This article was originally published in January 2021. It has been re-updated to reflect Ralph Rangnick's agreement to become United's interim coach and other changes in European football since the beginning of the year.
We started with the current Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel. In leipzig RB's "Playing Philosophy" video, the first face you see is Chelsea's Champions League champions coach, a 12-minute showcase for future players. The video, which was produced during the club's first Bundesliga season in 2016-17 and run by Ralph Hasschütte, conveys a sense of pride in their highly evolved tactics, but also exposes the need for external validation by a newcomer.
That's perhaps why Tuchel, who was at Dortmund at the time, was shown to praise a style that was "defined by hard work, tight defence and quick transitions, all of which they tried to perfect." "Tuchel made a predictable prediction." When you see their commitment to their way of playing and how effective it is, then you know that their success is not going to be a one-off."
Another Bundesliga coach who witnessed Leipzig's advancement in the video is Julian Nagelsmann of Hoffenheim, who is now Bayern Munich's head coach through two seasons at RB Leipzig. Nagelsmann observed after his side beat their opponents 2-1 in Saxony in January 2017 that "Red Bull Leipzig's defensive attitude, more aggressive, more numbers of chasers, much better than ours". "This kind of defense is typical of the top teams in Europe," he added.
As the visual guide shows, defense is at the heart of RB Leipzig's tactics, but not ordinary defense. Ralph Rangnick, 63, who designed and honed these tactics in Germany for 40 years, preached "aggressive, ball-oriented oppression" in which the team moved toward the ball like a swarm of bees, turning the defense into an attacking form.
The video provides only a rough overview, but it's a good glimpse of the workload of the choreographed chase, with each player in the opposing half assigned a unique role. There is an "oppression trigger" that starts moving. A "secondary oppressor" and a "pressure booster" arrive from different angles, while others "converge" to cut off the exit.
Similar collective behavior begins after winning. At least one player immediately went deep into the running to stretch the opponent's backline and "beat space and time," as one of Rangnick's many disciples, former PSV assistant coach Russ Cornetka, wrote in the coach's handbook. The idea was to find a way to score goals in 10 seconds, which left opponents with no time to organize their defence.
In 2021, none of these ideas are novel. But those influenced by Rangnick, a former teacher-training student who became a football visionary and now An interim manager of Manchester United, tend to exploit them better, more ruthlessly and more successfully than most. That's because they're part of something bigger: a deep source of knowledge, provided by decades of insight and personal connections.
Today, there is hardly a single club in Germany's top flight that does not benefit from Langenick's extensive network. Frankfurt, Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach, as well as Rangnick's former club RB Leipzig, are all coached by people studying at Red Bull Salzburg, a subsidiary in Leipzig.
Former Bayern Munich assistant coach Danny Rohr was behind The Tactical Adjustment for Hans Frick in the Treble, initially as a video analyst for leipzig youth and later assisted Hasenschuttel in the Bundesliga and Southampton. Other alumni of Langenick Football University, such as Tuchel and Roger Schmidt (PSV), have also gone abroad and succeeded. No one has had a greater impact on cutting-edge football in the Bundesliga.
This is the story of how his empire of ideas worked.
Rangnick played for SSV Ulm in the third tier but was not fully qualified at the professional level. As a player coach for small town club Viktoria Backnang, he met Valeriy Lobanovskyi's Dynamo Of Kiev in a training camp in 1983 and had a "football epiphany": the coordinated oppression of the Ukrainians reached a level that Rannick had never seen before.
Together with his like-minded mentor Helmut Gross, a structural engineer who taught himself football tactics, he began to adapt the ideas of Lobanovsky and later Arigo Sackchi of AC Milan: ball-oriented divisional markings (without sweepers of course) and positive oppression contrary to the orthodoxy of the time, but Stuttgart was open to this innovation.
Rangnick and Gross were hired to work on the youth team, paving the way for a new style of play that eventually became known as the "Stuttgart School".
The young Tuchel is one of its many graduates. He played in Ulm, when Langenick led the club into the Bundesliga. Tuchel later said: "He taught me ball-oriented games, which helped me grow.
Injuries have limited his career. A few years later, Langenick, who returned to Stuttgart as head coach, gave Tuchel a chance to try to make a comeback in the amateur team, but without success, then pushed him to the coach of the youth team.
Tuchel proved so successful that he was named head coach of Mainz eight years later, when he was 34 years old. "You can say I'm a staunch representative of the Stuttgart football school," he told the Stuttgart newspaper "Just as you were shaped by the upbringing of your parents, you were molded here as a young coach." In this regard, I dedicate myself to the Stuttgart school, which stands for offensive thinking, avant-garde (oppression) and ball-based games. Of course, I continue to develop, but the foundation was laid in Stuttgart."
Rangnick's approach in his next club, Hanover and Schalke, continually inspires some players and officials, but he is able to build a more enduring structure in Hoffenheim, a country club funded by billionaire Dietmar Hoppe. From 2006 to 2011, Rangnick built Germany's first vertically integrated club, where youth development, tactics and transfer trades were all streamlined for a common purpose.
As Rangnick needed young, fast players to play with his super-strength style, the club didn't bother buying players over the age of 23. He and Gross constantly coach coached the coach to ensure there was a unified vision, as well as recruiting the right people for new vacancies within. After Schalke's brief but successful second coaching, Rangnick repeated the move.
Soft drink company Red Bull appointed him sporting director, overseeing their entry into European football with Salzburg and Leipzig, and later as head of global football from 2012 to 2020. He has also been a coach twice.
Rangnick is looking for "Uberzeugungstater", someone who is driven by an unshakable sense of conviction when it comes to the way he plays. "In Germany, when the head coach has a philosophy, people often say that the coach only has plan A," Gross told Jonathan Harding, a writer and journalist who specializes in German football. "He lacks Plan B. The race philosophy that Rangnick and I developed—anyway, we think—is Plan A to Plan Z. This means that there can be no game that produces questions that we have no answers to. The solution is basically different from everyone else, but it's not like we have a gap somewhere, we've been doing it for too long. "
Rangnick's idea is this – if you as an RB coach don't believe in these terms of belief, the players won't believe it either. Those who aren't prepared to go all the way often don't last long. Rangnick was appointed a young coach in Salzburg, and his team started out playing slow ball-handling football. He was made clear that there was no point in continuing in a framework of a completely different style. After intensive tactical re-education by a more mature coach, this coach completely changed his approach. He is now the head of a top club.
There are regular feedback meetings and evaluations, but just as importantly, the extensive, hierarchical Red Bull setup – including flagship Leipzig, Salzburg, Salzburg's regional club Liefering and Brazil's and the U.S. Satellite Club – provides a clear career path. Rangnick said: "We have the right place for every coach at the right time for their career development. Prodigies usually start at the youth level and then work as assistant coaches and then as head coaches.
"His requirements can be very high, sometimes too demanding," former Salzburg CEO Johen Sauer, now head of the Bayern Munich Academy, told The Athletic. "But by pushing you to the limit, you can reach the next level." What's more, Ralph was completely selfless when it came to sharing knowledge. Others may keep their secrets tightly, but he sees himself as a teacher. The listener has to learn."
Frankfurt coach Grasner painted a similar picture. The Austrian told RB Leipzig News rblive.de, "Ralph is a man who loves to push things forward and works hard 24 hours a day.
"I love his drive to improve and develop things, and his attention to detail. His requirements are very, very high, but this is by no means directed at individuals. He hoped that the project would move forward. I remember one time winning 7-0 and he wasn't completely satisfied and he felt we could have scored four or five more goals. "
Rangnick has been at the forefront of discovering and developing some of the best current players, such as Erin Haaland (formerly Salzburg), Joshua Kimmich (formerly Leipzig) and Dayott Upamecano (current Bayern player, trained through training in Leipzig and Salzburg). But there is also an emphasis on finding and mentoring new coaching talent to perpetuate this culture.
Long before "Gold Dollar Soccer" became the abbreviation for the ingenious deal, Rangnick realized that hiring a coach who was improving players and teams was the fastest and most lasting way to add value. As a result, Langenick's club is prepared to take an unusual approach when it comes to recruiting coaches. For example, defender Bo Svensson bought out his under-19 coaching contract in Mainz for 1.5 million euros because Rangnick believes he is the best man to take charge of Liverlin in 2019.
Earlier this year, Mainz bought back the Dane for a little more than the original price to make him head coach. Another example of RB Group's coach-centric model came in the 2018-19 season. Since the ideal successor, Nagelsman, could not immediately take over hasen Husschuttel's job, Rangnick came forward to personally control the first team for a year, rather than appointing someone they didn't quite believe in.
"The bottom line is that Ralph can think as a coach and help his coach in a very specific and productive way," one longtime collaborator told The Athletic. "Most club owners, sporting directors or CEOs don't even start to understand this level of football. They find it much more difficult to assess the quality of coaches and staff, and therefore make more mistakes. "
The German coach is now very popular because Jurgen Klopp has done a great job at Liverpool – Rangnick's belt has produced a series of young, highly ambitious managers who combine strong interpersonal skills with superb technical know-how. Coupled with Tuchel's Champions League success at Chelsea last season, people have never been more enthusiastic about being educated in Langenick's philosophy.
Less than 5 months after becoming Lokomotiv Moscow's head of sport and development, and almost a year after Rangnick turned down Chelsea's offer to become caretaker manager after Lampard was sacked, he will be playing alongside Tuchel, Hasenhüttel and Klopp for the chance to show his worth in the Premier League.
It will be fascinating to see how he and his old golden relationships play each other at Old Trafford.
Source: The Athletic