Schalke coach Domenico Tedesco decided to crouch down

After a brilliant start to the season, all your good work appears to be unravelling. Your team are 4-0 down at half time in a crucial local derby away to Borussia Dortmund. What on Earth do you do?

Schalke coach Domenico Tedesco decided to crouch down. Instinctively, he decided that we would be better delivering a team talk on level as his seated, demoralised players, rather than lecturing them from a standing position.

'It was clear to me that I couldn't start having a go at them, I had to try to build them up,' said Tedesco.

'I crouched down because I wanted to show that we are all a team, and that we all pull together.'

His team did more than pull together. They pulled off one of the finest comebacks in modern Bundesliga history, scoring four goals in the second half to rescue a point for themselves and heap pressure on to rivals Dortmund.

For Domenico Tedesco, it the most impressive moment of an already astonishing career, and the extension of a blistering start to his tenure at Schalke.

At just 31, Tedesco is the latest remarkably young coach to emerge from the Bundesliga.

Like his friend Julian Nagelsmann, the Schalke coach has barely been in the business five minutes, but he is already being linked to the top jobs. More importantly, though, he is transforming Schalke into potential title contenders.

When Tedesco took over in the summer, Schalke were still struggling with their reputation as a perennial crisis club.

The new dawn which was supposed to break under Markus Weinzierl had instead turned into yet another rotten mess, with the squad revolting and the club stuck in mid-table.

Fast forward a few months, and Schalke are third in the Bundesliga, just five points behind Bayern Munich, and unbeaten in their last eight games.

Most significantly, there appears to be no sign of any crisis bubbling away beneath the surface. Schalke, incredibly, look stable. It is a dramatic transformation.

But then, throughout his career, Tedesco has made a habit of quick turnarounds. His career as a first-team coach was launched when second-tier Erzgebirge Aue asked him to save them from near certain relegation in March this year.

Five points adrift at the bottom of the table when Tedesco arrived, Aue would complete an incredible escape to finish three points above the drop zone.

In just over two months, Tedesco had changed everything. He had done exactly what Nagelsmann had achieved with Hoffenheim year previously.

The comparisons with Nagelsmann don't end there. Both men coached in the Hoffenheim youth system, and both have a very similar style.

Pressing in attack, quick turnovers and a solid back defensive structure are the basis, but the tactics are malleable depending on the opposition.

Both Nagelsmann and Tedesco are ferocious observers, famed for their relentless focus on video analysis.

'What Tedesco manages to pick out in opposing teams isn't normal,' said Aue midfielder Clemens Fandrich last season. 'I could watch a game eight times, and I would never see what he sees.'

It is that eagle-eyed analysis which has also earned Tedesco comparisons with Thomas Tuchel, though his tactical style is less possession driven.

'The first time I saw Domenico coach, I thought he was like a twelfth player, because he was actively coaching from the first to the 90th minute,' Schalke sporting director Christian Heidel told Kicker earlier this season. 'I've only seen that in one other coach: Thomas Tuchel.'

As the man who gave Tuchel his big break at Mainz, Heidel would know. Little wonder that he was the man who brought Tedesco to Schalke.

After a poor first year at the club, Heidel needed Tedesco to succeed to save his own job. Hiring such an inexperienced coach was a big gamble, and at the beginning of the season, it looked like it might backfire.

Tedesco's first major act was to freeze out captain and fan favourite Benedikt Howedes, who would promptly move to Juventus.

The fans were furious, and it seemed that Tedesco had underestimated the Schalke job.

Since then, the reverse has proven to be true. Rather than the political dramas of Schalke overcoming Tedesco, the young coach has silenced the noises off with authoritative and successful leadership.

Not only does he have the results, he also has the backing of the squad.

Leon Goretzka and Max Meyer are perhaps the players most emblematic of Tedesco's success. Goretzka, given are more attacking role, has blossomed, and is now a strong favourite to feature in the Germany starting XI at next year's World Cup.

Meyer, meanwhile, was initially starved of game time, and looked to be losing out under Tedesco.

In the last few months, however, the young midfielder has been transformed, taking up a new, deep-lying role in central midfield. He now professes to be the happiest he has ever been at Schalke.

'I had to be creative with Max,' Tedesco told Bild. 'It wasn't fair that he was running seven or eight kilometres in training and still not playing. I thought that I had to reward him.'

That fairness is perhaps what has got the whole squad behind Tedesco. Aside from his analytical genius and his precocious youth, he is also a coach who will get close to his players.