Marco Rose becomes the new coach at RB Leipzig. He fits in well with the club because he can work in his hometown and developed his playing philosophy at sister club Salzburg.
About how long Marco Rose had to consider returning to his hometown, the new RB coach and his boss Oliver Mintzlaff do not quite agree. Five seconds passed before the promise was made after he rose on Tuesday after 1-4 debacle against Donetsk in the Champions League called, Mintzlaff counts. During his presentation on Thursday (September 8) at the Cottaweg training center, Rose replied with a grin: “It took me ten to fifteen seconds.”
Roses lives with his family in Leipzig
During the phone call, he may have been thinking about his family, with whom he lives in a suburb of Leipzig. “It’s never easy to take up a public position in your home country,” says Rose, who started playing football at Rotation as a child, was discovered by 1. FC Lok and became a professional there. In Leipzig, he will now be measured by results, the 45-year-old explains. The advantage: “I’m close to my family, I can say ‘good night’ to my daughter and I’m with my wife.” That helps especially in difficult times, says Rose.
With Marco we want to get the continuity that once distinguished us.
RB Managing Director Oliver Mintzlaff |
Mintzlaff praises Rose’s game philosophy
There have recently been more frequent in Leipzig. After Jesse Marsch and his predecessor Domenico Tedesco, Rose is the third RB coach in nine months. “We want to get the continuity with Marco that once distinguished us,” hopes managing director Oliver Mintzlaff.
After Marsch had left an unsettled team to Tedesco, they led them to the best second half of the league competition and won that DFB Cup. He gambled away this credit with bad results at the start of the season – but also because of his increasingly faltering possession of the ball. Mintzlaff sounds combative: “With Marco, we have a clear conviction from the outset as far as the game philosophy is concerned.”
Trainer apprenticeship years in the RB school
After engagements at Borussia Mönchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund, Rose is also about to return to his roots in sport. Because his game philosophy developed in Salzburg, explains Rose. After retiring in 2013 after just one regional league season as coach of his hometown club 1. FC Lok, none other than Ralf Rangnick steered him to Austria, where Rose worked first as a youth coach and then as head coach at RB Leipzig’s sister club.
Rangnick’s influence becomes clear when Rose talks about the recipe he wants to use to make the Leipzig team competitive again: “We want to be more stable at the back by putting more pressure on the front.” Marco Rose stands for dynamism and an attractive game with the right mix of ball possession and pressing, says former long-distance runner Mintzlaff.
2013: Marco Rose (right) as locomotive trainer after a duel with RB and then coach Alexander Zorniger.
Return to back four?
Domenico Tedesco became more and more at a loss in his last games as RB coach. He was no longer able to convince the highly talented squad of his tactics. Rose has observed this and demands: “Everyone has to understand what is at stake.” He is looking for a lot of energy and a high willingness to run, and he could also change the basic formation of the team.
In Dortmund he liked to use a 4-4-2 system with a midfield diamond, which would also suit the Leipzig squad. He is very centered and has hardly any wingers, Rose analyses. “But we have a national defender in David Raum and Timo Werner is back and brings a lot of speed in the last line.”
Alexander Zickler (left), who once made his breakthrough as a professional at Dynamo Dresden, has been Marco Rose’s assistant coach for a long time.
This team is good, they are excellent.
RB coach Marco Rose |
Special connection with Kurth and Zickler
“This team is good, they are excellent,” Rose enthuses. To get the club back on the road to success, the players will need to help the manager and his team. RB returnees Marco Kurth, Frank Geideck and Alexander Zickler will work as assistant coaches. Rose has a lot in common with Kurth, who was born in Saxony-Anhalt, and with former Dynamo professional Zickler. Kurth and Rose once played together at Lok’s predecessor VfB Leipzig. Zickler has been with him as an assistant coach for almost a decade.
Their task is complicated because they are up against a team whose mentality Mintzlaff recently questioned: “The expectation is that the team takes responsibility.” Rose can credibly take her to task: “I identify very strongly with my city.”
