EIt was just a small sentence that Fredi Bobic dropped during his explanations and analyzes after the next Hertha BSC defeat, but if you listened a little more closely, a deep helplessness became visible behind the words of the sports manager. “We’d love to swap a few other things,” said the sporting director when asked if coach Tayfun Korkut would be fired after the 2-0 defeat at Borussia Mönchengladbach, who are directly relegated to the relegation zone.
He probably meant parts of the poorly assembled squad, for whose unstable statics Bobic himself is more responsible than Korkut. And maybe Bobic would also like to get rid of the club’s economic environment. The investor Lars Windhorst and his people have already invested more than 370 million euros in the club, but they are also causing permanent unrest in this phase of the season, which is so important for the near future. But because the team and investor cannot be exchanged so quickly, it hit Korkut on Sunday morning.
After only two points in the second half of the season and slipping down to seventeenth place in the table, “the decision was made to make another change in the coaching position,” said Bobic. Korkut’s end is also a bitter defeat for the head of sports. It was he who surprisingly presented the coach as the successor to Pal Dardai in November.
Korkut was not the main problem
The experiment with Korkut, who had been unemployed for a long time, only worked for a short time. A promising start with seven points from four games was followed by the sporting crash. Korkut only picked up nine points from 13 games with the team. No coach at Hertha BSC has had a worse point average for three decades. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, we could not keep the good start of our work,” Korkut was quoted as saying in a statement by the association.
Despite the bad record, Korkut was certainly not the main problem of this club, which was increasingly threatened with relegation. Since the investor Lars Windhorst got on board in the summer of 2019, Korkut is already the sixth coach who unsuccessfully tried his hand at the club and team. His successor now has to save at short notice, which can hardly be saved in view of the patchy squad and strategic mistakes in recent years.
The solution that Hertha then presented on Sunday evening is one that hardly anyone expected: Felix Magath should return to the Bundesliga after ten years as a coach and save the Berliners from impending relegation. “Felix Magath’s CV speaks for itself. He has proven many times that, with his experience, he can make the right adjustments in any sporting situation to get us out of our sportingly challenging situation,” said Bobic on Sunday evening.
“I had very clear talks with Fredi Bobic. We are aware of the sporting situation. I’m ready to use all my experience to help them stay up. What’s important now is that everyone is fully focused on the remaining games,” said Magath. The 68-year-old coached VfL Wolfsburg until 2012. Before that, he worked for seven other Bundesliga clubs. He became German champion with Bayern and Wolfsburg. He once saved Stuttgart and Frankfurt from relegation.
