Two faces of the crisis: Bundesliga stars expose their club's main problem | OneFootball

"The team, the collective, comes above everything," were the words former Wolves coach Daniel Bauer used in January to explain why top scorer Mohamed Amoura was missing from the squad. Last weekend against Bayern, he was dropped again, and Lovro Majer was once more absent from the starting lineup. Both cases highlight Wolfsburg’s biggest problem.

Amoura does deliver goals on the pitch, but in training he repeatedly shows a lack of discipline. According to 'kicker', Amoura had clashed with Leandro Paredes before the match against Bayern, who was also left out of the squad. "In situations like that, there are no two opinions: discipline has to be there, and in that moment in training, it wasn’t," current Wolfsburg coach Dieter Hecking told 'Sky'.

After a similar incident in January, it was the second such squad banishment of the season. According to 'kicker', Amoura had also been involved in "a serious altercation with full-back Joakim Maehle" toward the end of last season.

The striker, who has at least scored eight goals in this crisis-hit season in which Wolfsburg slid into the relegation battle despite spending 68 million euros on transfers (source: transfermarkt.de), is therefore a constant source of unrest and can hardly be a positive influence on the atmosphere within the team.

📸 Stuart Franklin - 2026 Getty Images

The situation with Lovro Majer is different: the versatile Croatian has been completely sidelined under Hecking. Under the 61-year-old, he has played only 106 minutes. In the brutal relegation battle, the experienced coach is relying on other players. It is actually crazy, considering Majer, with a reported fee of 25 million euros, is still the third-most expensive signing in the club’s history.

Majer never really lived up to that fee. In his first VfL season, he managed five goals and five assists, which was perfectly acceptable, but the following year he was almost entirely absent due to muscle injuries. This season, he recorded five goal contributions in the first half, but since Matchday 17 he has been waiting for another involvement in a goal.

Although Wolfsburg can still be directly relegated on the final matchday and must face bottom side St. Pauli, who are level on points, transfer rumours emerged during the week. A departure is said to be a done deal. The Croatian newspaper 'Jutarnji list' named numerous European hopefuls as potential new clubs, including Eintracht Frankfurt, Como, Napoli, Ajax and Villarreal, and also mentioned a possible relatively low fee of ten to twelve million euros.

The timing of this rumour, so shortly before the decisive match, is of course disastrous for Wolfsburg. The clubs being mentioned are also unlikely to have much interest in their interest becoming public, which quickly led to speculation that Majer’s representatives had circulated the names in order to get him talked about as a transfer target.

And that brings us to Wolfsburg’s biggest problem. The club has far too many players in the mould of Amoura and Majer. Players who cost a lot in transfer fees but see the club only as a stepping stone to somewhere else. Who fail to deliver far too often on the pitch, yet still immediately dream of the next club instead of building something with their current one—or at least first clearing up the mess. Who do not identify with their club and therefore do not step up in times of crisis.

That is why, despite major investment, Wolfsburg have finished 12th twice, 11th once and 11th again over the past five years. Now, at best, the relegation play-off spot is still within reach. In the process, the club burned through young coaches such as Mark van Bommel, Florian Kohfeldt and Paul Simonis in a very short time. Even experienced managers like Niko Kovač and Ralph Hasenhüttl eventually despaired.

Last weekend against Bayern, Wolfsburg showed what would actually have been possible with the technical quality in the squad. According to expected goals, they should really have won the match 3.88 to 1.97. But the actual result was 0-1. On top of that, there have been far too few performances as stirring as that this season. Or rather, only that one.

At VfL, the team, the collective, simply does not come above everything. At least not for enough players. If the Wolves want to break out of this spiral, they must in future rely on professionals who do not see Wolfsburg merely as a short stopover, but who want to build something in Lower Saxony and identify with the club.

That, however, is only the medium-term solution. In the short term, Dieter Hecking has to make sure he finds the right players in the current squad who can somehow still prevent relegation. So that he does not become the next experienced coach to despair at this collection of individualists.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

📸 RONNY HARTMANN