Coach! - DVD

Film: When a football team wins, first the players, but then of course also the coach are celebrated by fans and press. But the tide can turn completely after just one defeat. Then it is usually the coach who is first in the crosshairs, confronted with abuse from the fan block and not always objective reporting in the press. Especially with the latter, it seems to be more and more about mood making than about honest sports reporting. And the pressure from club executives is also growing steadily, which can make the job of a coach a real test of endurance for body and soul. Filmmaker Aljoscha Pause, who already directed Tom meets Zizou - Kein Sommermärchen (Tom Meets Zizou - No Summer Fairy Tale), now takes on the job of football coach in his latest film.

The focus of Trainer! is on Frank Schmidt from third-division club 1. FC Heidenheim, André Schubert from FC St. Pauli and Stephan Schmidt from SC Paderborn. But other coaches such as Jürgen Klopp, Armin Veh and Hans Meyer also have their say in very honest conversations. In interviews and snapshots of pre-season preparation, test matches, training, team meetings, victories and crushing defeats, Pause paints a very comprehensive, honest and exciting picture of the job of a professional football coach. It is not only in extreme situations, such as when André Schubert is fired after seven unsuccessful match days at FC St. Pauli, that it becomes clear what kind of pressure the coaches are under, not only during the actual matches.

Press, players, board, fans - they all exert enormous pressure, which not every coach is equally up to. The fact that this is talked about very openly and the interviewees are not only hard on themselves, but also on various members of the press or the board, gives the documentary a certain credibility and depth, which ultimately makes it so rousing and worth watching.

Pause finds a good balance of amusing moments, great playful snapshots and a high information content. It's never dry or overly factual, though, and is extremely interesting and worth watching even for viewers who aren't otherwise into everything about the round leather. Aljoscha Pause shows not only a great love for football, but also a great respect for the performance of all involved, which is why the film always seems balanced and never one-sidedly positioned. And despite its impressive running time of almost two and a half hours, there is hardly ever a moment of boredom.

So Trainer! is an excellent football documentary overall, which not only shows what a coach does for a living, but also reveals what is a bit of a problem in the circus surrounding the sport of football these days. At the same time, however, the film also manages to capture the fascination that the sport continues to exert on its fans and that so thrills millions of people in the stadiums, in front of the TV sets or on the small and large football fields in Germany. Therefore, there is for this DVD from a self-confessed non-football fan a clear: absolutely worth watching!

Picture + Sound: Image and sound quality of the DVD are on a good to very good level for a documentary. The picture is absolutely clean and has a very high image sharpness especially in the interview sequences. But even in faster camera pans, for example in shots of training, there are hardly any weaknesses worth mentioning. The fact that the sound, which is dominated by the interviews, is only available in a stereo mix isn't too much of a nuisance, as there are very few genuine surround moments in documentaries anyway. Overall, the sound sounds very powerful and leaves a good overall impression.

Extras: As a bonus, there is a tactics school on the DVD with DFB chief instructor Frank Wormuth (approx. 18:45 min.), which provides information on topics such as basic formation, conversion from four-man to three-man, the different types of pressing or what Tiki Taka is. In addition, there are extended interviews (approx. 15 min.) on topics such as tactics, training, the relationship between the players and the coach or being a coach in general. Aljoscha Pause's short film Mesut, 17 (approx. 10 min.) from 2006 and the trailer for the film round out the good additional offerings.

Conclusion: Trainer! is a great sports documentary that works well not only as a very candid and unembellished portrait of three coaches, but as a cinematic approach to this profession and all the difficulties it entails. While this is of particular interest to football fans, it can also captivate those viewers who aren't particularly fond of the round leather per se. A really well crafted and engagingly staged documentary, which also has extras worth seeing on the technically convincing DVD. A winning hit, for which a clear Recommendable can be pronounced

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp