Alex Clapham was on the brink of taking a role as an assistant manager at a Championship side when the call came from Borussia Dortmund. The offer was so compelling that he had to drop everything and move abroad.
"The first thing I did was call my wife to tell her we were heading to Germany, not England," he recalls in an interview with Sky Sports. Fortunately, his partner embraced the adventure, and the 37‑year‑old Englishman spent the next 18 months as Dortmund's set‑piece specialist, learning from a club that regularly hosts the largest crowds in European football. "Working at that level was insane," he says, "and it wasn't always easy." Clapham describes his time under interim boss Nuri Şahin as "six turbulent months" that included a Champions League night against Real Madrid where Dortmund led 2‑0 before eventually losing 5‑2. "The atmosphere was unlike anything I'd ever experienced – the most intense I have seen outside Dortmund itself," he notes.
He also witnessed high‑stakes fixtures against Barcelona and the fierce rivalry with Bayern Munich. Yet for Clapham each match was a stepping stone in a journey that has already taken him from Getafe in Spain to Vasco da Gama in Brazil and then to Genoa in Italy. He now says he is ready for the next challenge, wherever it may be. How does a young coach with no professional playing résumé end up at some of the continent's biggest clubs?
The answer goes back to a decisive moment when he was 23 and chose to pursue coaching instead of continuing as a semi‑professional player on muddy pitches in northern England. "I wasn't enjoying the game any more, but the coaching courses in England were out of reach, so I almost gave up," he admits. "I ended up doing every badge in Spain, which was an expensive sacrifice, but it paid off." Clapham remembers a session with a Levante coach who demonstrated how to tweak a player's body shape for optimal set‑piece execution – all explained in a language he was still learning.
"The methodology in Spain, the focus on psychology, was a completely different world," he says. He learned Spanish while living in Barcelona, working full‑time as an English teacher and hopping on the metro to attend coaching workshops. By the time he turned 30, he had earned enough qualifications to be appointed head coach of Getafe's U‑19 side. Although he grew up admiring Pep Guardiola's Barcelona and Marcelo Bielsa's Bilbao, it was the pragmatic, hard‑working ethos of Jose Bordalás' Getafe that left the strongest impression.
"They were compact, defensively solid, and relied heavily on set‑pieces to win games," Clapham explains. He would often linger after the first‑team training sessions to watch the senior squad practice dead‑ball routines, soaking up every detail from the head coach and his staff.
Those lessons formed the foundation for his next role as a head coach in Sweden, where he crossed paths with Ian Burchnall. When Burchnall moved to Notts County, Clapham followed as a set‑piece coach, later joining Southampton before becoming a globetrotting specialist for clubs owned by 777 Partners.
In 2022 he arrived in Rio de Janeiro to work with Vasco da Gama, again conducting sessions in Spanish. "Living in Rio was unforgettable – the players were incredibly open to new ideas," he says. The head coach, former World Cup winner Jorginho, gave him complete freedom to implement his concepts. During his brief stint, Vasco scored five set‑piece goals in just seven matches and secured promotion back to Brazil's top tier.
"I expected a huge celebration, but after the final game we all just went our separate ways at the airport," Clapham recalls, noting the understated nature of Brazilian football culture. His success caught the eye of Johannes Spors, then sporting director at Genoa, who recruited him to help the Italian side achieve promotion. The following season saw Clapham hopping from club to club, adapting to distinct cultures, structures and mentalities. He describes a situation at Standard Liège where, after a win over Anderlecht, the atmosphere turned gloomy within weeks as the coach came under pressure.
"That was a crash course in managing staff and coaching other coaches," he says. Working with world‑class defenders such as Nico Schlotterbeck at Dortmund taught him another valuable lesson: modern players often have personal analysts who bring tactical ideas directly to the set‑piece coach. "They ask, 'What do you think about this opponent's space? Should we block here or screen there?'" Clapham explains.
"I learn more from them than they do from me." He also forged a close bond with Dortmund's explosive winger Karim Adeyemi. "He's an incredible character and taught me more than anyone because I had to adapt my approach to his style," Clapham says, adding that it took him until Christmas of his first season to truly understand Adeyemi's mindset.
Clapham believes his background as a teacher helps him connect with players on a personal level. "Those little coffee‑break conversations before a match can be more insightful than a full tactical briefing," he notes. This interpersonal skill, combined with his tactical curiosity, has driven him to seek knowledge beyond set‑pieces. He recalls in‑depth tactical discussions with João Tralhão, then Dortmund's assistant and now José Mourinho's right‑hand man at Benfica, who questioned why Clapham limited himself to dead‑ball work.
Since then, he has visited clubs such as Cesc Fàbregas' academy in Como, studied under Elche manager Eder Sarabia (whom he believes could become Barcelona's next head coach), and kept tabs on rising coaches like Kim Hellberg at Middlesbrough and Kieran McKenna at Ipswich. When asked about his next career move, Clapham says the role of assistant manager feels like the logical progression. "A manager may need distance from the squad, but an assistant must be close to the players. That's where I see myself for the next five years," he explains over coffee in Madrid.
Where that appointment will be remains uncertain; the world of football is now an open map for him. Yet his experiences – from the streets of Rio to the high‑tech facilities of Dortmund, from the tactical classrooms of Spain to the gritty stadiums of Italy – give him a unique perspective few coaches can claim. If he eventually returns to England, he will do so carrying a wealth of knowledge, cultural insight and a network that spans continents, positioning him as one of the most globally seasoned English coaches of his generation.