[1][2] Frank was born in Reichenbach an der Fils, and made 215 appearances in the Bundesliga during his playing career, scoring 89 goals.
As a manager, Frank was at the helm of 16 clubs and led Rot-Weiss Essen to the 1994 DFB-Pokal final, only to lose 3–1 to SV Werder Bremen at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.
He was inspired by Arrigo Sacchi's A.C.Milan and introduced the 4-4-2 system to Germany at a time when German teams played with a sweeper.
[citation needed] Inspired by how Sacchi had got his team to press, marking space rather than individual players, Frank introduced this advanced tactical thinking into German football.
This biographical article related to association football in Germany, about a forward born in the 1950s, is a stub.