Enrico Maaßen can warmly recommend the national soccer coach Hansi Flick for the FCA attacker Mergim Berisha for the national team. “We don’t have that type of striker that often in Germany.”
Augsburg’s coach Enrico Maassen sees “absolutely” potential for a future in the German national soccer team in the former U21 European champion Mergim Berisha.
Maassen said he had not yet spoken to national coach Hansi Flick about the 24-year-old FCA attacker. “Not me. I don’t know who spoke to him,” said the coach somewhat cryptically before FC Augsburg’s Bundesliga game in Mainz on Saturday.
Berisha is in his first season in the Bundesliga after FCA loaned him from Fenerbahce Istanbul. “I’m absolutely convinced that Mergim has great skills. I don’t think we have that type of striker that often in Germany,” Maassen said of his attacker.
Maassen: At some point there will be opportunities for Berisha
After 13 games, Berisha has six goals and four assists. He was Augsburg’s winning goal scorer several times, for example in the 1-0 win over FC Bayern Munich and most recently against Bayer Leverkusen. “Hansi (Flick) is very, very competent. And in the end he and his team have to decide that,” Maassen said: “It’s important for Mergim that he stays with himself, that he does everything he can influence. That is to do well here. He’s doing that. Then eventually there will be opportunities if he keeps playing like this.”
After the disappointing World Cup in Qatar, Flick announced personnel surprises for the start of the home European Championship in 2024. The national coach wants to nominate the first squad for 2023 for the international matches against Peru and Belgium at the end of next month on March 17th.
Maassen sees Berisha as a good changeover striker who can lock balls up front, is tall and is also talented in football. In the case of Berisha, it should also be emphasized “that he not only scores goals and is present on the offensive, which is the most important criterion for a striker, but how he works backwards for the team. He has developed very well there,” said measure. Berisha had become European champion with the German U21 juniors in 2021. (dpa)