The JS Kabylie was quick to find a new coach to replace Abdelhak Benchikha who threw in the towel, after an incident with a supporter during an Algerian Cup match in Guelma on January 3.
Faced with a fait accompli, Algeria’s most successful club found itself with its back against the wall to replace Benchikha and this time opted for a foreign coach.
In a few days, the club owned by the public mobile operator Mobilis set its sights on the German Josef Zinnbauer, a coach with an impressive CV for the Algerian championship.
The arrival of this technician was noted this Monday with a courtesy visit that he made, with the club’s leaders, to the CEO of Mobilis Chawki Boukhazani who “insisted on the stability of the club” and to work seriously to obtain results worthy of the history and place of the JSK” which is one of the pillars of Algerian football, according to a press release from Mobilis.
JSK: a German coach to relaunch in Ligue 1
With the appointment of Josef Zinnbauer, JSK intends to relaunch itself in the Ligue 1 championship, after its elimination in the Algerian Cup against USMH (0-1) on January 10 at the Hocine Ait Ahmed stadium in Tizi-Ouzou .
After 15 days of the championship, JSK provisionally occupies first place with 24 points, and one game in hand. She is under threat from several clubs like MCA, USMA, Paradou AC and even CRB who have late matches.
A former Hamburg SV coach at JSK
Under Benchikha, the Canaries of Djurdjura won seven times, lost four matches. The other 3 matches ended with parity scores.
-Benchikha’s replacement has a well-rounded CV. Former midfielder, Josef Zinnbauer, 54, played for many German clubs such as Karlsruher SC or Mainz 05, before becoming a coach.
He first worked in Germany and coached important clubs such as the legendary Hamburg SV (2014-2015), and abroad in Switzerland (FC Saint-Gall), Orlanda Pirates (South Africa), Raja Casablanca with whom he won the Moroccan championship and Lokomotiv Moscow (Russia).
The particularity of this coach is that he changed clubs several times. He has coached a total of ten teams since the start of his coaching career during the 1996-1997 season, which is not a good sign when the boss of Mobilis wants stability at the head of the club. most titled of Algeria.
Josef Zinnbauer will have a difficult task in a club in reconstruction where pressure from supporters has just won out Abdelhak Benchikha.
The ex-coach of the Canaries justified his departure by an incident with a Kabyle supporter which occurred during the Algerian Cup match between ES Guelma and JSK (0-2). After the match, he announced his departure to the press.
“A supporter spat on me, I can’t accept that,” Benchikha then said in an interview with Echorouk News.
An argument which did not convince the management of the JSK which castigated the attitude of the coach in a press release published on January 5. “(…) attributing this resignation to a supposed isolated event involving a supporter shows neither seriousness, nor depth, nor professionalism,” declared the management of the JSK in response to Benchikha’s resignation.
