When the term of office of a coach was extended with the word “at least” for the last time, it later turned out to be a brilliant idea. The club and coach had “agreed that Hansi Flick would remain head coach with the German record champions at least until the end of the current season,” FC Bayern announced in December 2019, including a demonstrative addition: Flick would remain head coach beyond summer 2020 for FC Bayern “expressly a well conceivable option”.
They didn’t add Hansi at the weekend at VfB Stuttgart when it came to Michi, or at least they worded it a little differently. It was “decided to go with Michi Wimmer at least until the winter break,” said Stuttgart’s sports director Sven Mislintat, and then Michi Wimmer was “one of three candidates” for the post of the new head coach (apparently next to the Dane Jess Thorup and the Dutchman Alfred Schreuder). However, it is not yet entirely certain whether VfB will win the treble with this Munich strategy like FC Bayern did back then, especially since the direct comparison with Champions League club Borussia Dortmund ended 0:5 at the weekend.
It was a daring decision by the club to attack its own sporting director
Apart from the different quality level of FC Bayern and VfB Stuttgart, the models have the same basic idea: It’s about gaining time – time that can be used to compare the development of the team under Michi/Hansi with that on the coaching market. In the case of VfB Stuttgart it is questionable whether there is so much to gain apart from time – this trainer’s decision is basically a non-decision. And so a scenario could arise during the World Cup break that one would like to visualize: how on one floor of the Stuttgart office a round of Sven Mislintat and CEO Alex Wehrle negotiates with coach candidates – while previously the CEO was on another floor Wehrle discussed the future of sports director Mislintat with his advisor Sami Khedira.
It is becoming increasingly clear how daring the decision of the new club management was to attack its own sporting director. The installation of the prominent Sami Khedira (adviser to the board), Philipp Lahm (also somehow adviser to someone) and Christian Gentner (soon to be a member of Mislintat’s sports department), which was operated behind Mislintat’s back, is now falling on the club’s feet when looking for a coach: Of course I want to every coaching candidate will know whether the sporting director he is making plans with will remain a sporting director in the future – and Mislintat, on the other hand, may decide he should only hire a coach after he has given the signal to extend his own contract got. Otherwise someone else would have to make the coaching decision, the club boss, an advisor or even a new sports director.
Won 4:1, won 6:0, lost 0:5 – VfB were spectacularly active last week, in both directions. But that is deceptive. In truth, the association for movement games has temporarily become an association for immobility, which blocks itself when looking for a trainer. However, Michi Wimmer can’t do anything about it.