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Fredi Bobic leaves Eintracht Frankfurt after five years
Photo:
Uwe Anspach / dpa
When Fredi Bobic decided to start his job as a manager at Eintracht Frankfurt in 2016, the Hessians were just about to crash.
The team was in a relegation battle and was only able to maintain the class through relegation.
Before that, Bobic had also been sports director at VfB Stuttgart, where he took up his position alongside Jochen Schneider, the tailor who was most recently the most criticized football official in Germany at FC Schalke.
So you can definitely say that Fredi Bobic is someone for the difficult cases.
In this respect, Hertha BSC would be an absolutely logical choice as the next employer.
The »kicker« attested the 49-year-old had an »affinity for challenges«, and after five successful years at Eintracht, Bobic is now looking for one again.
In the afternoon he confirmed his departure from Frankfurt in the summer to ARD.
His contract with Eintracht, which runs until 2023, would have to be terminated.
Philip Holzer, the chairman of the supervisory board of Eintracht, said: "The talks are not yet over and will not continue until the next board meeting in mid-March." His new club may have to buy him out of the contract.
Hertha member since 2005
Where Bobic is headed is not yet official.
But there is much to suggest that he is moving to a city that he knows very well: Berlin.
At Hertha BSC he has long been the preferred candidate for the vacant position of Managing Director Sport.
She is free after Michael Preetz said goodbye in January.
Former national player Arne Friedrich is currently acting as a sports director in Berlin.
But it was always an open secret that the new Hertha CEO Carsten Schmidt was looking for a bigger solution for the position as managing director.
Bobic was quickly the man of choice.
And Hertha can score with an important factor: the location.
Bobic's family lives in Berlin, and whenever possible, the father commuted between the capital and Frankfurt.
It wasn't always easy for the family.
Bobic has even been a member of Hertha BSC since 2005.
Bobic also played for the club once: in 2003 he came to Berlin as a striker with great expectations, after two seasons and only eight goals, the liaison ended disappointingly.
But that didn't spoil the connection.
To this day, Bobic maintains excellent relationships with Hertha's management team.
Hertha lacks exactly what Bobic can do
These are the external framework data, but Hertha would also be tailor-made for Bobic in terms of the requirement profile.
In recent years, the Berliners have emphatically proven that they lack exactly what Bobic can do: put together a squad in such a way that it creates a certain degree of homogeneity, and build a team that fits together.
In Frankfurt he showed a lot of creativity, built a top Bundesliga team with limited financial means, worked with loan models to attract players who otherwise could hardly have afforded Eintracht.
The famous buffalo herd on the offensive with Sébastien Haller, Ante Rebic and Luka Jovic are the best example of this.
He lured Kevin-Prince Boateng to Frankfurt, he also had a lucky hand twice with Niko Kovac and Adi Hütter when selecting the coach.
Fredi Bobic made very few mistakes and very much right in Frankfurt.
The upper limit reached in Frankfurt
Eintracht won the DFB Cup, it was in the Europa League semi-finals, and a relegation candidate has now become a team that is playing for the Champions League places.
But it has probably also reached the upper limit of what is possible in Frankfurt.
If you stick to the motto that you should leave when it is most beautiful, then now is a good time for Fredi Bobic.
Bobic's departure is painful for Eintracht.
But it is part of the new Frankfurt sustainability that the club apparently already has a successor in mind: Christoph Spycher.
Which is not surprising: Spycher played as a professional in Frankfurt for five years, as the sports director of Young Boys Bern he is currently doing an excellent job, the coach, with whom Spycher has worked well and successfully in Bern for years, was called Adi Hutter.
In Berlin, Bobic would find a similar patient in purely sporting terms as in Frankfurt in 2016.
Despite all claims, Hertha is wading deep in the relegation swamp, even with her it is still completely unclear in which league the club will play next season.
Relegation, as with Eintracht five years ago, is an absolutely realistic option.
However, he would not have to play the clever shortage manager that Bobic was able to give in Frankfurt again at Hertha.
Thanks to investor Lars Windhorst, Hertha can spend money, it just has to do it intelligently.
That has been a major problem recently.
Bobic's ability to anticipate a functional fit of a footballer in a squad, his instinct for a player's ability to develop, even if he may have failed at another club, paired with financial options that he did not yet know in Frankfurt - that is the promise that the club and managers could give each other.
It doesn't take excessive imagination to imagine that these could go well together.
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