Ralph Hasenhüttl takes a professional approach to saying goodbye to Marcel Schäfer

VfL Wolfsburg coach Ralph Hasenhüttl has taken the surprising departure of sporting director Marcel Schäfer in his stride. The 39-year-old Schäfer had only brought the Austrian to Wolfsburg just under four weeks ago. On Wednesday, VfL parted ways with their sporting director with immediate effect because he would like to move to their next Bundesliga opponents RB Leipzig (Saturday, 3.30pm/Sky) in the summer.

Hasenhüttl emphasized on Thursday that he would have moved to Wolfsburg even if he had known about this development beforehand. "It wouldn't have changed my decision to come here," confirmed the 56-year-old. "You commit yourself to a task. And in soccer, that is always detached from people. We are professional employees who have a job to do. If my club sells me five players tomorrow, I can't say: I don't feel like it anymore."

Hasenhüttl himself was coach at Leipzig from 2016 to 2018. With Peter Gulacsi, Willi Orban, Lukas Klostermann, Kevin Kampl and Yussuf Poulsen, five players from his time at RB are still under contract there.

"I believe that this club has done a lot of things very right in recent years. They have always managed to lose good players and bring in even better ones. A huge compliment for that," said Hasenhüttl. "I am very grateful that I was able to be part of this success story myself."