Lots of playing experience for Nicolas

Moritz Nicolas' loan to Roda Kerkrade has paid off, with the 25-year-old goalkeeper collecting plenty of playing experience at the Dutch second division club.

Moritz Nicolas has returned to BORUSSIA-PARK after a successful loan at Roda Kerkrade. The Foals sent the shotstopper out on loan after he had made his competitive debut for Gladbach at the beginning of the season in their first-round match in the DFB-Pokal against SV Oberachern (9-1 win), with the 25-year-old subsequently missing the first two league games of the season at Roda because of this - Nicolas played all of the following 30 games. “It is very important for a ‘keeper to consistently play the full 90 minutes in goal and to collect playing experience. I managed to do that, so I look back on the season positively, even if we expected more from a sporting side and had other ambitions,” said Nicolas, with his team in 16th place out of 20 teams ahead of the last game of the season.

Nicolas came across a familiar face during his time in the Netherlands, with Roel Brouwers, who played as a centre-back for the Foals and became a fan-favourite at the club, his assistant manager in Kerkrade. Brouwers attested to the goalkeeper’s good performances: “Moritz is a brilliant goalkeeper. We are very happy with what he did with us. He was very consistent over the whole season and very rarely made any mistakes.”

Constant exchange with Otte and Kamps

Nicolas was in constant communication with goalkeeping coach Fabian Otte primarily, but also Head of Goalkeeping Uwe Kamps. “Fabi and I were in contact regularly and also met together to analyse some video here and there. Uwe was often there in person and watched lots of games. I also spoke about a lot of things with him,” said Nicolas. The ‘keeper has missed the last three games of the season with a muscle problem and the fact that he won’t be able to play any more games this season because of it means he has returned to BORUSSIA-PARK ahead of time in order to work on his recovery. “In terms of rehab, I just have the best conditions here to get fit again quickly,” said Nicolas.

Roda Kerkrade is already Nicolas' fourth loan spell as a Foal. While he was almost exclusively used as a back-up ‘keeper at both Union Berlin and VfL Osnabrück in his first two loans, he was first-choice last season at third division side Viktoria Köln, playing 31 times. As already stated, he has now added to that with 30 appearances in the Dutch second division. “I have been able to develop in the past two seasons, especially from a footballing side and in this respect have taken a big step forward again,” said Nicolas. He looks back on these four loans positively: “It is already challenging when you have to integrate yourself from scratch every year and have to show what you can do once again, but you can also draw positive conclusions from that because you get to know lots of different leagues and training methods of different goalkeeping coaches, which gives you a lot to take away with you.”