Evergreen Rehhagel takes helm at Hertha
Reuters - Saturday 18 February 2012, 15:54
Bundesliga veteran coach
Otto Rehhagel, who won the 2004 European Championships with
Greece, will take over at troubled Hertha Berlin until the end
of the season, manager Michael Preetz said on Saturday.
Preetz said the 73-year-old Rehhagel, who won German and
European titles as coach of Werder Bremen and Kaiserslautern in
the 1980s and 1990s before leading lowly Greece to the European
title, was the right man to take the club out of their crisis.
"We are currently in a difficult situation and reached the
conclusion that we need an experienced coach like Rehhagel to
reach our goal of [staying up] at the end of the season," Preetz
told reporters.
"He has agreed to help us until the end of the season."
Rehhagel, who will be the season's oldest Bundesliga coach
once he takes over, would arrive in Berlin on Sunday, Preetz
said.
Hertha, who are trying to avoid the drop again after winning
promotion last year, sacked Michael Skibbe last week after just
five games in charge. Hertha lost all five games. He had
replaced Markus Babbel in December.
The youthful Rehhagel, who also had a spell at Bayern Munich
in 1995, last coached in the Bundesliga in 2000 before leaving
Kaiserslautern to take over Greece from 2001 until 2010 and
stunning the football world with their surprise Euro 2004
victory that earned him the nickname 'King Otto'.
He won two German league titles with Bremen as well as the
now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup while also becoming the only coach
to lead a newly-promoted team straight to the Bundesliga title
when he did it with Kaiserslautern in 1998.
A former Hertha player himself, he also played in the
inaugural Bundesliga season in 1963.