Every club in the world is searching for the next Julian Nagelsmann. The hunt is always on for the next coaching prodigy, the young mind that can take whatever failures they endured on the field to fuel them to become geniuses on the touchline.

St. Pauli have found their hidden gem. His name is Fabian Hurzeler, and he was born in America. His country of birth, though, is only a small piece of Hurzeler’s story, which is only just getting started. However, the man himself admits that his American heritage has played its part in his success.

And Hurzeler has had plenty of success so far. He’s just 31 years old and has St. Pauli storming towards the Bundesliga. To put that into perspective, Hurzeler is three years younger than Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos. He’s the same age as Antonio Rudiger and Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. He was teammates with Emre Can as a youth player at Bayern Munich. To have climbed this high this fast at this age? There’s something special about him.

Hurzeler has heard the comparisons and seen his name next to ones like Nagelsmann and, of course, he’s flattered. Hurzeler, though, knows that all of this is just getting started. He’s a coaching prodigy right now, but he has bigger aspirations than that.

“I have to stay humble,” he says. “I have to go on my own way. I still have a lot of things to learn. It’s not only about detecting things on the pitch; it’s also how you treat the media. It’s how your impact is in the media and in the world. It’s very important that I go on my own, that I try to reflect on my own, and that I go my own way because I can’t be the same as Julian Nagelsmann. He went one way, but I’m trying to go the Fabian Hurzeler way. If I can be as successful as Nagelsmann, I will be happy.”

Hurzeler was born in Houston to a Swiss father and a German mother. His parents were temporarily working in the U.S., where he spent the first few years of his life before inevitably moving back to Europe.

The entirety of his footballing career has been spent in Germany. First, a brief playing career that saw him represent the reserve teams at Bayern Munich, Hoffenheim and 1860 Munich before becoming a player-coach at small-time FC Pipinsried. His coaching career has continued on, first at Pinpinsried, then with the German Under-18s and U20s as an assistant and, ultimately, to St. Pauli.

But Hurzeler still does often think about the U.S. and how his brief time in America as a child impacted him. “I think I always will be connected to the United States because, in the end, it’s the land I was born,” he says. “I would say I have some typical attitudes of Americans. My character is just open-minded. I’ll always be open-minded to everything, to everybody and I try to work hard to reach your dream. I think that’s one point that always will be connected to the United States.”

Hurzeler used to visit fairly often. He says Miami is his favorite vacation spot, with time spent in the Everglades being one of his most cherished memories. And, this summer, once the 2. Bundesliga season ends, he’s hoping for a quick trip to the U.S. as a way to decompress ahead of a potentially massive leap in 2024-25.

“I can say that my goal is to fly to the United States this summer and to look a little bit at the Copa America,” he says. “That’s my goal. I try to always go on some holidays there because I just love the country. I love the people. I love the adventure. You always can enjoy that. In former times, when we were young, we always did the holidays with our family there. We’d go get a camping car and we’d drive around different cities. It was amazing. We had an amazing, amazing experiences there and I will never forget it.”