2. Bundesliga – Hertha BSC: Stefan Leitl is supposed to chase away fear

Only the sun laughs above the Olympic Park, everything else is a purpose optimism at Hertha BSC this Tuesday. Stefan Leitl is presented as the new coach of the Berlin second division club. The 47-year-old talks about his “anticipation of Berlin” and a “team that has everything you need to be successful”. He didn’t want to talk about the descent. But to prevent this, Leitl was brought.

Crash instead of climb

The Berliners wanted to play for the promotion in the second second division season. With 25 points, however, the Hertha is only 14 – five points away from the relegation rank. That is why Cristian Fiél was released on Sunday, one day after the 1-2 at Fortuna Düsseldorf. Now Leitl is supposed to chase away the great fear of the crash at the crisis club. Because Hertha BSC is still highly indebted, investor 777 partners is facing bankruptcy and in November the club will have to repay a bond of 40 million euros. The third class would be extremely inconvenient.

However, not only the predecessors of those currently responsible in the club are to blame for the permanent crisis. Wrong decisions have also been made in the recent past. In addition to the squad composition, this also includes that of sports director Benjamin Weber, Fiél last summer to bring to Berlin from 1. FC Nürnberg to Berlin last summer.

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After 22 games with only seven victories, you still don’t know exactly in Berlin what Fiél actually stands for as a trainer, similar to his previous stations in Dresden and Nuremberg. Knapped defeats, such as recently with the candidate for ascent Düsseldorf, alternated with pitiful appearances by Hertha as well as against the relegation candidates from Regensburg or Münster. So again a successor to Pál Dárdai did not make it better than Hertha’s most successful coach in the last decade.

Criticism to the start

Leitl has now been the twelfth trainer in the past five and a half years. At that time in June 2019, Dárdai was replaced by Ante Čović. As a trainer, he remained as pale and unsuccessful as Fiél now. Both times, Hertha wanted to develop further, play a better football than Dárdai’s profitable but simple but simple but simple.

If Leitl now says that the team has everything to be successful, this is an unconsciously expressed but accurate criticism of his predecessor and his current employer. Despite one more than halved budget before this season, Hertha BSC is in the top three of the second division with a personnel cost of 46 million euros. Clubs that fight for promotion to the Bundesliga do it with less financial effort, such as the second in the table Hamburger SV. The 1. FC Magdeburg has even made it to fourth place with around 35 million euros less.

Consist and dots

There were contact with Leitl last summer, says sports director Weber on Tuesday. Now the then captured is sitting on the blue and white podium-after a “first super intensive unit with the team”. He has already met the lush green of the Schenckendorffplatz on the otherwise white snowy club site. But not yet. Once on Monday, he now has to “get a feel for the players”. That is why the new trainer does not say much more than Weber: “We have to go to points.”

Leitl only remain three training sessions until the game against 1. FC Nürnberg. “Full of focus on Friday,” he says. Only then did he want to take care of the coming weeks. Before that, he wants to “create the turnaround” with a win. And in two ways: After only two victories in the past twelve league games, the self -confidence of the players must be strengthened. And after only seven points in ten games in the Olympic Stadium, the important home strength has to be found.

Promising vita

A look in Leitl’s vita reveals that he could create all of this. He is considered a solid worker, one like Dardai, and his teams mostly convinced with a strong defensive. After the first coaching station in 2017 at the second division club Ingolstadt, we went to Greuther Fürth in February 2019. A year and a half later, he led the small game association from Middle Franconia to the Bundesliga. Most recently, he also convinced at Hannover 96. Despite seventh place with only two points behind a direct promotion, he was released there in December. Sounds like good conditions to save the old lady from crash.