Danny Röhl's Ambitious Move to Red Bull Salzburg

Danny Röhl leans back in his chair at Red Bull Salzburg’s training base in Taxham and smiles.

“Some people were asking why but I felt this is the right one now. I can confirm, it's a good move,” he says.

Outside, the Berchtesgaden Alps tower over the immaculate pitches. Inside, the 37-year-old is unpacking a year that has taken him from a crisis at Sheffield Wednesday, through the cauldron of Ibrox, to a club trying to reclaim its throne in Austria.

From Ibrox chaos to a clean slate

Röhl’s eight months at Rangers were breathless. He walked into a mess: sixth in the Scottish Premiership, one win from eight, a fanbase boiling with frustration. For a long stretch, he dragged them back into a title race that had seemed lost.

Rangers surged. They looked reborn. Then, just when the momentum mattered most, the run collapsed. Four defeats in their final five league games left them third, short of the miracle that had briefly felt possible.

Röhl had expected to stay. The club expected him to stay. Plans were forming for the summer. Then his phone rang while he was on holiday in June.

“I was not prepared for this change in the summer,” he tells BBC Sport. “I was in Hawaii, the time difference was 12 hours and I was often on the main deck on the cruise around five or six in the morning. I had some calls and I thought about the situation.

“I have all these situations in my mind. I saw the beautiful sea, I saw the sun and then you think: ‘OK, what is the future?’”

The future, it turned out, was Salzburg.

“I spoke, of course, with Rangers. I was really transparent and open on how I feel, how I see it. On the other side, there was Red Bull Salzburg, especially Marcus [Mann, sporting director] – he really gave me the feeling of what we can do here.

“I said from the first day to both, if there's no agreement then we carry on, we move on because I have big respect to Rangers. It was also clear, our story was not finished.

“I saw a lot of opportunities, what we can do in the summer, what we should do but on the other side, I saw also a good opportunity to restart, to start from zero with a group of players with high quality.”

Derek McInnes, fresh from taking Hearts to the brink of the title before losing out to Celtic on the final day, stepped into the job Röhl left behind. The start has been rough. After Thursday’s Europa League exit to Polish side Jagiellonia Bialystok, McInnes is still waiting for his first win after four games.

Röhl, speaking before that defeat, knows exactly what he walked out of – and what McInnes has walked into.

“Consistency, this is the most important thing. The environment is really demanding,” he says. “Everyone who goes there, it doesn't matter if it's a manager, a player, a staff member, you have to understand this club is demanding and this creates a lot of pressure on people to make the right decisions.

“Nobody can prepare [for] this step. I cannot speak for the new manager but you can't prepare. You have to be there and if you are there, then you really feel what it means.”

Brave choices and big targets

Austria is not new to Röhl. Nor is the Red Bull football machine. He started his coaching journey at RB Leipzig under Ralph Hasenhüttl before following him to Southampton. Now he returns to the network at a time when Salzburg are no longer the untouchable force they once were.

This is a club that won 10 consecutive Austrian Bundesliga titles. Then the run stopped. No league crown in the past three seasons, a third-place finish last term. For Salzburg, that counts as a crisis of identity.

Röhl has never been afraid of walking into those.

“This is the main part of my character, be brave. In the last three years I always pushed the limit,” he says, describing keeping Sheffield Wednesday up in 2023-24 as a “miracle”.

His brief in Salzburg is blunt and unforgiving.

“I want to win titles and, after the season, I will measure myself on this result.

“When you take over, the main part is winning titles, the cup and the league and in the last few years we couldn't win this as a club, this is one big goal.

“The second is of course developing young players.”

At Salzburg, that second aim is not a slogan. It is the business model. Lucas Gourna-Douath is the latest to step off the production line, the midfielder close to joining Hull. Before him came a stream of names that now dominate European nights.

Karim Adeyemi left for Borussia Dortmund in 2022 and joined Barcelona this summer. Erling Haaland’s explosive 2019-20 season here launched his move to Dortmund. Sadio Mané, Dayot Upamecano, Dominik Szoboszlai – all passed through Taxham on their way to the elite.

“Ten years ago we were the model for other clubs and now you see more and more on the market have this multi-club ownership and this is also now a competition for us,” says Röhl, who also worked on the staff at Bayern Munich and with Germany.

“I want to win titles, develop young players, be attractive and I want to bring Salzburg back into the light in Europe.”

A comeback in Cyprus, a platform in Tirol

On Thursday in Pafos, that European ambition flickered into life. Salzburg trailed 2-0 on the night, staring at a damaging exit from the Europa League qualifiers. They fought back to 3-3 and went through 4-3 on aggregate.

The reward is a play-off round tie against Swedish side Mjällby. The expectation is clear: Salzburg belong in the group stage at minimum. Röhl knows it.

Domestically, the early signs are steady rather than spectacular. Four points from two league games: a win over Hartberg, then a 1-1 draw at Wolfsberg in which Salzburg dominated but could not kill the game.

“Nobody spoke directly about the eight changes or the reason why we didn't win,” Röhl says with a grin. “We analysed the game, we had greater chances, and we really focused on the content and we were not looking for some headlines.

“The main focus is on the football.”

They head to WSG Tirol on Sunday, the first markers of a title race beginning to appear. Röhl’s words suggest he wants the noise turned down and the work turned up.

Away from the storm

For now, Salzburg offers him something Glasgow never could: space.

His family remain in Leipzig, just a few hours away. He can slip in and out of the city, take in the culture, breathe. Recently, he went to the theatre to watch “Jedermann”, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s play that sits at the heart of the Salzburg Festival, which has been running for 106 years.

“You can't compare, especially in Glasgow – it's all about football,” Röhl says, speaking warmly of both Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday. “Let's look just how many podcasts you have after every game. So many opinions.

“Here you are a part of the city. You have loyal supporters but you will have not these [fan] handshakes in the city because this is not usual here.

“It's also enjoyable after three intense years. Ask me – hopefully – after three years here what I like more then I will tell you. But at the moment it's great to go through the city, to have dinner and you are a little undercover.”

Undercover, perhaps. But not unnoticed.

In a city used to dominance, Röhl has walked into a job where the bar is set at titles, trophies and a return to Europe’s spotlight. He calls himself brave. Salzburg will soon reveal just how brave he really is.