The question of who will be the next Bayern Munich coach is on everyone’s minds, particularly in the German sports media needless to say. Ever since Xabi Alonso made his decision to remain at Bayer Leverkusen public last Friday, it has become clear that the absolute number one candidate for the job was no longer a possibility.
But even in the days leading up to that, the leading German football publication Kicker Sport Magazine published an interesting piece, on whom they saw as the favourite to take the job, according to their latest information. They say that the current Brighton & Hove Albion boss Roberto de Zerbi was someone whom especially the newly-appointed sporting CEO Max Eberl has a high opinion of. De Zerbi’s biggest weakness though is the fact that he doesn’t speak German.
While mastery of the language is no longer the prerequisite it was years ago, when it comes to a coach, for most members of the Bayern board, it nonetheless is a strong preference. For that reason, a new name seems to have emerged on the club’s short-list, which is that of the current Austria national team coach Ralf Rangnick. Here we take a look at the new alleged top candidate for the Bayern job and assess what he might bring to the table, in both positives and negatives.
Discussing Ralf Rangnick as The Next Bayern Coach
Potential Positives
If Rangnick is going to be the next Bayern coach, he would not need any introduction to the league, to the players, nor would he likely be quick to change the tactical setup of the team, which has been more or less written in stone since the 2009/10 season, when Louis van Gaal first introduced the 4-2-3-1 formation. Many, if not most other things around the club have changed multiple times over since then, yet the formation has largely remained untouched.
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Rangnick prefers the same setup as well, which means that he would likely not subject the players to big changes early on. At Schake 04, to some extent at TSG Hoffenheim and especially at RB Leipzig he has been a rival to Bayern and he therefore knows what is required of a coach at the top level of the German game. He has won the German Cup in 2011 with Schake and followed that up with the German Super Cup the following season. He also led the Royal Blues to the old German League Cup as far back as 2006.
Potential Negatives
If Rangnick is going to be the next Bayern coach, there are also a number of question marks, as to whether he is right for the job. After all, much bigger names have tried and failed to deal with the locker room. Rangnick never won the German Bundesliga, or any other top-five national league title.
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Beyond that, when he was the manager of Manchester United, he had a much-publicised falling out with Cristiano Ronaldo, which might indicate a lack of man-management skills, when dealing with star players. This could be a major problem at Bayern. He also had a falling out with the board during his time at Hoffenheim, another major potential sticking point for the Bavarian hierarchy.
Final Thoughts
Rangnick is nonetheless a good coach. Whether or not they will hire him will ultimately hinge on the decisions of not only the board, namely president Herbert Hainer, CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen, sporting CEO Eberl and sporting director Christoph Freund, but also on the members of the supervisory board, who apparently have veto power in the decision to appoint the next Bayern Munich coach.
