Schlagwort-Archiv: Youth policy

Selling out instead of shelling out

I might have mentioned some degree of incompetence and inability to understand what’s what on the side of the youth department at 1. FC Magdeburg before. Last time I talked about this, seven players of the successful Under-19 had left despite being young enough to add another season, this time in the top flight at that age, the Under-19 Bundesliga. I added that I wasn’t holding my breath with regard to the management’s ability to secure the services of Daniel Ujazdowski, last season’s U-19 top scorer, for another year or two.
Today, I was proved right. According to youth department chief Carsten Müller, the club could „only go so far“ with regard to a contract offer. Ujazdowski was offered a „perspective in the Under-23 side“, but apparently the offer was not good enough. Naturally, the exact nature of the offer is unknown, but Ujazdowski’s mentor (and former FCM star) Wolfgang Seguin is quoted as saying that „Daniel can only play football, and the club’s offer was really beneath contempt“. [Source]
Assuming that the player was not unreasonable in his demands, it should have been possible to keep him at the club, but instead another talented youth is let go in the desire to save money. But the longterm goal of the club cannot be to be the only Regionalliga side that makes a steady profit – the goal must be promotion and securing a position in the the top 50 of German football (finishing 14th in the 3rd Liga would do that). This will hardly be possible, if the top youth players leave the club year after year. At some point the management has to learn that it is not enough to provide a perspective with regard to the sporting side of things, but that you have to provide for the financial needs of the players – and for their post-football future, by getting them apprenticeship positions for example.

Until then, everything done in forming young talented players will be in vain, as the majority will continue to leave the club once they finish school at the nearby sport schools.

Future? What future?

In the last post, I casually mentioned that the Under-19 squad of 1. FC Magdeburg won promotion to the A-Jugend-Bundesliga, the top flight for teams of that age group. As usual in the youth teams, there is a more or less high degree of fluctuation, as players naturally age.
It is therefore especially annoying when a player leaves who can still play in the side for another year. In the case of the FCM U19 squad, ten players have left at then end of the season, seven of which could still have played in U19 for another year. Three of those players, including the captain, leave for RB Leipzig, the German „project“ of Austria’s Red Bull company, the modus operandi of which is well-known: Money, money, money, and everything must happen quickly. In the case of these three players, maybe one must be lenient with FCM management, seeing as how they just cannot compete with the amounts of cash RBL has available. But when six players leave without having a new club or to fellow Bundesliga side Carl Zeiss Jena who do not exactly possess mountains of cash, the question as to the cause of this exodus must be raised.
Another player has already told the club he is leaving, but the youth center manager claims there is still a chance for his staying. Don’t hold your breath.
It is not understandable how the management expect to save the squad from relegation, if they let go such a large number of players. On the other hand, this fits in well with the incompetence that you get used to when following 1. FC Magdeburg.

In other news, the senior squad won a first test yesterday, beating Askania Ballenstedt, an eighth-tier side, 15-0.