Austria's Rangnick back home in unexpected return to Leipzig

LEIPZIG, Germany - Austria manager Ralf Rangnick is already on home soil in Germany for Euro 2024, and when his side line up against Turkey in the round of 16 on Tuesday, he will find himself in very familiar surroundings at the Leipzig Stadium.

Rangnick spent nine years as sporting director of RB Leipzig, with two spells as manager during that time, and was in charge when they achieved promotion to the Bundesliga in 2016.

Rangnick's return is unexpected. France and the Netherlands played out a 0-0 draw in Leipzig 10 days ago, and most experts had one of those sides pencilled in to come back as the winners of Group D to play their last-16 tie.

Instead, Austria defeated the Dutch 3-2 and France were held to a 1-1 draw by Poland, bringing Rangnick back to the city where he had a major role in taking a new club from the lower leagues to the Bundesliga.

RB Leipzig have plenty of critics, and nowhere more so than in the city of Leipzig itself. Red Bull, already involved in football with Red Bull Salzburg in Austria, set their sights on Germany, and Leipzig was a perfect target.

The city no longer had a Bundesliga club, and the clubs still surviving played in the lower leagues.

It also had a new stadium, built for the 2006 World Cup, constructed within the massive bowl that was the Zentralstadion which opened in 1956, and could hold over 100,000 supporters in its heyday.

Leipzig stadium is the only ground from the former East Germany hosting the Euros, and football in the city goes back much further than Red Bull's involvement.

EAST GERMAN DECLINE

The German FA (DFB) was founded in Leipzig in 1900, with VfB Leipzig winning the first German league title, but East German football's decline since reunification had left the city without a top-tier club since 1994.

Red Bull took over SSV Markranstadt from the fifth tier, and after winning promotion in their first season, they stalled for a couple of years. In 2012, enter Rangnick, not as manager but sporting director of the Leipzig and Salzburg clubs.

Rangnick was already well known in German football, and had achieved successive promotions with 1899 Hoffenheim to take them from the third tier to the Bundesliga, and was long credited with developing gegenpressing.

His high counter-pressing aggressive, attacking football is what makes Austria such an attractive and dangerous side, and many of their players have come through the Red Bull system under Rangnick, either in Leipzig or Salzburg.

Rangnick convinced the powers that be that the way forward was not spending massive amounts on established big name players, but finding the right young talent to develop.

Working behind the scenes he brought in the likes of Timo Werner, the German forward currently on loan at Tottenham Hotspur, Sweden captain Emil Forsberg and Yussuf Poulsen of Denmark.

Of Austria's Euro squad, midfielders Christoph Baumgartner and Nicolas Seiwald play at RB Leipzig while Marcel Sabitzer, scorer of the winning goal against the Dutch, and Konrad Laimer have played for the club.

Leipzig, and its stadium, is where Rangnick spent the longest period of his career and there could be no better place for him to take Austria into the quarter-finals of the Euros for the first time.

Rangnick will have the comforts of home to help him achieve his goal, and if Leipzig's final game of Euro 2024 sees Austria advance, it will be a fitting end to its involvement in the tournament. REUTERS