Borussia Mönchengladbach Appoints Alexander Blessin as Head Coach
Borussia Mönchengladbach have turned to Alexander Blessin as the man to drag them out of crisis, handing the 53-year-old a contract until 2028 and a daunting first assignment: a Rhine derby away at 1. FC Köln.
The club confirmed his appointment on Tuesday, with a formal presentation alongside sporting director Rouven Schröder set for Wednesday afternoon. Blessin returns to the Bundesliga barely four months after suffering relegation with FC St. Pauli – a brutal stain on an otherwise intriguing résumé.
From 5-0 humiliation to a reset
Gladbach needed a reset, and fast. The 5-0 hammering at Freiburg on Matchday 3 cost Eugen Polanski his job, ending his tenure just over a year after it began. Jan-Moritz Lichte stepped in on an interim basis and at least injected some life into a sagging side, even if Saturday’s 3-4 home defeat to Mainz still left them empty-handed.
The table tells its own story. Bottom of the Bundesliga. Zero points. A goal difference of 6:16. Only Union Berlin have shipped more goals, and those 16 conceded match the Bundesliga record for most goals allowed after four matchdays.
This is the defensive wreckage Blessin walks into.
He now gets the international break to start stitching things together before his official debut on October 11 in Cologne – one of the most emotionally charged fixtures of Gladbach’s season.
Blessin’s St. Pauli rollercoaster
His return to Germany’s top flight comes off the back of two wildly contrasting seasons with St. Pauli.
Taking over from Fabian Hürzeler after promotion in 2024, the Stuttgart-born coach quickly built one of the toughest defensive units in the league. St. Pauli conceded just 41 goals in that first season back – second only to Bayern Munich – and secured survival with a compact, disciplined approach that made life miserable for opponents.
That work did not go unnoticed. In April 2025, Get German Football News reported that Hoffenheim and Wolfsburg were tracking Blessin as he steered St. Pauli toward safety. Early signs in the following campaign suggested another step forward: an unbeaten start, seven points from three games, and a September 2025 tactical analysis highlighting a side sitting near the top of the table.
Then the floor gave way.
A nine-match losing streak dragged St. Pauli straight into a relegation battle. Blessin clung on under heavy pressure and appeared to have found another escape route in late February and early March, when wins over Werder Bremen and Hoffenheim plus a draw against Eintracht Frankfurt yielded seven points from three games.
By March 14, when GGFN published a detailed “Relegation Check” after a 2-0 defeat in Gladbach, the situation remained tense but not hopeless. Performances like the 2-1 win over Stuttgart hinted at enough fight and resilience in the squad to survive.
The collapse that followed settled everything.
St. Pauli blew a lead and lost 2-1 to Freiburg in their next league outing, a match overshadowed by Blessin’s apology for insulting referee Florian Badstübner in an emotional post-match interview. A 1-1 draw at Union Berlin offered a brief pause before Bayern smashed the Kiezkicker 5-0 at the Millerntor. Another 1-1 draw, this time against Köln, only delayed the inevitable.
The key chance came against bottom side Heidenheim. St. Pauli lost 2-0, squandering one of their clearest remaining opportunities to climb out of the drop zone. By then, as GGFN noted, Blessin’s team had taken just two points from five matches since the relegation check.
It never recovered.
Defeats to Mainz (2-1) and RB Leipzig (2-1) left St. Pauli needing a final-day home win over Wolfsburg to survive. They lost 3-1 at the Millerntor and finished bottom. From mid-March to the end of the season, St. Pauli collected only two points from their final eight games and did not win again.
The club chose to start over without him after relegation.
Gladbach gamble on structure and scars
Gladbach, though, are betting that Blessin is more than his last eight games in Hamburg.
Before St. Pauli, he spent eight years shaping his coaching ideas in RB Leipzig’s academy, then moved into senior roles with KV Oostende, Genoa and Union Saint-Gilloise. In Belgium he won the domestic cup and twice collected Coach of the Year honors, building a reputation for organization, intensity and detail.
That defensive steel is exactly what Gladbach are desperate to rediscover. Their coaching position has been a revolving door since Marco Rose left for Borussia Dortmund in 2021. Adi Hütter lasted a single season. Daniel Farke followed, also gone after one campaign. Gerardo Seoane arrived in June 2023 and departed in September 2025. Polanski’s stint barely cleared a year.
Blessin becomes the fifth permanent head coach in that turbulent stretch.
He inherits a team leaking goals, searching for its first point, and staring at a derby that can define mood far beyond the table. For a coach shaped by both accolades and relegation scars, there may be no better stage to show which version of Alexander Blessin Gladbach have really hired.
