The history of Die Wölfe, chronicled

VfL Wolfsburg celebrate their eightieth anniversary today – founded on 12 September 1945. Here is an elaborate summary of the rich history of Germany’s one-time league and cup champions.

“So, Mr. Frigolé, which teams do you support?”

“VfL Wolfsburg…”

People get surprised – it is not the first answer they expect!

After all, VfL Wolfsburg are not the first team that you think about when it comes to a football team to support – typically when I ask someone who they support, I hear Manchester City, or Arsenal, or Inter Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, insert any top team in there – a team that has a great deal of success. Even in German football alone, in the Bundesliga itself, you hear FC Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund, and teams like these.

This is especially the case across the Atlantic Ocean, in Canada, where there is no local team and most people in my generation defaulted to Bayern or Dortmund, because those were the teams that were shown on Sportsnet every weekend back in the day.

But Wolfsburg are the one, the only team that I support in German football. There was just something about Saturday afternoons at the Volkswagen Arena that drew me in, whenever I got to watch their matches from almost 7,000 kilometres away – the atmosphere, the passion, and the play on the field at times of course… it amazed me. Every time there was a broadcast involving Wolfsburg, I would stop whatever I was doing that day and tune in.

I spent countless hours watching this team over the years – from the end of the Bas Dost era to Wout Weghorst’s breakout season and our stunning 8-1 win against Augsburg that qualified us for European football. That stunning first leg in the Champions League against Real Madrid, and Maximilian Arnold’s world-class free kick against Frankfurt.

I remember all of it – I became obsessed.

Supporting a football team is like a relationship: you become obsessed, you then celebrate the good moments together, you face the tough times together – and quite simply, I fell in love with this club. Wolfsburg is not the most successful team in Germany, but at the same time, that also makes the victories much more special.

No matter what happened, whether Wolfsburg qualified for European competition again and again or were extremely close to getting relegated, I stayed loyal to them – and I will continue to for the rest of my life.

Just over a decade after I became a Wolfsburg supporter, I get to write about the club I love – I get to be connected to VfL in more ways than just one. It is such an honour to shine a spotlight on Wolfsburg every week, to focus on the news relating to the club and to discuss with fans, both those who currently follow Wolfsburg themselves, and those who are looking for a team to support.

That said, I took it upon myself to chronicle the eight-decade history of VfL Wolfsburg in extensive detail for English-language audiences, with statistics and translated quotes from those who wore the green and white during their careers. I hope you enjoy reading it, as much as I did writing it.

VFL WOLFSBURG: WERK, STADT, VEREIN

The founding of VSK

The modern-day version of the club was founded on 12 September 1945 at approximately 19:00 CET, as VSK Wolfsburg. With the city rebuilding and without much to look forward to at the time, it is written that eleven men and a woman gathered to form a sports club and bring hope back to Wolfsburg itself.

These members were Irma Dziomba, Herbert Chall, Sepp Dietz, Alois Dilla, Willi Hilbert, Kurt Lindner, Heinz Schacht, Arthur Schickl, Erich Schilling, Adam Schröck, Fritz Walb, and Rudolf Zenker. One of the members was quoted as saying, “We need a sport club to do something meaningful with the little free time that we have.” VSK were not just a football club – they also had a handball team, as well as tennis, cycling, boxing, gymnastics, and chess.

As there were no newspapers in Wolfsburg at the time, Zenker put a loudspeaker on a car and went around town pleading to local residents to give the club equipment – in return, the locals would receive items such as cigarettes, alcohol, and even food, because the city was in a poor state. There was little success, but the club was grateful for whatever trades that they were able to make.

VSK’s green and white colours were also determined through donations: Bernd Elberskirch, a local academy coach, provided ten green uniforms to the club shortly after they were founded, and the white shorts that the club wore were made of bedsheets donated and sewn by members of the community.

The field that the club primarily played at was beside the only school in the city – it was sandwiched between the school and a stretch of land that was owned by the German government until the end of World War II. The club played its first matches in the rural areas around the city, with the Wolfsburg players receiving no money from them.

VSK nearly folded just three months later, as all but one player left to form 1. FC Wolfsburg, a team that, in the modern day, have last been reported to play in Bezirksliga Braunschweig 1. Josef Meyer, the only player that stayed with VSK, worked to rebuild the club, and Willi Hilbert would ultimately return to join him.

Rebrand, rebuild, and sign from Schalke

The club was soon renamed Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg – meaning “Club for Physical Exercise”. VfL played in 1. Kreisliga Gifhorn in the 1945/46 season, and managed to win it; the following year, the new-look Wolfsburg squad would play 1. FC Wolfsburg and got pummeled 2-8.

VfL Wolfsburg remained the second team in the city for a few more months – that is, until FC Schalke 04 arranged a friendly with them. Six Schalke players then moved to Wolfsburg the following summer, with Volkswagen offering them food and housing to play their football in the city.

Margit Kwiatkowski, the wife of Wolfsburg player Bernhard Kwiatkowski, was quoted in an interview in 2016 as saying: “Because of the war, there were not enough good players here [in Wolfsburg] – that is why they specifically looked for them in the west. Gelsenkirchen was a heap of rubble – the men were coming home from captivity, they were standing at the train station and were not knowing where they should go. That said, everyone wanted to take advantage of the new opportunity.”

These new players helped VfL in their various different sport departments. Kwiatkowski added that “they were all athletic, young men who not only helped in football – my husband, for example, also played on the handball team.”

FC Schalke 04 and VfL Wolfsburg formed a partnership in the years that followed, and played a series of friendlies; Zenker, who eventually returned to the club, maintained communication between the two parties, and eventually, thanks to the help of Die Knappen, Wolfsburg made it to the promotion round of the Oberliga Nord, which was the highest level they could have reached at the time, by the start of 1951.

Eleven players in a Beetle

This caused more away travel, and the club had to transport between matches in one tiny Volkswagen Beetle – driven by Willi Wolf, the club’s doctor. Kwiatkowski said about this, “The players changed in farmer’s clothes – Willi drove them to away matches. There was no other car VfL had – so these eleven players had to fit into this one Beetle, and somehow, it always worked.”

As Volkswagen rebuilt following the war, VfL’s players were also given jobs and an income: Heinz Neumann went into painting, for example, and Anton Kwiatkowski (one of the Kwiatkowski brothers) went into financial administration for the company. The players that were given an opportunity to represent Wolfsburg were now happy to play for the club. Kwiatkowski said, “Returning to the west was never an option. It was quite the opposite, actually – my husband felt at home here and continued to remain connected to VfL throughout his lifetime.”

Eventually the club was promoted to the main Oberliga itself in 1954. In the Oberliga, the club faced SV Werder Bremen, Hannover 96, Eintracht Braunschweig, FC St. Pauli, and others. However, the highlight was defeating champions Hamburger SV 1-0 on 31 October 1954, in front of 15,260 spectators; one of the players on that Hamburg side was Germany legend Uwe Seeler. Manfred Müller was the goalscorer in the famous win.

Expansion of Elsterweg and a celebratory era

In 1961, the club expanded the VfL-Stadion am Elsterweg, first opened in 1947, to nearly 20 000 spectators – this was funded by both the city government and Volkswagen, ultimately resulting in a fee of 720,000 Deutsche Marks. On 1 May 1961, the venue was unveiled, and with it came a match against FC Bayern München, one that was well-fought by Wolfsburg but resulted in a 2-3 defeat.

Wolfsburg would then host Santos FC and international football icon Pelé a month later – and to the surprise of everyone, they would defeat the Brazilians 6-3, with Günter Rüge and Gerhard Schrader scoring four of those goals combined.

In 1963, the club managed to make the final of the Deutsche Amateur-Meisterschaft, the national championship for amateur sides that was founded after the German national amateur team competed in Helsinki, Finland at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Despite defeating Lüner SV in a high-scoring 3-2 affair in the semifinal, the club would lose to VfB Stuttgart by a goal to none in the most important match of their history at the time.

“The fact that we even got that far was incredible, and to be able to play in front of such a large crowd was special for all of us,” striker Günter Otto said. “To be able to play in front of such a huge crowd was special for us as well. The next day, the entire match was broadcast on ZDF, which only started broadcasting that year – I remember Wim Thoelke standing in our locker room, it was his first time hosting match coverage.”

The defeat did not stop the city from celebrating the achievement, however – the city government ordered a parade of Volkswagen Beetles, hosted a reception, and included the club in the Goldene Buch der Stadt, which is one of the city’s highest honours.

Imre Farkaszinski: A character coach

Later that year, German football saw a complete change, with the Bundesliga officially implemented and Wolfsburg’s Oberliga Nord division being renamed to Regionalliga Nord. Under Hungarian coach Imre Farkaszinski, Wolfsburg played strong attacking football, and made it to the Bundesliga promotion round in 1970 – a division that they would finish fourth in.

Farkaszinski was an enthusiastic head coach who demanded much of his players. This was his second stint as Wolfsburg coach, after being fired in one unsuccessful 1958 season – before it even started, the first words he said to Wolfsburg management were, “You should not expect any miracles from me”. He returned in 1967, and despite being offered contracts by other teams, including Eintracht Braunschweig, he remained at Wolfsburg.

In 1974, it was Farkaszinski who would lead Wolfsburg to the 2. Bundesliga for the first time in their history. He then resigned from the main team following that year, continuing his other profession as a teacher and leading the U19 team at certain points.

Players remembered him as someone who was very specific to his tactics and which players fit with them – to such an extent that he even got into a situation with the board over two selections!

Manfred Mattes, one of the assistant coaches under Farkaszinski, recounted one very notable incident: “The board signed two players, they wanted to make sure that these players got time on the field. Farkaszinski used them, and then immediately fired them at the end of the match – which we lost 2-10, by the way! That shows how consistent he was.”

Women’s football sees success in Wolfsburg

The Wolfsburg men’s side bounced between the 2. Bundesliga and Oberliga (renamed again from Regionalliga) for a span of two decades. At the same time, a women’s team was formed, VfR Eintracht Wolfsburg, and they were starting to see significant successes, including finishing as runners-up in the DFB-Pokal Frauen in 1984.

Natascha Wiggers was one of the main defenders of that team, playing 13 years at VfR – the 1983/84 season was her first. She spoke to Wolfsburg about the final, a 0-2 defeat to Bergisch Gladbach, in an interview with the club decades later: “We had our own fans with us – the two coaches were completely lost in the crowd. Funnily enough, [being the same day as the men’s final], the FC Bayern fans cheered us on, and the Borussia Mönchengladbach fans supported our opponents. The reason was that we were playing in red and Bergisch Gladbach in white.”

She also recounted a bizarre factor of the match: “During our final, a few Gladbach fans ran out of the stands to test their boots – and not just off-field, but directly on the pitch! They did not get close to the ball, but they managed to run at least 6-7 meters into the pitch.”

VfR Eintracht would eventually become incorporated into VfL Wolfsburg in 2003. Under the VfL name, they have become one of the two most successful women’s teams in Germany, finishing first or second in every single Bundesliga season between 2011/12 and today – seven of those seasons ended in league titles (2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022).

They also won the UEFA Women’s Champions League twice (2013 and 2014), and made the finals on five other occasions, most recently in 2023. Wolfsburg’s academy have been responsible for much of the talent that makes the German national women’s team since 2010, as well as those of other national teams.

Promotion to Bundesliga and a DFB-Pokal final

The men’s team was promoted to the 2. Bundesliga once again for the 1992/93 season, the second season since German reunification – two years later, they would follow the women’s team in that they made the final of the DFB-Pokal for the first time in history. This was the moment when Wolfsburg, now a professional side, reintroduced itself to the nation.

What made the feat even more impressive for Wolfsburg was that they played every single match away – including against two Bundesliga sides in Eintracht Frankfurt and 1. FC Köln, the latter of which resulted in a 1-0 semifinal victory on a goal from Siegfried Reich just 20 minutes in.

On 24 June 1995, the club paid a visit to Berlin, to play at the famous Olympiastadion against Borussia Mönchengladbach. It was purely coincidental that these were Wolfsburg’s opponents for the first men’s final in team history, considering that, as mentioned above, the Wolfsburg women’s team played in the same venue hours before Mönchengladbach faced Bayern in the 1984 final.

“A unique opportunity to win a German title. To experience something like that was simply fantastic,” Reich said to the club years later regarding the final. “We were hoping for a mid-table finish, but we ended up fourth and we reached the final. Everything considered, it was phenomenal – a dream come true for all of us.”

Peter Pander, former Director of Football at the club, said about that evening, “It was a whole new world. Nobody in Wolfsburg really understood it back then – I still remember how the ticket sales went. Many Wolfsburg fans sold their tickets to Gladbach fans, even though they had the unique opportunity to be there themselves. Aside from the die-hard fans, I don’t think anyone in the city even registered what was going on.”

75,717 were in attendance, watching the team ultimately lose 0-3 to Gladbach. The following season, VfL Wolfsburg had their worst 2. Bundesliga finish in four years, and battled relegation at certain points, ultimately leading to the firing of manager Gerd Roggensack.

Nobody could have seen coming the miracle season that followed. VfL Wolfsburg finished second in 2. Bundesliga with a 14-16-4 record, only behind 1. FC Kaiserslautern – Kaiserslautern would stun the Bundesliga a year later, finishing above Bayern and winning the Meisterschale for the fourth time in their history.

Wolfsburg needed to win their final match to promote, and did so in a tense victory over 1. FSV Mainz 05, who just narrowly missed out on the top three. VfL went from 3-1 ahead to a 3-3 tie with Jürgen Klopp as one of the goalscorers for Mainz; Die Wölfe ultimately walked out 5-4 victors on a Sven Ratke goal in the seventy-sixth minute.

The headline on the local newspaper the following day was, “Name your children Willi again!” – this was referencing Willi Reimann, the coach who was crucial in bringing the club to the top-flight.

Even Reimann and the board were surprised by the result. “It must be said that internally, we did not have the idea of ​​promotion either. Not the management, not players, not fans. Nobody expected the situation to develop this way.”

He added that the club did not have enough infrastructure to pull off a promotion of that magnitude: “When it came to finding a striker, we simply lacked the resources – we had one of the smallest budgets in the league, we could not pay large salaries or transfer fees. Support from the factory was also comparatively limited. Volkswagen sent people to work for VfL, but the kind of financial support that later developed was not available for us yet – we had to find other ways of doing things.”

Wolfsburg had a similar squad to that of the prior season under Roggensack, which made the result even more surprising to the fans. Reimann was asked about this in an interview with VfL Wolfsburg two decades later.

He said: “It was all about team spirit. We were very fortunate to have players on the team whose personalities fit together. Maintaining this sense of togetherness was something I have always placed great importance on.”

Reimann added: “Of course, we made adjustments. We could not bring in any big names. But a player like Sven Ratke, for example, who showed great willpower and unbelievable stamina, was worth his weight in gold to the team.”

“When he overtook someone like Detlev Dammeier, one of our most stamina-packed players, in a forest run, it showed the others: You really need to put in the work. We trained very hard to be fit for the demands of the league – after all, we had no other choice.”

Life in the Bundesliga – quick qualification for Europe

While Kaiserslautern stunned Germany, Wolfsburg struggled to keep up with the rest of the Bundesliga, finishing 11-6-17 and one point away from the relegation zone. Reimann was released from his position, and Wolfgang Wolf (yes, coach of Wolfsburg) was hired for the following campaign.

In 1998/99, Wolf led Wolfsburg to European competition for the first time ever, as the side finished sixth in the Bundesliga with a 15-10-9 record and 55 points. This was 14 points ahead of TSV 1860 München, who were the best team to miss out on European competition.

Wolfsburg’s first European competition match was in the UEFA Cup, the predecessor of the modern-day UEFA Europa League – the opponent was Debreceni VSC, the victors of Magyar Cupa from Hungary.

Die Wölfe won the first leg on a beautiful Tuesday evening at Elsterweg by a 2-0 result, and managed to hold the Hungarians to a 1-2 result in the second leg. Goalkeeper Claus Reitmeier said about the experience of the first match: “The European Cup matches under floodlights and with a nearly full stadium in Wolfsburg, they were very special.”

Wolfsburg were drawn with Atlético de Madrid in the next round, and despite well-fought battles in both matches, they exited the tournament at the hands of the Spanish side, 2-3 in Germany and 1-2 in Spain.

New millenium, new stadium, somewhat new ownership

The 21st century saw two notable occurrences within the first three years.

In 2001, VfL Wolfsburg-Fußball GmbH was formed, approved by the Bundesliga and thus making Volkswagen the primary shareholder, a legal exception to the 50+1 rule. That same year, construction began on the Volkswagen Arena, and the new state-of-the-art venue was inaugurated the following December, with the opening match ending in a 1-2 defeat to VfB Stuttgart. Tomislav Marić scored Wolfsburg’s first goal in the new venue.

Wolfsburg would not only get a new arena in the decade, but also upgraded their other facilities, including building an academy performance centre close to the main venue. This was complete with a sauna, a relaxation pool, multiple change rooms, a medical room, a physiotherapy room, and a room for meetings.

Construction was also started on the AOK Stadion, which was finished by 2015 as the main venue to host the Wolfsburg women’s team and the Wolfsburg academy teams.

Four years of fame on the international stage

Many things happened for VfL Wolfsburg between the years of 2004 and 2008 – both in the Bundesliga, and in other competitions.

Attacking midfielder Andrés D’Alessandro won a gold medal with the Argentina men’s national team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Three years later, Martina Müller, who helped Wolfsburg to promote to the Frauen-Bundesliga in the 2005/06 season, became the first VfL member to win the FIFA Women’s World Cup for Germany.

In the first season under Felix Magath’s leadership, Wolfsburg finished fifth in the 2007/08 season, qualifying for the UEFA Cup once again. The club finished the year with three consecutive victories, but the 4-2 thriller with Borussia Dortmund that confirmed Wolfsburg’s place in European competition was the most notable. At the time, it was the best finish Wolfsburg had in the German top-flight.

The group stage that autumn finished with ten points from twelve, defeating SC Hereenveen (5-1), SC Braga (3-2), Portsmouth FC (3-2), and drawing an AC Milan side (2-2) that won the UEFA Champions League just two years earlier. Wolfsburg finished above all of these opponents in the table, and faced Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 32, losing 1-5 on aggregate (0-2 in Paris, 1-3 in Wolfsburg).

2008/09: Wolfsburg reach the top of German football

Magath wanted to take his Wolfsburg side further than fifth place in the Bundesliga, going into the 2008/09 campaign. Like Farkaszinski, he had a tough-as-nails mindset, strict about his tactics, but also about training sessions and preparing for tough schedules ahead.

Because he brought results that the club had never seen before, the club had so much confidence in him that he was made the sporting director, managing director, and also was a major part in controlling the academy teams.

Magath needed to continue delivering, and pledged to the German media before the season even started: “We want to establish ourselves permanently at the top of the Bundesliga – and I bear the responsibility for that”. It looked like he would follow through with that promise in the first five matches.

The club went 2-3-0, defeating 1. FC Köln and the team that was at the top of the table going into matchday five, Hamburger SV. All of the draws were, surprisingly, 2-2. A defeat in Karlsruhe followed, and this was followed by another 2-2 draw, this time in Gelsenkirchen.

From that point, it looked like things were getting shaky for Wolfsburg. The club won five consecutive home matches at the Volkswagen Arena but every week in between would be a draw or defeat away. In early February, things started to change for the better.

22-year-old Bosnian talent Edin Džeko would score both goals as the club defeated VfL Bochum 2-0. This was followed by a win, away, in Frankfurt, with Džeko scoring the winning goal once again. Džeko scored the winning goal in the match after that, too – and the match after that – and the match after that.

Wolfsburg won five consecutive matches – and while other teams were struggling to maintain consistency, Magath’s squad continued to fight for what seemed to be an impossible dream.

After two wins in Gelsenkirchen and Bielefeld, VfL Wolfsburg hosted reigning German champions FC Bayern München at the Volkswagen Arena. Fans of the club, as well as those behind the scenes, were expecting a close, fiercely-contested match between two sides that were neck-and-neck in the Bundesliga table – but two hours later, everyone was in shock as to what had just happened.

Christian Gentner put the hosts in front right before the half, but despite Diego Benaglio’s best effort to punch the ball away, Luca Toni’s header would go over the line a minute later to equalise for Bayern. Marcel Schäfer’s cross to Džeko in open space would give the hosts the lead just past the hour mark, and a quick counterattack would lead to another Džeko goal three minutes after that.

Grafite made it 4-1 and then followed with a world-class goal, still ranked among the best goals in the history of the Bundesliga. Cutting into the left side of the Bayern penalty area, he weaved his way around Andreas Ottl, dribbled past Oliver Kahn, and backheeled the ball into the bottom-left corner. It was the cherry on top to an unbelievable victory – and Wolfsburg were not done after that.

A pair of 2-1 victories followed – and Wolfsburg continued with a string of clean sheets, 4-0 against Hoffenheim, 3-0 against Dortmund, and 5-0 in Hannover. Despite losing a pair of matches in between – these being against Energie Cottbus and VfB Stuttgart – Wolfsburg were in the top two going into the final day, 23 May 2009.

Wolfsburg had 66 points, and Bayern had 64 going into the match. Bayern were to face third-place Stuttgart at Allianz Arena, and at the same time, Wolfsburg would host mid-table SV Werder Bremen at the Volkswagen Arena.

Bayern ended up winning their match 2-1, with Mark van Bommel scoring the match-deciding goal in the sixtieth minute. But within 26 minutes in the other match, the hosts pretty much had the title secured with goals from Zvjezdan Misimović and Grafite, as well as an own goal from Sebastian Prödl.

Bremen would get on the board five minutes later, but could not sustain that momentum in the second half. A Grafite header off a free kick lob from Andrea Barzagli increased the lead to 4-1 for the hosts, and Džeko would once again get on the end of a cross from Christian Gentner to extend the lead to 5-1.

It was pure pandemonium across the city – a dream, an ambition that generations of Wolfsburgers worked hard for finally becoming a reality. For the first time in their sixty-four year history – and as Magath promised – VfL Wolfsburg were champions of the Bundesliga!

For everyone involved, the players, management, the fans, probably the whole of Germany, it felt unreal. When the fans ran onto the field after the final whistle, when the medals were being handed out, when the trophy was in Josué’s hands. The scenes of celebration, captured, framed, forever embedded in the memories of Wolfsburg fans, young and old – forever in history.

Post-title problems and near-relegation

Having done what he wanted to do in just two seasons, to bring the Meisterschale to Wolfsburg and become a legend of the club, Magath left for FC Schalke 04. There, he would finish second in the Bundesliga the following year and contribute to half of Schalke’s DFB-Pokal title win in 2010/11 (Ralf Rangnick covered the other half and lifted the trophy after the final).

Magath would never win another major trophy as coach. As for VfL, their Champions League campaign ended in the group stage, with Manchester United FC and PFC CSKA Moskva finishing above them – but they qualified for the Europa League, eventually being eliminated by Fulham FC in the quarterfinals.

Despite having the same core players on the squad – Džeko, Grafite, Josué, and so on – the club could not follow the tactics of Armin Veh as well as they did with Magath, and finished eighth, with Veh being sacked at the end of their Champions League campaign.

Edin Džeko was eventually transferred to Manchester City FC the following season, where he would help the Sky Blues to a Premier League title, scoring an equaliser in the last minute of regular time against QPR before Sergio Agüero’s match-winning strike four minutes later.

Meanwhile, Wolfsburg suffered a miserable season under three different coaches in 2010/11, especially between January and March, with Magath having to come in to save them from relegation and finish fifteenth. Magath was permanently signed in 2011/12, but an eighth-place finish and a first-round exit in the DFB-Pokal were enough not to extend his contract.

Hecking leads Wolfsburg to cup title

Dieter Hecking took over at the start of the 2012/13 season and while the Bundesliga performance did not quite go as planned, ultimately finishing eleventh and drawing seven of their last nine matches (albeit winning the other two and remaining unbeaten through that span), their DFB-Pokal campaign was decent up to the quarterfinals.

A 1-6 defeat to FC Bayern München, in front of 70,000 fans at Allianz Arena, meant that the club had to go back to the drawing board, but given how they fared up to that point, there was a feeling that they could become strong contenders in Germany’s top cup competition.

The following year also ended in the semifinals, a 0-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund, but the 2014/15 DFB-Pokal season was when Hecking’s side would reach new heights.

A scary first round match with second-tier SV Darmstadt 98 ended in a penalty shootout victory, and after defeating 1. FC Heidenheim 1846 by a 4-1 result, the next three matches would go without conceding. RB Leipzig (2-0), SC Freiburg (1-0), and DSC Arminia Bielefeld (4-0) were out, and just like that, VfL Wolfsburg were in a DFB-Pokal final for the second time in their history, against the same Borussia Dortmund team that knocked them out the year before.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang put the hosts in front after just five minutes, but by the end of the first half, VfL Wolfsburg put three past Mitchell Langerak, thanks to Luiz Gustavo, Kevin De Bruyne, and Bas Dost. Just over an hour later, the final whistle went at the Olympiastadion – and twenty years after heartbreak, VfL Wolfsburg won the DFB-Pokal for the first time!

That was not the only major highlight of the season, as VfL managed to finish second in the Bundesliga, ten points behind FC Bayern München and with a Champions League place booked.

The club was involved in a series of high-scoring matches, most notably the 5-4 result in Leverkusen that saw Son Heung-min score three goals for the hosts and Bas Dost contribute four for the visitors – including the winning one in the third minute of stoppage time. Dost finished tied for fourth in league scoring, with 16 goals in the campaign.

Wolfsburg also added a DFB-Supercup to their collection, defeating said Bayern 1-1, 5-4 on penalties. Danish international Nicklas Bendtner was responsible for both the equaliser in the eighty-ninth minute, and the winning penalty.

In the 2015/16 Champions League, Wolfsburg topped their group, which coincidentally involved the same Manchester United and CSKA Moskva clubs that knocked them out of the Champions League group stage six years earlier. The club eliminated KRC Genk in the round of sixteen before ultimately being drawn with Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and the Real Madrid CF squad that won the tournament two years before.

A 2-0 victory at the Volkswagen Arena, with goals from Ricardo Rodriguez and Maximilian Arnold, stunned the entire continent, but Cristiano Ronaldo would score a hat-trick in the second leg to eliminate the German side after a fine campaign. Real Madrid would then go on to defeat Manchester City FC and Atlético de Madrid to win the title in Milan.

Highs and lows in equal measure

The 2016/17 season was nothing short of miserable. The season started normally, with a 2-0 win in Augsburg, but after eight consecutive matches without a win to follow, Dieter Hecking was out and Wolfsburg were heading towards the relegation zone. A respectable 0-1 defeat to FC Bayern would be followed by a 0-6 thrashing the next time the two met – there was inconsistency across the board.

From the end of February, Dutch coach Andries Jonker took over, and under his leadership, the club managed to finish sixteenth, not directly dropping to 2. Bundesliga but not exactly safe either – they had to face local rival Eintracht Braunschweig to stay in the German top-tier.

Mario Gómez, who scored almost half of the club’s goals in that entire season (15/34), added another goal to lead Wolfsburg to a 1-0 victory in the first leg. A 1-0 victory away, on a Vierinha goal in the forty-ninth minute, confirmed Die Wölfe a place in the Bundesliga for a twenty-first consecutive season.

The 2017/18 season was not much different – eight consecutive draws, continued inconsistency, three different coaches, the resignation of sporting director Olaf Rebbe… and another sixteenth place finish, this time just two points away from relegation. Instead of Wolfsburg, Hamburger SV were historically relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time since the founding of the modern-day German top-flight.

Wolfsburg would defeat KSV Holstein Kiel 4-1 on aggregate in the relegation playoff – but despite the disappointment that season brought, there was still a desire to win, a fire burning inside that was not going to be contained – and the offseason was the spark.

Under Bruno Labbadia, the club signed Wout Weghorst from AZ, who would prove to be crucial to their success – this was his breakout season, the one where he made a name for himself in German, and eventually world, football. Wolfsburg had two unbeaten streaks in December and February, and while Bayern defeated them 6-0 in March, that did not hamper Wolfsburg’s consistency at all.

On the final day of the season, a match against FC Augsburg which Die Wölfe needed to win to qualify for European competition, Weghorst would score a hat-trick in a span of 34 minutes. By the time that Julian Schieber put Augsburg on the board in the eighty-first minute, goals from Weghorst, Robin Knoche, Daniel Ginczek, and Elvis Rexhbeçaj meant that the hosts were 6-1 in front. Josip Brekalo would add another four minutes later, and a Kevin Danso own goal ensured an 8-1 victory.

That was Labbadia’s last match as Wolfsburg coach, as he would move to Hertha BSC a year later; Austrian Oliver Glasner took the coaching position for the 2019/20 season as a result. Wolfsburg confirmed their place in the Europa League, a campaign that would eventually finish in the round of 16 to Ukrainian side Shakthar Donetsk.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the last nine matches of the season were played behind closed doors, but Wolfsburg managed to qualify for the Europa League once again with a seventh-place finish. The following season, also behind closed doors, ended in a fourth-place finish for Glasner’s VfL, who went unbeaten in their first eleven matches and added another nine-match unbeaten streak in January and February.

Glasner saw an opportunity at Eintracht Frankfurt and took it in the offseason; Mark van Bommel took over and lasted only two months as head coach, before being replaced by Florian Kohfeldt.

Jonas Wind arrived in the winter transfer window, Max Kruse made his return, and Kevin Paredes arrived from DC United. Weghorst would go to Burnley FC, and much of the core from some of Wolfsburg’s successful seasons, including Joshua Guilavogui and Elvis Rexhbeçaj, also left. Omar Marmoush, who was a Wolfsburg academy talent, moved on loan to VfB Stuttgart.

Wolfsburg’s results were not even close to the prior seasons, as they finished twelfth in the Bundesliga and had to forfeit their first round DFB-Pokal match against SC Preußen Münster, a 2-1 extra time win in which they used six substitutions instead of the five maximum. The Champions League that Glasner’s side qualified for also ended in an early exit, finishing 1-2-3 and at the bottom of their group with five points.

Present day, and a bright future ahead

Niko Kovač took over the head coaching position at the start of the 2022/23 season, and despite his best efforts to lead the team into European competition, they lost their final two matches in Freiburg and against relegated Hertha BSC – finishing one point out of the Conference League playoff.

A less than ideal 2023/24 season, in which the club returned to twelfth, and could not win a match between mid-December and the end of March, led to Kovač’s firing and the entry of Ralph Hasenhüttl.

Kovač would go on to turn Borussia Dortmund’s fortunes around the following season and qualify them for the Champions League on the final day, while Hasenhüttl’s Wolfsburg started off quite strong and were in the hunt for a European place… until early March, when the club went eight matches without a win, still struggled at home, and the dream dashed. Hasenhüttl was sacked and replaced by U19 coach Daniel Bauer, who showed promising results in the last two weeks but elected to return to his academy side and did not promote to the main team.

Wolfsburg finished eleventh in the table with an 11-10-13 record, 43 points with a +2 goal differential (56-54) – nine points out of European competition, and fourteen points out of the relegation playoff.

The club also made a very notable change in the board, one that tied into their transfer strategy in 2024/25 and continues to. Peter Christiansen arrived from FC København and became the managing director for sport at the club – at the same time, the club opened the door to scouting Denmark heavily and have now included six Danish players in the squad.

Kamil Grabara and Denis Vavro also joined from København, the former signed permanently from the beginning and the latter signed permanently after performing well on his one-year loan. Another player acquired on loan was Mohamed Amoura from Union Saint-Gilloise; the Algerian international became the top scorer with 10 goals in the 2024/25 campaign, and Wolfsburg signed him permanently the following summer.

Most recently, the club notably acquired two top talents, both of which happen to be from Denmark and once again tying into Christiansen’s impact on the club: Jesper Lindstrøm from SSC Napoli, and Denmark’s all-time record goalscorer, Christian Eriksen from free agency.

This leads us to the present, eight decades to this day. Under Dutch head coach Paul Simonis, who arrived from Eredivisie side Go Ahead Eagles in June, Wolfsburg have seen a good start to the 2025/26 Bundesliga season, with a 3-1 win away at 1. FC Heidenheim 1846 and a 1-1 draw with 1. FSV Mainz 05.

The club will be hosting their anniversary match on Saturday, 15:30 CET against another undefeated side in newly-promoted 1. FC Köln – celebrating a significant milestone and looking to continue what may just be a bright new chapter in the history of this beautiful club.