REASONS TO LOVE THE LEAGUE
THERE ARE a number of players to watch out for as we enter a new calendar year of Bundesliga. Some are well established, returning from injury or to former clubs, while others are rising stars.
Borussia Dortmund’s Marco Reus resumed training at a winter camp in Marbella after tearing knee ligaments in last season’s DFB Cup final win over Eintracht Frankfurt. An attacking midfielder who has a great understanding with 2016/17 Bundesliga top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the 28-year-old will hope to be in top shape in time for Germany’s Fifa 2018 World Cup campaign.
Down in Munich, Manuel Neuer looks set to be back for the business end of the season after breaking his foot in September 2017. Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich have only conceded 11 goals without him, but there’s no doubt
that the defending champions are an altogether different animal when the world’s best goalkeeper is fit.
Another talisman for club and country, Mexican star Marco Fabian is training again after recovering from back surgery. The 28-year-old netted seven times and produced four assists in 2016/17, but Eintracht Frankfurt scored only 20 goals without him this term. The creative midfielder will hope to have the Eagles soaring higher than their current position of eighth before he heads to the World Cup.
Jonas Hector also has designs on playing in Russia this summer. If he can recover his best form following a knee injury that has kept him sidelined since September, the 27-year-old will almost certainly board the plane as Germany’s first-choice leftback. Before then, however, there is the little matter of helping rock-bottom Cologne beat relegation.
Mario Gomez has a similar remit after returning to former
club Stuttgart during the winter break. The 32-year-old scored 63 goals in 121 games and won the 2006/07 Bundesliga title in his first spell with Die Schwaben, before enjoying fruitful spells in front of goal for Bayern, Fiorentina, Besiktas and, most recently, Wolfsburg – the side he almost single-handedly saved from the drop last term.
Moving in the opposite direction, Simon Terodde has swapped Stuttgart for struggling Cologne, where he made his Bundesliga debut in 2010. “I wouldn’t have left Stuttgart for anyone else, but Cologne was a special case,” he said.
The player with perhaps the biggest point to prove, however, is Sandro Wagner. The 30-yearold was released by the record champions in 2008, and is back in Munich bigger and better than ever. The Bundesliga’s proverbial late bloomer hit 14 goals for Darmstadt in 2015/16, 11 for Hoffenheim last season and has plundered five in seven for Germany since making his senior international bow in June 2017.
From the oldest to the youngest of our group, it would appear Jann-Fiete Arp has a long and prosperous career ahead of him. The Hamburg starlet became the first millennial to play and score in the Bundesliga earlier this season – all before his 18th Birthday – and it’s his youthful insouciance that could be key in the Dinos’ battle to avoid a maiden relegation to the second tier.
Arp needn’t look far for inspiration. Since making his Bundesliga debut at the tender age of 17 almost two years ago, Christian Pulisic has blossomed into one of football’s most gifted young players. He celebrated his 50th Bundesliga appearance earlier in the campaign and crowned another year to remember with the USA Player of the Year gong.
Pulisic continues to set the pace for young Bundesliga wannabes, but Leon Bailey is not far behind. The rocketfuelled Jamaica international winger has been one of the standout players of the season so far, chiming in with six goals for a Bayer Leverkusen side once again dreaming of a topfour finish. And the best news? At 20, he will only get better.