André Breitenreiter has a new job. The 50-year-old, who has coached FC Schalke among others, is moving up to the English second division.

Former Bundesliga coach André Breitenreiter is the new coach of English second division soccer club Huddersfield Town. As the 20th-placed team announced on Thursday, the 50-year-old will take over the team from February 19.

Breitenreiter, who coached TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga until February 2023, signed a two-and-a-half-year contract. While Breitenreiter’s visa issues are to be resolved later this week, interim coach Jon Worthington will take charge of the team in the upcoming home game against Hull City.

Breitenreiter is the third German coach at Huddersfield after David Wagner and Jan Siewert and was also recently mentioned as a possible successor to Tim Walter at Hamburger SV.

Breitenreiter was responsible for both SC Paderborn (2013/14) and Hannover 96 (2016/17) being promoted to the Bundesliga and secured the Swiss championship with FC Zurich in 2021. He worked at Schalke from 2015 to 2016. He did not fulfill his contract, which was actually valid until 2017, because he was released early, even though he had reached fifth place in the Bundesliga table and the intermediate round of the Europa League with the Royal Blues.

Breitenreiter’s time at Schalke ends on a sour note

Regarding his time at Schalke, he said at the time: “The second half of the season definitely took a lot out of me. I consider myself a stable person and I can take a lot, but I took the personal vitriol directed at me very much to heart and let it get to me. We had a really good season, so I didn’t understand it and found it extremely unfair. I suddenly found myself dealing with other things and thus lost my focus on the essentials. Schalke was a big learning process for me.”