Wolves hire McClaren
Former England manager Steve McClaren has left FC Twente to take over at German Bundesliga outfit Wolfsburg, the newly-crowned Dutch champions announced on Tuesday.
The 49-year-old Englishman has agreed to a two year contract for an annual salary of three million euros.
"I have had two fantastic years at FC Twente, but made a promise to my wife and children (who remain in England) that I would not spend more than two years living away from them," he said.
"Now we will all live together in Germany."
McClaren took over as coach at the unfashionable side from the university town of Enschede in the north of the country in 2008 after being booted out of the England job for failing to reach the Euro 2008 finals.
He was an immediate success and this season handed FC Twente their first Dutch league title in the club's history although they did take the honour as SC Enschede in 1926 after which they were restructured in a 1965 merger.
Mercilessly panned for his abject failure to get past Croatia in England's qualifying group for Euro 2008, McClaren decided to take advice from the late Sir Bobby Robson to follow his own example and try his hand in the Dutch league.
He subsequently transformed the club, nicknamed The Tukkers (The Reds), from also-rans to league champions in the space of two years.
At the same time the club's management increased their stadium's capacity from 13,000 to 24,000 in 2009 with plans already afoot to further extend to 40,000 in the months to come.
McClaren is the first English manager since Robson at Porto in 1996 to win a major European league title.
Twente, who will now play in next season's Champions League group stages, can boast an array of players being widely-courted by the continent's giants.
For his part McClaren gets the chance to take his rise out of the ashes onto a higher stage with Wolfsburg, who won the Bundesliga title in the 2008/2009 season but lost out to a resurgent Bayern Munich this year.
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