The ESPN FC crew delve into Peter Stoger's appointment at Borussia Dortmund.
When it comes to replacing managers, clubs' choices can often be summed up with by the old romantic maxim of "opposites attract." Borussia Dortmund choosing Peter Stoger to succeed Petr Bosz this week was a classic case in point.
After the Dutchman's disastrous high-concept, high-risk, high-defensive line tactics had led to a collapse in form, Stoger's ultra-pragmatic, safety-first and non-ideological approach suddenly proved hugely appealing.
The Austrian even self-deprecatingly admitted to not having "a fixed idea" about his preferred playing style in the wake of Dortmund's 2-0 win at Mainz on Tuesday night, stressing that as a coach he was not in the business of inventing strategies but reliant on the skill sets of the players at his disposal.
"I've tried to organise our playing style in way that got the players playing where they are most comfortable," he smiled.
"Most comfortable" translated into a deeper, less aggressive set-up in a 4-3-3 formation that sometimes flattened into a 4-1-4-1 without the ball. The team quite literally moved closer together, and thus increased the protection afforded to the notoriously shaky defence.
Dortmund's compactness also helped them keep possession, with Julian Weigl reinstalled as the metronomic pacesetter, helping his side control the flow and tempo of the game. The Germany international looked like one of the biggest winners of the managerial change.
In Bosz's system of the "white shoes," where full-backs were supposed to be wide and high at all times, picking up chalk from the touchlines, Weigl was marginalised in the build-up. His high positioning without the ball saw him frequently get bypassed by the opposition, too. In recent weeks, Bosz had moderated his tactics to a degree but by then confusion reigned. No one seemed more lost than Weigl.
Stoger, by contrast, trusted Dortmund's players to get things right without too many detailed instructions.
"I played with a bit more freedom today," Weigl revealed in Mainz, adding that he didn't want to look back in anger at Bosz's unhappy reign.
Peter Stoger's Dortmund era got off to a winning start with a 2-0 win over Mainz.
Stoger, too, resisted the opportunity to stick the knife in, and instead opted to dedicate the team's first league win since late September to his predecessor.
"Many of the positive things we saw today are down to my colleague Peter Bosz," Stoger said generously. "He's left something very good behind. No one has a bad word to say about him. A part of this win belongs to him."
Bosz's decency under pressure -- he never fell out with anyone at the board or any of the players -- might ensure that the full extent of his footballing problems at the Signal Iduna Park will never be revealed.
Unlike the complex situation at FC Bayern, where Jupp Heynckes' task has been to reunite a fractured dressing room and to reintroduce some tactical discipline, Stoger's challenge looks slightly more straightforward. All he needs to do is bring back a bit of confidence and structure on to the pitch. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's well-documented party tendencies notwithstanding, Dortmund's squad is relatively easy to handle.
As much as the choice of the recently fired Cologne coach might have surprised outsiders, it's nevertheless a logical one. The Dortmund bosses, CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and sporting director Michael Zorc, had already had contact with Stoger back in May, when Thomas Tuchel's departure became inevitable. They were impressed with his genial, unassuming personality and Dortmund had seen enough of Stoger that they liked over the last four years to look beyond Cologne's awful slump this season.
Bringing him in as a stop-gap to steady the ship until the end of the season was a no-brainer. Other Heynckes-type figures -- such as Ottmar Hitzfeld, Matthias Summer -- that could help out in the short-term was simply not available.
Watzke's unwillingness to detail Stoger's long-term prospects in an interview with Sport-Bild on Wednesday ("Peter knows our thinking," Watzke said, evading the question) suggests that the replacement's replacement is already lined up for next season.
Hoffenheim coach Julian Nagelsmann, who watched Tuesday's game in the stands, remains the No. 1 contender and indications are getting stronger that the 30-year-old will take the opportunity to make the step up rather than hold out for a firm offer from a Bayern board that's still prevaricating on him.
This, too, will be a case of opposites attract, from Dortmund's point of view. After Stoger's hands-off, conservative approach, there'll be an appetite for more innovative and aggressive fare come next season. Nagelsmann could be the man.
Raphael Honigstein is ESPN FC's German football expert. Follow: @honigstein
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Source: espn.co.uk