Another top youngster leaving Leipzig this time turning down a pro deal to move to FC Basel.
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RB Leipzig
- Thread starter Nymzee
- Start date
Salzburg lineup for the first pre-season friendly. Most of the first team are on hols after international break so mostly Liefering players and a few that are in the shop window.
It's currently 2-1 to Salzburg but game has been paused after, I think, a fan or player for CSKA collapsed. Hard to work out with the language barrier.
Edit: yes, fan collapsed.
Edit: yes, fan collapsed.
Game called off.
Austrian lad fell off a stand behind the dugouts. Rightfully called off.
Ah was that it? Nothing else had been said Austria side. Hopefully he’s doing okay.
Game was pretty good - CSKA are dog though. Must have got about 9 injuries too during it.
Yeah physical preparation here is absolutely abysmal.
As an 'anecdote' (even though... yeah) - Levski a few years ago brought in a Spanish coach (who got fired without being given a chance, but different story). Guy came in pre-friendlies, so when they came back for training he literally blasted the team in the media that he's never seen such physically underprepared players, and in their part - they moaned to the press that he's too harsh on them. He made training sessions available to the public and they did the absolute bare minimum for professional footballers in prep/pre-season time and complained man, it was hilarious and sad.
Delio Rossi, if you're familiar with him, said the same thing - he'd coached in the lower divisions and never saw this kind of unarsed attitude.
Point is, aside from Ludogorets - there are no good physically in shape sides, and even they are a bit meh lol
Oh wow, now that you mention it I do remember looking at a few of their players and thinking “someone enjoyed their holidays”. Proper beer belly’s on them haha. Was surprised how many black players they had too.
Proper random opponent for Salzburg but I guess they want to just warm things up.
2022/2023 SEASON PREVIEW
OVERVIEW
Roll up, roll up, 4th season on the spin now for me and my fortress of solitude thread. Pre-season officially starts today with the first set of players arriving for training but due to the international players not coming till next Monday it is a shadow squad of just 6 pros and 6 kids. Compared to last season's pre-season it has been an eerily quiet affair in East Germany but maybe that's just a hangover from the cup celebrations. Considering the state of the club in December when Marsch was sacked I'd count securing a CL place and winning their first majory trophy as fairly successful. I wrote in last years preview the position of Sporting Director was still open and funnily enough, 12 months later, that is still the case. Apparently one was selected in January to be revealed by 1st July but it's becoming more of a running joke now than a hopefuly reality. Tedesco is still here and goes into his final 12 months of his deal - no new deal lined up but also no issues with it either it seems. There are rumours of Michael Edwards (likely to take a break), Marina from Chelsea (doubtful) or a former pro with no experience which would be pretty pointless. Aim for the new season is again CL qualification and CL/cup runs - title I feel is even more out of reach than last season due to Dortmund heavily strengthening and Mane going to Bayern.
TRANSFERS
It's been a fairly quiet start to the Summer this window with only 2 signings made with most of the focus on slimming down the squad and selling seemingly everyone. The biggest reported target for this window has been to strengthen central midfield with Xaver Schlager brought in on a cut-price deal from Wolfsburg to accompany the, at present, core of Laimer, Kampl, Adams, Haidara and Moriba. Of that list though the 4 in bold are all reportedly either for sale or looking to move on. Laimer, heavily courted by Bayern only has 12 months left so reluctantly will be sold but I believe selling him to Bayern would cause a fierce backlash from the fanbase and splinter an already tense relationship after a cull of the academy players. If Laimer goes, someone else comes in. If Adams/Haidara go, someone else comes in. There haven't been many links to players of any other position with 90% of RBL rumours being around sales of their best players: so far though Nkunku has signed a new deal and Gvardiol looks likely to follow. The list of players to sell though is quite frankly enormous but they've started strong in getting rid of them:
Roll up, roll up, 4th season on the spin now for me and my fortress of solitude thread. Pre-season officially starts today with the first set of players arriving for training but due to the international players not coming till next Monday it is a shadow squad of just 6 pros and 6 kids. Compared to last season's pre-season it has been an eerily quiet affair in East Germany but maybe that's just a hangover from the cup celebrations. Considering the state of the club in December when Marsch was sacked I'd count securing a CL place and winning their first majory trophy as fairly successful. I wrote in last years preview the position of Sporting Director was still open and funnily enough, 12 months later, that is still the case. Apparently one was selected in January to be revealed by 1st July but it's becoming more of a running joke now than a hopefuly reality. Tedesco is still here and goes into his final 12 months of his deal - no new deal lined up but also no issues with it either it seems. There are rumours of Michael Edwards (likely to take a break), Marina from Chelsea (doubtful) or a former pro with no experience which would be pretty pointless. Aim for the new season is again CL qualification and CL/cup runs - title I feel is even more out of reach than last season due to Dortmund heavily strengthening and Mane going to Bayern.
TRANSFERS
It's been a fairly quiet start to the Summer this window with only 2 signings made with most of the focus on slimming down the squad and selling seemingly everyone. The biggest reported target for this window has been to strengthen central midfield with Xaver Schlager brought in on a cut-price deal from Wolfsburg to accompany the, at present, core of Laimer, Kampl, Adams, Haidara and Moriba. Of that list though the 4 in bold are all reportedly either for sale or looking to move on. Laimer, heavily courted by Bayern only has 12 months left so reluctantly will be sold but I believe selling him to Bayern would cause a fierce backlash from the fanbase and splinter an already tense relationship after a cull of the academy players. If Laimer goes, someone else comes in. If Adams/Haidara go, someone else comes in. There haven't been many links to players of any other position with 90% of RBL rumours being around sales of their best players: so far though Nkunku has signed a new deal and Gvardiol looks likely to follow. The list of players to sell though is quite frankly enormous but they've started strong in getting rid of them:
Hwang - Sold
Sorloth
Lookman
Brobbey
Moriba
Adams
Haidara
Krauss - Loan with obligation
Martel - Sold
Jakel - Loaned Out
Mvogo
Martinez
Add in players sold that weren't on the horizon like Raebiger and Laimer and it's quite the cull.
DEPARTURES | CLUB | ARRIVALS | CLUB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hwang (£15m) | Wolves | Xaver Schlager (£10m) | Wolfsburg |
| Eric Martel (£1m) | Koln | Janis Blaswich (Free) | Heracles |
| Sidney Raebig (£1.5m) | Greuther Furth | ||
| Tom Krauss (Loan) | Schalke | ||
| Frederik Jakel (Loan) | Arminia Bielefeld | ||
| Tim Schreiber (Loan) | Holstein Kiel | ||
| Dennis Borkowski (Loan) | Dynamo Dresden | ||
| Philipp Tschauner | Retired | ||
| = ~£17.5m | = £10m |
From the graphic below it seems the squad is pretty stacked but there is clear weaknesses in terms of depth at the wing back positions, the striker position and central midfield too. This squad as it stands, more so if Laimer goes, is definitely fighting for 3rd with Leverkusen and maybe Freiburg. I would love to see an expensive central midfielder come in, a very pacey striker as Silva and Poulsen are SLOW, as well as swapping problematic Angelino out for someone like David Raum. Kristensen also going to Leeds was rather disappointing as I don't rate Henrichs or Mukiele much. Either way hopefully I have to edit this lineup come the end of the window.
PRE-SEASON
26th June: Pre-season begins at Cottaweg for those not on international duty
1st July: Rest of squad arrives minus injured Poulsen
10th - 17th July: Training camp in Austria
10th - 17th July: Friendly vs. Liverpool at the Red Bull Arena
30th July: Supercup vs. FC Bayern at the Red Bull Arena
6th August: Bundesliga begins vs Stuttgart
30th/31st August: First round of the DFB-Pokal vs. Teutonia 05 Ottensen
6th/7th September: First matchday of the Champions League group stage
Yeah CSKA/Levski can't compete with the Ludogorets money so they scout and recruit mostly from abroad, especially Brazil's lower leagues tbh. We've even had a few Bulgarian NT players who are Brazilian, oddly enough lol
Marquinhos (footballer, born April 1982) - Wikipedia
Cicinho (footballer, born 1988) - Wikipedia
Lúcio Wagner - Wikipedia
Tiago Silva (footballer, born 1979) - Wikipedia
Wanderson (footballer, born 1988) - Wikipedia
lol
Yeah CSKA/Levski can't compete with the Ludogorets money so they scout and recruit mostly from abroad, especially Brazil's lower leagues tbh. We've even had a few Bulgarian NT players who are Brazilian, oddly enough lol
Marquinhos (footballer, born April 1982) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Cicinho (footballer, born 1988) - Wikipedia
Lúcio Wagner - Wikipedia
Tiago Silva (footballer, born 1979) - Wikipedia
Wanderson (footballer, born 1988) - Wikipedia
lol
Never been a fan of this citizenship malarkey myself but happens in the smaller countries doesn’t it. I always forget Ludogorets are Bulgarian; they seem to always be on my TV during the European cup weeks haha.
2nd RB Salzburg friendly - was meant to kick off 15 mins ago but no news yet.
Ignore that, game cancelled due to bad weather.
Not a fan myself to be honest, but our entire youth/up-and-coming structure is so extremely broken that this is the only way - get other countries' rejects. Sadly.
Re: the game being called off - was gonna say a bit weird as I saw your post an hour ago (how bad can weather be AMIRITE?), but in that time we've had a rainstorm with basically mach-speed winds, so... Europe going mad.
Guess that’s also the consequence of being a smaller mainland European country too.
Apparently it was chucking it down from midday in Austria but strange how they only called the game off at KO time. Surely they’d have known sooner haha. Hopefully rearranged for tomorrow or something to give me something to watch.