New Kids on the block
While a famous and one of the first boy bands ever plans a comeback for 2008, a new force - with some youngsters onboard - will join Borussia for the coming season. Lukas Kruse (25), Bajram Sadrijaj (21), Patrick Owomoyela (28), Neven Subotic (19), Filipe Santana (21) and Tamas Hajnal (27) are the new players supposed to push Borussia up the table.
Interestingly, the biggest amount of money was invested into the deals of Santana and Subotic, the youngest among the new ones. Furthermore, there is an emphasis on the defence, rather than on the offence, where just Hajnal and Sadrijaj are supposed to play. So, what did we finally get? Let's have a look at the package.
Lukas Kruse:
Coming from SC Paderborn, Kruse is quite experienced but yet no star-keeper. With a height of 1,85m and 82kg, his measurements are just within the average range for a goal keeper. As he is supposed to be the back-up for Weidenfeller and Ziegler thereafter, we would not expect too many matches for him unless there are major injuries. Nevertheless, it was reasonable to look for a new keeper since Alexander Bade left the club.
Bajram Sadrijaj:
He has been well around in Borussia's minds for almost two years. When Borussia played TSG Thannhausen (4th division) in the DFB-Cup in 2006 his efforts made Christian Wörns suffer hard. Michael Zorc as manager must have been impressed - though it was "just" Wörns. However, Sadrijaj showed some good performances in Donauschingen but Klopp says he is tactically not (yet) on the level of those who have played in Bundesliga. However, his strength lies in the fact that he can play various positions in the offence. Being 1,74m tall, he could be planned for as a very offensive midfielder as well. Otherwise, he could be an asset for Borussia's amateur squad.
Patrick Owomoyela:
Probably the most experienced of the new ones. His CV can be read as a big deal: Early on German international, played for Bremen in the Champions League and was known as a "modern-type defender". But as from the summer 2006, injuries (which reoccurred in Donauschingen!) and the missing of the world-cup upset him. His strength, if physically fit, lies in his balanced game-play between defensive safety and offensive actions. His crosses are of a high quality and he clearly got the potential to be an international again. What's needed for him to come up again? It is definitely consistency and trust in his strength. In Dortmund, he should not worry about the latter.
Neven Subotic:
4m Euros for the youngster coming from Mainz 05 sounds like quite some money for a 19-years-old who never played for a first-division club. But the 1,93m tall defender was the best of his sort in second division (according to kicker-magazine) and is known for his huge amount of talent. His physical appearance and technical skills stand for the modern-type central defender. In addition, Klopp is his mentor willing to invest not only money into his future. In friendly matches and intensive trial sessions he made up the central defence together with Mats Hummels. If this combination remains we would see the youngest defence of Bundesliga in Dortmund.
Felipe Santana:
The 22 years-old Brazilian coming from Figueirense is often compared with Naldo or Julio Cesar, one of Borussia's superstars during the glorious times in the 1990s. Known as a player with leadership abilities (captain at Figueirense until now!), Santana has all the physical assets needed to make up a good defender. But the friendly matches revealed that he would still need some time to accommodate in Germany and, a bit surprisingly, his technical skills were not all the way strong. Nevertheless, we would need to give him some more time to play out his strengths.
Note that he can also act as right defender apart from his common role as central defender.
Tamas Hajnal:
We have spent years to find a playmaker, who is fast and technically skilled as well as fast sweeping and experienced. Tamas Hajnal looks the most promising showing good performances at his former club Karlsruher SC quite consistently. Moreover, he seems extremely ambitious in his first weeks here. For a compensation of 1,25m to be paid to Karlsruhe he is definitely highly valuable.
After the failures of Pienaar and Petric (as midfielder), Hajnal seems to be a different calibre of an offensive midfielder.
Please note that Nuri Sahin is coming back to Dortmund. Having spent a year at Rotterdam, Sahin has probably made some progress. But also note that Dortmund does not seem to worry much if there are coming offers in for the Turkish international.
Let's end this article on a positive note: If the new ones integrate solidly into the squad and play out all of their strengths, we have good reason to be confident for the season. You might believe that you have listened to such predictions over and over again for the last years. So where's the difference this time? Well, the team looks better balanced between defence and offence and especially the youngsters (plus Hajnal) seem to be very able so that we should be in the possession of substantially more quality.
Let's hope so.
