An old acquaintance of Roland Virkus, here on October 23, 2021, is returning to Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Copyright: imago images/Fotostand
A month with some personnel changes at Borussia is coming to an end – now there is apparently another comeback!
Almost two weeks ago, the management team at Borussia Mönchengladbach was shaken up: Rolf Königs (82) suddenly retired as Gladbach president after around 20 years, and Hans Meyer (81) also announced his retirement.
Gladbach return! Borussia is bringing back old friends
Since March 19, 2024, Rainer Bonhof (72), as the new Borussia President, has been the first contact for Roland Virkus (57), the person responsible at the sporting level.
The new management team around Bonhof and Virkus is now rebuilding another position – and bringing an old friend back to the Lower Rhine.
Sea „BildSven Demandt (59) is returning to Borussia Mönchengladbach next week after eight years. The former professional worked as the Fohlen’s U23 coach until 2015, and is now set to take on a new role with the regional league team.
Accordingly, Borussia decided to install a squad planner for the U23s – and thus provide young boss Mirko Sandmöller (40) with an experienced man. It was not yet known that Borussia wanted to reposition itself at this level in the future – which is why the restructuring comes as quite a surprise.
Sandmöller was Demandt’s assistant coach from 2013 to 2015, so the duo know each other very well – at that time Roland Virkus was still in charge of Borussia’s youth team.
After his first departure from Gladbach in 2005, Sven Demandt (l.), here on August 11, 2017 with Max Eberl, trained with Rot-Weiss Essen, among others.
Copyright: imago/Werner Otto
Born in Cologne, Demandt worked in Mönchengladbach for a total of seven years. Before his five years as U23 coach, he looked after the U19s for two seasons.
Like Philipp Sander (26), Borussia’s first summer signing for the Bundesliga team, he comes from Holstein Kiel. The 59-year-old worked as a scout until the end. However, an official confirmation of the deal by the clubs is still pending.
The Borussia second representation is currently in a relegation battle in the Regionalliga West after a change last summer. After the previous season, numerous top performers such as Steffen Meuer (24, Erzgebirge Aue), Per Lockl (23, Waldhof Mannheim), Enrique Lofolomo (23, Hallescher FC) and Semir Telalovic (24, Blackburn Rovers) left the club.
Borussia decided to bring up numerous players from the U19s – and in Julian Korb (32, came back to Gladbach from Kiel) only signed one player who had any experience in senior football. Now NLZ boss Sandmöller is getting support from an old acquaintance in planning the squad for the new season.
Demandt played for Fortuna Düsseldorf, Bayer Leverkusen and Viktoria Köln, among others, during his active career. Until 2020, the Rhinelander was the record goalscorer in the 2nd Bundesliga (121 goals) – then Simon Terodde (36, now 177 goals in the lower house) stole the record from him.