Felix Magath brings on Stuttgart 4-1 slaughter

By: j | May 9th, 2009

   

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Within the coaching fraternity, Felix Magath’s decision this week to announce he is leaving the club at season’s end will be remembered for one of the most unprofessional decisions ever. While Mr. Magath is a superb coach, his decision to do so directly impacted on his sides mindset resulting in today’s 4-1 blowout loss against Stuttgart.

The storyline of the day was shared with a team, that being Markus Babbel’s Stuttgart, seizing the opportunity and playing as a collective unit against a rag-tag group knowing full-well its coach has defected. While Mr. Magath as attempted to his explain his rationale for leaving for Schalke, albeit in a highly convoluted manner, it nonetheless devastated the underpinnings of the players.

Although the match had all the makings of an “incredible battle” it was in-truth a slaughter too painful to watch and the scoreline could have resembled an friendly in July against a lower league side. Today Wolfsburg was not a first place side but merely a mid-table unit, head hung low and dissected by a club following a superb young leader in Markus Babbel. Behind Mr. Babbel, the home side filleted Wolfsburg for two goals by Mario Gómez in the first twenty minutes and despite Edin Džeko’s mark nine minutes before the break Stuttgart was in clear control. After the break Super Mario continued on with two more strikes and while Felix Magath’s ranted of his sides poor performance, he brought in on to himself.

Now the test for Wolfsburg is to unite as a team as they head down the final three matches. This isn’t such as easy examination as it will require closed-door meetings of players-only, to address the issue and find a way for internal leadership. Today’s “vote” on the pitch firmly cast that his leadership role has been rescinded and I suspect the good people of Wolfsburg will greet him with the respect he deserves on Tuesday Dortmund visits Volkswagen Arena.

Category: Wolfsburg Team News

   

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• Jan |  May 9th, 2009 at 7:37 pm

  
  
  

  “Felix Magath’s decision this week to announce he is leaving the club at season’s end will be remembered for one of the most unprofessional decisions ever.”

  The problem is that the rumor of his departure had leaked to the press and created an enormous buzz in the media. Magath wanted to announce his decision after the season and Schalke meant to announce their new coach/manager after the season as well. But under the circumstances all involved parties decided to stop speculations and come clean. I doubt that sitting out the daily media frenzy with ever more rumors and hearsay for the rest of the season would have helped to create a better mindset.

  And in the end, prior to the Cottbus defeat Wolfsburg were already getting a bit nervous and were a bit fortunate to get their wins against Gladbach and Leverkusen. Against Cottbus they eventually had their bad result. The game against Hoffenheim was very even in the first half before Hoffenheim collapsed in the second. So a bad performance against Stuttgart didn’t came totally out of the blue.

  I think the Dortmund game could make or break this season. A win against Dortmund and I think Wolfsburg will be in control of the title again. I don’t know how much of a fight Hannover/Bremen will put up – Bremen is focused on the cups and Hannover’s game today was more of a friendly than a league game. Could be two easy wins.

  

• Luke |  May 9th, 2009 at 8:04 pm

  
  
  

  Well, if Wolfsburg does continue down the road to full collapse, we’ll know that Magath is perfect Schalke material!

  

• j |  May 11th, 2009 at 9:10 am

  
  
  

  Jan, thank you for stopping by. In my opinion I think Magath handled it as bad as possible and rumours can be dealt with in a far better manner that that but then it wouldn’t have provided him the press time he craves.

  Their remaining schedule certainly works in their favour although Dortmund is playing superb team Football of late and its hard not to be impressed by Jürgen Klopp. Incredibly if it hadn’t been for Arminia Bielefeld’s performance the week before against Stuttgart, we’d have a three-way tie for the top spot.

  Please let me know if you ever get to any matches as it would be great to meet up some time.