Round-Up: Michael Rensing
May 13, 2016 Michael Rensing started in the youth team of TuS Lingen in Lower Saxony. In 2000 at the age of 16 he moved to the Säbener Straße and started playing for the Reds in the amateur team. Since the 2003/04 season he moved to the first team. He collected minutes in the Bundesliga, the DFB Cup and the Champions League. With Oliver Kahn’s farewell the place between the sticks became available for him and he used his chance and started his professional career with 27 games without a defeat, something that hasn’t been done before. The already difficult phase at FC Bayern under Klinsmann hit Michael Rensing particularly hard. He was replaced by the seasoned Hans-Jörg Butt and only Louis van Gaal gave him a chance again in the 2009-10 season. Rensing started the first three games of the season under the Dutch coach. His performances had significant uncertainties and problems that led van Gaal to choose Butt over Rensing again. This was followed by the now legendary 3:0 against VfL Wolfsburg, but the game has remained in the fan’s memory not because of the keeper rotation, but because it was the first game of Arjen Robben in a Bayern shirt. Rensing’s time at Bayern was now finished and he was not offered a new contract in 2010.
Without a contract he kept training in the surroundings of Munich and signed a contract for 1. FC Köln in winter 2010. His contract at Köln was extended, but the club had to restructure and let Michael Rensing go to cope with relegation into the 2. Bundesliga. He joined Bayer Leverkusen as a backup keeper and moved to Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2013. In the current season the four-time German champion, four-time DFB Cup winner and Champions League finalists of 2010 played a total of 33 games and contributed to the fight against relegation.
We congratulate Michael Rensing to his 32nd birthday!
On a weekly schedule, miasanrot.com provides a 2-for-1 information combo meal. It contains a link list to (hopefully) worthwhile texts about the red giant. Each round-up is dedicated to a former Bayern player who is celebrating his birthday in that week.
MiaSanReview
Press review
Renato Sanches
35 million Euros (potentially even 80) for an 18-year-old player from Portugal? Is he really worth it? Nobodoy knows (yet), but various scouting reports describe what’s special about him and how he managed to justify such a transfer price after having his first game for the first team of Benfica only 8 months ago. Nevertheless Renato Sanches is only one among the many fine young talents that have emerged from Benfica in the last couple of years.
You can hear our newest Miasanrot member Gard talk about Sanches on the latest episode of the Onefootball Podcast.
Or you can just watch Renato Sanches play:
Mats Hummels
The homecoming of Mats Hummels has also been criticized, not only because of the “weakening” of Borussia Dortmund, but also because paying roughly 35 million Euros for a 27-year-old, with only one year left on his contract who is not the quickest of defenders looks like bad business for some. Raphael Honigstein explains why the contrary is the case here.
Facts and Figueres
The newest list of most valuable brands by Forbes has Bayern listed at number 4 with 2.37 billion Euros. The top three is valued as at least half a billion Euros more valuable with Real Madrid (€3.23b), Barcelona (€3.14b) and Manchester United (€2.91b).
On the list of best-selling football kits in the world the Reds are at number two, only behind Barcelona.
What happended to Jan Kirchhoff?
When Jan Kirchhoff moved to Sunderland, nobody really expected him to shine in the Premier League and at some places Bayern was even congratulated for getting 750.000 Euros for an injury prone player with only 6 months left on his contract. Kirchhoff had a tough start in Sunderland (to say the least), but since than he has become one of the pillars upon which the team of Allardyce managed to avoid relegation. Playing as a holding midfielder Kirchhoff has more touches and more tackles per game than any other Sunderland player. He has even been voted April’s PFA Fans’ Premier League player of the month.
Grazie Toni
With 38 years and only one year after setting the record for being the oldest Capocannoniere (top scorer in Serie A), Luca Toni will hang up his boots at the end of this season. In his last game, against Juventus, he did this:
What a player.
