The release of Pellegrino Matarazzo has also brought Sven Mislintat into focus at VfB Stuttgart. The contract, which is already expiring, gives rise to further thoughts about the future of the sports director. Supposedly Horst Heldt could be a potential successor.
If a sports director or sports director has to fire the coach, that person is automatically the focus. After all, that person is also the quasi-boss who decided on this persona and – in view of a dismissal – obviously went wrong.
But one cannot speak of such a mistake in Stuttgart with Pellegrino Matarazzo’s exit. The coach did not fail, such a conclusion would be far too superficial and would not properly appreciate his work. After all, he stood on the sidelines for almost three years, led the club back into the Bundesliga and gave the team a game identity.
And yet he had to go because VfB didn’t want to risk being relegated again. Sven Mislintat had to show his close confidante the door.
That also puts him back in focus. Since his contract expires at the end of the season anyway, the club’s management will give more thought than before to whether and in what form they would like to tackle a future together with him.
There are very critical voices around the club. For example, the freelance journalist Oliver Trust, who was presented at Sport1 in the “Rudi Brückner Talk” as a “VfB expert”, who apparently has an ear to the board room.
He personally emphasized the opinion that “the biggest mistake is that Mislintat stays in office”. He accused him of having “made an import-export association” out of the club. By that he meant the increased reliance on purchases and sales instead of focusing on one’s own talent development. Stuttgart has done this on a large scale “for decades” – but not under him anymore.
That’s why he blamed the sporting director for Matarazzo’s departure: “It was a difficult story for the coach in many respects. It wasn’t a team. There were a lot of players who were bought together, a bloated squad.”
“In the background, there is already talk of a successor, where the name Horst Heldt falls, with whom Alexander Wehrle has good connections from his days in Cologne,” he also reported, apart from his own opinion.
Since the Mislintat contract has still not been extended, this break in the dismissal of the coach seems to be a more general reflection on this starting position. In principle, the 49-year-old would like to stay, but he also claims certain skills for himself. With Heldt, CEO Wehrle could use an old confidante at the end of the season.
However, it is unclear how concrete these thoughts are. The extension of the contract does not seem to have been ruled out for a long time, but rather postponed. It is doubtful whether Horst Heldt would be the right person for VfB…
This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as Wackelt Mislintat at VfB? Heldt published as a potential successor.
