Wolfgang Frank
Wolfgang Frank (21 February 1951 – 7 September 2013) was a German football manager and player.
Frank was born in Reichenbach an der Fils, and made a total of 215 appearances in the Bundesliga during his playing career, scoring 89 goals. For the Germany national football B team, he scored three goals in six games.
As a manager, Frank was at the helm of 16 different clubs and led Rot-Weiss Essen to the 1994 DFB-Pokal final, only to lose 3–1 to SV Werder Bremen at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.
In his final year as a player, Frank trained as a teacher in sport and religion. He was inspired by Arrigo Sacchi's A.C.Milan and introduced the 4-4-2 system to Germany at a time when German teams played with a sweeper. Inspired by how Sacchi had got his team to press, marking space rather than individual players, Frank introduced this advanced tactical thinking into German football. He is credited with inspiring a renaissance in the Bundesliga which has inspired a new generation of managers such as Jürgen Klopp and Joachim Löw.
Frank died in Mainz, aged 62.
References
External links
- Wolfgang Frank at fussballdaten.de (in German)