As we enter the latter stages of the 2. Bundesliga season, former southwest German powerhouse FC Kaiserslautern have opted to roll the dice by hiring a new head coach. Promotion for the four-time German champions arithmetically remains within reach as the Pfälzer Red Devils sit seventh place in the table, three points off the promotion-relegation playoff place. But the question remains, will this bold move work?
In a special piece, Get German Football News‘ Peter Weis takes a look at the most recent coaching change from FCK Managing Director Thomas Hengen. Four sections below cover background of the move itself, Markus Anfang’s termination, Torsten Lieberknecht’s appointment, and the general opinion of a long-suffering FCK fan.
Background
FC Kaiserslautern managing director Thomas Hengen has once again opted for a surprise chance on the bench. For fans of the Palatinate club, this constitutes the third seemingly drastic head-coaching change in just under three years. Shortly before then 3. Liga Lautern were set to contest the 2021/22 promotion-relegation playoffs, Hengen removed head coach Marco Antwerpen and installed Dirk Schuster for the two-legged-tie against Dynamo Dresden.
Schuster succeeded in getting the Pfälzer Red Devils back to the 2. Bundesliga, yet was himself unexpectedly let go after a 17-month-tenure in November 2023. At the time, four consecutive league losses in the month of November led Hengen to the conclusion that “stagnation counts as a step backwards“. Now the same fate – presumably due to the same logic – has befallen Markus Anfang.
The man who took a relegation-threatened team to the upper reaches of the table has been let go after incurring three consecutive league defeats. With four matchdays remaining, former Eintracht Braunschweig, MSV Duisburg, and SV Darmstadt 98 head coach Torsten Lieberknecht will be tasked with helping Lautern qualify for the promotion-relegation playoffs this year.
For the fourth time in the last 18 months, Lautern are turning to a former player to help guide the team. Results were mixed last season. Schuster’s replacement, Dimitrios Grammozis, only lasted six matches and won just one league game. Grammozis was let go despite helping the team achieve two Pokal victories after only being in office just over two months between December 2023 and February 2024.
The famous four-time Bundesliga champions then turned to Friedhelm Funkel to help them avoid relegation. Funkel managed to uphold his late-career “Feuerwehrmann (“emergency rescue” coach) reputation, helping Lautern escape the drop just as he did with FC Köln in the Bundesliga during the 2020/21 campaign. Funkel also successfully guided the team to the DFB Pokal final.
Funkel (66 matches between 1980 and 1983), Anfang (17 matches between 2002 and 2004), and Grammozis (92 matches between 2002 and 2005) all put in their time at the Betzenberg. Lieberknecht, on the other hand, is an actual Palatinate native who played at nearby Haßloch and Neustadt before coming up through the FCK academy. Lieberknecht (13 matches between 1992 and 1994) didn’t last long, but is still headed back to his roots after a long time away.
The story of Anfang’s season
The beginnings of the campaign
Anfang himself wasn’t the most popular figure in German footballing circles, not least because of his involvement in a stinging scandal whilst in charge of 2. Bundesliga side Werder Bremen during the 2021/22 campaign. Anfang forged his vaccination certificate during the fourth wave of the COVID pandemic in order to attend carnival festivities in his native Köln. He was forced to resign in disgrace and was later banned from coaching for a year.
After rehabilitating himself during a semi-successful stint with Dynamo Dresden, many Lautern fans were prepared to forget Anfang’s checkered past. A sluggish start to the season through the first eight matchdays, culminating in a 0-1 away loss to SV Elversberg, led to chants from the Kurve demanding his ouster. From that point forward, however, Anfang found success with some tactical tweaking.
The end of the 2024 and the beginning of 2025
Abandoning an ineffective back-four and reinstating a flexible 3-4-3, attackers Ragnar Ache, Daniel Hanslik, and Daisuke Yokota all thrived in the new system. Versatile captain Marlon Ritter successfully filled in flexibly as Lautern went undefeated through their next eight league fixtures. New summer signing Luca Sirch also came into his own during the streak.
Unfortunately, 2025 ended on a down note with embarrassing losses against Anfang’s former clubs Darmstadt and Köln. The loss of defensive stalwart Boris Tomiak during the January transfer window then left a gaping hole in central defence. Sirch moved back into defense to plug the gap while another player who made great strides under Anfang, Leon Robinson, took over in midfield.
This initially worked. Lautern won their first three league fixtures of the calendar year. Winter loan signing Maximilian Bauer also got off to a great start before falling off after his first five starts. The FCK front office nevertheless surely found themselves dissatisfied with the fact that Anfang didn’t find a way to incorporate the other two winter loan singings into the team.
Bauer’s Augsburg teammate Tim Breithaupt hasn’t looked strong in various different midfield deployments. Borussia Mönchengladbach attacker Grant Leon Ranos and fellow new January acqusition Faride Alidou have barely featured at all. Bauer’s form dip has exacerbated defensive problems on the left-hand side. Anfang has appeared somewhat desperate in his tactics over the past month as he scrambles to get something workable together.
The last seven matches
While sticking with his back-three, Anfang has tried virtually everything and anything above the last axis over the last seven league fixtures. By far the greatest problem area remains the wingback slots. Ritter, Robinson, Jean Zimmer, Florian Kleinhansl, Jan Gyamerah, Erik Wekesser, and even Kenny Prince Redondo have all had their turn at trying to stabilise the position in recent weeks.
Sometimes this worked. Zimmer and Kleinhansl performed well in a matchday 24 win over Jahn Regensburg and again in a matchday 30 victory over Eintracht Braunschweig. At other times – like in the drab matchday 25 draw against Elversberg, the wild loss against Paderborn in the subsequent week, and in a weird 3-1-3-1 in the matchday 28 away loss at Magdeburg, neither player could establish rhythm on either side of the ball.
Anfang opted for Gymerah and Redondo as his starting wingbacks against FC Nürnberg on matchday 27 and it proved to be a disaster. The hosting German Red Devils couldn’t overcome a very poor first hour despite a strong push at the end. The home loss against Nürnberg led Anfang to try Wekesser in an advanced role on the left opposite Gymerah against Eintracht Braunschweig next weekend. This achieved nothing in what would be Anfang’s final match.
Lieberknecht’s potential
Like Anfang, Lieberknecht enjoyed his own recent redemption arc. Something of a pun in German footballing circles, Lieberknecht attained some respect when he helped Darmstadt achieve promotion to the top flight ahead of the 2023/24 season. The fact that the Hessen’ Lillien went straight back down again didn’t fall on the head coach.
The general consensus is that Lieberknecht did a decent job with a squad that lost its leading goal-scorer, Philipp Tietz, and best defender, Patric Pfeiffer, to Augsburg before the season began. Lieberknecht coped with a slew of injuries to his attacking corps and brought the best out of current Bundesliga professionals Tim Skarke and Mathias Honsak during the challenging campaign.
Whether Lieberknecht can do what for midfielder Breithaupt what he did for the likes of Marvin Mehlem, Julian Justvan, and Tobias Kempe in such a short time span remains doubtful. Moreover, the fullback/wingback situation constitutes way too big a problem to be solved immediately. The FCK squad planners haven’t left either their previous or current head coach with the best hand.
Alas, there is always the old German adage “Neue Besen kehren gut” (which translates to “a new broom sweeps well”). Sometimes, particularly in football, the more presence of new personalities provides fresh impetus in the locker room. Players enjoy the chance to prove themselves anew and – with a bit of luck of course – that extra notch of energy makes the difference.
Opinion: What does a Lautern fan think?
Perhaps it should first be emphasised that whether or not the Pfälzer Red Devils achieve promotion this season is not entirely the most relevant question. Those who regularly head to Fritz Walter Stadion to take in the atmosphere consider ourselves winners lately. Promotion after 13 years out of the top flight obviously constitutes a dream come true, but the last three years have counted as something of a dream in its own right.
“Matchday Fever” more or less fully returned to the city once the team got promoted back into the second division ahead of the 2022/23 season. The streets were promptly full again. Fritz Walter began generating sell outs. Within a year, their second division attendance levels surpassed those of our last year (2011/12) in the top flight. Everyone wants to see the Teufel, even at great personal expense.
The club songs – old and new – blare out of the town windows on matchdays. The WestKurve rocks it in a way reminiscent of the glory days. The ecstasy of last season’s trip to Berlin for the DFB Pokal final unquestionably hasn’t dissipated. Dark years repressed optimism in this relatively small town that worships football. Nothing seems truly capable of pushing it back down again. The party continues in the “schöne alte Stadt”/”K-town”
Hengen and sporting director Marcel Klos enjoy some leeway in that – after all – their coaching moves have worked out. Schuster got the team back where it needed to be. Funkel – literally mobbed by FCK supporters at the ground on the day he was appointed and before he actually did anything – engineered a fantastic “relegation escape party”; the best we’ve enjoyed since Milan Sasic’s FCK famously avoided relegation from the second division on the last day of the 2007/08 season.
Lautern lovers desperately crave success. That being said, anyone associated with this club can quickly become a victim of their own success. It didn’t take long for Betze fans to call for full administrative house cleanings in 1995/96, 2005/06, and the many dark years thereafter. One can make the case that Anfang was a victim of his success. Hengen may be caught in this “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t” web at some point too.
Hengen’s stewardship has produced no consistency in the coaching position. Of the four permanent coaches he’s appointed, only Schuster has served more than a year. Kosta Runjaic (2013-2015) is the last one who was given time to implement something consistent and memorable.
Is there concern that the club is departing from its philosophy? Duh. Not exactly. As such a question implies that there is something of a “club philosophy” in the first place. Not these days. Everyone wants to just enjoy the party while it lasts. We know full well what it feels like when it comes to an end.
In the opinion of this author, the latest coaching change probably won’t produce the desired sporting result. If Hengen and the squad planners can’t build a team around Lieberknecht’s notions this offseason, then the new coach probably won’t last through next season.
After Hengen cycled through three trainers last year and during the 2021/22 campaign, another one of those years may test our patience. Furthermore, taking the fans out of it, how long can the club financiers and investors put up with this?
A move like this carries with it a sizable long-term-risk for Hengen & Co.
For now, the Betze faithful are just along for the ride.
GGFN | Peter Weis
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