Liverpool had a mixed success of signing players from the Bundesliga and will definitely hope that Jeremie Frimpong will not follow an infamous arrival.
There was a Naby Keita for every Dominik Szoboszlai, but there are many reason to expect that your recent arrival has no problems.
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Talk sport understands that the Reds Frimpong’s release clause from Frimpong will trigger and, after an outstanding goal, sign a five-year contract in Anfield and be loaded at Bayer Leverkusen for two years.
Someone who had a similar success before moving from Germany to Merseyside was Sean Dundee, but with results everyone will be desperate to Frimpong to avoid it.
The South Africa striker arrived from Karlsruher in 1998, where he scored the best 36 goals for the career in 85 games and seemed to make a lot of sense.
Manager Roy Evans wanted a backup for Michael Owen, with Robbie Fowler being injured, but he would later call Dundee “terrible” and a player who “shouldn’t have been Liverpool”.
Liverpool paid £ 1.5 million for Dundee, and even he admitted that he was not professional enough this summer.
“It is easy to accuse different people, but I wasn’t fit enough when I went there,” he admitted years later.
“The only big mistake I made was during the break, I didn’t really do much.
“When the training started, this was one of the hardest preparations I had in my life. I did a training session and really had problems going on and had to make additional meetings.”
Due to his slow start, Dundee made his debut in Liverpool only in October and played seven minutes as a replacement in the league cup against Fulham in front of another 11 against Valencia in the UEFA Cup.
Then he finally had the hope that he could hold on to his youth club when Evans pulled him aside after the match to tell him that he could start in the league at the weekend, but Dundee was injured in training the next day and needed a knee surgery.
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Then there was a big mistake number two – with his legs outside of it, he spent too much time in the gym for his glamorous muscles.
The Star, born in Durban, said: “At the time I was injured, my biggest mistake was to make a lot of gym, and that slowed me down.
“I thought to pump iron, that would be the thing, but I should have worked on other things.”
After returning from an injury, Evans had been replaced in the shelter for Houllier, and Dundee only made three more short replacement appearances in the Premier League, and that would be 55 minutes with his combined five games of a total of 55 minutes.
At the time, Dundee said that he was “very hard treated”, but over time the 52-year-old can only look at himself.
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“When Roy went, my time was over there. Gerard didn’t want me,” he said.
“He didn’t want many other players either. You have to accept that. I knew I had to go.
“I’m not a Cristiano Ronaldo fan, but I completely respect his work ethic. He can enjoy his life when he’s done and I should have worked more, I should have done more.
“I don’t say that I was the best player in the world, but I didn’t make my talent optimal.
“After training I turned off, I focused on other things, but the boy who goes all the way is the one who puts everything in football. I didn’t do that.”
However, it was heartbreaking when Dundee grew up a Liverpool fan after an attempt with Everton as a teenager. When the club called him, he was a dream that had become true.
“I had three options, Rangers, Gladbach and Auxerre. Guy Roux, the legendary French coach, was Auxerre Manager, and I was about to sign for them, but I was not 100 percent sure,” he recalled.
“Then I got the call Liverpool was interested and threw everything else out of the window. It happened pretty quickly; probably not even a week from listening, it was pretty signed and sealed.”
The dream only lasted one season for Dundee, which was sent to Stuttgart for £ 1 million next summer after rejecting a change of January to Auxerre.
Dundee is regularly referred to as one of the worst signs of the club and still does not see the funny side two and a half decades later.
“I would have liked to score a goal at Anfield. I wish the followers got to know me better and I could show them that I would be better than what they saw.
“I don’t really laugh about it. A lot of people think it’s a joke, but I still support them. You have the best supporters, what else can I say?”
Now, a Bundesliga commentator who also works in youth football, hopes that his battles in Liverpool can work as a lesson for the younger generation.
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“I want to help young players learn how it is,” he said. “I had the ups and downs and it’s not easy.
“There are now young players with so much money that it is scary that it is better to stay low and concentrate on what is important: football.”
This knowledge will be invaluable for the next generation, but hopefully it is a lesson that Frimpong does not have to learn.