Aberdeen Appoint Mario Frick as Head Coach After Stephen Robinson Sacking
Aberdeen have a new head coach. Mario Frick has been announced as the Scottish club's manager, taking over from Stephen Robinson, who has been sacked. The news was reported by BBC Sport on Sunday 15 November.
A head coach, often called a manager, picks the team, plans the training and decides how the side should play. When a club sacks its coach, the job of rebuilding the squad's form and confidence falls to the next person through the door. For Frick, that means arriving at Pittodrie, Aberdeen's home ground, with a team that needs to find its rhythm.
Frick is 52. His most recent job was at Luzern, the Swiss club, where he spent five years in charge. He left them in the summer. Five years is a long time in a job that often ends within months, and it gives him a track record that few new managers can point to.
He is also a former player with a strong international record. Frick was capped 125 times by Liechtenstein, the tiny principality between Austria and Switzerland. He played as a striker, the forward whose job is to score goals. A cap is an appearance for your country, so 125 is a big number for any player, let alone one from a nation of fewer than 40,000 people.
Coaches arriving mid-season face a familiar set of questions. Can they win over the dressing room quickly? Can they turn a run of poor results around? Supporters will be watching the first few games closely, looking for signs of a new approach, whether in how the team sets up or in the way the players look when the ball is moving.
For Aberdeen's fans, the appointment is a fresh start after a change in the dugout. For Frick, it is a chance to show what a five-year spell at Luzern has taught him, in a league where every point counts. The next few matches will show how quickly the new man can make his mark.
