Just like Moses, Luke Skywalker and Flik from A Bug’s Life, André Schubert at first wasn’t really that keen on the job. “I don’t need to be a coach in the Bundesliga or Bundesliga 2 to be happy with my life,” the 44-year-old said when he took over as the interim manager at VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach two months ago.
The ‘reluctant hero’ who finds himself cast into a leadership role has been a mainstay of popular culture since days eternal, of course. But in the realms of sport, wanting it less than the next man does not usually do much for your chances of success, which makes Schubert’s out-of-nowhere emergence as a top Bundesliga coach all the more remarkable.
On Saturday, the man in the green hoodie led his free-running, free-scoring Foals to a sixth successive league win, 4-1 away to Hertha BSC, to claim fifth spot in the table. No manager has had a better start in the top flight since the late Willi Entenmann managed the same feat with VfB Stuttgart in the spring of 1986. (Entenmann, despite his great results as interim coach of the Swabians, was moved aside for Egon Coordes and served as assistant manager after the 1985-86 campaign).
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 11 | 29 | 31 |
| 2 | Borussia Dortmund | 11 | 19 | 26 |
| 3 | Wolfsburg | 11 | 4 | 21 |
| 4 | Schalke 04 | 11 | 1 | 20 |
| 5 | Borussia M'gladbach | 11 | 5 | 18 |
Borussia had been languishing 18th, in a utterly dishevelled, demoralised and managerless state with zero points from five games when Schubert was promoted from the Under-23s. His task was to lift the mood while the club embarked on a search for long-term successor to Lucien Favre. “He gives us time to calmly look for a long-term solution,” said Max Eberl, the VfL sporting director.
That long-term solution might now be more easily found than anybody could have anticipated. Schubert’s tweaks have been subtle, tactically – they press a bit higher and the new signing Lars Stindl has been very effective as hard-working No10 behind Raffael – but overnight, Borussia rediscovered their confidence and lust for joyful attacking football. Even injuries to important players (Patrick Herrmann, André Hahn and Martin Stranzl) have not slowed them down.
“The game was too fast for us, we were chasing shadows and hardly had the ball,” Hertha’s manager, Paul Dardai, admitted after the final whistle. His team had gone into the match with only four Bundesliga sides placed higher than them in the table. Gladbach’s class and creativity, however, soon exposed Hertha’s standing as the most striking example of a ‘false 5’ position since the 40-year-old sweeper Lothar Matthäus set up shop in no-man’s land at Euro 2000. Oscar Wendt, Raffael, Granit Xhaka (penalty) and Havard Nordtveit sank the Berliners, with the former Borussia playmaker Alexander Baumjohann getting a consolation from the spot.
“Our positional play was sensational [in the second half],” said Stindl. “We are playing very good football at the moment.” Raffael, unrecognisable from the disconsolate figure he had cut in Favre’s last weeks, expressed hope that Schubert would be allowed to continue. Xhaka, the captain, drummed home the point: “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t stay,” the Swiss midfielder said. “Whoever says ‘that’s not a good fit’ has no clue about football.” That’s not an accusation Eberl wants to have levelled against him. “We are not blind, we can see the great work he’s doing,” said the 42-year-old. “We will calmly talk to André and then take the next steps.”
Schubert has remained cooly non-committal in public. “I’ll do it as long as they let me,” he smiled at the Olympic Stadium, before putting the philosophy into ‘football philosophy’ with an instant classic line: “We are all interim coaches. I just don’t have a contract.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung described the blossoming relationship as a “surprising affair that’s not dissipated into thin air but become a solid thing – despite expectations, despite a bit of fear – little by little”. Thought through, the analogy begs two questions that Eberl needs to answer: a) will the thrill of the new survive once the two parties make their bond permanent; and b) what will happen when the sun won’t shine everyday? There’s simply no way to gauge Schubert’s crisis management skills.
These concerns have made Gladbach hesitate. But events have started to run away from them and taken on a life of their own. The team wants Schubert, the supporters want Schubert, and it will be difficult to find a manager willing to push Mr Popular aside after such a fantastic run. (Coordes, the man who followed the much-loved Entenmann at VfB, incidentally, was fired after only one season in charge). Eberl said on Saturday that the club have stopped talking to other coaches and perhaps had already given the game away a couple of days earlier, when he revealed that January transfer policy would be in discussed in conjunction with Schubert.
The latter joked that he’d “probably still be here for the game against Juventus on Tuesday”. A win against Italy’s champions would, in all likelihood, force Gladbach’s hand altogether. Alternatively, Xhaka suggested that Schubert and the team could simply stay together without new paperwork, and cohabit at Borussia Park in a type of partnership that used to be called “wilde Ehe”, literally “a wild marriage” in Germany. “If we keep on winning, I wouldn’t mind him being interim coach for another three years,” said the 23-year-old.
Talking points
• “I jump back, I wanna kiss myself,” James Brown sang in Super Bad. Bruno Labbadia, who once could rival the late, always impeccably coiffed Godfather of Soul in the barnet department, mused about performing a similar manoeuvre after HSV’s (kind of) super bad last-30-minutes collapse at home to Hannover 96 on Sunday. “We should bite ourself in the ass, if we could, but we can’t – we’re not flexible enough,” the 49-year-old lamented. Hamburg had played well enough for two thirds of the game and taken the lead through Michael Gregoritsch. But a characteristically ill-judged tackle from Emir Spahic in the box gifted 96 a penalty. Hiroshi Kiyotake equalised on the hour mark, Salif Sané scored a winner soon after. “We go back tired but relieved and happy,” said Hannover’s coach Michael Frontzeck.
• Referees were in for a hard time this weekend. Mainz 05, usually calm customers, were deeply upset about the referee Marco Fritz awarding a penalty to Augsburg for handball in the 3-3 thriller (“a super Sechs-Show,” Bild called it) on Saturday. The Augsburg captain Paul Verhaegh’s shot had hit Pablo De Blasis from close proximity. “I never say anything but today, [the refereeing performance] was beyond the pale,” fumed the Mainz president Harald Strutz. “I thought I was dreaming. What’s the player supposed to do? Have his arm amputated?” The sporting director Christian Heidel wondered whether the officials were using their headsets “to communicate with each other or listen to the pop charts”. I fear we’ll never know, in this particular instance. Over in Wolfsburg, Manuel Gräfe certainly wasn’t listening to his assistant. The linesman had raised his flag for Vieirinha being five metres offside but Gräfe waved play on, believing that Leverkusen’s Kevin Kampl had inadvertently played the Portuguese winger on. In fact, the ball had come off André Schürrle’s foot . Nicklas Bendtner scored to make it 1-0 to the home side; Wolfsburg ended up winning 2-1. “It was my mistake, the Leverkusen players are right to be upset,” said Gräfe after the game. Both coaches didn’t make too much fuss about the incident later but the same could not be said of Köln’s manager Peter Stöger’s reaction after the 0-0 draw with Hoffenheim. His side should have had a clear-cut penalty when Hoffe’s Tobias Strobl handled the ball. “It can’t be more handball,” said the Austrian coach. “I guess the rules are applied differently in Cologne. OK, we’ll start playing with our hands, too, from now on.” But only when Fritz is in charge of the game.
• Whisper it: Could there be a title race, after all? Borussia Dortmund were at their imperious best in their 4-1 destruction of Bremen at the Weserstadion and cut Bayern’s lead to a measly five points. The champions had been frustrated by Eintracht Frankfurt’s ultra-defensive tactics in a 0-0 draw on Friday night that stopped their run of 10 opening wins. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Jérôme Boateng. In Munich, they’re worried that other opponents will follow suit but Pep Guardiola’s men also had themselves to blame for an uninspired, unfocused performance. Their passing and one-vs-one game need to be a lot sharper. Maybe the first domestic setback will serve as a useful reminder to up their game in time for Arsenal’s visit on Wednesday.
Results: Frankfurt 0-0 Bayern, Bremen 1-3 Dortmund, Augsburg 3-3 Mainz, Schalke 1-1 Ingolstadt, Köln 0-0 Hoffenheim, Hertha 1-4 Gladbach, Wolfsburg 2-1 Leverkusen, Stuttgart 1-0 Darmstadt, Hamburger SV 1-2 Hannover.
