The start of this season was very bumpy for VfL Wolfsburg and Niko Kovac. The team found itself in the table cellar early on. In the meantime, the wolves were able to get out of this situation, but initially there were doubts about the coach – as he himself admitted.
Wolfsburg went into the current winter break in seventh place. A starting position that no one believed in after the first few days of play and the first few weeks of this season. At the beginning of the season, the wolves barely got going. For a long time – and for the club too long – Niko Kovac’s team was stuck in the basement.
This bumpy start is now a thing of the past. Not only has VfL moved up into the top half of the table, but will go into the second part of the season just two points behind international business.
Kovac now admitted that things looked pretty bleak at first. “It took a little time. You have to be successful, if you only get two points from the first five games, it’s difficult,” he looked back at kicker.
The start was so sobering that there was a risk of an early break between the team and the coach. He explained: “There were certainly one or two [players] who thought about it and had doubts.”
Anything but a good basis for a coach to work on. The double problem: Wolfsburg was not only unsuccessful at the beginning. The playful performances of the Kovac team did not encourage that there would be any improvement soon. Of course, the players, who had apparently already begun to have doubts, also noticed this.
In the end, Kovac can look calmly at this development: “We have brought the team to a very high level physically and have developed them to some extent tactically. Of course everyone would like to have immediate success. But there are teams who started the season furiously and for broken away at the end.” That’s why he “prefers” the development that you have taken in the end.
The coach sees the reason for the improvements in many a change. He explained that the general approach had been changed “a bit”. As an example, he emphasized the departure from the double six and a changed play structure. “We have not deviated from our principles,” he noted at the same time.
The fact that these changes were made and were successful should have strengthened the team’s trust in the coach again.
This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as Kovac confesses: Wolfsburg players doubted his work.
