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German Club Fires Coach on Bus Ride Home from Another Loss

Werder Bremen fired manager Viktor Skrypnyk on the bus ride home after opening the Bundesliga season with three losses.
Silver linings department: Werder manager's bus ride could have been worse.

We could make a joke here about parking the bus. But it probably wouldn't even get a chuckle out of Viktor Skrypnyk. That's because Werder Bremen so badly wanted to get rid of their Ukrainian manager that they couldn't even wait until they were off the bus on the ride back from a 4-1 hammering at the hands of Borussia Moenchengladbach to fire him.

Gladbach was winning 3-0 within 21 minutes and could have been up double that by then.

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That made it three losses in three in this young Bundesliga season for Werder. And the proud club, one of the old juggernauts of the German league, sits in last place with zero points, two goals scored and 12 conceded—courtesy of a 6-0 beat-down by Bayern Munich in their season opener.

Perhaps even worse still, Werder had been knocked out of the DFB-Pokal cup competition in the first round against third-tier Sportfreunde Lotte, which literally means Sportsfriends from Lotte. And if you can't beat the damn Sportsfriends…

"We spoke once more about the situation on the bus ride home and came to the decision," Bremen's director of sport Frank Baumann explained to AFP.

Fun side note: in the loss to Gladbach, sometime U.S. striker Aron Johannsson was sent off with a straight red card in the 80th minute. "I shouted at [the referee]," Johannsson explained later. "I said: 'It's a fucking handball, referee.'"

Per Johannsson, he was misunderstood as "Fuck you, referee." He could be suspended for several games, not helping his case to get back into the U.S. national team, after missing most of last season with a nerve injury in his right hip.

And thus, Fuck yougate contributed to Skrypnyk's movable firing.

Skrypnyk had probably been given more time than he was reasonably entitled to. He was installed as manager in Oct. 2014, when Werder was also winless and in last place, and was able to get the team back to a 10th place finish. But last season's 13th place was a disappointment and included a stretch of eight losses in 10 games.

Still, firing a dude on the bus ride home is savage. Sort of like breaking up with your high school girlfriend on the drive up to college.

By the way, it's a 3 1/2-hour drive from Moenchengladbach back to Bremen. A long time to be stuck on a bus with a team whose bosses just fired you.