BERLIN (Reuters) – New RB Leipzig coach Marco Rose has a mountain to climb, with his first task being to turn the team’s season around, starting against his former club Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.
Rose, who had coached the Ruhr valley club for a season until he was sacked in May, was brought in by Leipzig on Thursday, a day after the departure of Domenico Tedesco following the team’s bad start to the season.
The club is sitting 11th in the league, having won just one of its first five league games of the season while Dortmund are joint top on 12 points with leaders Freiburg.
Leipzig suffered a 4-0 loss to Eintracht Frankfurt last week before conceding another four goals in a 4-1 home loss to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Tuesday.
“I have never taken over a team during the season but the structures here are very good,” Rose told a news conference.
“All that you need to work well is here. The focus is to work with a lot of energy and power. We want to turn the atmosphere around and start getting results.”
The 45-year-old former defender is well acquainted with RB Leipzig’s club philosophy, having worked at sister side RB Salzburg as a youth coach from 2013 to 2017 and as head coach from 2017 to 2019, winning two league titles and an Austrian Cup.
The problem is that Rose will have little time to settle in, with Dortmund awaiting on Saturday and Real Madrid on Wednesday in the Champions League before a meeting with another of his former clubs, Borussia Moenchengladbach, next week.
Leipzig have conceded six goals in the past three league games and Rose said the defensive work would need to improve.
“We have to get small successes in each game. It may take a few weeks to fine-tune things but we want to be more stable in the back by putting more pressure in front,” he said.
“In these two days we will work on some plays, talk about some principles which we will want to see on Saturday on the pitch.”
“Dortmund are a tough opponent. I know the team well and when they get into a flow they are in a flow but I see good chances with the squad we have.”
Champions Bayern Munich, will be looking to bounce back with a win over VfB Stuttgart following two consecutive draws in the league. Leaders Freiburg travel to Gladbach on Sunday.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Bradley Perrett)
