Frankfurt / Vienna. Behind Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig, Eintracht Frankfurt and VfL Wolfsburg are the best teams in Germany this season. Their Austrian coaches played a key role in the rise and success of the two clubs, which slumbered in midfield in the Bundesliga for a long time.
Today (3:30 p.m., live Sky) Adi Hütters Frankfurters will face VfL coached by Oliver Glasner in the top game of the 28th round. If the season does not take an unexpected turn in the final spurt, the Champions League anthem could be heard for both coaches in autumn. With eleven and seven points ahead of fifth-placed Dortmund (today in Stuttgart), Frankfurt and Wolfsburg have a secured Champions League place with seven laps to go.
While Austrian trainers were still a rarity in Germany less than a decade ago, they have now become a model of success again after the absolute marriage of Max Merkel and Ernst Happel in the previous century. Nine years passed after Kurt Jara's engagements (HSV, Kaiserslautern until 2005) before Peter Stöger became an Austrian coach again in the German Bundesliga. After moving to the second division side of Cologne as Austria's champions, the Viennese rose to the top division with “Effzeh” in his first season, established the club there and even led Cologne into the Europa League. After half a year with Dortmund and a one-year career break, Stöger returned to the distribution group in the summer of 2019.
The sought-after Austrians
Almost in step with Stöger, Ralph Hasenhüttl also earned his spurs in Germany. After successful years in Ingolstadt, the Styrian docked at RP Leipzig in 2016, followed by the call of the island in 2018. Hasenhüttl, 53, became the first and to date only Austrian coach in the English Premier League at FC Southampton.
Red-White-Red remained very popular in the Bundesliga after Stöger and Hasenhüttl. Hütter, the newly crowned Swiss champion with Young Boys Bern, took over from Eintracht in summer 2018 as the difficult successor to Niko Kovač, who was migrating to Bayern. Another year later, the next ÖFB export landed in Germany with Glasner in Wolfsburg.
Since the 2018/2019 season when Hütter came to Frankfurt, no fewer than 38 coach changes have been made in the Bundesliga. Hütter and Glasner sit tight in their trainer chairs, even though they were not undisputed in the meantime, but have overcome every low. Both are currently reaching unprecedented heights, and because half of the Bundesliga could go looking for a coach in the summer, there is hardly a club where both Hütter and Glasner are not traded as possible candidates. Hütter last commented on rumors at the end of February (“I stay”), but so far the Vorarlberg-based club has not coached a club for more than three years. And Glasner? His contract in Wolfsburg is still running for a year and, like that of Hütter, should contain a release clause.
