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FC Augsburg has confirmed the separation from coach Heiko Herrlich.
As the Bundesliga team announced on Monday afternoon, the former successful coach Markus Weinzierl will take over and sign a contract until June 30, 2022.
Manager Stefan Reuter had already avoided a commitment to Herrlich after the alarming 2: 3 on Friday against 1. FC Köln.
You have to "let the experience sink in and process it", he said, "then we think about the right steps for the last three games".
After four consecutive games without a win, Augsburg are only four points ahead of relegation place 16. Against the three relegation candidates Schalke, Bielefeld and Cologne, Augsburg only managed one point, too little in the current situation.
Herrlich was unable to playfully develop the team as required.
Augsburg has the fewest possession of the ball in the entire league.
Weinzierl's dispute with Reuter has been resolved
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Weinzierl was a successful coach at FCA from 2012 to 2016.
When they split up in 2016, there were disagreements between Reuter and Weinzierl, but they have long been resolved.
Weinzierl was most recently at VfB Stuttgart, where he was dismissed in April 2019.
Herrlich became the Augsburg trainer as the successor to Martin Schmidt in March 2020.
Last season he kept the team in the Bundesliga.
The Augsburgers are now threatened with their first relegation after a decade in the Bundesliga.
The last three opponents from Augsburg are VfB Stuttgart, Werder Bremen and on the last matchday Bayern Munich.
Weinzierl and the people of Fuggerstadt have a special relationship.
As the successor to Jos Luhukay, Straubinger took over the club for the 2012/13 season.
Despite a catastrophic first half of the season with only nine points, the top management around Reuter, who was freshly brought in at the time, stuck to him - it paid off.
After 24 points in a furious reverse series, the Augsburgers held the class.
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The former amateur FC Bayern player then led the club to the international stage in a sensational way in 2014/15.
The FCA toured the Europa League under the self-deprecating motto “No one knows us in Europe”. Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool FC only proved to be too strong in the second round.
Weinzierl had long been a coach shooting star and wanted to go higher.
Only after weeks of contract poker and the payment of the then record sum of allegedly three million euros, FC Augsburg let his coach move to FC Schalke 04 in the summer of 2016.
At the time, Reuter described the departure as “disappointing and unhappy”.
There was no subsequent farewell or flowers for Weinzierl.
The little frustration quickly subsided.
Weinzierl failed at Schalke after one season and later battered his once excellent reputation with a failed six-month rescue mission at VfB Stuttgart.
The return to Augsburg should also give his career a boost.
Herrlich could hardly give impulses
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For Herrlich, however, a somewhat bizarre chapter ends.
As the successor to Martin Schmidt in March 2020, the former international striker had to wait for his debut due to the corona pandemic - and then a little longer.
So he chatted openly about a shopping trip for toothpaste and skin cream during the quarantine week and thus negotiated a forced break.
With a video cellar scolding, Herrlich caused trouble again a few weeks later. Although he kept FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga, the club's playful development was far too seldom seen this season. After four games without a win, including a “terrifying” performance against 1. FC Köln in the first half last Friday evening, as Reuter put it, the bosses withdrew for advice.
According to reports, Reuter as well as President Klaus Hofmann and the commercial director Michael Ströll came to the conclusion that Herrlich would not have managed to reverse the trend. Weinzierl's big plus before the final weeks of shivering is the familiarity with the quiet environment and the small cushion: the FCA still has a four-point lead over Cologne in relegation position 16. However, this starting position is far from reassuring.