Philipp Ochs receives silver Fritz-Walter Medal

Manuel Gulde (2008, U17, Gold), Marco Terrazzino (2009, U18, Gold), Kevin Akpoguma (2013, U18, Gold) and Benjamin Gimber (2014, U17, Gold) are the other past winners from TSG receive the award, which is named after the former DFB captain Fritz Walter. Ochs came to Hoffenheim as an U13 academy player and broke into the Germany youth teams following good performances for the “Hoffe”. The left-footer was recently a part of Germany’s U19 squad for the home European Championship, which finished fifth to qualify for the 2017 U20 World Cup in South Korea. Ochs scored six goals during the tournament.  

The 19-year-old attacker, who has been deployed at left-back by Julian Nagelsmann, made his Bundesliga debut on matchday 1 of the 2014/15 season against Bayer Leverkusen when he was brought on for an eight-minute cameo.

Delight and incentive

“We are happy that Philipp will be receiving the Fritz-Walter medal. He has developed well in the past year and we are very excited about him for the future as well. This award is also vindication for the club and staff – especially for the work done in our academy and the way that we integrate young talents into the professional squad,” said sporting director Alexander Rosen.

Philipp Ochs: “I am obviously very excited about the award. It is an acknowledgement of my good performances. – it is also an incentive. I know that my performances for the U19s don’t mean anything in the senior team. I will therefore be doing everything I can to make sure that I continue to develop, make more appearances in the Bundesliga and continue to help the team.”

The medals for “Young Player of the Year” have been given since 2004 in co-operation with the Fritz-Walter Foundation. Past winners include Mario Götze, Julian Draxler, Emre Can and Benedikt Höwedes among others.