SC Verl finished last season in 2nd place and qualified for the Champions League. This meant we needed some reinforcements and a decent preseason to prep us for the tough season ahead.

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Summer Transfer Window

Transfers – In

Pre-Contracts:

• Anthony Elanga joins from Manchester United. He will be our starting left winger.
• Dylan Levitt joins fellow teammate from Manchester United. He was brought in to provide competition for Joe Hodge and Christian Frydek. He can also play a few different positions which is a plus.
• Nuno Sarpei joins from SpVgg Greuther Fürth. He will provide cover and add depth to our midfield.

Loans:

• Angelo Bruckner, Luca Netz and Sidi Sané are back for another season.

Youth Signings:

• Aaron José joins from lower league Portuguese team Olímpico de Montijo. He looks like a better prosper than Andrè Franca.
• Didier Leger joins from Serbian second division team Kaber.
• Kalilou Kouakou joins from Serie C team Cesena. He looks quite the gem.

All three players will be sent out on loan.

Transfers – Out

I made the mistake to have our DoF in charge of loans. I completely missed two offers that completely messed up our squad balance. Samuel Lengle was needed ahead of the long season, but he was upset about playing time so he’s off to Hertha for the season. I messed up even more when I didn’t see that ABT was off on a two-year loan to Freiburg, what’s worst is that I can’t terminate the loan, ffs. I’ve now taken over loans until I have a much more balanced team. Lesson learned!

We broke our transfer income record by bringing in over £15m in transfer fees from the sales of Roberto Massimo and Nicolas Kuhn.

• Roberto Massimo had been injury prone these last two seasons so when Mainz came with a £7.5m (9.75m) offer, I could not refuse.
• Nicolas Kuhn made a fuss over his wages and guarantee playing time. I did not want to sell him as we were already a bit short on the wings after the Massimo sale. Stuttgart came in with a few bids and were able to upset the player. He’s left for £7.5m.

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Squad

As I mentioned above, the team was not balanced after a ton of outgoing loans. But it wasn’t until I began to type the first team squad for the upcoming season, when it hit me that I actually didn’t add any depth to the team. I now have less available players this season compared to last. I will look to either bring in a couple of players in the next transfer window or recall a couple of players from their loans. SICK 🤘!

Goalkeepers: Christian Früchl, Emil Hansen
Defenders: Angelo Brückner, Bahaa Abdelhalim, Kilian Senkbeil, Ian Robinson, Mamadou Doucouré, Jakob Šuver, Luca Netz, Jonathan Meier
Midfielders: Dylan Levitt, Christian Frydek, Joe Hodge, Nunoo Sarpei
Wingers: Mika Schroers, Tjas Begic, Billy Jones, Anthony Elanga
Forwards: Florian Krüger, Matthew Hoppe, Paul Glatzel

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Preseason

Friendlies

We had another successful preseason starting a comfortable win against one of recent affiliates, Koln. We then jetted off to Italy for training camp and faced some decent competition, ending the trip with a 1-5 win against Udinese.

Finances

The last couple of years have been great for us financially. We have been able to accumulate over £100m in our overall balance. We’ve use our money wisely and the little spent has gone back into the infrastructure of the club. I’ve tried once again but our Chairman does not want to build a new stadium even though we have all that money sitting there, what shame.

In other news, we’ve moved one spot up in our Matchday and Ticket Revenue table to 17th, generating a little over £5m. In terms of Commercial Income, we’re still last with only being able to bring in £1.3m. Wages have now risen to £300k p/w but continue to be frugal regardless of our wage budget being £480k p/w.

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The board wants us to avoid relegation although we finished in 2nd place last season, that gives us a lot of room just in case we collapse during the season. The bookies on the other hand have rated us to finish midtable.

Next post we will take a look at the 2024/2025 season review.

Best,
José