Former Bayern Munich coach returns to the Bundesliga

Former Bayern Munich coach Niko Kovac is returning to the German Bundesliga after about two and a half years. He will take his place as head coach on the bench of VfL Wolfsburg, who finished twelfth in the top German competition last season.

The French mission

The media has been speculating about Kovac’s arrival in Wolfsburg for several days. Now the unofficial reports have been confirmed. Kovač has signed a three-year contract until 2025 at the club where Czech midfielders Jan Polák, Václav Pilař and Petr Jiráček previously worked.

The former defensive midfielder of the Croatian national team or Bayern Munich last coached French side AS Monaco and, among other things, sat on the bench of that team in last year’s Champions League preliminary round against Sparta Prague.

Kovač has been without a contract since January this year, when he was dismissed from Monaco after about a year and a half after disappointing results. He coached 74 games for Monaco with a record of 43 wins, 15 draws and 16 losses.

In the 2020/21 season, he finished third in the French Ligue 1 with Monaco. However, his team fell short to Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine in the Champions League preliminary round after knocking out Sparta Prague.

Kovač’s Monaco subsequently finished first in the Europa League ahead of Real Sociedad, Eindhoven and SK Sturm Graz.

However, after the autumn part of the French league, Monaco were in 6th place, which was obviously considered a failure.

Wolfsburg

The VfL Wolfsburg management was not satisfied with the 12th place finish in the recently concluded Bundesliga and parted ways with coach Florian Kohfeldt immediately after the 34th round.

The ambitions of the team, which finished 4th the year before and was still playing in the Champions League group stage in the autumn, are of course much higher than a position in the second half of the table in the German top flight.

Kovac is the fourth coach in a row to sit on Wolfsburg’s bench in one year. However, the former midfielder has enjoyed success in coaching stints in Germany in the past, winning the German Cup with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2018 and a double with Bayern Munich the following year.

Wolfsburg’s management has given him the goal of developing and pushing the club in the long term. Let’s see if he really succeeds and kick starts Wolfsburg to better performances and results that Wolves fans were used to from previous years.

Source: Kicker, Transefmarkt, Twitter