“For me, this was never just a career,” Nuri Sahin tells Your Site. “Some footballers struggle after playing but managing always felt like my destiny.” So, what happens when you leave your dream job in charge of Borussia Dortmund at the age of 36?
That is the situation that Sahin found himself in at the start of last year. He had, by his own admission, listened to his heart and left a good role as head coach of Antalyaspor to join Edin Terzic's staff at Dortmund, helping the club to the Champions League final.
But after taking over the top job that summer, he was sacked last January. It was a difficult experience when so invested. "Because I had a special bond with Borussia, that first moment was heartbreaking," he admits. "I would be lying if I said it wasn't."
Speaking to Sahin now, he is happy to get into the detail of what went wrong - partly because his coaching career is back on track with Basaksehir. With six wins and two draws from the last nine games, they are among the form team in the Turkish Super Lig.
"There is that saying that you only become a good manager after you have been sacked," he says, smiling. It is not the way he would have wanted it, of course. He elected to take six months away from the game to take stock after leaving Dortmund.
"It was the first time in 20 years that I had time off because I jumped from player to manager very fast." Indeed, he had been a player-coach at Antalyaspor. Even at Dortmund, he was coaching former teammates. "It was a quick transition," he adds.
"In those six months off, I could listen to myself, think about what went wrong, do some self-criticism and see the big picture. Testing myself against the best coaches in the world was amazing. I knew the day I left Dortmund that I would be better in my next job."
His Dortmund had their moments against the best, leading Real Madrid by two goals in the Bernabeu before a dramatic turnaround late on. They lost a five-goal thriller to Barcelona and conceded a late equaliser in his only Klassiker against Bayern Munich.
"We had some good matches. But maybe the transition I had in my mind was too fast. We wanted to implement things but did we have the profile of player to do it? I should have gone step by step but I thought I could go faster. Of course, I made a mistake."
Sahin, who had played under Jurgen Klopp at Dortmund before going on to play for Real Madrid and Liverpool, had a grand vision for how he wanted his team to play. "I was focused on implementing something for the long term, that was my idea," he explains.
But when the practical challenges of leading a behemoth like BVB kicked in, it became tough. He acknowledges that the vision soon became less clear. "The little details like how you press in the opponent's half, how brave you are, the high line you use," he says.
Did he compromise too much? "On and off the pitch. It was not really possible to play out from the back with the goalkeeper, for example. But I want to be more brave than I was at Dortmund. That is a lesson I learned. I want to be more committed to the idea."
From now on, the high line is non-negotiable. "That will not change." No surprise that he name-checks Hansi Flick as an inspiration. He cites Luis Enrique's work as "super interesting" and likes what Mikel Arteta is doing at Arsenal and Cesc Fabregas at Como.
He says he was "very interested in the positional movements of Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham at the beginning" but acknowledges that the game has changed even since then. "You must adapt things because the game is evolving at a crazy speed right now."
Sahin is still a student of that game and it seems that Basaksehir could be the beneficiaries of it. "I wish it had gone another way at Dortmund but I felt very quickly that I would bounce back. What was important was not to just go after a big name."
He explains: "I wanted to work with people who understood me and wanted to go in the same direction. As a coach, if you want to go one way and the club wants to go another, it does not make sense, even with the best players in the world. You need to be aligned."
The situation that Sahin inherited at Basaksehir was not straightforward. Champions of Turkey as recently as 2020, the finances are no longer what they were. The club had already been knocked out of European competition when he arrived in September.
"Lifting them was maybe the toughest challenge because it was dark when we arrived. It was a problem. They were used to Europe and it was a heartbreaking moment. Everyone wanted Europe, not just the players but for the kit man, the physio and everyone here."
"Coming into a team with two points from three games and already out of Europe, we had to turn things around fast so we changed a lot, implemented our ideas and brought some fresh energy. I think this helped everyone. We brought some positivity to the club.
"At the beginning, it was a struggle, of course. The results took longer than the ideas. But we explained why we had to change things and what our principles were. They say that players need time but coaches need time to get know players as human beings.
"After 100 days, I would say that I understood them and they understood me and we knew the direction in which we were going." Belief has returned and the possession numbers are up. "Here, I have a goalkeeper who is really good with his feet," says Sahin.
There is renewed optimism that Basaksehir can "compete against the big clubs" as he puts it. "The only thing missing is a full stadium. But we create our own vibe. Others have the financial power but I hope next season we can attack at least a few of them."
The message from Sahin is that he is convinced that he is in the right place now, and not just because his family had decided to build a house in Istanbul not long before taking the job. "I would have taken it if it were 5,000 kilometres from home," he insists.
The conversation turns to Xabi Alonso, a former teammate of Sahin's from Madrid who was the most celebrated young coach in the world only to suffer his own setback in Spain. "Now, I go again. Let's see where it leads. My dreams did not end at Dortmund."
