By Roberto Lamprecht
Next please! After Davie Selke (27 / Cologne), Vladimir Darida (32 / Aris Saloniki), Dong-jun Lee (25 / Jeonbuk) and Linus Gechter (18 / loan to Braunschweig), the next Hertha professional is leaving the capital.
Central defender Christalino Atemona (20/Hertha contract until 2024) is moving to Belgium’s first division club KV Kortrijk.
After a two-week trial in Belgium, the clubs have now agreed on the transfer. Atemona’s contract in Belgium initially runs until the end of the season.
The robust and strong defender should help the table sixteenth under the new coach Bernd Storck (59/1996 to 2002 assistant coach at Hertha under Jürgen Röber) to avoid relegation.
BZ learned: If the league is successful, Atemona’s contract with Kortriijk should be automatically extended by another year.
There will be no going back to Hertha. The contract is dissolved. According to BZ information, Hertha will not receive a fee, but could still collect bonuses later (e.g. in the event of a future resale).
The former Germany U20 national player was considered a great talent, but recently had a lot of bad luck with injuries and three corona infections, which kept throwing him back and prevented his professional debut in the Bundesliga.
Ex-trainer Pal Dardai (46) promoted him to professional training in autumn 2021. Under successor coach Tayfun Korkut (48), Atemona was in the Bundesliga squad against Leipzig (1: 6) in February 2022. Retter coach Felix Magath (69) also relied on Atemona in training in March 2022, who then signed a professional contract with Hertha until 2024.
Before this season, Atemona should actually be awarded to the 2nd league in order to gain important match practice at a higher level. But the change (Paderborn was, among other things, under discussion) fell through.
However, Atemona no longer wanted to play for Hertha’s U23 in the 4th division. In Belgium he can now dream of the long-awaited career leap with first division club Kortrijk…