The Set: The 7 Best Transfers of the Summer (so far)

I tend to get too excited about the young kids, when they move. I will often over-value the trans­fers of the the Zuculini, Sven Ben­der and Lewis Holtby’s of the foot­balling world. I will see Ralf Fahrmann’s move to Ein­tra­cht as the bar­gain of the cen­tury. But youth takes time to develop, so this year I am going to con­cen­trate on the seven best trans­fers made so far this sum­mer, in rela­tion to how the play­ers will aid their teams in the com­ing year. Please note, that while Ham­burg have no player on this list, I think that as a col­lec­tive they have had one of the best sum­mers in the Bundesliga.

7. Han­nover 96
With the retire­ment of Michael Tar­nat and Valer­ian Ismael and the real­iza­tion that Frank Fahren­horst was a Zweite level defender, Han­nover needed a part­ner for the steady Mario Eggi­mann. Deiter Heck­ing replaced the old and the inept with Karim Hag­gui, a player who after a rough first year had set­tled into a solid defender in his sec­ond cam­paign at Lev­erkusen, only lose his place and patience as Bayer 04 went for a Hen­rique from Barcelona. The com­bat­a­tive defender should make a fine part­ner with Eggi­mann who can lead and read. Build­ing a more solid defense around Enke should lead to a rise in the table for Han­nover 96.

6. Wolfs­burg
Wolfs­burg has a prob­lem this year: lots of games. The grind of the Cham­pi­ons League is hard on new teams not used to all the extra fix­tures. At no posi­tion were Wolfs­burg feel­ing thin­ner than for­ward. An injury to their super­star pair­ing of Grafite and Dzeko and things could get tricky for the defend­ing cham­pi­ons. Enter Obafemi Mar­tins. While he could never replace the link place that Dzeko pro­vides, he does pro­vide a strong, quick alter­na­tive who can score on a dime and place a pass when needed. He gives Armin Veh options and backup, with­out much drop-off in quality.

5. Werder Bre­men
While the return of Borowski and the era of the Marin/Oezil part­ner­ship has made all the head­lines, the trans­fer that should return Werder to a sta­tus of title chal­lenger is Boli­vian for­ward Marcelo Moreno from Shakhtar Donetsk. After scor­ing a goal 2 out of every 3 games in Brazil, the highly sought Boli­vian of Brazil­ian stock joined Shak­tar Donesk and scored 7 in 14 for the UEFA Cup Cham­pi­ons. He should make up for the loss of loa­nee Pizarro in spades.

4. Bay­ern Munich
It’s hard to tell what Bay­ern have done. Have they strength­ened by replac­ing Ze Roberto with Tymoschuk, a pur­chase Rafael Honig­ste­ing wor­ries might be three years late? Gomez is class, but buy­ing for buying’s sake can leave you with an ill-formed squad. In this case, Gomez means that at least two of their col­lec­tion of strik­ers will be dis­grun­tled. And Edson Braah­field is an unknown who has to replace a mas­sive pres­ence in the back line and locker room in Lucio. The one player that does not bring a ques­tion mark is Croa­t­ian Dani­jel Pra­jnic from Hereveen. He has the tech­ni­cal skills so ingrained in all Croa­t­ian play­ers, he reads the game well to help him com­pen­sate for his attack­ing men­tal­ity as a full­back and he can pass. He may be the best full­back in the Bun­desliga before a ball is kicked. And he plays in an area that has been prob­lem­atic for Bay­ern since a Basque player roamed that area.

3. Hertha Berlin
Hertha Berlin had a for­ward prob­lem. They couldn’t afford Voronin. Mean­while, Marko Pan­telic and Hertha had such a hate-hate rela­tion­ship that they parted ways with their once tal­is­manic striker. What to do? Buy back Arminia star for­ward Artur Wich­niarek from the rel­e­gated side after his 3 year sojourn from the cap­i­tal. Now with a proven for­ward to help fos­ter the young guns of Cher­miti, Domovchiyski and Raf­fael, Hertha’s for­ward prob­lem seem absolutely solved. And with ser­vice he never received, the Pol­ish inter­na­tional could chal­lenge to be Torschützenkönig.

2. Glad­bach
Borus­sia Möchenglad­bach may have sold their biggest com­mod­ity only to get bet­ter at the same posi­tion. By swap­ping Marin for Venezue­lan Juan Arango from Mal­lorca, they actu­ally may have got­ten bet­ter. There will be a settling-in period for Venezuala’s first super­star, but I have seen him tear Brazil apart, live. He is the real deal with pace and pre­ci­sion and this bud­ding star should take the league by storm.

1. Hof­fen­heim
The strength­en­ing of Hoffenheim’s defense is undoubt­edly the story of the sea­son, even though nobody is dis­cussing it. It’s one thing to pick up the most con­sis­tent defender in the Bun­desliga for a pit­tance, but to get the best LB too. Hof­fen­heim have strength­ened in defense by adding Karlsruhe’s Chris­t­ian Eich­ner and Hertha’s Josep Simu­nic, to add to their win­ter pickup of Timo Hilde­brand. Their defense may now be the best in the Bun­desliga and sits behind a dev­as­tat­ing counter. These moves don’t mean the vil­lage team will sur­vive again. It means they will con­tend again.

Tagged as: Artur Wichniarek, Christian Eichner, Danijel Prajnic, Josep Simunic, Juan Arango, Karim Haggui, Marcelo Martins, Obafemi Martins