Coach Steffen Baumgart only expects offensive player Jan Thielmann (21) again in “September or October”. Apart from that, the head coach of 1. FC Köln was confident and in the best of moods during the performance diagnostics of the Bundesliga soccer club on Friday.
Thielmann was in the German squad for the U21 European Championship, in mid-June he suffered a knee injury in training that was also not specified by FC.
Otherwise, Baumgart sees the team “well positioned” a month before the start of the competitive game in the DFB Cup at VfL Osnabrück, one knows “in which positions we still want to do something”. Above all, a new number two behind Marvin Schwäbe as well as a right defender and an offensive winger are being sought.
Baumgart is expecting a lot from Wolfsburg loanee Luca Waldschmidt (27) and returnee Mark Uth, who missed almost the entire last season due to an injury (pubic bone): “We got a bigger width and more quality in the front position.” He hopes “that we will have more solutions with Luca in the central area,” explained the coach. Uth (31) should be seen as a “newcomer”.
Striker Benedict Hollerbach, on the other hand, did not come to Cologne. The promotion hero of the future second division club SV Wehen Wiesbaden has apparently opted for Union Berlin – which Baumgart says does not particularly bother him: “That’s normal in football too. If you suddenly get the chance to play the Champions League, then go People overnight. We experienced that last summer too. If I were mad at everyone who didn’t play for us, I would only be mad.”