Suddenly Champions League, not a collapse? German's stunning comeback
Suddenly Champions League, not a collapse? German's stunning comeback "When you look at our team, you quickly realize: Fàbregas didn’t just make me better, he made all of us better and, to some extent, took us to a new level," Marc Oliver Kempf raved about his coach Cesc Fàbregas to 'Sport1' in March 2025, while he was in the process of establishing himself with Como in Serie A. Kempf managed to raise that level even further within a year and, in April 2026, is firmly on course for the Champions League.
A return to Europe’s premier club competition once again had seemed almost impossible for the 31-year-old just a few years ago. After Kempf had become no more than a backup at VfB Stuttgart in the 2022/23 season, he decided to move to Hertha BSC in the winter. Backed by major investor money, the Old Lady was supposed to become a “Big City Club.
” The project failed spectacularly. Kempf was relegated to the 2. Bundesliga with Hertha in the summer of 2023 and, at 28, was no longer even under contract at a club in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
When everything already looked like a downward spiral, Cesc Fàbregas saw something very different in Kempf. After winning promotion to Serie A with Como in the summer of 2024, the coach and former world-class player wanted to lure him to Lombardy. 📸 Maja Hitij - 2024 Getty Images "Shortly before the end of the transfer window in the summer, my agent told me that Como were interested.
Not long after that, the coach called me and we had a 10- to 15-minute conversation to get a feel for each other. We talked about the sporting direction, how he sees me, and how I feel," Kempf told 'Sport1'. A few days later, Como brought the defender to Italy for €2.