Daniel Farke outlines Leeds United boss must with size of club and pressure admission

New boss Farke will experience his first competitive game as Whites manager with this afternoon’s Championship hosting of Cardiff City which will make the German’s first proper match back in the English game since being sacked by Norwich City back in November 2021.

Farke had earlier steered the Canaries to two promotions as Championship champions as part of a managerial career that has also included spells in charge of SV Lippstadt, Borussia Dortmund’s reserves, most recent club Borussia Monchengladbach and even Krasnodar in Russia. Farke was appointed as Krasnodar’s head coach in January of last year but left the club just two months later upon Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

Ahead of today’s Cardiff opener, the new Whites boss was quizzed on that experience at Friday’s pre-match press conference with a view to putting the challenges experienced so far in his career into perspective. Now the new task is to take recently-relegated Leeds back to the country’s top tier, ahead of which Farke has acknowledged the size of the job he has been given and highlighted the behavioural musts in coping with everything that the role entails.

"If you crack under pressure then you shouldn't work in this job, at least not for Leeds United, that's definitely for sure,” said Farke in the embargo section of Friday’s pre-match press conference.

"You need to show some steel and the most important topic is not to be like a flag in the wind. There will be moments when you could struggle and there are different sorts because it's a massive club and there are always many emotions and different ideas anyhow.

"It's also important to be open minded and also to be flexible in what you want to do. But the most important topic is also to not be like the flag in the wind but to stand there also in the tough days. When you want to work successfully as a coach, you have to have this skill as well, otherwise you can't be competitive on this level, definitely not for Leeds United, that's definitely for sure."