New arrival for Sportfreunde Siegen: A former TuS Bövinghausen player returns to Leimbachtal and brings third division experience with him.

Sportfreunde Siegen are once again fighting against relegation this season. The traditional club has made some top-class additions to its squad to ensure that it stays in the relegation zone – which the club would like to do sooner than last season.

André Dej will be playing for Leimbachtal in the second half of the season. The 31-year-old comes to Siegen as a player without a club after spending the first half of the season at TuS Bövinghausen. There, he was part of the huge upheaval in the winter; the Siegen side’s league rivals parted company with almost all of their players.

“André has enormous quality as a player, is an absolute will player and gives our coach Thorsten Nehrbauer even more options,” said Siegen’s sporting director Ottmar Griffel happily. “Above all, with his higher-class experience, he will immediately help our team on the pitch as a leading player.”

What Griffel means by higher-class experience: The versatile midfielder Dej has already played 90 games in the 3rd division for Viktoria Köln and Sportfreunde Lotte. He scored eleven goals and made 14 assists. He has also made 184 appearances in the Regionalliga West (25 goals, 22 assists) for Rot Weiss Ahlen, Fortuna Köln, Alemannia Aachen, Lotte, Viktoria Köln – and Sportfreunde Siegen.

Born in Cologne, he spent two seasons with Sportfreunde between 2012 and 2014 after playing for Bayer Leverkusen and MSV Duisburg. He is now returning and is the second signing of the current transfer period after midfielder Georgios Marvroudis from league rivals SG Finnentrop/Bamenohl (loan).

Dej could make his comeback in the SFS jersey in just under two weeks. For the team in thirteenth place in the Oberliga Westfalen, the rest of the series begins earlier than originally planned. The catch-up match against Victoria Clarholz in their own stadium is already scheduled for January 28.