Favorable exit clause
©Samsunspor
After a disappointing first third of the new Bundesliga season and the embarrassing exit in the DFB Cup, coach Paul Simonis had to resign from VfL Wolfsburg. The former Bochum and Schalke player Thomas Reis, who also has a past with the Wolves, appears in a report as a possible successor. The focus of the struggling club is also on sports director Sebastian Schindzielorz, for whose job several candidates already seem to be lined up.
Reis has been successful at Samsunspor in Turkey for over a year and is now a candidate at VfL, according to Sky. He and his team reached Europa League qualification last season and ultimately ended up in the Conference League. All three games so far have been won there. In the Süper Lig they are in fourth place with just one defeat from their first twelve games – six wins, five draws.
According to information from the broadcaster, financially there would be nothing in the way of a return campaign from Wolfsburg’s point of view. Reis, who made his breakthrough as a coach with VfL’s U19 team (65 wins in 91 games), is said to have an exit clause in Samsun for just 200,000 euros, which can be activated at any time. Reis’ contract on the Black Sea is only valid until 2026, but should contain an option to extend it for another season. In Samsunspor’s recent club history, Reis is already one of the coaches with the longest tenure. From his 55 games so far he has won 29 and drawn 13. His team only lost 13 times during this time.
Interested parties for Schindzielorz’ VfL position
No longer-term future is attributed to sports director Schindzielorz in Wolfsburg. According to “Sport Bild”, it was already clear when coach Simonis was fired that Schindzielorz would follow soon and would not be able to fulfill his contract, which runs until the summer.
According to the magazine’s information, there is a big “run” on his position: the former Stuttgart and Dortmund player Sven Mislintat is just as interested in Schindzielorz’s job as the former Leverkusen and Hamburg official Jonas Boldt. The latter had vacated his position as sports director at HSV in May 2024, and Mislintat had to leave BVB in February of this year. Other names mentioned in the VfL environment include Stuttgart’s current sports director Fabian Wohlgemuth and Bayern and Dortmund’s sports director Christoph Freund and Sebastian Kehl.