News : Second League – Rummy instead of Schafkopf – Sport

When Benedikt Saller looked around at the training start two weeks ago, he was pleased that a few hundred spectators had come to the site of SSV Jahn Regensburg. The fan base in the Upper Palatinate continues to rise before the start of the third league year in series. Then Saller looked around again at the Kaulbachweg. He knew, of course, that there were new teammates at the start, but then he realized that they were not so few. "But we also need the boys," he said.

With the first look and the closer look, it is always such a thing in professional football - and they now notice that in Regensburg. At first glance, a lot has changed since the end of the season in May. Saller is one of four players on the final day of last season in a 2-2 against SV Sandhausen in the starting eleven and still kick the Jahn. Sebastian Nachreiner, Sebastian Stolze and Marco Grüttner are the others. Eleven players, however, were new, 13 left the club. "If we do it well, we arouse desires," says managing director Christian Keller, actually that's the right thing for him.

"The challenge now is to have good ideas and solutions," Christian Keller suspected

The Jahn finally looks back on this change, because he had such great success. With the lowest budget in the league, the club reached the class early, the formative players and coach Achim Beierlorzer (for 1 FC Cologne) were now in demand elsewhere. Great supports such as goalkeeper Philipp Pentke (TSG Hoffenheim), top scorer Sargis Adamyan (15 goals, eleven assists, Hoffenheim), striker Hamadi Al Ghaddioui (eleven goals, VfB Stuttgart) or defense Asger Sörensen (loan return to Salzburg, now 1. FC Nuremberg) changed. As part of the restructuring also went Sebastian Freis and Haris Hyseni, who played little.

"The challenge now is to have good ideas and solutions," said Keller directly after the season. You have to be tough on him: So far, he has had these ideas almost always in his six years in Regensburg, and with viable players who had not accessed their potential at other clubs and thus fell out of sight of other clubs and their scouts. At the Jahn, she then basketed Keller in a community in which they demanded good services. So came this summer, the U20 international Tom Baack, who played only a small part in Bochum, or the 22-year-old Max Besuschkow (Royale Union Saint- Gilloise), who could not prevail at Eintracht Frankfurt as a talent.

If one listens to Benedikt Saller, then the managing director was again not completely uninspired. "I'm very positive for the new season," said the right-back, on July 28, the Regensburg start against VfL Bochum (15:30 clock) in their game year. "It was already seen in the first training days, what the new ones have on it." Captain Grüttner agrees: "I think we've won willing guys and now it's about people getting our game philosophy in their heads." Something like that lasts two or three weeks, Saller believes, and some longer. Goalkeeper Al Ghaddioui did not really get started until about a year later. He is said to be replaced by the mighty Erik Wekesser, 22, who came from the fourth division Walldorf, or the 1.93-meter center forward Andreas Albers, 29, who kicks for the first time outside Denmark.

The two get help in the attack from Grüttner, who hits the Jahn double-digit year after year and internalizes the club's philosophy, which, like at RB Leipzig, consists of early attacking and a quick finish to the goal, like only a few. And the style of play remains the same under Mersad Selimbegovic, the new coach and former Beierlorzer assistant. Selimbegovic was the coach a month ago, which of course no other club had on the cheat sheet. By the way, the Bosnian, like Beierlorzer, also prepared his footballers in the nearby Bad Gögging for the season.

So at second glance, even with new players much could remain the same at Jahn. At least if the start of the season succeeds, a supposedly big upheaval could turn out to be smaller. "The core has been here for years," says Saller. He means to himself (since 2016), but also Nachreiner, Andreas Geipl, Jann George, Alexander Nandzik, Oliver Hein and Marc Lais, who played in the regional league season 2015/16 and still count among the guarantors in the team. "We are very straightforward, just normal guys," says Saller, who sees the Jahn also armed for further second league years.

Born in Munich, the changes in the squad still feel the strongest. Due to the departure of Pentke and Freis Schafkopf group of Regensburg was blown up. The two Upper Bavarians Saller and Geipl now have to play rummy with their new colleagues. At least until the integration is completed when playing cards.