Borussia Mönchengladbach Appoints Alexander Blessin to Overcome Crisis
Borussia Mönchengladbach have turned to Alexander Blessin as the man to drag them out of a full-blown crisis.
The club confirmed on Tuesday that the 53-year-old has signed a contract through 2028 and will be unveiled on Wednesday alongside sporting director Rouven Schröder. Four months after going down with FC St. Pauli, Blessin is back in the Bundesliga — and straight into a firestorm.
From 5-0 humiliation to a new man in charge
Blessin replaces Eugen Polanski, who was dismissed after the brutal 5-0 defeat at Freiburg on Matchday 3. That result left Gladbach exposed and rattled, and it ended Polanski’s spell just over a year after he stepped up.
Jan-Moritz Lichte was thrown in as interim coach and, for a moment, he at least gave the chaos some structure. Saturday’s 3-4 home loss to Mainz still yielded nothing on the table, but it did show there is something to work with. Plenty, in fact, for the new coach to dissect during the break.
The numbers are stark. Gladbach sit bottom of the Bundesliga heading into the international pause, with a goal difference of 6:16. Only Union Berlin have conceded more. Those 16 goals against equal the Bundesliga record for most conceded after four matchdays.
Blessin’s first competitive act in charge will carry extra weight. His debut comes in the Rhine derby away to 1. FC Cologne on October 11. No gentle introduction. No time for easing in.
Blessin’s St. Pauli rollercoaster
The appointment comes on the back of two wildly contrasting seasons with St. Pauli.
Taking over from Fabian Hürzeler after promotion in 2024, the Stuttgart-born coach initially built one of the toughest defensive units in Germany. In his first Bundesliga season at the Millerntor, St. Pauli conceded just 41 goals — the second-best defensive record in the league behind Bayern Munich — and secured survival. His work did not go unnoticed. In April 2025, Get German Football News reported that Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg were monitoring him as he steered Pauli away from danger.
The following campaign even started with a hint of something bigger. By September 2025, a GGFN tactical analysis highlighted an unbeaten St. Pauli side near the top of the table with seven points from their first three games. The mood was optimistic. The structure looked solid. The project seemed to be building.
Then it all fell apart.
A nine-match losing streak dragged the club straight into another relegation battle. Blessin stayed in the job despite mounting pressure and, for a short stretch in late February and early March, appeared to have found another escape route. Wins over Werder Bremen and Hoffenheim and a draw with Eintracht Frankfurt brought seven points from three games and a flicker of belief.
When GGFN published its extensive “Relegation Check” on March 14, the situation was still dangerous, not hopeless. A 2-0 defeat at Gladbach had hurt, but there were reasons to trust the coach. Blessin had repeatedly squeezed results from a limited squad. Performances like the 2-1 win over Stuttgart showed a team still willing to run, fight, and suffer.
Then came the collapse that sealed their fate.
St. Pauli blew a lead and lost 2-1 to Freiburg in their next league outing. Blessin later apologized after insulting referee Florian Badstübner in an emotional post-match interview. A 1-1 draw away at Union Berlin followed, before Bayern ripped through the Kiezkicker 5-0 at the Millerntor. Another 1-1, this time against Cologne, offered only the briefest pause in the slide.
The critical blow landed against bottom side Heidenheim. A 2-0 defeat in one of their clearest chances to escape the drop zone left St. Pauli on the brink. By then, as GGFN noted, Blessin’s side had taken just two points from five games since the relegation analysis. The spiral continued.
St. Pauli then lost 2-1 to Mainz and 2-1 at RB Leipzig, which meant their survival hopes came down to a final-day showdown with Wolfsburg at the Millerntor. They lost 3-1 and finished bottom of the Bundesliga. From the publication of the March relegation check to the end of the season, St. Pauli picked up only two points from eight matches and never won again.
The club chose to start over without him after relegation.
Gladbach gamble on structure and scars
Gladbach, though, are not just hiring a coach defined by one disastrous run-in.
Blessin arrives with a broader résumé. He spent eight formative years working in RB Leipzig’s academy, sharpening his ideas and methods, before stepping into senior management with KV Oostende. He then coached Genoa and Union Saint-Gilloise, lifting the Belgian Cup and winning Belgium’s Coach of the Year award twice during his time there.
That track record matters in Mönchengladbach. The club desperately need the kind of defensive organization he showed in his first St. Pauli season. Right now, they are leaking goals at a historic rate.
The dugout itself has been a revolving door. Since Marco Rose left for Borussia Dortmund in 2021, Gladbach have burned through coaches at alarming speed. Adi Hütter and Daniel Farke each lasted a single season. Gerardo Seoane held the reins from June 2023 until September 2025. Polanski’s stint ended just over a year after it began.
Blessin becomes the fifth permanent head coach in that span. Stability has been talked about often at Borussia-Park. It has not been delivered.
Now he gets the international break to install his ideas, tighten the back line, and coax some belief from a side still chasing its first point of the season. Then comes Cologne, the noise, the rivalry, the emotion.
For Blessin and Gladbach alike, it is not just a new chapter. It is a test of whether scars from past collapses can be turned into the steel this team so clearly lacks.
