Football Season Guide

After bad end to last season saw M’gladbach missing out on Champions League qualification the changes looked inevitable and things have been busy at the club in the summer. Change of managers was the first thing on the agenda with Marco Rose, head coach for RB Salzburg for last 2 years, the new man at the helm. Rose arrives with good reputation and is known for asking his teams to play direct football. The other major departure was that of talisman Thorgan Hazard, who joined Dortmund, and after several years of relying on him in difficult situations now Green and Whites will have to find new hero. Captain Stindl is such a figure, but the undisputable leader of the team is recovering from serious injury with his return on the pitch not expected until November. This makes the role of Plea up front even more important, while 34-year-old veteran Raffael will have to turn back time and for a few months make Stindl’s absence go unnoticed. Not much transfer activity so far, with probably the only regular from the 3 new faces set to be right-back Lainer, who Rose managed in Salzburg. Before the bad run last spring M’gladbach was known as fortress and turning the home ground into successful hunting grounds again is priority for the new coach. As mentioned above direct forward passing and lots of overlapping runs can be expected as this is style of play Rose preaches.