In the red-and-black melting pot surrounding the search for a new management team, the name of Ralf Rangnick has resurfaced once again. Milan fans remember him very well: in 2020 he seemed destined to become the man entrusted with leading Elliott’s Milan project with full powers, with Gazidis ready to get rid of Pioli, Maldini and Massara in favour of the German manager. Fortunately, with hindsight one can say, things did not go that way: Pioli stayed, Maldini and Massara stayed, Ibrahimovic and Kjaer stayed. After Covid, the Milan side was born that would eventually go on to win the Serie A title in 2022.
It feels like a lifetime ago, and it could hardly be otherwise when so many changes have taken place in such a short span of time: since that fantastic 3-0 win away at Sassuolo which sealed the club’s 19th Serie A title, Milan have experienced upheavals and situations bordering on the absurd (in sporting terms) every summer. This year is no exception, quite the opposite. The day after the defeat to Cagliari, RedBird’s top man Gerry Cardinale decided to sack Allegri, Furlani, Tare and Moncada: at the moment there are no fewer than four vacant positions.
With the season now over, Milan fans find themselves in that familiar limbo once again, waiting to see whether Rangnick will accept the Milan role or if the club will go in another direction. In the meantime, many supporters might choose to turn to Pinco casino giriş to stay entertained, taking advantage of attractive bonuses and promotions while remaining engaged with the football world they love.
And since time is short, unavoidable commitments loom (Ibra is shortly leaving for the USA to work as a pundit during the World Cup), and there is plenty to do, the idea of Ralf Rangnick has emerged once more. Centralising, meticulous about details, and absolutely allergic to compromise. Precisely the sort of figure the Milan world needs right now, isn’t it? “Der Professor”, as he is called in Germany, has his own very particular way of understanding football and over the years he has never stopped proving it.
Rangnick and the Leipzig precedent: no compromises...
In 2020 he himself said so in an interview with Mitteldeutsche Zeitung: "For me it is about having a certain degree of influence, which has nothing to do with power, although in certain situations you need it in order to carry things forward. I remember my first days at Leipzig: there were no physiotherapists, the doctors had left, and no coaching staff. And the season was supposed to start in two weeks. Quick decisions were needed: first, I hired Alex Zorniger, then I went to Leipzig and hired two new physiotherapists and two new doctors within five hours. Alexander Sekora recommended the others to me. If I were theoretically to think about going somewhere else, I would need to be able to do things in this way."
Translated: he arrives, decides, and gets everything done quickly. He does not want obstacles, meetings, bureaucratic delays, or conference calls with London in order to obtain approvals and authorizations, writes Milan News. Can someone like that function in the current Milan environment?
Rangnick's three Cs: capital, concept and competence
Having become "famous" for giving the entire Red Bull football world a rigid and effective structure, with Leipzig going from a second-division side to qualifying for the Champions League almost regularly under his leadership, Rangnick considers three concepts fundamental. He states that in order to succeed, you need three things, all of them absolutely indispensable: capital, concept, and competence.
Capital: In every project he has worked on, he has always had major financial backing, not only for transfers but also for obtaining the best training facilities, research infrastructure, and football technology. Concept: a clear footballing identity (gegenpressing) as a coach, and a long-term strategic vision as an executive. Competence: that of the staff, coaches, and specialists hired for every single aspect. Ralf has always studied (not only football) so as to understand as thoroughly as possible everything around him.
The question returns: is it possible to develop something like this within the current Milan structure?
In the recent past there was a “top club” (the quotation marks are necessary) which, like Milan, was in desperate need of a strong internal reorganisation: Manchester United. The Red Devils appointed him first-team manager on 29 November 2021 after sacking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: at the time Rangnick also signed a consultancy contract for the following two seasons. The idea was for him to finish the season, identify a coach around whom to build a clear project from the following campaign onwards, and maintain a certain degree of control over the sporting department even from "outside".
What went wrong?
Practically everything. The Germans' methods were never accepted by the squad, and United’s executive structure was neither streamlined nor inclined to follow the manager’s ideas.
The result? In April 2022 Rangnick gave an interview that immediately became iconic: "One of the very few good things about the current situation is that it is crystal clear. You don’t even need glasses to see and analyse where the problems are. It’s not enough to do some minor amendments – cosmetic things. In medicine you would say that this is an operation of the open heart."
In his view, United needed a complete and total revolution. What did he achieve? Nothing. The club hierarchy bypassed him in the choice of manager; Ten Hag arrived from Ajax, and Rangnick also abandoned the consultancy role because of an obvious incompatibility with the environment.
Last year he returned to the topic during a German television programme: "At United they needed to make fundamental changes when I was there. Since then they have spent £700–750 million..."
Apart from this year, with the Red Devils seemingly having finally found a degree of stability with Carrick on the bench, Rangnick was absolutely not wrong.
In light of all this, one may ask once again: can Ralf Rangnick work in the context of this Milan? Or rather: would Cardinale's and Ibrahimovic's Milan accept working with a "one-man show"?
