Erik ten Hag was nicknamed ‘Mini Pep’ during his stint as Bayern Munich’s reserve team coach and made notes on Guardiola’s training sessions, but there was play-off heartache on the pitch… now he’s back in Bavaria with Man United

• Erik ten Hag returns to Bayern Munich this week in the Champions League
• He coached their second team between 2013 and 2015, learning a great deal
• Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s podcast It’s All Kicking Off! 

When Erik ten Hag was being shown around Bayern Munich’s training complex upon accepting the role of second team coach in 2013, his eye was drawn to one particular inspirational quote on the wall.

‘When good is no longer good enough, you have to make it better,’ it read.

It is the wisdom of legendary Bayern coach Dettmar Cramer, who guided the German club to European Cup glory in 1975 and 1976, and it struck a chord with the Dutchman.

It may also be a trademarked motto for Bayern as an institution as they continue to dominate the German football scene and prepare for another assault on the Champions League.

This week, Ten Hag takes a Manchester United team for whom the ‘no longer good enough’ part might be more applicable to the Allianz Arena for a daunting opening group stage assignment.

Pep Guardiola and Erik ten Hag chat tactics and training plans during their time working together at Bayern Munich between 2013 and 2015

Ten Hag coached Bayern’s second team while Guardiola led the first team during that time

Ten Hag is preparing to take his Manchester United side to Bavaria in the Champions League

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While there, Ten Hag will doubtless reflect on the two years he spent in Bavaria, a very useful stepping stone on his coaching journey in which he learned much about setting the highest of standards and bounced tactical ideas around with Pep Guardiola.

Indeed Ten Hag has described the chance to work on a daily basis in Guardiola’s orbit as ‘like winning the lottery’ and explained why he left a Go Ahead Eagles side he’d just taken into the Dutch top-flight to coach a reserve team.

Being the same height, roughly the same age and with a similar ‘hairstyle’, it was no wonder Ten Hag was nicknamed ‘Mini Pep’ during his time at Bayern.

Despite the first and second teams training on a adjacent pitches at Sabener Strasse, Ten Hag has been at pains to stress he didn’t spend every day chatting about inverted wingers or adaptable full-backs with Guardiola.

But he said of that time: ‘Pep Guardiola is of course one of the world’s best trainers. His teams play the most appealing football of the moment. That is based on a plan.

‘During my time at Bayern Munich, I was able to experience his approach up-close, and I learned a lot from that.

‘Guardiola stands for dominant and attractive football, a way of playing that appeals to me.

Ten Hag is carried shoulder-high by his players after Go Ahead Eagles achieved promotion

Ten Hag’s season at second division Go Ahead allowed him to hone his managerial skills

Erik Ten Hag’s Bayern II record 

June 6, 2013 until May 22, 2015

Played 72

Won 48 Drawn 10 Lost 14

Win percentage 66.7 per cent

‘The players always wanted more because Pep was so enthusiastic. He talked for five minutes, and then they trained with incredible intensity.

‘I watched almost every training, I learned from how he transferred his philosophy to the pitch.’

Ten Hag has expressed his admiration for the Guardiola style that is ‘adventurous, fast, dynamic, technically excellent and [plays] with so much joy.’

He added: ‘I watched very carefully. His training sessions are a joy to watch. Guardiola has the didactic ability to do his tactical training in such a way that the players are constantly going full throttle… similar to actual match conditions.’

The Dutchman also admitted to making copious notes about Guardiola’s training methods and putting his own spin on them. There has always been a mutual respect between the two managers.

It was German legend Matthias Sammer, then Bayern’s sporting director, who insisted on Ten Hag’s appointment.

They knew one another because Sammer had invited Ten Hag to give talks about coaching when he was at the German football association.

There was also no language barrier because Ten Hag grew up close to the German border in the Twente region and knew more of that language than English.

Matthias Sammer, then Bayern’s sporting director, had kept a close eye on Ten Hag’s progress

Ten Hag won most of his games in charge of Bayern II in the Regionalliga but they couldn’t quite achieve the aim of winning promotion to the third-tier 

Ten Hag’s Bayern side were committed to attack, racking up 94 goals in their league campaign

There was criticism that Ten Hag walked out on Go Ahead after taking them up into the Eredivisie but for him, the eternal requirement to win at Bayern represented an intriguing challenge.

They did a lot of winning in Ten Hag’s first campaign, with Bayern II topping the Regionaliga Bayern, the fourth tier of the German football structure.

Ten Hag’s team won 25 of their 36 matches, racking up 94 goals, to enter a promotion play-off with Fortuna Cologne.

For the young hopefuls involved, it was a formative moment – and not in a good way.

Having lost the first leg in Cologne 1-0, two goals from Ylli Sallahi had Bayern just moments away from winning promotion into the third division.

But in the 94th minute a calamitous goalkeeping error by Lukas Raeder led to Oliver Laux scoring the away goal that took Fortuna up instead.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rsp2D85B4v8%3Frel%3D0

Bayern II suffered heartbreak in their promotion play-off final in 2014 when a last-gasp Fortuna Cologne goal took them up instead 

‘We had a great season and ended up missing promotion by a hair’s breadth,’ Ten Hag said at the time.

‘We were very unlucky but that is football. It was something we had to digest.’

Bayern II couldn’t repeat their table-topping feat in Ten Hag’s second campaign in charge. They came second in the Regionalliga, eight points adrift of Wurzburger Kickers, who gained promotion by beating Saarbrucken in the play-off.

In the summer of 2015, Ten Hag returned to Dutch football at Utrecht but his two years at Bayern had been immensely valuable.

His tactical brainstorms with Guardiola helped foster new ideas, while the winning DNA of Bayern as a club ensured he would settle for nothing but the best in future jobs.

Ten Hag spent two years with Bayern before returning to Holland to take the Utrecht job

The mutual respect between Ten Hag and Guardiola from that time remains strong today

‘Winning is the norm, Bayern don’t settle for less. Opponents are always eager to beat us,’ he said at the time.

‘The experience of continuously performing under pressure is very useful.’

As Ten Hag returns to a familiar haunt, his United team are most definitely under pressure. But can they perform?

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF! 

It’s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.

It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.

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