Belgium's Red Devils almost put themselves in the hands of a pair of Red Bulls, according to Het Laatste Nieuws.
The Belgian FA's search for a new national team manager reportedly boiled down to a three-candidate shortlist: Roberto Martinez (who won the gig), Rudi Garcia, and Ralf Rangnick.
Rangnick's involvement is no rumor. The RB Leipzig Sporting Director confirmed he had been approached by Belgium in an interview with German outlet Sport 1. Rangnick told Sport 1 he had not been willing to abandon his project at Red Bull Global Soccer, and a dual role running Belgium and Leipzig was "unworkable".
A more interesting story emerges from Belgium. Per HLN, Rangnick had planned to make Thierry Henry his assistant. The two men have never formally worked together, but Rangnick started his influential reorganization of Red Bull's global soccer set-up in 2012, while Henry was playing for the New York Red Bulls.
RalfBall wasn't really evident in New York until Henry retired, but perhaps RBNY was not such a stranger to the rest of the Red Bull soccer family during Titi's tenure at the club as might have been imagined.
HLN reports Belgian's soccer honchos found Rangnick "tactically inflexible" (they didn't need to interview him to discover that: Rangnick's tactical principles are no secret) and were further discouraged by the fact neither the German nor his preferred assistant - Henry - would settle in Belgium if appointed.
So Belgium gets Martinez, and the world is deprived of the sight of an all-star managerial partnership forged by Red Bull soccer. For now.