Separation after four months
©IMAGO
The next coaching change at VfL Wolfsburg is perfect. The Bundesliga club confirmed on Sunday evening that Dutchman Paul Simonis had to leave just four months after signing him in the summer. U19 coach Daniel Bauer will take over for the time being. The 43-year-old had already done this in May as Ralph Hasenhüttl’s short-term successor.
The separation from Simonis “hurt him personally,” said sports director Peter Christiansen, who is fighting for his job. “Paul is a meticulous trainer who worked with great passion, expertise and passion.” Nevertheless, one must “honestly state that in football, results and points count in the end. And the development in the last few weeks has not gone as we all hoped.” Specifically, VfL lost six of the last seven games in the Bundesliga, including the 1:2 on Friday evening at Werder Bremen. There was an embarrassing exit in the DFB Cup against second division club Holstein Kiel.
As a result, 40-year-old Simonis is the fifth failed coach in Wolfsburg since Oliver Glasner led the Volkswagen club to the Champions League in 2021 and then left. Mark van Bommel, Florian Kohfeldt, Niko Kovac, Hasenhüttl and now Simonis: everyone had to leave early. Urs Fischer, Tim Walter and also former coach Bruno Labbadia are currently considered possible successors. Marco Rose and Edin Terzic, who were initially traded, are probably neither available nor affordable. Matthias Jaissle, who is highly valued in Wolfsburg, would have to be bought out of his contract with the Saudi Arabian club Al-Ahli SFC.
Simonis came to Wolfsburg in the summer with the recommendation of having led the provincial club Go Ahead Eagles Deventer to the Dutch Cup victory and thus their first title win in 92 years. At VfL he was supposed to give the team a new face and a new style of play with more dominance and ball possession. But nothing of either was ever seen. In the sporting crisis of the past few weeks, the Dutchman appeared increasingly at a loss. But Simonis also failed due to circumstances for which he could not help.
The biggest problem this season is Christiansen and sports director Sebastian Schindzielorz‘s squad planning. Both put together a team over the summer with serious design flaws. Transfers such as the Brazilian Vinicius Souza and the Dane Jesper Lindstrøm have so far remained far below expectations. The urgently needed center forward didn’t come at all in the summer. Even the signing of Danish star player Christian Eriksen has so far made no sense from a sporting perspective. Six other players were already available in his two positions in central midfield.
Recently even captain Maximilian Arnold and goalkeeper Marius Müller spoke publicly about the lack of cohesion and a major attitude problem within the squad. Simonis never found a solution to this problem. But much of what he now has to endure falls under the responsibility of sports director Christiansen. The 50-year-old Dane came to Wolfsburg in 2024 to completely restructure the club – so far without any success. His job and that of sports director Schindzielorz have long been discussed at VfL.
