Danny Röhl profile in German football magazine 11FREUNDE - translation
Translation from German of a profile of Röhl including a lot of interesting quotes from Röhl and context to him as a man and coach
Journalist Andreas Bock of German football magazine 11FREUNDE - Magazin für Fussballkultur (magazine on football culture) recently visited Danny Röhl and profiled him and their article can be found online here (in German):
Like I did with Röhl’s February interview with kicker Sportmagazin I’ve tried to translate it into English to the best of my ability as someone who is reasonably proficient in German. It isn’t an interview, more of a reportage profile, but it features a fair few interesting quotes from Röhl himself as well as some interesting context to Röhl as a person. The literary style of the article has made challenging to translate, but I hope I’ve done a good enough job so that the translation conveys both the journalist’s sentiment and impressions as well as the quotes from Röhl and the others they’ve spoken to as well as possible.
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Danny Cool
Runners up with RB Leipzig, Champions League winner with Bayern München, World Cup appearance with Germany - and now a sensational survival with Sheffield Wednesday. Manager Danny Röhl is somehow still only 35?
On a Friday evening in early August a Sheffield Wednesday fan had an apparition. He had just come out of his house on Park Hill, a housing estate in the east of Sheffield, when he, eyes a-squinting, saw the manager of his club up in front of him. He stood there, shaking his head in disbelief, and walked on, only for the manager to wave at him, which convinced the fan to give it a go after all. “Is it really true?” he asked, having come up to the manager quickly. “Danny Röhl in Park Hill!”. Danny Röhl nods and laughs and the photographer says: “We’re here to take a few photos”. Later on this Wednesday fan will be telling his mates all about this chance encounter; how he was just popping out for some fags in the shop down the road and then met Danny Röhl. And his mates would all go “no f—ing way” at which point he’ll pull out his phone to show the picture proof selfies. Danny Röhl in Park Hill! It would be a bit like Jürgen Klopp all of the sudden getting into an escalator in social housing in South Liverpool. Does that sound like an exaggeration? Maybe. But, also: Maybe not.
When manager of the year was being discussed in Germany this Summer, three names were repeatedly mentioned: Xabi Alonso [Bayer Leverkusen’s record-breaker], Sebastian Hoeness [VfB Stuttgart’s Messiah who saved them from relegation and then finished runners-up last season] and Frank Schmidt [dynastic manager of his home town FC Heidenheim, who he has taken from the fourth tier to last season’s 8th in the top tier in nearly two decades in charge]. A few would also mention Julian Nagelsmann for the way he took a shaky German national team and fostered a new self-belief among the squad. Danny Röhl’s name is never mentioned, but he has as much right to be as the aforementioned four domestic managers. He took over Sheffield Wednesday, 24th and last in the Championship, in mid-October 2023. Everything looked quite bleak as the Owls had won a measly three points from 11 games. But Röhl made the miracle happen and since then he’s something of a popstar and football god all rolled into one around the city of Sheffield. When fans see him, they rush to him as though to be blessed, and sing "Danny Cool" to him to the tune of the old Boney M hit "Daddy Cool".
It’s a week before the start of the season and Danny Röhl - dark chinos, all grey polo shirt - is in his favourite Italian restaurant in Sheffield and is still very much that: Cool and completely laid back. It makes your head spin when he relays the task he’s completed and the task he partly still has to do. In the beginning he wasn’t just manager, but also sporting director, head coach and head of recruitment and scouting. He spoke with agents and journalists, prepared dossiers for the club owner in Thailand and met with employees of the club. He would often be sat in front of a screen deep into the night watching seven-eight games of the next opposition’s. At times he’d even concern himself with the team’s hotel bookings. All of that sounds extremely stressful, but Röhl turns that burden into a positive experience in a few, short sentences: “The months in the job so far have been educational as I’d not done most of what I did previously”. In the meantime he’s also got a bit of a helping hand as there is now a Head of Recruitment at the club.
Röhl turned 35 earlier this year. A managerial prodigy, even, according to [big German weekly] "Der Spiegel". Despite not being a household name his CV really is quite something: At RB Leipzig he was the assistant to Alexander Zorniger, Ralf Rangnick and Ralph Hassenhüttl and he went with Hassenhüttl to Southampton for a year. Then Niko Kovac brought him to Bayern and, in 2020 where they won six trophies, he was the assistant to Hansi Flick. A year later both of them moved on to the German FA. Even back then Röhl moved slightly from the background as [leading German broadsheet daily] "Die Zeit" profiled him before the Qatar World Cup as the tactical brain of the national team and “almost too clever for the game of football”. Then in October last year he get the call from Dejphon Chansiri, owner of Sheffield Wednesday. Röhl was on his way to a holiday with his family, but flew to England at short notice and signed his first contract as a manager [Cheftrainer in German, which gives the article the chance to use the cringing pun "Shefftrainer”].
Lots of people we talked to says Röhl in the main job was only a matter of time. Rangnick, Hassenhüttl and Flick even made employment reference letters for Röhl to be used in discussions with English clubs. “He’s got the skills to pave his way as a manager”, says Hassenhüttl. He’s capable of making teams better. But there are also voices of criticism, even after Sheffield’s [SIC!] survival. And, as is often the case [in German football], they came from the ranks of the tv pundits, the ex-pros and tabloid ever-presents, who struggle with the notion that more and more young managers start out in professional football with a university degree rather than their Bundesliga playing careers Proper Football Men brethren. “In Qatar I think [Hansi] Flick was driven crazy by his student assistant managers, who kept taking him out of the game with their iPads”, grumbled [ex Bayern München and Germany midfielder] Mehmet Scholl in a roundtable in [Germany’s biggest tabloid] "Bild". “Hansi [Flick] lost track, because he trusted in the wrong man”.
Danny Röhl lifts his shoulders and might be thinking “let them talk”, but it does seem a bit like the previous months in Sheffield have given him a satisfying redemption. Because the critics don’t care about the laptop, but the subtext: Someone like him, who never played professionally, lacks the experiences of the big finals, of an aura, of emotionality. “Now I’ve shown that I can also inspire people” says Röhl. His players regularly confirm that in interviews. “He’s destined for the top and the best manager I have had in my whole football career” says Wednesday’s captain Barry Bannan. “He has shown me things on the tactics board, in meetings and in games that I have never seen any manager do”.
You will perhaps have to go even further back in time to understand that Röhl was actually always interested in both: Analysis and emotions; numbers and people. As a youngster he played for his home town’s FSV Zwickau and he loved the game n the pitch and thinking about it too. His dad once said: “Danny was always ahead of others at football - in his mind”. But he was also injured a lot of the time. At 20 he had to give up on his playing career. Although he would probably put it differently himself: At 20 he changed his plan to arrive at his goal of professional football via a different route. He enrolled at the sports science course at the nearby University of Leipzig. His dream: To become an academy coach.
Game analysis 1.0
Back then, in 2009, Red Bull also had a plan to get to German professional football as quickly as possible. The drinks manufacturer bought the playing license of fifth tier SSV Markranstädt and hired students at the University of Leipzig to do video analysis. Daniel Ackermann, who was Röhl’s teacher in the course “Football” back then and later active in analysis with Dortmund, recalls: “Danny was reserved and unobtrusive, but also determined. When the RB Leipzig people came to us he signed up immediately. He’d seen something in that project of theirs”. Ackermann, Röhl and another student on the course now traversed small backwater East German villages with a steel trunk and a huge camera to video games of football. Afterwards they’d make a complilation of goals, chances or corners and burn it to a DVD, game analysis 1.0. “It felt magical, when, at some point, we then found ourselves able to put arrows into the program” says Röhl. “But in truth: I’ve no idea if anyone at RB Leipzig ever watched any of the films”.
Ackermann soon decided to draw his teaching career at the university to a close and sign up with RB Leipzig. His student Röhl followed him and became assistant coach of RB Leipzig’s Under-16s while, at the same time, also analysing games of four other academy sides as well as starting a master’s degree in Cologne. 24/7 football, says Röhl. Focused 24/7. “But Danny always pulled it off. On the sidelines, on the training ground. Danny wanted to be a manager” says Ackermann. “I, on the other hand, felt more at home at a desk”.
More punk rock than fancy pancy
In the meantime it has become evening in Sheffield. A friendly against Spanish top tier side CD Leganés awaits tomorrow. Does Röhl ever have time off, does he ever do nothing? He was once in York, he says, a nice place. His wife and sons are currently visiting. But still focused on the new season, on football, national and international. A quick glance at his phone to learn FSV Zwickau lost to Greifswald and Röhl is annoyed and gets in his car.
Sheffield looks a bit like the little brother of nearby Manchester. Both cities are more working class than posh, more punk rock than fancy pancy. Pulp and Arctic Monkeys come from Sheffield and in the city’s northeast is Sheffield Forgemasters, the largest and oldest steel factory in England. Here, too, a driver passing by can hardly believe her eyes, when she sees who is stood on the pavement having his picture taken. She brings the car to a shrieking halt in the open street. A selfie, Danny? Of course, says Röhl and he knows it’s about to get even more extreme as we’re on our way to the city centre.
It must be a weird experience for Röhl: When in his previous jobs, with Bayern München and the German national team, they went around the world, to London, to Doha, his boss and the players would be mobbed, but he’d seem almost invisible himself. He was the nerd with a tablet. A man in the shadows. Now he’s stepped into the limelight and even if he still seems a bit shy, it’s not like he doesn’t appreciate this new-found attention, this Danny Mania, these rock and Röhl vibes. In the square in front of the Crucible Röhl is surrounded by a small crowd of people. One kid cheers him on and he’s got himself the same haircut as Röhl. Another says he’s got a Danny tattoo and yet another wants to know whether loanee Iké Ugbo is staying. Röhl laughs, waves and chats and in the end you can really only say: The bond between him and Sheffield is, as kliché as that may sound, love at first sight.
He felt that even on that first evening after he’d signed the contract. He went to an Under 21s game, and when 3,000 fans caught a sight of him, they sang his name in unison. Even then, when he was a nobody to most people, the fans had this strange hope that a German manager without any big playing career behind him could be the saviour of this historical club fallen on hard times. Like Daniel Farke, who took Norwich to the Premier League some years ago. Like David Wagner, who won promotion with Huddersfield. Like Jürgen Klopp, who…oh well, that’s perhaps taking it a bit too far.
Even an underwhelming start didn’t make the fans restless. In the first five matches with Röhl as manager Wednesday lost four and the gap to survival grew to 11 points. Maybe this German’s calm ways rubbed off on the fans as he sensed they needed some time to adjust. “Wednesday didn’t have a clear playing philosophy at the time” he says. “I wanted possession of the ball, high pressing, creating chances. With a team that’s so in the doldrums it’s of course not possible to do that overnight. I often said: Look at the process, not the results”. Performances improved, but results didn’t. And as soon as results picked up so they did for teams around them too. They now needed more points than they’d thought. And they needed players, but there were hardly any money for transfers.
What little business Röhl was able to do in the January transfer window turned out to be jackpots, and especially winger Ian Poveda from Leeds United strengthened the team. “It was said Ian was difficult, that he’d often be late for things” says Röhl. “But when I saw this light in his eyes during our talks I knew we could build enthusiasm for our football”. A key moment was on matchday 30 when they lost 4-0 to relegation rivals Huddersfield and fell to eight points from safety. “Afterwards I said to them that there are no right words, we’ll talk tomorrow. The next day we had an emotional meeting. We all still believed that everything was still possible. I think most would’ve given up after that defeat” says Röhl. They won nine of the remaining 16 league games.
10,000 attend the friendly against Leganés at Hillsborough. Most look to the season ahead. A midtable finish is possible, they say, and a few even dream of promotion despite Wednesday still being 21st in the Championship’s squad value table. Michael Green, in a six pence, white beard and replica shirt, is stood below the stand and has been a Wednesday fan for more than 60 years. He says: “Danny is the best manager in a long time, which is also to do with him being so natural. He comes to us in the stands and speaks to us. We’re not used to that in England”. And then you’ve got to ask: Someone like Jürgen Klopp? Green laughs: “Lets go with that: The Jürgen Klopp of the Championship”.
Danny Röhl arrives. Wearing a track suit and white sneakers and, more noticeable than it was yesterday, not with an ounce of fat on him. He could probably go out and run in a long distance race like that while analysing it on his tablet. He waves a couple of fans in his direction and then disappears into the dressing room, checks out the shirts, says helo to a steward and walks out through the tunnel to the pitch and commends the groundsman for the immaculate lawn of grass.
Röhl had offers from Ligue 1, the Championship and the Bundesliga in the summer. But he rejected them all, because he’s still got unfinished business here, he says. The success story can have another chapter added to it. And, besides, he likes English football, the role as manager rather than head coach, the support inside the grounds. And his song "Danny Cool" too, of course.
The game against Leganés finishes 0-0. But what meaning does a friendly even have? He’s looking for three difference makers as players for the new season says Röhl. Now he has to convince club owner Dejphon Chansiri, a Thai tinned seafood businessman and a difficult person who isn’t afraid to sack managers and has done so often. A year before Wednesday were under an embargo because Chansiri hadn’t paid the tax bills. The multimillionaire then asked fans to raise two million Pounds. Fans gawked. This is the man Röhl has to regularly communicate with. How it goes? Well, Chansiri has his principles and ideas about football says Röhl. “But he doesn’t involve himself in discussions of line-ups and tactics”. And the embargo saga? “Every club has its problems, but you have to try and ignore them”.
Managers like to say that they have a signature style. Röhl is in the process of developing his. In the best second tier of the world, under the stern gaze of a demanding owner, with enthusiastic fans behind him and players who trust him. It’s like a mixture of the signatures of his previous bosses: Ralf Rangnick gave him a clear way to view the game; Ralph Hassenhüttl gave him responsbility. “And from Hansi [Flick] I learned a lot about people and team management”. But his favourite quote comes from the legendary basketball coach John Wooden: “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life”. And then, as we get towards the end of our stay, Röhl speaks of a chat that may not have changed any lives, but that brought him and a player a bit further along. The chat was with one of his centre backs, whom he told he was currently fifth choice. “I could’ve ducked out of it” says Röhl, “but at some point he’ll sense that something’s up. And then he’ll be frustrated”. So Röhl explained how the centre back could change his situation. And the defender? He thanked Röhl for the open and direct words.