Die Wölfe Summer Transfer Preview I, or, You Forgot About Dže

By: Chuck | July 9th, 2009

It’s been a long hot transfer season for every league but the Bundesliga. Sure, we have our weekly Real unveiling of Kaká, Ronaldo, that other guy, or Benzema, but our Fußball-Bundesliga has been relatively stale given the recent dynamism of the market.

I think we had some good moves early on: Gomez and Tymoshchuk to Bayern; and Marin to Werder; the endless talk about Ribéry. But the push for Europe’s elite to lay their grubby paws on our boy Edin Džeko has come to something of a momentary stalemate. As Milan turns its gaze to Fabiano and Huntelaar, it seems old Edin just may have to stay and pout. This doesn’t mean Wolfsburg have to settle on lackluster prima donna want-aways all season (cough, CR7, Adebayor, cough)…

We’ve two new initiates thus far:
Thomas Kahlenberg and Karim Ziani

Kahlenburg is a non-flashy attacking mid with a good vision and technique who starts alongside Poulsen for the Denmark national team. Wolfsburg picked him up from Auxerre where he’s had just over a hundred starts over the past four years. While international studies show Denmark is the happiest nation in the world, international football shows us that this Nicklas Bendtner is also a regular starter for Denmark. Put bluntly, Denmark shows like a YMCA team internationally, but Kahlenburg should be a solid reinforcement.

As for Ziani, it may be telling that there are more photos in a google-image search of him with his porsche than him actually playing ball. That harsh reality confronted, Ziani is French-born Algerian who plays for the Algerian national team and was a regular starter for Eric Gerrets’ starting XI at Marseille. Just a couple days ago, it was confirmed that Wolfsburg had splashed a cool €7 million on the Algerian. I’ve seen him play for Marseille in domestic and international club competition, and I must say, he also seems like a judicious reinforcement. Again, nothing flashy, but a midfielder who can get the ball to our big guys up top.