In order not to “endanger the goals of the season”, there is a lot on offer in the Bundesliga. Clubs formulate strange particular interests, such as Bayern Munich winning the treble or – even more original – Hertha BSC staying up. But the overarching goal of the season is entertainment theater, and the leaders (keywords: “Zillertal”, “Schock in love”) and the bottom of the table (“Big City Club”) provide great material for this with their coach changes. The industry leader is wonderfully unpredictable, to which the new FCB head coach Thomas Tuchel makes a decisive contribution. In Berlin, Pál Dárdai is rushing to Hertha’s aid for the third time, which makes the forecast for his term of office just as euphoric as the announcement of the tenth diet after the twelfth yo-yo effect.
In the experience of even good-natured fans, changes in coaches only have a short-term effect. The first game under the new trainer may bring a boost because the former bench pressers want to recommend themselves to the new boss or the lethargic starting eleven suspects that it may have been because of their paths and not those of the coach that games were lost. Then the effect fizzles out. After months of mediocrity, the board is wondering whether a new coach could bring a breath of fresh air… However, the clubs with the most managerial changes (Schalke, Stuttgart, Hertha) show that new brooms do not always sweep well – they are all candidates for relegation.
Science paints a mixed picture. “Half of the studies show positive effects, the other half none,” says Arne Güllich, sports scientist at the TU Kaiserslautern. “We have shown with a thorough methodology that a new coach can do something.” Together with Sebastian Zart, Güllich analyzed almost 4000 games involving 149 coaching changes in the Bundesliga, Premier League and Spain’s La Liga between 2010 and 2019. The researchers concentrated on effects within one season and on realistic expectations. “Half the squad is often replaced during the summer break, sometimes the budget and board change, so that it’s a different club afterwards,” says Güllich. “And to gauge the success of managerial changes, it’s not enough to just count points – you have to consider whether you’re playing bottom or top and what’s realistic to expect.”
According to these criteria, a change of coach brings short- to medium-term success, which can be proven for up to 16 match days – albeit to a lesser extent. At some point, however, the coaching carousel starts again; According to Güllich, the impulse to do this arises “in the shower”: players are dissatisfied and then, consciously or unconsciously, perform less well. If the coach is gone, these players play freely. The only thing that can prevent this automatism is player whisperers, of which the board also knows that they don’t “lose the dressing room”. Today it’s a coach like Christian Streich – Jupp Heynckes, Thomas Schaaf and Volker Finke used to stand for it.