Rot-Weiss Essen is also busy in training in the new year. For one player, however, January 2023 is off to a very bad start.

Rot-Weiss Essen has trained through all but the days from 24 to 27 December and has already completed several units in the new year. Not among them was a promotion hero.

For Sandro Plechaty, the year 2022 ended with a bitter diagnosis. The muscle injury from the Paderborn game unfortunately turned out to be a muscle bundle tear. “This means Sandro will be out for a few weeks. It has been a tough season for him so far. He should now take his time to get better and then attack again in top condition. We know what we have in a fit, self-confident Sandro Plechaty,” reports RWE sports director Jörn Nowak.

For the 25-year-old Plechaty, the 2022/2023 season has been a series to forget so far. The promotion hero – 37 games, four goals, nine assists last season – started as a regular. After all, he was also one of the mainstays of the Essen team in the Regionalliga West.

But the right-back has not yet arrived in the 3rd Division. After 62 minutes of play in the 1:5 loss to Elversberg and a 45-minute appearance against MSV Duisburg (2:2), only short appearances against Borussia Dortmund II (15 minutes of play) and FC Ingolstadt (8) were to follow.

Plechaty is currently only the number four right-back for the Red-Whites. He was first displaced by Meiko Sponsel. When he got injured, RWE signed Andreas Wiegel. The former Duisburg player proved to be a reinforcement. When Wiegel had to serve a suspension, coach Christoph Dabrowski relied on youngster Mustafa Korouma in Mannheim (2:1).

He, too, is now ahead of the former right-back, who was perhaps the best right-back in the Regionalliga West at the time, in the RWE right-back rankings. Perhaps Plechaty, who has a contract with Rot-Weiss Essen until the summer of 2024, will regain his old strength after recovering from a torn muscle bundle.