Sportfreunde Siegen are already working on the squad for the coming season. Two veterans are staying. They face TuS Bövinghausen on Monday.
After Sportfreunde Siegen were able to retain a player from the “talent” category in Jubes Ticha, it is now the turn of the opposite age cohort. The club from the Oberliga Westfalen has now also extended the contracts of two veterans for the coming season.
Tobias Filipzik and Jannik Krämer, two defensive pillars, will remain at Leimbachtal until 2025. Between them, both have been playing for Sportfreunde for 21 years. “They are very consistent in their performances, and it’s hard to imagine the first eleven without them at the moment,” said Sportfreunde coach Thorsten Nehrbauer. “They have the absolute will and mentality to give everything for the team.”
“Sportfreunde are absolutely close to my heart; I love playing, working and living here. It’s a perfect symbiosis and still something special with the environment and the fans in this stadium,” said Filipzik, who came through the entire Siegen youth system.
Krämer expressed similar sentiments: “The support of our fans, who back us week after week, is something very special, there’s no other place like it in the area.” Next season, the 24-year-old said, they want to attack the top of the league.
“It won’t be a sure-fire success”
But there are still some points up for grabs this season. Including against TuS Bövinghausen on Easter Monday (April 1, 3 p.m.). “That will be a completely different game to the one against Erkenschwick on Thursday, where only the result wasn’t right,” said Nehrbauer. Siegen drew 2-2 against the Schwickers.
Although Dortmund have to look down the table, Nehrbauer is counting on their own concentration: “It won’t be a walk in the park.” Bövinghausen will fight for a place in the top division, “that will be hard work for us,” said Siegen’s coach.
The 46-year-old expects “a game that will be defined more by the fight. We are in the middle of a development process and will certainly have to accept setbacks, that’s part of the game”. However, Filipzik, Krämer and co. will do everything they can to ensure that this is not the case against Bövinghausen.