Borussia Mönchengladbach Faces Coaching Crisis After Bundesliga Start
Borussia Mönchengladbach are staring at a crisis after just three Bundesliga matchdays – and the search for a new head coach has turned into a high-stakes operation.
According to Bild, sporting director Rouven Schröder has been handed a budget of around four million euros to solve the problem on the touchline. In other words: Gladbach are ready to pay compensation if the right coach is under contract elsewhere. Time and patience are in shorter supply than cash.
Priske on top of the list
One name keeps circling above all others: Brian Priske of Sparta Prague. The Danish newspaper Tipsbladet reports that the 49-year-old is high on Gladbach’s shortlist. His exact contract length in Prague is not publicly known, but that hardly seems to bother the Foals. With money earmarked for a buyout, Sparta’s negotiating position would not necessarily scare them off.
Priske would not be the only candidate. Bild also links Alexander Blessin, most recently at St. Pauli, Horst Steffen from SV Werder Bremen, Christian Eichner of Karlsruher SC and Steffen Baumgart, currently at Union Berlin, with the vacancy. It is a broad field, ranging from tactical tinkerers to emotional firebrands.
Schröder is not working alone on this. His predecessor Roland Virkus is deeply involved in the process as well. Since July, Virkus has been operating in the Scouting & Recruitment directorate with a specific focus on “coach scouting”. Now that background work becomes crucial as the club tries to steady a listing ship.
Baumgart, in particular, would bring a clear edge to the dugout. His style is intense, loud, unmistakable. And his past makes the idea even spicier.
Baumgart and the Köln factor
Before his recent stints in Berlin and at HSV, Baumgart coached none other than Gladbach’s arch-rivals 1. FC Köln. With the Billy Goats, he wrote one of the more surprising recent Bundesliga stories: in his first season, he drove Köln to a sensational seventh-place finish and into the UEFA Europa Conference League.
It didn’t last forever. After a sporting downturn, the club and the now 54-year-old parted ways in December 2023, ending a run of 98 matches together. The separation did little to dent his reputation as a coach who can energise a team and drag it through rough stretches.
That is exactly the type of profile Gladbach are said to be seeking: a coach with experience, hardened by setbacks, who doesn’t flinch when the table makes for grim reading. Decision-makers also value another point in Baumgart’s favour – he has already studied Gladbach in depth. He would not arrive needing weeks of video analysis just to understand the squad. He knows what he would be walking into.
And right now, the situation is precarious.
Deep in trouble after three matchdays
After three rounds, Gladbach sit 17th in the Bundesliga. Zero points, a goal difference of 3:12. Only HSV are worse, still goalless at 0:12. The numbers are brutal, but the performance in Freiburg told the story even more clearly.
Last weekend’s 0:5 collapse at SC Freiburg proved the final straw for head coach Eugen Polanski. The display was described internally as alarming. Outplayed, out-fought, out of answers – the kind of afternoon that forces a club to act.
Polanski, 40, had initially stepped in on an interim basis last season after the dismissal of Gerardo Seoane. Even then, his position was fragile. When he was promoted to permanent head coach, the question was always how long the experiment would last. Across 29 matches in charge, he averaged just 1.10 points per game. Respectable in phases, but not enough to convince a club with Gladbach’s ambitions and current problems.
Now the clock is ticking. The shortlist is drawn up, the budget is defined, the table is unforgiving. Whoever walks into the Borussia-Park dugout next won’t just be taking a job.
They’ll be walking straight into a rescue mission.
