Rot-Weiss Essen must let the next great talent leave for a Bundesliga club. After U19 homegrown Ahmed Etri, another U17 talent is also leaving RWE in the summer.
On January 1, 2024, Forecasting reported that Rot-Weiss Essen is fighting for its jewel Mats Preßler and is determined to keep him at Hafenstraße.
Interested parties were lining up for the 16-year-old, who will only be 17 on April 3, 2024. Of course, 19 goals in 21 U17 Bundesliga games is an outstanding record – the best record of any U17 goalscorer in Germany.
And now comes the bad news for Rot-Weiss Essen. “We tried very hard and offered Mats a perspective, even towards the first team. We also wanted to bring his twin brother Mika to Essen. Unfortunately, the Preßler family decided to take a different path. Mats will leave Rot-Weiss Essen in the summer,” explained Christian Flüthmann, RWE’s head of sport, to Forecasting.
According to RS-Infos, RWE had presented Preßler with a long-term professional contract. But he turned it down. He also turned down an offer from TSG Hoffenheim, who had been courting Preßler for a long time.
As RS learned, Preßler has reached an agreement with 1. FSV Mainz 05. At the Bundesliga club, the striker will first play in the U19 team and later in the U23 team – and in the best-case scenario, of course, also score goals for the professionals of the Rheinhessen
Shortly after the turn of the year, Flüthmann was still hopeful and said: “Mats already sings along to the songs at our home games and supports us in his RWE fan outfit. He feels very comfortable at Rot-Weiss.” In future, the Preßlers will sing the Mainz anthem – that’s right: the Preßlers.
Because not only Rot-Weiss Essen lost the tug-of-war for a Preßler, VfL Bochum also had to give priority to the Mainzern. Mika Preßler, Mats’ twin brother, is also moving to Mainz. VfL, who lost Mats to RWE in the summer of 2023, now wanted to reunite him with his brother Mika – but Bochum did not take Mainz into account.
RWE head coach Christoph Dabrowski already had the ice-cold center forward Mats Preßler, who is incredibly strong in the box, on his radar: “I already know that there’s a really good kid running around. But I also know that he’s only 16 years old. Let’s give the boy time to develop and then we’ll see.”
That’s what he’ll do at FSV Mainz 05 in the future.
Ahmed Etri also turned RWE down – he’s moving to Hoffenheim
A few days ago, U19 talent Ahmed Etri, who has been a permanent member of the third division squad in recent months, decided against extending his contract with RWE and opted for a three-year contract with TSG Hoffenheim U23. Dabrowski reacted with disappointment: “Ahmed Etri is no longer part of the first team. We went to great lengths to offer him prospects here. He was offered a decent package. But he wanted a change and is going to Hoffenheim. I’m no longer prepared to support and challenge him to the maximum. But that’s soccer. “