Sa mileage per game is rather average. He doesn’t break any records with his speed. Nevertheless, Jonas Wind rushes from one record to the next. “That’s a very good feeling. “It was a very good day,” said the VfL Wolfsburg striker, who scored both goals in the 2-0 home win against Eintracht Frankfurt.
The Dane has become a Wolfsburg top scorer. He scored seven goals on the first six matchdays of the new Bundesliga season: no one in VfL’s club history has ever achieved such a fantastic rate. The man with jersey number 23 is the prototype of the players that Wolfsburg wants. Not too expensive to buy, free of airs and graces and with joy in further development: Wind embodies what now clearly distinguishes the current VfL Wolfsburg from the once slightly megalomaniacal VfL Wolfsburg.
“I have to stay in the box”
Before he moved from FC Copenhagen to Wolfsburg in the winter of 2022, Jonas Wind must have carefully looked through VfL’s recent club history. After all, he had to accept a difficult inheritance. With the help of the Bosnian Edin Dzeko, the Lower Saxony team surprisingly became German champions in 2009. Thanks to a heel trick by the Brazilian Grafite against Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg even came into the world’s attention at the time.
Dzeko and Grafite’s successors included exceptional strikers Mario Mandzukic, Mario Gomez, Bas Dost and Wout Weghorst. So why does the wind, so inconspicuous at first glance, now overshadow so much of what shone before it? “I have a good feeling at the moment. I have to stay in the box,” says the 24-year-old specialist for tasks in the opponent’s penalty area. Causing unrest there, holding onto the ball and acting quickly are among his greatest strengths.
With the help of a lot of work and pressing, the Wolfsburg team ensures that Wind gets his moments and chances in almost every encounter. “Jonas stands where you have to stand. He wants the ball to bounce exactly there,” explains VfL managing director Marcel Schäfer. “That’s what we have a striker for,” added head coach Niko Kovac. With the help of a lot of commitment and persistence, his team manages to work on the opponent and force them to make mistakes.
Special instinct?
Kovac was proud that he had essentially taken the Frankfurters’ breath away. When he made it 1-0 (31st minute) against Frankfurt, Wind moved in the right place at the right moment. That was also the case with his second goal (84th), when he was successful at the second attempt after a penalty kick was initially saved by Eintracht goalkeeper Kevin Trapp. Is that luck? Or a special instinct?
The new Wolfsburg hero, whose goal rate was already good in Copenhagen, doesn’t really understand it himself. “I still don’t know. I had a good preparation and feel good physically,” says Wind about himself and his fantastic start to the season.
In the era before Wind, VfL Wolfsburg Fußball GmbH had acquired a reputation for wanting to make an impact primarily with the help of expensive new signings and high salaries. There is no doubt that good money is still paid for good professionals in Wolfsburg. But in the meantime, with protagonists like the wind brought in from FC Copenhagen, the majority of people should be able to develop something instead of buying it. The Danish international’s market value has doubled to around 14 million euros in the past year and a half.
The home game against Eintracht Frankfurt in the rarely sold-out Volkswagen Arena saw 28,323 spectators in the stands. The majority of them will be proud to be able to cheer you on like the wind. Dusters, difference players, penalty area occupiers: from match day to match day, new characteristics can be discovered that can be discovered in the wind. Instead of enthusiastically celebrating his two goals, he shrugged his shoulders towards the stands. His opponents, however, like to shake their heads when the Dane is once again standing unguarded in the right place. How does he do that?
When Wind is asked about the team’s secret and his personal success after VfL Wolfsburg’s home games, he usually leaves it with a few friendly words. His Danish accent sounds cute and always friendly. If the journalists ask more persistent questions, he prefers to switch to English.
The bottom line is that wind offers almost no surface to attack. On social networks like Instagram, he paints a completely normal picture of himself – whether intentionally or not. Vacation in Greece, strolling through Berlin, party atmosphere at the music festival in Roskilde, Denmark: Wind appears like the nice young man who lives next door, plays football quite well in the national league and enjoys his life.
To be one of the best football professionals in Germany with this image is an astonishing achievement. This deserves equal credit to the player himself, his coach and his advocates in the club management.
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