Thomas Frank is a Danish professional football coach and former amateur player, who is head coach of Premier League club Brentford.
After a short playing career in amateur football as a midfielder,Frank began his coaching career with the U8 and U12 teams at Frederiksværk BK. He moved on to Hvidovre IF in 1998, B93 in 2005 and Lyngby in 2006.In July 2008, he was appointed manager of the Denmark national U16 and U17 teams. In 2011, Frank led the U17 team to the European U17 Championship finals for the first time in eight years (advancing to the semi-finals before losing 2–0 to Germany) and to its first U17 World Cup,in which the team was eliminated in the group stage.[10] Frank was promoted to the Denmark U19 manager's job in July 2012, but he failed to qualify for the 2013 European U19 Championship. During his time working for the DBU, Frank also acted as manager during an unofficial U18 match in 2010 and presided over one U20 match in 2012, covering for Morten Wieghorst. He also served as assistant for the U18, U17, U16 and women's U17 teams on an ad-hoc basis.
Frank was named as manager of Danish Superliga club Brøndby IF on 10 June 2013, his first position in senior football. He achieved 4th- and 3rd-place finishes respectively in the 2013–14 and 2014–15 seasons, high enough to qualify for the Europa League qualification stages, but failed to lead the club into the group stage in either season. Frank resigned on 9 March 2016 after receiving criticism from chairman Jan Bech Andersen, under a pseudonym, on an online supporters' forum.
Frank moved to England to join Championship club Brentford on 9 December 2016, as assistant head coach alongside Richard O'Kelly. In February 2018, he signed a new contract, which would run until the end of the 2019–20 season.
On 16 October 2018, after the departure of head coach Dean Smith, it was announced that Frank had been promoted into the role.He took over a club rocked by the recent death of technical director Robert Rowan and endured a tough start to his tenure, winning just one of his first 10 games,before stabilising the team's form after a change to a 3–4–3 formation. Seven points from a possible nine in January 2019 saw him nominated for the Championship Manager of the Month award. He guided Brentford to the fifth round of the FA Cup and an 11th-place finish in the Championship at the end of the 2018–19 season.
In late October 2020, Frank reached 100 matches as Brentford manager and at the time he had the highest winning percentage of any Brentford manager to manage 100 matches or more.In the midst of a 21-match unbeaten run in league matches,five wins in December 2020 won Frank the Championship Manager of the Month award. Frank managed Brentford to a second-successive third-place finish during the 2020–21 regular season and went one better during the play-offs, winning promotion to the Premier League after a 2–0 victory over Swansea City in the 2021 Championship play-off Final. The promotion made him the second Brentford head coach to win promotion to the top-tier, after Harry Curtis won the Second Division championship in 1934–35. During the 2020–21 season, Frank was named the 2020 DBU Coach of the Year and was nominated for the 2021 London Football Awards Manager of the Year award.
An unbeaten April 2022 saw Frank nominated for the Premier League Manager of the Month award and the following month, he was nominated for the Premier League Manager of the Season award. He oversaw a final Premier League placing of 13th.
