Home comeback in the Champions League: Five and a half years after its last top flight match in the Volkswagen Arena, VfL Wolfsburg welcomes FC Sevilla on Wednesday (9pm, LIVE! on kicker).
It was 6 April 2016, also back then it was a team from Spain that VfL Wolfsburg played against. It was the last Champions League home match for many years, 2:0 on this memorable evening for the Lower Saxons against Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo had been brought to his knees. Among others, by the man who was still a young 22 at the time and now took his seat on the podium on Wednesday before the duel with Sevilla: Maximilian Arnold.
Against Madrid, the Wolfsburg midfielder scored the 2:0 and thus the last Champions League goal for VfL, who lost 0:3 in the second leg at the Bernabeu. A lot has changed at the VW club since then, but Arnold is still there, more important than ever. “My game has shifted a bit to the back,” says the tall homegrown, who once started as a ten in Wolfsburg and has long been pulling the strings deeper in midfield. Is he the boss on the pitch? The 27-year-old answers that he doesn’t mind being called that. “It fits,” he emphasises and dutifully adds. “I’m not the only one here who makes the game. ”
First defeat of the season in the ruck
Nevertheless, a lot at VfL now depends on how Arnold performs. Like his colleagues, he did not have his best days in the 0-0 draw at the start of the UEFA Champions League in Lille or in the first defeat of the season against Hoffenheim (1-3) in the Bundesliga last season. Afterwards, leader Arnold was quite harsh on himself and the team. On Wednesday he repeated: “You could see that we were too careless in one or two situations. Maybe we thought after five games without defeat that we would do everything at half strength or 80 per cent. I don’t think that works in the Bundesliga.” It’s no different in the Champions League. “We have to learn that. We are not a top team, there is still a long way to go.”
Which VfL would like to go with Mark van Bommel. The new coach is heading in the same direction. Although Wolfsburg have recently been fourth in the table and are currently third, VfL are not yet a top team, the Dutchman emphasises. “We are on the way there, but it will take time.” Will VfL and Sevilla, both third in their league, still meet on equal terms on Wednesday? Van Bommel, who can draw from the full squad except for the long-term injured, makes it depend on the form of the day, but the coach knows about the strength of the Spaniards: “Sevilla has been playing internationally for years. When they are not playing in the Champions League, they very often win the Europa League. An experienced team from a top league.”
Albeit a somewhat different calibre than Real Madrid five and a half years ago. Arnold remembers the narrow exit in the quarter-finals of 2016. What is in it for VfL this season? “Of course it would be nice to get as far as we did back then. But first we have to lay the foundations.” With a home win against Sevilla.