Borussia Dortmund sacks Bosz as coach, appoints Stoeger

Borussia Dortmund sacked Peter Bosz as coach after managing just one win in 13 games across all competitions and named former Cologne coach Peter Stoeger as his replacement on Sunday.

Stoeger was sacked as Cologne coach the previous Sunday after his side failed to win any of its opening 14 Bundesliga games of the season.

The club said the 51-year-old Stoeger and his assistant coach Manfred Schmidt, who was also let go by Cologne, were signed until June 30, 2018.

"I'm delighted to be able to be coach of this team and in this stadium," said Stoeger, who joined Cologne in 2013 and led it to promotion from the second division in his first season.

Stoeger oversaw steady progress at Cologne, culminating in fifth place and Europa League qualification last season. But this season didn't go to plan.

Bosz's last game in charge of Dortmund was Saturday's 2-1 defeat at home to relegation-threatened Werder Bremen, a loss that stretched the side's winless run to eight games in the league.

"We decided yesterday evening in a talk with Peter Bosz that we're letting him go with immediate effect," Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said. "It was emotional."

Dortmund previously had a 41-game unbeaten run at home, but since Leipzig inflicted a 3-2 loss on Oct. 14, the side slumped to two defeats and a draw at the Westfalenstadion. The draw came after squandering a four-goal lead to allow bitter rival Schalke to draw 4-4.

Bosz led Dortmund to its best-ever start in the Bundesliga with six wins and a draw from seven games and a league-high goal difference of 19. It led the league by five points after beating Augsburg 2-1 away on Sept. 30 but hasn't won since.

Now the side trails Bayern Munich by 13 points, a turnaround of 18 in just eight rounds.

Bosz, who led Ajax Amsterdam to the Europa League final and second place in the Dutch league last season, was hired in June as a replacement for Thomas Tuchel, sacked the week before despite winning the German Cup after falling out with club management.

Watzke and sporting director Michael Zorc were keen on Bosz's style of attacking football, continuing a mold started by Juergen Klopp, who won two successive Bundesliga titles, before it was refined under Tuchel, who took over in 2015.

The 54-year-old Bosz, a fluent German-speaker, signed a two-year contract with Dortmund. Watzke said at the time the club assumed it would be longer.