Thomas Wörle Tactics At SSV Ulm 1846 & The 2. Bundesliga Challenge – Tactical Analysis

Ulm is a relatively small city located in southern Germany.

It’s not really famous, but its cathedral, the Ulmer Münster, is the highest church in the entire world, and that’s pretty much the only thing interesting about Ulm to most people.

However, in the football world, Ulm is famous for something else.

In the late 90s, after struggling to get promoted to the 2. Bundesliga, the club hired a young, local manager whose ideas were very different from the rest of the coaches in Germany at that point in time.

Playing with a back-four? Zone coverage? Pressing?

People didn’t really understand what SSV Ulm 1846 did, but it got them promoted, and they even led the 2. Bundesliga at the halfway point of their first season there.

The young manager was invited to appear on public television to explain his ideas to the entire football nation, with a broad audience watching.

The name of this young manager: Ralf Rangnick.

This was the birthplace of modern German football, and to this day, these ideas continue to inspire coaches like Jürgen Klopp, Thomas Tuchel, and Julian Nagelsmann.

After Rangnick left Ulm, the club began to struggle significantly and faced multiple relegations and even bankruptcy on several occasions.

However, in the late 2010s, SSV Ulm 1846 underwent a management change and was reborn, being promoted from the fifth division back to the fourth level of play, the Regionalliga.

Then, in 2021, they made a genius move and hired Thomas Wörle as their new head coach.

Wörle was the coach of Bayern Munich womens team for nine years and was incredibly successful there.

He managed to take over the club and got them promoted to 3. Liga in convincing fashion in his second season, going on to win the league in their first year after promotion and getting back to the 2. Bundesliga after 23 years.

In this Thomas Wörle tactical analysis, we will provide an analysis of the struggles SSV Ulm 1846 face at their new level of play and how head coach Thomas Wörle is trying to keep the team set up for success via his tactics as he did in these last three years at the helm.

Thomas Wörle Formation / Players Used

Thomas Wörle has used multiple formations at the beginning of his tenure in Ulm and found out that for his style of play, a 3-4-3 formation works the best.

In the last two seasons, SSV Ulm has primarily played in their 3-4-3 formation, and the team has not undergone drastic changes over the past two years.

Christian Ortag plays in goal for Ulm after only managing 70 clean sheets in 148 appearances for the club.

The back three consists of the three players who were promoted to those positions with Ulm last season: Tom Gaal plays as the right centre-back, captain Jo Reichert plays as the central defender, and Philipp Strompf plays as the left centre-back.

In midfield, Max Brandt and experienced Philipp Maier are the starters in the double-pivot formation Thomas Wörle prefers, with Maier playing a more defensive role as a holding midfielder and Brandt operating in a box-to-box position.

The left wing-back is Romario Rösch, named after the famous Brazilian attacker. The former winger is complemented on the right side by Bastian Allgeier, a more defensive player who played for Karlsruher SC at the youth level.

The three-man attack features a big target man, Felix Higl, up front, flanked by Dennis Chessa and the young Bayern Munich loanee Maurice Krattenmacher, as part of a double-attacking midfield behind the lone striker.

While the players may not seem that interesting, there is something standing out about the lineup Wörle uses with SSV Ulm: Out of the 11 players in his starting XI, six are taller than 1.90m, and not a single one is smaller than 1.80m — the club pretty obviously prioritises size and physicality in his signings.

Replacing Léo Scienza

While there were not many changes in Ulms starting lineup in the first games after promotion, there has been one major change compared to last season: Léo Scienza is no longer at the club.

The Brazilian was signed by SSV Ulm on a free transfer after getting promoted to 3. Liga from Magdeburg was instantly the best player on the team.

Scienza had a slow start to his season but came into his own after scoring his first goal on matchday five at home against Lübeck.

This goal opened the floodgates for 12 goals and 15 assists in the following 28 games.

Léo Scienza Stats

As seen in the chart above, Scienza ranked in the top 10% of goal contributions against comparable players.

His creativity, particularly in his set pieces, created numerous scoring chances for SSV Ulm last season.

His drib