● strong intention to keep | ●●● open for offers | ●●●●● clear intention to sell credit to cunego59 and whoever came before him for the template
Renewals have seldom been this rough for Team Puma - SAP, although most of the arisen issues could've been foreseen in advance.
Certainly, Silvio Herklotz is worth any amount he demands, but even after a flawless 2023 season we were startled for a minute when entering negotiations with the now two-time world champion.
Rest assured that even this incredible 1.300.000€ is still a great cut from his initial demands!
Riders like Ganna, Madouas, Cavagna and O'Brien were always going to become slightly more expensive after a good year since the culture around renewals has started to shift further towards individual contributions rather than plain looks, while the latter is among the several freshly maxed out riders who now earn their fair wages.
Meanwhile, Max Kanter's monumental increase obviously comes from his (very fruitful) sprint training last off-season.
Overall, very few miniscule wage reductions in the face of some massive increases mean we were not able to renew the contract of Lorenzo Fortunato, who we thank for his season and who is always welcomed back under more favorable circumstances, as well as Matthias Brändle whose contract was always going to be for one season only as age has caught up to him, but whose contribution to Herklotz' Vuelta win will always be cherished.
Even with those cuts, we end renewals with 18 riders while being over the wage cap.
Continue reading to find out what this means for our...
Rider Availability
Overall, it's apparent that success has again caught up to us in the off-season, and significant changes may have to be made to ensure rules compliance as well as allowing for some transfer moves.
Particularly with the unprecedented lack of unmaxed riders in a team that always was best known for talent development, free cap space would come in very handy to pursue intriguing options, may it be a brand new German talent or possibly a trailblazing foreign rider who is much closer to stardom already.
The #1 standout rider with significant chances to leave the team is - rather surprisingly - Filippo Ganna.
He's been among the top time trialists worldwide for several seasons already, with his ability to convert good TT results into GC success even in races with challenging routes being his standout feature.
Additionally, he's more often than not a top favorite for prologue wins regardless of the opposition and thus offers a great option for early leaders jerseys even in races that will not suit him overall.
At 28 years of age and after a 1000-points season, there is no obvious reason to consider parting ways with Ganna, but freeing up his wage is one of the only ways to allow for big moves to be made.
A rider who's almost certain to be sold is Lukas Meiler, whose skillset makes him incredibly valuable as a PT or PCT domestique (nothing's worse than cobbles doms who are useless for the rest of the season) or a clear race favorite on the CT cobbles.
No rider there would've come close to his cob-hil combination last season.
To bring additional flexibility to our transfer season, it's heavily discussed whether the team needs both Jannik Steimle and Felix Gross as leadouts/opportunistic stage race sprinters, hence there is a good chance of one of them being available.
Both would bring stability to a PT/PCT sprint train or give your PCT/CT team a cheap way to contest sprint victories from the slipstream.
Beyond these riders, we've always been bombarded by requests about Remi Cavagna, and depending on which plan will be followed during transfers, this really might be the year now!
We expect most sales to be cash-only, but we are always happy to discuss combo deals, particularly with PT loans being part of a deal as we plan on maxing out our loan cap again.
That Herklotz wage is pretty insane, indeed
But after winning the individual rankings, as well as every single race he did (except the WC TTT iirc), and the slight policy switch towards more performance-based wage demands, it isn't overly surprising, either. At least I guess he has hit the roof now, as being more successful won't be possible (OK, maybe winning the Tour instead would boost his score even more).
So I fully understand the necessity of freeing up wage cap to do any moves at all, and selling non-Germans first is fully in line with the team philosophy.
And I strongly suspect that after a year of non-dealing, we might be in touch once again
Good luck for transfers, looking forward to see what plans you have in mind
PS: By the way, I don't share your take on Meiler - I guess he'd have had some nice duels with Gaday on last year's CT cobbles Edited by Fabianski on 15-08-2024 12:11
Herklötz earning as much as a complete CT team (including loan-outs) is quite insane, though he's probably the one rider who's worth it. Also there are at least two rather interesting (maybe) availibilities, so we'll surely be in touch.
Herklotz getting his money, fair play to him and to you it sounds like for talking him down from something truly insane
Sure we will talk as we often do in transfers, one of these years it will actually turn into something happening I'm sure of it
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Herklotz , remember the massive push from you to sign the German Wunderkid originally good to see that long term planning pay off big time love when this kind of planning pays off
Ganna available, you say? After all these years trying to buy him from you... We'll definitely send you a PM, to see what's possible to do.
And as knockout writes, I'm also really curious to see what you have in mind this transfer season. Ganna doesn't feel like the rider you decide to sell without having a clear plan for what to do next!
Yes, go get that sweet Rutsch training money I am amazed at how healthy your team's age structure is, but I can also see that with no unmaxed rider atm, some talent influx might be necessary again. Two decent German ones are coming, of course, and I'm glad I don't have to compete against you for them anymore, but then we might bump into each other elsewhere, who knows
As an aside, it is kind of cool that I was able to report both of the two big moments that are on this HQ header. I just noticed that. Still slightly proud of that yellow jersey screenshot, too
Looking forward to seeing the changes you make which are forced due to your success and talent acquirement over the years. You can expect I'll be reaching out regarding a certain individual who was with us on loan all those years ago!
@Fabianski:
Yeah it should be the upper limit, and it surely is very hard to complain with this level of consistency backing up his demands. On the other hand, if it ever goes wrong multiple times in a season, the consequences could be dire.
Regarding Meiler, I admit I hadn't kept the disbanding teams in the filter, so you're certainly correct but I think the general point of him being a major favorite in CT races still stands.
I'm happy to talk to you again, it's always enjoyable!
@kandesbunzler26:
Thanks for pointing that out, now it feels even more ridiculous! But yes, I wouldn't change it for the world.
Actually I'm quite confident we can discuss mutually beneficial deals this year, particularly as I will again have to loan in a significant portion of my roster too!
@jandal7:
You don't wanna know man, you truly don't wanna know...
With all due respect, I always tried my best to make things happen.
@knockout:
I didn't just get worried when round 1 hit, it sent me into a full blown crisis state for the better part of a week!
The success is catching up to us, which is of course fair but I wasn't prepared for the extent at first.
Gotta make the best out of it now, which would be either doing nothing (boring) or finding a way to free up good cap space with as few moves as possible to get one of the exciting names (semi-)entering the market.
Madouas seems to perform very well and fills an important niche, and then the only remaining alternative to selling Ganna is selling most of my German depth pieces in the 100k wage region, which would only be worth it in very specific circumstances now that I've spent many years on acquiring them in mostly less than equal deals from a neutral point of view.
One thing is certain though, it would likely be impossible to make the Top 5 again without Filippo for now, which means the plans have to be worth it in the long run in some fashion, be it success or identification with my leaders.
@jt1109:
I'm really happy to see you back! Your Phinney/Summerhill/Houle times are still very memorable.
Yes it's hard to overstate how incredibly successful that one decision a decade ago played out overall. Of course they were different times in terms of talent quality, but it's been the most fun being along for the ride.
Still at least 4 good years to come!
@ember:
Yes as I said to knockout, Ganna is sadly the simplest way to comply with the wage cap while also enabling bold moves. I'm awaiting your proposals!
It wasn't originally planned at all since the first part can be done rather easily (a Cavagna sale alone would already do it), but with how some of my all-time favorite riders have suddenly become either fully available or at least not unattainable anymore, it wouldn't be me without at least giving it a shot!
However, Ganna has 4 and not 5 stars availability because if those moves were to all not materialize, it definitely would be wise to keep him.
@cunego59:
If we still could go beyond two trainings, man would I be onto it this year!
I've always been very proud of my age structure indeed, thank you for valuing it as well. Clearly it still would be very fine even with a few extremely quiet transfer seasons, but the itch is absolutely there and will likely not be ignored.
Well thank you so much for those reports then, and what a coincidence indeed! There couldn't have been a more fitting reporter for those days. That shot does mean a lot to me indeed.
@BBL:
I believe so too, even more with some of the language I spotted in your own posts! There will be many options on the table, but as usual you're surely involved in some of the highest-ranking plans again.
@LLS:
The phrasing of "Changes forced due to success" actually makes it all sound much better in my head, thank you for that!
Man, has it been SIX years already?! Incredible how much happened since for both of our teams. I'm looking forward to the talks!
A bit late and VERY long, but we are finally able to present all the arrivals and departures that result from the 2024 transfer season.
Only counting permanent moves, there are two riders leaving the team for good with five new additions, of which we are proud to announce four are German riders.
To keep this post somewhat readable, stay tuned to find out about our loan moves that will be mentioned during the full team presentation coming later this week!
Two very valuable and longtime members of Team Puma - SAP leave us this off-season.
Obviously, the headline news was the departure of Filippo Ganna to newly promoted Xero Racing in a swap that also nets us €2.200.000.
Filippo Ganna
4.100
28yo
Time Trialist
Xero Racing
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Likely the best talent deal we've ever made, he was signed for only €160.000 back in 2018 and spent his first season at loan with our friends of what is now ZARA-Irizar.
We quickly decided to mold a team around him to support him in races at least partially decided by TTTs, a direction that also benefited Silvio Herklotz at many GTs.
With that dedication to his leadership qualities, Filippo managed to consistently overperform his climbing skills on paper as long as a (team) time trial on the route sparked hope of a good GC result.
Limited race days - and frankly being overqualified for a domestique role - meant he rarely was allowed to chase prologue success in Grand Tours, which certainly could've led to a few leaders jerseys throughout the years.
Ganna is still only 28, and with very reasonable wage demands for an incredible 26th place in the individual rankings there was no obvious reason to part ways at this point in his career, so initial negotiations were tentative pending the signature of one or two of our top 3 targets.
Luckily, we were able to sign two of those (more on that later), and thus a sale of one of our marquee riders in team history was the only way to comply with the salary cap rules without slashing our entire depth.
We thank Filippo for the time he spent with us and the plenty of points contributing to our great final rankings positions in the past 5 years, and we will follow his adventures at Xero Racing intently.
Most importantly, we also want to address the fact that the negotiations surrounding Ganna took a lot of time and effort from many managers' limited resources, and inevitably we disappointed quite a few teams in the end when a final decision had to be made.
We apologize for this inconvenience and vow to improve our methods the next time a rider of his caliber will be transfer listed, and we truly hope everyone missing out still managed to form a team worthy of their respective division and personal goals.
Our second and already last rider to leave the team permanently is Lukas Meiler. He left in a swap deal with Carlsberg - Danske Bank which cost us most - if not all considering transfer tax - of our income from the Ganna deal with a fee of €2.000.000 going their way.
Lukas Meiler
4.100
29yo
Cobbler
Carlsberg
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Joining in 2019 as part of a deal with Philips involving our superstar Wilco Kelderman during a time of great cap struggles, he faced the steep task of leading our cobbles lineups in the toughest races in the world as a true underdog.
He was rather innovative in his methods, regularly utilizing the springboard opportunities of mid-race breakaways to get a headstart on the (much) stronger opposition.
Most of the time, the coin flip didn't work out, but we always appreciated Lukas' willingness to give it a shot and showing off our jersey instead of just trying to hang on all day for a potentially slightly better final result.
Additionally, Meiler's versatility was a big reason for why we were so fond of having him throughout these five years, as the big issue with most cobblers is their relative lack of usefulness outside of the 20-something dedicated race days per season.
His punchy side as well as his rouleur abilities however meant he was always of good use, whether to support Kanter or Demare on sprint days or the latter on his adventures on hilly stages, in GTs and classics.
Many GT points jerseys were achieved with his help!
We expect this versatility to be on display again for our friends at Carlsberg, and are excited to see Lukas Meiler provide excellent help to one of the strongest classics riders in the world in David Per!
Now for the fun part of transfers!
As mentioned above, three riders topped our scouting list this transfer season.
Our most realistic plans aimed for one of them each, with a small hope of even acquiring two of them at once, albeit then most likely at the cost of a rider of the caliber of Filippo Ganna.
The battle for our main target raged for a couple of days and led to what I believe to be the highest transfer fee of the entire year, and we graciously accepted defeat once it was clear the move would require a reshuffling of most of the team just to accommodate one potential future superstar.
However, despite setbacks on the one hand, and against all odds of failed negotiations spanning all the way back to the beginning of the decade, we were able to indeed sign our two main German targets of the season!
Welcome (for good), Lennard Kämna!
Lennard Kämna
4.100
28yo
Stage Racer
€165.000
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It's never been a secret that Lennard Kämna has topped our priority lists ever since his talent was discovered.
Unable to sign him to the team initially, we at least managed to secure him on loan for a year to finish his development in 2021, where he became a crucial part of the team that helped Silvio Herklotz win the Giro d'Italia.
Every year since, we pestered our friends at Carlsberg - Danske Bank with any creative offer we could come up with, and time and time again we were told that even the most unrealistic offers wouldn't suffice.
This season however, while initially met with the same response, we were able to remain in negotiations long enough to ultimately achieve a breakthrough and acquire Lennard permanently!
He joins us as the major feature in the aforementioned swap deal with Lukas Meiler and costs us said additional €2.000.000.
A steep price where we objectively agree with managers who called it a stupid move, but Kämna always has and always will be a rider dear to our heart and any cost is worth it in our eyes.
Preliminary scheduling talks indicate he might not resume his role as a Herklotz domestique, instead he appears to mostly fill the hole left behind by Filippo Ganna in (T)TT-focused stage races as well as lead the team outright in one Grand Tour.
There's not much else to say than a dream came true!
The second big target this season, and the only Free Agent we pursued for most of the first week of transfers, also eventually agreed to a contract that will see him well overpaid initially, but we have big hopes in him to lead Team Puma - SAP into a post-Herklotz future.
Welcome, Marco Brenner!
Marco Brenner
1.00
22yo
Stage Racer
€245.000
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It's been known for years that only one current German talent is showing the potential to target the big stage races in the future, and we eagerly awaited the year in which Marco would be eligible to join the professional cycling ranks.
Brenner shows the early signs of a complete stage racer, with decent time trialing skills backing up his climbing ability.
Furthermore, a decent sprint and serviceable descending skills are helpful in many scenarios.
We are aware that he will fall well short of immediately taking over the Herklotz role once he realizes his potential, but rest assured there already are plans in place to ensure he will make his way further to the top of the stage racing world in time!
To aid his initial development, we were approached by newly formed CT outfit Duvel-Tsingtao very early on and agreed to a loan this season which will be accompanied by training and nutrition experts to hopefully see Marco return to the team next year having made an additional step in his development already.
With the two marquee signings of the season having been made, we were able to focus on additional depth pieces to round out the squad, ideally also continuing to focus on young riders that can form the core of the team for many years to come.
Two such riders were signed in independent negotiations, but first we want to present the rider involved in the Filippo Ganna swap.
Welcome, Ilan Van Wilder!
Ilan Van Wilder
4.50
24yo
Stage Racer
€50.000
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Initially the plan was to sell Filippo Ganna for as much cash as we could acquire, but once the deal for Lennard Kämna had been agreed to and Marco Brenner was secured, our finances became much easier to work with and we were able to pivot to a swap deal late in negotiations with Xero Racing to lower the fee.
Ilan comes to us as a preview of what Marco will be a few years later, and with his minimum wage he's already a very useful helper in GTs and stage races alike and will come in handy as a support piece for Silvio Herklotz.
Once maxed, he will be able to take the GT superdomestique role that has sadly been vacant since the departures of riders like Stüssi and Vasyliv, and for the better part of a decade at that!
Even with the reduced transfer fee in the Ganna deal, we still ended up making a lot more money from his departure than expected, and thus we quickly approached the team of one of our favorite German youngsters and made a bid of €350.000 to fellow German Team Würth MODYF that luckily got accepted immediately thanks to our vision for his future.
Welcome, Juri Hollmann!
Juri Hollmann
4.08
25yo
Fabian-Type
€50.000
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Similar to Lennard, Juri had been on our radar since his first professional season, but it wasn't meant to be until now.
Hollmann fits our description of a cobbles helper to a tee, which as mentioned with Lukas Meiler is to be useful beyond the couple of dozen cobbled race days per season. He brings a solid time trial ability to the table that will be used to fill our TTT lineups in the future.
For now, he still needs to gain a bit of experience to really fulfill that role and there's no true cobbles leader to support yet, but we are very happy to have him on board!
To round out the squad and continue on our path of amassing as much German talent as possible within the leading German team in the world, we also added a promising pure climber to our roster late in transfers as the final permanent signing of the season.
Welcome, Hannes Wilksch!
Hannes Wilksch
2.65
23yo
Climber
€50.000
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We got lucky to have a German talent of such potential left without an offer in Free Agency nearly a week into transfers once the remaining cap space could be calculated after all these moves.
This meant we immediately pounced on the opportunity to sign a future replacement to the rider type of a Vuelta KoM-winning Johannes Schinnagel or an aging Mike Aaron Egger.
Hannes will start out mostly filling race lineups for the next couple of years, but we believe in his skills to become a great breakaway climber and a reliable domestique in non-TTT stage races in the future.
Great signings mate! Obviously losing Ganna is gonna hurt a bit short term, but the additions more than makes up for it I would assume. Atleast long term. Really happy for you :-)
Happy we were able to find a deal, and Kamna came back to a familiar place where we will have a chance to thrive. Especially cool to hear he might lead a GT outright!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
But yes, I wouldn't change it for the world.
