HIF wrote:Foye wrote:Signed U21 NT player Anton Stach from Fürth.
Fits with the age of the core guys…hope he can produce.
Signing young guys is always fun but if they become decent they'll be gone in a couple of years to bigger teams. A mix is important.
After years of huge roster turnarounds and terrible coaching…one thing is key for the upcoming years:
Consistency.
We have fixed the most important position in the club last year by making Bo Svensson head coach. Evidenced by the huge turnaround from being on Schalke level to easily avoiding relegation and beating Bayern.
The next step in the development can be summed up by one word: Consistency.
To achieve that we need to plan years ahead and make sure that the top talents stay in the club as long as possible…because we have no money to buy top quality players and the foreign top talents will generally see us more as a development club.
The current top talents are:
Dahmen - GK
Burkardt - CF/ST/Winger
Barreiro - DM/CM
Nebel - OM/Winger
Any of them will at worst end up being a starting caliber Bundesliga player (or already is).
You can potentially add Nemeth (played well in Austria last season) and Stach to the list now.
Then there is a second row of talents from U17/19/23 or on loan who might or might not make the jump to be a Bundesliga starter:
Tauer - DM
Papela - DM/CM
Mustafa - CF
Rieß - GK
Rupil - OM
Curci - CF/ST/Winger
Fichtner - CM/OM
A couple other ones
For me personally the goal for the club in the upcoming years needs to be assemble 8-10, at least above average Bundesliga players below age 25.
I am convinced that will a) lead to consistent success (mid table team at worst as opposed to the most recent years at the bottom of the table) and b) will increase the chances that we can keep the team together (knowing the majority of the team are guys that have been developed by Mainz).
What we have always struggled with in the past is to keep the top talents from the own academy (for example Baku left right before last season) for more than a couple seasons.
I feel though that this time we have so many talents around that there is a pretty good chance to build something bigger and better than in recent years….which is why I would throw everything we have into acquiring even more talent to build a great core that everyone wants to be part of.
A guy like Stach fits right in the mold. He is not really rated all that highly but will likely end up a solid Bundesliga player. Just what we need. I hope he can produce.
Need another striker though.
Not enough finishing on the roster.
Hope we can keep Niakhate and St. Juste. These guys have been massive for us last year. Kind of expect at least one of them will be gone before the deadline.
