When Pink Bull Salzburg play their subsequent league fixture in February, there will likely be a brand new head coach on the helm.
Salzburg have gained the Austrian Bundesliga 14 occasions in 18 seasons and completed second in every of the opposite 4 however headed into the winter break in fifth place after a subpar begin to 2024-25.
The Pink Bull hierarchy determined to name time on head coach Pep Lijnders after lower than six months in cost – simply in time for Jurgen Klopp ’s first day as the controversial multi-club group’s Head of World Soccer.
Winless run ends Pep Lijnders’ transient spell at Pink Bull Salzburg
Pink Bull Salzburg’s participant improvement success has constructed a soccer diaspora
Salzburg picked up a dominant win over Austria Klagenfurt of their final Bundesliga match on Saturday however didn’t win any of the earlier six, dropping consecutive video games towards Blau Weiss Linz and LASK alongside the best way.
It’s unfamiliar territory for a membership that was constructed to win and has ruthlessly fulfilled its promise for 20 years. Lijnders was appointed in July to interchange Gerhard Struber, who returned to Austria from New York Pink Bulls and was sacked in March with their title hopes slipping away.
Pink Bull Salzburg have seen higher days
Lijnders was Klopp’s assistant supervisor at Liverpool for ten years both facet of 4 and a half months in cost at NEC in Holland’s second division.
He signed a three-year deal at Pink Bull Salzburg in the summertime and his group have fallen far in need of expectations each domestically and within the Champions League, the place they’ve misplaced 5 of their first six video games with out scoring a purpose in any of them.
Pink Bull’s choice to dispense along with his companies was inevitable and leaves a giant query mark over Lijnders’ suitability as a head coach after two jobs amounted to lower than a yr mixed.
However issues about Salzburg’s failings run deeper than an abortive head coach appointment.
Pink Bull Salzburg continued to win Bundesliga titles till final season, when Sturm Graz clawed again a two-point deficit after the league break up to win the championship by two factors.
Lijnders’ appointment was made with Salzburg in a state of flux. After years of success on the pitch and on the centre of considered one of soccer’s nice participant diasporas, the prolific manufacturing line has slowed down.
With RB Leipzig now well-established within the high division in Germany, Salzburg’s place within the Pink Bull hierarchy may now be beginning to chunk.
Their finest and most promising gamers have both been bought off outdoors the group or picked off by Leipzig. That’s only a consequence of a multi-club mannequin rooted in participant improvement.
Jurgen Klopp is heading to the Pink Bull group (Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
There’s a way more harmful query on the desk now, and it’s one which Klopp might want to tackle in his controversial new position : Is Pink Bull nonetheless producing these gamers within the first place?
Salzburg will exchange Lijnders between now and February. New York Pink Bulls boss Sandro Schwarz is prone to be within the dialog after guiding his group to the MLS Cup closing earlier this month.
Klopp’s degree of involvement within the recruitment course of may give some indication in regards to the extent of his hands-on involvement within the soccer enterprise of the group.
