Wolves played beyond expectations

A week ago Wolfsburg managed to fulfill their dream and reach the champion’s title. Even though their primary aim was reaching Champions League for the first time, after the first part of the season, even that seemed unreachable for Felix Magath’s men. The Wolves were the best hosts with only two points dropped at home, while they have gone whole autumn without winning away. By the end of January, Wolfsburg started improving away, which eventually turned out to be the key of their historical triumph.

Coach Magath definitely deserves most credit, as he managed to turn an average team into champions in only two seasons. Nothing of this would be possible, if the club management didn’t provide big budget, thanks to which the club spent over 50 million Euros (by far the most in Bundesliga) for signing the key players. Signing Zaccardo and Barzagli made Wolves defense stronger and more importantly the experience of these players that won World Cup with Italy in 2006, was a big boost for the team. The midfield got a worthy heir for captain Marcelinho in Zvjezdan Misimovic, who turned out to be influential in the midfield, having in mind that he was league’s best assistant this season. Goals were, of course, crucial for Wolves’ final success and they have best Bundesliga attacking-tandem in history of the league, Grafite-Dzeko to thank for. These two players managed to score over 50 goals in the league but they also managed to be the first tandem in which each of them managed to score over twenty goals. Long-term record of legendary Bayern’s attacking tandem from the early 70s, Gerd Muller and Uli Hoenes who scored 53 goals in two consecutive seasons was finally broken. Brazilian earned the title of  “Goalgetter Cannon” with 28 goals scored, eight of which were scored from the white spot and a majority in the first part of the season when he, by the way, missed several matches because of the funeral of his father. Right after he returned from Brazil, Grafite started terrorizing opposing keepers and fantastic Bosnian Edin Dzeko joined him who only in the second part of the season managed to score 21 goals. Two seasons ago, Dzeko was brought to the club from FC Teplice on Magath’s recommendation for less than two million, while the Czech club bought him for incredibly low price of around 50 thousand Euros from his parent club Zeljeznicar. Bosnian was by far the best in the air and his nine headers make him the best of all strikers. Precisely thanks to excellent Magath’s management and good selection of average players, the wolves have created a compact team that impressed whole Europe, thus showing that even the small teams can record big results.

The big question is if the teams from Volkswagen Arena will continue domination in the domestic championship, as well as how they will manage in the debutant Champions League campaign, having in mind that next season the team will be lead by a new coach, Armin Veh who managed to take the title two seasons ago with Stuttgart. If he wants to repeat the success with Wolfsburg he must hold on to the nucleus of the team and reinforce the team in order to keep up with the other rivals in the league.

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