In the winter of the 2019/20 season, the now irresistible David Raum barely made any headway. At Spielvereinigung Fürth, then as now a solid second division club, the native of Nuremberg did not attract too much attention in his occasional appearances as a nimble winger who was mostly a substitute. At the time, not even his closest companions would have thought it possible that this Franconian football professional, trained at the Ronhof, would make a name for himself as a big climber in the scene around three and a half years later.
Raum itself was almost ready to be loaned out to a third division club. That didn’t happen, also because this studious attacker had himself retrained as a full-back with irrepressible forward drive by the then Fürth assistant coach André Mijatovic, who had been a cautious central defender during his Bundesliga career with Arminia Bielefeld and Hertha BSC. “I dug into it and took my time to learn this position,” Raum told Kicker in November 2021.
And how he learned it! The notoriously energetic man from the left wing interprets his role as a precise provider of assists and occasional goalscorer so rapidly and luridly that he inspired Fürth’s promotion to the Bundesliga in May 2021 in his own way.
It had been clear since January of the same year that he would then move to first-division club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, after Raum had warmly recommended himself shortly before his Fürth team won the cup in Sinsheim (7-6 on penalties). The tireless professional, who has now become a regular for the German U-21 European champions, experienced the year 2021 as if it were a dream trip. He was also at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and became a senior international on his progression run in September of that year, 22 days after his first Bundesliga appearance.
The restless David Raum, who signed in Hoffenheim until the summer of 2025 and extended his tie with the Baden club by another year in the winter of last season, is now in his position, which he as a hybrid professional with his versatile quality as a tireless ball courier between defensive and offensive, so coveted that TSG on Sunday let him move on to Bundesliga top club RB Leipzig for good money after just one year together.
Probably not for the transfer fee of thirty million stipulated in his most recent contract from the 2023/24 season, rather for the rumored amount of 26 million euros, which could be increased by two million with bonus payments.
Angeliño coming to Hoffenheim?
In return, it was recently said that the attacking Spanish left-back Angeliño should switch from Leipzig to Hoffenheim – for a fee of five million euros. Angeliño was not in the Leipzig squad in the national Supercup duel between the cup winners RB and the German champions Bayern Munich on Saturday. This is also a sign of an impending change of club.
The now nine-time national player Raum, who signed a contract in Leipzig up to and including June 30, 2027, is reported to have an annual salary of up to ten million euros when fourth in the table in the previous Bundesliga season – a sum that he never even expected in Fürth would have dared to dream. The fact that the two national top clubs FC Bayern and Borussia Dortmund were interested in this all-rounder on the left side of the field, which briefly flared up this summer, made it clear how popular the Franconian has long been.
Raum, which will most likely be part of national coach Hansi Flick’s World Cup squad for the tournament in Qatar, can further increase its long-established international market value at this football world fair in November and December. The player himself, a grounded ball hunter, ball driver and ball artist at the same time, does not see himself at the end of his sporting possibilities. “I’m still developing, there’s still room for improvement,” he said a few weeks ago. In other words: there is still a lot to come for the defenders who meet him in the future, because David Raum continues to work purposefully on his own unstoppability.
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