VfB Stuttgart wants to introduce the new coach soon – and is thinking of a prominent name.
Stuttgart’s preferred candidate for the vacant coaching position has a big name, he has already won championship honors and the World Cup crown. Allow me, lion! However, not Jogi, but Zsolt.
The 43-year-old Hungarian won the Champions League and the Club World Cup as Thomas Tuchel’s assistant at Chelsea, and the duo celebrated two championships and a cup win at Paris St. Germain. Now Löw should plunge into the relegation battle – for the first time as a boss.
According to information from the pay TV broadcaster sky VfB Stuttgart has already had initial talks with the former assistant to coaches such as Ralf Rangnick, Tuchel and Adi Hütter. Zsolt Löw, nickname: Jogi, could follow Pellegrino Matarazzo, who was released on Monday.
Time is of the essence: The new man should already be on the bench in the basement duel of the penultimate table on Saturday (3.30 p.m. in the live ticker) with bottom VfL Bochum. And then initiate the turnaround that the bosses no longer believed Matarazzo could not win in nine league games.
Löw: assistant coach under Hütter, Hasenhüttl and Tuchel
The former left-back Löw played as a professional after stints in Hungary, Cottbus and Rostock at TSG Hoffenheim for two years under Rangnick, then two seasons under Tuchel in Mainz. According to former companions, even as a professional he should have interrupted the team meetings with questions about tactics. Eduard Geyer, his coach in Cottbus, initially thought he was “too nice” for a coaching career.
Löw started it in 2012 in the RB cosmos with the farm team FC Liefering, in 2014 he was ordered to Salzburg and as a co of Hütter Austrian champion. In 2015 Rangnick brought him to Leipzig, and his future boss Ralph Hasenhüttl called him a “fantastic coach and person”.
In 2018 he left RB for a fee of 1.5 million euros and joined Tuchel at Paris St. Germain because he wanted to get to know a new style. There the “clever man manager” (The Athletic) World stars like Neymar or Kylian Mbappe. His approach? “I want to know everything about my players, including off the pitch,” he once said.
When Hoffenheim and Leipzig were last looking for a coach, Loew was traded there. At VfB he is not the only candidate from CEO Alexander Wehrle, his advisor Sami Khedira and sports director Sven Mislintat. But Löw probably has the better cards than Hütter, Sebastian Hoeneß, Gerardo Seoane or Peter Bosz, who are also mentioned. Joachim Löw, with the VfB 1997 cup winner, is not an option.
The task for the Swabians is tricky, Stuttgart is the youngest team in the league. “You don’t have to pack up completely hopelessly and say: We’re going to stop operations,” said former CEO Thomas Hitzlsperger SID: “The club certainly has the opportunity to keep the class. I’m not scared or afraid.”
