The Daily Bee (June 21st, 2019): Is Dortmund’s transfer activity concluded?

• Gündogan-confusion

Dortmund might be able to look forward to the next returning player after Mats Hummels, however a potential return of Ilkay Gündogan wouldn’t be nearly as controversial as the one of the former captain.

A Gündogan transfer to BVB has been speculated about for a few weeks but it seems that nobody has a precise information if there’s even a chance that he might return. Yesterday Sky reported that Gündogan is a name that is being discussed in Dortmund but BVB-reporter Jesco von Eichmann claims there are varying rumors surrounding the midfielder. It looks like this will take a while to get sorted out.

• Is BVB interested in Plea?

A rather random rumor about a potential new striker for Dortmund comes from Yahoo Sport France:

Alassane Plea joined Borussia Mönchengladbach last summer for 23€ million from Lucien Favre’s former club OGC Nice. The centre forward played a good first season in the Bundesliga scoring 12 goals in 34 games for the foals but this still remains a curious rumor. Gladbach don’t seem interested in selling and he does not seem like the player BVB would go for.

• FIFA Women’s World Cup

The group stage has come to close. The Netherlands topped group E thanks to their 2:1 victory over Canada who will also qualify for the round of 16 as the second placed team. Cameroon won 2:1 against New Zealand and were one of the four third placed teams that secured their place in the next round.

Tournament favorites USA had another dominant performance in their 2:0 victory against Sweden and have finished on top of group F with 9 points. Chile won their game against Thailand with 2:0 but it wasn’t enough to stay in the tournament.

The tournament will continue on Saturday with the first two matches of the round of sixteen, here’s the complete schedule:

• U21 Euros

Germany showed another dominant performance in their 6:1 win against Serbia. The Germans dominated from the first minute onward and completely overwhelmed Serbia. The defending champions look like they could defend their title especially if breakout stars Marco Richter (3 goals, 1 assist so far), Luca Waldschmidt (3 goals) and Florian Neuhaus can keep up their form.

Mo Dahoud played well once again in midfield and even scored the fourth goal for Germany. A minor drawback was that Dahoud was at fault for Germany’s conceded goal because he caused a penalty with an unnecessary foul. However he still looked good in midfield and if he can keep this up he could potentially play a bigger role for BVB in the upcoming season.

In the second game of the day Denmark kept their chances to advance alive with a 3:1 over Austria. Jacob Bruun Larsen was more impactful this time around compared to the Germany-game and was able to show his skills on offense.

Today England play Romania and France take on Croatia.

• Bundesliga transfers

Union Berlin: Union keep on making moves to strengthen their team and have signed Anthony Ujah from Mainz for 2€ million. The striker will bring Bundesliga experience to the newly promoted side having played 109 games (27 goals) in Germany’s first division.

SC Freiburg: Christian Streich and Freiburg are particularly known for signing and developing young players and they have secured a very interesting youngster, Woo-yeong Jeong from Bayern Munich. The winger has only one Bundesliga game to his name but he’s a very talented young player that could flourish in Freiburg. Bayern shrewdly secured a buy-back option in the deal.

Borussia Mönchengladbach: Gladbach has reinforced their defense with Stefan Lainer from RB Salzburg. The right back will cost them 12€ million.

FC Augsburg: Augsburg has signed wingers Noah Sarenren Bazee from Hannover 96 for 1.7€ million and Ruben Vargas from FC Luzern for 2.5€ million reinforcing their squad depth.

• Happy Birthday Aki Watzke!

Hans-Joachim Watzke turns 60 today, happy birthday Aki!