Markus Baur has come to appreciate the regulated employment relationship outside of professional sport in recent years.

Baur, handball world champion from 2007, worked until Monday last week as head of sports and nutrition at a healthcare company near Stuttgart.

“I even had to apply for leave.

Just like any normal employee," Baur tells the FAZ with a smile, "I never had to do anything like that as a coach and player."

But now, as head coach of the Bundesliga club Frisch Auf Göppingen, he is suddenly back in the middle of the fast-paced professional business. Almost five years have passed since he had to leave league rival TVB Stuttgart in February 2018.

The 51-year-old himself can't really believe it yet.

At the beginning of the week he was still sitting in his office thinking about how best to contribute to the company's success, only to explain the changeable course of the game three days later at the press conference after the game against HSV Hamburg.

Reunion with World Cup heroes

It all happened a little too fast.

And according to the game plan, in his first game he also met Torsten Jansen and Johannes Bitter, with whom he once won the World Cup.

The nerve-wracking game ended 26:26 after his players were seven goals behind at the break.

"That was a game that showed why I love this sport so much," says Baur.

In the past few years he had gained some distance to handball, which he helped shape for almost 30 years as a playmaker and coach in the Bundesliga.

He only occasionally returned as an expert on ZDF to comment on the games of the German national team.

Otherwise he dedicated himself exclusively to his new profession.

Until the call came from Frisch Auf Göppingen.

Managing director Gerd Hofele asked Baur if he could imagine becoming the new head coach of the traditional Swabian club.

Frisch Auf was looking for a coach after the club parted ways with coach Hartmut Mayerhoffer.

Göppingen had slipped to third from bottom in the Bundesliga – and is in acute danger of relegation.

"I didn't expect a call at all," admits Baur.

But of course he felt like it - and from one day to the next he said goodbye to his new life in order to dive back into his old one.

Back to the roots

As a native Swabian who grew up on Lake Constance, you don't say no to Frisch Auf Göppingen.

The name is too sonorous, the history too moving.

"Even as a little boy I was fascinated by the club and trained here in the youth gym for the Olympics." Later he kept coming back as an opponent.

He was tempted to become the historian of the nine-time German indoor champion.

The return to handball should not be an episode, but a long-term commitment.

His working papers are dated to summer 2024.

"Markus should stabilize the club this season and bring it back into the top five as quickly as possible," says Hofele.

It has to be the international places, because the audience in Göppingen has been spoiled since the victories in the EHF Cup in 2016 and 2017 and, like this season, is expecting the European League.

As a coach, Baur never came close to the great successes he achieved as a player.

At least not in the Bundesliga.

In Switzerland, Baur won two championships and won the cup with Schaffhausen, who will meet again this Tuesday in the European League (8.45 p.m., DAZN).

In any case, his start was successful, with his level-headed manner he immediately won the audience over to his side.

But he can't do magic, says Baur.

Even if the first game suggests that.