Grim look, arms folded behind his back - and left and right the beaming Jonas Boldt and Claus Costa, who are happy to have guided the preferred candidate to Hamburg: This is how Hamburger SV presents its new head coach Steffen Baumgart. The former coach of 1. FC Köln succeeds Tim Walter and interim coach Merlin Polzin; for HSV he is supposed to make the dream of promotion to the Bundesliga come true.
The first photo of the new coach in the Volksparkstadion caused amusement online. The grumpy Baumgart, flanked by the tall HSV officials - the motif quickly became a hit on social media. SPIEGEL asked its readers for the funniest captions and came up with a wide variety of interpretations.
Criminals of unknown nature
A popular assumption: Boldt and Costa handcuffed Baumgart for the picture. “Intensive offenders arrested,” wrote Nadine Müller on Facebook – that should fit the intense football that Baumgart likes his teams to play. “First class: The shop detectives in the HSV fan shop,” the reader @christophhilde2 captioned the photo on X, formerly Twitter. This joking assumption is also not entirely devoid of truth: new coach Baumgart, born in Rostock, actually grew up as an HSV fan.
User @HindasWeber also follows Baumgart's "arrest" theory - and refers to the fan protests in the stadiums: "That's better! He was the one with the remote-controlled car. And @jhuuge immediately recognized Boldt and Costa as the new investigator duo for the Hamburg crime scene.
But not everyone saw the new coach as a potential criminal. Rather, Facebook user David Szymanski suspected the comeback of a Hamburg hip-hop band from the early 2000s: "The beginners are back!" Their best-known member, Jan Delay, is a fan of northern rivals SV Werder Bremen.
However, Facebook reader Marcel Muschter doesn't think a general mix-up is unlikely anyway: "Wait a minute, that's not the Millerntor here," he ventures, making a cross-reference to city rivals from St. Pauli, who are currently leading the table in the 2nd Bundesliga , seven points ahead of HSV in third place.
Patrick Stolberg also took a subtle swipe on Facebook, saying Baumgart was "greatly looking forward to the two-month collaboration" - and thus a short term in office. However, the Hamburg team has recently gotten rid of the reputation of wearing out coaches at an above-average rate: Baumgart's predecessor Walter held his position for almost three years despite missing promotions.
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