Many well-known faces from German football now play abroad, largely unnoticed by the German media. In the sport.de spotlight today: a Sturm-Juwel from FC Bayern in a goal mood, two former BVB talents from Greece and a Champions League veteran from FC Schalke 04.
When the young Swedish winger Alex Timossi Andersson fell from “sky“When the Austria Klagenfurt loanee was asked what his medium- to long-term career goals were, he didn’t have to think long.
“I dream of playing for FC Bayern,” revealed the junior international, whose loan from Munich to Austria had just been extended.
Since then, the 21-year-old, who moved from Helsingborg to Säbener Straße in 2018, has been doing self-promotion. In 20 appearances for Klagenfurt, who have been promoted to the first division, the youngster has already been directly involved in ten goals (four goals, six assists).
Just last weekend, Timossi Andersson initiated Austria’s 2-0 home win against SCR Altach with an early sweeping goal – another letter of application for his parent club.
It is unclear whether FC Bayern will actually have a use for Andersson in the summer. If another loan is on the agenda, his contract, which expires in 2023, would have to be extended first.
But with every scorer point, the probability increases that Timossi Andersson’s dream of playing for the Bayern pros will eventually come true.
Greek duo blossoms after a short BVB guest appearance
The two Greek strikers Vangelis Pavlidis and Nikolaos Ioannidis once harbored the same hope of breaking through at a top German club when they played for Borussia Dortmund’s second team. Ultimately, their project was not crowned with success.
The two tall nines each spent a year at BVB: Pavlidis wore the black and yellow jersey from January 2018 to the turn of the year 2019, Ioannidis three seasons earlier in the same period.
Both had made a name for themselves as Greek junior national players, but then hardly left their mark in the Ruhr area.
Since then, the compatriots have developed very differently: while Ioannidis ended up back in Greece via small clubs in Hungary and Portugal, Pavlidis flourished in the Netherlands. Two and a half strong seasons at Willem II were followed in 2021 by the 2.5 million euro transfer to European Cup participants AZ Alkmaar. The 23-year-old is also a fixture in the Greek national team.
Both Pavlidis and Ioannidis celebrated personal successes on the last matchday: the former increased his goals tally to ten stalls in Alkmaar’s 2-1 win against Heracles Almelo and also set up his team’s other goal. Ioannidis matched him with a goal and an assist in Greece’s bottom side Apollon Smyrnis 2-1 at PAS Lamia in 1964.
Ex-professional FC Schalke not a bit tired
The Swiss veteran Mario Gavranovic recently presented himself just as accurately. At the Turkish first division club Kayserispor, the former FC Schalke 04 attacker has long been the fixed point in the offensive.
The Swiss netted for the eighth time last Saturday, his goal paving the way for his new employer’s 2-1 win over newly promoted Giresunspor.
Striking: Even with 32 years under his belt, the striker shows no signs of getting tired. The offensive man, who was born in Lugano, had already shown his killer instinct at Dinamo Zagreb and made it into the SüperLig without any problems.
But for Gavranovic, one of the heroes of the Swiss EM fairy tale 2021, his career didn’t always go so smoothly. In the spring of 2010, the right-footed player dared his first adventure abroad and joined FC Schalke. With the Royal Blues, however, he had to struggle with teething problems. Gavranovic only seemed to have arrived in Gelsenkirchen after about a year.
To this day, most S04 fans remember a very special game when hearing his name: In the round of 16 second leg of the 2010/2011 Champions League, Felix Magath, who was then Knappen coach, surprisingly gave the youngster confidence against FC Valencia. Gavranovic thanked him with his first and only premier class goal to date in the 3-1 win against the Spaniards.
Gavranovic celebrates after scoring against Valencia
The fact that he left FC Schalke for Mainz a few months later was mainly due to the extremely strong competition in attack. Gavranovic simply couldn’t get past Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Raúl.
However, according to his own statement, the Swiss did not struggle with his failure in the royal blue. No wonder: things went much better for him in his later positions. And no one can take Gavranovic away from his Champions League moment anyway.
Heiko Lütkehus