The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on Tuesday, August 27th announced Bruno Labbadia as the new coach of the country’s senior football team, the Super Eagles.
www.theoctopusnews.com presents 1o facts about the German tactician who also played as a striker for Germany.
- As a striker, Labbadia played for several clubs, including Bayern Munich, Hamburg, and Cologne.
- Labbadia also coached several clubs in Germany and Australia including Darmstadt 98, Greuther Fürth, Bayer Leverkusen, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Wolfsburg, Hertha Berlin, and RB Leipzig where he worked in a caretaker capacity.
- The German tactician’s managerial style is characterized by disciplined defending, quick counter-attacks, high-pressing, and tactical flexibility.
- Labbadia is of Italian ancestry, his family roots go back to Lenola, a town in the Lazio region. Labbadia’s Italian parents moved to Germany as Gastarbeiter and settled in Schneppenhausen near Darmstadt in Hesse. Together with eight siblings, he and his family had lived on a farm for rent before moving to Weiterstadt when he was ten years old.
- He communicated in Italian with his parents while he spoke German with his siblings.
- The former manager of Darmstadt 98 trained as an insurance salesman. When he was 18 years old, he gave up Italian citizenship and became a German citizen, since in Germany only two foreigners were eligible to play in one team at the time, so he gave a place to a non-German in the squad of SV Darmstadt 98.
- Having had his first spell with Stuttgart in 2010, Labbadia returned for another stint in December 2022. However, in April 2023, he was sacked after the team dropped to the last place.
- Due to a chain of poor results, Labbadia was sacked at different times by Hamburger SV, Hertha BSC, and VfB Stuttgart twice.
- Labbadia was born on February 8, 1966
- Labbadia becomes the 37th Head Coach of the Super Eagles.
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