The Set: Best Transfers

Undoubt­edly, the minute I post this, Ronaldo will give up on Real Madrid and move to Ham­burg, so for­give me for being pre­ma­ture. Let’s take a look, as the sea­son begins, at the seven best sign­ing so far this sum­mer in the Bundesliga.

7. Chris­t­ian Fuchs (SV Mat­ters­burg to Bochum)

   Aus­tria entered the Euros as a laugh­ing stock. By the time they gal­lantly exited after the defeat to Ger­many, there was a lot to be excited about. Per­haps that excite­ment will have to be tem­pered until 2012, when the class of last year’s U20 semi-finalists have taken over the team, but already Prodl, Harnik and Ozcan have grav­i­tated towards our favorite league. Fuchs will be the first to make an impact. While Prodl should even­tu­ally wres­tle the CB posi­tion from Naldo after the Brazil­ian finally causes Mar­cel Koller a heart attack, Fuchs will slot in imme­di­ately. And with a mid­field in dire need of a tal­is­man, he could well take that spot with his attack­ing flair down the left flank. Will he be enough to keep the rel­e­ga­tion bat­tlers up? Hard to tell, but he will be on this again next year, if they don’t stay up.

6. Mikael Fors­sell (Birm­ing­ham to Han­nover)

   Han­nover’s biggest issue is a for­ward line that wouldn’t bother most AYSO travel teams. Fors­sell is a proven goalscorer who should add bite to their mid­field bot­tle. Also he could pair well with Mike Hanke, who has not thrived as the only threat for the con­tin­u­ally improv­ing Reds.

5. Tim Borowski (Werder Bre­men to Bay­ern Munich)

   What to you do when part of your dou­ble pivot gets too old? Well when you’re FC Bay­ern, you take on a free player from your clos­est league rival. By secur­ing the free trans­fer of Ger­man inter­na­tional Borowski (28) from Werder, Bay­ern gave them­selves an upgrade in age and lat­eral move in abil­ity from the Brazil­ian Ze Roberto (34) to part­ner Van Bom­mel in front of Schwe­in­steiger, Sosa, Alt­in­top and Ribery.

4. Mario Eggi­mann (Karl­sruhe to Han­nover)

   I loved Eggi­mann last year. Every­one was so high on Haj­nal as the rea­son for Karlsruhe’s suc­cess, and he def­i­nitely played his part; how­ever, KSC’s great early run and sub­se­quent sur­vival was based on their out­stand­ing defense, includ­ing the vastly under­rated Markus Mil­lar in goal and LB Chris­t­ian Eich­ner. Eggi­mann will bring com­po­sure and orga­ni­za­tion to a team that flirted with a Euro­pean spot last year. He is def­i­nitely an improve­ment over the likes of an ancient Tar­nat in front of the solid Robert Enke.

3. Orlando Enge­laar (Twente to Schalke) and Jef­fer­son Far­fan (PSV to Schalke)

   Sud­denly Rut­ten seems poised to run a very tidy 4–2-3–1 with the ball win­ning Fabian Ernst cou­pled with the slick pass­ing Enge­laar in the dou­ble pivot, behind an attack of Ivan Rakatic, Far­fan and Jer­maine Jones. With Kevin Kuranyi’s abil­ity to play the hold­ing for­ward, much like a Luca Toni or Dim­i­tar Berba­tov, these two sign­ings make Schalke a decent bet to end their long run of bad luck. Farfan’s abil­ity to spell Kuranyi will be an added bonus and Jones abil­ity to play back in the dou­ble pivot will allow the likes of Ze Roberto, PPA (Poor People’s Alt­in­top) and Streit to slot in and pro­vide depth through three com­pe­ti­tions. This is now quite a ver­sa­tile team.

2. Cris­t­ian Zac­cardo and Andrea Barza­gli (Palermo to Wolfs­burg)

   With the addi­tion of for­mer Ital­ian RB Zac­cardo and Ital­ian CB Barza­gli, Felix Mag­ath is mak­ing one of the strongest defenses in the Bun­desliga even stronger. For­get Barzagli’s howler against the Nether­lands. This is one of Italy’s best cen­ter halves and he imme­di­ately becomes one of the best in the Bun­desliga. It was quite a coup for Wolfs­burg to land these two from Palermo, so there are few teams that have as much buzz com­ing into the sea­son as Wolfs­burg. If Marcelinho can make it through one more year, they could com­pete for a Champion’s League spot this year.

1. Renato Augusto (Fla­menco to Bayer Lev­erkusen)

   Bayer are right on the cusp. They have a col­lec­tion of young tal­ent that rivals any club with Adler, Bar­netta, Cas­tro, Kiessling, Vidal and Rolfes. But one of their biggest issues is the creep­ing age of tal­is­man and play­maker Bernd Schnei­der. By pick­ing up the next Brazil­ian won­der in Augusto, they look to be mov­ing beyond Schnei­der and com­bin­ing the cre­ativ­ity of this U20 inter­na­tional with the steady influ­ence of Rolfes and the sharp wing play of Bar­netta. If he is free from injury, he may well take the Werk­self back to the Champion’s League. He will be fun to watch no mat­ter how Lev­erkusen progress as a team.

and one to watch: Said Huse­ji­novic (FK Slo­boda Tuzla to Werder)

He isn’t going to make an impact at first, but I can’t believe how excited I am to see this wun­derkind play. With Diego throw­ing his toys out with the pram, per­haps he will get time early to slot into the #10 role. By the end of the sea­son we will be com­par­ing the Bosn­ian to Ivan Rakatic.

Did I miss any­one? Please com­ment on who you think deserves a men­tion on this list. Is it Haj­nal to BVB? Is it Pitroipa to HSV? Let’s hear who I missed, because undoubt­edly I will have missed some good ones.

Tagged as: Andrea Barzagli, Christian Fuchs, Cristian Zaccardo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jefferson Farfan, Mario Eggimann, Mikael Forssell, Orlando Engelaar, Real Madrid, Renato Augusto, Said Husejinovic, SV Mattersburg, Tim Borowski