Who are the Bundesliga coaches in 2020/21?
Hansi Flick goes into his first full season in charge of Bayern Munich after leading them to the treble last term, but Julian Nagelsmann and Lucien Favre are looking to mastermind their own title pushes with RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund respectively.
Bayern Munich: Hansi Flick
Not even a year into the job and Flick has already secured his place in history at Bayern by leading them to the treble of Bundesliga, DFB Cup and UEFA Champions League after succeeding Niko Kovac in November 2019. Germany’s record champions have looked even more imperious under Joachim Löw’s 2014 FIFA World Cup-winning assistant, taking victory in 33 of his 36 matches for the best points-per-game ratio of any Bayern coach in history. With that feeling of ‘Mia san mia’ restored in Munich, can anyone stop Flick’s winning machine?
Watch: Bayern's 2019/20 title journey under Flick
Borussia Dortmund: Lucien Favre
Favre comes into his third season at the helm in Dortmund with the demand surely to steal some silverware away from its apparent home in Bavaria. The Swiss coach has the best win rate of any BVB coach in the Bundesliga, guiding them to consecutive runners-up finishes so far, and now has the combined firepower of Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland and Marco Reus at his disposal. The former Hertha Berlin and Borussia Mönchengladbach boss knows this could be his chance.
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RB Leipzig: Julian Nagelsmann
Records continue to tumble for Nagelsmann on the touchline. The youngest permanent head coach in Bundesliga history laid a solid foundation in his first year as Leipzig boss, guiding the club to the symbolic Herbstmeisterschaft as Bundesliga leaders at the halfway stage and a Champions League semi-final in the club’s 11th season of existence. Like Dortmund under Favre, there’s the expectation Nagelsmann’s Leipzig will be able to push Bayern all the way in the league and create yet more history.
Borussia Mönchengladbach: Marco Rose
The Rose revolution has begun in Mönchengladbach after he steered the Foals to a first Champions League campaign since 2016/17. It could have been much more after Borussia topped the table for the longest period since they won the last of their five Bundesliga titles in 1976/77. Once an assistant under Thomas Tuchel at Mainz and a serial winner in charge of Red Bull Salzburg, where he guided the U19s to the UEFA Youth League title and the first team to the domestic double, Gladbach know Rose is capable of driving them forward.
Bayer Leverkusen: Peter Bosz
Bosz and Bayer appear the ideal pair, with the Dutch coach putting the club’s philosophy of attacking football with young players into practice. It took them all the way to the DFB Cup final last year, although they will have been disappointed to miss out on a second straight season of Champions League football on the final day. The former Dortmund and Ajax boss is faced with the challenge of having to rebuild the squad following the departures of Kai Havertz and Kevin Volland, but don’t expect that to change his attacking approach in any way.
Hoffenheim: Sebastian Hoeneß
A famous name is back on the Bundesliga stage as Sebastian Hoeneß takes over from Alfred Schreuder at Hoffenheim. The son of the legendary Dieter Hoeneß and nephew of Uli Hoeneß, the 38-year-old arrives in Sinsheim on the back of leading the Bayern reserves to the third division title in 2019/20. This is his first senior job after working his way through the youth ranks at Leipzig and then in Munich. He’ll also get an immediate taste of European action in the UEFA Europa League group stage, having previously overseen the Bayern U19s in the Youth League.
Wolfsburg: Oliver Glasner
A seventh-placed finish and a spot in the Europa League qualifying rounds was regarded as a successful maiden campaign for Glasner with Wolfsburg. The Austrian enjoyed a 13-match unbeaten start to his tenure and guided the Wolves to the last 16 in continental competition. It’s a case of same again please at the Volkswagen Arena.
Freiburg: Christian Streich
Streich is by far the longest-serving current Bundesliga coach at well over eight-and-a-half years, which is six years more than any of his counterparts and means he took over at a time when the champions of Germany weren’t called Bayern Munich. A remarkable character who cycles to work and whose press conferences often cover far more than just football, the 55-year-old has stuck with his local club through thick and thin, ensuring a return to the Bundesliga in 2016 just a year after relegation.
Watch: See how Freiburg got off to their best ever season start in 2019/20
Eintracht Frankfurt: Adi Hütter
Another Austrian and former Red Bull Salzburg coach, but the former Austria international midfielder really made his mark in Switzerland where - in 2018 - he guided Young Boys to their first league title since 1986. That was a success three years in the making, but Hütter's second year in Frankfurt was not as fruitful as his first. A ninth-placed finish last season means no European football next term after Hütter had taken the Eagles into the UEFA Europa League knockout stages in back-to-back campaigns. A push to return to Europe in 2021/22 will be his ultimate goal.
Hertha Berlin: Bruno Labbadia
Labbadia only took over Hertha - his fifth Bundesliga station as coach, and a record 10th either as a player or in the dug-out - in April, and an unbeaten four-game opening to his tenure augured well. It removed the spectre of relegation haunting a squad that still should have done better than finish 10th last term, though excuses can be made. A former Germany international and Bayern striker, and the only player ever to score 100 goals in both of the country's top two divisions, Labbadia was Hertha's fourth boss of the season.
Union Berlin: Urs Fischer
When Union reached the top flight for the first time just over 12 months ago, their ambition was to merely extend their stay among the big boys. Going into his third season at the club, Swiss Fischer - who guided Basel to back-to-back league titles in his homeland between 2015 and 2017 - will now be hoping for something a bit better than mere survival after a promising 11th-placed finish last term, only behind neighbours Hertha on goal difference.
Schalke: David Wagner
For everyone, the 2019/20 campaign was 'a season of two halves'. It was even more so for Wagner, who previously featured as a forward for Schalke, Frankfurt and Mainz. The Royal Blues were third after Matchday 13 and fifth at the halfway stage of the season; they finished 12th after winning just one and losing 10 of their 17 Rückrunde encounters, though. The ex-Dortmund reserve team coach and Huddersfield Town manager, who grew up in Los Angeles, knows that with Weston McKennie and others leaving over the summer he has a squad to restructure in his second season in Gelsenkirchen.
Mainz: Achim Beierlorzer
Beierlorzer succeeded Sandro Schwarz 11 games into last season, only days after he had left Cologne, his first Bundesliga head coach role. The stunning 5-1 win at Hoffenheim that followed his appointment proved a false dawn as the 05ers hovered perilously just above the bottom three for virtually the whole season before their surprise defeat of Dortmund on Matchday 32 gave them breathing space. Though in his early 50s, Beierlorzer, who previously worked in Leipzig's youth academy, is still finding his feet at the top level after working his way up thanks to a successful two-year spell with Jahn Regensburg in Bundesliga 2 between 2017 and 2019.
Cologne: Markus Gisdol
Gisdol had saved Hoffenheim from relelgation late in the 2012/13 season, so it was no doubt with that in mind he was appointed Cologne boss in November 2019. The Billy Goats had just seven points from their opening 11 matches and were second-from-bottom of the table when Gisdol took over; given that context, finishing 14th was quite some achievement for the ex-Hamburg coach. A midfielder in Germany's amateur leagues, Gisdol had worked as assistant to Ralf Rangnick and Huub Stevens at Schalke before getting the Hoffenheim job, his first senior role.
Augsburg: Heiko Herrlich
A Champions League winner with Dortmund and Germany international forward, Herrlich coached in both organisations' youth set-ups before a brief spell as Bochum boss in the Bundesliga in 2009/10. He had to wait until summer 2017 when Leverkusen came calling to get back into the top flight. Just 18 months into that role, he was gone, and was out of football until Augsburg appointed him in March 2020 as successor to Martin Schmidt with the brief to keep the club up. He did. Just.
Werder Bremen: Florian Kohfeldt
In the Bundesliga without interruption since 1981, Bremen only held on by the skin of their teeth last season. Only a final day win over Cologne and defeat for Fortuna Düsseldorf gave Bremen the chance of a play-off, and they then made extremely hard work of seeing off Heidenheim on away goals. That gave Kohfeldt, who stepped up from the club's reserve side to take the first team in October 2017, a fourth season in charge, and he is yet to turn 40. A former Bremen youth academy player, Kohfeldt was once coached by Viktor Skripnik, the man who would have the fledgling tactician as his assistant between 2014 and 2016. Having finished 12th and then a promising eighth in his first two seasons in charge, Kohfeldt will hope 2020/21 is a smoother ride.
Arminia Bielefeld: Uwe Neuhaus
Neuhaus, a former defender who played over 100 Bundesliga games for Wattenscheid, began his coaching career in the club where he hung up his boots in 1995. He worked as assistant to various head coaches at Dortmund, including Udo Lattek and Matthias Sammer, before making his name in the dug-out in a seven-year spell at Union Berlin from 2007. He took them into Bundesliga 2 before joining Dynamo Dresden in 2015 and then Bielefeld in December 2018. He guided the club to seventh in his first season and to the Bundesliga 2 crown in his second - setting a second-tier record of seven successive away wins en route - to bring Bielefeld back into the big time after an 11-year absence.
VfB Stuttgart: Pellegrino Matarazzo
Born in New Jersey, Matarazzo has lived in Germany since joining amateur side Eintracht Bad Kreuznach in 2000. The former defender never reached the Bundesliga as a player, and started his road to the top flight as an assistant coach at Nürnberg, his last club as a player, in 2010. He then worked with the Bavarian outfit's U17 and U19 sides before taking the U17 job at Hoffenheim in 2017, which eventually led to him becoming Nagelsmann's assistant in Sinsheim. In the Stuttgart job since January 2020 - his first senior head coach role - he squeezed the club back into the Bundesliga after a one-season absence.
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