Week 23 - Match preview

Magath: "I won't go the wrong way"

"No, it's not a special game for me," said head coach Felix Magath ahead of Sunday's visit to former club VfL Wolfsburg (kick-off: 1730 CET). "My coaching team and I had two very nice years there and it's not something you forget just like that. But I'm the Schalke manager now and I want three points in Wolfsburg," he stressed.

Coming up against a former club was nothing unusual, he said: "I've been in this situation often enough during my career, after all. Though it will be a bit strange to go back to the Volkswagen Arena and sit on the other bench," he continued, before adding with a grin: "I won't go the wrong way, though."

The 56-year-old has plenty of respect for his opponents despite their poor recent league form. "Wolfsburg still have a lot of quality in attack. Grafite, Edin Dzeko and Zvjezdan Misimovic are all capable of deciding a game on their own," cautioned Magath, but he also knows the strengths and weaknesses of the other Wolfsburg players. "Football is a team game. So concentrating on individuals is no use to you," he said.

Magath is keen to see how his defenders will cope with Wolfsburg's attacking threat. "We'll need to pool all our resources," said the Schalke boss, who hopes a clever counterattacking game will lead the Royal Blues to success. "Wolfsburg won't be giving anything away, that's clear. But that's not what we want. We want to earn the win ourselves."

The Lower Saxony outfit will have expended some energy at Villarreal in the Europa League on Thursday, but Magath does not think it is necessarily an advantage for his team. "They got a 2-2 draw there and have put themselves in a good position to go through. After some unsatisfactory results in the Bundesliga just recently that could give them a boost. Wolfsburg will be determined to take the momentum from Europe into the league."