It takes a special person to be named the Bundesliga's youngest coach at 28, but Julian Nagelsmann's quirks are showing signs of getting old.
The Bayern Munich boss, now 35, has been on an upward trajectory since taking over village side Hoffenheim who were seven points from safety, guiding them to the Champions League to stun the world of football.
Nagelsmann began coaching in the Bundesliga aged just 28 and did a sublime job
But he's now feeling the heat for the first time in his career
The ascent continued at an alarming rate as he progressed to Leipzig, seeing the club challenge for league and cup titles for the first time, before reaching the Champions League semi-finals, knocking out Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid and Jose Mourinho's Tottenham along the way.
But Nagelsmann may have reached the ceiling to his trajectory. At Bayern, where he has been since 2021, the only requirement is wins, and at the moment they're hard to come by.
While it will sound ridiculous for almost every other professional football team, a four-game winless run in the Bundesliga, their longest in 20 years, has been labelled a 'crisis', despite only losing one match.
A quarter-final European Cup defeat at the hands of Villarreal last season was Nagelsmann's first real nadir in football, claiming he received '450 death threats' post-match, and now in the midst of another struggle, pressure is growing.
German newspaper BILD claim that 'The name Thomas Tuchel hovers over him and Munich like a shadow' as the former Chelsea boss looks for work, and with not much going right on the pitch, previously trivial matters off it are now escalating.
It isn't just Nagelsmann's age that makes him different, but his way of understanding the game, too, beginning with his early days where he studied race horses.
Nagelsmann is far from your typical manager
"Horses aren't creatures that judge. Horses react to your aura," he explained while at Hoffenheim. "And if you come into a paddock and all the horses run away, then you're obviously a bit too dominant in your demeanour."
That trick clearly worked while coaching many players more senior in age than him, and another tool, a giant scaffold that he sat on top with a projector showing a bird's eye view of the training pitch, was a revelation for tactical analysis and understanding.
However, football only really welcomes new ideas when they're successful, and with players away on international duty and the team struggling, a new one-way window in the manager's office at the training ground so he can observe his players without them knowing hasn't exactly gone down well.
The coach innovated and put a platform up at training, showing a birds eye view of the pitch
It came with a screen, showing players exactly where they needed to improve
If that strained relations then a loss to Augsburg before the recent international break appeared to show everything wasn't rosy when he had to follow tradition and attend Oktoberfest. However, the picture of Nagelsmann and his bosses showed just how bad things are.
Sat alongside CEO Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic draped in lederhosen, the mood was clear around the table, except on one face.
Nagelsmann's girlfriend Lena Wurzenberger was beaming to be sat with two of the most powerful men in German football, and it's no surprise given her job as a sport's journalist.
Nagelsmann and Kahn could barely muster a smile at Oktoberfest
Wurzenberger's now followed everywhere by cameras
Wurzenberger was a Bayern reporter at BILD until her relationship with the head coach went public three weeks after he was divorced from his wife in June, seeing her role covering the Munich club terminated immediately.
Speaking about the most recent result, the 1-0 loss to Augsburg, Thomas Muller said: "After four games without a win, we are stunned. Like the weather, it is getting darker and darker, and so is our emotional world."
Dramatic perhaps, but the only thing that isn't getting dark is Nagelsmann's fashion sense, which is even said to be annoying players, at least that's according to Zeit, along with his accusation that the defence have been playing like 'a pile of chickens'.
A white jacket last time out saw the BILD headline 'Nagelsmann looks like a crime scene cleaner' and that's far from the worst of it.
The headline was brutal but not far off
Bright red tracksuits and three quarter-length skinny jeans were a regular feature at Leipzig before Bayern clamped down on his sartorial choices, with Nagelsmann now only allowed to wear clothes from club sponsors adidas or Hugo Boss.
His mode of transport to work has also been questioned, too, turning up to training on a Triumph lowrider motorbike, and he even once arrived at Bayern on a skateboard.
That was all well and good when Bayern were flying towards their 10th straight league title last season before the Champions League exit put a damper on things, and the situation is now far more serious.
It cost €25million [£22m] to get Nagelsmann out of his Leipzig contract in 2021, the highest fee ever paid for a coach in football.
That makes a departure unlikely even with Tuchel's availability, and next up is the best possible opponent in the manager's 'anti-crisis plan' - a meeting with Bayer Leverkusen who are spiralling out of control.
Despite his tactics giving off the vibe of a Pep Guardiola-level obsession, Nagelsmann was asked how he's been sleeping in the build up to the next match.
Football isn't everything to Nagelsmann, but the result against Leverkusen could be
"I sleep the same as the weeks before," he said. "Football is a very important part for me, also a passion of mine, but it doesn't define me as a person or my happiness in life. That's why I try to give myself the necessary distance from it."
The line strikes a similar chord back to when things were far easier at Hoffenheim in 2017 when he revealed his biggest secret: "You can only be successful if you have fun and don't get too stressed."
Now though the stress is unavoidable in Munich, and he can't even get his skateboard out to let off some steam.
Bild] 
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