“Better shape than last year”

Between Monday and Saturday, the Wolves were busy laying the foundations for what will hopefully be a successful 2023/24 campaign in Seefeld, Austria, before turning their attentions to the second training camp of pre-season in Donaueschingen in just over a week’s time. Niko Kovac’s side made the most of their time in Tyrol, working hard on tactics, fitness and much more besides. Before returning to Wolfsburg on Saturday evening following their friendly against fellow Bundesliga outfit SC Freiburg, the head coach spoke to the media about…

…the team’s progress: “The lads have done really well here at the training camp. Intensity, quality as well as technical and tactical execution were at a very high level. You can tell the players who were with us last year are able to recall certain things. We still had to get to grips with those last year. The new signings have settled in quickly too, so we’re extremely satisfied at the moment. There are still a lot of things we need to repeat, evolve and adapt to, though.”

Göz Atın

Encounter with history

Final say: St. Pauli

Stalemate in Hamburg

…what they worked on in Austria: “It was about principles the players need to understand. What do we want when the opponents have the ball? What do we want when we have the ball? Where do we want to go and how do we want to get there? It’s like chess – there are a million different moves. Once the players have internalised those principles, I’m able to play every move. Now we just have to add one or two things. We’re working on that every day.”

…conclusions from the training camp: “Physically we’re in better shape than last year. We’re also further along in terms of technique and tactics. You can tell the players understand the movement patterns we came up with last year right away. You can put them into practice more quickly when they’ve become second nature.”

The summer schedule of the Wolves