Augsburg: 2019/20 season so far

bundesliga.com shines the spotlight on their season so far.

Who they signed: Summer 2019 was busy one at the WWK Arena as 14 senior players left and 16 signed on as part of a reshuffle under head coach Martin Schmidt, who had arrived to steer the club to safety in the final six games of the 2018/19 campaign.

And having conceded a league-high 71 goals that season, much of the new recruitment strategy focused on defence. Tomas Koubek was brought in as goalkeeper, veteran full-back Stefan Lichtsteiner joined from Arsenal, while young centre-backs Felix Uduokhai and Tin Jedvaj also arrived a bid to plug the gaps.

At the other end of the pitch, Florian Niederlechner returned to his native Bavaria from Freiburg to support Alfred Finnbogason, who had struggled with a series of injuries in recent years.

What they expected: Having finished four points clear of relegation last time out, the primary objective was once again the same: to maintain the club’s top-flight status.

“We’re hoping for a less hectic season with a team that is 100 per cent committed to FC Augsburg,” said sporting director Stefan Reuter before a ball was kicked. “And then we’d like to be mathematically safe as early as possible.”

How it played out: Initially, not as well as hoped. A heavy 5-1 defeat away to Borussia Dortmund on Matchday 1 dampened any early season optimism, and the team had just five points on the board after the first seven rounds of matches. The one glimmer of hope was the form of Niederlechner, who slotted seamlessly into the side, registering five goals and two assists in those first seven games.

However, a quirk of the fixture list soon came to Augsburg’s rescue as it pitted them against teams in the lower half of the table in consecutive weeks. They took full advantage, taking 16 of a possible 18 points against Paderborn, Hertha Berlin, Cologne, Mainz, Hoffenheim and Fortuna Düsseldorf to help them sit firmly in mid-table at the halfway stage of the season.

That form suffered in early 2020 though, and with just one victory and four points from their first eight games of the new year, Augsburg had the worst return of any Bundesliga side. The club consequently parted ways with Schmidt in a bid to stem the tide, appointing former Bayer Leverkusen boss Heiko Herrlich in his stead.

Watch: Highlights of Augsburg's 4-2 win over Hoffenheim

Key player: The fact that Augsburg are not in the relegation zone is in no small part due to Niederlechner’s razor-sharp cutting edge. Despite currently being in 14th, die Fuggerstädter are the eighth-highest scorers in the league, with more goals even than top-six contenders Schalke, Wolfsburg and Freiburg.

Having chalked up 11 goals and six assists so far, the 29-year-old is enjoying his most prolific season ever and has been directly involved in almost 50 per cent of all the team’s goals. For fans at the WWK Arena, it doesn’t bear thinking about where they would be without him…

Best game: Not many teams take points off Bayern Munich, and even fewer manage to do so after the record Bundesliga champions take the lead, but that’s exactly what Augsburg did on Matchday 8.

Marco Richter opened the scoring inside 30 seconds, and although Robert Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry subsequently put the visitors in the driving seat, Finnbogason hit a dramatic equaliser in stoppage time to give Augsburg a much-needed draw.

Watch: Highlights of Augsburg's 2-2 draw with Bayern

While the performance and result on their own were an impressive enough, the value of the point gained extended into the new few weeks. It gave them the belief that ultimately kick-started their best spell of the season, a run of 17 points from a possible 24 that could well be the difference between safety and relegation at the end of the campaign.

Biggest surprise: Lichtsteiner’s arrival from Arsenal, following a trophy laden career at Juventus, was something of a coup for Augsburg, the Switzerland international bringing bags of experience and top-level know-how to a young side. In that sense he has been something of a surprise, especially as he has continued to excel at the age of 36.

However, there is simply no escaping Niederlechner’s impact. A late-bloomer, the striker was still playing in Germany’s regional leagues as recently as 2013/14, and has only been in the Bundesliga since 2015/16.

And while he also scored 11 goals in a single season for Freiburg in 2016/17, he did so across 34 matches. His combined tally for the next two years was just six, so his ruthlessness and consistency this term has come as something of a shock.

Teammate Philipp Max attributed both his own and Niederlechner’s form to the duo “eating porridge together the day before a match”, while former coach Schmidt was so convinced of his forward’s ability that he believed he was on Germany coach Joachim Löw’s radar for the European Championship.

“They’re bound to have a back-up list and Flo will be on that,” he said. “I’m absolutely convinced of that, and I have faith in Joachim Löw.”