There are two surprising coach personalities in the Handball Bundesliga: The Rhein-Neckar Löwen found a prominent new coach in the crisis. Competitor Melsungen is looking earlier than expected.
Mannheim (dpa) - After a break of more than half a decade, the former handball master maker Martin Schwalb returns as a coach and is supposed to free the Rhein-Neckar Löwen from the sporting crisis.
With the commitment of the former Champions League winner, the Löwen succeeded in a surprisingly quick and prominent solution. The comeback of one of the most successful German handball coaches pushed another sudden personnel decision into the background on Tuesday: MT Melsungen parted ways with coach Heiko Grimm - and quickly forgot his three-game ultimatum.
"So far we have not reached a constant level of performance this season, and after high phases we had to complain about inexplicable outliers downwards," said club director Axel Geerken. The club announced "personnel consequences" on Friday if things didn't get better in the next three games.
While Melsungen is looking for a successor, the emergency begins for Schwalb one day after his commitment. The 56-year-old is introduced in Mannheim on Wednesday afternoon (3:30 p.m.) and is said to be sitting on the bench in the EHF Cup against Liberbank Cuenca in the evening. "This is the right club now. I'm excited to see what we can do together," said the left-hander, who won Olympic silver in 1984 as a player, at Sky.
On request, the club did not provide any information on the contract term on Tuesday. Like the "Mannheimer Morgen", which had announced the personnel before the announcement, and Sky reported, Schwalb signed a contract until summer 2021. Schwalb had most recently worked as an expert at the pay station.
The offer of the troubled Bundesliga club did not come as a surprise, said Schwalb. "It is already the case that one or the other offer has fluttered in in recent years.
The native of Stuttgart had not been exposed to the stress of the coaching job in recent years. On July 3, 2014, the day HSV canceled his contract, the swallow, who was known as a heavy smoker at the time, had a heart attack. After bankruptcy and a fresh start in the 3rd division, he was most recently vice president of the second division club from the Hanseatic city. He is now stopping this job as well as his commitment to Sky.
At heart, he was always a Bundesliga coach, said Schwalb, on whom the lions now have hopes of a turnaround in the disappointing season so far. He did not want to comment on concrete goals with the Mannheimers. The two-time German champions are taken over by the Bundesliga top scorer from 1996 in his worst crisis since the Bundesliga rise in 2005. "It's a difficult task, but also a task that can be a lot of fun," said Schwalb. He led HSV as coach in 2011 to the championship title, two years later he triumphed in the Champions League. Two cup wins from 2006 and 2010 also adorn his vita.
The two-time German champion from Mannheim is currently far from his most successful time. In the DHB Cup, sixth, an almost unbeatable deficit to THW Kiel and SG Flensburg-Handewitt in the Bundesliga and still no Bundesliga victory this year - that's why they parted from Icelandic Kristján Andrésson last weekend.
Rhein-Neckar Löwen in the EHF Cup
Rhein-Neckar Löwen on Twitter