Football Season Guide

Augsburg defied all the odds last year by surviving in the top flight but will now face another huge challenge to repeat this feat. They were in the Bundesliga for the first ever time in the last campaign but though they did find life hard initially, they eventually settled into their new surroundings and managed to hover above the worst of the relegation battle for most of the year. The manager who guided them to this success has since moved on though and whether or not Markus Weinzierl can repeat the same magic on a limited budget remains to be seen. On the bright side, the players who have left to free up extra wages in the squad are far from exceptional with only Ndjeng and Bellinghausen really being semi-regular in the starting eleven. On the other hand the newcomers as far from top notch either again with one exception as bringing Bance back to Germany from Dubai was a real coup. He was a great scorer for Mainz in his previous spell in the country and a repeat of this form could be enough to fire the team towards safety.