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 German club’s offer was so compelling that he had to drop everything and head abroad. “The first thing I did was call my wife to tell her we were heading to Germany instead of England,” he recounts to 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 the ropes at a stadium that regularly draws the largest crowds in Europe. “Working at that level was insane,” he says, “and it wasn’t always smooth sailing.” Clapham’s tenure at Dortmund included what he describes as a "six‑month turbulent spell" under Nuri Şahin.
He witnessed a Champions League night against Real Madrid where Dortmund surged to a 2‑0 lead only to lose 5‑2 – an atmosphere he says he had never experienced before, even compared with the intensity of matches at Dortmund’s home ground. He also saw the club face Barcelona on the road and endure the fierce rivalry with Bayern Munich. All of these moments, he believes, are part of a broader journey that has already taken him to Getafe in Spain, Vasco da Gama in Brazil and Genoa in Italy, with his next destination still an open question.
How does a young man with no professional playing résumé end up in such elite circles? The answer lies in a decisive choice he made at the age of 23 to pursue coaching rather than continue as a semi‑professional player on the muddy pitches of northern England.
"I wasn’t enjoying the playing side, but I couldn’t get onto the coaching courses in England, so I almost gave up," he explains. Instead, he travelled to Spain, where he earned every coaching badge – a costly sacrifice that ultimately paid off. Clapham recalls a session he observed at Levante, where the coach meticulously tweaked players’ body positions, all while speaking in a second language.
"The methodology in Spain, the focus on psychology, was a completely different world," he says. While studying in Barcelona, he worked full‑time teaching English, hopping on the metro to attend training sessions in his spare moments. By the time he was 30, he had secured the role of U‑19 coach at Getafe.
Although he grew up admiring Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and Marcelo Bielsa’s Bilbao, it was the pragmatic, hard‑working ethos of José Bordalás’s Getafe side that left a lasting imprint. "They were compact, defensively solid, and relied on set‑pieces to win games," Clapham notes. He would often linger after the first‑team training to watch the set‑piece work, absorbing the techniques and later applying them in his first senior head‑coach job in Sweden. From Sweden he linked up with Ian Burchnall, following him to Notts County as a set‑piece coach, then moving on to Southampton.
His reputation as a globe‑trotting set‑piece troubleshooter grew, and he soon found himself at Vasco da Gama in 2022, coaching in Portuguese‑speaking Brazil. "Living in Rio was unforgettable; the players were incredibly receptive," he says. The head coach, Jorginho – a 1994 World Cup winner – gave Clapham full creative freedom.
In just seven appearances, his routines produced five goals from set‑pieces and helped Vasco secure promotion back to the top tier. Yet the celebration was muted; after the season ended, the squad dispersed at the airport, a sobering reminder of the club’s massive scale and the modest expectations placed on a fourth‑place finish in the second division.
Soon after, Genoa’s sporting director Johannes Spors (now at Southampton) reached out, and Clapham contributed to the Italian side’s promotion campaign as well. He describes a nomadic rhythm: "One week I’m at a club, three weeks later I return to find a completely different atmosphere because of a couple of lost games." These rapid changes taught him about club dynamics, staff morale and the importance of adaptability.
He cites a stint at Standard Liège, where after a victory over Anderlecht the mood turned bleak, providing a harsh lesson in managing pressure on both coaches and players. Working alongside world‑class defenders such as Nico Schlotterbeck at Dortmund forced Clapham to raise his own standards. "Many players now have personal analysts who come to me with tactical ideas – ‘Should we block this space or screen there?’" he explains. He learned as much from them as they did from him.
Pascal Gross, for example, was already thinking like a future top‑level manager after spending time with Roberto De Zerbi. Clapham also highlights his bond with Dortmund’s explosive winger Karim Adeyemi, describing the relationship as both rewarding and challenging. "He taught me more than anyone because I had to adjust my approach to suit his personality," he says, adding that it took him until the Christmas break of his first season to fully understand how to communicate with a player of Adeyemi’s stature. His background as a teacher shines through in his coaching style.
"I take a lot from my teaching days – the small‑talk, the coffee before a match, the personal connection," he admits, suggesting that these interpersonal skills may steer him toward a broader role beyond set‑piece specialization. Recent tactical discussions with João Tralhão, then Dortmund’s assistant and now José Mourinho’s right‑hand man at Benfica, have sparked his ambition to move into an assistant‑manager position. He has been busy observing other coaches: a study visit to Cesc Fàbregas’s setup in Como, admiration for Elche’s Eder Sarabia (whom he believes could become Barcelona’s next head coach), and interest in Kim Hellberg at Middlesbrough and Kieran McKenna at Ipswich. "I’m always hunting for detail," he says.
When asked about his next step, Clapham is clear: "I see the assistant‑manager role as the logical progression. A manager may need distance from the squad, but an assistant must be close to the players. That’s where I want to be for the next five years." Where that will be remains uncertain; the world is now his playground. Whether he ends up back in England or stays abroad, he will carry a portfolio of experiences few coaches can match, bridging the tactical cultures of Spain, Germany, Brazil, Italy and beyond.