Predicting the obvious: Koller fired

By: jhb | September 21st, 2009

That’s that, then. Marcel Koller has been fired yesterday afternoon, with a statement crediting him for keeping us in the top flight 4 years in a row (unseen since 1993); in the end not being able to come to terms with a team that had lost its trust in the head coach cost him the job. Plus, the atmosphere in the stands was anything but friendly towards him right from the beginning of the 09/10 season, which I thought was a tad unfair, and certainly didn’t help him keep the job. I was hoping that we’d somehow scramble to a win against Mainz this past weekend, giving Koller a lifeline until the market might offer a coaching solution. Because let’s face it, giving MK the sack is one thing, but finding a suitable replacement might be a different headache altogether.

Koller was not exactly the “live fast, die young” type of character like the chap we had before him (the now-unmentionable Peter Neururer), but from the start he had a systematic approach, made the team play a 4-4-2 diamond that they seemed to get along with very well after some learning curve. During the first Bundesliga season, I got the impression that while progress might be slow with that guy, it might be pointing toward continuity and stability, which would have cemented the grey image of boredom that is perceived upon mentioning the VfL anywhere in Germany, but it was a nice change to step out of the up-and-down lift between the two Bundesligas at the top floor. The flipside of that is that we didn’t see any UEFA cup action in the past couple of years, but on the face of it both our previous international endeavours were very lucky to begin with. I’d love to see something like the 5-3 drama against Trabzonspor or the 2-0 lead after 15 minutes at Ajax again, but even more than that I would love to never see the “down” button pressed again. And the question remains how and with whom are we going to get that?

The short answer is “money”, and I’m afraid the long answer looks a lot like “money, money, money”. I guess I’ll leave that for now, might pick it up again in a later post, the more pressing issue is the who, and there’s not much on the market to ignite the fires of hope in the east stand: the tabloids have Mirko Sloma and Klaus Augenthaler as favourites for the job, both of which I don’t much like. Slomka might be a knowledgable expert of the game, but I don’t think he is one to steer a damaged boat successfully into the harbour. For some reason, I can’t wrap my head around him shouting at players at half time. Plus, he will have a hard time winning the supporters, since he has a Schalke past. Anyway, he might still be the best of the rest, if Klaus Augenthaler is the only alternative. His time at Leverkusen was not exactly successful. He was Wolfsburg’s last manager before Magath and they finished just above relegation, although with a squad quite different from today’s (no Dzeko/Grafite, no Misimovic, no Dejagah, no Schäfer, no Benaglio) (but still…).

Further alternatives might be Mike Büskens (also with a Schalke past), Dieter Hecking (please not) or Wolfgang Wolf (who has been fired just last week from some club in Greece, I think?). Of course, Jürgen Klinsmann has nothing to do at the moment, haha.

For the moment, Frank “Funny” Heinemann and Dariusz Wosz have taken over, both with a solid backing by the fans (one a club legend and the other one been around for so long that no one remembers the time before him) but without much of head coach experience (Heinemann has played that interim role a couple of times before and fulfills it just fine, but I doubt he’ll ever make a decent long term coach anywhere. Wosz was our Under-18 coach before, if I am not mistaken). Although if anyone can tell me why on earth the guy got the nickname “funny” I’d be grateful – it certainly isn’t the interviews.

(Update: Pictures)