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Mark van Bommel
Photo: Swen Pförtner / dpa
Mark van Bommel seemed to be comfortable.
At the Champions League game in Salzburg last Wednesday, the VfL coach shook hands diligently before kick-off, here a short chat, there a few jokes.
You know him on the stage of the premier class, the former »Aggressive Leader«, who played for FC Bayern, FC Barcelona and AC Milan in his active career and caused a sensation with his brisk demeanor.
It was not even three months ago that the Wolfsburg sports director Jörg Schmadtke said about the big name van Bommel that it was a »dream solution«.
As a coach, Van Bommel, 44, will continue to develop what has been built up over the past three years: a team that plays in the Champions League.
Van Bommel came to the “right place at the right time”, Schmadtke said in an interview with “11Freunde”.
The glamor of the former professional, Schmadtke's conviction at the start of the season, the lead in the table after four matchdays with twelve points - none of this could save van Bommel from becoming the first released Bundesliga coach this season.
After the 13th competitive game under the Dutchman - a 2-0 defeat against Freiburg - Schmadtke spoke of "more divisive than unifying factors".
The separation would "come as a surprise" for him, said van Bommel.
However, it also comes at a time when VfL threatens to gamble away the whole season: The most recent defeat against Freiburg was the eighth winless game in a row, the fourth bankruptcy in a row, one was eliminated in the DFB Cup due to an embarrassing substitution error, in In a supposedly easier Champions League group, Wolfsburg are in last place behind Lille, Seville and Salzburg.
Van Bommel should develop VfL further, the Wolfsburg have bought a lot and with a transfer deficit of 52.50 million euros, the second worst record of all Bundesliga clubs after Bayern Munich (57.50 million euros).
But the latest development was more like a free fall.
The 3-1 defeat in Salzburg showed how easy it is to score goals against VfL and how little this team has to do with the team that led its predecessor Oliver Glasner into the Champions League.
Under the »Aggressive Leader«, VfL became more and more passive.
Before the season, there was a lot of talk about whether Schmadtke and van Bommel would harmonize with each other, they are both said to have a particularly pronounced ego.
Schmadtke has the reputation of the "trainer killer" who could hardly cope with a coach, in Wolfsburg Bruno Labbadia and Glasner did not continue their successful work.
Schmadtke later said of Labbadia, "Sometimes the chemistry is wrong," and Glasner also had a hard time because the Austrian publicly criticized the club's transfer policy.
Big doubts about the coach van Bommel
One thing is certain: Labbadia's contract expired at the time, Glasner went to Eintracht Frankfurt after the end of the season.
Van Bommel is now only the fourth coach that Schmadtke has released during his time as Bundesliga manager, and you can almost be sure that their cooperation did not fail because of their distinctive characters.
Van Bommel was considered popular in the dressing room, his appearance in front of the press seemed relaxed and had little to do with the rough leg of yore.
Anyway, a hitherto unknown overhaul would be a surprise.
Van Bommel's appointment now seemed much more of a grave misjudgment.
The public was already skeptical at the time of his signing, after all, the Dutchman had been without a job for a year and a half after his time at PSV Eindhoven.
Now the uncertainty at VfL must have grown rapidly with regard to the content of van Bommel's work.
You can still correct the game year - but at VfL you no longer trust Van Bommel to do this job.
The Dutchman's time will be remembered as a major misunderstanding, if at all.
Frontzeck is taking over for the time being
No time to lose, that was the Wolfsburg's motto, and the coaching market also offers interesting alternatives: Lucien Favre is out of work, and coaching hopes Florian Kohfeldt and Domenico Tedesco are also currently without a club.
"Until further notice", however, Michael Frontzeck is to take over at VfL.
The 57-year-old had already worked as van Bommel's assistant coach and is considered a confidante of Schmadtke.
Both played against each other in their youth, and Frontzeck was coach at Alemannia Aachen in the 2006/2007 season when Schmadtke was manager there.
The season ended with the Bundesliga relegation, Frontzeck then resigned.
It seems that Schmadtke celebrated his greatest successes with coaches who were actually not very dear to him.