The English Football Thread

[Atomiswave 6,072]

1 minute ago, Milan said:

Leicester still need to play Palace, Bournemouth, Arsenal, Sheffield, Tottenham and Man United, which could be a cracker on the final day, assuming Leicester are still in the race. We HAVE TO capitalize.

They are more than welcome to take points off of udt thats for sure.

[NikkiCFC 7,580]

1 hour ago, LAM09 said:

Leicester are going to find themselves in the battle for an EL place at this rate.

Yeah, I think they will finish 6th. 

[Laylabelle 9,296]

2 hours ago, Milan said:

Leicester still need to play Palace, Bournemouth, Arsenal, Sheffield, Tottenham and Man United, which could be a cracker on the final day, assuming Leicester are still in the race. We HAVE TO capitalize.

Unfortunately....not 

[Milan 17,835]

Just now, Laylabelle said:

Unfortunately....not 

Makes me rip my hair off!! Oh how I miss the pandemic break without football..

[Laylabelle 9,296]

Just now, Milan said:

Makes me rip my hair off!! Oh how I miss the pandemic break without football..

Haha lets just scrap the season.

Its so typical yet so expected. Though didnt expect 3-2..maybe 1-0.

And Leicester haven't won and yet still 3rd! Okay sliding but still 3rd.

[Laylabelle 9,296]

14 minutes ago, Mana said:

Forget Leicester. Just forget them. Our biggest worry is Wolves and United. They are both currently playing better football than us.

United will overtake. Theyre on a run without slowing down. Wolves..that last game might be horrible. If it means anything by then.

[NikkiCFC 7,580]

1 hour ago, Mana said:

Forget Leicester. Just forget them. Our biggest worry is Wolves and United. They are both currently playing better football than us.

Well, Leicester is horrible lately and we are still favorites to finish above them. Even if Wolves and United finish above us we are 5th and that is enough for CL.

[DDA 9,570]

Wolves still have Arsenal, Everton and Us.

The last game of the season could be the decider.

What a game that will be. 

Watch us turn into prime Brazil on that day.

[Jase 43,479]

13 minutes ago, DDA said:

Wolves still have Arsenal, Everton and Us.

The last game of the season could be the decider.

What a game that will be. 

Watch us turn into prime Brazil on that day.

 

More like the Brazil who lost 7-1 to Germany!

[killer1257 3,282]

Wolves still have Arsenal, Everton and Us.
The last game of the season could be the decider.
What a game that will be. 
Watch us turn into prime Brazil on that day.

Yeah Traore will rape Alonso

Gesendet von meinem VOG-L29 mit Tapatalk

[killer1257 3,282]

Wolves still have Arsenal, Everton and Us.
The last game of the season could be the decider.
What a game that will be. 
Watch us turn into prime Brazil on that day.

Yeah Traore will rape Alonso

Gesendet von meinem VOG-L29 mit Tapatalk

[DDA 9,570]

Does top 4 even matter now we have Ziyech and Werner already?? 

Surely we can buy some decent defendere without the lure of CL footy for one year.

[Magic Lamps 11,449]

Why do our rivals always play before us putting us under pressure? Who the heck drawsup these massively unfair anb biased schedules?

[Johnnyeye 7,414]

5 minutes ago, Magic Lamps said:

Why do our rivals always play before us putting us under pressure? Who the heck drawsup these massively unfair anb biased schedules?

its not our rivals fault that we choke instead of doing our job

[Magic Lamps 11,449]

I just noticed that not only we are playing Wolves on the last day but also ManU and Leicester are facing off against each other then. Quite possibly an epic showdown. I can so see the FA manipulating games such that the last matchday will indeed be a decider.

[Vesper 27,310]

17 hours ago, DDA said:

Wolves still have Arsenal, Everton and Us.

The last game of the season could be the decider.

What a game that will be. 

Watch us turn into prime Brazil on that day.

Brasil versus Germany in 2014. 

[Vesper 27,310]

Cox: How Matic is proving to be the perfect foil for Pogba and Fernandes

https://theathletic.com/1903836/2020/07/02/michael-cox-manchester-united-nemanja-matic/

When it was first announced that Premier League clubs would be allowed to use five substitutes for the remainder of this campaign, a couple of types of player seemed well-placed to benefit.

The first was the promising youngster, desperate for playing time. A few 10-minute runouts here and there could prove vital in their development. The other was the attacker on the fringes of the side, who would nominally be the fourth or fifth-best attacking option in reserve. He would have more opportunities to influence matches in the closing stages.

A less obvious beneficiary was a 31-year-old holding midfielder into his seventh Premier League campaign and perhaps on the way out at Manchester United. But away at Tottenham Hotspur, those extra substitutions helped to revive Nemanja Matic’s United career.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had already introduced Mason Greenwood in place of Daniel James, and replaced Fred with Paul Pogba. His third change was always likely to involve Odion Ighalo, his Plan B up front. And, in normal times, that would have been that.

But Solskjaer had a fourth and fifth change to make. So, while bringing on Ighalo for Anthony Martial with 12 minutes to go, he also removed a hobbling Victor Lindelof and brought on Matic. Scott McTominay dropped back into the defence, and Matic played his familiar holding role.

United had already been asserting their dominance, but Matic’s introduction changed the shape of their side, allowing Pogba and Bruno Fernandes to push forward in the knowledge they had proper protection behind. Pogba got the plaudits, winning the penalty that became their equaliser and playing his way back into the side having been left out of the starting XI, but, subtly, Matic’s contribution had been crucial in the Frenchman’s return to form.

Against Tottenham, Matic was introduced as a defined holding midfielder, with both Pogba and Fernandes ahead of him.

 

Here’s a typical situation, just after Matic’s introduction — he was so deep he effectively formed part of a three-man defence, and received the ball between Harry Maguire and McTominay. But Matic still acted as United’s holding midfielder — and their deep-lying playmaker — as he exploited the freedom ahead of him in this situation to push forward on the ball…

 

… and then drifted a pass out right to Aaron Wan-Bissaka. From this move, Pogba won the penalty to get United back into the game.

United had previously enjoyed great success in big matches with a three-man defence, so it was somewhat surprising Solskjaer hadn’t experimented with the system more against weaker opponents. Perhaps he lacked versatile wide players to shift between a back three and a back four smoothly within matches, and therefore was reluctant to commit to a three-man defence permanently.

But Matic’s deep positioning has allowed United to play out from the back comfortably with a temporary back three. Later in that Spurs game, he drops in to allow their centre-backs to spread…

… they work the ball around Tottenham’s two forwards and out to left-back Luke Shaw.

From here, they build the move that led to a second penalty award, although it was overturned by VAR.

Matic’s fine performance that night at the new White Hart Lane means he has retained his position in the side for subsequent matches against Sheffield United and Brighton & Hove Albion, both 3-0 victories. Again, Matic has played that role as a bonus centre-half effectively — even if United’s shape has looked more 4-2-3-1 than 4-3-3, with Pogba alongside him when out of possession.

Here’s a simple example from the Sheffield United victory, of Matic dropping in to allow Manchester United to play three-versus-two in defence…

… and then, after the ball has been transferred forward, he steps up and provides a midfield passing option.

Matic’s deep positioning has also allowed the United centre-backs more licence to roam. Both Maguire and Lindelof are comfortable bringing the ball forward, and that proved crucial in the opener against Brighton on Tuesday. Again, Matic appears as a third centre-back against a defensive Brighton side playing with two central forwards. This allows Lindelof to bring the ball up on the outside of those forwards, knowing he has cover behind.

This eventually results in Lindelof pushing forward so aggressively that he briefly becomes United’s right winger, which occupies Brighton left-back Dan Burn. In turn, this means Burn isn’t tracking Mason Greenwood, United’s actual right winger, who is now free to attack centre-back Lewis Dunk.

Dunk struggles to cope with the trickery of Greenwood, who fires United into the lead.

In theory, Matic is primarily a bonus centre-back when United have possession, although he has also demonstrated great awareness in the defensive phase of play.

Here’s an example from that win over Sheffield United. Visiting centre-forward David McGoldrick is moving deep to collect a pass from Chris Basham, and Maguire tracks the run, moving high up the pitch to close him down. McGoldrick’s strike partner, Oli McBurnie, sees an opportunity to exploit the space Maguire has vacated.

But Matic also spots the space, and drops into it to become the left-sided centre-back. Therefore, when McGoldrick plays the ball into the channel for McBurnie to chase, Matic is able to track his run.

Here’s a similar example from the Brighton game. Again, Matic has dropped in to play as the left-sided centre-back. United lose the ball in midfield, and Leandro Trossard plays it in to Neal Maupay, between the lines in a dangerous position. As Trossard’s pass is played, Maguire slips.

Maupay receives the ball, which brings Lindelof up the pitch, and tries to slip it through for Aaron Connolly. But Matic, compensating for his lack of speed, has read the situation early enough to effectively cover behind both Lindelof and Maguire, and sweeps up, holding off Connolly and clearing the danger.

Being notionally used alongside Pogba, rather than as a sole holding midfielder, means Matic has some licence to drift left. This was notable in the early stages against Brighton, when United made in-roads down that flank.

Here, his combination with Shaw and Marcus Rashford helps create a three-vs-two situation out wide.

After some neat play between Rashford and Shaw, this resulted in the left-back getting into a good crossing position.

Brighton dealt with the cross, but then Matic was proactive in trying to win back possession, spotting that Tariq Lamptey, Brighton’s right winger, was free for an out-ball…

…and closing him down quickly to prevent a counter-attack. Matic’s contributions in this move, with and without the ball, set the tone for an excellent first-half performance.

Solskjaer will also be particularly pleased with how effectively Matic has struck up a relationship with Fernandes, who is repeatedly in clever positions between the lines, and demanding a ball in to feet. Matic has proved excellent at rapping quick passes in to Fernandes’s feet, which have often prompted a clever flick, or a swift turn to take the ball on the run.

There have been too many of these to illustrate in their entirety, but here are some choice highlights from the 3-0 victories over Sheffield United and Brighton — Matic is constantly breaking the opposition’s midfield line with his distribution.

As well as his aforementioned subtle positional contribution to Greenwood’s opener at the Amex, Matic was more directly involved when the visitors scored their third of the night, with a superb side-on volley out to the left flank for Greenwood which launched a classic Manchester United counter-attacking goal.

But maybe the most telling goal, from a tactical perspective, was United’s second. Pogba teed up Fernandes for a deflected long-range strike; the duo both occupying positions on the edge of the opposition box simultaneously. If they’re doing that, United need a solid, positionally disciplined player sitting behind.

That man, for now, is not McTominay or Fred, it’s Matic.

[Vesper 27,310]

The making of Ralph Hasenhuttl, football’s force of nature

https://theathletic.com/1875504/2020/07/02/the-making-of-ralph-hasenhuttl-southampton-force-of-nature-rohl/

In keeping with a manager fond of pressing football, Ralph Hasenhuttl starts his working day on the front foot.

“He’s a man on a mission in the mornings,” says Ross Wilson, the former Southampton director of football operations. “He’s really, really planned to detail on training and things and works closely with Richard Kitzbichler, Craig Fleming, Dave Watson, Andrew Sparkes and Alex Gross with breakfast every morning.”

“A normal working day in Southampton usually started between 7.30 and 8am,” says Danny Rohl, who spent six months as his assistant in England. “We discussed the day’s training, then we had breakfast together with all the coaching staff. This was followed by a team meeting, depending on the day of the week, and then move to the training ground.

“After the session, I would analyse the training to give Ralph feedback — what was good and what was not. In the afternoon, we’d go jogging together every now and then, often talking about the line-up and the next game.”

A typical Hasenhuttl day has a heavy emphasis on coaching, but the Austrian is just as dedicated to the macro as well as the micro-management of Southampton.

He is a manager who has made precision and clarity the guiding principles of his life. Once in a while Hasenhuttl will pause mid-sentence during a press conference to settle himself. The Austrian will cross his arms and with his right hand, rub his thumb and forefingers together as he searches for the correct English word to use.

The word he is looking for tends to be similar — “instinct” or “feel” — and he always finds it after that little ritual.

In his first meeting with Wilson at Heathrow in 2018, Hasenhuttl repeatedly — and unnecessarily — apologised for his poor grasp of the language. “He was convinced he couldn’t speak English but he was literally speaking it,” Wilson recalls. It did not stop them talking from day into night.

It’s the smallest window into how Hasenhuttl works. The Southampton manager speaks excellent English, but resorts to the hand motion when he wants to describe how close a player is to match fitness, or how close his team is to learning his automatisms.

Hasenhuttl rubs his thumb and forefingers together when he’s looking for the perfect word to describe how his team yearns for perfection.

“One of the best moments for me was hugging and cheering with Ralph after the first home win against Arsenal,” says Rohl, recalling their early days at Southampton. “I still remember after the game we sat together until 3am and analysed everything, and we realised our players were already able to implement a lot of our principles.”

Those principles have taken Hasenhuttl from the third tier of German football to a new four-year contract and a long-term project on the south coast of England with Southampton. Along the way he has learnt to hone his tactics, tried and ditched his suit, motivated players to run through locked doors for him, suffered the sack, broken records, said a tearful goodbye, made a comedic hello and earned a reputation as a “force of nature”.

This is the rise and rise Ralph Hasenhuttl, told by those who have hired him, played for him and coached alongside him.

---

Despite winning four Austrian Bundesliga titles in his playing days, Hasenhuttl would never describe himself as the most talented of footballers.

“My talent in football was not the highest, but I was very hard-working, interested to learn and get better, and this focus made me better and better,” he said in 2015.

Hasenhuttl was an industrious striker, his 6ft 3in frame making him something of a target man for clubs including Austria Vienna, Austria (now RB) Salzburg and Cologne.

 

Hasenhuttl, the striker, is congratulated after scoring for Cologne

Following the better part of 17 years as a player, Hasenhuttl concluded his playing career at Bayern Munich II — their reserve side — serving as one of the experienced veterans as up-and-comers such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm began their careers.

He offered his guidance on the pitch, and off it. “Our bus driver had a tendency to drive fast,” explained Hasenhuttl’s former Bayern II coach Hermann Gerland in 2018. “Ralph would run right to the front of the bus and tell him: ‘Are you mad? Drive sensibly. I have three kids at home’. It was great.”

Retiring in 2004 at the age of 37, Hasenhuttl took to football management, joining lower division SpVgg Unterhaching as under-18 coach — his progress was a sign of things to come.

“He knows football, that’s clear. His positive mindset was very captivating,” says Steffen Galm, Unterhaching’s under-19 coach at the time and now their technical director. “He took over our under-18 squad in a difficult situation and led them with plenty of joy and hard work to a top position in the league. He was able to do the same thing with all his following teams, so Southampton can look forward to this in the upcoming seasons.”

Modern-day Hasenhuttl will often speak of the importance of giving young players opportunities. A Hasenhuttl side is able to press so relentlessly in part because of how the Austrian frequently puts young players into his team. For Galm, Hasenhuttl’s commitment to young players and the collective was clear from day one.

“He was very collegial, had no problem with letting me borrow some of his under-18 players for my under-19 squad, so he was an absolute team player,” he says.

Hasenhuttl would eventually be promoted from Unterhaching’s youth teams, becoming an assistant to both Werner Lorant and Heribert Deutinger while further refining his approach to the game. A four-day spell as interim manager of the club in March 2007 gave him his first taste of senior-level management, but it was not until October 4, 2007 that “Ralph Hasenhuttl: Football Manager” was born.

Hasenhuttl was a qualified success during his two and a half seasons in charge of Unterhaching, taking the side to a sixth-place finish in 2007-08. The third tier of German football underwent a revamp the following season, as a nationwide division replaced the previous regional competition, but Hasenhuttl continued his upward trajectory.

He utilised a 4-2-2-2 shape (sound familiar?) and empowered a star striker — Anton Fink — to take his side to a fourth-place finish in 2008-09.

Things seemed good at Unterhaching, and Hasenhuttl’s tactics and particular sense of humour (“Dry. Typical Austrian irony,” says Galm) made him a known quantity in the German third tier.

Then came the first setback. The Austrian’s third season at Unterhaching saw the team start well but fade in the winter, and in February 2010 after 88 games in charge (40 wins, 20 draws and 28 defeats), Hasenhuttl was out of a job.

Hasenhuttl admitted later in his career that while pressing tactics can be successful at lower league clubs, there is only so much running and tactical awareness he could ask for from players at that level of the pyramid. “I can do more pressing (higher up the leagues), I can attack earlier, have more solutions of what to do with the ball, try to develop my own game more,” he said.

To fill his time out of the game he had a go at being a semi-professional tennis player in Munich. “I just wanted to see how far you could get at that age if you really trained,” he said.

It would be another year before Hasenhuttl returned to football management with Aalen, but his connection to Unterhaching continues to this day — his son Patrick Hasenhuttl joined the club this June.

---

When Hasenhuttl came to Aalen in January 2011, he found a club a point above the relegation zone in the German third tier and in desperate need of invigoration. So Hasenhuttl did what Hasenhuttl tends to do: play a 4-2-2-2 (although the Austrian also used a 4-1-4-1 and 4-5-1 in his first half-season) steady the defence, and ask his players to be brave going forward.

Results were solid rather than promising — five wins, eight draws and six losses kept Aalen in the German third tier, finishing 16th. That summer, Hasenhuttl embarked on a bold rebuild, releasing 14 players from the club while bringing in eight “open-minded” players of his own.

The aim was a mid-table finish. They were sixth by the winter break. Then they won eight games in a row in the spring to finish second in the league and gain promotion to the Bundesliga 2 for the first time in the club’s history.

Take a look at footage of Aalen’s promotion party below and take in the fan chants of Hasenhuttl’s name. Here was a manager getting better and better.

 

Hasenhuttl suffered a worrying start to pre-season in the summer of 2012 when he contracted hantavirus, a potentially fatal disease that left him suffering from a fever, headaches and kidney problems. Hasenhuttl gained a stone and a half in weight while receiving treatment from the disease and missed the start of the season.

Hasenhuttl returned three weeks into the 2012-13 campaign and employed some of his most radical football ever. Out went the 4-2-2-2/4-4-2  and in came a counter-attacking 4-5-1 style. Hasenhuttl’s team swarmed the opposition, and while they could not maintain a bright run of form that saw them reach fifth place by the winter break, Aalen finished their first season in Bundesliga 2 in ninth position. It was the club’s highest position in the club’s 92-year history, and the record still stands seven years later.

By this point, Hasenhuttl was a manager on the rise and on the radar of clubs around Germany but off the field Aalen were heading in the opposite direction. Financial difficulties struck in the summer of 2013 when they lost their sponsor and, sensing he had taken the club as far as possible, Hasenhuttl asked for his contract to be terminated and left.

Hasenhuttl would go on to spent the rest of his summer combining two of his favourite hobbies, as he took to mountain biking around the Alps and “studying” Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach during pre-season.

This was not the common case of a coach being invited into camp. Hasenhuttl was watching the work of Jurgen Klopp and Lucien Favre from a distance. With binoculars.

“It’s better to be incognito because otherwise everyone is talking to you because they know you — and you can’t concentrate on the training because everyone is talking to you,” he explained to The Set Pieces in 2015.

Hasenhuttl would have to wait a little to apply his new learnings, staying away from football management until October 2013.

Again he’d be summoned to a small team near the relegation zone. Again he’d take them to new levels of success.

---

“What is your opinion of Ralph Hasenhuttl?” asks Ralph Gunesch, a television pundit for DAZN and youth coach at Ingolstadt.

When Gunesch first met Hasenhuttl in October 2013, he was an experienced lower-league defender, trying his best to help Ingolstadt climb away from the Bundesliga 2 relegation spots.

“All we knew about him was that he’d take a very close look at how much you run, how many sprints you make,” he says. “He also had an emphasis on physical strength, and as a full-back at about 30 years old, with some experience of playing at a high level… how do I say it? Running wasn’t my biggest strength. I wasn’t the guy who covered the most ground in a game, I was the guy who would try and be in the right place.

“Our first meeting was in the dressing room. He asked me: ‘Ralph, please tell me why do you run so little?’ And I was like… OK, the new coach is asking me in my first chat why do I run so little. So I said, ‘Do you think I was missing in an important situation?’ And he said ‘No, no, everything is fine, it’s good — as long as you do it well, it’s fine for me. I used to coach Benjamin Hubner who’s the same!’

“So he knows how to handle different kinds of players. You have guys like me who have their own style of play, and he didn’t try to change me because this is his way of playing. He asks: ‘Is this player useful for my kind of playing or not? If yes, he can play how he wants, if not he will be on the bench’.”

One person not on the bench for Hasenhuttl’s first game in charge was… Hasenhuttl.

“He was announced (as manager) on a Thursday or Friday and we played on the Sunday against VfL Bochum,” says Gunesch. “He said he didn’t want to be near us before the game because we (the players) needed to concentrate. He said he’d be on the pitch after the game. So for the first game that Hasenhuttl was officially in charge, he wasn’t on the bench. He was in the stadium and his assistant coach was on the bench.”

According to football journalist Archie Rhind-Tutt, Ingolstadt has a peculiar reputation in Germany among football fans.

“Audi owns 20 per cent of the club and are principle sponsors, but they still adhere to the 50+1 ownership rule,” he explains of the youthful Bavarian club, born of a merger of ESV Ingolstadt and MTV Ingolstadt in 2004.

“As a team, they’re pretty inoffensive, but they are not seen as a traditional club in Germany.  You also have to consider that Ingolstadt as a place is an Audi town in the same way Nuremberg is for Puma, or Wolfsburg is Volkswagen. It can be a relatively low-pressure environment most seasons, but Hasenhuttl took over in a very bad time and became their man of big successes.”

Ingolstadt had lost seven, drawn one and won one of their first nine matches, leaving them bottom of Bundesliga 2 at the start of the 2013-14 season. Like at Aalen, Hasenhuttl’s rebuild was gradual, but soon became comprehensive.

“The first thing he wanted to improve was reducing how many goals we conceded,” says Gunesch, who served as Hasenhuttl’s captain at Ingolstadt along with Marvin Matip, brother of Liverpool’s Joel.

“So we stayed very deep, we played a 4-2-3-1, we changed it to a 4-4-2 or 4-4-3 after a few weeks, but the focus was to stay compact and to be defensive for the first few weeks. It’s interesting (Hasenhuttl’s approach to fixing a defence first) as he was a striker when playing.

“At first he asked us (Marvin and himself) how we wanted to play corners and free kicks: Did we want to mark people or stay on the space (zonal marking)? We wanted to mark the people at first but he said after a few weeks he wanted to change it so we would use the free space and try to get the ball.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he had such a dramatic effect at Ingolstadt,” adds Rhind-Tutt. “He was a big personality on the club, a force of nature in that sense, with good ideas and a good group of players.”

 

Gunesch and Matip, on the far right of the top row, and Hasenhuttl, far left of the second row, at Ingolstadt

Nine wins, 10 draws and six losses soon followed, and Hasenhuttl finished his first season with Ingolstadt in a respectable 10th place. Then came the growth, as the likes of Mathew Leckie (now at Hertha Berlin), Pascal Gross (now at Brighton), Benjamin Hubner (at Hoffenheim), and Danny da Costa (a key figure at Eintracht Frankfurt) came together as Hasenhuttl led the team to the Bundesliga 2 title.

“He was all about how they make the most of the resources they have, rather than trying to play the most free-flowing football,” says Rhind-Tutt. “He lifted his players up to more than the sum of their parts.”

“He has a very remarkable way of playing football, and of coaching — his feeling for what is happening inside his team,” says Gunesch. “In the hotel, before you drive to the stadium for example, he’s not giving motivational speeches. But in the last team meeting before the game, when he tells you who is playing and so on, they aren’t very long meetings. Fifteen minutes long, maximum. But when you leave these meetings, it doesn’t matter if the door is locked, you’d run through it, you become so motivated!

“He really knows how to catch every player and say, ‘This is the direction, let’s go’, that’s one of his greatest strengths. Wherever he wanted us to go, we would follow. You always believe what he is saying, and felt he believed it too. I trusted him from day one, which gives you a lot of confidence. You feel good knowing he’s your coach.”

“The Christmas party was good, but the promotion party was much better,” jokes Gunesch. It was a big party and it was the first time I saw Ralph Hasenhuttl dancing. I’m happy he tried to get a career playing football and not dancing.”

It was in May 2015, shortly after Ingolstadt’s title win, that Rhind-Tutt interviewed Hasenhuttl as part of BT Sport’s European Football Show, where the Austrian promised: “A fresh, aggressive, grown-up team, who is not afraid of the big names waiting for us”, as a smile appeared on his face. “I’m sure that we will perform really good.”

Ingolstadt made good on Hasenhuttl’s promise to perform well as the team defied expectation in their debut Bundesliga season.

The Austrian garnered headlines in September 2015 when he was too nervous to watch an injury-time penalty for Ingolstadt away at Werder Bremen and hid behind the bench. They scored and won.

Three months later, after his Bayern Munich side had beaten Ingolstadt 2-0, Pep Guardiola said: “Today we encountered the best team we’ve been up against so far this season”.

The football was a tad pragmatic, with 60 per cent of their league goals coming from set pieces aimed in from Pascal Gross, but it got points on the board at a steady rate. In their first season in the top flight, Ingolstadt, a football club who were only 12 years old, finished 11th in the table. This, as we shall see, was also the year Hasenhuttl first appeared on Southampton’s radar.

Hasenhuttl had again outperformed expectations with a club flirting with relegation but again chose to leave after budget constraints left him feeling he had taken the side as far as it could go. Choosing to not renew his contract with Ingolstadt earlier that spring, Hasenhuttl faced Guardiola and Bayern on May 7, 2016 knowing it would be his last home game in charge of the club.

Ingolstadt fans waved “Danke Ralph” banners from the stands as Bayern took a 2-1 win and secured the Bundesliga title, but the enduring image of that game would be Hasenhuttl breaking down in tears in his post-match press conference, overwhelmed with emotion for the club in which he had achieved so much.

At RB Leipzig, Hasenhuttl had his work cut out for him. Leipzig had just been promoted to the top flight after finishing second in the Bundesliga 2 and their manager, Ralf Rangnick, had decided to move upstairs and work as sporting director, appointing a seemingly kindred spirit in his place.

“If Ingolstadt are a plastic club, they are an eco-friendly, biodegradable kind of plastic,” jokes Rhind-Tutt, explaining the leap from little Ingolstadt to Leipzig, whose commercial structure and relationship with Red Bull has made them the most hated club in German football.

“They also had a sporting director Ralf Rangnick who… how can I put this… is a very demanding figure.”

As a former manager of Stuttgart, Hannover and Schalke, (and currently being linked with a role at AC Milan) Rangnick was dubbed the “Fussball Professor” ever since an appearance on a late night Bundesliga highlights show in 1998 (watch it, in German, here). One of the earlier advocates of counter-pressing in German football, Rangnick has long stressed his belief in proactive, energetic football.

It is under Ragnick’s stewardship that all Red Bull football teams try to win back the ball within five seconds of losing the ball, and from Ragnick that many football coaches believe winning the ball and having a shot on goal within 10 seconds can be the best method of goalscoring. He is one of the most influential figures in modern German footballing history, as well as one of the more combustible.

 

Rangnick and Hasenhuttl seemed kindred spirits until the now Southampton manager began to adapt his approach

Such a belief made Hasenhuttl the perfect fit for Leipzig in 2016, and that summer the Austrian worked feverishly with Rohl to turn Leipzig into a Bundesliga mainstay.

No one in football has a relationship with Hasenhuttl quite like Rohl, who is now the assistant manager to Hansi Flick at Bayern Munich. At Bayern, The Athletic understands, the players believe his pressing sessions in training are one of the reasons behind the team’s improvement this season.

“Upon his arrival in Leipzig, Ralph quickly arranged it so that every member of the coaching team could get involved in their respective fields,” Rohl says.

“In all the years of working together, Ralph knew how to delegate responsibility. So, he trusted me and Zsolt Low with a lot of the training in Leipzig, took advice from sports psychologist Sascha Lense and consulted with his team of coaches about possible match plans and line-ups, to make the best possible decisions.”

Hasenhuttl’s Leipzig may have had their detractors off the pitch, but on it, they were a sensation, going unbeaten for the first 13 games of the 2016-17 season — the record for the longest undefeated streak of a promoted team.

Players such as Emil Forsberg, Naby Keita and Timo Werner blew opposition teams away. Hasenhuttl’s Leipzig played 4-2-2-2, pressed high up the pitch and boasted rampaging full-backs as the team roared to a second-place Bundesliga finish behind Bayern Munich.

“OK, we now know they had good players, but at the time they were unproven in the Bundesliga,” explains Rhind-Tutt.

“It was fun working with the young team in Leipzig every day, watching players like Keita or Werner and seeing how they continued to develop,” says Rohl, who was promoted from video analyst to assistant coach at Leipzig shortly after Hasenhuttl’s first season at the club.

“Among other things, this requires a high quality of training and above all a team of coaches with many experts in all areas who can accompany and support the players in the next step of their development.”

“The aim was to capture the ball, switch and quickly advance, in not more than 10 seconds,” Hasenhuttl explained in a 2018 interview with the Football Paradise.

“Of course, it depends on where on the pitch we win the ball. Lots of possibilities. We scored a lot of goals in this manner in their first season. Lots of early and intense pressing.”

“Champions League qualification and finishing second in our first year in the Bundesliga was certainly a special moment for us,” says Rohl. “But the victories over Dortmund and Bayern in the Bundesliga, and against Napoli in the Europa League, were also very special.”

Hasenhuttl would be less successful in his second season at Leipzig, as the added workload of Champions League football and friction with Rangnick saw the team fall to sixth place in 2017–18.

For his first Champions League group stage game he ditched his usual tracksuit for a smart suit before realising he was not that sort of manager, and reverting back.

His approach as a coach was changing too from the regimented approach he had delivered for Rangnick. He adapted the 4-2-2-2 formation he had inherited from Rangnick in order to cope with the two games a week and made other changes, such as his team defending in a middle block when out of possession, to preserve the side’s stamina levels, and an emphasis on forcing the ball off the pitch in wide areas to disrupt opposition wing player. These traits can be seen today in Hasenhuttl’s Southampton side.

“I think by the end, Hasenhuttl wanted to ease up on the principles a bit and Rangnick was not in favour of that. You get the sense that Hasenhuttl wanted to evolve. I thought the two were peas in a pod at first, but Hasenhuttl was developing something,” explains Rhind-Tutt.

Hasenhuttl would ask Rangnick to terminate his Leipzig contract in the spring of 2018 upon learning of the sporting director’s desire to bring in Julian Nagelsmann as a new manager.

Hasenhuttl would go on to develop that “something” during a six-month break from the game. Then Southampton came calling.

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“We monitored his progress primarily through Leipzig, but we were aware of him through Ingolstadt, until the 2016 season,” says Wilson, who is now director of football operations at Rangers.

“His work at Leipzig was excellent with the young players and when he left Leipzig we were interested in what he might want to do next and then we met him in December.”

December 2018 was a down period for Southampton, with the club some years removed from their former mid-2010s glories. A trio of underwhelming managerial appointments had caused the club to lose their way, and after a 2-2 draw with Manchester United (in which they initially led 2-0), Mark Hughes was relieved of his duties and Wilson was given the job of finding a replacement.

“When he left RB Leipzig we knew he wanted to take a break, which was the summer before he came,” says Wilson. “But when the decision was made to change the coach we went to speak to him, probably in the knowledge that in that moment in time he maybe wasn’t ready to come back and work again. But when we sat down with him we were really convinced quickly that he was such a great match for Southampton, he was going to come and take this job.

“We met in a hotel in Heathrow. I remember that very well. We had a great chat — we had a chat all day and into the evening and got on really well.

“Ralph had this strange thing at the start where he could speak perfectly good English but he thought he couldn’t speak it at all. And it’s quite hard to speak to someone who is telling you they can’t speak English. So we had this conversation where he would think he wasn’t speaking English but he absolutely was!

“We went on all day and all night and when we left it wasn’t the situation where he had taken on the job — he wanted to think about things, we wanted to think about things — but we were absolutely clear he was the man and absolutely clear he was a fantastic match for Southampton. Not just the players, because we knew at the time he would improve the results and the group. But we knew he’d connect with the people, we knew he’d connect with the crowd, we’d knew he’d enjoy the area.

“He really really embraced the history and philosophy of Southampton right away and right at the start so we knew that would put that on a solid footing.”

The initial meeting with Wilson complete, Hasenhuttl next got in contact with Rohl: they were getting the band back together and headed to the south coast of England.

“After our joint departure from Leipzig, he made me aware he wanted me to be by his side as his assistant coach again, so we stayed in touch regularly, until finally Southampton expressed interest,” Rohl tells The Athletic.

Hasenhuttl and Rohl in discussion at Southampton training last year (Photo: Matt Watson/Southampton FC via Getty Images)

“We created a detailed analysis of the squad, club and structure, looked at everything on site, and came to the conclusion that the club would fit very well. So, there we were in the Premier League, with a new team, in a new league and a ‘new’ language with the sole aim in the first year of staying in the league.

“You could feel the mutual trust in our daily work. Ralph delegated more and more responsibility to me, and I tried to support and advise him as best as possible in all areas, for example in training planning, analysis of opponents, and player discussions.”

On December 5, 2018 Hasenhuttl was confirmed as Southampton manager at the age of 51. Again he was taking charge of a club battling relegation, and again he sought to employ an energetic style of football to get his team to new heights.

“They can expect a very passionate kind of football with 11 characters on the field,” said the Austrian about what Southampton fans could expect.

Hasenhuttl would go on to promise his Southampton would work hard and give everything for the fans. But what could he guarantee?

“If you want to have guarantees you have to buy a washing machine,” he said. “In football there are no guarantees anymore.”

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Hasenhuttl’s first half-season at Southampton was impressive, picking up eight wins and 10 draws in 25 matches in charge. While the 4-2-2-2 didn’t quite take hold, Hasenhuttl’s opening spell in charge of Southampton saw improved performances from the likes of Nathan Redmond, Shane Long and James Ward-Prowse.

Southampton finished 16th. Relegation had been avoided, but work needed to be done over the summer. Including working closely with Wilson to identify new players for the club.

There’s two things clear in Ralph’s mind (when he’s looking for a player),” says Wilson. “He wants to work with young players. He doesn’t get excited by looking at older players — that doesn’t mean he might not in his life sign an older player, but he doesn’t get excited by it.

“He wants to see what they’re like with the ball and see what they’re like against the ball. He wants to see them be quick, he wants to see them be sharp, he wants them to be able to press and to be able to run. Those are the key things he’s looking at.”

He has also worked to improve the club beyond the first team, including writing a playbook for the academy, opening his door to Radhi Jaidi during his time as under-23 manager and going to watch Southampton Women’s games.

Wilson paints the picture of a coach who is obsessive but also relaxed. Who is considerate but relentless in the pursuit of his perfections.

“We’d have a very very fluid relationship actually,” explains Wilson. “We’d never say, ‘Right we’re going to sit down and meet at 9.45’, we’d just find out moments throughout the day.

“He is absolutely consumed by the training, the staff, and now I know he’s got a really good relationship with (chief executive) Martin Semmens, (managing director) Toby Steele and they’re strong communicators as well.”

He is also, like a certain German Premier League coach, happy to laugh at himself too.

“He’s got a really good sense of humour and I’ll always pick him up on all his wrong English,” adds Wilson. “We were having a bit of banter the other night on text about my favourite one: when he uses ‘too less’ when he means ‘not enough’. I was texting him the other night about something being ‘too less’ and he liked that.

“He can laugh at himself. He’s got a really good sense of humour and I like him a lot.”

“There was always a positive atmosphere with lots of laughter and stuff like going out to eat,” adds Rohl. “Ralph loves all aspects of sport — especially in terms of adventure and competition. He is also very interested in art and music.”

It is almost a year since Rohl departed Southampton, ending his successful partnership with Hasenhuttl and joining Bayern. “For me, it was a short but very emotional time in Southampton, and I have many positive memories for the future,” he says.

“I would say he is a very honest and upright person. He always remained down to Earth despite the successes during his career so far,” says Galm.

“Huge congratulations (to Southampton fans)! It seems like he is enjoying himself there. I hope that they can reach their goals, and spend a long and successful time together. Us at Unterhaching are very proud to have been a part of his beginnings as a manager.”

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When Ralph Hasenhuttl first arrived in England, he was labelled the “Klopp of the Alps”.

“(Klopp and I) did our coaching badges together and we know each other very well,” said the Austrian of his shared past with the Liverpool manager. “I think we appreciate a similar philosophy on football — we want to play a high-tempo game, we want our guys to sprint around, press well and these are elements which make the game livelier and varied and get people excited.”

Klopp and Hasenhuttl from their days in Germany

While they appreciate similar styles of football, it would be a disservice to call Hasenhuttl another version of Klopp because he wears a baseball cap and gesticulates wildly after his team scores a goal.

Hasenhuttl is his own football manager, and what a football manager. He is the overachieving firefighter who finds lower-level clubs and turbocharges them up the footballing pyramid.

He’s the Austrian who loves tennis, mountain biking and skiing just as much as he loves high-pressing football. He is a sometimes superstitious manager who once decided to ditch wearing a suit after a Champions League loss, and promised Southampton players he wouldn’t shave his beard while they remained unbeaten in the 2020 new year.

He is Ralph Hasenhuttl, Southampton manager and long may it continue.