Interim coach has had enough
VfB Stuttgart bring Labbadia back as coach
12/05/2022, 4:07 p.m
Bruno Labbadia is the new head coach of Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart. The 56-year-old returns to the club he was in charge of ten years ago. He takes on a difficult task, because the Swabians are 16th in the table. acutely threatened with relegation.
Bruno Labbadia will again be the coach of the Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart, the club announced. He will take up his duties next Monday and will be given a contract until June 30, 2025. Labbadia was coach of the relegation-threatened club from 2010 to 2013. Most recently, the former national player was the coach of Hertha BSC for nine months until the end of January 2021.
“As is well known, VfB is not just any club for me. I spent a very important phase of my coaching career in Stuttgart for almost three years and now I want to help VfB stay in the Bundesliga,” said Labbadia, according to the club’s announcement.
VfB parted ways with coach Pellegrino Matarazzo on October 10 after almost three years. This was preceded by a historically poor start to the season with nine games in a row without a win. Since then, the Italian-American’s assistant coach, Michael Wimmer, has looked after the team. In the six Bundesliga games under his direction, VfB celebrated three home wins and suffered three away defeats. With 14 points, the Stuttgart team is currently in 16th relegation place and only one point ahead of the direct relegation zone. Now Wimmer is leaving the club. “Now is the moment for me to take the next step and take on a new challenge,” said the 42-year-old.
This also answers the second central personnel question at VfB before the start of training on December 12th. That was also the goal of CEO Alexander Wehrle, who had always emphasized that a decision should be made “promptly”.
Only on Saturday did the club announce the commitment of sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth as the successor to Sven Mislintat. The Swabians parted ways with Mislintat after talks lasting several days and after around three and a half years. VfB had presented the 50-year-old with a “fair market offer to extend the contract”, which Mislintat rejected. Wohlgemuth, who last worked at SC Paderborn in the 2nd Bundesliga, and Labbadia worked together at VfL Wolfsburg. The 43-year-old was in charge of the youth division, Labbadia was under contract as a coach with the Lower Saxony.