Schlagwort-Archiv: Transfer news

Some new season, same old league

The things we do for love…like spending half an hour to get to the stadium to attend the press presentation of the new 1. FC Magdeburg senior squad – despite temperatures way beyond anything that can be called comfortable.
But after last years fiasco, the club took the path of complete reconstruction, letting go 14 players while signing 12 new ones. Among the victims of this change were also Magdeburg veterans, such as Marcel Probst who had been at the club since 2002. Others, like Christian Prest, took the opportunity and retired from competitive football.
This is the new Magdeburg squad:

No. Position Player
1 GK Matthias Tischer
2 DF Rainer Müller
3 DF Sebastian Sumelka
4 DF Daniel Halke
5 DF Philipp Saalbach
6 DF Tobias Becker
7 MF Denis Wolf
8 MF Manuel Stiefel
9 FW Marko Verki?
10 FW Marvin Wijks
11 FW Guilherme dos Santos
12 GK Christian Beer
13 MF Moritz Instenberg
14 FW Maik Georgi
15 MF Tobias Scharlau
18 MF Tim Girke
19 MF Stephan Neumann
20 MF Daniel Bauer (Captain)
21 FW Eddy Vorm
22 FW Patrick Bartsch
23 DF Tobias Friebertshäuser
30 GK Franko Flückinger

Of particular interest are Wijks and Vorm, both of which have already played in the Dutch Eredivisie, even if only for a low number of minutes. The squad that the new manager and managing director have assembled is comparatively young, with Christian Beer the oldest player at 29 (Beer has ruptured his cruciate and will be out of action for the first half of the season) and fellow goalkeeper Franko Flückiger (4 caps for the national Under-19 team) the youngest at 19. As of July 1, the squad has an average age of only 23,2 years and is one of the youngest teams to represent the club.
It remains to be seen how they fare in the league, manager Kaiser has until 6 August to form a team from these 22 players.

In other news, the Under-23 team has won promotion to the fifth-tier Oberliga Süd, allowing the players to gather experience in a more competitive environment than before. The Under-19 team won promotion to the top-flight Under-19 Bundesliga. Both teams will be fighting relegation.
The senior team will be given no precise task in terms of a position to finish in, instead the team is expected to improve over the whole season. Here’s hoping that this works well and the fans reward that, too.

P.S. To signify a new start, I have changed the looks of the place. Hopefully I can changed the general tone of the posts too.

And we’re off again…

Season preparation has restarted on Friday. After last year’s disapointment with a 4th place finish, the club has had to cut the budget by about 250,000 Euros and has opted to let some players go, the most prominent of which are the team captain, Daniel Rosin, and the second-best goal scorer, Najeh Braham. As both still have valid contracts, however, the club can only hope they find a new home. Until then, signing new players is a tentative process.

In all six players were let go or told to go: Defenders Wejsfelt (contract ended), Rosin and Dragusha (contract ended), forwards Reimann (to Red Bull Rasenballsport Leipzig) and Braham (currently at trial with FC Erzgebirge Aue) and goalkeeper Geisthardt. Only Rosin and Braham currently remain on the club’s payroll.
Unitl now three new players were signed: Defenders Gaebler (formerly at SV Wilhelmshaven) and Littmann (VfB Oldenburg) and attacker Denis Wolf (Rot-Weiß Erfurt). In addition several U19 players join the squad for the season preparation, but they will probably be used in the reserve team more often than in the senior squad.
Magdeburg are still looking for another forward—at least one is being tested—and the eternal quest for an attacking central midfielder keeps going on as well. Additionally, there are rumors that former FCM defender/defensive midfielder Friebertshäuser might return from Reutlingen, but no indication as to the validity of such rumors exists.

On the weekend, Magdeburg played in two test matches, before real training starts today. In Altenweddingen, the club beat an eighth-tier side 8-0 in a (surprise!) one-sided match. On Sunday the opposition were seventh-tier club Barleben, just beyond Magdeburg’s city limits. In front of about 1,300 spectators, Magdeburg brought home a 7-0 victory. Two different teams were used, manager Baumgart opting for the all-out change at half-time. Weiterlesen

Transfer update

Magdeburg signed two new players. Daniel Bauer joins the club from Rovaniemi, a defensive midfielder/defender.
Maik Georgi joins the club from Erzgebirge Aue’s reserves, a left winger with a defensive emphasis.

Winterbreak

It’s winterbreak in German football, and while training resumes on Jan 14, there are no transfer rumours at all to be found, at least none too reliable.
I’m still hoping for a right defender and a central midfielder, but I guess it will come as surprising as on the team presentation in the summer when a number of new players were first presented without any specualtion mentioning them before.

Rebuilding

May 31, 3:15 pm: 1. FC Magdeburg are relegated from tier III. Or do not qualify for the new 3rd Liga, whichever you prefer. This means that with the exception of Reimann, all players‘ contracts will run out on June 30, as they are not valid for tier IV. The same goes for manager Paul Linz.
Captain Mario Kallnik announces his retirement. He’ll take over an as yet undefined function with the club.
June 1: The board promise the team will be rebuilt within three weeks. A team strong enough to compete for promotion from the Regionalliga Nord is needed. Linz says he’ll stay if the team is competitive.
June 3: On the last fan meeting of the season, manager Linz announces his plans for the next season. He’ll continue using a 4-4-2, but considers a diamond in midfield. Although nothing is confirmed, it is clear that Linz will stay.
June 4: At a press conference, the club announce a number of things. Linz has signed a two year contract, the goal being promotion to 3rd Liga within this time, possibly earlier. Magdeburg sign Daniel Rosin, a defender and defensive midfielder from Wacker Burghausen. The player had been on the list of players for the 3rd Liga team Paul Linz had written up, but will join the club despite the relegation to tier IV. He has received a 3-year contract. Matthias von der Weth leaves Magdeburg for Borussia Mönchengladbach’s reserves.
Also on June 4, 2nd Bundesliga side Alemannia Aachen announce that they have signed Florian Müller from 1. FC Magdeburg. The right midfielder had been one of the few bright spots for Magdeburg in the past season.
June 5: Najeh Braham signs a new contract that will keep him at the club until 2011. He says he feels good in Magdeburg and wants to help them reach the 3rd Liga.
June 6: Goalkeeper Christian Beer, defender Christian Prest and defender/midfielder Stephan Neumann sign new contracts. Beer receives a 3-year contract, Prest and Neumann signed until 2010. All three are from the club’s youth system and have played for the club since, with the exception of the 2002/03 season.
June 9: Magdeburg sign Catalin Racanel from FC Sachsen Leipzig. The Romanian-born midfielder receives a 2-year contract. 31-year-old Racanel has worked with manager Paul Linz in the 2nd Bundesliga in Trier and Ahlen. „Linz is the best manager I’ve ever had“, he says when asked for the reason he’ll spend more time in tier IV footie. Racanel has played 7 Bundesliga, 100 2nd Bundesliga and 34 Regionalliga matches.
June 10: Magdeburg announce that Mats Wejsfelt and Pit Grundmann have signed new one-year contracts. Both are defenders and play a central role in Paul Linz’s planning. Says he: „It’s important to keep last year’s defense together, as you need to be well-established in that department.
In other news, Marcel Brendel, a versatile attacking player from FC Schalke 04’s reserves joins the club. The 20-year old from Berlin has signed a two-year contract.

To be continued…

Can’t hardly wait

Well, two weeks have passed by since the semi-triumphant 1-all draw against Schalke 04. In the meantime, two other players have left Magdeburg. Dennis „I want my mama“ Tornieporth went back where he came from, to Kickers Emden. His stay at Magdeburg was overshadowed by complaints, he just didn’t fit in with the rest of the team, culminating in his calling the move to Magdeburg a mistake in a radio interview. Eventually, Magdeburg dissolved the contract and the player was let go.
Just hours before the transfer window closed, midfielder Andy Müller left the club for VfB Oldenburg. They currently play in Oberliga Nord and have hopes of qualifying for the new tier IV league that starts in the next season. Müller’s move was necessary as Magdeburg had picked up an additional midfielder, ex-Bundesliga pro Steffen Baumgart, and needed to cut down on playing squad costs.

In other news, Magdeburg won two more test matches, against Hertha BSC’s reserves (leader in NOFV-Oberliga Nord) and Czech Gambrinus Liga outfit Siad Most (well, they’re 16th. In a league of 16).
Magdeburg won both matches, but it’s hard to draw any conclusions from that, as Paul Linz made liberal use of the available substitutes. Next Sunday, the squad will face their first competitive match since December, when they meet NOFV Oberliga Süd team Germania Halberstadt in the cup quarterfinal. However, Linz seems to be quite fond of 20-year-old Tobias Friebertshäuser. Against Most he got a start as right defender, and in the Hertha match he was subbed in for the same position. Afterwards, Linz was full of praise, which, according to a newspaper interview, came as a bit of a shock for Friebertshäuser.
I’m curious who’ll start against Halberstadt.

Methadone

Well, last Saturday I finally was able to catch some live outdoor football. In the first game since that disappointing outing versus Werder Bremen’s reserves in December, Magdeburg only managed a draw. But in contrast to the abysmal 1-all draw against Bremen, this one saw a new and improved FC Magdeburg team. Not only did Magdeburg field two new players, Christian Reimann (formerly at Sachsen Leipzig) and Najeh Braham (formerly at Siegen), but the new manager Paul Linz seems to also have instilled some desire to play attacking football in a formerly timid squad.

The other reason why this match was somewhat superior to the Werder slump was the atmosphere the 20,000 spectators created – and maybe the opponent being Bundesliga outfit Schalke 04 helped a bit too. In all, Magdeburg’s 1-all draw was a deserved one, even though the Magdeburg goal was an own goal by a Schalke defender who put a Neumann cross behind his goalie.

This winter break has been a big joke. No snow, hardly any frost. This season, matches could have continued all winter. But I’m sure, come the end of the break in mid-February (at least for tier III and IV leagues), we will have wonderful frosty and snow-rich days…

On an unrelated note, Magdeburg have signed former Bundesliga pro Steffen Baumgart on a free transfer yesterday. Baumgart has played more than 300 matches in Bundesliga 1 and 2. He had been out of contract since January 3, when his contract at Cottbus was dissolved. Baumgart is a leader the team has been lacking, at least according to Linz. We’ll see…Saturday, the team will play Hertha BSC’s reserves in another test match.