India star keeper Subrata Pal completed a two-week long trial-cum-training with German 4th Division club RB Leipzig. Former East Germany & Bundesliga keeper Perry Bräutigam happens to be the goalkeeping coach at the club and he thinks Subrata has the potential to play in the 2nd Division Bundesliga.

Bräutigam was full of praise for the Indian keeper as reported earlier [+ read more] and he has attested Subrata excellent goalkeeping skills. I was in Leipzig with my good old friend and colleague Arunava Chaudhuri to monitor Subrata’s trials with the ambitious German club and the former East Germany international told us only good things about his guest player.

“For a goalkeeper he has a very good technique, while his biggest strength is the ability to react, he is also quickly down on the ground,” Bräutigam told. “But due to the lack of height he has problems with the higher balls though with his acrobatic jumping ability and agility he can cover a lot for the lack of height.”

“But I cannot really judge him on crosses and high balls then I didn’t see him in match action which you need to see to be able to make a fair judgement,” he continued. “And coming back to his technical abilities, you see that he is a playing goalkeeper whom you can play back the ball in difficult situations.”

Asked about an assessment on Subrata’s chances in German football, Bräutigam said: “That is very difficult to say because here I would have to speculate besides having the talent, there is also the luck factor which decides if a keeper can make it to the top or gets stuck in the lower leagues.”

“I think that Subrata could play in the 2nd Bundesliga,” the former Bundesliga keeper strongly opined.

RB Leipzig didn’t offer Subrata a contract for the upcoming season, but they have invited the India keeper to return to Leipzig next year and things could take of from there.

The German 4th Division is much stronger than many people realise back home in India as reported earlier [+ read more] and the assessment by Perry Bräutigam gives some hope for Subrata and hopfully many other Indian footballers.

Pictures of Subrata’s trials are available at www.facebook.com/cpd81/photos

Read the full interview with Perry Bräutigam on Arunava’s blog:
http://arunfoot.blogspot.de/2012/08/rb-leipzig-goalkeeping-coach-brautigam.html