After securing a narrow Bundesliga victory over his former Bundesliga club, Borussia Dortmund head coach Niko Kovac was in a gracious mood on Saturday afternoon. Kovac obviously knows the VfL Wolfsburg press room quite well, though it surely conjures up some unfortunate memories.
Kovac worked the Wolfsburg bench from May 2022 to March 2024. The current BVB coach’s tenure was marked by his failure to led Germany’s green company team back to Europe; something they’ve failed to do ever since Oliver Glasner helped the German Wolves capture Champions League football in 2021.
Kovac took massive criticism for the poor and haphazard manner in which he managed Wolfsburg’s personnel and tactics. After his dismissal, many doubted that the former Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich man would ever be back working a Bundesliga bench again.
Now, thanks to the fact that Dortmund took a chance on him 13 months ago and continued to back him despite some more controversies and difficulties, Kovac trains a team his current active captain remains convinced can still challenge Bayern Munich for the Bundesliga title this year.
As Wolfsburg fight for their top flight lives, Kovac took multiple opportunities to pay his former colleagues and co-workers his respect. Just as he did a couple weeks ago following an extremely close win over St. Pauli, Kovac acknowledged that the result could have swung the other way.
“I’m sorry for Wolfsburg as there was a lot more in their performance and they probably deserved more than a point,” Kovac noted during his opening statement at the press conference. “It was a very tight contest.“
“Of course I keep up-to-date with things here,” Kovac said when asked directly about his former club later in the press conference. “I had the privilege of working here for a year-and-a-half with great people, wonderful players, and good lads. I’m convinced that this team has a lot of quality and I’m not just saying that because I used to work here.
“They’re punching below their weight,” Kovac continued. “[Head coach] Daniel [Bauer] is working on getting them some momentum and I’ve already noticed some progress. Last Friday night against Köln and today, they played sensational halves of football.
“The process has been put in motion,” Kovac concluded. “And when they continue to work hard at it, they have the quality to pull themselves out of this. I’m 100 percent convinced of that, and I’ll naturally be keeping my fingers crossed as well.“
