Soccer: Former Hoffenheim coach Ralf Rangnick would relish the chance to manage a Barclays Premier League club, although there have not yet been any enquiries from England, according to his agent.

The 52-year-old has been linked with replacing Roy Hodgson at Liverpool after leaving the Bundesliga club on New Year’s Day, and agent Oliver Mintzlaff has admitted that his client would jump at the chance to further his career in England.

"Ralf Rangnick is very interested in the Premier League and Liverpool is certainly a very interesting club with a great tradition," he told Press Association Sport. "Ralf is a great fan of English football and he has followed it a great deal. The English Premier League is something which interests him very much, but there have not been any discussions with Liverpool."

Rangnick left Hoffenheim after four and a half years in charge at the turn of the year due to a difference of opinion with the club’s owner Dietmar Hopp.

Hopp, one of the richest men in Germany, appointed the former Stuttgart, Hannover and Schalke coach in 2006 to realise his personal ambitions of turning Hoffenheim into a Bundesliga club within five years.

Rangnick, who had shown his pedigree in the late 1990s by helping to lead Ulm from the third division into the top flight in successive seasons, repeated that feat with Hoffenheim and even took them to the top of the Bundesliga at the midway stage of their maiden season among Germany’s elite.

They eventually ended that year in seventh and finished 11th last season.

Rangnick’s aim for this year was to lead the club into Europe for the first time, but when one of his key players, Luiz Gustavo, was sold to Bayern Munich against his will and he quickly realised that his objectives were no longer correlating with Hopp’s.

“Of course if you don’t have any ambition, then you cannot be a football manager,” added Mintzlaff. “Hoffenheim was an exciting, unique project and he led them into the Bundesliga in only two years, and they were never even close to a relegation berth. Now, in the third year in the Bundesliga, it is only understandable that he has the ambition to play in Europe.

“Unfortunately, his aims and those of Hopp were not entirely compatible.”

Rangnick therefore realised that his dream of managing once again in the Champions League, where he had a brief experience in charge of Schalke in 2005, was unlikely to be fulfilled with Hoffenheim.

He is now waiting for the opportunity to lead a club that shares his own aspirations of competing at the very top.

“After four and a half years (with Hoffenheim), it is only normal that he takes a short pause to catch his breath,” added Mintzlaff. “But he is, of course, really burning to get a new job.”

A call from England would be a preference, and the language would not be an issue.

After completing his A-Levels in Germany, Rangnick spent a semester studying at the University of Sussex in Brighton and graduated with a degree in English and Sports Studies at Stuttgart University in 1985.

“Of course he speaks English fluently,” confirmed Mintzlaff. “That would not be a problem.”