Berlin – Win or fly: These are the only two options that VfL Wolfsburg still has before their last group game in the Champions League. Should the Bundesliga team win against French champions OSC Lille on Wednesday evening (9 p.m., DAZN), they would have reached the round of the best 16 and the prospect of attractive opponents such as Real Madrid or Liverpool FC. Should he just draw or lose, the time of international games this season would be over. The Europa League consolation prize would also no longer remain with VfL. He can no longer reach third place in this preliminary round group G under any circumstances.
“It is probably one of the most important games in the club’s recent history,” said coach Florian Kohfeldt. And the 39-year-old, who only took over VfL after three out of six preliminary round matches, said afterwards: “I can say that I will absolutely burn and that I would like to transfer that to the team.”
Lost energy and intensity
This addition was evidently necessary in Wolfsburg. In the past three days since the 3-0 defeat in the Bundesliga at FSV Mainz 05, both Kohfeldt and national player Maximilian Arnold complained that VfL had recently lost a lot of the “energy” and “intensity” that they had last season brought them into the Champions League in the first place. “There were games last year when we played and I knew we weren’t going to lose. That was no longer the case, ”said Arnold in a kicker interview before the Lille game.
The physical force, the organization on the field and also the individual form of climbers like Maxence Lacroix or Ridle Baku: Much of that has fallen by the wayside since the departure of former coach Oliver Glasner in the summer. In this interview, Arnold no longer even blamed it between the lines of the work of Glasner’s successor and Kohfeldt’s predecessor, Mark van Bommel, who was released in October. Personally, he got along “very well” with van Bommel, said the 27-year-old. “But even if you shouldn’t do it, you compare as a player. And although we won the first four games of the season, we still lacked the intensity that distinguished us last season. ”
At times, VfL would have “played with a carelessness that was not there in the previous season. We are not a team that regulates something like that by itself, we have to blame ourselves, ”said Arnold. “We should have asked for more, especially for the game against the ball. We trained that over and over again under Glasner. He was obsessed with his idea – and that carried over to the team. A trainer has to annoy us. “
Apparently van Bommel did not do that. In his case, the Dutchman was right from the start: Group G with Lille (8 points), Red Bull Salzburg (7), FC Sevilla (6) and the Wolfsburgers (5) is the most balanced and unpredictable in the entire Champions League. At the beginning there seemed to be a lot to speak for Sevilla FC and its international experience. In between, the Salzburg team were ahead with their high-speed style. In the end, VfL could overtake all of them, although they have only won one group game so far and German international Lukas Nmecha will be suspended on Wednesday.
Bayern Munich can shoot FC Barcelona out of the premier class
Despite all the sporting problems at the moment, this would be the culmination of years of development. 2017 and 2018 relegation, 2019 and 2020 a Europa League place, 2021 in the Champions League – and now a place among the 16 best teams in Europe in 2022? FC Bayern Munich, who will host FC Barcelona for a ghost game in Munich’s Allianz Arena alongside VfL, have already qualified as group winners for the round of 16. With the sixth win in the sixth group game and a win by Benfica Lisbon against Kiev, Bayern could push Barcelona out of the premier class. In the concert of the greats, a permanent guest would not be there.
For VfL Wolfsburg, however, the “Champions League will always be something very special. Because for us this competition is anything but a matter of course ”, said the supervisory board chairman Frank Witter of the sports buzzer. It’s about the greatest sporting success in more than five years, more than twelve million euros in additional income, a lot of prestige and also a great deal of advertising value for the parent company Volkswagen. “It’s nice that we have such a final,” said coach Kohfeldt.