GERMANY: SOCCER - Three top Bundesliga coaches sacked within 24 hours

Record ID: 253006

  • Title: GERMANY: SOCCER - Three top Bundesliga coaches sacked within 24 hours
  • Date: 3rd February 2007
  • Summary: MUNICH, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 1, 2007) (REUTERS) EXTERIORS OF BAYERN MUNICH HEADQUARTERS BAYERN PLAYERS LEAVING BUILDING FOR TRAINING NEW BAYERN COACH OTTMAR HITZFELD LEAVING BUILDING FOR TRAINING GROUND VARIOUS OF HITZFELD DURING BAYERN TRAINING ON HIS FIRST WORKING DAY SPECTATORS WATCHING TRAINING FROM BEHIND CRASH BARRIERS (SOUNDBITE) (German) OTTMAR HITZFELD, NEW BAYERN COACH SAYING: "I will have a lot more individual discussions but I already had a few talks on the pitch. There will be more opportunities at the hotel to talk to the players who might be a bit more insecure and to give them back some of their confidence. The most important thing is to come across as a team and to believe in our team." REPORTERS LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (German) OTTMAR HITZFELD, NEW BAYERN COACH SAYING: "This is nothing new for me and I got the feeling I'm returning home." HITZFELD ENTERING BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 18th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVABO3NUKSNZASWNNJ8OZ73NP7PF
  • Story Text: Three of the Bundesliga's best-known coaches were sacrificed in a single head-spinning 24 hours that will be long remembered as one of the bloodiest days in German football history. Felix Magath at Bayern Munich, Jupp Heynckes at Borussia Moenchengladbach and Thomas Doll of Hamburg SV were ousted in rapid succession on Wednesday (January 31) and within a week of the Bundesliga's return from its six-week winter intermission.
    There had been pressure building on all three before poor results in their first matches of the season's second half tripped the circuit-breakers that prompted the bloodletting.
    Because it had been a relatively quiet season for coaches so far - with only three of the 18 trainers losing their jobs - Wednesday's massacre of the league's three highest-profile names brought an abrupt end to that era of tranquility.
    That wasn't enough for success-spoilt Bayern, and Magath was summarily sacked on Wednesday after his team got just one point from their last two matches and slipped to fourth place with 34 points from 19 matches, eight behind leaders Werder Bremen.
    In Munich, the new and the old coach Ottmar Hitzfeld began his first day back at work with a training near the club's headquarters, later telling reporters "this is nothing new for me and I got the feeling I'm returning home."
    At Hamburg SV, Thomas Doll, who in his two and a half years had brought the club into the Champions League with third place last season, was dismissed late on Wednesday.
    It was a bitter pill for Doll, hugely popular with the players and Hamburg fans first as a player and then as coach. He narrowly avoided the ax in December at the end of the first half with vows to work harder to turn the club around.
    But two draws in Hamburg's last two matches weren't enough and the only club to have played in the Bundesliga every season since it started in 1963 pulled the plug on Doll at 19 minutes before midnight, after their 1-1 home draw against Cottbus.
    Doll said he was "saddened" but a 900,000-euro severance payment should help sooth the pain.
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