Hertha Berlin fires coach Dardai, appoints Korkut

Mon, Nov 29, 2021
Soccer News (AP)

BERLIN (AP) - Hertha Berlin fired coach Pal Dardai 10 months into his second spell at the German Bundesliga club and replaced him with former Bayer Leverkusen coach Tayfun Korkut on Monday.

The Hungarian coach leaves with Hertha 14th in the 18-team table and on a four-game winless run after drawing 1-1 with Augsburg on Saturday. In particular, a 2-0 loss to cross-city rival Union Berlin on Nov. 20 smarted because Union is in the top half of the table with a much smaller budget.

It is the seventh change of coach for Hertha since June 2019, when Dardai was fired from his first spell in charge after four years. Hertha has had extensive financial backing from investor Lars Windhorst in recent years but didn't convert it into success in the league, even before the spending slowed this year.

Korkut is a former Turkey international player who coached then-Bundesliga club Hannover from 2013 through 2015 and had a stint as interim coach at Leverkusen in 2017. He hasn't had a coaching job since a largely unsuccessful nine-month stint with Stuttgart the following year.

Sporting director Fredi Bobic said Korkut was chosen to "give the team new impulses and new input" beyond simply stabilizing the results.

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