Young coach Ante Covic will be the new coach of the Bundesliga team Hertha BSC. As the club announced on Sunday, the current U23 coach will inherit Pal Dardai, who will retire at the end of the season. “For me as a native of Berlin who played for Hertha BSC and has been a coach for this club for years, a childhood dream has come true,” said Covic. The club did not provide any information on the duration of the contract.
Hertha manager Michael Preetz was particularly concerned with the stable smell of the former Croatian national youth player. “We had said from the beginning that we wanted a trainer who would protect the Hertha DNA. Ante Covic understands this DNA more than any other candidate. He just knows our young players, has formed them, promoted them, built them up and prepared them for the professional business,” Preetz said.
The former Bundesliga professional Mirko Dickhaut, who had last worked in the same role for the second league team SpVgg Greuther Fürth, will become co-trainer. Goalkeeper coach Zsolt Petry and athletics coaches Henrik Kuchno and Hendrik Vieth will remain in the team. Covic will be officially introduced on 1 July at the start of training for the new season.
Covic had been active as a player at Hertha from 1996 to 2000. As coach of the U23, which he had taken over in 2013, the 43-year-old coached players such as Maximilian Mittelstädt, Jordan Torunarigha and Arne Maier, whom he will only meet again in the professional team.
Hertha BSC is separating from Covic’s predecessor Dardai after four and a half years after the second half of the current season had been extremely mixed. After a time-out, Dardai is to be reintegrated into the Berlin youth scene.
