Newcastle boss Matthias Jaissle reveals he had a neck tumour aged five and opens up on how injuries crushed his playing dreams before switch to coaching

· DailyMail

Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle has revealed he had a neck tumour when he was five years old and how his route to coaching was borne out of injury anguish.

Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle has revealed he had a neck tumour when he was five years old and how his route to coaching was borne out of injury anguish.

When he was at his lowest, a training programme in Leipzig helped him 'have joy back in life' after battling through a playing career that he cut short at just 25.

Following managerial spells with RB Salzburg and Al-Ahli, the 38-year-old was appointed Newcastle boss this summer and his side are ninth in the Premier League .

A former defender, Jaissle was a youth player at Stuttgart and spent his senior career with Hoffenheim, where he achieved back-to-back promotions.

However, he suffered injury setbacks throughout his time as a player and described the impact some of these had from a young age.

Jaissle said: 'I had more moments actually. I had a tumour when I was five years old in the neck so I couldn't move my neck anymore. That was already a period when I learned a lot.

> 'I was five years old, but I learned a lot about life already – how important it is to be healthy and how grateful you can be also to be healthy and to follow your dream. It was not clear that I can play football as a young kid anymore.

> 'That was one part. I was unfortunately really unlucky with injuries.

> 'Already in the youth I had a year almost not playing. That gave me at 16, I will say the discipline in life to really fight. In that age where usually you go out, you party or you quit even already. So I had that period.

> 'When I made a debut in the first season in the first team, the first league, after seven, eight months playing regularly for Hoffenheim I ruptured my ACL, the cartilage, everything was done. I felt it could be difficult to carry on playing on the highest level. I was about 20…'

> 'It was tough. I had just become a Germany Under-21 player. I was about to be called into the national team for the first time. That was the next step. We would have played in the Under-21 Euros that summer and I ruptured my Anterior Cruciate Ligament in March. It was a tough moment.

> 'I was really down. I listened to the stories saying I could be back in four months and I fully believed. After four months I was still in a wheelchair.'

Jaissle was forced to retire aged 25 and the next steps were unclear until he began studying sport-related courses through an online university.

A training opportunity in Leipzig then arose through Ralf Rangnick, Jaissle's former boss at Hoffenheim, and he subsequently discovered a taste for coaching in their youth set-up.

He said: 'I got the chance through Ralf Rangnick – sometimes I mention him as a mentor – I got the chance doing some of a training programme in Leipzig.

> 'I wanted to transfer the things I learned in my studies on the pitch or the offices, it was actually planned to make every six weeks another department.

> 'I started as an assistant coach under Sebastian Hoeness, current coach of Stuttgart, and then I became first assistant coach as a trainee. I knew him because we played together at Hoffenheim.

> 'Then afterwards I should have gone to the sport director, the administrative department and so on. A normal training programme circling around, commercial, marketing.

> 'I had so much fun in the first six weeks being an assistant coach and Sebastian told me it would be nice to stay actually so I didn't move on.

> 'I felt not even after six weeks, I felt after two weeks 'wow, I have joy back in life, not only studying and reading, I have a new purpose'. It was really nice to see.

> 'I continued with him two years, finished my studying, my education stuff, my licences. Then I moved on to Brondby, the first time as an assistant with the first team. It was a nice step.

> 'Then you know all the other steps, to Salzburg in the youth as head coach.'

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