VfL Osnabrück will face FC Schalke 04 on Friday – and will go into the match with a new head coach.
When FC Schalke 04 host VfL Osnabrück next Friday for the second division crisis summit, the visitors will be relying on a coaching effect. They introduced a new head coach at the start of the week: Uwe Koschinat is set to save the bottom club from relegation to the 3rd division.
Koschinat succeeds Tobias Schweinsteiger, who had to leave two weeks ago. Interim assistant coaches Tim Danneberg and Martin Heck were on the sidelines for the subsequent home match against 1. FC Magdeburg. They were unable to halt the downward trend (0:2).
Koschinat will now take over this task. The 52-year-old most recently worked at Arminia Bielefeld and was without a club after relegation last summer.
“The challenge we face is brutally difficult. There are no two opinions. But that is precisely our incentive. Hardly anyone out there believes we can do anything at the moment,” he was quoted as saying when he took office in Osnabrück.
What Koschinat means: The newly-promoted side have only won once this season, picking up just one point in their last five games. Osnabrück are six points behind the relegation places and nine behind the first non-relegation spot at the bottom of the table.
They could move closer to the relegation places on Friday against Schalke. Before the start of the winter break, they will also face league leaders St. Pauli and Hertha BSC. “Three absolute thrillers,” says Koschinat. “They feel like cup games and that’s how we’ll approach them. We’ll then have time during the winter break to really get to know each other, work on the necessary basics and practise new routines.”
After Fortuna Köln, SV Sandhausen, 1. FC Saarbrücken and Bielefeld, VfL is the fifth head coach position for the former professional Koschinat. “The talks with Uwe were really good,” reports sporting director Amir Shapourzadeh. He and the other club managers are convinced “that Uwe, with his experience and energy, is the right coach for the current situation.”