Newcastle United boss Matthias Jaissle has been talking about his main influences in football since deciding to become a head coach
Thomas Tuchel, Manager of England, is seen in attendance before the Premier League 2026/27 match between Crystal Palace FC and Manchester City
England head coach Thomas Tuchel has been discussing his England squad selection(Image: (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images))
Newcastle United boss Matthias Jaissle has lifted the lid on a chat with old mentor and England boss Thomas Tuchel before he signed on the dotted line for the Magpies.
However, he insists nothing could have prepared him for the breathtaking experience of St James' Park on a match day with 50,000 Geordie fans already in love with the former Al-Ahli manager. Now he aims to deliver a brand of football that even Barcelona would be proud of!
The German head coach has made a solid start to life on Tyneside but has also been exposed to the cut and thrust of life in English football too, experiencing the Lions' Den at Millwall and the intensity of Elland Road, where Newcastle endured a 4-1 drubbing.
Tuchel and Jaissle first became familiar when the Toon boss was a youth player with Stuttgart, and the duo have stayed in touch ever since.
But Jaissle, speaking to Press at a round table event at the KNOX, admits he did not need a warning from Tuchel when he first spoke to him about the possibility of being Newcastle manager, and said with a smile: "He did not need to warn me, I already knew! There was nothing that surprised me.
"I expected that level and that quality. I expected that small margins would determine games. Everything that I expected came true.
"He 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."
Jaissle hopes that his brand of intense attacking football will be a hit with Newcastle fans as the season progresses, and even after a couple of scares in the Premier League, after the 4-1 loss to Leeds and going 2-0 down to AFC Bournemouth before fighting back for a point, the Toon chief is convinced he can make things work.
Jaissle, who wants to bring the Red Bull playbook to English shores, after a successful stint with Salzburg, said: "The style will work anywhere. They questioned it in Saudi Arabia - 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.
"Look at Barcelona now, and the way they are flying. I would not say that Hansi Flick is from the Red Bull dynasty, but there are a lot of elements in the way he works that can be seen as from there.
"The players there might have been more used to playing in a tiki-taka style, but they have adapted and you can see it is working.
"I was listening to Rodri, and he was saying a lot about the physicality and the way they train now. It shows that it can be done in every league, in my eyes."
Tuchel is not the only big influence on Jaissle's career with the Newcastle head coach also working with box office Bundesliga chief Sebastian Hoeness earlier in his coaching years and the man nicknamed The Professor in German and Austrian football Ralf Rangnick.
Jaissle said: "Thomas Tuchel was a player under Ralf Rangnick at Ulm so he has inspired us both.
"There is always a link, or often a link to Ralf Rangnick. Thomas was also a player under Ralf Rangnick in Ulm, so that definitely inspired many coaches.
"Not only the coaches worked closely with Ralf Rangnick, also other coaches had a huge impact on them, because he was an early mover in Germany for that style of play, and many coaches were inspired by him.
"He not only inspired me because I was a player under him, and I felt that it's working so well, but back then when you showed me the picture, first in the league with a team that just got promoted, then you start really believing this gaffer is doing something right.
"So that inspired me a lot, it was always clear. I used to say that often we as a player never had question marks in our head when we entered the pitch on the matchday. So that's something I like to, or at least I try to give the players as well, that they are so clear when we're on the pitch."