Team success irrelevant? This Bundesliga signing outshines his club | OneFootball

Aren’t they actually broke? That’s what many fans wondered when Werder Bremen spent ten million euros on Samuel Mbangula from Juventus Turin just a few days ago. And yes, SVW still doesn’t have any money, but with this transfer, they’ve made a bet that’s supposed to bring the club a fortune in record time.

With Mbangula, the North Germans are responding to a trend that has become even more extreme in recent years. As soon as young players have even a halfway decent season, their clubs are showered with tens of millions from the Premier League or Saudi Arabia. The most recent example is Jamie Gittens, who after a good half-year for BVB, hardly scored anymore and was barely used towards the end of the season, but still went to Chelsea for over 60 million euros.

Stories like this are also why VfB Stuttgart can easily wave off Bayern’s offers for Nick Woltemade, which rise higher than Uli Hoeneß’s blood pressure.

Werder Wants Fast Money

Above all, English and Saudi clubs, but of course also the very top European teams, now have so much money that they hardly know what to do with it. That’s why a real gold rush has broken out among Bundesliga clubs in the hunt for talent. Borussia Dortmund started the trend of serving as a springboard for talent development a few years ago, RB Leipzig followed suit, and most recently it was Eintracht Frankfurt, which sold itself so successfully into the Bundesliga elite.

Werder is now copying this strategy with Mbangula and hopes to have found the next Randal Kolo Muani, Omar Marmoush, or Hugo Ekitiké. Clemens Fritz described the new signing as “a very intelligent player (...), who has good explosiveness and good dynamics and also the courage to take on and resolve one-on-one situations.”

It’s players like these whose market values can explode in a very short time. Ideally, you find such a player in your own youth academy and develop him yourself. But if you want to buy such a rough diamond, you have to quickly put up double-digit millions and hope you don’t get badly burned. When Werder makes such a transfer, they depend on “it working out,” as Fritz put it. He has to make an impact. If he flops, it would be a moderate financial disaster.

The ten million euro transfer fee will be paid in installments, so Bremen will be dealing with it for a long time. And actually, this summer they’re also supposed to generate a transfer surplus of 7.5 million euros.

More Important Than Team Success?

Of course, the club also wants Mbangula to help them athletically, but qualifications for a European competition or even titles are only secondary for now. What’s much more important is that the 21-year-old himself makes a breakthrough. His personal performance is, to a certain extent, even more important than that of his team. If Mbangula takes off, he could bring in more money within just twelve months than a Bremen participation in the Champions League could.

The gap between top clubs, England and Saudi Arabia on one side and all other clubs on the other has become so wide that Bundesliga clubs increasingly have to operate like clubs from France, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Develop talent and turn it into money, instead of competing for trophies themselves.

As soon as a player breaks through, he’s bought away by a bigger club. That was the case in the past too, but recently the stays have become even shorter. German clubs are finding it harder and harder to keep their big names beyond a single transfer summer.

Werder Bremen will also be hoping that Mbangula moves on again after just one year. That would mean that this summer’s ten-million-euro bet has paid off. Then, for a change, they’d finally have a well-filled cash register again and enough money to place the next bets. Then, to find the next Samuel Mbangula.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

📸 MARCO BERTORELLO - AFP or licensors