Sander Happy to be Axed

Well who would have thought that Petrik Sander would have made it longer than Jose Mourinho? Sander was supposed to be fired after round 5 when his team was demolished by Stuttgart.

Given the dire undertones of that game, one might have expected that he would light a fire under his woeful team. He didn’t. They capitulated easily to the Swabians. He somehow, beyond the comprehension of anybody, made it an extra week. Perhaps the board thought the champions were too grand a task. They must have failed to notice any of Stuttgart’s other six matches this year.

At home against a Wolfsburg side, who is very hit or miss, whose defense has lacked resolved on many occasion this campaign, perhaps, the board felt that Sander and Cottbus could find the goal they so sorely lacked. But having scored only one goal all season, they stuttered to just a third at home. Wolfsburg won 2-1 and Sander was finally relieved of duties.

It would be hard to imagine that he is not relieved. It was the board’s lack of spending which saw his Romanian duo leave in the offseason, with little in the way of fortification, that harmed the team’s chemistry and offense so much. So U23 coach Heiko Weber takes over on a temporary basis after assistant Thomas Hoßmang felt too emotional (read “ain’t touching that mess”) to take over.

Jose Mourinho has said that his next job could be Germany. Could Energie be his destination?