VfL Wolfsburg

VfL Wolfsburg

Full name	Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg
Nickname(s)	Die Wölfe (Wolves)
Founded	12 September 1945
Ground	Volkswagen Arena Wolfsburg (Capacity: 30,122)
Chairman	Hans-Dieter Pötsch
Manager	Steve McClaren
League	Bundesliga
2009–10	Bundesliga, 8th
Home colours Away colours Third colours
Current season

VfL Wolfsburg is a German professional football club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. They have won the Bundesliga once in their history, in the 2008–09 season, and were DFB-Pokal runners-up in 1995. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of Wolfsburg and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group.^[1][2]

History

A new team in a new city

The city of Wolfsburg was founded in 1938 as Stadt des KdF-Wagen to house autoworkers building the car which would later become famous as the Volkswagen Beetle. The first football club affiliated with the autoworks was known as BSG Volkswagenwerk Stadt des KdF-Wagen. This team played in the first division Gauliga Osthannover in the 1943–44 and 1944–45 seasons.

On 12 September 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, a new club was formed and was known briefly as VSK Wolfsburg. This side began play in the green and white still worn by VfL today: local youth trainer Bernd Elberskirch had ten green jerseys at his disposal and white bed sheets donated by the public were sewn together by local women to make shorts.

On 15 December 1945, the club went through a crisis that almost ended its existence when all but one of its players left to join 1. FC Wolfsburg. The only player remaining, Josef Meyer, worked with Willi Hilbert to rebuild the side by signing new players. The new group adopted the moniker VfL Wolfsburg, VfL standing for Verein für Leibesübungen. This can be translated as "club for gymnastics" or "club for exercises." Within a year they captured the local Gifhorn title. In late November 1946, the club played a friendly against longtime Gelsenkirchen powerhouse Schalke 04 at the stadium owned by Volkswagen, emerging as the successor to BSG as the company sponsored side.

Postwar play

The club made slow but steady progress in the following seasons. They captured a number of amateur level championships, but were unable to advance out of the promotion playoffs until finally breaking through to the top tier Oberliga Nord in 1954 with a 2–1 victory over Heider SV. However, Wolfsburg struggled in the top flight, narrowly missing relegation each season until finally being sent down in 1959. When Germany's first professional football league – the Bundesliga – was formed in 1963, VfL was playing in the Regionalliga Nord (II) having just moved up from the Verbandesliga Niedersachsen (III).

Second division and advance to the Bundesliga

Historical logo of VfL Wolfsburg in use until 2002.

Wolfsburg remained a second division fixture over the next dozen years with their best performance being a second place finish in 1970. That finish earned the club entry to the promotion round playoffs for the Bundesliga where they performed poorly and were unable to advance. From the mid-70's through to the early 90's Die Wölfe played as a third division side in the Amateur Oberliga Nord. Consecutive first place finishes in 1991 and 1992, followed by success in the promotion playoffs saw the club advance to the 2. Bundesliga for the 1992–93 season.

VfL continued to enjoy some success through the 90's. The team advanced to the final of the German Cup in 1995 where they were beaten 0–3 by Borussia Mönchengladbach, but then went on to the top flight on the strength of a second place league finish in 1997.

Early predictions were that the club would immediately be sent back down, but instead, the Wolves developed into a mid-table Bundesliga side. In the 1998–99 season, Wolfsburg under Wolfgang Wolf, was holding the fifth place in the 33rd fixture, and they had hopes to reach the 4th place, and the UEFA Champions League participation. Losing 6-1 away to Duisburg in the final fixture, the Wolves finished in the 6th place with 55 points, and qualified to the UEFA Cup. They qualified for the Intertoto Cup in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005, enjoying their best run in 2003 by reaching the final where they lost to Italian side AC Perugia. This was followed by a couple of seasons of little success for the club when only narrowly avoiding relegation with two 15th place finishes in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 season.

2008–present

For the 2007–08 season the club hired former Bayern Munich manager Felix Magath, with whom they managed to finish an astonishing 5th place at the end of the season, the highest finish for the club at the time. This also enabled the Wolves to qualify for the UEFA Cup, for only the second time in their history.

In the 2008–09 season, under Magath, Wolfsburg claimed their biggest success by winning their first Bundesliga title after defeating Werder Bremen 5–1 on 23 May 2009. During this campaign, Wolfsburg equaled the longest winning streak in one Bundesliga season with 10 successive victories after the winter break. They also became the only team in the Bundesliga to have had two strikers to score more than 20 goals each in one season with Brazilian Grafite and Bosnian Edin Džeko achieving this feat in their title-winning season, scoring 28 and 26 respectively. As a result of their title win, Wolfsburg qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history.

In the 2009–10 season, Wolfsburg dismissed their newly-appointed trainer Armin Veh after the winter break due to lack of success, with the club sitting tenth in the league. In the Champions League they came third in their group, behind Manchester United and CSKA Moscow losing the chance for a place in the competition's successive round. As a result, the qualified for the Round of 32 phase of the UEFA Europa League. They reached to defeat Spanish side Villareal 6–3 on aggregate, and Russian champions Rubin Kazan 3–2. In the quarter finals they were, however, beaten 3–1 by eventual finalists Fulham.

On the 11 May 2010, the permanent head coach's position was filled by former Middlesbrough, England and Twente manager Steve McClaren. After having guided Twente to their first ever Dutch title he was rewarded by becoming the first ever English coach to be given the chance to manage a Bundesliga side.

Honours

Senior

• Bundesliga:
  • Winners (1): 2008–09

• DFB-Pokal:
  • Runners-up (1): 1994–95

• German Amateur Football Championship:
  • Runners-up (1): 1963

• Regionalliga Nord (II):
  • Runners-up (1): 1970

• Amateuroberliga Niedersachsen-Ost (II):
  • Winners (3): 1952, 1954, 1963

• Oberliga Nord (III):
  • Winners (2): 1991, 1992
  • Runners-up (3): 1976, 1978, 1988

Youth

• German Under 19 championship
  • Runners-up (1): 2008

• Under 19 Bundesliga North/Northeast
  • Winners (1): 2008

• Under 17 Bundesliga North/Northeast
  • Winners (1): 2009

Stadium

Wolfsburg play at the Volkswagen Arena, which seats a total capacity of 30,122 spectators.

Players

First team squad

As of 13 August 2010.^[3]
Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Diego Benaglio 3 DF Arne Friedrich 4 DF Marcel Schäfer 7 MF Josué 8 MF Thomas Kahlenberg 9 FW Edin Džeko 11 MF Cícero (on loan from Tombense) 12 GK André Lenz 13 MF Makoto Hasebe 14 MF Tolga Cigerci 15 MF Karim Ziani 16 DF Fabian Johnson 17 DF Alexander Madlung 18 FW Mario Mandžukić 19 DF Peter Pekarík 20 DF Sascha Riether

No. Position Player 21 FW Nassim Ben Khalifa 22 MF Kevin Wolze 23 FW Grafite 24 MF Ashkan Dejagah 28 MF Diego 31 FW Caiuby 32 MF Sebastian Schindzielorz 34 DF Simon Kjær 35 GK Marwin Hitz 37 DF Sergei Karimov 38 MF Philipp Kreuels 39 DF Michael Schulze 40 FW Sebastian Polter 42 MF Julian Klamt 43 DF Andrea Barzagli — MF Vlad Munteanu

For recent transfers, see List of German football transfers summer 2010 and List of German football transfers winter 2009-10.

Coaching staff

Position	Name
Head coach	Steve McClaren
Assistant coach	Pierre Littbarski
Assistant coach	Achim Sarstedt
Goalkeeping coach	Andreas Hilfiker
Fitness coach	Wolfhard Savoy
Fitness coach	Alessandro Schoenmaker

VfL Wolfsburg II squad

As of 2 August 2009 (2009 -08-02)^[update]

Manager: Alexander Strehmel

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Jonas Deumeland 2 DF Michael Schulze 3 DF Sergei Karimov 4 DF Julian Klamt 5 DF Daniel Reiche 6 DF Dennis Riemer 8 MF Sefa Yilmaz 9 FW Mike Könnecke 11 FW Loïc Lumbilla Kandja 12 FW Sebastian Polter 13 FW Fabian Klos

No. Position Player 14 MF Sergej Evljuskin 15 DF Rico Schlimpert 17 MF Marcel Weiß 18 MF Burak Altiparmak 19 MF Maximilian Ahlschwede 20 FW Michael Lumpe 21 DF André Fomitschow 23 FW Christoph Beismann 24 GK Rene Melzer 26 GK Max Leiding

Women's section

Notable former players

References

External links

• Official site
• Abseits Guide to German Soccer
• VfL Wolfsburg Community (German)
• Wolfsburg fansite (German)
• Club statistics
• Team formations at Football-lineups