Football Season Guide

Osnabruck’s first season back in Bundesliga 2 after long absence was turbulent, but thanks to some very aggressive attacking displays at home and crucial wins against direct rivals at the bottom the Violets survived. They actually did that relatively easy, although it must be stressed that the majority of their positive results came before Christmas and the results in 2020 were not as good. The big change during the off-season was at the helm with the very successful coach Thioune leaving after 3 good years in charge. As his replacement Osnabruck appointed inexperienced Marco Grote, with this first job as Head Coach for him at this level. Grote spent the last 4 years in charge of Werder Bremen’s U17 and U19 squads. In terms of players the changes have been plenty too with the main left-back Agu, playmaker Ouahim and the pair of starting strikers all leaving. Reichel was signed to be the new starting left-back, while Multhaup and Bapoh joined expecting to be in contention for the number ten role. Up front 32-year-old Santos and youngster Ihorst were added and currently they are the only 2 typical forwards in the squad. So far, in pre-season coach Grote had been experimenting a lot with his formations and personnel so it seems in the early months of the campaign he will be testing different things until he finds something that works well. What seems obvious is that Osnabruck will use lone striker up front this season. The team’s main strength has to be in the wide areas where an abundance of explosive wingers and aggressive full-backs constantly create havoc. In terms of weakness the obvious one is the lack of depth in attack. The other area of concern is the heart of the defence with 3 of the 4 main centre-backs having long history of injury issues in the past and they all will have to be managed very carefully.