After 26 minutes of the second half, Bo Svensson had had enough. He didn’t want to look at what Nelson Weiper delivered in the FSV Mainz 05 friendly against FC St. Gallen for a long time – and replaced the striker, who had only come at the break. A clear signal to the youngest member of the squad, which showed that 18-year-olds also do not enjoy puppy protection. Anyone who applies for Bundesliga assignments must face full competition at all times. “I didn’t find his performance sufficient,” the coach explained the punishment: “It’s also about the attitude, and it wasn’t right.”
In other words, things can go wrong for a player, especially one that young. But he has to use body language that says he’s willing to give it his all. This was the case, for example, for Brajan Gruda, who was a year older than him. Although he caused the coach to shake his head several times with excessively extensive dribbling, he left no doubt about his commitment and improved over time, right up to the goal with which he made it 4-1 in the Salzburg Arena.
Since April 23, Brajan Gruda and Nelson Weiper have had a title on their CVs that only one of their older teammates can claim: Stefan Bell became German A-Junior champion in 2009 under coach Thomas Tuchel, Gruda and Weiper succeeded this year under Benjamin Hoffman. After such a success, however, the path does not automatically lead to professional football, and certainly not to the Bundesliga.
“In that moment my dream came true”
Bell, who can now look back on 256 first-division games, had to go a two-and-a-half-year path via the U23s and loans to the then second-division clubs TSV Munich 1860 and Eintracht Frankfurt. Weiper and Gruda want to assert themselves directly – “and have the quality to make the others real competition,” says Svensson. The two talents have been training with the pros for a year. Weiper made his league debut at the age of 17, made nine appearances as a substitute and scored two goals, the first in a 4-0 win against Borussia Mönchengladbach.
“At that moment my dream came true,” he said during the training camp in Schladming, which ended on Wednesday. “I was born in Mainz, I was a fan in the stadium as a little boy” – and he wanted to be where the players were, to whom he once threw the ball as a ball boy. Gruda can only look back on two substitutions in the 89th minute.
Weiper came to the youth academy in 2012, Gruda six years later. He could have moved to Mainz earlier from his hometown club FC Speyer. “But we didn’t have a car back then and there wasn’t a transport service,” he says. Instead, the man from the Palatinate joined Karlsruher SC for three years and made the step to the 05ers in 2018. Thanks to the driving service that now exists, he was able to stay at home. “My mother never wanted me to go to boarding school,” he says, “and it was really good for me to be with my family.”
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“These are two good guys with quality,” says Svensson, who doesn’t see them as additions, but as full squad members. “Now they have to take the next step,” the coach formulates as an expectation. “We believe in them and we have to see how far they are and how we can use them.” Athletically, both should improve, which is quite normal at this age, and the players themselves know which areas they need to improve on.
“For me it’s the defensive, for example I have to come back faster after losing the ball,” says Weiper, who has scored 13 goals in 15 international matches for the German U-17 national team and is now a U-21 international. Gruda, including seven caps and four goals for Germany U19s, knows he’s too in love with his dribbles. “I’m supposed to play faster or finish,” he says. “I can still work on my right foot.”
