Hamburger SV has parted ways with coach Tim Walter after a good two and a half years. The third-place team in the second Bundesliga announced this on Monday after the decision had been made internally the night before. The six-time German champions have already failed five times in their attempt to finally get promoted back to the Bundesliga. After the sporting misdevelopment of the past few months, the HSV management sees the danger of missing their big goal this season too. This was 48-year-old Walter’s downfall.
“After the disappointing home defeat against Hannover 96, we carried out a situation analysis and came to the decision that we had to make a change in order not to jeopardize our goals for the season,” said HSV board member Jonas Boldt. “Our fluctuations in performance in recent games have been too great and we lack full conviction that we will achieve the necessary balance and stability in our game in this constellation over the next few weeks.”
Before Christmas, Walter was already on the brink and particularly criticized on the supervisory board. Then he received another clear order from sports director Jonas Boldt and sports director Claus Costa to stabilize his team. However, eight goals conceded in the first two home games of the new year against Karlsruher SC (3:4) and Hannover 96 (3:4) showed that the coach couldn’t manage it.
Lots of problems at HSV
Walter moved to HSV in the summer of 2021. In the past 40 years, there have only been three coaches with a longer tenure in the ejection seat in Hamburg: Ernst Happel (1981 to 1987), Benno Möhlmann (1992 to 1995) and Frank Pagelsdorf (1997 to 2001). Walter’s work and his self-confident demeanor in Hamburg were viewed ambivalently from day one. On the one hand, he failed in relegation twice with HSV: in 2022 against Hertha BSC, in 2023 against VfB Stuttgart.
The lack of stability in his team, the risky style of play, the susceptibility to mistakes in defense: the former FC Bayern Munich youth coach was unable to get all of these problems under control in his third season. On the other hand, Walter and sports director Jonas Boldt created a sense of togetherness and continuity at HSV that this chronically restless club had not experienced for years.
“Tim and his boys lived our HSV, fully identified with the task and the club and played a key role in shaping the path we took,” said Boldt. A majority of the players supported Walter’s offensive game idea until the end. Even after the second relegation loss this summer, it only took a few minutes for Boldt to publicly confirm the coach.
This trust has now been used up. Although the squad was strengthened again in the sixth year of the second division and is nominally significantly better than that of all promotion competitors, HSV lost all sovereignty. After a successful start to the season, there were defeats against small clubs (1:2 in Osnabrück), against well-known opponents (3:4 against Hannover) and in the DFB Cup (round of 16 exit at Hertha BSC).
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“I would have liked to continue to contribute to achieving our season goal together,” said Walter himself. “I would like to thank HSV, the office and the extraordinary fans for more than two and a half years of great cooperation.” In addition to Walter, his assistants were Julian Hübner and Filip Tapalovic released with immediate effect. It is not yet clear who will be the successor on the Elbe. Merlin Polzin will initially look after the team on an interim basis and prepare them for the away game on Saturday (1 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the 2nd Bundesliga and on Sky) at Hansa Rostock; he may also stay longer. But Tim Walter is now history at HSV.
