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Hannover 96 - Why has it all gone wrong?
With the mighty Bayern Munich conquering the top of the Bundesliga table again last weekend, Leverkusen only managing two draws from their last two games and Schalke insisting they are still legitimate candidates with a 2-1 derby victory over Dortmund, the race for the title is now rapidly gathering momentum.
Despite the scrap among the lofty branches of the Bundesliga tree being thrillingly exciting, the scrap at the lower end of the trunk is unquestionably more intriguing. Especially as a team who nary a pundit had tipped to be struggling for their life is in fact doing that very thing - Hannover 96. They are languishing in seventeenth place with a measly 17 points from 24 games, and with Saturday's encounter at fellow strugglers Freiburg being a clichéd, but in fact literal, six-pointer, the situation has become desperate. Should Freiburg inflict more misery on die Roten by beating them, then they will be six points from safety and looking doomed. How has it come to this?
The understandable slump started after the tragic death of Robert Enke on November 10 last year. Enke, who had been at the club since 2004, was not only a magnificent goalkeeper who, time after time, put in superhuman performances to keep his team in games. He was the club captain, the pillar for his team mates off the field as well as on, an immensely respected player and person and a role model for so many. Despite having spells at bigger clubs like Mönchengladbach, Benfica, Barcelona and Fenerbahce, Hannover was where he belonged. He had become a symbol of Hannover and the AWD-Arena was said to have become his "living room". This needs to be understood before we can even begin to try and grasp the affect his sudden and shocking suicide had on the team.
The fact Hannover haven't won since Enke's death is less to do with Enke being an outstanding goalkeeper who organised his back-line impeccably than the sorrow, hurt and grief his team mates have had to deal with in the wake of the tragedy. This is proven by the fact Enke only played six of the 12 Bundesliga games before his death due to a mysterious illness he picked up four games into the season. Yet Hannover still did relatively well in his six game absence - winning two, drawing two and losing two. This being a reflection of their mid-table-team reputation since gaining promotion to the top league in 2002.
As if losing their captain and having to work through an unthinkably difficult phase was not hard enough, Director of Sport at Hannover, Jörg Schmadtke, decided the best thing for the club was to sack the Coach, Andreas Bergmann. This was possibly the worst decision he could have made at the time. With the club's players, backroom staff and fans all mourning Enke, it was left to Bergmann to stay strong, pick his players up and use all his powers and strengths to glue his troops back together and get them focused on playing football again. At a time when the club needed solidarity more than ever, Schmadtke opted for the knee-jerk reaction. All the more baffling when he seems to understand and appreciate the job Bergmann did in one of the most difficult periods in the club's history. In the press conference announcing the decision, he claimed: "Andreas Bergmann has done a good job and led the team caringly through the period following the awful Robert Enke tragedy. But the necessary victories that will bring us the points for survival have unfortunately not been forthcoming in the past weeks."
Mirko Slomka, the new Coach that Schmadtke elected to bring in, has foundered in his attempts to rebuild the player's confidence and get them playing the smart, organised football they largely did under Bergmann. In Slomka's six games at the helm thus far, 96 have failed to win a single point, conceding 16 goals and scoring four in the process. An abysmal start to his reign that has come about due to an excessive amount of change. Slomka has insisted on changing his starting line-up far too often since his arrival. Bergmann was an advocator of consistency and solidarity, having a bank of around 15 players and always, if possible, choosing the same starting XI. Injuries and suspensions have admittedly hindered Slomka's selections somewhat, but his insistence on playing players in a number of different positions and never starting with the same team has certainly contributed to his disastrous start. The suggestion the players do not know what their roles are within the team is supported by one look at Wolfsburg's winning goal against die Roten last weekend.
Zvjezdan Misimovic was able to wander into the penalty box and stab home a left-wing centre completely unopposed to clinch the victory in what was, in fact, an encouraging display from Hannover. More than encouraging displays are required if one of the more family and community orientated clubs in Germany are to rescue themselves from falling through the Bundesliga trapdoor with a devastating thud. Let us hope Jörg Schmadtke does not end up regretting his rather fatuous myopia.
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