Streich and Kovac leave as loose lips announce sinking of Bundesliga stints

Christian Streich’s last match was a 3-2 defeat at home to league leaders Bayer Leverkusen.Photo: Ronald Wittek/EPA

If one of your most experienced players drops you, there really is no comeback. As Freiburg’s players stood in the corridors of Stade Europa-Park picking the bones of an exhausting week that ended in the just-finished, narrow defeat to runaway leaders Bayer Leverkusen and a cathartic, emphatic Europa League exit at West Ham encompassed, perhaps guards had fallen and careless words came from leaden lips.

Defender Christian Günter, who is closing in on 400 first-team appearances for the club, expressed hope that Christian Streich, the Bundesliga’s longest-serving coach, would stay on despite the sense of a season’s denouement without a contract extension signed by the man . being in charge. “It was or is a pleasure to train under him,” Günter stumbled and corrected himself. He was there at almost every step of Streich’s glorious 12-year stint in charge, and even imagining another voice giving the instructions will take some getting used to.

Streich confirmed what had been suspected for some time on Monday morning with a simple, stark straight-to-camera video piece released by the club. He spoke of delivering the news ‘with a heavy heart, a very heavy heart’, but when he put into words all his work at the club, 29 years since he first started coaching the youth team in 1995 (‘It’s the right time to let in new energy, new people, new opportunities”), it reminded you of his wisdom, of what made him so old and so special.

Related: European roundup: Leverkusen continues to beat Freiburg; Inter owned by Napoli

It is not just that Streich has turned Freiburg into an established Bundesliga club, that he has guided them to the bottom of the Europa League for successive seasons, that he has transformed the size and expectations of the club by leading them. to the completely new Europa-Park, all things that are more than remarkable. It is that he did those things while retaining his intrinsic goodness and humanity. He regularly speaks to journalists about topics outside football. Politics, family, the world around us. Streich gave everything to football, but never treated football as if it was everything.

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He cycled to work at the club’s old home, the Dreisam Stadium, until the move to its new digs in 2021. He understood the ridiculousness of the demands of his calling. “The coaching profession has disfigured me to a certain extent,” he lamented in an interview with Kicker in December, one of many hints afterwards that the end was near. “I cannot and do not want to do that again for the next ten years.” If that’s the path he chooses, he won’t be stuck doing things outside of football.

Streich knows he was lucky to choose the method of departure, with a relatively happy ending. That is not a luxury for most coaches. Niko Kovac must have looked at the sky above the Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg on Saturday afternoon and recognized that sometimes this just doesn’t happen. The clouds had looked to be breaking for some time, with Patrick Wimmer giving Wolfsburg some sunlight with a welcome lead in the ninth minute, a decisive finish met with an outpouring of relief. But when it was the same Wimmer who was caught thinking about the ball on the stroke of half-time by Kevin Mbabu, before bringing down the former Wolfsburger on the edge of the penalty area and receiving a straight red card, the writing was on the wall. .

The referee, Timo Gerach, was unswayed by home arguments that Maxence Lacroix had been cleverly placed at cover and Arne Maier’s resulting free-kick was deflected off captain Maximilian Arnold to give Augsburg an equalizer, adding insult to injury – and made it clear which way the wind was blowing. Kristijan Jakic’s brace after the break gave the visitors three points, but that was really just a detail.

It had been clear for some time that both Kovac and Wolfsburg had to move on, but when his voice burst with emotion at the post-match press conference, it was also clear that there would be an immediate and brutal end to this – officially confirmed first case on Sunday morning – hadn’t been the plan. Eleven competitive games without a win had forced the issue, despite the club hoping to leave a divorce until the summer. On Sunday afternoon, Ralph Hasenhüttl had been confirmed as Kovac’s replacement on what the club described as a “long-term contract”, taking up his first Bundesliga job since leaving RB Leipzig almost six years ago. He now arrives earlier than expected, with safety first That Wolfe just six points above the relegation play-off spot.

Some careless words also signaled the end of Kovac’s tenure, with his former player Max Kruse blasting the injured coach in his Flatterball podcast last week. The former Germany striker, who was quickly removed from the first-team squad by Kovac upon his arrival in 2022, described the coach as “an absolute disaster”. [of a] character.” Kruse went on to talk about his social group gossiping that Kovac “had no idea, and when will he be gone?” One member of the group, Yannick Gerhardt, remains at the club (although he was banned on Saturday) and was forced to make an awkward public withdrawal. If the club preferred to remain silent, Liverpool’s sporting director Jörg Schmadtke – previously at the post at Wolfsburg – the need to speak to Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung to make his views clear. “The idea that people like Kruse should talk about character leaves me at a loss for words,” he scoffed.

However, the timing of Kruse’s attack said everything about Kovac’s vulnerability – and the slowness of Wolfsburg’s action. Finding the right time to say goodbye is rarely easy.

Borussia Dortmund 3-1 Eintracht Frankfurt, Darmstadt 2-5 Bayern Munich, Freiburg 2-3 Bayer Leverkusen, Heidenheim 1-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Hoffenheim 0-3 Stuttgart, Cologne 1-5 RB Leipzig, Mainz 2-0 Bochum, Union Berlin 2-1 Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg 1-3 Augsburg

Discussion points

• Leverkusen is rarely guided by emotions, fatigue or anything else these days, even after a tough schedule. Leading 1-0 in Freiburg on Sunday through Florian Wirtz, they were put back inside 10 minutes but held on admirably in the closing stages with a decisive 3-2 lead, with the suddenly in-form Patrick Schick scoring the eventual winner with a sublime finish. . With the remaining 10-point gap at the top the extent of Harry Kane’s ankle injury – suffered after scoring his 31st Bundesliga goal of the season in Saturday’s 5-2 win at Darmstadt – might even make it worth it make Bayern give him peace of mind around the champions. Draw with Arsenal.

• Just above Darmstadt, at the foot of the rankings, Köln is in big trouble. They were beaten 5-1 at home by Champions League chase Leipzig on Friday evening and slipped into the bottom two after Mainz’s victory over Bochum. Yet the 50,000 RheinEnergie Stadium remains sold out and many stayed behind to loudly support their players full-time in extraordinary scenes. “We as a club, as a team with the fans, stand together,” said coach Timo Schulz. “Gänsehaut Guaranteed!” – goosebumps guaranteed – is stated on a banner in the hall behind the stands just before you enter. No joke.

• After beating Leipzig, Dortmund regained fourth place in Sunday’s late match, but only narrowly. They trailed Eintracht Frankfurt after a fine goal from former player Mario Götze in the first half and needed late goals from Mats Hummels and an Emre Can penalty to seal the deficit. Can, the captain, had previously received a red card via VAR. He called Tobias Stieler’s original decision to send him off ‘unbelievable’ and ‘not even a foul in England’.