THE BUNDESLIGA TRANSFER PROBLEM
Timo Werner came to the Premier League on the back of 28 goals in 34 league games, praised for his energetic style and ability to get in behind the opposition back line. Two years and 10 league goals later, he's ushered back to Leipzig with Chelsea lucky to recoup half the transfer fee. Then you've got Jadon Sancho, one of England's future stars who was tearing up both wings in the Bundesliga for Dortmund, scoring and assisting at will. United waited a year to get a cheaper price but still ended up paying an eye watering €80m, worth it? Not really, United supporters have bemoaned how he looks gassed after 60 mins with some calling for him to be moved on after just two years at the club.
We've heard of the Bundesliga Tax, but that only refers to strikers and never comes with an explanation (other than your usual PL superiority complex). We were able to list off multiple players that failed from the Bundesliga, across all positions & leagues and decided to take an in depth look as to why?
The Data Set
In order to make an informed decision on how Bundesliga players fare in other leagues, we needed to examine all purchases from the Bundesliga but with a set criteria. We compiled all purchases over €15m in the last 10 years into 3 categories:
HIT - These players were star players for their team, contributed to success and worth every penny.
MID - These players weren't stars, but respectable starters who had an impact.
FLOP - These players should never have been brought and were a bad investment.
This search criteria gave us a total of 55 players which cost a whopping €2 BILLION! Out of those players, we had an astonishing 61% being labelled as flops. Now whilst you may disagree with one or two, the numbers speak for themselves, the majority of players brought from the Bundesliga do not work out, irrespective of league. We found 3 key trends that go some way to explaining why.
Injuries in The premier league
There's an injury risk to every transfer that can't be accounted for. Yet, the flop list shows a clear pattern. Eight out of ten injuries were to Premier League signings and most importantly, seven of those were midfielders and wingers: Naby Kieta, Thiago, Jean Kevin Augustin, Gbamin, Pulisic, Bailey & Yarmolenko.
A lot is made in the media about the physicality of the Premier League, but it's also the intensity of the game.
Thigh-intensity affects two groups of players the most; midfielders, who cover the most distance per game and wingers, who both sprint the most often and for the longest distances. Assessing the data for distance covered, the Premier League had a higher average than their German counterparts, by 0.8km per player per game, meaning around 272KM within a season. In fact, for 22/23, Ellyes Skhiri covered 393.6KM but that would put him 9th in the Premier League. Going back one year, Maximillian Arnold covered an admirable 374.8KM but that didn't get him into the Top 10 for the Premier League. It's not only the extra distance though, it's also done at a higher intensity. Data from Football Observatory showed the Premier League was the 3rd most intense league whilst the Bundesliga was below average in a dismal 16th place. For the wingers, it's more of the same. Across all leagues, wingers top the sprints per 90 but in the Premier League, they sprinted 12% more than any other league and over 120m per player per game over the Bundesliga. There's no Bundesliga slander here, it's a great league with transitional and pressing football but the data shows that in the Premier League midfielders and wingers are required to cover more ground and in a more intense fashion.
It's not just the intensity of the game but also the amount of them. The Premier League has 2 extra teams in the league and therefore 4 additional games, an additional cup competition with the Carabao Cup, and no winter break. In fact, the Bundesliga has a two week period off for Christmas whereas the PL has games every 3-4 days as the most gruelling winter schedule in Europe. If you take all of the above into account, it’s very easy to see why any Bundesliga midfielder or winger transferring to the Premier League is at a higher risk of injury.
BAD SCOUTING
It’s no shock that there’s more money in football and with that comes better investment into scouting departments and data analysis teams to aid transfer decisions. You have some teams that have leveraged that influx of money into a shrewdness in buying and developing talent, such as Brighton, Atalanta & Leverkusen. But there’s another side to the coin, teams with awful scouting that have leveraged the increased money into an art of ruining potential world class talent. Some teams have more money than sense, they don’t really understand what they’ve brought and how they fit into their style of football. Worryingingly, it looks to be a trend with the most expensive position in football, strikers.
Those who are uninformed would look at the above figures and scream Bundesliga Tax but every player on this list, bar Pulisic, can be categorised as misused.
Chelsea brought two big names from the Bundesliga, Timo Werner & Kai Havertz. Timo Werner played 78% of games in a central striker role, running in behind and then linking up with his team mates in a central position, taking advantage of the transitional type of football Leipzig played. At Chelsea, he was moved out to the winger, with no space to run into because of the possession based football Chelsea played. They didn’t understand what made Timo Werner so successful at Leipzig as he only played 25% of games in his preferred position. Then you have Kai Havertz, a great support striker playing off Kevin Volland at Bayer Leverkusen, picking up the pockets of space whilst Volland occupied the centre backs. At Chelsea, he was employed as a lone striker and asked to play like Kevin Volland. It begs the question as to why they signed Havertz instead of Volland?
David Moyes helps show us that this issue isn't limited to the Bundesliga. Initially, he brought Sebastian Haller for £50m to be a target man, aerial threat and a player to run in behind to hurt teams on the counter, i.e. a better, goal scoring Michail Antonio. That isn’t the profile of Sebastian Haller and so he was sold, yet he’s gone on to show his quality at both Ajax and Borussia Dortmund, Champions League teams.
Then David Moyes moved onto Gianlucca Scamacca from Serie A, a player who dropped deep to collect the ball and play Raspadori & Berardi in behind to score. David Moyes, yet again, saw a tall player and thought target man, aerial threat and a player to run in behind. In fact, Michail Antonio said the following about his former teammate.
He’s been sold back to Atalanta, whilst David Moyes looks to buy another striker... I wonder how they'll get on?
Now, it’s not just Premier League teams, La Liga is also guilty of not scouting strikers properly, mainly Diego Simeone. The Spanish David Moyes plays a similar style, the striker role being an isolating position where you have to hold up the ball, use pace to run in behind and score alone. So it may come as a surprise that they opted to sign Mario Manduzkic, a striker who has always lacked pace and relied on his physicality. Now whilst Manduzkic started the league on fire, building an excellent relationship with Greizmann, he offered no threat in behind and cracks appeared in playing Simeone's system (falling out with him certainly didn't help). He didn't score in the second half of the season and was moved on after just one year. He was the wrong profile of striker, as was Matheus Cunha. A player not famed for being clinical but rather a link up player in a possession team that presses well, he again wasn't able to do what Simeone asked of him.
Are these players flops? Yes. Would these players be successful in the right systems? Yes. Is it only players from the Bundeslinga? No. Is it the players fault? Not a chance. The fact that these players ended up being described as flops lies squarely at the feet of those in charge; directors, scouts, and managers who all greenlit the purchase. There is an element of desperation here, given a team's success is so dependent on a striker who can consistently convert chances. Over the last few years, there seems to be less and less number 9s in football, so teams are taking risks in hoping someone who has scored goals in one league in a certain system will be able to translate that. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working, especially from the Bundesliga.
Why do Madrid & City seem to buck the trend?
So injuries and bad scouting seem to be the most prevalent factor in Bundesliga players struggling in other leagues. Now, whilst there are some bad players or players in bad situations, there are two teams that have had unequivocal success when purchasing from the Bundesliga. So why do players seem to work so well at Real Madrid & Manchester City?
For Real Madrid, Florentino Perez has been in charge since 2009. And in that time, he has overseen a number of different managers, all with different styles but one thing has been constant, success. Perez has been the steady hand overseeing the club in establishing a winning culture. And with that winning culture, it’s easy to attract the biggest stars as well as the stars of the future, i.e. Tony Kroos & Mesut Ozil. Real Madrid end up with world class players in every position, and with the best players surrounding you, it only makes you better. The second key to success is buying in advance. Although more recently, Papa Flo seems to buy players a year or so before they are needed, enabling them time to adjust and develop before starting in the first team. The stability and strategic planning behind transfers means that Real Madrid have success buying from every league, not just the Bundesliga.
Under Pep Guardiola, Manchester City transfers haven’t been all that successful. It’s a very mixed bag despite the solid infrastructure Txiki Bergirstain has built with the City Football Group. And whilst the transfers have been a mixed bag from other leagues, it’s been an unequivocal success from the Bundesliga. If we go a little further back than our remit of the last 10 years, Manchester City had Vincent Kompany, Nigel De Jong & Edin Dzeko who were important pieces in their first Premier League win. Then came arguably the best midfielder in the PL in Kevin De Bruyne, closely followed by Sane, Gundogan, Akanji & Haaland.
Pep Guardiola’s system is essentially based on two styles, Johan Cryuff’s tika taka & Ralf Rangnicks counter pressing (a gross oversimplification). Much like England, Pep Guardiola's Barcelona influenced the way football was played from academies, lower leagues and all the way up to their rivals. The Bundesliga was no different and so we had a whole league of players who began becoming comfortable on the ball. Then you have Ralf Ragnick, who introduced counter pressing and his high pressure style took the league by storm. So again, we had a whole league developing the intensity to press along with the understanding of when and how. There was another knock on effect, players also had to develop in becoming press resistant and being comfortable on the ball when pressed. Guardiola and Rangnick revolutionised the Bundesliga, creating a whole crop of players that understood pressing and high intensity football whilst also being comfortable on the ball. When it comes to adapting to the league, there’s this little thing that FPL players know all about… Pep Roulette. We mentioned earlier that midfielders and wingers coming to the league are at a higher risk of injury but Guardiola rarely plays new signings in the first year, and even after that they maybe heavily rotated ensuring they stay fit for the full season. So whilst Manchester City continues to hit and miss from other leagues, they have unequivocal success when buying from the Bundesliga because the style of football is a near perfect match.
Too Long, Didn’t Read.
There have been 55 transfers over 15m in the last 10 years, totalling a whopping 2BN! Out of those 55 players, 35 could be considered flops (60%) and here are some trends we found:
Midfielders & wingers coming to the Premier League are more likely to be injured due to the increased distances, intensity and sprints required along with extra games.
The Bundesliga Tax is a bunch of rubbish. Scouting departments do not understand what type of strikers they are purchasing, yet teams are desperate for any goalscorer so end up gambling.
Real Madrid's stability and success from Florentino Perez has attracted the best players from all over the world, and Real Madrid are great at buying from every league, not just the Bundesliga.
Pep Guardiola & Ralf Ragnick created a Bundesliga that is comfortable on the ball and at pressing with high intensity, perfect for the football Manchester City play ensuring every transfer is a success.
Bellingham and Gvardiol will be world class.
When buying from Germany, unfortunately you need to stick to their cars.