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Five things about Ralf Rangnick
- Updated: September 29, 2016
The FA is keen to speak to Ralf Rangnick about the vacant England manager’s job, but what do we know about the German?
The 58-year-old is currently sporting director at Bundesliga club Red Bull Leipzig and was interviewed by the FA at Wembley following the departure of Roy Hodgson after Euro 2016.
Here’s some of what we know about fluent English speaker Rangnick…
He wasn’t much of a player…
Like Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, Rangnick’s playing career took a back seat as he focused on coaching.
He was a defensive midfielder in the lower leagues for Stuttgart’s amateur sides, playing for a number of other lower league clubs afterwards.
He didn’t progress much further than that, but Rangnick did spend some time playing in England in the late 1970s.
While at Stuttgart University studying English and PE, he spent a guest year at Sussex University, taking in English football on a regular basis.
He told the Daily Mail in 2011: “I’d see either Arsenal or Tottenham usually. But Brighton and Hove Albion were in the First Division then so I’d go to the old Goldstone Ground. It was one of the best years of my life.”
He’s been in management a while…
Rangnick started coaching in the early 1980s with Ulm 1846’s youth team, before player/coach stints across the German lower leagues.
After retiring from playing, he became a coach at SC Korb in 1988, and then amateur coach at Stuttgart two years later, where he stayed for four years.
His first proper management job came at fourth-tier SSV Reutlingen, where he was successful before another joyous stint at Ulm.
He then got his first Bundesliga chance as boss at Stuttgart, where he stayed for two years before being sacked in February 2001.
Promotion from the second tier at Hannover came next, but after a season-and-a-half in the top flight, Rangnick was sacked again in 2004.
He’s had mixed success in the past decade…
Still with us? Good. Rangnick’s career has …
