In his first game as coach of VfL Wolfsburg, the 56-year-old experienced the purest Bundesliga in a 2-0 win at Werder Bremen. “It’s a nervous tension. You can tell. It’s feelings that you haven’t had for a long time. That’s something nice,” he said on Saturday.
The last time the Styrian was on the sidelines in a Bundesliga stadium was on May 12, 2018 for RB Leipzig in a 6-2 win at Hertha BSC in Berlin. From December 2018 to November 2022 he was with Southampton FC in the English Premier League. After leaving there, he took a longer break. When the request came from Wolfsburg, he was ready to face the stress of professional football once more.
“I’m not a young coach anymore”
“I’m no longer a young coach. I recently worked in a very, very intense league. And yet it’s something very special to be back in the Bundesliga,” said Hasenhüttl. “You still know the stadiums when you drive here. You have memories of games from a long time ago.” The game in Bremen gave everything “in terms of nervous stress, decisions, and having to adapt tactically once more and once more.” The nice thing is “that you also get points for it.”
Thanks to goals from Maxence Lacroix (45th + 4) and Lovro Majer (84th), Wolfsburg ended the negative series of eleven games without a win in the first game following parting ways with Niko Kovac and celebrated their first success in 2024. Three points nurtured the hope of staying in the class. Before the Sunday games, the balance in the relegation place was eight points and ten points in the relegation zone.
Hasenhüttl expected that following two weeks of working with the team everything wasn’t going according to his expectations. In addition, some players were traveling with their national teams and were only able to take part in a few units. “Three points. That was the most important thing today. I have to say that very clearly. Today was not regarding playing the stars from the sky in beauty,” he said.
Nevertheless, something seems to have changed under Hasenhüttl. “The work once morest the ball is clearer. It wasn’t quite as detailed before,” said captain Maximilian Arnold – with a small tip towards Hasenhüttl’s predecessor Kovac. The goalscorer and later red card sinner Lacroix saw it similarly: “We had a clear plan when pressing.”
