After the dismissal of Thomas Reis, Bundesliga club VfL Bochum has found a new coach. Thomas Letsch comes from Arnhem.
The 54-year-old comes to the Ruhr area from the Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem and has a contract until 2024. This was confirmed by VfL on Thursday (09/22/2022). In Arnhem he has been a coach since 2020. Before that, he had already gained experience abroad in Austria.
He started out as a coach with the Stuttgarter Kickers before moving to the youth team in Salzburg via the Ulm and Großaspach stations. He became active again in Germany in 2017, but was released again after only three games with the second division team Aue. Criticism of him had recently become louder at his current club Arnhem. Now he should lead Bochum, who scored their first point of the current season against Cologne, to stay up in the league.
Bochum and Letsch full of optimism
“Of course I’m looking forward to getting to know the new team quickly and to tackling the upcoming tasks together with the team,” said Letsch. “Our big goal is that the VfL Bochum also play in the Bundesliga next season. We’re going to work very hard for that.”
Letsch, for whom a transfer fee was due, replaces interim coach Heiko Butscher, who scored VfL’s first point of the season against 1. FC Köln (1-1) last weekend. Patrick Fabian, Bochum’s Sport Managing Director, described Letsch as the “ideal solution” and added: “We are confident that he, as a very communicative coach, will be able to give the team new impetus and so together with the entire team, the staff and the support of the fans to achieve the turnaround.”
