Soon-to-be Wolfsburg head coach Oliver Glasner has transformed the fortunes of LASK Linz in recent years. - © imago images / GEPA pictures/ Oliver Lerch

bundesliga

Oliver Glasner to succeed Bruno Labbadia as Wolfsburg head coach

23.04.2019

LASK Linz coach Oliver Glasner has signed a three-year deal to succeed Wolfsburg boss Bruno Labbadia at the end of the 2018/19 season, the Lower Saxony outfit have confirmed.

The news follows Labbadia's recent decision not to renew his contract with the club he saved from relegation, via the play-offs, in 2017/18, and has steered into top-six contention this term.

"We’ve been interested in Oliver Glasner for a long time and have followed his impressive work at Linz closely," said Wolfsburg managing director Jörg Schmadtke on his club's website. "Our conversations with him have confirmed the positive impression we already had and assured us that he’s the right choice to lead Wolfsburg through this next stage of development. We’re getting a highly qualified coach and a real team player."

Bruno Labbadia (c.) has navigated Wolfsburg into much calmer waters in 2018/19 following last season's dice with the drop. - 2018 Getty Images

A former centre-back in his playing days, Glasner worked as an assistant coach at RB Salzburg and spent a year in charge of Ried, before moving to Linz in 2015. He guided the club back to the top flight in 2017 and oversaw a fourth-placed finish in his third campaign at the helm. The Wolfsburg job will be the 44-year-old tactician's first outside his native Austria.

"The move to the Bundesliga's a big challenge, and one which I’m very much looking forward to and very happy to take on," Glasner said. "In my discussions with Jörg Schmadtke and Marcel Schäfer, we quickly realised we had the same ideas about how to bring successful and attractive football to Wolfsburg over the coming years.

"I’m very grateful to LASK for the past years and for allowing me to develop as a coach and work at a top level. I’ll only take positive memories from this time, and I can promise that I will give everything in the time left to achieve our objectives."

LASK are currently second in the Austrian Bundesliga standings with six games to play. Wolfsburg are ninth in the German top tier, four points outside the European places ahead of season-ending fixtures against Hoffenheim (a), Nuremberg (h), VfB Stuttgart (a) and Augsburg (h).