Wolfsburg fires McClaren

In the end it was inevitable that VfL Wolfsburg would fire their English head coach Steve McClaren and it came after the 0-1 Bundesliga derby loss against Hanover 96. The project of having the first English coach in Germany's top league has failed.

And there are numerous reasons for the failure of McClaren at the ambitious VfL Wolfsburg, who are supported and funded by German automaker giants Volkswagen. McClaren came to Germany with the baggage of the first-ever Dutch league title with FC Twente Enschede last season. The club has been spending heavily in the transfer market to strengthen the squad and many had expected McClaren to go before the winter break, but he was allowed to continue and six new players were brought in as star striker Edin Dzeko left for Manchester City.

But still things didn't change and it all ended after the defeat against Hanover 96 over the weekend as Brazilian playmaker Diego took a penalty he wasn't intended to take and didn't score to make matters even worse. It forced the management to react and McClaren was releaved of his duties yesterday.


Wolfsburg is another chapter of failure for McClaren after having had a successful stint. 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 Holland and then the short stint in Germany.

German 1990 World Cup winner Pierre Littbarski, who was an assistant of Steve McClaren, takes over until the end of the season. And his first task will be to steer the club away from the relegation zone. Though being in 12nd spot the wolves are only a spot away from the playoff spot.