RB Leipzig has had a disappointing first half of the season and now ventures a new start with Domenico Tedesco. But the problems for the Saxons are not only on the pitch.
In their Swabian home, Leipzig’s new coach Domenico Tedesco and his assistant Andreas Hinkel are currently working on the training plans for the preparation that begins on Sunday and on the right strategy for the second half of the season. The first three games under their direction, especially the dismal 0:2 loss to Arminia Bielefeld at the end of the year, have made the team realise how profound the causes are for the fall of the former runners-up RB Leipzig.
“We have already experienced many things, the beautiful victory against Gladbach, the draw in Augsburg and the defeat against Bielefeld. Maybe it’s not bad that you’ve seen the whole range, because you could also observe a lot there. How do certain people act, what happens to them when they win and when they lose? That’s very important” “The most important impression is: We still have a lot of work to do. “
With possession against uncertainty
The 36-year-old wants to bring stability and consistency to a team that had become increasingly unsettled and fatigued under predecessor Jesse Marsch. And he wants to do that by having the team play possession-based football that plays to the strengths of the squad.
Club boss Oliver Mintzlaff is linking Tedesco’s signing with the hope that the new hopeful can turn things around and lead RB Leipzig out of their worst crisis since joining the Bundesliga in 2016 and back into the Champions League places. The gap between the tenth-placed team and fourth place is six points, which at first glance is not an insurmountable task. On closer inspection, however, RB Leipzig has been left behind by the league’s top clubs in recent months. And the main cause of this decline of the former shooting star is a loss of substance at all levels, for which Mintzlaff and Florian Scholz, his right-hand man who has been promoted to commercial director of sport, are primarily responsible.
No answer to Lacroix
This began with the fact that Julian Nagelsmann was allowed to move to FC Bayern in the assumption that they had already found the suitable successor in Jesse Marsch in their own Red Bull football empire. This continued in the transfer summer, when the new coach was given the most expensive squad in the club’s history, but it did not fit Marsch’s playing philosophy and was not balanced either hierarchically or structurally.
After the failed efforts to sign Wolfsburg’s Maxence Lacroix, the decision was made not to sign another central defender at all, which in retrospect proved to be a misjudgement. The gap left by the departures of Ibrahima Konaté and, above all, Dayot Upamecano could not be filled – even though the new signings Josko Gvardiol (19) and Mohamed Simakan (21) have performed respectably in their first Bundesliga season so far.
Waiver of football competence
On the other hand, there are too many central midfielders in the squad, but none of them show the leadership qualities on the pitch that ex-captain Marcel Sabitzer embodied. The Austrian, according to reports from Munich, was literally offered to FC Bayern. The transfer proceeds of 15 million euros were quickly invested in Ilaix Moriba (18), who, interestingly enough, is represented by the same player consultant Roger Wittmann as Sabitzer. The supposed super talent from Barcelona has so far turned out to be a mistake in every respect, and not the only one this summer.
The only new arrivals who actually proved to be reinforcements in the first half of the season, Gvardiol and Simakan, came about under sporting director Markus Krösche. After the separation in April, Mintzlaff did not consider it necessary to fill the position until today. This renunciation of football competence also proved to be a mistake. Whereas until two and a half years ago RB’s father Ralf Rangnick was a busy and omnipresent driving force, today there is an alarming vacuum at RB. In many areas, for example in the medical department, many things have changed since then, but hardly anything has improved. Not even the working atmosphere.
A new coach alone will not be able to correct the undesirable developments of recent times. RB Leipzig is in danger of missing out on more than just Champions League qualification.