When Red Bull Salzburg play their next league fixture in February, there will be a new head coach at the helm.
Salzburg have won the Austrian Bundesliga 14 times in 18 seasons and finished second in each of the other four but headed into the winter break in fifth place after a subpar start to 2024-25.
The Red Bull hierarchy decided to call time on head coach Pep Lijnders after less than six months in charge – just in time for Jurgen Klopp’s first day as the controversial multi-club group’s Head of Global Soccer.
Winless run ends Pep Lijnders’ brief spell at Red Bull Salzburg
Salzburg picked up a dominant win over Austria Klagenfurt in their last Bundesliga match on Saturday but didn’t win any of the previous six, losing consecutive games against Blau Weiss Linz and LASK along the way.
It’s unfamiliar territory for a club that was built to win and has ruthlessly fulfilled its promise for two decades. Lijnders was appointed in July to replace Gerhard Struber, who returned to Austria from New York Red Bulls and was sacked in March with their title hopes slipping away.
Lijnders was Klopp’s assistant manager at Liverpool for ten years either side of four and a half months in charge at NEC in Holland’s second division.
He signed a three-year deal at Red Bull Salzburg in the summer and his team have fallen far short of expectations both domestically and in the Champions League, where they’ve lost five of their first six games without scoring a goal in any of them.
Red Bull’s decision to dispense with his services was inevitable and leaves a big question mark over Lijnders’ suitability as a head coach after two jobs amounted to less than a year combined.
But concerns about Salzburg’s failings run deeper than an abortive head coach appointment.
Red Bull Salzburg continued to win Bundesliga titles until last season, when Sturm Graz clawed back a two-point deficit after the league split to win the championship by two points.
Lijnders’ appointment was made with Salzburg in a state of flux. After years of success on the pitch and at the centre of one of football’s great player diasporas, the prolific production line has slowed down.
With RB Leipzig now well-established in the top division in Germany, Salzburg’s position in the Red Bull hierarchy might now be starting to bite.
Their best and most promising players have either been sold off outside the group or picked off by Leipzig. That’s just a consequence of a multi-club model rooted in player development.
There’s a much more dangerous question on the table now, and it’s one that Klopp will need to address in his controversial new role: Is Red Bull still producing those players in the first place?
Salzburg will replace Lijnders between now and February. New York Red Bulls boss Sandro Schwarz is likely to be in the conversation after guiding his team to the MLS Cup final earlier this month.
Klopp’s level of involvement in the recruitment process could give some indication about the extent of his hands-on involvement in the football business of the group.
