The team council of VfL Bochum is set. Coach Thomas Letsch has announced the two vice-captains and other members. One was surprisingly missing from the list.

The appointment of Anthony Lossila as captain of VfL Bochum was really just a formality. His representatives coach Thomas Letsch has now also announced on Friday (July 28). In the team council is surprisingly missing a permanent member of the past years.

“Deputy captains are two who have received the same number of votes,” Letsch revealed on the sidelines of the training camp. They are Cristian Gamboa and Kevin Stöger. “In addition, in the team council are Philipp Hofmann and Ivan Ordets.”

So Losilla, Gamboa and Stöger, as well as Hofmann and Ordets – someone is missing. Correct: “Manuel Riemann has said that he does not want to be part of the team council this year.” Otherwise, all players would have been available in principle, there had been no candidacy.

This message from Riemann leaves room for interpretation. The most likely of them: the 34-year-old wants to focus entirely on his soccer performance in the upcoming season. To put it mildly, the goalkeeper did not always succeed in doing so last year.

VfL Bochum: Riemann must focus on sporting matters

Breakdowns in training, blunders in district derbies – Riemann just wouldn’t go away. The negative highlight was the head-to-head duel with a VfL fan after the bitter home defeat against VfB Stuttgart. Yet somehow the keeper always managed to come up with the right answer on the pitch.

Letsch stuck with Riemann and he paid it back with performance. For example, he single-handedly held on for the 1-0 home win against RB Leipzig in the closing minutes. How emotionally exhausting the season must have been for the 34-year-old was also evident from the way he stood in front of the Ostkurve with tears in his eyes every now and then during chants with his name.

No longer being part of the team council can be the right step to press the reset button before the new one, to shift the focus to others. When Losilla was suspended last year, Riemann took over the captain’s armband. Now he’s giving way to Stöger and Gamboa.

But this will not change anything about his role at VfL. Riemann will continue to try to whip his teammates loudly on the pitch – team council or not.