Christian Fuchs learned early that ‘dreams come true.’ Another begins at Charlotte FC
In April 2016, Christian Fuchs traveled to Charlotte and wore a Carolina Panthers Cam Newton jersey and kicked a football off a tee and declared that he, one day, wanted to be a kicker in the NFL.
Seriously, he insisted.
The left-legged Austrian defender was at the height of his soccer powers at the time.
Fuchs was only a few months away from captaining the Austrian National Team to a UEFA European Championship appearance — the team’s second in eight years at the time and the first time it qualified without serving as a host nation — and he was just weeks away from leading Leicester City to a Premier League championship, capping off one of the greatest underdog stories the sports world had ever seen.
“If you don’t dream,” Fuchs told Sky Sports at the time, “you won’t reach anything.”
Seven years later, Fuchs is in a hotel room in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He’s nurturing a bit of a tan. The 36-year-old still has his brown beard and his trademark smile and his self-effacing humor intact. It’s been a few days since Fuchs has retired from his playing career and has subsequently joined the Charlotte FC staff as an assistant coach, and when asked if he’ll ever transition to the other kind of football, he chuckles.
“Well, the ambition right now is educating myself as a coach and seeing where it will take me,” Fuchs told The Observer over a Zoom video call earlier this week. He then pauses, as if he’s wondering if he should say the joke that came to his head, and shrugs: “The good thing is ... I’m in the right company.”
You can’t blame Fuchs for his no-sweat-it confidence, which he had in droves throughout Charlotte FC’s largely successful albeit postseason-less first season. You can’t blame him because he’s learned early and often along his journey as a kid from Neunkirchen, Austria, to a footballer at the sport’s highest level that no dream is out of reach.
And now, as assistant coach for the club he captained a year ago, Fuchs is pursuing a new one.
“Right now, honestly, I’m only focused on coaching and wanting to support Christian Lattanzio and Charlotte FC,” he said, “and see where the season takes us, where the coaching takes me in the end.”
Fuchs retired as a player earlier this month. The writing was on the wall for the fans. The left back signed on to Charlotte FC for a one-year contract with a club option for 2023, and Charlotte FC declined the option in October.
But Fuchs’ decision-making process of life after playing began in the middle of the 2022 season, when then-interim head coach Christian Lattanzio broached the subject with him.
“Christian Lattanzio was the big instigator, in a very positive way,” Fuchs said. “We spoke during the season already as far as what the plans would be for next year and said that he could really picture me being a part of the coaching staff.”
Fuchs said he has always been eager to eventually go into coaching. He has completed his UEFA B Coaching License and is in the process of earning his UEFA A Coaching License. (The UEFA licenses essentially set a standard of coach education across Europe.)
But he didn’t really want to go through with the transition at first, he said.
“Listen, I was always eager to eventually go into coaching because I’m doing my licenses and everything, but I wasn’t sure if I would be ready so quickly,” he said. “But again, it was lots of conversations, lots of persuading, and (Lattanzio) is a good person, a good mentor for me.”
He added: “Eventually I made the decision to say yes and understanding what ways, how he wants me to be involved, what he wants me to do. It’s just very exciting. And having now the first 10, 12 days behind us, it just confirms that the decision was the right one for myself. And not only me as a person, but for me as in being able to continue my journey with Charlotte FC because there’s still a lot to work on, a lot to develop.”
Lattanzio and Fuchs appear to go hand-in-hand. Lattanzio has earned the reputation of being a great developer of talent, wringing out the best in young players like midfielder Brandt Bronico and putting Karol Świderski in the right position, and that was apparent to Fuchs early on in his tenure. Said Lattanzio of Fuchs as his assistant coach: “He has my complete trust” and “I’m happy he made the decision to be on my staff because we see things very similarly in many ways.”
Having Fuchs on as an assistant appears to be a no-brainer. He’s a young coach with a bright future in the profession. He’s still very much connected with the game. He can relate to this Charlotte FC squad perhaps like no one else could. (One of his three children plays for Charlotte FC’s academy.) He’s been to multiple professional peaks that most on Charlotte FC’s roster haven’t reached.
And even for those who weren’t on Charlotte FC’s inaugural team and who have lived similar careers to Fuchs — like, say, Ashley Westwood, the 32-year-old Premier League vet who signed with CLTFC earlier this month — Fuchs’ addition is “exciting.”
“We’ve played against each other many times,” said Westwood, who previously played for Championship and Premier League club Burnley. “Since coming here, I’ve spoken with him, and he’s said all good things about Charlotte. And obviously when a Premier League player moves over to the MLS, you do look out for them. It’s sort of like the code of conduct to look after (your guys).
“Since being here, he’s helped me settle down. It’s kind of like I said before: I feel like I’ve always been here the way the lads have taken to me.”
Near the end of his interview with The Observer, in response to a question about why he feels he made the right decision to retire and go into coaching, Fuchs offered an insight that feels like something he might one day tell a budding Charlotte FC star.
“Let’s clarify something: Dreams can change,” he said. “And they can still come true.”
“But the basis for dreams coming true is hard work,” he added, shrugging a coach’s shrug, brimming with a familiar confidence as he begins something new.
This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 8:00 AM.
