The Bundesliga club said on its website that under-23 coach Rodolfo Cardoso will take over with immediate effect. “In the last two days since the 1-0 (home) defeat to Moenchengladbach, and following many intense talks, we came to the conclusion that we had to make that decision,” Hamburg sporting director Frank Arnesen said. “From today we will work intensely with Michael Oenning's successor. Rodolfo has our full support.” Hamburg is last in the Bundesliga with one point from six league games, conceding 17 times. Saturday's loss was the fourth in a row. Hamburg has never been relegated from the German top flight, and is the only team to have played in the Bundesliga continuously since it was formed in 1963. “It's also understandable for me that the club wants to go a different way in the current situation,” said Oenning, the first coach to be fired in the Bundesliga this season. After the 45-year-old Oenning took over from Armin Veh on March 13, Hamburg won only one of his 14 games in charge—the first. Oenning never played the same formation for consecutive league games this season. “We're in a crappy situation,” Hamburg left back Marcell Jansen said Saturday. “For us players it's hard because we don't really know what we need to change.” Cardoso's first game in charge will be at sixth-place Stuttgart. Arnesen had proclaimed his support for Oenning after the latest defeat, saying: “Michael Oenning will sit beside me on the airplane to Stuttgart and again back to Hamburg. I can make that clear.”
