Ralf Rangnick: 'In times like these, it’s important to emphasise the positive element of football'

Rangnick was loath to strike a chord of sympathy with counterpart Heimir Hallgrímsson, who categorised the last week’s events as the toughest test of his managerial career

Head coach Ralf Rangnick during the Austria media conference at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Paul Phelan/Sportsfile

Austria’s leading newspaper has declared the Ireland team as being ‘in a state of emergency’ but there’ll always be an air of calmness with Ralf Rangnick in the vicinity.

The Austrian left the chaos behind at Manchester United in 2022 to take charge of his national team and despite their blip at the World Cup he was already entrusted with a contract extension.

Back-to-back wins over Israel and Kosovo in the Nations League entitles him to sport a smile in contrast to the grimaces some Irish will feel at trotting out at Lansdowne Road.

A sizeable portion of fans didn’t want their Ireland heroes sharing a pitch with Israel last Sunday and the isolation of Gavin Bazunu as the lone boycotter among the squad has raised concerns about a split reception from the homebase.

Most likely are protests from the crowd before and during the match against the powerbrokers such as the FAI, Uefa and Government.

Rangnick, now 68, is nicknamed ‘the professor’ for being a deep thinker but has dodged the debate around Israel’s continued participation under Uefa and Fifa’s umbrella, other than to magnify the futility of war.

He was loath to strike a chord of sympathy with counterpart Heimir Hallgrímsson, who categorised the last week’s events as the toughest test of his managerial career.

“I’ve been in football for a long time and it has an incredible power to bring people together,” he said in the broadest terms.

“It has the ability to connect people. And in times like these, it’s important to emphasise the positive element of football.” 

 Rangnick is overseeing a metamorphic period of the team, operating without Marcel Sabitzer from Dortmund, who is ‘taking a break’, while inspirational former captain David Alaba spent the start of this window bringing his search for a club to an end by joining James Abankwah at Udinese.

“The team has consistently demonstrated their quality over three and a half years, with the exception of the World Cup,” said the manager about their start towards promotion to League A of the Nations League. “During the World Cup, they weren't operating at the same energy level as previously but everyone looks fresh in this window."

Injuries have hindered the availability of some key members but not to the stage that he didn’t use 24 players over the opening pair of matches. 

Bayern Munich’s Konrad Laimer has recovered from the abductor injury that ruled him out of the first half to be part of their pre-match walk on Wednesday while his former teammate at RB Leipzig Nicolas Seiwald will marshal midfield.