Gladbach hires Dieter Hecking as new manager

Agence France-Presse

15h ago

Carl Recine / Reuters

Berlin- Dieter Hecking was named as the new coach of Borussia Monchengladbach, with the former Wolfsburg manager’s arrival coming 24 hours after the sacking of Andre Schubert.

Hecking, dismissed by Wolfsburg in October, has signed a deal with the struggling Bundesliga side until 2019.

Schubert on Wednesday became the seventh Bundesliga coach fired since September when Monchengladbach dismissed him in the wake of its 2-1 defeat to ironically Hecking’s former employers and fellow underperformers Wolfsburg.

That home loss was the final straw for Gladbach’s director of sport Max Eberl, who had said the team needed to win its last three games before Christmas for Schubert’s future to be safe.

But after losing to Augsburg and earning a scrappy win over Mainz, Gladbach’s defeat to Wolfsburg on Tuesday was its eighth defeat in 16 league games to leave it14th.

The club has won just once in its last ten games in all competitions.

The 52-year-old Hecking steered Wolfsburg to the German Cup title in 2015, the year it was runners up in the Bundesliga.

The team also reached the knock-out stages of the Champions League last season for the first time in the club’s history.

But he was released after three-and-a-half years in the job following a 1-0 defeat at home to newly-promoted RB Leipzig in mid-October.