Rocco Reitz is moving from Gladbach to RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga

When you consider that Borussia Mönchengladbach is losing its fastest, strongest duel and most popular player after this season, then that is bad news for the club and its fans. However, if you take into account that the cash-strapped club will receive around 20 million euros for this talented midfielder and that Rocco Reitz, 23, may no longer be the most popular player among Borussia fans after the official announcement of his transfer to RB Leipzig, things are put into perspective a bit.

On Monday, the clubs announced that Reitz would be moving from Borussia Mönchengladbach to RB Leipzig in the summer and would receive a contract with the Saxons that runs until 2031.

Reitz’s departure from Gladbach is not a normal transfer for Borussia. Losing a son of this club (in industry jargon: homegrown) to the RB football group is likely to gnaw at many fans. One could certainly have expected Reitz to be a one-club player, someone who plays for a single club his entire career. Because his roots at Borussia are (were) extraordinary.

On the day of his birth (May 29, 2002) in Duisburg, his godfather registered him as a member of the Borussia club. Reitz was a walk-in child in Gladbach, an audition child and was a regular guest in the stands at home games with his father at a young age. He had played for Borussia since he was seven years old; In the summer he will have played for Gladbach for 17 years. Reitz is now even the son-in-law of club legend Karlheinz Pflipsen. “I have spent more than half my life here,” Reitz once said about Borussia. “The love for this club, just like the love for football, is huge – it couldn’t be bigger.”

Leaving your greatest love is actually the stuff of literature and the stuff of cinema. In Gladbach, before every home game, they play the song “Die Seele brennt” in a wistful context as a hymn to the love for this club. The song is a real tearjerker and therefore an indication of what makes some fans tick. A player like Reitz, one of their own, someone who has sworn eternal loyalty to this club, is not something you let go so easily. It is possible that Reitz will now be booed. But it is also quite possible that they have taken this player so close to their hearts that they give him absolution.

On April 11th, Reitz could get into a dilemma: Borussia will play in Leipzig, while RB will be in the Champions League

“This decision was anything but easy for me,” says Reitz in the Gladbach club’s announcement about the change. “Of course I can understand that some people may not understand my decision to leave the club, but I can promise that I will play with everything I have in every remaining game – especially in the derby this weekend.”

If you wanted to give Reitz a tip, you would advise him to score Gladbach’s winning goal in the Rhine derby against 1. FC Köln on Saturday afternoon. That could reconcile angry fans. Reitz could also do the Borussia fans a favor with a winning goal in the away game on April 11th at RB Leipzig. The only problem would then be that Leipzig’s attempts to move into a Champions League place in the Bundesliga table could suffer a setback because of the future player. Does Reitz find himself in a dilemma in this duel?

Gladbach’s sports director Rouven Schröder cannot take sensitivities into account. He appreciates the money that he will receive to finance a personnel change at Borussia next summer. “The transfer fee we received for Rocco is the highest that Borussia has ever been able to generate for a self-trained player,” says Schröder, “and the early timing of the agreement helps us a lot in our planning.”

Gladbach only made more money from the sales of players Granit Xhaka (43 million from Arsenal FC, 2016), Thorgan Hazard (25.5 million from Borussia Dortmund, 2019) and Jannik Vestergaard (23 million from Southampton FC, 2018). In this ranking, Reitz is likely to be in fourth place with an estimated sales total of 20 million, together with Manu Koné (20 million to AS Roma, 2024).

As a teenager, Reitz was a Messi fan. Now, he once revealed, he enjoys watching Joshua Kimmich. “I find Joshua very impressive,” he said, “he is a bit of a benchmark for where I want to be one day.” With his move to Leipzig, Rocco Reitz is taking a big step on this path.