TSG present goalkeeper trio for next season
"Luca’s fantastic development is symbolic of the traditional TSG way. As a youth player at our academy, he only developed relatively late but then all the more quickly to reach a very high level – and become the Germany U21 national team goalkeeper. Luca is enormously hard-working, willing to learn and ambitious. In recent years, he has established himself in the goalkeeping team led by our captain Oliver Baumann and also plays a significant role in our team structure; his word carries weight in the dressing room. Due to his personality and, of course, his sporting abilities, nobody at the club would have the slightest hesitation about putting him in goal," remarked TSG Managing Director Alexander Rosen.
Pirmin Schwegler, Head of Professional Football at TSG, is delighted that, following the loan of Nahuel Noll to Greuther Fürth, "in Lúkas Petersson, another great goalkeeping talent from our own academy has now found his way into the first-team squad. Lúksi' is a very talented goalkeeper who still has a lot of potential. He has been training with us regularly for some time now and has made an excellent impression. He will be our new No. 3 and will of course also gain important match practice in competitive games for our Regionalliga team."
"Luca has enhanced our goalkeeping team for years with his tireless enthusiasm in training and enormous ambition. Thanks to his high-quality training performances, he also pushes the other goalkeepers to make top performances time and time again. Working with a top goalkeeper like Oliver Baumann on a daily basis has also helped Luca enormously in his development; he has taken another few steps forward in the last year or two and would definitely be ready for an appearance for the first team," said Alexander Stolz, the goalkeeping coach at TSG. "Lúkas is a great talent who will now get the chance to showcase himself in training with us on a daily basis and learn from Oli and Luca. He has already been with the first team several times in the past and has always made a very positive impression, especially in terms of his willingness to learn. I am convinced that we will have a lot of fun with Lúkas at TSG in the future."
Luca Philipp moved to the TSG Hoffenheim youth set-up from SGV Freiberg at the age of 12 and has developed into one of the best goalkeeping talents in his year group in Germany there. Born in Stuttgart, he has been training with TSG's Bundesliga squad since 2019 and became a permanent member of the first-team squad only one year later. Philipp made his debut for the Germany U21 national team under then DFB junior national team coach Stefan Kuntz in a 3-1 victory in Latvia in September 2021. Three more international appearances have followed. He has made 54 appearances between the sticks for the TSG Hoffenheim U23s in the Regionalliga Südwest. His brother Tim, who is five years his junior, also plays for TSG and keeps goal for the U19 juniors in the Bundesliga Süd/Südwest.
Lúkas Petersson joined the TSG academy at the age of 16 in July 2020 and progressed through all the TSG youth ranks from the U17s to the U23s. During this time, the son of the Icelandic former world-class handball player Alexander Petersson made four appearances for the Hoffenheim Regionalliga team, played 20 matches for the U19s in the Bundesliga Süd/Südwest and featured on five occasions for the Kraichgau club's U17 Bundesliga team. Since his debut on 7 September 2023, Düsseldorf-born Petersson has played three matches in goal for the Iceland U21 national team. He was previously a regular in the U19 and U17 Icelandic national teams.