Dhis personality is still admired nationwide. With the decision to let the highly motivated Mark van Bommel follow Oliver Glaser, who is willing to leave, VfL Wolfsburg has secured headlines in a row within a very short time. To have hired an experienced professional with a big name as the new head coach, that sounds wonderful at first.
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Because the Wolfsburg location always has to be a little better and louder than others in order to be noticed by the broader football public in Germany. “If things get a bit more colorful and flashy than before, it can’t hurt,” says Jörg Schmadtke, managing director of VfL Wolfsburg Fußball GmbH.
At first glance, however, the upheaval in Wolfsburg seems rather illogical in view of the great success. To have stormed into the Champions League with Glasner is one of the greatest successes in the club history of Lower Saxony. But the Austrian who switched to Eintracht Frankfurt no longer wanted to reap the laurels of his own work and no longer wanted to continue the conflict-laden collaboration with Schmadtke.
Aggressive defensive player and clearer
A horrified outcry could therefore not be heard in Wolfsburg in the past few days. The anticipation of the new rules again. “In professional football, you can’t always choose the time for a change,” explains Schmadtke. He remains calm in view of the fact that experiments on the way to the Champions League are viewed particularly critically. “You should make your decisions,” says the thought leader in Wolfsburg, “not on results, but on the fundamentals.”
The new head coach in Wolfsburg has a reputation that is primarily determined by his vita as a player. Van Bommel is known to have made an international name for himself as an aggressive defensive player and clearer during his time at PSV Eindhoven and FC Bayern Munich. He is considered extremely ambitious to snappy. This is a quality that, especially among the “wolves” in Wolfsburg, fits in well with what the completely renewed club philosophy says.
Under the direction of Schmadtke, VfL does not want to take place with force and thanks to expensive transfers, but rather take a different route. Together with sports director Marcel Schäfer and the new coaching team around van Bommel, it should be possible to make players willing to develop even better. That sounds like an exemplary approach, but it is also due to shrinking budgets. In any case, Schmadtke and Schäfer trust Van Bommel, who was last unlucky, to shine as a promoter and sponsor in Wolfsburg.
Not only the Dutchman’s obligation makes one sit up and take notice – also the composition of the entire sporting management. In the post-Glasner era, the new coaching team consists of van Bommel and former professionals Michael Frontzeck and Kevin Hofland as well as Alex Abresch and Vincent Heilmann, who come from PSV Eindhoven. What sounds thrown together is based on the assumption that van Bommel relies on several opinions and a varied mix. “I’m excited about my new environment, the people and the task that awaits me,” said van Bommel in the course of his commitment. The 44-year-old has signed a two-year contract with VfL Wolfsburg.
As a player, van Bommel, the vice-world champion in 2010, was undisputedly a very big number. When he returns to the Bundesliga as a coach, he wants to prove that he can now do a good job as a strategist and developer. Many fans and critics of VfL Wolfsburg were amazed that a veteran like Frontzeck, who has already worked as head coach at several Bundesliga stations, will be at his side as an assistant.
Because van Bommel and Frontzeck had so far no similarities or points of contact. In the case of Frontzeck, it is more likely that he is a long-time friend of Schmadtke who has a lot of experience in the Bundesliga. “I don’t care what people think about it,” says Schmadtke. “If we’re successful, it was a brilliant idea. If not, it was my fault. “
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