Fulham's third manager of the season withstood his first public press conference on Thursday in surroundings far removed from his time as back-to-back Bundesliga winner with Bayern Munich. The cramped space beneath the Stevenage Road stand (Johnny Haynes stand for all you newbies) shoehorns the press into a space more suited to a pensioners' lunch club. So typically Fulham.
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Cheek by jowl the assorted hacks got to see the beast in his lair at close quarters. There was some air of expectancy for this personal encounter with the first German coach ever to manage in the Premiership (and you wonder why English football lags behind the continentals?). It was almost as if the British sporting press were being presented with a novelty act.
There is something fierce about Magath, and six days after his shock appointment, with much in the interim having been made of his "brutal" reputation and severe Teutonic training methods, Magath faced his first grilling disarmingly sipping from a mug of steaming tea.
The lead-off question from the first reporter was as lame as they come. Any hope this opening salvo might make for great theatre dissipated in an instant. "Why do you think Fulham are in the position they are?" Germans don't do irony. Sarcasm and satire to them is actually labelled "English humour". They don't practice it and besides Magath was far too restrained to deliver the blindingly obvious answer to this piece of crassness.
The newshounds of course arrived with the scent of blood in their nostrils. Why not, the walls of Craven Cottage have been running with it all week. We quickly moved on to queries about Magath's seemingly unhappy reputation with former players, his chequered path through the highs and lows of German football. Magath kept his composure throughout.
As nobody in that room had the wit to get inside the mind of Magath, here's what all Fulham followers need to know about the club's last hope of avoiding the drop. My profile is helped by having lived in Germany for 10 years and following the Bundesliga at first hand.
Magath's psychological make-up is complex. Sitting up there before the press he looks more the kindly uncle or an insurance salesman than your typical over-achieving Germanic ubermensch. Albert Camus would have understood.
Magath is an "outsider" and the need for constant self-validation drives him on. Arsene Wenger is cut from similar cloth, never able to live with himself for failing to make the big time as a player. Both characters demand total control over all footballing matters within their clubs.
Hence Magath's need to push his players to the extreme -- I have prevailed and conquered, I have suffered. And so must you. It also explains why, when success is gained, it seems all too quickly to pall. Our warrior must ride on to find another challenge. This character would have led from the front for Sparta in the Trojan Wars. Fulham have never seen his kind before. It could be the making of the club -- or be disastrous.
Now the talking stops. Magath has laid down the law this past week, gathered his support staff around him, and stated unequivocally Fulham will beat the drop. He has the ideal opportunity to display his credentials with a trip to West Brom, fellow strugglers on a run even worse than our own, with just one win in the last 16. Pepe Mel is still to record his first win for the Baggies, who show a division worst return of just four wins all season.
Fulham's opponents have enjoyed a six-day break in Spain while the Whites have been a club in turmoil all season. But Fulham have not lost this fixture in their past six meetings. Defeat however on Saturday would be nothing short of catastrophic.
WBA are 17th and four points better off, but this surely has to be one of the six winnable games Magath says Fulham need to escape relegation. By golly, but this one matters!
COYW!
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