After three clean sheets and a decisive save in a cup penalty shoot-out against WAC there was no doubting who our Player of the Month for March would be. With close to 50 percent of the vote, our goalie Philipp Köhn won it to retain his title from last month. The battle for second place was a thrilling three-way battle that ended with Nicolas Capaldo having his nose in front.
These were the four candidates:
NICOLAS CAPALDO
A workhorse, monster tackler and midfield dynamo – the performances, and above all the effort put in by Nicolas cannot earn enough praise. There was no stopping the Argentinian this month as he continued to work tirelessly all over the pitch. The 23-year-old even provided two assists in the 4-1 win against WAC. His first nomination for the Player of the Month vote is a long overdue nod to his commitment.
MAURITS KJAERGAARD
The 18-year-old has shown in recent weeks that he is more than capable as playing as a striker. After coming on in Munich, Mau scored our consolation goal – his first strike in the Champions League. He became the youngest player ever (18 years and 255 days old) from both Denmark and our club to score in the competition. UEFA were clearly impressed by his screamer, nominating it for their Goal of the Week vote. He had two further goal involvements against Altach (assist) and WAC (goal), while he converted a clinical penalty also in our cup semi-final shoot-out.
PHILIPP KÖHN
Conceding seven goals in a match is never pleasant for a goalkeeper, of course, but our keeper had virtually no chance of stopping any goals in the Champions League last 16. In fact, he pulled off a sensational save at the start of the match. His figures were certainly impressive in the month's other matches. He conceded only in the two WAC games, with the Swiss stopper keeping three clean sheets!
RASMUS KRISTENSEN
When the going gets tough, Rasmus is our key motivator, whose strength in tackling and endless determination simply infect all of his team-mates. Even if he doesn't have too many goal involvements, the Dane is undoubtedly one of our key players – with the right-back showing every now and again he certainly does know where the net is too. He teed up Benji Sesko to equaliser in our UNIQA ÖFB Cup semi-final, while he captained our side in our last league match of the month and scored.
