Bundesliga: Cologne vs Wolfsburg! Could one wrong decision cause Wolfsburg to collapse in the second half of the season?

Let’s begin withthe Bundesliga match: Cologne vs Wolfsburg!

In my opinion,Wolfsburg’s announcement on December 20 last year to confirm interim coach Baal as permanent might have been a wrong call.

This decision makes it difficult for me to believe in Wolfsburg’s mentality for the second half of the season.

Although there are many points to discuss about the squad and tactics in this game.

But I’d rather focus on the coaching issue.

Because history has shown thatpromoting an interim coach to permanent usually turns out badly.

There’s no Bundesliga data on this, but the Premier League has been studied.

Since 2000, the Premier League has had 20 interim coaches made permanent, and only 3 performed better after the promotion; the other 17 all performed worse.

That means 85% of interim coaches get worse after becoming permanent, which is a very high percentage.

As for Wolfsburg’s current coach,before renewal, he averaged 1.75 points per game; after renewal, only 0.80 points per game—a drop of more than half!Clearly, that’s not a good sign.

Here lies a crucial point—Wolfsburg is not an ordinary club.

Like Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg is a well-known Bundesliga veteran. They don’t worry about relegation, have no Champions League hopes, and just drift mid-table year after year without ambition.

Such a complacent team appointed a severely inexperienced and low-profile interim coach, whose main advantage is being cheap and obedient? And they gave him a contract until 2027?

What message does this send? It’s almost telling the players:The club is very satisfied with the status quo and has no big ambitions for the future, just wants to keep getting by.

So how can the players stay motivated?

Even worse, the management chose a bad timing to announce the permanent appointment.

First, on the day of confirmation, Wolfsburg suffered a 3-4 home defeat to Freiburg.

This might give the impression that although the team isn’t stable yet, the management is already content.

Second, the announcement was made just before the winter break.

Within any team, there are players who want to coast and others who want to work hard.

Announcing Baal’s contract extension until 2027 before the winter break signals the club’s acceptance of mediocrity, which discourages the hardworking players and comforts those who slack off.

Therefore, the players’ performance during the winter break will likely decline significantly.

So it makes sense that in their first game back from the break, they were brutally beaten 8-1 by a rampant Bayern.

Note: That 8-1 loss is Wolfsburg’s worst Bundesliga defeat ever, a huge disgrace that greatly upset the fans.

Thus, when they played St. Pauli at home afterward, feeling humiliated, they fought hard and indeed won.

But what happened after the rebound?

They relaxed again and performed terribly against top relegation candidate Heidenheim and then against Mainz, who was bottom of the Bundesliga at the time.

How to put it, this isn’t a question of strength.

Although Wolfsburg currently has many injuries, which team doesn’t?Mainz had 8 injured players at the time, 3 more than Wolfsburg! Yet they didn’t falter.

Note: Wolfsburg’s squad is actually upper-mid-table Bundesliga level, worth over 200 million euros, ranking seventh in the league.

Being fully owned by Volkswagen, a German automotive giant, their strength is indeed solid.

Such a strong lineup still can’t beat relegation teams? The main problem lies in mentality and fighting spirit.

Here’s a very embarrassing statistic:This season, Wolfsburg led in 12 matches, but in 7 of those they were either overtaken or drawn level again, a 58.3% rate—the highest in the Bundesliga.

Also, they trailed in 12 matches, but never came back to lead, only drew twice, and lost 10 times, an 83.33% failure rate.

These stats clearly reflect Wolfsburg’s mindset.

When leading, they relax too much and lose focus. When behind, they get discouraged and don’t fight back fully.

Simply put, they don’t take things seriously enough and don’t fight hard for every point.

Cologne, although having only 1 win in their last 10 games, also hasn’t been performing well.

But their squad and budget are typical of a relegation team, so this is within normal expectations, and their fighting spirit is not an issue.

If this match were at Wolfsburg’s home ground, with tens of thousands of fans watching, Wolfsburg players might still show some fighting spirit.

Since it’s away, I find it hard to believe that.

What do you think—will Cologne satisfy their fans? I’m hoping they grab all three points!