Jorg Schmadtke was the sporting director in charge of Wolfsburg when striker Victor Osimhen’s sale was sanctioned in 2019.
Schmadtke joined Wolfsburg back in 2018. Soon after his arrival, Osimhen was sent on loan to RSC Charleroi in Belgium. And when he returned he was sold to Charleroi for €3.5million (£3.01m; $3.75m).
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Four weeks later, the Belgian club recouped the fee paid to Wolfsburg and then some as Lille put €22million on the table for the Nigerian.
Four years on and Osimhen, who joined Napoli in 2020, is one of Europe’s most highly rated forwards. His 25 league goals have helped the Italian club to their first Serie A title in 33 years. He is now valued at significantly more than the €3.5million Wolfsburg received.
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“It wasn’t a good move, in hindsight,” Schmadtke later explained in an interview with Kicker. “When I came, he was limping and running in circles. I was told that the strikers we had weren’t good enough.”
Osimhen’s sale was a misjudgment. It is not the only one in Schmadtke’s two decades of overseeing deals.
But there have been success stories, too. Schmadtke initiated progress at every club he oversaw; Alemannia Aachen, where he worked from 2001 to 2008, went from the second division to the top flight and made the DFB Pokal final and the UEFA Cup.
In his four-year spells at Hannover 96 (2009-2013) and Cologne (2013-2017), both teams also went on European adventures of their own. As for Wolfsburg, who had fought off relegation before he arrived, they soared to Champions League qualification in 2021.
The key was in how the former goalkeeper constructed his squads. In Germany, he is known as someone who has a ‘good nose’ for finding solid players and building balanced sides.
“He also has a feeling for which players fit together to have good chemistry as a team,” explains Thomas Hiete, who covers Wolfsburg for Kicker.
Some of his hit signings at Wolfsburg have been second-division finds from France and the Netherlands. Centre-back Maxence Lacroix arrived from Ligue 2 side Sochaux-Montbeliard. Meanwhile, Micky van de Ven, who can play in central defence or at left back, had a similar journey after joining from Volendam. Both are tipped for big careers, with Van de Ven’s development having stood out in particular. He barely missed a game for Wolfsburg this season and has recently been linked with a move to Liverpool by German media.
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Felix and Lukas Nmecha are brothers who Schmadtke signed from Manchester City’s academy in 2021. Felix, who is an attacking midfielder, and Lukas, who plays up top, have both gone on to become German internationals since joining Wolfsburg.
One transfer which was more of a mixed bag was the return of Max Kruse. The striker returned to Wolfsburg for a second stint during the 2021-22 winter transfer window after the departure of Wout Weghorst to Burnley.
Hiete says it was a risk to bring Kruse back but initially it paid off with his seven Bundesliga goals ensuring the relegation concerns Wolfsburg took into 2022 soon stopped. It did not end as it started though: in November 2022, Kruse was released as a free agent.
Forward Luca Waldschmidt, who was signed for €12million from Benfica in 2021, is another player Hiete mentions as being a Schmadtke signing yet to take off. Croatia international Marin Pongracic is another. The central defender has been loaned out to Borussia Dortmund and then to Italian side Lecce during his time at the Volkswagen Arena.
In Schmadtke’s four years in Cologne, there is one player who stands out as a success on and off the pitch. That is French forward Anthony Modeste. Not only did his goals elevate Cologne but he also made the club a huge profit when he was loaned and later sold to China’s Tianjin Quanjian for €35million.
But it was on the back of this that Schmadtke’s hit rate at Cologne began to be questioned.
When Jhon Cordoba arrived from Mainz 05 for €17million in 2017, he became Cologne’s most expensive signing. After 10 matches, the Colombian had failed to score a single goal and Cologne were bottom of the Bundesliga. The pressure from the media grew, and eventually Schmadtke stepped down from his role by mutual consent. As it turned out, Cordoba went on to score 37 goals in 86 games for Cologne before moving to Hertha Berlin for €15million in 2020.
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Philipp Selldorf writes about Cologne for the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. He remembers 2017 as a sub-par year for Schmadtke.
“He spent another €5million on a Spanish defender called Jorge Mere (from Sporting Gijon). He was OK but no more than that,” Selldorf says. “There was another player he brought in called Jannes Horn (from Wolfsburg). They paid about €7million for him and that was an incredible waste of money. A few years later, he was loaned out for about €100,000 to Hannover and then left for free.
“This was a very bad year for Schmadtke, and it has given proof there is a big difference between the (transfer) policies. In his first years, he didn’t have money so he was creative and clever. And as soon as he was able to spend money, it didn’t work.”
As with all the clubs Schmadtke has worked at, Cologne enjoyed a period of success on the back of the executive’s dealings. Hannover 96 fans look back with a similar fondness.
They featured in the Europa League twice and signed some key players during Schmadtke’s tenure. Two of those joined from Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler moved from Manchester in 2010 and is one of the standout signings of that era. In 2014, he was the third-choice goalkeeper in the German national team as they won the World Cup in Brazil.
Mame Diouf also joined from United and was another key signing who contributed to 51 goal involvements in 71 games for Hannover. He later returned to the Premier League with Stoke City.
Ivory Coast forward Didier Ya Konan made more than 150 appearances for Hannover, scoring 46 goals and assisting 26. Mohammed Abdellaoue was another important striker signed during Schmadtke’s reign.
There was also a young player called Lars Stindl who was signed from Karlsruher as an unknown. Stindl became an integral player for Hannover and went on to captain the club. He later joined Borussia Monchengladbach, who he currently captains. In 2017, he was capped by Germany.
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Amid the signings which did work, others failed too. One notable transfer was that of defensive midfielder Franca. When he arrived from the Brazilian club Criciuma in January 2013, Schmadtke had lauded his build and in particular his height, which was described as 1.90metres (6ft 3in). It later became apparent that Franca was in fact nine centimetres shorter.
“What can I say? I was surprised. The one criterion had been to pay attention to the body size,” Hannover manager Mirko Slomka told Bild at the time.
Andreas Willeke, who reports on Hannover for Neue Presse, says this ‘destroyed’ the relationship between Slomka and Schmadtke.
Even allowing for some errors and lapses in judgment, there is clearly nuance to Schmadtke’s work. He has crafted squads that have gone on to achieve something special at each club he has worked for.
Now Schmadtke has the opportunity to try to do the same at Liverpool as he takes up a familiar role — but on a much bigger scale.
(Header image by Stefan Brauer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
