News, Rumours, Transfers for June 4, 2007

By: Jan | June 4th, 2007

Your favorite Bundesliga clubs have spent the last two weeks busily planning the next season. At the same time I have been too lazy to report anything about it. The ideal premise for a long post to catch up with everything.

Transfer: Japanese midfielder Junichi Inamoto has signed a two-year deal with Eintracht Frankfurt leaving Galatasaray Istanbul on a free transfer. In Eintracht Frankfurt dimensions this is quite a signing. No one else in their squad can claim to have hung out with Ronaldhino in some remote concrete jungle. It seems that Frankfurt’s Naohiro Takahara, an old friend of Inamoto, played a big role here. He supplied the hint that Inamoto would become available and also convinced Inamoto of the benefits of playing in the Bundesliga. There are only five Japanese football players who earn their money in Europe and two of them are now in Frankfurt. Something that surely has some marketing potential? Bayern Munich is currently the only German club that is actively trying to market itself in Japan.
Transfer Rumours and Activities: Borussia Dortmund is also busily trying to construct a squad that can take them back to Europe. Steven over at the Dortmund Offside is covering everything. E.g. here and here
Transfer: VfB Stuttgart has signed Turkey midfielder Yildiray Bastürk on a free transfer from Hertha BSC Berlin.
Transfer: Mohamed Zidan joined FSV Mainz 05 in the winter and scored 13 goals in 15 games for the relegation troubled club. He even went so far as to pledge his allegiance to the club by tattoing the word Mainz on his forearm. He couldn’t prevent Mainz from going down to the 2. Bundesliga though. Good thing that tattoo was made from henna paste because he has now signed a four year contract with Hamburg. Hamburg has been desperately trying to sign a good striker last season. Now they probably got one. Cost them 5 million euros.
Previously Denied Rumour Turned Into Confirmed Rumour: Ex-Bayern Munich coach Felix Magath decided to take the Wolfsburg job anyway. Seems he came to the realisation that he won’t be coaching Real Madrid or Chelsea London anytime soon. So why not go to some hicksville club without real fans but proper financial backing from Volkswagen instead? He will take over the job as coach and sporting director and is expected to lead the club to Europe.
New Coach: The Hertha players had backed their coach Heine and wanted him to stay. The management decided to appoint Lucien Favre as new coach instead. Favre won two consecutive Swiss championships which isn’t too bad.
Transfer: Energie Cottbus’ coach Petrik Sander had warned his management not to sell out his squad in the summer. Some advice they didn’t take to heart. Instead they took 4,5 million euros from VfL Wolfsburg who signed their Rumanian strike duo Sergiu Radu and Vlad Munteanu. The two players scored 25 goals for Cottbus. Let’s see how they plan to survive in the Bundesliga without them next season. Oh, I almost forgot they also lost their captain Kevin McKenna to Cologne.

Please excuse the obvious lack of any news related to Uli Hoeness’ work of art in-progress *** Bayern Munich 2007 ***. That’s because I thought that this club and all his current transfer activities offer enough material to fill a seperate blog post (to be posted soon).