Sascha Lense is returning to English football with Sheffield Wednesday after a brief spell under Ralf Rangnick at Premier League giants Manchester United.
Any sports phycologist taking up a role at Old Trafford must have plenty of confidence in his own ability (is there a dressing room more fraught with drama than Manchester United’s?) but Sascha Lense will find himself facing an arguably even tougher job attempting to turn frowns upside down at Sheffield Wednesday.
The 48-year-old German was appointed at Hillsborough on Monday, the first confirmed member of Danny Rohl’s backroom staff in the Steel City.
Former Man United coach gets Championship job
Rohl, like Lense, arrives at Sheffield Wednesday with Ralf Rangnick’s seal of approval. Rangnick remains of the most influential footballing minds of the modern era even if his spell in charge of Manchester United will not be remembered with much fondness by anyone at Old Trafford.
Lense, Wednesday’s new ‘performance manager’, now inherits one of the most daunting tasks in the Football League.
This marks his return to the English game. Rohl left Manchester when Erik ten Hag replaced Rangnick in the United hotseat in 2022.
Sheffield Wednesday have picked up just three points from a possible 33 thus far, toiling under an owner in Dejphon Chansiri who would almost make the Glazers look popular by comparison.
Clearly, Lense is not one to shirk a challenge, no matter how difficult.
‘Absolutely logical’
“(Hiring a man like Lense) is absolutely logical,” Rangnick said back in December 2021, via The Guardian. “If you have special coaches for goalkeeping, physical education, even for strikers, fitness, whatever, you should also have an expert for the brain.
“It’s not so much putting them on the red sofa and holding hands for the players because most of them won’t do that anyway. It is about helping the players.
“Whenever we speak about football, we know that the major part is up here (in the brain). What do you think? How do you analyse the situation?”
“I am very happy to have Sascha on board. He is hands-on. He is not working too much on the theory. The players have to buy in. I can tell them whatever I want but I need to convince them. I need to get into their heart, into their brains, into their blood.”
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