"From bad to worse to furchtbar for Hanover
Surprise, surprise: when Abel Xavier signed for Hanover 96, they started tumbling down the league
Georgina Turner
Monday March 8, 2004
The Guardian
In Bremen the street parties are being prepared. Werder are still a comfortable seven points clear, and with Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld concentrating every last lightly frazzled nerve cell on beating Real Madrid in the Champions League, look more likely than ever to take their first Bundesliga title since 1993.
Travel about 50 miles south, however, and the mood is a little more sombre. Having worked their way up from the second division in 2001-02, Hanover 96 seemed to have consolidated their position with a middling finish in the top flight last season.
Coach Ralf "Ralle" Rangnick, a short bespectacled man who always looked better suited to the kind of job that comes with a laptop, car and an account with Novotel, became something of a hero in the city of the Pied Piper.
They've added to their squad in the form of Clint Mathis, and after defence errors crept rapidly into their season, Brazil's Kleber and, ahem, Abel Xavier. But Hanover have hit the glass ceiling with a resounding thud, accompanied by the tinkling of several bloodied teeth dropping to the floor for good measure. They slipped to 15th with a 1-0 defeat at [choose from lowly, struggling, humble, modest etc.] Borussia Moenchengladbach on Saturday, the latest on a long, long list of disappointing results which has left them dangling precariously above the R-word.
Hanover fans haven't tasted a win in the Bundesliga since Hamburg travelled south at the beginning of January and after a late capitulation against Berlin last week, Rangnick was hauled into the office and told in no uncertain terms that it would be in his best interests to change the tide and collect three points at the weekend.
Sadly Moenchengladbach, themselves relegation-bound and trying to make headway towards mid-table comfort, had other ideas. It took only 24 minutes for them to breach the Hanover defence, when midfielder Igor Demo headed only his second of the season from a free-kick. Despite Hanover's toil, Rangnick's fate was sealed. Our hi-tech translation of the club's official site tells us the reason for his departure was a "negative sporty trend." Indeed.
Ralf Rangnick becomes the seventh Bundesliga manager to collect his P45 this season and whoever steps into his breach has a task the size of a Pavarotti family reunion on his hands - two of their next three games pitch them against opposition from the top half of the table. And results will need to be good if the club are to ease fans' pain at losing Ralle Rangnick, who left the Reds with a tearful open letter to the fans.
"My time at Hanover was rarely easy, but nevertheless successful. I will not forget my time here. The city became a second home to me," he wrote.
"Since I cannot help the players any longer, it now depends on you - give them your full support. My time at Hanover has been completely special."
Not so special, we imagine, as those forthcoming street parties in Bremen, who made it 14 matches unbeaten on Sunday by brushing aside 1860 Munich with goals from Ivan Klasnic and Angelos Haristeas. Bayern may have kept themselves in the running with a 3-1 away victory over Bayer Leverkusen, but that won't stop the northerners stringing up the bunting already."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
I'm not sure where to post english articles. Dear mods, don't hesitate to move this to a better area of the forum.
As I looked in my dictionary I only found the "pied piper of Hamelin". Not really good informed the guardian guys.