Coach Thomas Letsch from the Bundesliga club VfL Bochum owes the turning point in his coaching career to the former RB sports director Ralf Rangnick.
In an interview with “kicker”, the VfL coach said about his way to Red Bull Salzburg, Rangnick “was the big driver for me”, he had “quite turned his life upside down, in a positive sense”.
The 54-year-old worked as a teacher for sports and mathematics at a German school in Lisbon in 2012. “We were on our way to the beach when Ralf Rangnick got in touch and suggested the RB project to me,” said Letsch. The offer appealed to him “right away”. Rangnick, then sports director of Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig, which was still fourth-rate, first brought him to Austria as a youth coach.
From 2012 to 2017, Letsch worked in various positions for Salzburg, including as head coach of the training club FC Liefering and as assistant and interim coach of the RB professionals. This was followed by positions as head coach at Erzgebirge Aue, Rapid Vienna and Vitesse Arnhem before he signed with Bochum.
Letsch is optimistic about the rest of the season with VfL, who are threatened with relegation: “We have 13 points, we’re in business.” The coach of the penultimate table is certain that Bochum’s fight against relegation will remain “tense until the end, but many didn’t even think we could do that”.