FC St. Pauli

Another sign of the slew of changes in recent weeks and months came when Brian Koglin lined up alongside assistant coach Olaf Janssen and new recruits Lennart Thy and Johannes Flum for an autograph card photoshoot the day before the club left for their Spanish training camp. After joining St. Pauli's Under-17s from Eintracht Norderstedt in the summer of 2012, the defender made the transition to the Under-19s and then, last summer, the Under-23s. Koglin was "promoted" again in October and is now set to have his first autograph card.

It all happened very quickly, and not just for Koglin. "It can't go quickly enough," he said, reflecting on the last few months. "It's the aim of every young player to make the senior squad at some point." Ewald Lienen moved the then 19-year-old "upstairs" in October when several first-team defenders were ruled out by injury. "When I ran out at the Millerntor for the first time it was a dream come true," said Koglin of his competitive debut against Bundesliga outfit Hertha BSC in the DFB Cup. "I had goosepimples when I was standing in the tunnel."

In the second round of the DFB Cup Brian Koglin often had to deal with Hertha's Valentin Stocker.

Despite only discovering he was playing just a few hours before kick-off, Koglin fulfilled his task with a composed display in central defence alongside Christopher Avevor. He is also a composed type of person. "I'm not one to let things get to me, so I didn't give it too much thought," he said. "There was no time for that." Koglin was happy with his performance and the one in the subsequent league game against Nürnberg, and the feedback from the coaching team was also positive.

At Würzburg things didn't go quite to plan, however: "It wasn't my best game, I know that," he said. "Mistakes are part of the game. It's important to learn from them and make sure they don't happen again." Koglin did not play again in the league before the winter break, though he did make two appearances for the Under-23s in the fourth-tier Regionalliga North. He now intends to work hard in the coming weeks and months to put himself in contention for more playing time in the first team. For tips on how to improve his game he benefits from experienced players such as captain Sören Gonther.

Koglin, who turned 20 last week, is now getting stuck in at the training camp in Sotogrande. He played in the 6-2 defeat of Tianjin Teda on Saturday, putting in a strong-tackling display alongside Marc Hornschuh in central defence. There now follow various training sessions before the next warm-up match – but that's no problem for Koglin: "I'm always happy to be able to play football," he concluded.