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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP)—Felix Magath is returning immediately to coach Wolfsburg, the club he led to a surprising Bundesliga title in 2009 but is in danger of relegation.

Magath was officially presented Friday, two days after his departure from Schalke, and conducted his first practice session later in the day. His contract runs through mid-2013.

“I was immediately on fire,” Magath said about Wolfsburg’s offer.

Magath was fired from Schalke shortly before the halfway mark in his four-year contract as coach and manager on Wednesday, then he quit as a board member to clear the way for a quick move to Wolfsburg.

Wolfsburg has fallen on hard times. It fired Steve McClaren, the first English coach in the Bundesliga, but the club won only one of five games under his assistant and successor Pierre Littbarski and has dropped to next to last.

Littbarski was Wolfsburg’s third coach since Magath’s departure after Armin Veh and McClaren.

Wolfsburg also has terminated the contract of its manager Dieter Hoeness and Magath will combine the functions of coach and manager, as he did in his first stint in Wolfsburg.

Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, Wolfsburg’s board chairman, said Hoeness and Wolfsburg parted company by mutual agreement.

Wolfsburg, backed financially by the giant automaker Volkswagen, was three points ahead of bottom-placed Borussia Moenchengladbach and plays in Stuttgart, one of Magath’s former clubs, on Saturday in the Bundesliga. There are eight games left in the season.

“It’s a precarious situation,” Garcia Sanz said.

Stuttgart also is in danger of dropping back into the relegation zone.

“Magath will prevent us from getting relegated,” he said.

Magath was forced out of Schalke in a dispute with club chairman Clemens Toennies, despite taking the club to the quarterfinals of the Champions League and the final of the German Cup. Schalke was only 10th in the Bundesliga, however.

Besides the 2009 title with Wolfsburg, Magath also swept the German double two consecutive seasons with Bayern Munich before getting fired.

Labels: coach, Felix, Magath, returns, Wolfsburg

BERLIN, Feb 7 (Reuters) - VfL Wolfsburg’s Brazilian midfielder Diego could face club sanctions after ignoring coach Steve McClaren’s instructions not to take a penalty in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat by Hanover 96.

Diego seized the ball from designated penalty-taker Patrick Helmes and then struck the spot-kick against the crossbar 10 minutes from time.

“We had agreed it would be Patrick Helmes and we had announced that (to the team). He has defied us. He should not have taken the penalty,” said McClaren.

The former England manager is under mounting pressure in his first Bundesliga season with Wolfsburg in 12th place, just one point above the relegation playoff spot.

“We need to discuss this incident,” he said on the club’s website (www.vflwolfsburg.de).

Germany’s Bild newspaper said Diego could be fined 100,000 euros and be dropped from the team. Club officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

McClaren managed to hold on to his job over the winter break and reinvested the 30 million pounds the club got for the sale of striker Edin Dzeko to Manchester City by buying several players, including Helmes.

(Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Justin Palmer; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

Labels: Diego, penalty, Reuters, Wolfsburg

Steve McClaren has today parted company with German side Wolfsburg following a string of poor results.

The Wolves' 1-0 loss to Hannover on Saturday was the club's second on the spin and continued a miserable sequence of just one win in 11 in the German top flight. In 21 games at the helm, McClaren managed just five wins.

The former England manager leaves with the club, champions just two seasons ago, sitting 12th in the 18-team Bundesliga, just one point above the relegation zone.

Pierre Littbarski, McClaren's former assistant, has been named as his replacement.

Wolfsburg chief executive Dieter Hoeness said: "We were not convinced that we could have a stable collaboration with Steve McClaren until the end of the season. We tried it, but unfortunately we have now lost the belief.

"Following the recent negative results we cannot underestimate our situation in the table.

"Being only one point clear of the relegation places, we are alarmed.

"Now it's just a question of increasing the gap to the relegation places as soon as possible."

Explaining Littbarski's elevation to the hot seat, Hoeness added: "We talked at great length with him. He has convinced us that he will take the necessary measures in our situation."

McClaren has seen his stock plummet in German football after joining Wolfsburg amid much expectation in May last year, fresh from guiding FC Twente to their first ever Dutch title.

In joining the Wolves the 49-year-old became the first Englishman to manage in the German top flight, but quickly found that he was unable to replicate the success he had enjoyed in Holland, with Wolfsburg losing his first three league games in charge.

Although the team recovered slightly, wins remained hard to come by and a recent sequence of seven straight league draws underlined their lack of cutting edge.

Wolfsburg chairman Dr Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz revealed the club gave McClaren every opportunity to turn their season around, but in the end were forced to act with the Yorkshireman just nine months into a two-year contract.

"We have not seen any alternative," he said. "Of course we all want to see continuity, particularly in the coaching position. Therefore, we have been waiting a long time with the decision.

"The supervisory board and management now believes, however, that the team cannot continue under Steve McClaren."

McClaren began his managerial career at Middlesbrough in 2001 having earlier had spells as assistant to Jim Smith at Derby and Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

McLaren enjoyed much success at Middlesbrough, winning the Carling Cup in 2004 and reaching the final of the UEFA Cup in 2006.

He was subsequently appointed as Sven-Goran Eriksson's successor as England boss in August 2006 but was sacked when the team failed to qualify for Euro 2008.

Labels: Independent, McClaren, sacked, Steve, Wolfsburg