Update: |I retired at 19 to become a coach – I never dreamed of making it at Man City News

Manchester City’s defence of their FA Youth Cup title takes Oliver Reiss’ side to Watford in the semi-finals on Thursday with Aston Villa waiting in the final.

Oliver Reiss realised something was different when more people stopped him in the corridors of the City Football Academy before December’s home fixture against Crystal Palace.

Reiss was appointed as under-18 coach in the summer after a rigorous recruitment process, ending a ten year coaching spell at Hertha Berlin’s academy. He replaced Ben Wilkinson, who stepped up to under-21 level, having led City to FA Youth Cup glory last season.

“In Germany you have the league and then the cup is second,” he tells the Manchester Evening News this week. “I had the feeling from the first game that there’s something special here with the Youth Cup. More people around me were talking to me about the games, I could feel something special and now it’s special for me.”

Reiss embraces that pressure and won’t tell his young players to suppress it either. After scraping past Palace in the third round in December, City have brushed aside Millwall, Leeds and West Brom, scoring 17 goals in the process. Those three wins are part of an incredible 23-game winning run that has catapulted City into the Youth Cup semi-finals and on track to reclaim their U18 Premier League North title from Manchester United.

But that long winning run comes at a stark contrast to four games at the start of Reiss’ reign where City didn’t win – leaving Reiss unfamiliar with himself but clear that things would improve.

“At the beginning, coming into a club at Manchester City, thinking ‘was it the right decision to come’. They were expecting a lot of things from me,” Reiss admits.

“There were challenges at the beginning, the language also and adapting to the new culture. Also the players, the big academy and a lot of departments and people to get to know.

“I came in later without a pre-season and I needed time to adapt with my new staff. I could feel in the first games I wasn’t the same standing on the side line. I can remember I was struggling a bit with the words I wanted to say and I needed time to translate and the situation was over. This gave me a little bit of patience, made me a bit comfortable to stay calm. I knew the reasons.”

Reiss’ English was good, but it is better now. He has also taken time to learn when to adapt to the ‘City’ way of doing things and when to stand firm and insist on his methods. City staff and his new bosses placed no pressure on those early stumbles and time has allowed everyone to kick on and record those 23 wins in a row.

The Youth Cup run has helped. Reiss has asked members of last season’s winning squad for advice on how they felt at different stages to take into this year’s bid for back-to-back glory. When City are leading 2-0 or 3-0, he tells them to kick on and score more and secure the clean sheet. Every minute on the pitch is valuable.

He insists that there have been no changes to the build-up for a Youth Cup match but accepts occasions like Thursday’s semi-final at Watford is a huge opportunity and the players must embrace it. And he notes countless players in his coaching career who have shown ‘incredible’ talent in ‘normal’ games but failed to reach a first team because they weren’t ‘mentally able’ to bring it on the pitch in the big games like semi-finals and finals.

It’s working with the players, as defender Kian Noble explains: “The winning run is testament to the staff and players, that hunger to keep playing and fighting,” he says. “It’s the process, can we have the same intensity and atmosphere all the time. It’s Kolo [Toure, assistant] with the energy, Oli with the tactics and motivational skills.

“It’s a mental stat but a stat we don’t look at. We know we’re good enough to do it. We don’t want to finish the season having won 24 in a row but not win the league or Youth Cup. It’s got to come with that as well.

“There’s a real clear tunnel vision in the group. We’re going well but we need to make sure we win the Youth Cup and Premier League.”

Reiss is only 42 but has over 20 years of coaching experience at various levels. A keen player in his teens, an ACL injury stopped him in his tracks at 19-years-old and the German faced a year out of action. But he openly admits: “this wasn’t the reason I wasn’t a professional, the talent wasn’t enough.”

His father ran a small youth club in Berlin so Reiss got coaching the under-7s there expecting to keep him busy for a year while he recovered. He picked up small jobs to earn money and started studying Sports Science.

“All of these small things together I was able to live,” he recalls. “I can’t remember starting to earn money from football. Sports science and small jobs and there was one point I thought maybe I can be a coach and this can be my job.

“From the beginning I thought I would coach for one year and when I was back from injury I wanted to play again. At first I could feel okay, it’s nice [coaching]. And year by year. But it took a long time to believe because 25 years ago there weren’t so many youth coaches in full time jobs. It started very late to say there was an opportunity to be a full time coach.

“I didn’t think it could be a job because retired professional players had the full time jobs at Hertha Berlin. Up to the moment I was there, it was just retired professional players. I didn’t think it was a goal but year by year it was ‘maybe now’, But it wasn’t a dream.”

When he got the job at Hertha in 2015, Reiss worked his way up as assistant coach in the academy and then as under-17 and under-19 coach before catching City’s eye.

Football’s loss is City’s gain as Reiss has trusted his ability to get the youth team firing and on course for an impressive double. He won’t look that far, of course, but he is equally allowing his players to dream as the run-in arrives.

“I will never say it’s like every other game – no. Let’s take it as a special game,” he says. “I won’t make it higher than it is but also not lower than it is. I won’t say ‘stay cool, be relaxed and it’s 22 players on a pitch’ like every other game. It isn’t. It’s special and people are looking. Use it to prove yourself and show the world how good you are. Why not?”

Manchester City face Watford on Thursday in the FA Youth Cup semi-final. Aston Villa will host the final at Villa Park.