The second half of the Bundesliga season begins this weekend. There are a few players in the league that are worth keeping an eye on.
Clippers wanted, clippers found – Luc Castaignos (1. FC Magdeburg)
Played well, hit little – that’s a somewhat simplified way of analyzing the first half of the season at 1. FC Magdeburg in the second division. Of course, this didn’t go unnoticed by the club bosses either, and they looked around intensively for a clipper.
And they found what they were looking for: “Digged up” Luc Castaignos, who was last without a club, and tested him in the training camp. Lo and behold: The 30-year-old celebrated three times in three friendlies. So it was clear for the FCM: We need him!
Luc Castaignos celebrating a goal.
For Castaignos, who will wear the shirt number 3, which is unusual for a striker, FCM is the second station in Germany: In the 2015/16 season he attacked in 19 Bundesliga games for Eintracht Frankfurt and scored four times.
The indispensable – Ron Schallenberg (SC Paderborn)
The rumors of a change about Ron Schallenberg just didn’t stop during the winter break. The 24-year-old captain of SC Paderborn had completed such an outstanding first half of the season – it just couldn’t go unnoticed.
FC Augsburg were obviously the closest to signing, and would have liked to have brought in the tactically well-trained defender for the injured Carlos Gruezo. However, Schallenberg resisted the courtship and will continue to work on the midfield for East Westphalia.
Brilliantly trained in tactics: Ron Schallenberg.
After a two-year loan to SC Verl, the Paderborn native became a regular player after his return in the 2020/21 season under ex-coach Steffen Baumgart. Successor Lukas Kwasniok then made Schallenberg captain of the blue-blacks. In the current season, Schallenberg started every game and played 90 minutes. The defensive man scored two goals and was able to prepare two more goals.
Second division goalscorer – Robert Glatzel (Hamburger SV)
Some soccer players take a little longer than others to reach their peak performance. Hamburg’s Robert Glatzel undoubtedly belongs in this category. For years, the lanky striker, who sometimes causes irritation with his somewhat unorthodox running style, has been chasing the music at the top of football. Now he seems to have finally arrived.
Robert Glatzel in action.
In the first half of the season, Hamburger SV was happy about the eleven goals of their number one striker, who thus leads the list of goalscorers in the lower house of football. Striker Glatzel, who can shoot first-class, also surprised the opponents with skills that had hardly been noticed up until then: as the opponents were being guarded more and more closely, he sometimes dropped far back into midfield and acted as a kind of second playmaker at HSV. Where is the path of the 29-year-old now leading? Definitely in the 1st Bundesliga – regardless of whether HSV manages to get promoted this time or not.
Best field player: Jan-Niklas Beste (1. FC Heidenheim)
The fact that 1. FC Heidenheim is having its best season in a long time and is currently in third place and looking towards one of the promotion places – admirable for the club from the “province”. Significantly involved in the flight: Jan-Niklas Beste, midfielder.
Jan-Niklas Beste recently got good grades.
Among the players evaluated by the “Kicker”, Beste is the field player with the best grades (2.62). An impressive performance, because only goalkeepers are in front of the 24-year-old. Thanks in part to him (five goals, six assists), Heidenheim scored 33 goals. For Heidenheim, the new signing, who switched from Werder Bremen in the summer, is downright worth its weight in gold. The left-footed player, who was born in Hamm, enjoyed his footballing training with the youth team of Borussia Dortmund, with whom he won the German championship in the U17 and U19.
Who lets the storks fly – Steven Skrzybski (Holstein Kiel)
Steven Skrzybski also belongs to the category “the older the doller”. It is not for nothing that the specialist magazine Kicker put him in first place in its attacker ranking after the first half of the season. With ten goals, the 29-year-old from Kiel takes second place in the top scorer list and is currently ensuring the storks have a carefree life.
“The older the doller” – Holstein Kiel’s Steven Skrzybski.
The attacker, who is only 1.74 meters tall, was not always so lucky. In the summer of 2018 he moved from the then second division club 1. FC Union Berlin, for whom he had scored 14 goals in the previous season, to Schalke 04 in the Bundesliga. There he even played in the two Champions League round of 16 games against Manchester City Place. In the following season he was no longer used under coach David Wagner. As a result, Skrzybski had to deal with many injuries and almost disappeared from the scene. Now he is presenting himself in Kiel in the form of his life.
Brothers in the “Indomitables” – David and Christian Kinsombi (SV Sandhausen)
Should SV Sandhausen manage the small miracle again this season and jump off the specter of relegation again, this pair of brothers will have a lot to do with it: David and Christian Kinsombi.
David and Christian Kinsombi high five.
David (27) is currently one point ahead of Christian (23), because the older brother scored six goals and three assists – but the younger Kinsombi already has four goals and four assists on paper. Both had taken their first steps in football at SV Wehen Wiesbaden, both had enjoyed training at Mainz 05. However, when they were young, their sporting paths diverged.
They reunited that summer. David came from HSV, Christian, who was almost four years his junior, had switched from KFC Uerdingen to SVS twelve months earlier.