Far more often than not, the 49ers’ recruitment has been exceptional since they took ownership of Leeds United.
But they’re certainly not perfect.
A couple of players who have been brought in during Daniel Farke’s tenure as manager have failed to make the impact the 49ers would have hoped for.
One of these players was always on the fringes of Farke’s squad ever since he arrived.
The player in question? Isaac Schmidt, who has just completed a permanent move away from Elland Road.
49ers will be relieved as Isaac Schmidt completes his move to Young Boys
Schmidt, 26, was signed in 2024 for around £2.5million from Swiss side FC St. Gallen.
Schmidt was brought in to provide cover and competition at full-back, but found gametime extremely hard to come by during United’s Championship-winning campaign.
The Swiss international played a total of 94 minutes across his 12 league appearances, failing to make a single start. More often than not, when he was subbed on, Farke deployed Schmidt on the wing, which tells you all you need to know about what Farke thought of his defensive abilities.
When Leeds were promoted to the Premier League, Schmidt was not kept around. He was swiftly loaned out to Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga. He only managed to play a total of 677 league minutes for them last season. (Sofascore)
After clearly making such an error when it comes to signing Schmidt, the 49ers have had their blushes spared.
Schmidt was recently sold by Leeds to Young Boys for a fee in the region of £2million Graham Smyth confirmed. Significantly, this fee is enough to ensure Leeds will not book a loss on the player, helping their SCR ahead of the new season.
49ers have done excellently well to sell Isaac Schmidt
For the 49ers to more or less break even on Schmidt is an exceptional piece of business.
It was painfully apparent every time he made an appearance that he was not good enough for Leeds. The 49ers will surely have realised quickly that they made a mistake by signing him.
Whilst the 49ers should be criticised for signing Schmidt in the first place, they did well to move him on this summer. Hopefully, they can do the same for other fringe players such as Largie Ramazani and Max Wober.
With all due respect to Schmidt, the fact that he has returned to Switzerland with Young Boys speaks volumes when it comes to his quality as a player.
The whole Schmidt saga was a rare miscalculation from the 49ers. The fact that they have cleaned this mess up so well, however, is something we can take confidence from as supporters moving forward.
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