Hecking returns to try to halt Die Wölfe blowing their own house down | Andy Brassell
Bundesliga survival looks an uphill struggle for Wolfsburg as a lack of leadership off the pitch has led to drift on it
Edin Dzeko, understandably, erred on the side of caution. Dieter Hecking has not. Wolfsburg are indisputably in crisis and have gone back to the future to stop themselves teetering over the ledge into the abyss, with a coach who left – or was invited to leave – nearly 10 years ago returning to the club to prevent the worst coming to pass. It had felt for a while as if change was coming at the Volkswagen Arena. The question to which we will find out the answer in the coming weeks is have they already left it too late?
This was a weekend that was a very bad one for Die Wölfe; pivotally so, potentially. It was not just their own 2-1 tumble at home to Hamburg, who were also in serious need of points, which defined the moment. After all, Wolfsburg began the weekend second-bottom of the Bundesliga and ended it in the same place, but things are not the same. That is largely due to results elsewhere. Even outside Lower Saxony little went right for Wolfsburg, whether it was St Pauli and Mainz clawing points from superior opposition in Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart respectively, or Werder Bremen making the most of Union Berlin going down to 10 men seconds after they took the lead, paving the way to a second successive win of unexpectedly comfortable proportions (4-1, in the end, to Werder).
All of this means Hecking inherits a team not just only a single place off the foot of the table but four points adrift even of the relegation playoff place. Just in case the 61-year-old was in any doubt over the magnitude of his task, it is there for him in black and white this Monday morning. And even if many will find the circularity of Hecking returning a decade later, we have to go back a little further to find the real relevance of this appointment.
On arriving at the club for the first time in December 2012, he inherited a team in trouble at the bottom. He was taking a big risk, leaving Nürnberg via the release clause in his contract to take over the team in the position below them, one place above the relegation playoff spot. Not only that but Wolfsburg had fallen a long way in a short time, going from Bundesliga champions to one of the league’s basketcases in three years. Yet it worked. Form (and discipline) improved markedly. In his first full season, Hecking took Wolfsburg into Europe. His tenure took in a DfB Pokal win in 2015, beating Borussia Dortmund 3-1 in the final in Jürgen Klopp’s last game in charge, as well as a Super Cup and runs to the quarter-finals of the Europa League and the Champions League. Hecking had Kevin De Bruyne as the centrepiece of that 2015 team, a player he turned from an undeniable talent into one ready to dominate the Premier League.
What is in front of Hecker now is different, even if there is some raw talent to work with, as well as some experienced quality – as there should be, with Wolfsburg estimated to have the fifth-highest budget in the Bundesliga. Names such as Lovro Majer, Mohamed Amoura, Maximilian Arnold, Jesper Lindstrøm and Christian Eriksen shouldn’t be in a hole like this, but Saturday’s loss to Hamburg was a fairly eloquent description of why they are where they are. Eriksen actually gave them the lead from the spot halfway through the first half but, in a game defined by three penalties, it was a teenager who demonstrated what leadership really is. Luka Vuskovic won two spot-kicks for HSV, converting the first one himself before Jean-Luc Dompé scored the second to win it. At 19, the Spurs loanee continues to underline what it means to stand up and be counted.
Daniel Bauer and Peter Christiansen were dismissed as coach and managing director for sport, respectively, shortly after full time, with the decisions officially communicated on Sunday morning, marking the second time the head coach and the second time a major cog of the sporting management had been dismissed this season.
This will hurt Bauer, a long-time servant of the club; since joining a decade ago as an academy coach he has taken a series of age-group teams and this was his second spell filling in for the top job. Most of what has (or hasn’t) happened isn’t his fault but the result of an inexperienced head coach having insufficient structure around him.
Sebastian Schindzielorz had already gone, eventually replaced as sporting director by Pirmin Schwegler. Failing to address a lack of leadership off the pitch has led to a drift of dangerous proportions on it. “The atmosphere and culture within the club are currently not Bundesliga-worthy,” said Bauer a week ago. This was worth listening to from somebody who knows the club intimately and cared enough to speak his truth rather to try to protect his own position.
The long and the short of it is that it’s all on Hecking. The four-point gap to 16th is an added difficulty and a trip to third-placed Hoffenheim awaits the coach on Saturday as a second debut, with an absolutely pivotal home game against fellow strugglers Bremen to finish before the international break – not that home is an advantage when you have the worst home record in the division. It feels more like Hecking is coming into a virtually lost cause, as he did at Bochum last season, rather than a sticky situation like the one he faced back in 2012-13. Schwegler admitted a few weeks back that Dzeko rejected a return in January to go to Schalke; maybe to protect his legacy. Perhaps Hecking will feel a few weeks from now he should have done the same.
“VfL Wolfsburg will announce in due course how the sporting leadership in this position will be structured going forward,” announced Sunday’s club statement. The mere timescale of that suggests that once again, it’s too little, too late.
Bayern Munich 4-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach, RB Leipzig 2-1 Augsburg, Mainz 2-2 VfB Stuttgart, Heidenheim 2-4 Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg 1-2 Hamburg, SC Freiburg 3-3 Leverkusen, Köln 1-2 Borussia Dortmund, St. Pauli 0-0 Eintracht Frankfurt, Union Berlin 1-4 Werder
Talking points
Soldiering on this week minus a leader – but with others to step in, it’s fair to say – were Bayern, trouncing Borussia Mönchengladbach 4-1 minus the injured Harry Kane, with Nicolas Jackson standing in admirably even if he has no long-term future at the club; scoring, assisting and winning a penalty that led to Rocco Reitz’s red card (news broke that Reitz will join Leipzig next season, by the way). Manuel Neuer, meanwhile, suffered the recurrence of a calf injury – it saw him withdrawn at half-time and means he will miss Tuesday’s Champions League last-16 first leg at Atalanta.
Second-placed Dortmund kept their own gap of six points to Hoffenheim (who won easily, 4-2, at Heidenheim) intact with an unconvincing 2-1 win at Köln on Saturday evening, despite the hosts losing Jahmai Simpson-Pusey to a first-half red card. The long-serving stadium announcer, Michael Trippel, is in hot water for calling the decision “disgusting” over the PA, which the club condemned in a statement. While BVB head towards the Champions League again, the feeling that a clearout is coming increases, with the managing director, Lars Ricken, confirming to Sky at full time that Julian Brandt will leave in the summer.
Having got a vital win at Hamburg last Wednesday, Leverkusen took a step back by dropping two points late on in a 3-3 thriller at Freiburg, and were grateful that Stuttgart did the same in stoppage time in a testing game at Mainz (2-2), keeping the gap to fourth at three points. The issue? Die Werkself host Bayern on Saturday.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 25 | 68 | 66 |
| 2 | Borussia Dortmund | 25 | 27 | 55 |
| 3 | Hoffenheim | 25 | 20 | 49 |
| 4 | Stuttgart | 25 | 16 | 47 |
| 5 | RB Leipzig | 25 | 14 | 47 |
| 6 | Bayer Leverkusen | 25 | 16 | 44 |
| 7 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 25 | -1 | 35 |
| 8 | Freiburg | 25 | -5 | 34 |
| 9 | Augsburg | 25 | -12 | 31 |
| 10 | Hamburg | 25 | -8 | 29 |
| 11 | Union Berlin | 25 | -12 | 28 |
| 12 | Borussia M'gladbach | 25 | -15 | 25 |
| 13 | Werder Bremen | 25 | -16 | 25 |
| 14 | Cologne | 25 | -9 | 24 |
| 15 | Mainz | 25 | -12 | 24 |
| 16 | St Pauli | 25 | -17 | 24 |
| 17 | Wolfsburg | 25 | -21 | 20 |
| 18 | Heidenheim | 25 | -33 | 14 |