The day after Austria beat neighbours Germany 2-0 at a fevered Ernst Happel Stadion last November, Ralf Rangnick was perusing an organic shop and was spotted by an elderly couple.
The woman approached the Austria manager to tell him she and her husband had watched the friendly on TV. They had never been so excited about a match before. They had not been followers of the national team until Rangnick came along.
There are likely to be familiar stories of newbound Austria fandom all over the country since Rangnick decided to manage the national team in 2022, eschewing club management for the first time in his near-40-year career.
It has been quite the ride leading up to Euro 2024. Austria are competing at only their fourth European Championship after winning six of eight qualifying matches and finishing nine points ahead of third-placed Sweden. As well as the win against Germany, they also beat Italy in a 2022 friendly. Three months ago, Turkey were walloped 6-1.
Going into Monday’s Group D encounter with France, Austria are unbeaten in seven games. They have won six of those and scored 16 goals along the way. But Rangnick’s Austria story is about more than numbers and results.
Rangnick celebrating an Austria goal against Turkey (Christian Hofer/Getty Images)
According to sources — who, like all of those spoken to for this article, asked to be kept anonymous to protect relationships — close to Rangnick, he took the job because he saw an opportunity to develop and nurture a team in his image. There is a group of players who have mostly been schooled, directly or indirectly, by teams in Rangnick’s image.
There are five players central to Austria’s improved performances over the past two years. They have spent a combined total of 26 years playing for either Red Bull Salzburg or RB Leipzig, or both, the two clubs that most embody Rangnick, 65, and his principles of high pressing, high intensity and transitions.
Konrad Laimer (Salzburg and Leipzig), Nicolas Seiwald (both), Marcel Sabitzer (both), Christoph Baumgartner (Leipzig) and Xaver Schlager (both) are all ready-made Rangnick disciples. But most of the squad have also encountered Rangnick’s methods in club football, for teams they have played for or against.
It’s the biggest reason he said yes to Austria in 2022 when he was still at Manchester United. And it’s the biggest reason Austria’s transformation has been so brisk and so successful.
“He was the best thing that could have happened to Austrian football,” Baumgartner said this year.
“And I’m not saying that because I want to suck up, I really mean it. He simply brings an incredible amount of expertise and invests an enormous amount of time and energy. That’s extremely good for us, as we are a nation that is quick to rest on our laurels.
“He is someone who definitely won’t allow that and pushes us to the limit every day. That will be one of the keys to a successful European Championship.”
It is a far cry from two and a bit years ago when Rangnick was largely derided for his short-lived stint at United.
The German’s six-month tenure included few highs and plenty of lows, not least ending with five defeats in eight matches — including a 4-0 defeat at Brighton.
When he took over they were sixth, when he left at the end of the season they were sixth, and nothing too memorable happened in between. His reputation took a battering, not least when Cristiano Ronaldo later said in an interview with Piers Morgan that he had “never heard” of Rangnick when appointed, labelling him a “sporting director” and adding: “If you’re not even a coach, how can you be the coach of Manchester United?”
Bruno Fernandes previously told The Athletic that Rangnick’s preferred tactics didn’t work at United because “the mood between everyone was very low and confidence wasn’t very high”.
Rangnick’s time at Old Trafford will never be viewed as a success, but it is hard to argue now with his assessment that United’s problems ran so deep that minor amendments weren’t enough and it was the footballing equivalent of “an operation of the open heart”.
As a footballing nation, Austria tends to work in cycles; peaks of euphoria and pits of utter despondency. They have also tended to look back at past glories, even if those glories are infrequent and fairly ancient, like third place in the 1954 World Cup or when they beat West Germany in 1978 to knock them out of the group stage at the World Cup in Argentina (Austria were also eliminated).
They reached the last 16 of the last Euros in 2021, narrowly losing in extra time to eventual champions Italy at Wembley. There was a nagging feeling under predecessor Franco Foda that although they could qualify for a tournament, they weren’t getting the best from a talented group, many of whom play in the German Bundesliga (12 of Rangnick’s 26-man squad in Germany).
There was a frustration that when it came to tournaments, Austria would pretty much sit behind the ball and hope for the best. Under Froda, they were pragmatic and cautious. The team’s captain and star player David Alaba said they were “fed up” with playing that way.
Rangnick has changed Austria to line up in a 4-2-2-2 system. The idea? To get the ball to the forwards as quickly and accurately as possible (on the floor, obviously), while also taking out opposition players.
The epitome of this would be their second goal against Germany. Alaba plays a brisk ball forward from the back into striker Michael Gregoritsch, who, back to goal, flicks it to the onrushing Baumgartner, who chips over the keeper. Fast, vertical, attacking football.
Formations, though, aren’t as important as mentality and having a purpose to where the attacking players run and the space they develop. That’s day one at Red Bull on how to play football. But Rangnick had added bravery and an emotional intensity to Austria’s game that had previously been unlocked.
Despite the lack of training time (“I have to get things done in five days that I have five weeks for at the club, but it’s still possible,” Rangnick said last year), Austria are terrific to watch.
They will be fearless in Germany. Rangnick has said they are not scared of anyone and that: “If the team says anything, it’s this: ‘Please let us attack.’ The boys want us to let them off the leash.”
Rangnick has given his players attacking freedom, but he has been granted freedom himself by the Austrian FA, something not permitted for his predecessors.
For example, Rangnick’s insistence they have taken some games away from the Ernst Happel Stadion. The stadium is an enormous, vacuous bowl in Vienna in need of a modern refit (Rangnick has been involved in planning meetings for what that might look like). They played two qualifiers against Azerbaijan and Estonia at the new 17,000-capacity Raiffeisen Arena in Linz, in northern Austria. The ground was full for the two games and Austria won them both.
Austria playing at the Raiffeisen Arena (Reinhard Eisenbauer/APA/AFP via Getty Images)
He has employed media advisors and analysts and brought a level of professionalism not really seen with the national team before.
Rangnick has also given chances to players from the Austrian Bundesliga, something his predecessor Foda was criticised for not doing.
Goalkeeper Niklas Hedl, defenders Leopold Querfeld and Flavius Daniliuc, midfielders Alexander Prass and Matthias Seidl, and forwards Max Entrup and Marco Grull ply their trade in Austria. There are 23 caps between the seven of them, but all are in Germany with the squad.
So too is Alaba, despite the fact he won’t kick a ball at the Euros. The Real Madrid defender, capped 105 times by his country, is out with an anterior cruciate ligament injury. As is the case for pivotal midfielder Schlager. The pair’s absence will be keenly felt. But Alaba is with the squad as a non-playing captain, a testament to the team spirit Rangnick has fostered.
He has shown leadership in several ways. Hedl and Grull were among Rapid Vienna players who were filmed singing homophobic chants following a win over city rivals Austria Vienna in February. Rangnick left them and Guido Burgstaller out of the March internationals, saying they needed to understand what it meant for people to be publicly insulted and discriminated against.
“Everything we stand for with the national team is diametrically opposed to the other end of the scale of values,” Rangnick, who has also spoken out against Donald Trump, climate change and growing right-wing extremism in Germany and Austria, said at the time.
As a manager, he has mellowed. When he began having success, he was seen as a professor and anything but a man of the people. You wouldn’t exactly call him humble now, but he is certainly more approachable and is enjoying the rhythms of international football, without the club schedule of relentless training and media commitments.
This is one of the reasons he turned down the Bayern Munich job towards the end of last season. Another is that he is building something with Austria, not just for this summer but for the World Cup in 2026, which his contract runs to.
The Austrian public has bought in but so too have the players, some of whom phoned him when the Bayern links emerged asking him not to go.
Bayern wanted Rangnick because he can be great for team spirit. He is a positive, glass-half-full man when giving players feedback and offering an arm around their shoulder. And that’s what has happened with Austria, where the players now look forward to international breaks, as do the fans who have turned up in double the number they were when Rangnick’s reign started.
Austrian journalist Gerald Gossmann told The Athletic last year that a modern coach was what the team needed to unlock its potential.
“Austria has more players in top international leagues than ever before,” he said. “But they require the right system in which to work. In other words: a modern coach and more modern style of play. Until now, the country has remained well below its potential.
“It’s been a concern in Austrian football for a long time. We have had courageous and attacking players, but a cautious, wait-and-see coach. Ralf Rangnick is the antithesis to that.”
Austria training ahead of Euro 2024 (Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images)
With all the confidence he has engineered and the winning mentality he has instilled, can Austria do something special at Euro 2024? First, they must navigate a group containing France, the Netherlands and Poland.
Rangnick said this year: “We are aware that our group is not easy at all. On the other hand, we have faith in ourselves and believe we can qualify for the next round.
“My expectations of the players is that we are a united team both on and off the pitch and we want to be the best defensive team.
“If we can get these two things right on the pitch, we’ll be doing quite well, and on the other hand, we are quite good at scoring goals and creating chances.
“We all have the ambition and the imagination to do well. To do that, we have to get through the toughest group. If we manage that, we don’t have to be afraid of anyone.”
Rangnick said last year that making the impossible possible had always appealed to him. We are about to find out if he can do just that with Austria.
(Top photo: Tullio Puglia – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)