Alex Clapham was on the brink of accepting an assistant‑manager role at a Championship side when Borussia Dortmund knocked on his door. The opportunity was too big to ignore.
"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. The German adventure turned out to be a whirlwind 18‑month stint as Dortmund's set‑piece specialist, a role that placed him at a club boasting the largest crowds in Europe.
"Working at that level was insane," says the 37‑year‑old, "and it wasn’t always a smooth ride." Clapham survived what he describes as a "six‑month turbulent period" under interim boss Nuri Şahin. He witnessed a Champions League night against Real Madrid where Dortmund surged to a 2‑0 lead only to be humbled 5‑2. "The atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever experienced – the most intense I have seen outside of Dortmund itself," he notes.
He also lived through high‑stakes fixtures against Barcelona and the fierce Bayern Munich rivalry. Yet those moments are merely chapters in a broader journey that has taken him from Getafe in Spain to Vasco da Gama in Brazil and on to Genoa in Italy, with the next stop still an open question. How does a coach with no professional playing résumé reach such heights? The answer lies in a decisive choice he made at 23 to abandon his modest playing career and chase a coaching path.
A love for Spanish football and a lack of opportunities in England forced him abroad. "I was slogging around muddy pitches in the north of England, not enjoying it, and I wanted to coach. The courses in England were out of reach, so I almost gave up," he admits.
"I ended up earning every badge in Spain, which was a costly sacrifice, but it paid off." He recalls a session with a Levante coach where the emphasis was on minute adjustments to players' body positions – all delivered in a language he was still learning. "The Spanish methodology, 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 coaching classes in his spare hours.
By the time he turned 30, he had secured the role of Getafe's under‑19 manager. Although he admired Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and Marcelo Bielsa’s Bilbao, it was Jose Bordalás’s pragmatic Getafe side that left the strongest imprint. "They stayed compact, defended as a unit, and then capitalised on set‑pieces," Clapham explains. He would linger after first‑team training to observe the set‑piece routines, absorbing every detail and later applying those lessons as a head coach in Sweden.
In Sweden he crossed paths with Ian Burchnall, which led to a stint as a set‑piece coach at Notts County, followed by a spell at Southampton. From there he became something of a globetrotting specialist for clubs owned by 777 Partners. In 2022 he landed at Vasco da Gama, coaching in Portuguese and Spanish. "Living in Rio was incredible – the players were eager to try new ideas," he says.
The head coach, former World Cup winner Jorginho, gave him full creative freedom. Clapham’s tenure at Vasco was brief but impactful; he contributed to five set‑piece goals in just seven matches, helping the club secure promotion back to Brazil's top flight. Yet the celebration was muted. "We flew back to Rio and everyone just went their separate ways at the airport.
You don’t really celebrate a fourth‑place finish in the second division at Vasco," he reflects, noting the humbling reality of working for a giant club. Soon after, Genoa’s sporting director Johannes Spors – now at Southampton – reached out for assistance, and Clapham again played a part in a promotion push. He describes moving from club to club as a constant learning curve: "Each organisation had its own culture, structure and mentality. One week you’re in a stable environment, three weeks later the atmosphere can be completely different." These rapid changes taught him about team dynamics and staff management.
He cites a stint at Standard Liège, where after a win over Anderlecht the mood turned bleak, forcing him to navigate a pressure‑filled environment and coach the coaches. Working with elite players at Dortmund further sharpened his insight.
Collaborating with world‑class defender Nico Schlotterbeck meant adapting to a level where players often bring their own analysts and tactical suggestions. "They would come to me with ideas: ‘What do you think about this opponent’s spacing?
Should we block here or screen there?’" he says. "I learned more from them than they did from me – they became my teachers." He also forged a close bond with Dortmund’s dynamic winger Karim Adeyemi, a relationship that challenged him to adjust his coaching style. "Adeyemi is an amazing character. He taught me more than anyone because I had to find a different way to communicate with him," Clapham explains, adding that it took him until Christmas of his first season to truly understand the player’s mindset.
His background as a teacher resurfaces throughout his coaching philosophy. "I think I’ve taken more from my teaching days than I realised," he confides, noting that his curiosity now extends beyond set‑pieces.
He recalls in‑depth tactical discussions with João Tralhão, then Dortmund’s assistant and now José Mourinho’s deputy at Benfica, who questioned why Clapham limited himself to set‑piece duties. He has spent recent months on study visits, observing Cesc Fàbregas’s setup in Como, admiring Elche’s Eder Sarabia – whom he believes will one day manage Barcelona – and keeping tabs on Kim Hellberg at Middlesbrough and Kieran McKenna at Ipswich. "I’m always hunting for detail," he says. Looking ahead, Clapham sees the assistant‑manager role as the logical next step.
Over coffee in Madrid he explains, "A manager can’t be too close to the squad; an assistant needs that proximity. That’s where I want to be for the next five years." Where that will be remains uncertain; the world is now his playground. Yet his experiences – from Spain to Brazil, Italy to Germany – give him a unique résumé few can match.
Should he return to England, he will bring a wealth of international insight, a network spanning continents, and a deep appreciation for the subtle art of set‑piece innovation and player communication.