McClaren joins Wolfsburg

Steve McClaren is the new coach of dethroned 2009 German Bundesliga champions VfL Wolfsburg.

McClaren, the first Englishman to coach in Germany, has signed a two year contract which is said to be worth three Million Euros per annum.

For the Volkswagen backed club the signing of McClaren signals the end of a long search for a new coach. Armin Veh had been sacked in late January with second team coach Lorenz-Guenther Koestner taking over the job for the rest of the season.

VfL manager Dieter Hoeness had former Liverpool and Lyon coach Gerard Houllier as his favourite, but the Frenchman couldn't join the North Germans due to family issues.

And then the attention shifted to signing McClaren.


New chance

To many the signing might come as a surprise, but McClaren has re-established his coaching career in the last couple of years in the Netherlands as the coach of FC Twente Enschede, who won their first-ever Dutch league title recently. And this didn't go unnoticed.

In recent weeks McClaren has been linked with a number of English Premier League clubs, especially West Ham United who incidentally fired Gianfranco Zola yesterday.

But McClaren was regarded as a non-starter as a coach in England after the Three Lions didn't qualify for the European Championships 2008 and since then found his luck on the continent.


Background

McClaren played from 1979 to 1992 for Hull City, Derby County, Lincoln City, Bristol City and Oxford. He learned his coaching from Jim Smith at Derby County and Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United as their assistants before being the manager at FC Middlesbrough from 2001 to 2006.

Under his reign the club won the 2004 Carling Cup, recorded their highest Premier League finish as seventh and reached the 2006 UEFA Cup final, which the club lost 0-4 against FC Seville, the last match in charge for McClaren before he moved on.

And then came the big task of coaching England, which didn't work out to well for McClaren as his team didn't qualify for the Euro 2008 and this led to him getting fired.

This brought McClaren to Twente and now to Wolfsburg.


Ambitions

At Wolfsburg McClaren will find an ambitious management and automobile major VW supporting him.

And by winning the Dutch title and shifting to Germany, McClaren will now follow in the large footsteps of Dutchman Louis van Gaal who last summer joined Bayern Munich after winning the Dutch title with AZ Alkmaar.

The first task will be to retain wanted Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko before looking to strengthen the team, which finished only eighth this season.

McClaren can't speak German, but according to manager Dieter Hoeness that isn't an issue.

McClaren will arrive in Wolfsburg before July 1 to set the agenda and put the new team together with manager Dieter Hoeness.

McClaren's family will also shift to Germany to be with him.