Reports: Breitenreiter, Zeidler, and Maaßen candidates for Bochum's bench
Despite the fact that they were able to avoid relegation in sensational fashion on Monday, a summer of turmoil has only just begun for 2024/25 Bundesliga contenders VfL Bochum. On Tuesday, co-manager Patrick Fabian resigned his front-office position. Fabian's one-time close colleague Marc Lettau will now be tasked with building a Bundesliga level roster ahead of next season.
It appears as if two of the squad's most important attacking contributors are already on the way out. There's also the matter of installing a new head-coach to take over for interim trainer Heiko Butscher. Lettau will surely have great difficulty attracting a candidate to a task laced with so much uncertainty. Experienced German gaffer Peter Stöger famously turned the club down this spring.
Germany's main sporting tabloid reports that some trainers with less-than-stellar Bundesliga resumés might be recruited to the project. André Breitenretier, most recently sacked by Hoffenheim after an unsuccessful stint at Hoffenheim in February of 2023, is available after failing to rescue EFL Championship side Huddersfield Town to the English third tier.
Former Hoffenheim assistant coach Peter Zeidler has actually never coached a top tier side despite serving as Ralf Rangnick's co-trainer in Sinsheim. The current FC St. Gallen trainer has served as the gaffer for six Swiss, French, and Austrian sides since leaving die Kraichgauer in 2011. Both candidates, according to Germany's main sporting tabloid, have held loose talks with the Revierklub.
A third potential candidate was touted on Thursday by North Rhine Westphalia's Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. The NRW paper reports that former BVB II and FC Augsburg trainer Enrico Maaßen might be in the mix. Maaßen did have one relatively successful season with the FCA, even though the Fuggerstädter were lucky to avoid relegation on 34 points at the end of the 2022/23 campaign.
Maaßen was sacked in October after a total of 44 games in charge of Augsburg over a period of 15 months. The 40-year-old only won 11 of his FCA fixtures. His average of 0.95 points-per-game was the weakest among all the club's top flight head-coaches.