Born in the Austrian town of Steyr in August 1993, Stöger is one of the front runners of the “Austrian invasion” that has brought six Austrians to the club since 2009 (Stöger, reserves teammates Holzhauser and Aschauer, U19 right back Philipp Mwene, Martin Harnik and U17 new boy, Francesco Lovric). The left footed attacking midfielder is widely regarded as one of the biggest prospects at the club and started his career with the Austrian club of ATSV Steyr, before joining Stuttgart from SV Ried in 2009. Stöger quickly rose thru the ranks at the club, regularly featuring for the U19s during the 2010-2011 season despite being only 17 years old and even made his reserves debut in January of 2011.

Stöger was named MVP of the highly regarded indoors tournament Mercedes Benz Junior Cup in 2011 and is the youngest player in the Austrian squad for the U20 World Cup in Colombia.

Assistant coach Eddy Sözer on Kevin Stöger: “One of our Austrians together with Holzhauser and Harnik. He´s a very talented and skillful player with a great football IQ and understanding of the game. His basic activity is outstanding for a player of his age and it allows him to dominate games. Of course, he lacks some experience and keeps making mistakes, but that´s normal and actually might be a good thing, as he can learn from them. He´s got a great future ahead of him and we´ll continue to support him.”

Pascal Breier (center forward)

Born in the Stuttgart suburb of Nürtingen in February 1992, the powerful striker started his career at TSV Neckartenzlingen before joining Stuttgart from SSV Reutlingen in 2006. Breier was the captain of the German U17 champions in 2009, crowning his stellar season, where he grabbed 21 goals in 22 appearances for the U17s, with a brace in the 3-1 win in the final over Bayern Munich. Breier made his reserves debut in a 1-2 loss v Wehen Wiesbaden in October 2010 and grabbed his first reserves goal a week later in a 1-1 draw with Wacker Burghausen, but his debut season ended in agony when he broke his ankle vs Saarbrücken in February.

Fully recovered and with a contract extension until 2014 in the bag, Breier is expected to compete with Soufian Benyamina and Alexander Aschauer for the role as a lone striker in Kramny´s 4-2-3-1 system.

Christoph Hemlein (striker)

Born in Heidelberg in December 1990, the blonde forward started his career at FV Nußloch, before he was snapped up by Hoffenheim in 2005. At Hoffenheim he played for their U19 teams before he was promoted to their reserves when he ran out of eligibility. In 2009-2010, the then 19 year-old helped Hoffenheim reserves win promotion to the fourth highest division of German football, the Regionalliga, by scoring 8 goals in 31 appearances, 13 as a sub. After appearing in 32 games and 9 goals in 2010-2011, Hemlein decided to not renew his expiring at contract and sign for Stuttgart over offers from Bundesliga champions Dortmund among others. At Stuttgart Hemlein spent the majority of pre-season with the first team squad before he joined up with his new teammates at Stuttgart reserves shortly before their season opener vs Bielefeld, where he scored a simple tap in to tie the score at 1 in Stuttgart´s 2-1 win.

Assistant coach Eddy Sözer on Christoph Hemlein: “We signed him from Hoffenheim and he´s training with us because reserves coach Jürgen Kramny recommended him to us and told us to have a look. We wanted to get t known him and he´s leaving a very good impression. He´s very dynamic. It´s very important for him to continue to improve and work on his tactical understanding of the game. He´s very ambitious and has a great work ethic.”

A German translation of this interview can be found here.

Hello Christian, why don´t you tell us something about yourself first.

 Well, I’m a 23 year old kid from Copenhagen. I’ve been a FCK-fan since I was 6 years old and because of that I’ve also witnessed how William broke in to the team and over a period of time established himself as a club legend.

Obvious question, but what is your opinion of Kvist as a player. I see that he started his career off as a right back and only switched to CM/DM not too long ago. Why did he switch positions and in what kind of system did he play at FCK (diamond, 2 def mids etc.)? Do you see room for improvement or do you think he´s a “finished article”? If you had to describe his style of play, is there anyone you´d compare him to (think Xavi, Iniesta, Essien for different styles or Khedira/Schweinsteiger for Germany with the destroyer and the creative guy)? What are his strengths and weaknesses?

What was your favorite William Kvist moment for FCK? Any story in particular you might want to share? Anything you want to tell us about William as a person? Many people think we have a leadership problem at Stuttgart and many people hope William can solve that. Do you think he´s a natural leader who can assume a leadership role from Day 1 despite the obvious challenge he´s going to face in a new country and a new league?

William Kvist has always seen the central midfield spot as his preferred. During his years as a youth product he played as a central midfielder, he did it for youth national teams and when he first broke in to the first team it was as a midfielder as well.

Little by little he established himself. Ståle Solbakken became coach and ‘Willy’, as is nickname is, grew with time. He played some games on the right flank and actually did okay. At this time he wasn’t one of the first on the teamsheet every week. He was a useful squad player but not yet a dominant force.

Then the former HSV- and Nürnberg-player Lars Jacobsen left FCK and suddenly we had no right back. Ståle decided that William was the best choice. He did excellent there. He played it for six months and Ståle said that if he wanted to he could become Denmark’s best right back in no time and be secured a place in the national team’s first eleven.

But William refused to see himself as a right back. He had only one goal and that was to the central midfield-position for FC Copenhagen and make it there. And he did. Those six months were the only six months that William Kvist has ever played as a right back. We signed Pospech and William was again a midfielder.

Last season was his breakthrough season. He played central midfielder alongside Claudemir in a 4-4-2 formation. No diamond, but as one of the two holding midfielders. William knocked captain Hjalte Nørregaard of the team and took the armband along the way. It was like having a new player. He was dominant, strong, very outspoken and a leader on the pitch. His development the last 12-16 months has been exceptional.

He’s by no means a finished product. He still got things to work on and improve. And therefore it was a right thing for him to move abroad. He can improve his passing game and his technical attributes. A little more anticipation would suit his games at time. But one thing you always get with William is a 100% committed effort. He’s not the type of player that dives into one tackle after another but he runs and runs and runs for the whole game and are always very well prepared. So there’s no doubt he’s more a ‘Khedira’ than a ‘Xavi’!

For the last couple of years he has worked together with his private mental coach. They have set some goals for him to achieve and that has helped him a lot, he says. He’s a serious guy. He reads a lot of books and has just finished his BA at Copenhagen Business School. He’s not the kind of typical footballer that spends all his spare time going to clubs or playing Play Station all night One of my best mates played in FC Copenhagen ones and he told me that whenever they were on a training camp with the team William lay in his bed reading or making school work when all the other guys played golf or Playstation. Not that Willy is a humourless guy or anything, he’s just serious about his sport.

So to answer your question; yes, you guys have got a leader figure in William. I think he will settle down fine in Germany. I think he mentality and way of playing match the German way very well.

How will you or FCK fans in general remember him and what was the general reaction when he announced his exit?

I think FC Copenhagen fans will remember William Kvist as the captain of the team in it’s most successful season ever. William has played all his life in FC Copenhagen and is a product of the club. We knew he would leave at some point, and that it was very likely to be this summer because of his excellent season and the fact that he only had one year left on his contract. So it was no shock but still sad. But I’m sure he will return some day.

Anything I didn´t ask you want to tell the Stuttgart fans reading this? Personal message of some kind?

Take good care of him, he’s a nice kid

We thank you for your time, Christian, and hope you enjoyed this as much as we did.

As a side note,  in 2000-2001 (Stuttgart, runners up behind Karlsruhe) and 2003-2004 (Bayern, champions) the reserves sides of Bundesliga clubs actually did earn promotion to the 2^nd Bundesliga on the pitch, but obviously had to pass due to the regulations mentioned above. That Stuttgart side featured players such as Andreas Hinkel, Aliaksandr Hleb, Christian Tiffert, Ioannis Amanatidis, Christian Tiffert and Kevin Kuranyi whereas the Bayern side featured players such as Michael Rensing, Andreas Ottl, Christian Lell, Patrick Ochs, Piotr Trochowski, Zvjezdan Misimovic and Paolo Guerrero. The Stuttgart side also destroyed Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt 6-1 in the first round of the German cup that year.

To cut a long story short, I´d like to introduce some of the biggest and best prospects at the club today and give you a glimpse at the future of the club and maybe even the German national team in a 3 part series.

Bernd Leno (goalkeeper)

Nicknamed “big save”, Leno was born in March 1992 in the Swabian town of Bietigheim-Bissingen, Leno is widely considered to be one of the greatest German goalkeeping prospects together with Mönchengladbach´s Marc Andre ter Stegen. Leno´s star truly began to rise in 2009, where he not only won the German U17 championship (beating ter Stegen´s Gladbach and Bayern in the final), but was also part of the German U17 squad, who were crowned European Champions on their own soil, as well as the German U17 WC squad, that fell in the first knockout round to eventual tournament winners Switzerland (Leno was an unused substitute in both tournaments, ter Stegen got the nod between the goalposts). After merely half a season with the under 19 squad, the then 17 year-old Leno was in December promoted to the reserves team, which plays in the third highest division of German football. Engulfed in a relegation battle at the time, Leno was intrumental in their route to safety, keeping 7 clean sheets in 17 matches. After his fantastic performance during the second half of the 2009-2010 season, Leno started the 2010-2011 as the undoubted #1 goalkeeper for the Stuttgart reserves and didn´t disappoint, keeping 8 clean sheets in 37 matches while attaining the 2^nd highest grade average in the player rankings of the German football magazine “Kicker”. For the 2011-2012 season, Leno will probably split his time between the reserves and the first team squad. Leno will most likely play with the reserves while training with the first team squad as the 3^rd goalkeeper.

“For me, he´s the next Manuel Neuer!”

Fortuna Düsseldorf sporting director Wolf Werner on Leno

Leno signed a 3 year extension in March that will keep him with the club until 2014.

Antonio Rüdiger (center half)

Born in Berlin in March 1993, the brother of former Dortmund and Hoffenheim striker Sahr Senesie started his career with Hertha Zehlendorf before he followed in his brother´s foot steps, signing for Dortmund in 2008. During his time in Dortmund the center half of Sierra Leonan descent became a German U18 international before he decided to accept an offer from Stuttgart in December 2010. Due to DFB regulations, Rüdiger had to sit half a season out and wasn´t able to make his Stuttgart debut until the 2011-2012 season, where he went straight into the reserves squad for their season opening 2-1 away win to freshly relegated Bielefeld.

Rüdiger is contracted to Stuttgart until 2014 and is expected to battle Patrick Bauer and Daniel Vier for a spot in the starting lineup for the reserves in 2011.

Steffen Lang (right back)

Born in the hometown of legendary Germany striker Gerd Müller, Nördlingen, in August 1993, Lang followed in Müller´s footsteps, signing for the local club, TSV Nördlingen, as a 15 year old, where he quickly caught the eye of the Stuttgart scouts and was invited to training with the Stuttgart U16 squad. Lang impressed, was offered a contract and after several months of doing the 2 hour commute from Nördlingen to Stuttgart, Lang was offered a place in the Stuttgart academy. After winning the German U17 championship in 2009, the then 17 year-old Lang made his debut for the Stuttgart reserves in February 2011. Lang has since appeared in 5 matches for the Stuttgart reserves and trained with the first team squad for 2 weeks during pre-season training.

Lang signed an extension to his contract in June 2011, that will keep him with the club until 2015. His role model, non surprisingly for a German full back, I guess, is Germany captain Philipp Lahm. Lang is expected to battle Felice Vecchione for the right back spot for the reserves in 2011.