{"id":589811,"date":"2021-04-26T11:47:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T15:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=589811"},"modified":"2021-04-26T11:47:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T15:47:09","slug":"union-berlin-rani-khedira-augsburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/04\/26\/union-berlin-rani-khedira-augsburg\/","title":{"rendered":"Union Berlin Sign Rani Khedira From Augsburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/25\/union-berlins-marvin-friedrich-move-away\/\" target=\"_self\">Union Berlin<\/a> have announced the signing of midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/59e4b92e\/Rani-Khedira\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rani Khedira<\/a> ahead of next season. The 27-year-old is out of contract at Augsburg in the summer.<\/p>\n<h2>Union Berlin Sign Rani Khedira<\/h2>\n<h3>Free Agent in the Summer<\/h3>\n<p>Twenty-seven-year-old Augsburg midfielder Rani Khedira is out of contract in the summer and Union Berlin have made him their first addition ahead of the 2021\/22 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The holding midfielder, who can also play in the centre of defence, will join <em>Die Eisernen<\/em> following a four-year spell with <em>Fuggerst\u00e4dter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Born in Stuttgart, he came through the ranks with his hometown club and made his senior debut for <em>Die Roten<\/em> in 2014. The midfielder then joined RB Leipzig, where he stayed for three seasons, before making the switch to Augsburg.<\/p>\n<p>Brother of Hertha Berlin midfielder Sami, Rani will bring the experience of over 130 Bundesliga appearances with him to the Stadion An der Alten F\u00f6rsterei next season.<\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fc-union-berlin.de\/de\/union-live\/news\/profis\/Rani-Khedira-wird-Unioner-20337I\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Speaking to the club&#8217;s official website,<\/a> Khedira said: \u201cUnion has made a remarkable development in recent years.\u00a0I am delighted to be part of this team from the coming season and to help establish myself in the Bundesliga.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The discussions with those responsible at Union were very convincing, which is why I opted for Union.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oliver Ruhnert, managing director of professional football at the club, added: \u201cRani Khedira is a very experienced Bundesliga professional in the prime of football age.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are just as convinced of his footballing skills as we are of his personality.\u00a0To be able to sign a player of this quality free of charge is of great value to us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Clever Transfer Policy Adds Further Strength in Depth<\/h3>\n<p>Rani Khedira will add competition, along with Robert Andrich, Grischa Pr\u00f6mel, Sebastian Griesbeck and Christian Gentner as Urs Fischer&#8217;s central midfield options, although the latter is out of contract in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>It will give the Union boss another alternative when it comes to team selection, and the competition for places should help the other players.<\/p>\n<p>It is also a very clever move for Union, as stated by Ruhnert. The Bundesliga outfit have acquired a very good midfielder without a transfer fee, and that is how they like to do business. Last summer, <em>Die Eisernen<\/em> saw Andreas Luthe, Robin Knoche, Niko Gie\u00dfelmann, Griesbeck and Cedric Teuchert all arrive on free transfers.<\/p>\n<p>This season, in just their second-ever top-flight campaign, that strategy has worked well for Union, who find themselves eighth in the Bundesliga on 46 points.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"JNToUcETSVNcVO_tYt1f8Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1228902226\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'JNToUcETSVNcVO_tYt1f8Q',sig:'INUQPtUYHhXAWjAPVTH69w4m4ZTgsbxp7YfdfMrYgww=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1228902226',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Union Berlin have announced the signing of midfielder Rani Khedira ahead of next season. The 27-year-old is out of contract at Augsburg in the summer. Union Berlin Sign Rani Khedira Free Agent in the Summer Twenty-seven-year-old Augsburg midfielder Rani Khedira is out of contract in the summer and Union Berlin have made him their first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":589818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30,28],"tags":[881,8578,4119],"class_list":["post-589811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bundesliga","category-news","category-transfers","tag-augsburg","tag-rani-khedira","tag-union-berlin"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}