Pay attention to your youth squad….

More insight on the Marco Reus transfer. The rising midfielder will move to Dortmund from Gladbach in the summer for 17 million euros. He should fit right in with coach Jürgen Klopp’s young team, and possibly develop into Germany’s next midfield superstar. And it’s a nice pile of cash for Gladbach, basically a selling team. But the interesting thing that is getting a rise out of some Dortmunders is that the price…is about 17 million too much – they could have had him for free. The reason is that Reus was in the Borussia Dortmund U17 squad that played in the German U17 championship about 5 years ago. However, management wasn’t too keen on him as a prospect, so they told him to piss off to Rot-Weiss Ahlen. From there, Reus went on to M’gladbach, and by 2009 was making a name for himself. Of course, Dortmund has churned out a number of great young players, but I guess this was one that got away.

In transfer news, veteran DM Hanno Balitsch (31) is leaving Bayer Leverkusen on a free for 1.FC Nürnberg. He’s been in poor form, but perhaps can help out with Nürnberg’s crap midfield. Eintracht Frankfurt has apparently agreed to let Greek forward Theofanis Gekas (31) leave for Turkish side Samsunspor. Gekas has had a long Bundesliga career, but was never really able to follow up a stellar season he had with Bochum in 2007, when he notched 20 goals. He’s valued around 2 million euros, but I’m guessing that Frankfurt gets zip…

In DFB news, the federation has fined MSV Duisburg, Fortuna Düsseldorf und Union Berlin around 10,000 euros each for fan behaviour, mostly tossing firebombs and rockets onto the field.

3 thoughts on “Pay attention to your youth squad….

  1. Hey, thanks for this great blog. I live in the Czech Republic, and we get a good amount of Bundesliga coverage here, so its nice to have an English companion guide to complement what’s on TV. My German isn’t bad, but with small kids and work, I don’t really have the energy to plow through the German language sites, aside from dfb.de

    Cheers!

    • In regards to Marco Reus, I have two thoughts on this:

      1. Patrck Hermann looks to be the real deal, so while losing Reus is a blow, its not the end of Gladbach entirely.

      2. Dortmund had to do this, because in all likelihood (spelling??) they won’t be able to keep Goetze for long. Next year, Dortmund will not only the team to beat in Germany, but they should be able to contend strongly in Europe (if Klopp chooses to focus more on that competition).

      Finally, good riddence to Balitsch. He didn’t work out at Leverkusen before and he didn’t work out again. I have no idea what Dutt was thinking putting him at right back when he has Schwaab and Castro as well as young da Costa. Maybe Dutt will be the next out, hopefully.

      • You’re probably right, although it would be nice to see Goetze stick around, it’s not likely if he continues to impress. The amount of money that will get thrown around will be hard to resist. As for Gladbach, they’ll continue to develop the young talent, and then sell them for a profit. Despite the nice stadium, they haven’t really come up with a long-term economic plan to be competitive.
        Can’t really comment on Balitsch, but I get the feeling that Dutt is out of his league with Leverkusen; he was better off with Freiburg.

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