Zeb Jacobs joins Rangers as new academy chief
By George Hartley
Rangers have announced the appointment of ex-Belgium youth player Zeb Jacobs as their Academy Head of Coaching via their official website. Jacobs will join the club in January 2022.
After an extensive and European-wide search, the promising coach comes to the club from Royal Antwerp where he was Talent Co-ordinator and Head of Coaching.
Ex-Rangers assistant, Michael Beale, played a part in searching for a “modern and innovative coach” for their academy prior to following Steven Gerrard to Aston Villa in November.
Jacobs retweeted Rangers’ announcement, saying: “I’m proud to announce that I will join this amazing club as Academy Head of Coaching.”
Head of Academy, Craig Mulholland told Rangers.co.uk: “Ross and myself, with the assistance of Michael Beale, set out to identify a modern and innovative coach and coach educator who pushes boundaries, thinks differently and would be pivotal in helping us create Rangers players who can excel in the future game.
“We spoke with several coaches across Europe before ultimately choosing Zeb as we believe his understanding of how young people learn and his creative teaching methodologies will allow us to develop coaches and curriculums.
“This will result in exciting, creative, 1v1 dominant players forming a Rangers identity. This appointment is one of the next steps in an exciting evolution of our Academy.”
Sporting Director Ross Wilson was keen to express his delight at Jacobs’ imminent arrival, adding: “I’ve enjoyed all of my conversations and interactions with Zeb in recent months and I am excited about what he will bring to Rangers.
“With Dave Vos joining our team last week, we have recruited two leading experts in talent development and that can only be good for what we are building here at Rangers.”
The future
It appears Rangers are scouring Europe with a fine-toothed comb to uncover a crop of younger coaching talent.
Ross Wilson told fans in his official statement that he is determined to “align (their) football identity” across all of their different age groups.
If this is true, Jacobs, as well as Vos, who joined from Ajax as van Bronckhorst’s assistant, will promote attacking and exciting football.
Following on from Steven Gerrard, van Bronckhorst has continued to employ a similar approach formation-wise.
Setting up in a 4-2-3-1 in his first game against Livingston, van Bronckhorst has since switched to a 4-3-3 – similar to Gerrard’s – which employs Hagi and Sakala as inverted wide attackers to allow the full-backs to bomb forward and provide width.
It is likely that pace will play a huge part in van Bronckhorst’s approach as it did during his spell managing Feyenoord.
Currently four points clear at the top of the table, Jacobs will be hoping to nurture Rangers’ youngsters in the club’s preferred style and maintain dominance over Celtic for the foreseeable future.
In other Rangers news, an ex-FIFA official has reacted to footage of a Leigh Griffiths incident on Saturday.