Sports Director Mann warns

Salzburg’s Bulls “are stuck in the past”

Marcus Mann, sporting director at Austria’s former league powerhouse Red Bull Salzburg(Bild: GEPA)

He may have only been in office for about three and a half months, but Marcus Mann, the new sports director at Austria’s former league powerhouse Red Bull Salzburg, has certainly already drawn his first conclusions! Calmly […], without making any hasty statements, as the 42-year-old German emphasized after the Bulls’ hard-fought 2-1 victory in Hartberg. But now he’s opening up...

“If we want to get better again, we might have to invest a little more rather than just selling players, as we’ve done in recent years.” The successor to Rouven Schröder, who wasn’t even in Salzburg for a full year, explained on Sky’s “Talk & Tore” that it’s a fact that quality needs to be improved across the board.

(Bild: GEPA)

“We’ve lost a lot of quality in the past!”
“It’s obvious that we’ve lost a lot of quality in the past. While Red Bull Salzburg defines itself through sales, perhaps one or two too many players have been let go in recent years. As a result, we lost substance that couldn’t simply be made up for.”

“We’re still stuck in the past!”
In terms of playing philosophy, Salzburg has long excelled because it had a clear path and didn’t veer off to the left or right. However, soccer has evolved—and “we’re still stuck in the past.” Living in the past, however, doesn’t earn any points.

(Bild: Andreas Tröster)

“We need to open up in order to develop further, and I don’t quite sense that openness at FC Red Bull Salzburg yet,” said Mann. The defensive play that Salzburg specialized in for so long, “other teams can do that now, too. We need to find better solutions with the ball and create more scoring chances.”