also the team behind the team. Because if you want to achieve success, the whole team has to work perfectly, like a machine, and all the pieces of the puzzle need to fit together into one picture.

"I think the core job of a coach is to select the right players for a tournament," he adds. "You need players who are mentally and physically fit, who are able to deal with difficult moments… A coach needs to be a psychologist, because during a tournament you're looking after a team of players which is being watched closely and put under a lot of pressure.

"A coach needs, as well as specific abilities, a philosophy and a pathway that he tries to implement and communicate to the players," Löw continues. "That is something that I have learned: today's players want explanations and to understand criticism by the coach. So you need to be able to make yourself understood. So I think the psychological aspect and good communication are, as well as football-specific abilities, fundamental for a coach."

Löw stresses the importance of the "team behind the team" – the staff of colleagues and experts who accompany the coach in his work, especially during a tournament. "It's important nowadays that a coach works with people who are specialists in their domains," Löw reflects. "You shouldn't be scared of putting together a team made up of experts who are better than the coach in some aspects … So for me personally, it was important to have people in my environment who discuss things with me, who give me their opinions, but who are loyal to me and who are reliable."

The technical trends and analyses from the World Cup, the focal point of the gathering in St Petersburg, are covered in detail. "In an overview of a final tournament which had achieved high entertainment levels," UEFA•technician concludes, "the impression expressed by the European technical observers was that most games had been played with attacking vocation and that the mindset among the coaches was to focus on winning games rather than to avoid losing them."

Another high-level coaching summit covered in the latest UEFA•technician is the annual UEFA Elite Club Coaches' forum, the latest edition of which took place in Nyon earlier this autumn. The coaching fraternity discussed "the A to Y of UEFA club competitions", dealing with topics ranging from away goals, set plays, sin bins, pitch-watering and yellow cards to the UEFA Youth League, and the article throws up a wealth of questions and opinions.

Once again, UEFA showed its readiness to listen to the coaches – reflected in the presence of UEFA President Michel Platini at the forum – while UEFA coaching ambassador Sir Alex Ferguson summed up one of the event's main aims: "These meetings are important because they allow coaches to get together out of competition and to express themselves." Ioan Lupescu also makes a telling point about the massive value of such discussions in his editorial column: "All the coaches, in Nyon and in St Petersburg," he says, "were prepared to put something back into the game by sharing their thoughts and their first-hand experience with their colleagues in the coaching profession."

Also in the latest UEFA•technician– the lowdown on the launching by UEFA of a female coach education project, in which the European body has accepted the challenge to promote the qualification, or further qualification, of female coaches, and to create viable ways that women players can move from playing into coaching and make full use of their passion and knowledge for the game.

There is also a heartfelt tribute to Gero Bisanz, the influential former German women's coach who was a key driving force in developing UEFA's coaching activities. "A revered expert who provided profound and relevant answers," writes UEFA's head of football education services Frank Ludolph, "a guide and – for some – a guru, a personality with huge human qualities, a friend … has left the field of play and we will miss him."