German job for Egli

Egli is back in business Keystone Archive

Former Lucerne manager Andy Egli has taken up a new post in charge of German second division football team Waldhof Mannheim.

The former Swiss international, who played 76 times for his country, began his latest job on Tuesday after being unveiled as the successor to sacked coach Uwe Rapolder.

Under interim trainer Walter Pradt, Mannheim have managed to improve their league position, climbing up to 13th place after taking seven points from their last three matches, but Egli insisted that his first priority (with Pradt as his assistant) would be maintaining second division status.

“Big challenge”

“I will be holding intensive talks with Pradt in the next few days,” Egli said, “although I do have a basic knowledge of the situation in this league and have been able to watch the team’s last four games. This is a big challenge for me, though, and there’ll be no thoughts of promotion this season.”

Club president Wilfried Gaul was keen to point out though that a return to the top division remained the long-term aim.

“We do want to get back in the Bundesliga at some point,” Gaul stressed, “and we are sure we can manage it with the new set-up.”

Lucerne woe

Ironically, having been dismissed by Lucerne in May, Egli now finds himself back in the driving seat while his cash-strapped former club are struggling just to stay in existence.

Needing to find at least SFr two million ($1.21 million) by the end of this week to guarantee their short-term future, Lucerne may instead be forced to resign from the top division and possibly start again under a new name in the fifth division.

swissinfo with agencies