Rot-Weiss Essen are also having a strong season thanks to a new summer signing. In the bidding for him, RWE prevailed against Waldhof Mannheim, among others.
Vinko Sapina has only been wearing the Rot-Weiss Essen shirt since this summer, but the 28-year-old has become an integral part of Christoph Dabrowski’s team.
Sapina acts as the conductor and control center in defensive midfield and even took over the captain’s armband after Felix Bastians retired. The German-Croatian is considered to be the king transfer of the Bergeborbecker, who signed him from SC Verl in the last transfer window – and beat off competition from Waldhof Mannheim, among others.
According to Mannheimer Morgen, Mannheim’s sporting director Tim Schork revealed this on fan radio “Doppelpass On Air”. In the end, however, the team from Essen won the bid – as Sapina had the “best feeling” here, as he revealed in the RS interview after his transfer.
“RWE signaled their interest early on,” Sapina continued at the time. “I had really good talks with the people in charge at RWE. Coach Christoph Dabrowski was also there. He showed me what RWE has planned for the coming season and in the future. I’m really keen on that. And when the people in charge showed me around the stadium and training ground, I was simply impressed. “
And the Mannheimers? They didn’t just lose out on Sapina. “There were talks with a mid-double-digit number of players”, explained Schork. In addition to Sapina, Waldhof were also interested in Jannik Mause and Malik Batmaz, among others.
However, the two strikers opted for FC Ingolstadt and Preußen Münster, where they have hit the ground running so far. Mause has already scored nine goals for FCI, while Batmaz has netted seven times for the Adler club.
The players that Mannheim ultimately signed, however, have not yet been able to fill the gap created by the departures of Marco Höger, Marc Schnatterer and Dominik Martinovic. Rüdiger Rehm’s team is in a huge crisis. After seven games without a win, the club has slipped to 18th place in the table