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Ralf Rangnick on RB Leipzig’s success and being the godfather of gegenpressing

Source: ESPN

Ralf Rangnick has been called a lot of things during his career in football — Yussuf Poulsen, the RB Leipzig striker, says he’s a “perfectionist,” while his teammate Kevin Kampl says Rangnick is “in love with football.” There were others who poked fun at him back in 1998 when he explained his then new-age tactical system gegenpressing. But when Jurgen Klopp calls Rangnick “one of the best, if not the best German coach,” you listen.

But in 2020, German coaches are the sought-after coaching commodity: take Thomas Tuchel at PSG, Klopp at Liverpool and Julian Nagelsmann at RB Leipzig. All of them were influenced or taught by Rangnick. At the start of this season, seven of the 18 Bundesliga clubs were managed by coaches who had spent time with Rangnick. His influence also spread to key personnel currently in the Premier League, Ligue 1 and Eredivisie.

When Rangnick started out in the 1970s, managers tended to have impressive playing careers and then went right into coaching. It was unfashionable to have a manager who was in the shadows of the German second tier. It was also seen as insulting to champion theories of gegenpressing — a philosophy built on pressing and counter-pressing the opponent, with an emphasis on attacking with positional fluidity — in an age where German football was rigidly 3-5-2, reliant on tried-and-true methods like man-marking that had made Germany a superpower: three World Cups and three runners-up prior to 1990, three Euro titles and two more second-place finishes prior to 1996 spoke to their success. But Rangnick, who had a mediocre, semi-pro playing career, never gave up.

He is living proof of what Italian manager Arrigo Sacchi — one of Rangnick’s heroes, along with Valeriy Lobanovskyi and Ernst Happel — meant when he shot back at a reporter who’d questioned his managerial credentials due to the lack of a polished pro career. “I never realised that in order to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first,” Sacchi said.

As we talk over Zoom, Rangnick chuckles as he rolls Sacchi’s one-liner out.

“The top coaches are not only good leaders of their team but they are also experts in the different areas of the game,” Rangnick tells ESPN. “If you look at the Bundesliga, more than half of the 18 coaches have not had a significant professional career but rather started to develop their methodological skills in youth football.”

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It was transfer deadline day across Europe when we spoke. He was assessing some of the players he helped nurture, like Timo Werner and Naby Keita. He was full of praise for Joshua Kimmich, whom he plucked from VFB Stuttgart’s academy while at RB Leipzig, and Sadio Mane, whom he brought to RB Salzburg. These are just a handful of the players he scouted and signed in his role in charge of Red Bull’s sprawling football empire.

Rangnick was one of the key catalysts behind the ascension of RB Leipzig, who went from foundation to the semifinals of the Champions League in just 11 seasons. They now sit top of the Bundesliga, and travel to Manchester United in the Champions League this week, though Leipzig and these players are just one part of his ever-developing legacy.

There’s an unwavering calmness as he talks through the last year, in which a protracted move to AC Milan never materialised and he left Red Bull after eight years expanding their impressive reach. He then looks to the future and his next move: smiling and methodical, but with this inherent understanding of football and a brain that has a heatmap of disciples stretching out over Europe.

A brief history of Rangnick’s coaching CV starts in 1983 after a short-lived on-field career.

“My coaching career started at the age of 19, senior football then at 25,” Rangnick told ESPN. “In Germany at that time, it was almost impossible to have any role models in the first or second division who inspired me.” He did not like the 3-5-2 system adopted in Germany — the formation which incorporated a “libero,” two man-marking defenders, two defensive midfielders, two wing-backs pounding up and down the flanks and then a No. 10 and a playmaker. He thought it limited, uninteresting.

“I wanted to play in a different way. Around this time, I met Helmut Gross [a hugely influential figure in removing the libero from German football but who worked more as an adviser rather than head coach], who was an early mentor for me and for many other German coaches. He introduced me to the ball-orientated zone-marking technique, which was being implemented at AC Milan. We studied AC Milan hours and nights on end, and it became clear that this was the style of football I wanted to play with my teams.”

This was the genesis of gegenpressing. In 1998, he presented his tactical approach on German TV. Dressed in a black suit and matching shirt, with awkwardly brushed hair and rimless glasses, he explained his new innovative manner of counter-pressing. He was soon coined the “footballing professor,” a term later used as respectful admiration, but originally met with derision and doubt.

“The reaction from the media as well as others in football was extraordinary,” Rangnick said. “The main reason for this was that 30 years before, Franz Beckenbauer set the benchmark for most teams in our country when he created a libero-sweeper position for himself. Franz himself even said in the mid-’90s that you cannot play with a zone-marking back four line because German players will not understand how to play it. I asked myself, why should German players be any less intelligent than those in Belgium, Spain or the Netherlands? For me that was simply not logical.”

The German football system needed to collapse before it could accept change. When the national side crashed out of Euro 2000 in the group stage, it led to a wholesale review of their system.

“Well, it’s very simple,” Rangnick says. “[Gegenpressing is] a very proactive style of football, similar to the way in which Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool have been playing under Klopp,” Rangnick said. “We like to press high, with a very intense counter-pressure. When we have the ball, we do not like any square or back passes.

“The goalkeeper also should not be the one with the most contact on the ball. In almost every league and every country, the goalkeeper is technically the most limited football player on the pitch and therefore we have to make sure that he has the lowest contact with the feet. It is a fast, proactive, attacking, counter-attacking, counter-pressing, exciting and entertaining [style of] football.”

After three years at Hannover (2001-04), where he also got them promoted to the Bundesliga, and then a season at Schalke (2004-05), it was at Hoffenheim where his coaching stock went through the roof as he led them from the third tier to the Bundesliga in 2008.

“What we did in Hoffenheim had a lot of influence on German football,” Rangnick said. “I remember in our first year in the Bundesliga in 2008 we played Borussia Dortmund under Jurgen Klopp, who came from Mainz to Dortmund, and we dominated them 4-1.

“It could easily have been six or seven, because we continuously pressed them for the entire game. The following week Jurgen said that this is exactly the style of football he wants to play with Dortmund in the future. During the next two years he developed his team in such an impressive manner that they managed to win two consecutive championship titles and two cups.”

Following a brief spell at Schalke in 2011, which peaked with them reaching the Champions League semifinal, he became sporting director of Red Bull’s new football arm in 2012. This is arguably his greatest achievement: he challenged the established order in Germany with a new-age structure which built a worldwide network which raised the bar in player identification and recruitment.

Rangnick offered a vision anchored on youth, backed up by analysis and technological advancement with the goal of creating sustainable success on the field while making a profit through selling players at the height of their value and then replacing them with hidden gems thanks to the organisation’s extensive scouting network. Eight years on, and having worn different hats ranging from sporting director to manager (he took charge of RB Leipzig in 2015-16 and then 2018-19), RB Leipzig are now perennial top four contenders in the Bundesliga, RB Salzburg have won the Austrian Bundesliga seven times on the trot and their other teams in the USA (NY Red Bulls) and Red Bull Brazil are all evolving and developing within their system.

Leipzig are a controversial team in German football, with fans of the more traditional club arguing their business model goes against the 50+1 ownership. But they are successful.

“It is quite like in other areas of life, if you are ahead of your time with new developments and pathways, it may provoke certain reactions,” Rangnick said. “Just to put things into perspective, the club was founded in 2009 and won three promotions in five years. Since 2012, it has secured its place in the top-tier Bundesliga and has continuously participated in Champions League, even making a semifinal in 2020. It is something truly rare and extraordinary.”

But equally extraordinary is the Red Bull pipeline of players, as well as the long list of coaches who worked under Rangnick. At Liverpool alone, you have Keita, Mane and Takumi Minamino, while Rangnick signed Roberto Firmino to Hoffenheim and managed Joel Matip at Schalke. Rangnick feels this synergy is because Klopp and he share “similar views on football.” So do a number of coaches throughout Europe.

The School of Rangnick alumni is extensive. Bayern Munich’s head of youth Jochen Sauer was CEO of RB Salzburg from 2012-17. Borussia Monchengladbach’s staff Marco Rose, Alexander Zickler and Rene Maric have all worked or played under Rangnick, so too Adi Hutter at Eintracht Frankfurt and Sebastian Hoeness at Hoffenheim. Then there’s Markus Gisdol at 1.FC Koln, Robert Klauss at 1. FC Nurgenburg, Oliver Glasner at Wolfsburg and a host of others. Over at Monaco their sporting director Paul Mitchell is formerly of RB Leipzig, PSV Eindhoven’s head coach Roger Schmidt was RB Salzburg boss from 2012-14 and Ralph Hasenhuttl was at Leipzig from 2016-18 and has been in charge of Southampton for two years. Then you have Julian Nagelsmann at RB Leipzig and Jesse Marsch at FC Red Bull Salzburg who both learnt from Rangnick.

Nagelsmann, 33, managed Hoffenheim and then replaced Rangnick at Leipzig ahead of the 2019-20 campaign (Rangnick stepped into the manager role for a season to keep the seat warm for Nagelsmann). “Ralf has a special way of looking at football,” Nagelsmann told ESPN. “I used Ralf’s philosophy at Hoffenheim; counter-pressing is a very important topic.”

Over at RB Salzburg is Marsch, who was assistant to Rangnick in the 2018-19 campaign at Leipzig and coached New York Red Bulls from 2015 to 2018. “The beauty of Ralf is that as intense as he is, he also gets really excited about new ideas. As traditional as he is in some ways, he is also very innovative. This is the beauty of Ralf. His contrasting mentalities and his ability to continue to grow and adjust and adapt to the younger generation — he’s got a gift,” Marsch, 46, told ESPN.

Rangnick is 62 years old, but still has the thirst for another big challenge. He came close to joining AC Milan in the summer, but they opted to continue with then-interim coach Stefano Pioli.

“When they contacted me in October they were 13th in the league, just three points from the relegation zone. Then [the] corona[virus] came; after the break and restart they had 12 games and won nine of them with three draws. So it would have neither been wise for myself nor for the officials of AC Milan to change everything after such a successful period of time.”

Rangnick’s vision for AC Milan would have seen him have a powerful voice in both the operational, recruitment side, and then the hands-on role of coaching and picking the team. Almost like a 2020 version of Arsene Wenger’s time at Arsenal. It rocked the boat. Paolo Maldini was critical of Rangnick amid the rumours over his appointment, but Rangnick is resolute in the demands he makes of prospective clubs.

As he assesses his next move, he talks about his three fundamental, non-negotiable pillars of success which he integrated into the Red Bull model.

“For me it has always been very clear, there needs to be someone in the club who is responsible for the club values and guidelines,” Rangnick says. “Someone who is in charge not only for the corporate identity, but also for the corporate behaviour of the entire organization. In this context, I like to speak about three C’s in football: capital or cash, concept and competence.

“It is certainly helpful in football and in business to have some money at your disposal, however, this money will not help you if you do not have the other two C’s in your portfolio. In order to be sustainably successful, you need to have a plan on how to develop the club and the best possible and competent people to implement the concept and plan. Those three C’s were the foundation of our [Red Bull’s] sporting success paving the way for the development of players with quality and increased market value at a factor of 10 or sometimes even higher.”

Player ID is integral. Rangnick educated his scouts to assess players as if through his eyes “It makes little sense to develop a scouting department or engage professionals if you do not listen to them,” he says. “For me it is imperative to proactively plan your transfers and not just rely on agents recommending their players. This enabled us over the years to scout and sign players such as Marcel Sabitzer, Marcel Halstenberg, Lukas Klostermann, Dayot Upamecano, Kimmich, Mane, Keita and Kampl.”

Alongside analytical and tactical evolution, he feels the next step for football is to master the player’s mind.

“Top mentality is the talent of the personality and player strives to get better every single day. In addition to optimal mentality, one of the most important aspects to train in the next few years will be to develop the cognitive abilities for decision-making under pressure when players are in restricted and tight areas of the pitch.”

Rangnick’s next step is unknown. Manchester United have long been linked with him as a potential sporting director, while he has been interviewed for previous vacancies at Everton and the England national team. He’s not yet ready to look back and assess his achievements and role in gegenpressing as we know it, but instead he wants to take all of this experience and knowledge and throw it into another club. There’s an itch there; perhaps the Premier League, or a big Champions League-challenging side. But whoever it is, they will benefit from Rangnick’s ever-evolving view on how German football should be played.

“As we have shown in the last 20 years, we can remain true to the German virtues which can be characterised as follows: disciplined, combative, and an enormous will to win in our playing style while also developing top-class strategic minded coaches who know how to play modern football.”

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Lifestyle

Improve your marathon time with proper pre-hydration


Andy Blow, sweat expert and founder of leading sports fuelling and hydration company Precision Fuel and Hydration, discusses how pre hydration can help improve your marathon time.

Dehydration can seriously impact an athlete’s performance, and enjoyment of a marathon.

Yet according to the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 31% of amateur athletes arrive at training sessions or events dehydrated.

For those looking to shave minutes off their race time – simply starting properly hydrated could be the answer.

We caught up with Andy Blow, CEO of Precision Fuel and Hydration, to find out how pre hydration can have such a dramatic effect on your marathon, and how runners can start a race in the best possible condition.

The benefits of pre-hydrating

Optimising your hydration status before a marathon, or ‘preloading’, can increase your blood volume and significantly improve your performance.

According to Sport Nutrition by Jeukendrup and Gleeson, dehydration of just 8% of each individual’s total-body water could half their exercise endurance, based on a 121 minute session.

Research has proven that taking onboard a high concentration of electrolytes, the salts and minerals that help your body function, promotes fluid retention which in turn increases the blood volume in your body.

This increased blood volume supports cardiovascular function helping transport oxygen and fuel to your muscles, and your body’s ability to dissipate heat produced by your working muscles.

This can reduce fatigue and improve endurance performance – helping you run your best marathon possible.

On the other hand, exercising in a dehydrated state can reduce blood volume, limit cardiovascular performance and limit the body’s ability to cool itself through sweat – all limiting the body’s ability to perform.

Pre-hydration is more than drinking water

Hydration is much more than just the amount of water we drink.

Your body is constantly aiming to maintain a balance between water and electrolytes.

It’s therefore important to take on correct levels of both to properly hydrate.

Drinking just water can upset that balance, diluting the body’s concentration of salt. Always wanting to maintain equilibrium, the body’s solution to this is to expel the excess water through urine. It’s basically going make you pee!

Unfortunately, this will also take with it some of the electrolytes in your system, further diluting your blood sodium levels and impacting your performance (and wellbeing in extreme cases).

However, consuming a strong electrolyte solution in the build up to a marathon will boost your salt levels, encouraging your body to retain the water you drink, helping you to start the race fully hydrated.

How to hydrate before a marathon

The timings of a race day, particularly an event as large as the London Marathon, can be vastly different to an athlete’s usual routine.

That’s why planning your hydration strategy is key.

Athletes preparing for a marathon should drink a strong electrolyte drink the night before the race to encourage your body to retain fluid, which will boost blood volume.

Aim for drinks containing >1,000mg of sodium per litre.

The morning of the race, 90 minutes before the start is recommended, athletes should drink another bottle of strong electrolyte drink to top-up blood plasma volume.

It is important to finish this drink 45 minutes before you set off to give the body time to process it.

While this plan will enable the average marathon participant to arrive at the start line hydrated, every person’s sweat concentration and sweat rate will be different, so athletes looking to maximise their potential should know their numbers, do a sweat test and form a more personalised hydration plan.

Dangers of over drinking

As much as beginning a marathon dehydrated can negatively impact your performance, there is also a danger that athletes can drink too much water in anticipation of a race – leading to a new set of problems.

Nervous drinking before a race is common for newcomers to marathon running, and those who haven’t planned their hydration.

Drinking too much water without taking on electrolytes can lead to hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia can be summarised as low blood sodium levels. This can be caused by inadequately replacing the sodium lost when sweating, compounded by drinking plain water or weak sports drinks mixed that further dilute sodium on the body.

Sodium is vital for several bodily functions like blood pressure and working nerves and muscles.

Hyponatremia can cause nausea or vomiting, fatigue, loss of energy, muscle weakness and cramps; all things you want to avoid when running a marathon.

According to National Kidney Foundation, when sodium levels are particularly low, more serious health implications can occur, even resulting in death.

Don’t waste your training

It’s probable that if you’re signed up to a spring marathon, you’ve done months of hard training.

By making sure you start the race properly hydrated, you not only reduce unnecessary discomfort, fatigue and muscle weakness, but will allow your body to realise its full potential come race day.

Training is also an ideal opportunity to test out your hydration strategy. Try running through your pre-race hydration and timings with the confidence that you are in the best possible shape.

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Lifestyle

Finding time for training in the busiest of schedules

Whether you’re a serious runner or casual athlete, fitting your training sessions into a busy schedule can be tough. Once you factor in rigid work hours, family duties, or other commitments, it can feel like there are few available opportunities to get your trainers on and hit the roads. Andy Blow, former elite triathlete, leading sports scientist, and CEO and founder of sport nutrition multinational Precision Fuel & Hydration (PF&H), shares his tips for training with a busy schedule.

Make a plan that works for you

Planning ahead is the key to making the most of every hour in the day.

Consolidate all your commitments onto one central calendar. Whether it’s work meetings, school runs, or domestic chores, you’ll be able to get a clearer idea of your schedule, and what is going to be a realistic amount of training for you to achieve.

Instead of picking a high intensity programme, then trying to cram it into your week, start with non-negotiable commitments and build up your plan around these.

It’s a more sustainable way to train, which means you’re more likely to stick to the plan and hit your long-term goals.

Use your time wisely

Waking up an hour or two earlier means you can get some training in before your day has even begun.

Not only does this add extra hours into your schedule, but they’re hours which are unlikely to be filled with other commitments. How often do you plan an evening run, only for something more pressing to be added to your diary halfway through the day?

Hit the trails early and clock up those morning miles before the world wakes up.

If you’re responsible for taking children or other family members to clubs and appointments, use this time to your advantage. Keep a pair of running shoes in the car and plan a route to complete while you wait.

If your office building has a shower available, turn your commute into a training opportunity by running part or the whole of your journey.

Training smarter also means you’ll get the most out of your time. Instead of running for the sake of running, incorporate sessions that are specific to your end goal, whether this means regular hill sessions, speed intervals or longer, slow runs.

Fuel, hydrate, and recover

What you do between sessions can be as important as the training itself; you’ll never get the best out of a run if you’re lacking energy or have improperly recovered and hydrated. When you’re short on time, every run must count.

When people talk about hydration, it’s often about what and how much you should drink during exercise. But your performance is also hugely influenced by how hydrated you are when you start exercising in the first place. 

There’s strong evidence to show that taking in additional sodium with fluids before you start sweating is effective in promoting increased acute fluid retention and improving endurance performance, especially in the warmer weather.

There’s more to fuelling than just calorie intake, and there’s a few common pitfalls which can catch you out.

Not taking enough carbohydrate to adequately support your rate of energy expenditure is the number one fuelling mistake, but it’s possible to take on too much carb as well – primarily because of the gastrointestinal (GI) distress a sugar overdose can cause.

Fuelling using pre-packaged sports nutrition is a no-brainer for short to moderate training sessions or endurance events, where taking in palatable, simple carbohydrates is the key to success. They’re convenient and can simplify getting your carb intake just right.

Despite already recommending getting up that bit earlier sleep is also worthy of mention and is an extremely powerful tool for recovery – something many of us are guilty of neglecting. If you’re an athlete, getting enough sleep should be as big a part of your training program as your exercise sessions.

Set a clear goal

Even if you’re a casual runner, take on the challenge of a race or event you can train for. Having a goal will keep you motivated, especially if it has a fixed date to work towards.

True performance comes from long term consistency, not weeks of hard training, so a long-term goal is a great way to stay accountable over a sustained period.

With busy schedules and multiple commitments, life can very easily get in the way of our goals. But I truly believe that there’s time for training in even the busiest schedule if you train smart, set priorities, and plan your time carefully.

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Education

University students hold the keys to ‘level up’ the esports industry

Written by Tao Martinez, Head of University Esports Development at GGTech

For many students, getting in from a class or lecture means jumping onto CS:GO or League of Legends with their friends to pass the time and have a laugh for a few hours.

Climbing the ranks may spark conversation about “going professional” one day but forging a career in esports has never been more accessible for students, with the industry growing by the day.

The total revenue of the esports industry in 2021 was estimated by Newzoo to be $833.6 million, and this is enhanced by a rising number of jobs, university courses and opportunities, making it one of the fastest growing and desirable sectors to lead a career in.

The opportunities

The most obvious route into esports is through being the best at a given game, with teams willing to sign players up on a contract to represent them at tournaments and online leagues. And whilst this is desirable, there are actually a whole host of other careers within the industry.

With Covid fears beginning to fade, in-person gaming events are returning with competitions such as the Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Masters, hosted by GGTech in collaboration with NUEL, bringing together the best university talent across Europe to face off.

Beyond the players, these events require event organisers, planners and managers, advertising, sponsorship, social media promotion, casting, filming, tech support, and that’s before even getting to the participants which involves players, coaches, and team organisations.

There are so many aspects to a successful esports competition which in turn creates a wealth of jobs and opportunities – which are growing all the time. And these opportunities are also available through online esports leagues as well.

We are in an era where traditional television is being taken over by Netflix, YouTube and Twitch, creating new mediums for viewers to engage with esports, which is reflected by a growing viewer base.

Research from VentureBeat estimated that in 2021 there were 234 million esports enthusiasts, up from 197 and 200.8 million respectively in 2019, highlighting a stark growth. What’s more is that by 2024 there are expected to be 285.8 million enthusiasts and 291.6 million occasional viewers. Esports is a rapidly growing industry that people want to be involved with, and it’ll only get bigger in the coming years.

This is supported by an increase in job awareness through sites like Hitmarker, a dedicated jobs site for advertising esports opportunities.

University courses

The esports ecosystem supports universities through the development of teaching, facilities and opportunities in the industry which helps to focus on student’s interests whilst developing their core skills in preparation for a career in the industry.

For example, Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies, as part of Nottingham Trent University, offer a BSc in Esports Production which teaches students about the global esports industry, the principles of esports, production and technology, as well as broadcasting and management. This will be delivered in Confetti X, a £5 million dedicated esports complex due to open ahead of the upcoming academic year.

Universities such as Sheffield Hallam offer courses in esports management, whilst Chichester has its own esports degree. This is supplemented by universities such as Warwick who have large student esports communities who come together for competitions and tournaments.

The importance of good training in developing the esports industry is being increasingly recognised by universities who are creating new courses each year as a result. Courses involving business, management, events, marketing, journalism and design all offer unique skills which match up with a plethora of new jobs emerging in the esports scene, and with the industry growing at the rate it is, the number of these jobs will only rise.

Moving forwards, the onus is not only on the esports industry supplying opportunities for university students, but also on the university ecosystem to provide the highest-quality education and training in order to fuel the integration of new talent into the dynamic esports workforce.

In order to assist students who are pursuing a career in esports, GGTech works with university students to run and produce the Amazon UNIVERSITY Esports Masters competitions, giving them vital first-hand experience at casting, broadcasting and event management.

Part of the fabric for the future development and growth of the esports industry is putting faith in the talent of university students, being willing to innovate courses, equipment and opportunities, and supporting students every step of the way to help turn their hobby into their future employment.

That’s why university campuses are the best testing space for evolving equipment, products and services whilst allowing students to gain valuable experience, especially through internships and competition management.

Opening people’s eyes to the vast array of opportunities and careers that the esports sector has to offer will fuel the next generation to become the core of the industry during its rapid growth.

Now is the time for a career in esports

In the esports industry revenues are growing, viewership is growing, the number of participants is growing, and this is creating more and more opportunities all the time.

There is no better time to pursue a career in esports, and education is at the forefront of attracting prospective students into the industry. As the sector grows, we will see an increasing number of universities offering esports related courses and follow in the footsteps of Confetti in building dedicated facilities for students to gain the best first-hand experience for running tournaments.

Students should be encouraged to take the plunge, and universities and esports professionals must provide the best assistance possible to welcome in the new generation to help the entire esports industry grow.

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