Why no one wants to come to Wolfsburg

Clubs like VfL Wolfsburg or Arminia Bielefeld are your typical Bundesliga wallflowers. They tend to spend most of their seasons in nowhereland. During their more adventurous times you might see them being involved in some relegation skirmishes. They sell out their stadium about twice a year. That’s when clubs like Bayern Munich come visiting. Like most people I barely realise that they actually play in the league. In case of Bielefeld there is even a considerable amount of people who doubt that the city itself actually exists (see The Bielefeld Conspiracy). That being said I don’t really have a problem with Bielefeld. I just needed them to illustrate my wallflower example. But I have some issues with Wolfsburg.

VfL Wolfsburg is one of two corporate puppet teams in the Bundesliga and is backed financially by Volkswagen. Their fan base is rather small and probably ends just outside the city borders. They aren’t known for creating a big party atmosphere in their stadium either. The average attendance figures of the club are among the worst of the whole league anyway. The board of directors has now decided that it’s time to end the wallflower career and appointed Felix Magath as their new coach and sporting director. The club receives some decent Volkswagen money, and Felix intends to put this money to good use and lead the club into European competitions, ultimately the Champions League. That’s the plan for the coming years which he revealed to the press today. Football God forbid! How I now wish that the team would have gotten relegated this season. It was one of the best and probably last chances.

But I think there is still hope. Here is a little failed-transfer story I picked up from an article by German football magazine 11Freunde:
Beatrix was the wife of Lithuanian striker Valdas Ivanauskas who enjoyed some successful years with Hamburg during the nineties. When Beatrix found out about her husbands plan to move to Wolfsburg she started to panic. If it was the thought of Wolfsburg’s pedestrian zone (photo to the right) is unknown. Some bursts into tears later she managed to change his mind. “I wanted to save my marriage!”, was his comment and he promised: “I will never go to Wolfsburg again.”

Let’s just hope that some of the players whose hearts will be corrupted by money have loved ones who can save them from making a big mistake.

Category: 1. Bundesliga, Backstory, VfL Wolfsburg

Tags: 1. Bundesliga, Backstory, Bundesliga, Felix Magath, Valdas Ivanauskas, VfL Wolfsburg, Volkswagen, VW

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