Florian Kohfeldt has been in charge at VfL Wolfsburg for exactly three weeks now, and with three wins in three games the new coach has made a brilliant start. However, he is far from having found answers to all the questions.
First of all, it was about stability. In the end, VfL Wolfsburg had become a self-service shop for opponents under Mark van Bommel, conceding goals and suffering defeats. Florian Kohfeldt took over, changed the basic formation from the previously mostly played 4-2-3-1 to a 3-4-3, hardly changed any personnel after the previous permanent rotation. However, he also emphasised: “Not everything is set in stone. Changes are possible at any time.
Especially on the offensive side, the coach is wondering how he can unleash the enormous potential that the VfL squad offers. In his first games, the 39-year-old also fielded Yannick Gerhardt, a man who stands for “balance and stability”, in an attacking role; in the Champions League against Salzburg (2-1), there were only two nominal offensive forces on the pitch in Wout Weghorst and Lukas Nmecha. “We have to see “, says Kohfeldt, “that we create options for ourselves to let this quality that we have in the forward positions play together sometimes”. And so, for example, in the last weak test against Hansa Rostock (1:3), the coach offered offensive player Maximilian Philipp as an eighth. “I’m gathering information,” Kohfeldt explains, “I have to piece it together a bit at a time.”
The jigsaw still has many pieces to choose from that he could bring together. Who fits where? Who harmonises best with whom? After stabilising the defence, how can the offence now be given a boost? The challenge, Kohfeldt knows, is “to get a Maximilian Philipp on the pitch, to get a Dodi Lukebakio on the pitch, Luca Waldschmidt is still at the back, Felix Nmecha I think is very talented”. Not to mention the fact that Renato Steffen is still there, that Admir Mehmedi and Daniel Ginczek are part of the squad, and that Bartosz Bialek should also be back in the new year after tearing his cruciate ligament.
The task for Kohfeldt: “We have to find basic orders and positions where we can get them on the pitch.” Not all, but some players who should liven up the VfL offensive (twelve goals in eleven league games, only Bochum, Augsburg, Fürth and Bielefeld scored less frequently) so far. That would be the next step in the development under the new coach.