Borussia Mönchengladbach Fire Head Coach Eugen Polanski After Winless Start to Bundesliga Season

A Bundesliga rebuild requires time, but time requires a baseline of competitive results to justify the patience. For Borussia Mönchengladbach and head coach Eugen Polanski, that baseline collapsed entirely on Saturday afternoon.

Following a catastrophic 5-0 defeat to SC Freiburg that left the club anchored to the bottom of the table with zero points and 12 goals conceded in three matches, Gladbach’s management severed ties with the 40-year-old manager on Sunday. The dismissal, which also includes assistant coach Tobias Trulsen, abruptly ends a project that sporting director Rouven Schröder had heavily backed during the summer transfer window.[1][2][4]

The decision arrived less than 24 hours after the final whistle in Freiburg, underscoring the severity of the crisis at Borussia-Park. In an official statement confirming the departure, Schröder pointed directly to the gap between summer expectations and autumn reality. "Despite a good pre-season and positive signs, the team failed to achieve the desired results in the Bundesliga," Schröder said. "Recent performances led to the decision to relieve Eugen of his duties with immediate effect."[1][2][3]

The sequence of the collapse left the board with few alternatives. Gladbach opened their 2026 campaign with a 3-0 home defeat to RB Leipzig, a result that could be rationalized against a Champions League contender. But the subsequent 4-3 loss to newly promoted SV 07 Elversberg—a match where Gladbach conceded three second-half goals after leading 3-1—exposed deep structural flaws. Saturday's 5-0 rout in Freiburg merely confirmed that the defensive frailties were compounding rather than improving.[2][4][5]

For Polanski, the exit is particularly bitter given his deep roots at the club. A former Gladbach youth player who later managed the under-23 squad for over three years, he was viewed as a long-term cultural fit.

"Borussia Mönchengladbach has always been my club and always will be. That's why it hurts so much that things have ended this way," Polanski said following his dismissal. "After staying up last season, we made a number of changes going into this campaign. We had big plans, but we weren't able to make them work. I'm sorry about that."[1][2]

The timing of the firing carries a heavy sense of déjà vu for the Gladbach faithful. Exactly one year ago, in September 2025, the club dismissed Gerardo Seoane following an identical winless start after Matchday 3. Polanski, then the reserve team manager, was elevated to interim head coach and eventually secured the permanent job in November 2025 after stabilizing the squad and guiding them to a 12th-place finish.[1][2][4]

Unlike Seoane's departure, however, Polanski's exit follows a summer where the front office explicitly tailored the squad to his tactical vision. Schröder oversaw the arrival of 11 new players and a shift to a back-four defensive system, banking on a full preseason to implement the changes. The failure of that system to yield a single point—while conceding an average of four goals per game—made the manager's position untenable.[2]

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The statistical reality of Polanski's tenure ultimately forced Schröder's hand. Across 37 competitive matches in charge, Polanski recorded 11 victories, 10 draws, and 16 defeats. His return of 1.16 points per match actually fell below Seoane's 1.22 average during the Swiss manager's ill-fated run. While injuries played a role, the sheer volume of goals leaked against mid-tier opposition indicated a tactical disconnect that a week of training was unlikely to fix.[2]

In the immediate term, Gladbach will turn to Jan-Moritz Lichte to stabilize the dressing room. The 46-year-old, who previously managed Mainz 05 during the 2020-2021 season, takes over on an interim basis and is expected to be on the touchline for next Saturday's critical home fixture against his former club. Lichte's primary mandate will be to stop the defensive bleeding and secure the club's first points of the 2026 campaign.[1][2][4]

The pressure now shifts entirely onto Schröder and the Gladbach board. Having fired two managers in the space of 12 months after identical three-match winless streaks, the front office must identify a permanent successor capable of organizing a disparate squad mid-season. With the October international break looming, the club has a narrow window to make an appointment that can salvage a campaign that has already veered dangerously off course.[2][5]