The football players of VfL Wolfsburg and coach Tommy Stroot go separate paths. Almost a week after the Champions League debacle against FC Barcelona, the association confirmed corresponding reports from Sky and the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. According to a club announcement, the 36-year-old resigned from the office with immediate effect. A successor has not yet been determined that the club wants to “inform about it in due course”.
The separation preceded the future of the trainer for a long time. Last summer, Stroot initially announced his voluntary farewell after the 2024/25 season. However, the new Wolfsburg sports manager Peter Christiansen persuaded him to extend the contract until 2027. Now the reversal was carried out because the long-term dominating club of German women’s football was threatened with the first Titellose season since 2012: In the Bundesliga, the Wolfsburg women are six points behind FC Bayern Munich. In the DFB Cup, after ten titles in series against 1899 Hoffenheim, they were eliminated. In the quarter -finals of the Champions League, two clear defeats against the defending champions from Barcelona (1: 4, 1: 6) recently made it.
“In the past few weeks I have noticed that I no longer feel the energy in me that it takes to meet my own demands and those of VfL Wolfsburg,” Stroot is quoted in the message. On Monday, Stroot VfL director Ralf Kellermann informed about the step. “This is a message that meets us hard,” said Christiansen. According to his own statement, he would have liked to go on with the coach. “But we also have to see people in this football business. Tommy has been very honest-towards himself, but also to the club. We respect that and have come to the realization that it is the best solution for everyone involved.”
Stroot moved from Twente Enschede to VfL in 2021 and won the German championship and the DFB Cup three times.