Jamie Maclaren has signed for German club SV Darmstadt 98 from Hyundai A-League side Brisbane Roar. The Caltex Socceroo’s new club have had a rollercoaster decade and are coached by a German great.
Here are a few things you need to know about the new home of the recently crowned NAB Young Footballer of the Year.Â
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THEY NEED GOALS
Darmstadt will play in German football’s second-tier next season after finishing bottom of the Bundesliga table in 2016/17, winning just seven of their 34 matches.
They scored fewer goals than any other side (28), while also conceding the most (63).
The side’s leading goalscorer was Croatian striker Antonio-Mirko Colak, who scored just four times.
Germans Jerome Gondorf and Marcel Heller contributed three apiece.
The Darmstadt faithful will be hoping Maclaren brings his red-hot goalscoring form to Germany.
In the 2016/17 season, “Macca” became the first player to score 20 goals in successive Hyundai A-League campaigns.
THEY’RE COACHED BY A GERMAN LEGEND
Darmstadt’s boss is former German international Torsten Frings.
Frings played in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, including the 2002 World Cup final loss to Brazil.
He was also a member of the German teams at the 2004 and 2008 European Championships and played 79 times for his country.
Frings took over at Darmstadt in January, replacing fellow German Norbert Meier who lasted just five months in charge.
Before Meier, Dirk Schuster was the club’s coach for four years.
THEY’VE HAD AN INCREDIBLE DECADE
Darmstadt’s relegation this season came at the end of a remarkable ten years for the side.
In 2006/07 they were relegated to the fifth tier of German football, before winning instant promotion the following year.
In 2010/11 they were promoted to the third tier as champions and in their third season in 3.Liga (2013/14) they were promoted to 2.Bundesliga after finishing third and beating Arminia Bielefeld over two legs in a promotion-relegation play-off.
Incredibly, they finished second in their first season in the second-tier to earn automatic promotion to the top-flight for the first time in 33 years.
They finished 14th in their maiden Bundesliga season before their disappointing 2016/17 campaign.
The Caltex Socceroos tackle Saudi Arabia in a crucial World Cup Qualifer in Adelaide on June 8. Click Here for Tickets
