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Competition leader Racing Genk threatens to lose goalkeeper and strong holder Maarten Vandevoordt to the German RB Leipzig at the end of this season. Due to the serious injury of Leipzig goalkeeper and captain Peter Gulacsi, it is quite possible that Vandevoordt will move to Germany a year earlier than expected.
Jens HeylenBron: BELGIAN
In April last year, both clubs reached an agreement on a transfer for mid-2024. “That agreement included that he could also make the switch in 2023,” Leipzig sports director Max Eberl confirmed on Monday at a training camp in Abu Dhabi.
The 32-year-old Gulacsi, the national number one in Hungary, suffered a tear in the cruciate ligaments in early October and went under the knife for it. Recently a second operation followed, because there was a bacteria in his knee. “Rehabilitation after a torn cruciate ligament is never easy, and certainly not at that age. After the second operation, we have to wait and see how the recovery will go.”
At Leipzig, Gulacsi is replaced in goal by Janis Blaswich. As reserve goalkeeper, Norwegian Örjan Nyland was recruited until the end of this season. However, both keepers are 31 and 32 years old respectively and therefore no immediate substitution options for the future. An early departure from Vandevoordt to Leipzig is therefore one of the possibilities.
The twenty-year-old goalkeeper is a youth product of Genk and was the first goalkeeper when he was sixteen. In September 2019 he made his official debut in the first team, a few months later he even became the youngest goalkeeper ever in the Champions League at 17 years and 287 days. In the meantime, he has been the first goalkeeper in the Cegeka Arena for 2.5 seasons, where he is one of the strongholds. Leipzig quickly tracked him down, and in April last year reached an agreement with the Genk board for a definitive transfer.
