“He has got to stop saying it!” Kompany said with a laugh. “I am a Championship manager, I don’t know what you want from me!

At 1.95 metres, the Franco-German is likely to be one of the tallest players in the league. “We’re delighted to have Felix, who will add a new dimension to our game thanks to his height alone,” commented Ingo Preuß, the sporting director of the U23s. The 20-year-old defender came through the ranks in the Eintracht Frankfurt youth system and scored five goals in 24 appearances for the U19s. Following his time at the SGE academy, he joined Karlsruher SC in 2021.

Jordan suffers muscular adductor injury Jordan suffered a muscular injury to his adductor in the away...

The two highlights of Nicolai Rapp’s career to date have come with SV Werder Bremen and 1. FC Union Berlin, having secured promotion to the Bundesliga with both clubs. While Union needed a tense play-off victory over VfB Stuttgart in 2019, the Green-Whites finally secured direct promotion in 2022 in a meeting with Jahn Regensburg. “They were two very special moments,” said Rapp. “The play-off with Union was even closer. When the final whistle was blown, it was just amazing.”

Thorup rated the performances against Köln (1-1 draw), Wolfsburg (3-2 win) and Heidenheim (5-2 win) first as “okay” and then as “good”, with his side picking up a total of seven points from these three games. “It was just a small step in the right direction. We can’t let up now because there’s still a lot of work to do,” said the 53-year-old Dane, who would like to further fine tune the balance between attack and defence. 

Without his Bayern Munich teammates Manuel Neuer and Thomas Müller around to shoulder the leadership load for Germany for the national team’s upcoming matches against Peru and Belgium, there was a lot of speculation that Joshua Kimmich would be chosen to wear the armband for the team formerly known as Die Mannschaft.

SCF’s last match of the calendar year 2023 will be at 1. FC Heidenheim on Matchday 16. Kick-off at the Voith-Arena will be at 20:30 CET on 20th December.

Line-up Pellegrino Matarazzo made one change to the starting line-up that won 3-2 in Bremen before...

RBL attacker among the three best-performing youngsters of the month once again | Vote closes on Thursday

The German Football League (DFL) has confirmed the schedule for Matchdays 14 to 18. VfB start with a home fixture against Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday 10 December at 15:30 CET.