Sudden end of an eccentric: After being thrown out in Wolfsburg, Max Kruse defiantly remains silent

Max Kruse no longer has a future at VfL Wolfsburg.

Sudden end of an eccentric: After being thrown out in Wolfsburg, Max Kruse defiantly remains silent

Max Kruse no longer has a future at VfL Wolfsburg. After only eight months, his second time at the Mittelland Canal ended with a sacking. The 34-year-old is defiantly silent, his Bundesliga career is about to end. He receives encouragement from one of his countless ex-clubs.

Max Kruse smiled broadly at the camera on Saturday evening, casually took the elevator with a hip shoulder bag and comfortable jogging pants. With his roller coaster career, he first arrived in the basement, tough as nails. The eccentric star player will "not play any more" for VfL Wolfsburg, coach Niko Kovac unequivocally emphasized. Kruse has "no role in the future" in the Bundesliga soccer team.

The tough elimination of the offensive free spirit outshined Lower Saxony's first win of the season at Eintracht Frankfurt. "We made the decision together that Max wouldn't help us in our current situation," emphasized Kovac. "No impulses" came from Kruse, nor did a "constructive cooperation" come from the slightly different professional footballer.

"We have to have players who are 100 percent focused on their job and their task and solely on getting out of this difficult phase," argued sporting director Marcel Schäfer. Requirements that don't suit Kruse. He likes to deal with completely different things, and he shouldn't be at the top level in terms of fitness.

But all this is not new. Kruse has never been the classic pattern professional, always expressing his own character. He lets people share in his dazzling life with his wife Dilara via social media. Most recently, the bird of paradise was repeatedly critical of his role with the wolves under Kovac. So far, he has left his disembarkation without comment, only posting the casual elevator photo.

VfL only signed him in January as a beacon of hope in the relegation battle from Union Berlin, and the passionate poker player scored seven goals in the second half of the season. "In football things can happen quickly here and there. Max helped us in the last second half of the season. We had a change of coach, where we changed our motto a bit," said Schäfer. Now you see in the club "work and passion as a priority".

When it was 1-0 (0-0) in Frankfurt thanks to a goal by Maxence Lacroix (60th), Kruse was already missing from the squad, instead he was traveling with his wife in Berlin. In the two previous games he was still in the starting XI and was hardly able to set any accents. The attacker was "of course not happy" about the decision, emphasized Schäfer. It was "not a decision against you, but one for the team and the current situation".

Kruse still has what he says is a "highly paid" contract with Lower Saxony until the end of the season. The association will “respect” this, said Schäfer. The 14-time national player may continue to participate in training. The transfer window in the top European leagues has been closed since September 1, and a move to his supposedly desired country, the USA, is currently out of the question.

Kruse has to make a decision. Sit out his long contract in Wolfsburg or dare an adventure on the home straight of your career? Transfers to Qatar, Australia or Greece, for example, are still possible. His impressive career in the Bundesliga seems to have come to an end with his sudden exit in Wolfsburg.

And this despite the fact that he receives support from his old employer, Union Berlin. Enthusiastic about the "gifted player" and "gambler", Oliver Ruhnert, the manager of the Irons, said in the ZDF sports studio: "I believe that Max Kruse can always be managed, but you also have to know that he is a character who has his own personality Has a head. Who ultimately has his own view of things." A view of things that was no longer shared by everyone at his Wolfsburg end.