The curious case of the former Bayern Munich and Nottingham Forest starlet who remains a cult Portsmouth pre-season figure

John Mousinho has intimated his reluctance to throw open the door to a procession of triallists this summer, with the Blues having now returned to training on Monday.

Other Pompey bosses haven’t been as fortunate, forced to reluctantly head down such a path to recruit talent – take Eugen Bopp, for instance.

It has been 14 years since a midfielder whose contract was cancelled by mutual consent by Crewe arrived at Premier League Pompey.

Paul Hart had lost 12 players in the chaotic summer of 2009 which would precede the Blues’ last season in the top flight to date.

Then, on the day Sulaiman Al Fahim’s protracted takeover had been completed, a triallist climbed off the bench to make a two-goal contribution against the Hawks which entered folklore.

Perhaps it wasn’t actually Bopp’s performance that Westleigh Park evening which was memorable, rather what he represented and the subsequent registration revelation which threw more light on wretched club troubles.

Nonetheless, the 25-year-old is permanently entangled with Pompey pre-seasons after his role in that turbulent era.

It was July 2009 when a Hart side swarming with triallists took on the Hawks for the opening pre-season fixture, with 3,216 in attendance.

This was a Blues team of rapidly diminishing powers, still containing Sylvain Distin and Niko Kranjcar, although little more than a month later that remaining family silver would also be sold off.

Goalless at half-time, Bopp was introduced from the bench for Kranjcar, having been invited by his former Nottingham Forest boss to trial with Pompey.

Booked into the Marriott Hotel for a week, the midfielder was a free agent after departing League One Crewe by mutual consent following 17 league appearances in two years.

As Nottingham Forest boss, Hart had recruited the German as 15-year-old from Bayern Munich a decade earlier, going on to make 89 appearances and score 11 goals for the club.

Following five years at the City County, he spent a League One campaign with Rotherham. Now he was at Pompey, via Crewe.

For that Hawks unveiling, with the scoreline goalless Bopp made an impressive second-half impact, netting twice in three minutes to hand the Blues a two-goal lead.

The non-league hosts fought back to claim a 2-2 draw, although Mustafa Tiryaki’s goal was gifted by Bopp’s weak back pass, but let’s not focus on that little slip.

Afterwards, Hart told The News: ‘I can only speak from what I saw in him as a kid at 15-16 and he headed it, was strong, scored goals and was one of the best penalty takers I have ever seen.

‘The problem has been he hasn’t gone on. I think he’s a good player, though.

‘It’s saying the obvious but he fell away and he knows it. I don’t know really what went wrong. He’s got a lot so there’s something missing. Now I have got to find out what’s missing.

‘Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s all going to come back. It’s a chance to take, though.

‘Now he’s getting a little bit of an opportunity to either stay here or put himself in the shop window.’

Bopp subsequently featured in six of Pompey’s pre-season matches, also joining them on tour for the Guimaraes Tournament in Portugal.

With Pompey financial issues beginning to throttle the club and the mysterious Ali Al Faraj now installed as owner, Hart opted to turn the German’s stay into a permanent arrangement in October 2009.

Bopp had continued to train with the club and, ahead of a trip to Stoke in the Carling Cup, moves were initiated to tie him to a contract, thereby allowing him to feature for the relegation-threatened club.

Except he couldn’t, with it discovered the Blues were under an indefinite registration embargo over debts owed to agents – news to their manager.

The Bopp episode dragged into the open the true state of Pompey’s financial implosion and, within four months, they were the first Premier League club to enter administration.

It was more than a year before he found his next club, joining third division German side Carl Zeiss Jena in December 2010 for the remainder of the season.

He next popped up at Conference Premier outfit York, where the midfielder dislocated his shoulder on his full debut against Fleetwood in April 2012, lasting two games.

In the summer of 2014, there was an unsuccessful trial at Hartlepool, before non-league spells at Nottingham-based Dunkirk and Basford United.

In truth, his career never again scaled any heights after two goals against the Hawks, a relative accomplishment still remembered by Pompey fans to this day.