Today was the official season opening at 1. FC Magdeburg.
Thanks in part to some rain showers early in the day, the crowd wasn’t all that great, but around 7,000 people wanted to see the friendly against 2nd Bundesliga outfit FC Carl Zeiss Jena.
After Magdeburg narrowly missed out on the promotion to 2nd Bundesliga last season, a number of players have left the club, and not all of them could be properly replaced, as it seems today. Nonetheless, the club has signed a number of players with potential:
Florian Müller joined Magdeburg from Bayern Munich’s reserve team. He is a very talented midfielder who was awarded the Fritz Walter Honorary Medal in 2005, an award bestowed on the best young player of a season. He is also a former Germany international at the U19 and U20-level.
Dennis Tornieporth joined Magdeburg from Kickers Emden and is nother midfielder. Unlike Müller he can also play as a forward. In the last season, however, he managed a mere 3 goals in 33 matches.
Eric Agyemang came to us from Regionalliga Süd club SC Pfullendorf where he is rumored to have run into trouble with the manager on several occasions. His meagre 9 goals in the past season are somewhat mollified by the fact that in his 27 matches he only played a total of 1,585 minutes, an average of 60 minutes per game. Agyemang is a replacement for Aleksandar Kotuljac who has joined Greuther Fürth. If he can manage to do that remains to be seen…
Marian Unger replaces Daniel Rothe. The goalkeeper comes from VfL Osnabrück and is hoping to be number one in goal in this season.
In addition to these four new faces, Martin Zander has been promoted from the reserve team.
Whether this team is strong enough to finish 10th or better remains to be seen, but there is some doubt, as the forwards are currently not in their best form.
This was proved by today’s friendly against Jena, where the guests pulled off a 2-1 victory, scoring two from free kicks, while Magdeburg only managed to put one away after Kullmann stole the ball from a Jena defender. Taken together, this was a scary performance.
Ah well, meaningless friendly™.
Facts:
1. FC Magdeburg 1-2 FC Carl Zeiss Jena (friendly)
Kullmann 1-0
Ziegner 1-1, 1-2
Attendance: about 7,000 spectators