Leicester will play FC Augsburg tomorrow. The Bundesliga club will be a good test as were this Leicester team is heading next season. Games vs. Villareal, Shrewsbury and Palermo has been part of pre-season so far, as this is the next event to follow, so who are the next opponent.
One of the clubs most prolific players all time, Helmut Haller, took with him the match ball from the 1966 World Cup final, as Geoff Hurst never got it, scoring a hat trick in that special 4-2 win.
The ball was placed in the cellar of the Augsburg home of Helmut Haller, and had been there since 1966. 30 years later, detective work from The Mirror made it possible to track the ball down. The ball is today in safe hands at The National Football Museum as part of their fantastic collection.
Helmut Haller started his career at BC Augsburg, later to be merged with TSV Schwaben Augsburg as FC Augsburg were established in 1969. Haller played for BC from 1957 to 1962. The forward scored 24 goals in 85 league appearances, before making his move to Italian football, playing for Bologna and Juventus, before returning to play for FC Augsburg from 1973 to 1979, with a short stay at BSV Schwenningen from 1976 to 1977.
Helmut Haller died in 2012, at the age of 73. He is by miles the most famous player to be part of this football club, that under his time, played at a lower level, mainly the third and second tier of German football.
FC Augsburg played their first ever season in the top flight in 2011-12, and been up ever since. Their best Bundesliga season was 2014-15, ending 5th. Last season they ended 11th under their current head coach, The dane, Jess Thorup. Thorup has a previous life as both player and manager of Esbjerg. He has earlier also been in charge of FC Copenhagen, Midtjylland, Gent and Ghenk.
Looking at their players one of them is Reece Oxford. Oxford (25) joined in 2019 and has to date played 80 appearances and scored 3 goals. Oxford was previously with West Ham and also been at Borussia Monchengladbach. Jeffrey Gouweleeuw is their captain. The Dutch international is very experienced and been with the club since 2016, so far played 235 games and scored 6 goals.
One player to look out for is the summer recruitment from Bayern Munich, 20 year old forward Yusuf Kabadayi. He is a German U.21 international with a special talent. The have also added Kristijan Jakic from Eintracht Frankfurt, Samuel Essende from Vizela and Keven Schlotterbeck from SC Freiburg.
A team a bit similar to Leicester as they also are depending selling their best players and one who has departed this summer is forward Ermidin Demirovic, sold to Eintracht Frankfurt for a fee of €21.00m.
FC Augsburg is back from a pre-season camp in South Africa, playing TS Galaxy, defeated 2-1 in this friendly against this South Africa top tier team. One other pre-season match played against local club Schwaben, winning 3-0.
Leicester will come to the game with a full squad of prepared players. Harry Souttar, Jakub Stolarczyk and Jamie Vardy are three absent, not in the travelling party. Still we believe Leicester do have a very strong team to field in this pre-season friendly tomorrow evening.
Interesting to see how Steve Cooper will field his team tomorrow, possibly and hopefully understanding the importance of having both Victor Kristiansen and Jannik Vestergaard in the starting line-up.
To follow up on upcoming updates regarding the game, the official FC Augsburg site is of course one to have an eye on.
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