Marked for Patrick Böhm
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 May 2043
A fracture rules Frank Schulze out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfL Wolfsburg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad18 May 2043
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad18 May 2043
Words at VfL Wolfsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lazar Jovanović is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces27 Apr 2043
The mood at VfL Wolfsburg has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad27 Apr 2043
A fracture rules Frank Schulze out for 100 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason VfL Wolfsburg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad27 Apr 2043
Afonso Moreira was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match25 Oct 2042
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad27 Oct 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Amin El Harchaoui
140 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. VfL Wolfsburg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match25 Oct 2042
Beaten 1‑4 by Bayern Munich, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad27 Oct 2042
A one-man rearguard from Frank Feller
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad27 Oct 2042
Jonas Adjetey falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad27 Oct 2042
The manager makes an example of Patrick Böhm
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom27 Oct 2042
Nobody left the VfL Wolfsburg dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Market27 Oct 2042
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what VfL Wolfsburg could get for him.
Player ratings27 Oct 2042
Chances created: 5. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Sep 2042
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market15 Sep 2042
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around VfL Wolfsburg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Words at VfL Wolfsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonas Adjetey is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Schumacher is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Sep 2042
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Patrick Böhm, and the manager let it.
Market15 Sep 2042
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dženan Pejčinović’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Match13 Sep 2042
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Heidenheim defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Jun 2042
Jonas Adjetey breaks a bone — 58 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom30 Jun 2042
The silence upstairs is getting loud at VfL Wolfsburg
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad30 Jun 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at VfL Wolfsburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Jun 2042
Words at VfL Wolfsburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Afonso Moreira is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market30 Jun 2042
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Helmut Hoffmann will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around VfL Wolfsburg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Jun 2042
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lazar Jovanović, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Jun 2042
Jonas Adjetey breaks a bone — 86 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The silence upstairs is getting loud at VfL Wolfsburg
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market2 Jun 2042
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 Jun 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at VfL Wolfsburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Jun 2042
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Max Finkgräfe and VfL Wolfsburg agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Jun 2042
Lazar Jovanović falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom2 Jun 2042
$10.6M taken back off the VfL Wolfsburg table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.