Thomas Tuchel was working at the Radio Bar in Stuttgart when Ralf Rangnick made a personal intervention to steer him into coaching.
At 47, the Chelsea manager became a European champion. Almost a quarter of a century earlier, he had effectively given up on football altogether, collecting glasses and reading economics, his playing days having been curtailed by a serious injury. “He didn’t even intend on being a coach,” Rangnick admitted earlier this year. “I gave him a job as our under-15 coach.”
Much like his prodigy, Rangnick has his own unlikely backstory. A well-noted Anglophile, he spent a year at the University of Sussex – English and PE were his disciplines.
While he will not be in place in time to face Tuchel with Manchester United on Sunday, their histories will always be linked by their time together at Ulm which shaped not just the Chelsea coach’s tactical approach, but the direction of his entire career.
Now the tables have turned. It is Tuchel who is the great influencer, the reminder that it is nous not nostalgia, leadership not loyalty, which counts. Frank Lampard was part of the same trend which catapulted Mikel Arteta and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to the fore of their past clubs.
Arteta’s slow work in progress is bearing some fruit and Solskjaer had his merits in banishing the pervading toxicity left behind by Jose Mourinho, but Lampard’s reign has been brought into increasingly harsh focus by his successor.
Nobody ought to be surprised by the fact that United’s board are set to follow suit, axing the former hero in favour of an ever more fashionable style of German philosopher. In one way it is characteristic, lurching from one polar extreme to another and hopelessly lagging behind their rivals, but equally, better to close the stable door to prevent future horses from bolting too.
In Germany, Per Mertesacker reveals in his autobiography that Rangnick is referred to as “Professor”. There is a touch of unkindness about that nickname, a reflection of an “overly intellectual” analysis he once provided in a TV interview.
Yet that is what makes his appointment such an unlikely move by the Glazers, who oversee a kingdom where brand is king, hence the perseverance with United icon Solskjaer for nearly three years, and the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo at odds with their wider approach.
Chelsea’s success alone has not convinced United to change tack. Jurgen Klopp, another advocate of Rangnick’s gegenpressing, has led the revolution at Liverpool along the same lines. Julian Nagelsmann, another of his students, is similarly revered in the Bundesliga.
Then there are the lack of immediate options; Antonio Conte is no longer on the market, neither Erik ten Hag nor Mauricio Pochettino are easily attainable before next summer.
Tuchel and Rangnick are both advocates of process; the former spent two years totting up glasses before being allowed to work behind the bar, which instilled in him the principles of patience which were never going to be afforded him under Roman Abramovich.
United, likewise, are thinking short-term, Rangnick set to take over from Michael Carrick for six months before a permanent appointment can be made. The legacy he leaves behind could have a more lasting impression.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3I3Qq9M
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