Baden-Württemberg: Göppingen reacts to the crisis: Baur as a coach

After the fall in the direction of the relegation zone, the faith in Hartmut Mayerhoffer was exhausted at Frisch Auf Göppingen.

Baden-Württemberg: Göppingen reacts to the crisis: Baur as a coach

After the fall in the direction of the relegation zone, the faith in Hartmut Mayerhoffer was exhausted at Frisch Auf Göppingen. The Bundesliga handball club has hired former world champion Markus Baur as its new coach.

Göppingen (dpa / lsw) - The clear home win in the European League against Tatran Presov no longer saved Hartmut Mayerhoffer from being eliminated from Frisch Auf Göppingen. The handball Bundesliga team parted ways with the coach on Wednesday with immediate effect and thus reacted to the fall in the table. There, Göppingen is 16th, just one point ahead of the relegation zone.

Mayerhoffer's successor is Markus Baur, who became world champion as a player in 2007 and last coached the Swabian competitor TVB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga until 2018. The 51-year-old will take care of the team in the Bundesliga home game against HSV Hamburg on Thursday.

"Despite the very professional way of working, the expected results did not occur," said Frisch-Auf managing director Gerd Hofele on the separation from Mayerhoffer. The team initially reacted to the sporting crisis with internal measures, after the coach and team had earned a leap of faith with the good performances of the past two seasons. Due to the results in the Bundesliga, in which Göppingen recently only managed one win in eight games, the club sees itself "now forced to make a change," explained Hofele.

Mayerhoffer came to Göppingen in 2018 and led the traditional club to fifth place last season and thus to the European League. There, the Swabians are in second place in Group A after three wins from four games. The 34:24 victory on Tuesday against the still pointless team from Slovakia's Presov was apparently no longer a yardstick for those responsible to assess Mayerhoffer's work.

Successor Baur last worked in the Bundesliga as coach of Swabian rivals TVB Stuttgart. Most recently, the 228-time national player worked in the private sector. "I'm dying to do it and I have the ambition to take the club and the team to another region of the table," said Baur.