In the previous season, VfB Hilden surprised the entire Oberliga Niederrhein. The team from Itterstadt can look back on the most successful season in the club’s history.

This is also because the U19s have been promoted to the A-youth Bundesliga, where they now welcome renowned clubs such as Borussia Dortmund, Schalke 04 and Bayer Leverkusen to Bandsbusch.

But can Hilden really repeat the sensation in the Oberliga? In the already traditional media talk before the start of the season, both the sporting director, Dennis Lichtenwimmer, and the coach, Tim Schneider, were available to answer questions.

“The youngsters have all made a good start. We are better staffed across the board than in the previous season,” Schneider directly highlighted a very important point for the upcoming “mammoth season” with 40 games. “Thanks to the larger pool of resources and the cohesion within the team, we want to achieve at least a single-digit place in the standings again,” the coach piled up quite deeply.

“Bear in mind that our squad is on average two years younger than last year. But we will call up our basics again, even if, for example, an important performer, Stefan Schaumburg, has left us,” Schneider once again emphasised the importance of the long-standing veteran, who has ended his career.

However, the Itterstadter have also strengthened themselves selectively. With Marvin Brüggehoff, for example, the sporting management was able to lure a talent from the A Juniors of Wuppertaler SV to Hoffeldstraße. “When you notice that a boy like Marvin has postponed his holidays just to join VfB, then you know that he is on fire,” said Lichtenwimmer, citing the decisive criteria in the search for reinforcements.

Salim El Fahmi should also be interesting for the first eleven. The 1.90-metre attacker from SG Unterrath already caught the eye during the test matches.

While coach Schneider was still putting the brakes on his ambitions, Lichtenwimmer already said what the team is looking forward to in the upcoming Oberliga season: “We would like to be among the extended group of favourites again, even though the budget has not been increased compared to last year,” said the sporting director, looking forward to an interesting season.

The season kicks off on Sunday with a neighbourly duel against 1. FC Monheim (3:30 p.m., Hoffeldstraße sports complex). “At the moment, we enjoy enormous esteem in the entire Mettmann district. Of course, we’d rather play Monheim directly than Kray. They will never underestimate our boys,” the ex-player and current VfB official counts completely on local colour on matchday 1.

Addressing the enormous burden of the packed season, Schneider cannot quite comprehend the approach with a complete round: “Some clubs and officials seem to care more about the entry fees than the health of the players,” the coach would rather have preferred another promotion or relegation round.

In the end, however, he also looked optimistically towards the start of the season. “In the first English week, we shouldn’t run out of energy straight away.” If you think back to the VfB from the previous season, you can easily sum up that the Schneider team will not embarrass itself in 2022/23 either.