Thread by @armbandmedia

Helmut Groß and Ralf Rangnick: The Legend of Two German Icons

A THREAD

The Germans had attained immense success with their libero system. Although after their humiliating performance in the Euro 2000, Germany saw them crashing out of the group stage, that made them started considering other options. (1/2)

Little did the world know back then was two German geniuses, Helmut Groß and Ralf Rangnick, had already started working on and developing new options by then. (2/2)

While Ralf Rangnick made his name in the football world as one of the pioneers of the famous system of Gegenpressing, his mentor Helmut Groß developed that ideology back in the early 80s and Rangnick turned it into what it is today.

Both Groß and Rangnick were heavily inspired by Sacchi's AC Milan and Lobanivskyi's Dynamo Kyiv. Groß wanted to build a system that used the intelligence of players more than their work rate. He started implementing the idea of zone coverage when he joined SC Geislingen in 1981.

Around 1987, Groß and Rangnick became acquaintances. Both of them joined @VfB_int in 1990 in youth academy staff roles.

While Germany was winning trophies with their traditional system, Groß and Rangnick were experimenting with their ideologies of a four-man defence system in the youth teams of VfB Stuttgart.

Having embraced the idea of spatial coverage from his mentor, Rangnick wanted to add some more things to the system. He wanted his players to utilize the energy conserved from zone coverage to press the opposition when they were out of possession.

The amount of energy conserved by cover play instead of man-marking was huge and that was why the system became successful. This put the opposition into a stressful situation and thus the idea of 'The team without the ball is more dangerous than the one with the ball' came true.

In an interview during the late 90s, he expressed his ideas but a majority of German football experts and fans viewed it with disdain as they were obstinate about the prevailing system that brought them success at that time, mockingly named him 'Football Professor'.

Rangnick started his top-tier managerial career with VfB Stuttgart at the end of the 98/99 season. His first full season saw his team finish 8th in the Bundesliga and win the Intertoto Cup to gain an entry into the UEFA Cup. However, the good times didn't last long.

Rangnick joined @s04_en in 2004. He led them to a runner-up finish in the Bundesliga as well as in the DFB Pokal. His next destination was @tsghoffenheimEN, a third-tier German football club at the time. This was the club where he got his creative freedom for the first time.

By this time, Rangnick and was quite a well-known name. Rangnick has always believed that the best chance of regaining possession is within the first eight seconds of losing it as, during this period, the opposition's midfielders and forwards remain disorganized.

Throughout his managerial career, he has used several variations of 4-4-2 but the two-striker system has been pretty much constant. His forwards press the opposition’s centre backs and the wide midfielders press the opposition’s full-backs.

In 2012, Rangnick was hired by Red Bull's football system as the Sporting Director for two of their clubs - RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig and his mentor Groß was hired as the Adviser of Management. The peak of Rangnick's abilities was first seen here.

He was presented with squads with an average age of almost 30. Rangnick has always preferred young, ambitious players with the will to improve and win. Thus, he started decreasing the average age of the squads every year. He set up a new system of scouting and analysis.

He didn't rely on agents and their players, rather he wanted people who had the same eye for talent that he had. Scouts were signed based on their merits and unknown young players with good potential from various leagues around the world were scouted and signed.

Rangnick developed the idea of ‘Three C’ - Capital, Concept, and Competence. Capital is important for any club but using it with intelligence is something very few people can do. Rangnick believes that for a club to thrive, capital requires concept. (1/2)

Unless one knows how to develop the players into competent people, the club can't grow given any amount of capital. The three Cs are interlinked and that is what is propelling the Red Bull football system to success. (2/2)

The extensive scouting system is responsible for the development of several world-class players, namely Joshua Kimmich, Sadio Mane, Dayot Upamecano, Timo Werner, Marcel Sabitzer, Naby Keita, Lukas Klostermann, and many more.

He believes that influencing a player's mindset is of the utmost importance. Developing a top mentality is what pushes the players past their limits to reach levels that previously seemed impossible.

With Rangnick as the Sporting Director, Salzburg and Leipzig saw prominent development in their quality of football and finances. Since his arrival, Salzburg won several Austrian Bundesliga titles and Austrian Cups. RB Leipzig also gained major results

Rangnick joined Leipzig in the summer of 2015 as new their manager. An excellent season under him saw Leipzig qualify for the Bundesliga. Leipzig made three promotions in four years. However, Rangnick resigned as the manager to focus on his duties as the Sporting Director.

Rangnick has influenced various world-class managers, coaches, and scouts all over the world. Thomas Tuchel, Julian Nagelsmann, Jesse Marsch, Ralph Hasenhüttl, Jochen Sauer, and Paul Mitchell are some of the major managers who have been heavily influenced by Rangnick.

Jürgen Klopp and Hansi Flick also have styles of play that are quite close to his system. In fact, a week after Rangnick's Hoffenheim defeated Klopp's Dortmund 4-1 during the 08/09 szn, Klopp said that Hoffenheim's style of football was exactly what he wanted Dortmund to play.

Rangnick became the Head of Sport and Development for Red Bull GmbH but left the organization in 2020.

Helmut Groß never managed a top-tier club to set up the most revolutionary change in the history of German football without seeking the limelight and Ralf Rangnick showed the courage to carry on with his and his mentor’s ideologies even after being mocked and questioned.

Together they made it all happen and it changed world football as we know it now.

End of the thread.

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