You can’t question Rangnik’s professional skills because of Lokomotiv failure, says former Rubin Popov defender

Professional skills of former Lokomotiv sporting and development director and ex-Manchester United manager Ralph Rannick should not be called into question because of the failure of the German specialist of the Moscow club, said Alexei Popov, former footballer of Rubin and Amkar, in an interview with .

Rangnik served as Lokomotiv’s director of sport and development from July to November 2021. In October 2022, Lokomotiv sacked head coach Josef Zinnbauer and sporting director Thomas Zorn, ending the unit’s management period sporting the team by German specialists, and Rangnik also left the team with them.

– Were you surprised at how much Lokomotiv fell under the German leadership?

– It all depends on the forming process, apparently there were problems in it, somewhere they gave slack or missed the threads. All the fans were upset with Rangnick, but he is one of Germany’s greatest coaches. It’s funny when they blame him.

He could approach the Russian mentality badly… But his professional skills are not to be called into question, he created the Red Bull system from scratch. He created all of modern German football, his students are now enjoying success in the world. And Rangnik himself successfully coaches the Austrian national team,” Popov said in an interview with .

After the departure of the German Lokomotiv leadership, Yuri Nagornykh replaced Alexander Plutnik, Deputy General Director of Russian Railways, as Chairman of the Lokomotiv Board. In the spring, the Red-Greens, under the leadership of coach Mikhail Galaktionov, rose from 14th to 8th place in the WORLD RPL ranking.

You will soon find the full version of Alexei Popov’s interview on the website!