Red Bull Salzburg, part 3 of 3 »abseits.at
In this series we highlight the biggest “misunderstandings” in the form of bad purchases by selected Austrian Bundesliga clubs in the last ten years. Which legionaries did not live up to the expectations placed in them? Who were the expensive flops?
We’re starting the series with a three-part series about Red Bull Salzburg, who have rarely really gone wrong in the recent past, but have still had to get over one or the other misunderstanding in the last ten years. Here is the third and final part about the Red Bulls flops.
Mahamadou Dembélé
In the summer of 2017, Red Bull Salzburg brought the Malian-born French Mahamadou Dembélé out of the Paris Saint-Germain offspring for free. The transfer caused quite a stir, as it was not necessarily to be expected that the Bulls would get such a talented kicker from the offspring of one of the world’s largest clubs for free. The Bulls pursued a long-term plan with the highly talented central defender, but it didn’t work out – Dembélé did not play a single game for the fighting team. The 22-year-old was on the field 40 times for Liefering, but after it became clear that it would not be enough for the “first”, Dembélé was first loaned to Fortuna Sittard in the Netherlands and later given to Troyes, where he was However, as in the Eredivisie, it was not able to prevail. Since the beginning of the year, Dembélé has been playing on loan for the French second division club Pau FC, where he also only commutes between the bench and the starting eleven.
Darko Todorovic
For the third time, the Bosnian right-back Darko Todorovic was heard, who continues to award the Salzburgers. After the 24-year-old only played 14 games for the Red Bulls in the 2018/19 season, he was awarded first to Holstein Kiel and the following year to Hajduk Split. This season, the 16-time national player went to Chechnya, where he signed with Akhmat Grozny for a year. Todorovic’s contract in Salzburg runs until 2023, which is why a fourth loan – or a fixed transfer next summer – is considered likely. In any case, the Bosnian has no future with the bulls.
Jasper van der Werff
Salzburg paid 800,000 euros for the Swiss junior team player Jasper van der Werff from FC St. Gallen, who promptly made his first appearances for the combat team shortly after moving to the city of Mozart. But there weren’t many: five in number for the Bundesliga team and also for Liefering there were only twelve games in the end. One and a half years later he was on loan to FC Basel, where he was the regular player in a single phase. Since the beginning of the season, the now 22-year-old has been playing in the second German Bundesliga for SC Paderborn, where he is an undisputed regular player.
Peter Ankersen
The Danish right-back Peter Ankeren spent the 2014/15 season with the Salzburg team, but was completely disappointing. The 27-time national player contributed one goal and six assists in 33 parties, but did not always present himself defensively and had to move on after a year. First on loan, then permanently, Ankersen moved to FC Copenhagen, where he played for four years and became an absolute top performer and also captain. In 2019, the full-back ventured on an adventure abroad and switched to Serie A at FC Genoa, where he played but, like in Salzburg, hardly convinced. A year later he went back to FC Copenhagen, where he is now a regular again and has now made 210 competitive appearances.
Omer Damari
In the summer of 2014, the Israeli attacker Omer Damari played for half a year at Wiener Austria and enchanted Vienna favorites with his noteworthy hits and his final security. After a few months, RB Leipzig put seven million euros on the table to make the attacker binding – Austria agreed. After half a year in Leipzig Damari was awarded to Salzburg and since the thoroughbred striker already knew the league very well, expectations were correspondingly high. But Damari flopped: In 16 games, the 182cm offensive man only met four times and later also scored his luck at the New York Red Bulls, where he only scored one goal. After the “triple Red Bull flop”, Damari went back to Israel. Unsuccessful engagements at Maccabi Haifa and his ex-club Hapoel Tel Aviv heralded an early end to the striker’s career. Last June the time had come and the 20-time national player decided to hang up his football boots when he was only 32 years old.
Beat the bookmakers with our new project overlyzer.com! We deliver live trends for over 800 leagues and competitions that reflect the exact course of a game and can give you a special advantage with live bets! All games in the Austrian Bundesliga are of course also in our program!