DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Cristiano Ronaldo said he'd never heard of him and Manchester United fans have few fond memories of his short-lived spell as manager of the Premier League club.
But Ralf Rangnick is rewriting his legacy at Euro 2024 with his Austria team emerging as one of the surprise packages of the tournament.
Topping a group that included France and the Netherlands, the Austrians have announced themselves as contenders for the European Championship and advanced to knockout phase on the opposite side of the draw to Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.
Not bad for the German coach whose previously solid reputation took a hit after an unsuccessful six months as interim manager of United through 2021-22, which included a run of just three wins from his last 14 games and heavy losses to Manchester City, Liverpool and Brighton.
“This guy is not even a coach,” Ronaldo said in his explosive interview with Piers Morgan in November 2022. “If you are not even a coach, how are you going to be the boss of Manchester United?”
While Rangnick's previous job had been head of sports and development at Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow, his coaching credentials had been long-established in Germany, where he earned the nickname the “Professor”.
So effective was Rangnick's brand of soccer - dubbed “gegenpressing” (counter pressing) - that it was widely-regarded as having influenced a generation of German coaches including Jurgen Klopp, Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel.
“He had a huge influence on all of us at this time," Tuchel has said, having played under Rangnick earlier in his career.
Rangnick's success has largely been with smaller clubs, winning promotions with Hannover, Hoffenheim and Leipzig.
Perhaps it is no surprise then that he is excelling with an Austrian team which wasn't considered among the favorites leading up to the Euros. But the signs of his impact were clear during the qualifiers as Austria booked its place at the Euros as runner-up and one point behind No. 3-ranked Belgium.
“You can see a clear development since the coach joined the team,” midfielder Marcel Sabitzer said.
Bayern Munich clearly shared that opinion when targeting him as a successor to Tuchel at the end of the season. Rangnick opted to stay on at Austria and has only enhanced his reputation at the Euros.
While his team suffered defeat to France in its opening game, the 1-0 loss was only curtesy of an own goal. Austria then recovered to beat Poland 3-1 and the Netherlands 3-2. That's earned Rangnick's side a meeting with Turkey in the round of 16 on July 2.
“It’s incredible to finish top of the group that was the hardest possible based on UEFA coefficients," Rangnick said. "We started with an unlucky own goal against France, dealt with all the pressure put on us to win against Poland, and then to end as group winners is something very special.”
As well as his coaching career, Rangnick also has a reputation for his work as an executive, having identified numerous emerging players and coaches during his time as sporting director of Leipzig.
United had planned to keep him on as a consultant at the end of his spell as interim manager and tap into his soccer expertise.
It would have been fascinating to see what sort of an impact he would have had at the 20-time English league champion after saying the team needed an “open heart operation” and as many as 10 new players.
Ultimately plans for the consultancy role were scrapped after Rangnick accepted the Austria job in '22.
He hasn't looked back since.
James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
AP Euro 2024: https://apnews.com/hub/euro-2024
Austria's head coach Ralf Rangnick celebrates after their win in a Group D match between the Netherlands and Austria at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
NEW YORK (AP) — A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. He did not acknowledge Biden's weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden's path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.
“I was hoping for more of a substantive conversation instead of, ‘Hey, let’s go out there and just be cheerleaders,’ without actually addressing a very serious issue that unfolded on American television for millions of people to see," said Joe Salazar, an elected DNC member from Colorado, who was on the call. “There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit.”
Many donors, party strategists and rank-and-file DNC members are publicly and privately saying they want the 81-year-old Biden to step aside to allow the party to select a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August. As of now, though, Biden's closest allies insist he remains well-positioned to compete against Republican Donald Trump and have given no indication they will push him to end his campaign.
Those best positioned to replace him — Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among them — reiterated their support for Biden after the debate.
Many are anxiously awaiting the first major round of post-debate public polling to determine their next steps.
Polls from CNN and 538/Ipsos conducted soon after the debate found that most debate-watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, just as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on charges in New York that he illegally participated in a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.
In a subsequent appearance on MSNBC, Harrison downplayed the significance of the conference call, which he said was part of a regularly scheduled communication “to talk about the state of the race” and the upcoming national convention with the DNC’s many elected members across the country.
Biden and his campaign have sought to project confidence in the days since Thursday's debate in which the president, who already faced serious concerns about his physical and mental stamina, offered a performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.
Just after Saturday's DNC call, the Biden campaign released a memo from senior adviser Jen O'Malley Dillon insisting that the debate had no tangible impact on the election.
“On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base,” O'Malley Dillon wrote.
She added, “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.”
Meanwhile, Biden spent much of Saturday courting wealthy donors in New York's famed wealthy enclave of the Hamptons.
“I didn’t have a great night, but neither did Trump," Biden said of the debate at one gathering in East Hampton.
Of Trump, Biden said, “The big takeaway was his lies.”
DNC members on the Saturday call agreed that Trump lied throughout the debate. But for Salazar, that's all the more reason why Biden's performance — and one of Harrison's central talking points on Saturday that the party always knew the presidential election would be close — was so troublesome.
“This should not be a close race,” Salazar said, pointing to Trump's criminal record and long history of falsehoods. “They’re the ones who should be looking for a new nominee, not us. And unfortunately for us, because of our president’s performance on Thursday night, that is now an open discussion.”
Trump, meanwhile, gloated about Biden's performance at a rally Friday and suggested on his social media platform Saturday that Biden had faded “under tremendous pressure.”
Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Washington and Josh Boak in East Hampton, New York, contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at LaGuardia International Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Joe Biden, center right, and first lady Jill Biden, right, arrive on Marine One with granddaughters Natalie Biden, from left, and Finnegan Biden, at East Hampton Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in East Hampton, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
