"I knew what I would like to do later," says Marcel Schäfer, once a robust defensive man and today a representative of the new guild of ex-professionals who switched straight to management after their active careers and see themselves as tomorrow's leaders.

In 2007 the record player of VfL Wolfsburg started a distance learning course in sports management and sports marketing. In March 2017 he switched to his old professional days to the Tampa Bay Rowdies in order to study US professional sport in all its facets in Florida. Schäfer, who lived with his family in the USA for more than a year, calls it “a lifelong dream and an educational journey”. Since June 2018, the 36-year-old has been working in Wolfsburg as a sports director under Managing Director Jörg Schmadtke. Schäfer is by no means an isolated case.