While some of us are familiar with the feat that the German has achieved during his tenure at RB Leipzig, little did most of us know about Ralf Ragnick prior to that. So, let’s find out a little more about him, shall we?

Back in 1983, Ralf Rangnick was a Player-Manager of FC Viktoria Backnang in the 6th division of Bundesliga. Ralf was stressed as the team had not been performing as well as he had hoped. But on a cold winter day, he was thrown aback with an epiphany as Ralf had stumbled upon a Ukrainian genius. The team of Dynamo Kiev had been accommodated in a training centre in their vicinity, the gaffer of the Ukrainian side, Valeriy Lobanovskyi, was looking for an opponent to practice against and Rangnick had decided to take a look at their game. 

A few minutes into the game, Rangnick was quite perplexed with what he could see on the pitch. The rigorous, systematic and aggressive pressing from Dynamo Kiev left him clueless as it was nothing like he had ever come across before against any of the top tier opponents as well. It was Rangnick’s football epiphany that there was a different approach to the game that he found fascinating. 

Coaches such as Valeriy Lobanovskyi (Dynamo Kiev) and Arrigo Sacchi (AC Milan) were a great influence on Rangnick. Further in 1998 when he was the coach of the second division SSV Ulm, Rangnick was just talking in one of the Sports Studios and his idea of the gameplay took German football by storm. Rangnick spoke about zonal marking and the benefits of playing a back 4 to give more fluidity which was unlike the traditional football approach with a sweeper (libero) to cover for the back 2. He was then called the “Football Professor” in Germany, as mentioned in the podcast hosted by Jan Åge Fjørtoft (PodSaveTheBall) with co-host Markus Fjørtoft.