Danny Röhl has twice secured Sheffield Wednesday’s place in the Championship and could now embark on a head coach adventure in the Bundesliga.
Even in England, the land of football riches, things don’t always run smoothly. Take a bus trip from Sheffield to Plymouth, for example, which takes around seven hours. Danny Röhl, the current coach of second division club Sheffield Wednesday, is no longer shocked by this; he has become accustomed to the fact that the maximum budget is not available for everything.
In fact, he has become accustomed to the madness of the English lower leagues, where 24 teams compete against each other on 46 match days. Where there can be four games in ten days at Christmas. Where some teams play football and others would rather prevent football from being played. “Since I’ve been there, there have been 26 coaching changes,”
In October 2023, Hansi Flick’s long-time assistant took charge of a team for the first time after spells at Bayern Munich and the national team, and what he describes as a “suicide mission.” Sheffield was bottom of the second division with three points after eleven games. But Röhl saw “the chance to win something” rather than “the chance to lose something.”
He managed to keep the team in the league, finishing twelfth in the season just ended, and has had a turbulent year and a half. But: “It’s one of the warmest cities I’ve ever had the privilege of getting to know,” he says of Sheffield. “The people are crazy about soccer. The fact that fans, when they’re on the main street and see me, pull over, stop their cars, and jump out to take photos—I wouldn’t have expected that as a young manager without a big CV.”
Röhl could continue building on this resume elsewhere starting next season, as he has agreed with the club bosses. “I’ve made no secret of the fact that I would like to work at the highest possible level in the near future – with the best players. So, of course, the Bundesliga is an option.”
