Bundesliga
Kalajdzic and Co: Displeasure with the long transfer summer
Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdzic has been linked with English Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
The Bundesliga is preparing for a hectic transfer final. Voices that the change period should end earlier are not new. Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdzic is particularly in focus.
“Crazy” is this time, said manager Fredi Bobic from the Berlin Bundesliga club Hertha BSC recently. “A wild ride” awaited Borussia Dortmund’s sporting director Sebastian Kehl when looking at the transfer final in general. You know “how dynamic the football business can be,” emphasized coach Pellegrino Matarazzo from VfB Stuttgart.
The protagonists have long since gotten used to the fact that in late summer they have to answer mainly personal and less sporting or even tactical questions. Nevertheless, many would rather close the transfer window today than tomorrow – and above all not on September 1st, i.e. after the fourth matchday.
Bundesliga transfer window closes on Thursday
Sasa Kalajdzic is no different. Stuttgart’s goalscorer is associated with English Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers. However, his future is not yet clear. Before the game at 1. FC Köln on Sunday (3.30 p.m. / DAZN), the Austrian national player was again a central topic at VfB. It’s not easy to prepare for a game, said Coach Matarazzo. This applies to him as well as to the professionals. Kalajdzic himself had recently emphasized that the impasse around him was becoming “uncomfortable”.
The Bundesliga transfer window is still open until Thursday. Voices that it should close earlier are not new, but are currently piling up again. “You always think you can still get the big bargains at the back,” Bobic said recently. One reason for this is clubs that have missed the qualification for an international competition and still have to part with players, while others would do it again.
He would like to shorten the transition period to August 1st, Bobic explained. But you wouldn’t be able to do that in Europe, the 50-year-old admitted immediately afterwards. Should this possibility exist, he would “welcome and support it 100 percent,” said Stuttgart coach Matarazzo. Werder Bremen’s head of professional football, Clemens Fritz, would also be “totally open to”. Back in 2017, the then league president Reinhard Rauball had suggested exactly that – without success. At the time, the concern that German clubs would lose their players to clubs in leagues with even longer transfer periods and then no longer be able to add staff themselves prevailed in many places.
Transfer time “difficult for everyone”
In the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A, the transfer deadlines in 2018 only lasted until the first matchday. This year the windows are closing again in parallel with that of the Bundesliga. Until the time comes on Thursday, the financially strong clubs from the island could bring plenty of movement into the market. Stuttgart’s sports director Sven Mislintat has been predicting this for weeks. According to his own statement, his Dortmund counterpart Kehl can well imagine “that Monday and Tuesday will be very hectic”. Not explicitly at BVB, but in general.
On the evening before the transfer time expires, he will “drink a Bembel”, announced Eintracht Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner. “It was difficult for everyone.” He himself had recently had to fear a move from national goalkeeper Kevin Trapp to Manchester United, but was then happy that he was staying.
“It’s an unfortunate situation that we’ve already played four or five matches in the Bundesliga, but the transfer market is still open and you don’t know which team you can end the season with,” stressed Borussia Mönchengladbach’s vice-president Rainer Bonhof at “t-online”. “This is basically a topic that is worth investigating.” Once again.