Rapp on Harres' improbable rise: “Willing to lend him our trust.”

After the player himself remarked on his remarkable rise from the German fourth division to the first in a post-match interview on Saturday, Holstein Kiel head-coach Marcel Rapp has added some comments on surprise new starter Phil Harres. The 22-year-old was signed from fourth-tier side FC 08 Homburg this offseason after scoring 24 goals in the Regionalliga last year. 

Prior to just nine days ago, Harres never even featured above the German third tier and indeed only made one brief 3. Liga appearance (five minutes as a sub) for Dynamo Dresden during the 2022/23 campaign. Rapp gave the youngster his first Bundesliga minutes as a late substitute against Stuttgart in the final ten-minutes of the match-day eight encounter against Stuttgart. 

Harres managed to garner an assist on Armin Gigovic’s late pullback goal in the 84th minute. Rapp opted to include Harres in the starting XI for Tuesday’s Pokal fixture against Köln. In hindsight, the move made sense as Harres did score twice for Homburg in the cup last year as the Saarland side made a surprise run to the Round-of-16. 

Though he didn’t score in Kiel’s historic first-ever Bundesliga win over Heidenheim on Saturday, the native Westphalian proved a constant attacking menace for the Storks. Harres didn’t miss out on a chance to score his inaugural Bundesliga goal by much. The Datteln-native made a strong case for himself with consistently impressive physical play. 

“Phil had some adjustment problems at the beginning,” Rapp – as quoted in an article written by German footballing journalist Sebastian Wolff – noted afterwards, “Coming from the Regional League, he was nevertheless eager to learn and not above playing for the reserves.” 

“Phil is symbolic of Holstein’s philosophy,” Rapp continued in Wulff’s article, “We are willing to bring a player up from the fourth tier and lend him our trust.”