With the caveat that everything that looks good in theory is often far from that in practice, Ralf Rangnick’s impending arrival at Manchester United is great news for the club who go to Chelsea on Sunday 12 points behind. The deal, not official yet but lawyers are talking according to AFP, will have Rangnick, 63, as interim manager for the season and as consultant for two years thereafter.
“Unfortunately, a good coach is coming to England, that’s how it is, to Manchester United,” said Juergen Klopp on Friday. “United will be organised on the pitch, we should realise that—that’s obviously not good news for other teams.”
Barring Arrigo Sacchi, whose AC Milan Rangnick observed closely, Marcelo Bielsa and Pep Guardiola, few coaches have had as much influence on the modern game as this German who read English literature and sports science at Stuttgart University. From Thomas Tuchel to Julian Nagelsmann, Marco Rose, Jesse Marsch, Ralph Hasenhuettl, Lars Kornetka, the list of Rangnick’s disciples is long. Klopp has closely watched Rangnick when the latter was at Hannover 96.
Also, what better for Manchester United to be taught the press by the man who birthed it in the nether regions of the German league?
“The highest probability of scoring a goal is within ten seconds of taking possession. The highest probability of winning the ball back is within eight seconds of losing possession,” Rangnick has said (Das Reboot; How German Soccer Reinvented Itself And Conquered The World).
One of the reasons why Jadon Sancho has struggled is that he was used to more organised pressing at Borussia Dortmund. There is as much choreography in United’s press as there is in an improv. It has showed up repeatedly this term but no team exposed it more than Liverpool in the 5-0 win at Old Trafford.
It is documented that Cristiano Ronaldo does not press; he was among the bottom 1% last season. But then he scores—six goals in five Champions League games have been crucial to United making the round of 16 with a game to spare. Usually, the first to lead the charge when United are not in possession, Bruno Fernandes may be the pressing trigger but often there has been no clarity as to who will be the secondary presser and who all will provide the pressing booster.
Planetfootball pointed out in October that United were 16th in the numbers for pressing with only Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle, Norwich and Wolves below.
Equally importantly, like Tuchel when he took charge of Chelsea in January, Rangnick should be able to organise the defence that has leaked 17 goals in the last seven Premier League games. For most of his coaching life, Rangnick has worked on getting teams to defend in numbers. For eight years, he helped put in place a system that has made Red Bull Leipzig a team to reckon with in Europe and in the Bundesliga. Among the players who have benefitted are Erling Braut Haaland, Joshua Kimmich, Marcel Sarbitzer, Dayot Upamecano and Sadio Mane.
Crucial to the Rangnick way of aggressive pressing in all areas of the pitch and zonal marking is running hard. That is why Leipzig and their cluster of teams would seek young players with total faith in the system. It is an idea Rangnick developed while watching “spiritual brother” Znedek Zeman’s Calcio Foggia train. Zeman told Rangnick that only the fittest team can play this kind of football (Das Reboot).
Klopp’s Dortmund would often run 120km in a match. It fits that as per squawka.com, the player who runs the most per match in the 21-22 Premier League season is James Milner. There is no Manchester United player in the top 10. According to planetfootball, United were outrun in seven of their first nine league games and were 14th in terms of distance covered in October.
Rangnick is referred to as The Professor, a moniker now reverential but for long used derisively. He wasn’t a big player and therefore his ideas weren’t welcome in German football in the 1980s, a decade which began with West Germany besting Europe and ended with a unified Germany lifting the World Cup. Germany deployed man marking, used a sweeper—Der Kaiser had showed how and the best had learnt from the best of an earlier generation, Giacinto Facchetti—three central defenders and wingbacks. And they were winning so why fix something that ain’t broke?
But Rangnick had already been inspired by what he saw at Valeriy Lobanovsky’s Dynamo Kiev. Kiev wouldn’t give opposition time on the ball, often leaving Rangnick thinking they were playing more than 11. That and his meeting Helmut Gross, an engineer and a self-taught football tactician, got Rangnick to think. Why not expend the energy saved through zonal marking in pressing higher up on the pitch?
Rangnick learnt under Gross, who introduced a system, Ballorientierte Raumdeckung, which combined aggressive pressing and zonal marking, in the 1980s. They worked together at VfB Stuttgart in 1989 where Ballorientierte Raumdeckung coursed through all youth levels. Stuttgart won the German youth title and Rangnick was made the head of youth and amateur football. But it really wasn’t till 1997-98 at SSV Ulm whom Rangnick shepherded to Bundesliga 2 that he got his due as coach.
Only to hit an air pocket soon after. At Stuttgart, where he returned after taking Ulm to Bundesliga, Rangnick’s relationship with key player Krasimir Balakov broke down and he dropped a division to get a team, Hannover 96, whom he promoted to Bundesliga.
It wasn’t till he joined Hoffenheim (2006) that Rangnick’s career progress got smoother. In two years from the third division, they came to the Bundesliga with Hoffenheim pressing aggressively and playing with speed. It was a way of football borne out of a transfer strategy that focused on young players, hiring video analysts and sports psychologists, appointments that were as radical then as they are commonplace now. “That’s the kind of football we want to play one day,” Klopp had said after Dortmund lost 1-4 to Hoffenheim (Das Reboot).
“Ralf is obviously a really experienced manager. He built most famously two clubs from nowhere to proper threats and forces in Germany with Hoffenheim and Leipzig,” said Klopp on Friday.
Rangnick left Hoffenheim after falling out with the owner Dietmar Hopp, joined Schalke and won the DFB Pokal and played a Champions League semi-final against Manchester United before accepting Red Bull’s offer. Having built and consolidated that empire which has teams in Germany, Austria, Brazil and USA, he moved to Lokomotiv Moscow as head of sports and development.
Then, Manchester United made an offer he could not refuse.