Leeds United head coach Jesse Marsch has detailed the influence Manchester United interim boss Ralf Rangnick has had on his coaching career, insisting the German changed his way of thinking.
Marsch, who was installed as Leeds' new boss last month, replacing Marcelo Bielsa, worked within the Red Bull franchise for nearly seven years. Working at New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Salzburg and Bundesliga giants RB Leipzig, the American knows Rangnick well.
First working at Leipzig as assistant manager to Rangnick in 2018/19, the 48-year-old, following two seasons in charge at Salzburg, returned to the German club ahead of the start of this season to replace Julian Nagelsmann, who had agreed to become Bayern Munich's new boss. Following an indifferent start to his tenure as head coach at Leipzig, Marsch and the club agreed to go their separate ways in December.
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Although his time in charge of the Bundesliga club came to a premature end, Marsch, who has won two of his first four games in charge of Leeds, is a well-respected figure within the management game. And, by own his own admission, he owes a great amount of credit to Rangnick for his influence.
"The first thing I learned was how specific and detailed the Germans are in the way they think and talk about football," Marsch told The Athletic. "They're lasered-in on the smallest of details.
"It's a quality of Germans, I think. They're very detail orientated and specific.
"I thought I was detail orientated about football until I met Rangnick. Then I knew I wasn't.
"This was a guy who worked through a system, a vocabulary and methodology that I never even thought was possible. I called it an explosion in my head because it taught me a new way of thinking.
"From there, I was learning more and more and detailing things more and more. It was an important moment for me."
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