All about the next opponent: interview with Wolfsburg expert Michael Theuerkauf

On Satur­day, VfB will aim to fol­low up direct­ly at VfL Wolfs­burg. Alt­hough the hosts have only won once, they deli­ver­ed strong per­for­man­ces in their games. Befo­re the away match, we spo­ke to Micha­el Theu­er­kauf, a Wolfs­burg expert and sports edi­tor at the Braun­schwei­ger Zei­tung.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo Micha, and thank you for taking the time to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons. VfL Wolfs­burg has star­ted the sea­son with only one win in four games, but they faced Munich, Frank­furt, and Lever­ku­sen, losing nar­row­ly. How do you assess their start to the sea­son?

Micha: If you only look at the points, the start is obvious­ly poor. But the per­for­man­ces, espe­ci­al­ly against Bay­ern and in Lever­ku­sen, were real­ly good. The match against Frank­furt could have gone dif­fer­ent­ly. If VfL wants to com­pe­te for “Euro­pe,” they have to win home games against direct com­pe­ti­tors like Frank­furt. I would­n’t call the start bad, but it cer­tain­ly could have been much bet­ter.

Last sea­son, Wolfs­burg finis­hed in 13th place after Ralph Hasen­hüttl took over from Niko Kovač in March. That cer­tain­ly does­n’t meet the expec­ta­ti­ons of the club or its owner, Volks­wa­gen, nor did 8th and 12th place finis­hes in the years pri­or, right?

The expec­ta­ti­ons are defi­ni­te­ly hig­her, but foot­ball always requi­res a bit of luck — and VfL often lacked that in clo­se games in the past. The fact that the­re were rele­ga­ti­on fears again last year doesn’t sit well with eit­her “Mother VW” or “Daugh­ter VfL.” That’s unde­niable.

How do you eva­lua­te Hasenhüttl’s work so far? What does he do dif­fer­ent­ly com­pared to Kovač?

I real­ly like the way Ralph Hasen­hüttl has his team play. This high pres­sing, which his play­ers exe­cu­te with a lot of risk, is so inten­se. It’s real­ly full-on, and when they win the ball, they move toward the opponent’s goal with just a few pas­ses. Kovač atta­cked later and pla­ced more empha­sis on con­trol­ling the game, which often made it seem too pas­si­ve for the spec­ta­tors. That’s some­thing you never get with Hasenhüttl’s foot­ball.

That’s also one of the big dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween the two coa­ches. Hasen­hüttl reli­es on excep­tio­nal fit­ness. The play­ers had to work hard in the sum­mer. The coach real­ly pushed them. But now you can see that the team is much fit­ter. They’re able to sus­tain the inten­se pres­sing for 90 minu­tes. Under Kovač, it often see­med like the tank was near­ly emp­ty by the 60th minu­te. That’s why they lost many leads.

In the sum­mer, Maxence Lacroix was sold to the Pre­mier League, and they snat­ched Kon­stan­ti­nos Kouliera­kis from PAOK, ahead of Frank­furt. Kamil Grab­a­ra came from Copen­ha­gen as the repla­ce­ment for long-time goal­kee­per Koen Cas­teels, and Moham­med Amou­ra was loan­ed from Uni­on St. Gil­loi­se, alre­a­dy pro­vi­ding two assists. How do you view VfL’s trans­fer win­dow, and what do you expect from the team this sea­son?

You’re miss­ing Salih Özcan and Den­nis Vav­ro, who were signed on Dead­line Day. For a long time, not much hap­pen­ed, but towards the end of the trans­fer win­dow, a lot of move­ment hap­pen­ed in both direc­tions. It had long been clear that Lacroix would lea­ve. He moved out of his house in Wolfs­burg months ago. Grab­a­ra has alre­a­dy pro­ven to be a wort­hy suc­ces­sor to Cas­teels. Kouliera­kis and Vav­ro are strong cen­ter-backs who can replace Lacroix. Howe­ver, I feel the squad should have been trim­med down. There’s an excess of (good) play­ers, espe­ci­al­ly in cen­tral mid­field and attack. I’m curious to see how they’ll mana­ge this and ensu­re the mood doesn’t turn sour for some play­ers.

As always, there’s a lot of poten­ti­al in the squad. If they can tap into that, it’s pos­si­ble to achie­ve their goals.

Whe­re do the team’s cur­rent strengths and weak­ne­s­ses lie?

Right now, their strengths are main­ly in defen­ding wit­hout the ball. That might sound odd, con­side­ring VfL has con­ce­ded nine goals in four games, but many of tho­se goals came from set-pie­ces. So, that’s one of their weak­ne­s­ses. They are vul­nerable to set-pie­ces, and this appli­es to coun­ter­at­tacks as well. Ano­ther area that needs impro­ve­ment is their play with the ball, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the final third, whe­re they haven’t been decisi­ve enough. VfL should have reward­ed their efforts with far more goals, but effi­ci­en­cy is their big­gest issue at the moment. Ano­ther “weak­ne­ss” is the inju­ry pro­blem. Seve­ral poten­ti­al star­ters are out. The absence of Lov­ro Majer, who suf­fe­r­ed a liga­ment tear in the 2–0 win in Kiel, is espe­ci­al­ly tough. Lov­ro was in out­stan­ding form — not just becau­se of his two goals against Bay­ern. Star sig­ning Moham­med Amou­ra dama­ged a liga­ment in his knee during trai­ning camp. He’s also not back in top form yet.

The squad includes Tia­go Tomás, a for­mer VfB play­er. How is he doing in Wolfs­burg?

He’s curr­ent­ly a star­ter on the left wing, but that’s also due to a lack of alter­na­ti­ves. That doesn’t mean he’s not doing a good job, though. But he faces the same issue as the rest of the team: effort and reward aren’t in a healt­hy balan­ce. The high pres­sing suits him well with his speed. Hasen­hüttl likes to use play­ers up front who can put quick, aggres­si­ve pres­su­re on the oppo­nent. He also bene­fits from Jakub Kamiń­ski, who would nor­mal­ly play in Tomás’ posi­ti­on, being used as a tem­po­ra­ry full-back.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the lin­e­up and result?

The VfL fan in me hopes for a 3:1 win. The jour­na­list in me is more cau­tious, though, as Stutt­gart is strong. If VfL can be more cli­ni­cal with their chan­ces, as they were in Lever­ku­sen and against Bay­ern, then they have a chan­ce.

As for the lin­e­up, the­re are so many uncer­tain­ties that I can only be wrong. But I’m con­fi­dent they’ll start with a goal­kee­per and ten out­field play­ers. 😉

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man to Eng­lish via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Selim Sudheimer/Getty Images

Schreibe einen Kommentar