It wasn’t until the summer that Mark van Bommel was hired in Wolfsburg. Four months later, he was surprisingly released again. The club uses an interim coach and is looking for a successor. There should be three candidates.
Dhe VfL Wolfsburg is looking for a successor to coach Mark van Bommel. On Monday, assistant trainer Michael Frontzeck led the Lower Saxony training session scheduled for 10.30 a.m. The 57-year-old former national player will look after the team “until further notice” as an interim coach, as the club announced on Monday morning.
According to media reports, Werder Bremen’s former coach Florian Kohfeldt and Dortmund’s technical director Edin Terzic are among the candidates. Domenico Tedesco, who last coached Spartak Moscow and previously FC Schalke 04, is also traded as a possible new coach.
Michael Frontzeck has previously trained as head coach at Hannover 96, and now he is taking over VfL Wolfsburg on an interim basis
Quelle: Bongarts/Getty Images
After less than four months in office, the Wolfsburg project is already over for van Bommel. The 44-year-old no longer convinced his bosses and had to leave, on Sunday evening the club announced the separation. The short term of office of the former top footballer was very changeable and got off to a curious start. A review and outlook:
The faulty change
Van Bommel’s time in Wolfsburg started badly. In the DFB Cup, the former Bayern Munich player made a serious mistake in his first competitive game for the new club: He made one substitution too many at Preußen Münster. His team was deprived of the 3: 1 and Wolfsburg was eliminated from the cup.
The strong start in the Bundesliga
The fact that van Bommel did not suffer much damage from the subsequent cup elimination was due to the fact that the start in the league went almost perfectly. Wolfsburg won their first four games, only conceded one goal and were still leaders in mid-September.
The crisis
This was followed by a 0-0 win in the Champions League in Lille and a 1-1 draw against Eintracht Frankfurt with van Bommel’s predecessor in Wolfsburg, Oliver Glasner. Then VfL did not win six more games and lost four times in a row in the Bundesliga.
Wolfsburg was not always the clearly inferior team. The Lower Saxony had bad luck against FC Sevilla in the premier class, for example. When the score was 1-0 for the wolves, the Spaniards received an unjustified penalty and used it to equalize late. In addition, top striker Wout Weghorst and midfield ace Xaver Schlager have recently lost important pillars of the team.
conviction
Van Bommel always made sure that he would be successful again with his team if he simply continued to work with them in a concentrated manner. His bosses were not convinced by this staying calm and carrying on. “The conviction to get out of the difficult sporting situation in this constellation and to bring about the U-turn as soon as possible was missing and made us decide to end the cooperation,” said Sport Managing Director Jörg Schmadtke.
What’s next?
Because Wolfsburg is no longer in the DFB Cup, the next competitive game will not take place during the week, but only on Saturday. Bayer Leverkusen is the opponent.
Whoever takes over Wolfsburg has a chance of a successful season not only in the Bundesliga, but also in the Champions League. Wolfsburg is in third place in his group and is only one point behind second place, which would mean the round of 16.
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