Vincent Wagner Tactics At SV Elversberg 2025/2026: Building On Horst Steffen Style Of Play – Tactical Analysis

SV Elversbergs story has been one of the best in German football over the last couple of seasons.

Starting in the fourth division, the Regionalliga, CSO Nils-Ole Book took the club to multiple promotions with head coach Horst Steffen.

During these seasons, the team consisted of a strong core that was well complemented by many loan players, like Nick Woltemade, Paul Wanner or Fisnik Asllani.

The story nearly had a perfect ending last season.

After a fantastic season, Elversberg finished third in the league and qualified for the Bundesliga play-off, but fell short to 1. FC Heidenheim and Léo Scienza, despite being the better team over the two games.

When it rains, it pours.

Manager Horst Steffen and his assistant coach, Rafael Duarte, left the club for Bundesliga club Werder Bremen.

Both full-backs left the team, with Elias Baum having to return to Eintracht Frankfurt and Maurice Neubauer moving to Hannover 96.

Their starting double-pivot also left, with Semih Sahin joining Kaiserslautern and Robin Fellhauer joining FC Augsburg in the Bundesliga.

Additionally, their attacking duo, Fisnik Asllani and Mohammed Damar, had to return to their parent club, 1899 Hoffenheim.

With these departures, everyone expected Elversberg to end up in the relegation battle, but after eight matchdays, Elversberg head into the international break as the league leader in 2. Bundesliga under new coach Vincent Wagner.

In this Elversberg tactical analysis, we will examine how Elversberg play this season and how Wagner’s tactics are helping them achieve success.

In the first part of the article, we will examine their approach in possession and how they create progressiveness and goal-scoring opportunities.

Then, we will quickly examine their work against the ball.

Elversberg Key Principles In Possession

Nils-Ole Book has made many excellent decisions over the last couple of years, and Vincent Wagner appears to be the next one.

Instead of trying to brace themselves for a relegation battle, Book decided to stay true to what made them successful over the last couple of years.

Wagner was the manager of the 1899 Hoffenheim B-team and was very successful there, getting promoted to 3. Liga with them last season.

Not only did he prove that he can work with young players and still be successful, something that has been very important in Elversberg for the last three years, but he also wants his team to play a similar style of play as Horst Steffen, meaning he could be building on what remained of the existing structures.

Just like Steffen, Wagner prefers his team to be lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation and play it out from the back, but he has introduced a couple of tweaks to Elversberg.

As we can see, Wagner has his back four in a wide shape, with the full-backs positioned near the sideline and the two centre-backs on the edge of the box.

Like Steffen, he involves his goalkeeper heavily in the passing game and uses him as a distributor to the centre-backs, who often dribble forward.

It