The Wolves rounded off their training camp in Almancil with a 3-2 friendly victory over FC Schalke 04 at the Estadio Algarve.
Jakub Kaminski (31’), Vaclav Cerny (43’) and Dzenan Pejcinovic (81’) got the goals for the Green-and-Whites, with Simon Terodde (34’) and Timo Baumgartl (90’+1) replying for Schalke.
VfL have their first Bundesliga game of 2024 on Saturday 13 January away at Mainz 05 (kick-off 15:30 CET), in a fixture that officially concludes the first half of the league campaign.
Line-ups and stats
VfL Wolfsburg: Casteels – Maehle (76’ Fischer) Bornauw (68’ Zesiger), Jenz (68’ Lacroix) Rogerio (46’ Cozza) – Arnold (84’ Amoako), Vranckx (60’ Svanberg), Majer (68’ Gerhardt), J. Kaminski (46‘Tomas), Cerny (46‘ Paredes) – Wind (76’ Pejcinovic)
FC Schalke 04: Fährmann (46’ Heekeren) – Brunner (46’ Matriciani), Kallas (63’ Van der Sloot), M. Kaminski (63‘ Baumgartl), Ouwejan (63‘ Murkin) – Seguin (63‘ Schallenberg), Idrizi (63‘ Kaparos), Mohr (63‘ Drexler), Karaman (63‘ Becker) – Topp (46‘ Kozuki), Terodde (63‘ Castelle)
Goals: 1-0 J. Kaminski (31’), 1-1 Terodde (34’), 1-2 Cerny (43’), 1-3 Pejcinovic (81’), 2-3 Baumgartl (90’+1)
Yellow cards: - / Seguin
“A lot of chances and nice goals”
VfL head coach Niko Kovac: “I think today we saw a lot of what we put into motion on 28 December and here in the training camp. As a coach, it’s all the more pleasing to see us create a lot of chances and score some nice goals. You could see that the boys really enjoyed it out there today. The whole week here has been really good. We scored three goals today and on top of that had a lot of chances, especially in the second half. It’s important for the players to realise that the ideas we have pay dividends when they’re implemented. That was nice to see today. But now it’s in the past; Mainz is the focus now. I hope we can perform there as well as we did here.”
