Dusseldorf (AP) – Erling Haaland was the most mentioned name in transfer rumors these days. Will he stay with Borussia Dortmund? Or is he going? And where? Real Madrid? Paris Saint Germain? Manchester United?
It is significant that the Norwegian Tor machine made headlines in the winter transfer window. It’s all about a change in the summer for him.
But the transfers, which were made shortly before the “Deadline Day” this Monday, did not involve similarly big names. As always, the sports directors of the Bundesliga soccer teams were very busy during this phase, but for most of them the motto was in Corona times due to austerity constraints: Sell instead of buy.
On Sunday evening there was still a quite remarkable personality. Max Kruse immediately asked the fans of European Cup contenders 1. FC Union Berlin for their understanding, because the 33-year-old former international is leaving the Irons after just a year and a half. And returns to VfL Wolfsburg, for whom he has played before but who is currently fighting against relegation.
20 players come, 41 go
By Sunday morning, the 18 clubs had signed just 20 players, but had given up 41 in return. This could undercut the 25 commitments from the previous year. And then players like the ex-world champion Sami Khedira (Hertha BSC) or Shkodran Mustafi (Schalke) came, RB Leipzig spent 20 million for the Hungarian Dominik Szoboszlai.
The somewhat more prominent transfers, which could still take place before the window closes at 6 p.m. on Monday, are mainly players this year who want or should leave: Wolfsburg’s striker Wout Weghorst, for example, the moves to Burnley.
Or in Gladbach with ex-world champion Matthias Ginter and midfield star Denis Zakaria. Both have already announced their departure for the summer. But because they would then be free of charge, the Gladbachers would like to get rid of them now. However, what they have to do without manager Max Eberl, who resigned on Friday for health reasons.
Vice-President Rainer Bonhof also denied on Sunday morning in the Sport1 program “Doppelpass” that there was still no concrete offer from Juventus Turin for the Swiss Zakaria. According to media reports from Italy, Juve should offer Borussia around seven million euros, including bonus payments, for an immediate transfer of the Swiss player, who is free of charge in the summer. “I think there’s a wish,” said Bonhof, but there’s no concrete offer yet: “In principle, we don’t have anything in hand.”
So far only four internal changes in the league
As a replacement for Ginter, Gladbach have already signed Marvin Friedrich from Union Berlin. The alleged transfer fee of up to seven million euros with bonuses was “cut out of the ribs,” said Eberl, who was still in office. It was only one of four internal changes in the league so far. Union signed Freiburg’s Dominique Heintz as a Friedrich replacement, Frankfurt loaned Dortmund’s junior striker Ansgar Knauff and Hertha signed Stuttgart’s Marc-Oliver Kempf.
Otherwise, most players were sent abroad, but even then there were few prominent losses for the league. In Leverkusen’s Nadiem Amiri (Genoa) and Frankfurt’s Amin Younes (loan with Naples ended prematurely) two ex-national players went who recently played little or, in the case of Younes, no role at all. Bielefeld brought Gonzalo Castro, a former national player, out of unemployment.
At best, the winter conversion will be a little larger again at Hertha in Berlin, which is again threatened with relegation. In Kempf, Fredrik André Björkan (FK Bodö Glimt) and the South Korean Dongjun Lee (Ulsan Hyundai), manager Fredi Bobic had already brought in three new ones by Sunday. More are to follow. Despite Lars Windhorst’s investor millions, Bobic cannot bid for Haaland.