Jamie Lawrence has always been a talented center-back, standing at over two meters yet possessing a great quality with the ball at his feet, which is why Bayern Munich signed him as a teenager. But talent alone does not make center-backs viable for the biggest leagues in the world. For that, he needed advice from those who already made it. Luckily for him, he would get some advice from legendary former striker Miroslav Klose:
“I remember that Miroslav Klose often took time for me and explained to me clearly what would happen if I was in the ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ position, so to speak, when I was inviting the striker to score goals and when I was making it damn difficult for him,” Lawrence explained, via @iMiaSanMia_GER. “He was very ambitious [when we trained together], but it was unbelievably fun. We often played for lunch. In general, he taught us that football is not possible without fun and enjoyment.”
It is the mark of a good coach to not only help players enjoy their football but use one’s experiences to help players in different positions on the pitch. Lawrence, who has since left Bayern to join WSG Tirol in the Austrian Bundesliga, where he has immediately become an undroppable member of the first team and has played every single available league minute. Is this solely down to the World Cup record goal scorer? No. But, equally, Klose had enough of an impact on Lawrence that the 22-year-old thinks of the current 1. FC Nürnberg manager’s coaching around half a decade later. A good coach teaches you things that stay with you for life.
