Ailing Stuttgart sack Babbel, appoint Gross

STUTTGART - Struggling VfB Stuttgart appointed Swiss coach Christian Gross to succeed Markus Babbel who was dismissed a day after fan protests before and after a 1-1 draw with VfL Bochum.

Gross immediately led the team Sunday on a first training session, while Babbel hit out at fans who had initially blocked the team bus before Saturday’s game and tried to storm the clubhouse afterwards.

“I am pleased to be here and want to get the team winning again,” Gross said.

“I know the players well. My task until Christmas will be to try to get the best out of them and make the fans happy. I am convinced we can get out of this bad situation.”

Babbel said farewell to the team and departed along with assistants Rainer Widmayer and Alexander Zorniger.

“The point has come when the fate of individuals is not important. What counts is VfB Stuttgart,” Babbel told reporters.

General manager Horst Heldt said Saturday’s draw, which left Stuttgart third last in the table, and the events around the game had prompted the decision to part company with Babbel.

“We again had to see that the team was unable to call on its potential,” he said.

Gross, 55, who has Bundesliga playing experience with Bochum at the start of the 1980s, spent some 10 years in charge of Basel, winning four Swiss championships before dismissal in May.

He also won the Swiss league twice with Grasshoppers Zurich but had a less favourable nine-month spell in charge of Tottenham Hotspur in 1997.

His first task will a Champions League match Wednesday when Stuttgart can reach the knockout stages with a victory against Romania’s Unirea Urziceni.

Babbel, 37, who was appointed coach just over a year ago, had last week been given until the winter break - now another two matches - to reverse the team’s slide.

But his position was weakened after Saturday’s draw when Bochum, down to 10 men, equalized in the 89th minute.

Around 100 angry fans had blocked the team bus entering the stadium ahead of the game. After the match some 3,000 protested outside the stadium, and police used batons and tear gas when several hundred tried to storm the club house. Two police officers were injured and three people arrested.

Babbel hit out at the fans, saying they were partly to blame for the outcome of the game, with their behaviour before the match affecting the players’ confidence.

“What happened on Saturday is something I have never experienced in my career,” he said.

The fans and “the whole football scene” had “learned nothing” from the death of goalkeeper Robert Enke, who committed suicide last month, Babbel said.

“Even so-called football millionaires do not deserve to be confronted with gestures of murder and hate,” he added.

Babbel took over November 23 after Armin Veh was dismissed and led Stuttgart to third in the Bundesliga last season.

It was a first coaching appointment for the former Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers and Stuttgart player who is still studying for his German football federation coaching badge.

But after last season’s surge up the table under Babbel the team has failed to live up to expectations this term, winning only twice in 15 Bundesliga matches. They are now without a victory in their last eight league games.