Opposition Check: 1. FC Magdeburg

The 2014/15 season represented a decisive turning point in the development of 1. FC Magdeburg. As first in the Regionalliga Nord-Ost, the Blue-Whites had to fight for promotion to the 3rd league and thus a return to professional football battle. In the first and second leg, the FCM prevailed against Kickers Offenbach and ultimately celebrated their long-awaited promotion to the third highest German league in the stadium on Bieberer Berg.

This was followed by a total of three seasons in League 3, a one-year trip to the 2nd Bundesliga and another three seasons in the 3rd League. Since 2022, the Magdeburgers have now been an integral part of the German lower house of football and are currently in their third second division year in a row. And very successfully. After the 6th matchday, the team from Saxony-Anhalt is in third place. The duel in the Merck Stadium at Böllenfalltor next Saturday (September 28th) will be a tough one – for both teams. Because with SV 98, FCM will face a team against whom they have always lost in their previous six games. The seventh meeting is now imminent…

More than 50 of your own books? Yes, you read that right. The man can not only coach, but also write texts: “Perfect shooting techniques” as well as “Dribbling and feinting” or “Tackling training” are just some of his football-specific skills. Christian Titz can call himself an author. He also has a degree in business administration and sports management and once founded his own football school. And he’s still a coach. If you look for an adjective to describe the Mannheim native, you quickly end up with the word “versatile”. Titz has been the head coach of 1. FC Magdeburg since February 2021.

The now 53-year-old had to end his own professional career early. But because his passion for the coaching profession always burned within him, his path was clearly mapped out. At the age of 15, he once coached the players of a D-youth team, and at 29 he took over the A-juniors of Alemannia Aachen. After a number of other positions, he ended up at Hamburger SV in 2017, where he first worked with the youth team and then trained the second team and later even became the head coach of the professionals. But Titz’s real breakthrough came on the Elbe, but upstream. Not in Hamburg, but in Magdeburg. He led the blue-whites from the 3rd league to the 2nd Bundesliga with his ball possession style of play, which is characterised by courage and offensive football. “When we started here, we were in a relegation zone in the third division,” Titz once explained in an interview with the Tagesspiegel. The FCM is currently in third place in the German lower house of football.

There are at least two decisive characteristics that characterise 1. FC Magdeburg this season: unpredictability and away strength. Christian Titz’s team is currently marching through the league undefeated. The Blue-Whites have so far excelled, especially on their travel: FCM won all three away games of the current season – most recently the one in Cologne (2-1), before that the games in Nürnberg (4-0) and Braunschweig (3-1). In addition, you never know who will be on Magdeburg’s top scorer list. Their 13 goals this season were scored by nine different players. No other team in the league has so many different goal scorers in its ranks.

„I can score goals, that’s my quality.“ One man, one word. And Martijn Kaars didn’t promise too much when he said this sentence in an interview with MDR in the summer. In his first six league games, the new signing from 1. FC Magdeburg has already scored three times and prepared two more goals. The Dutchman came to the Elbe city with the recommendation of 35 goals and seven assists in 75 second division games for his old Dutch employer Helmond Sport. The 25-year-old understands the art of scoring goals like hardly anyone else in the FCM squad.

The native Dutch comes from a small town northeast of Amsterdam: Monnickendam. As a child, he was first influenced by the club in his hometown, then he went to FC Volendam and later he continued his football training with the Dutch record champions Ajax Amsterdam. And success was not long in coming. Ambition, will and determination characterise him. Kaars made his professional debut for the FC Volendam first team at the age of 18. This is where his successful path as a goalscorer began: Since the 2018/19 season, with the exception of the 2021/22 season, he has always scored more than ten goals this season in the league. This much goal threat also made the Blue and Whites from Magdeburg sit up and take notice. They described him as a “dream player” in the Elbe city. A striker that the Lilies will have to pay particular attention to on Saturday.