Turkish Delights?

Seven weeks on from the last post on FM Ramblings and finally I am getting round to updating the site with some tales from Turkey.  The last time I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) I had just taken over at Kayserispor in Turkey after an epic spell with Hansa Rostock.  I had to wait 11 months from leaving Hansa to being offered a job in the top flight of Greece or Turkey, and when it came Kayserispor fit the bill perfectly.  They were a steady yet unspectacular top flight club with a good stadium.  The facilities weren’t the best but and the playing squad wasn’t much better.  When I took over they had just finished above the relegation zone in the top flight in Turkey.

The club ply their trade at the Kadir Has Stadium in Kayersi which is a city in central Turkey.  When I took over I shared a photo of the stadium on twitter and quite a few seemed impressed.  I think the word ‘spaceship’ was used on more than one occasion.

After getting my feet under the desk I decided to have a look at the financial side of things to see how I could adapt a small and midfield heavy squad to fit my needs.  I decided that I would stick with what I knew and try and implement the 4-2-3-1 that was so successful at Hansa.  To make this work the key areas that I needed to strengthen from the squad I inherited was AMR (IF) and ST (CF).  I decided to invert the formation from how it finished at Hansa to suit the squad at Kayserispor.  With that in mind I decided to hit the transfer market.  There are rules in Turkey about how many foreign players can feature, so I had to cast most of my net in Turkey itself, a market I wasn’t too familiar with.

First through the door was Albanian striker Adonis Lluca signed for £1.3m from Greek side Kerkyra.  Whilst not Turkish, he was within budget and had some promising stats to fill the striking void.  I was particularly happy with his dribbling, pace and finishing as I envisaged a lot of counter attacking from us to start with, especially at the likes of Galatasary, Fenerbache and Besiktas.

Next to arrive was Caio Henrique, a Brazillian free agent signed as an attacking wing back.  He was a good age and although not Turkish, by far the best option available to us with our limited financial clout.

Next came a collection of Turkish players, some on loan, some on free transfers.  These were all signed as squad players to bolster numbers and also give us more Turkish players in the playing squad.

To keep Shrewnaldo happy I brought in a chap from Rapid Vienna on loan to play at CB although I hoped his height would be handy in the opposition box as well when the chance arose.

The final piece in the jigsaw for the time being was a bit of a gamble, but one I was prepared to take.  After selling my want-away left back to Spezia in Italy for £4.5m I had the bonus of a little bit of extra cash to utilise whilst looking for an AMR to play.  This role was an IF as opposed to a winger role at Hansa.  I wanted to buy Turkish and after some deliberation I decided to splash a club record £3.2m on Atilla Gulle from Samsunspor.  He is very young and quite raw, but the scouts rate him very highly and he has potential to grow.  Could he be my new Lamine Diallo?

With all the new players in place we lined up for our first pre-season game against a third tier side.

I was quietly confident that we had the makings of a decent side, and expected that we would make light work of K. Marasspor whoever they may be.  61 seconds in to the game and it was time to reassess…

The second friendly saw us draw 3-3 with another third tier side.  We probably should have won but they were very economical with their finishing.

 

Thankfully as the squad got to know each other and their new manager things settled down, and we picked up a few wins in pre-season with Lluca and Gulle settling in to things nicely.  An opening 4-2 defeat away at Galatasary promised much and in our third game we got our first league win in a bit of an epic game away to Gaziantepspor.

 

The season progressed and we seemed to be in danger of getting sucked in to the relegation battle or the Europa league battle in equal amounts as things panned out.  With ten games to go we were firmly ensconced in the middle of the table.  Safety was my primary aim but at this point I must confess to checking out that the Europa League qualification could go as low as 7th place.

Ultimately it wasn’t to be and we finished in 11th place.  We finished on 46 points along with two other clubs and despite having the best goal difference we were placed below them on the head to head which is what the Turkish league used to separate clubs.

Three places and six points better off than the previous season points to progress being made, and I was confident that we could challenge the Europa League spots the following season.

Before the season got under way it was nice to find out that my achievements at Hansa hadn’t been forgotten.

God knows why they needed a loan though, they have half a billion quid in the bank when I left them!!

Back to Kayseri and we added to the squad with a couple of new players and a couple of loanees but kept the bulk of the squad together.  Gulle and Lluca both had a good first year at the club as their stats demonstrate.

I did make a cheeky bid to bring an old friend to Turkey (he had fallen out with Guardiola who took over and destroyed my Hansa team) but his agent wasn’t willing to discuss a 90% wage cut.

More seriously, finances warrant a mention.  We have the 13th highest (or 6th lowest) in the league, but the bigger pictures is that Galatasary, Fenerbache and Besiktas spend more on wages that the other 15 clubs in the division combined.  It is going to take some breaking in to this party.

 

The first win of my first season was a seven goal thriller, but that was overshadowed by the first win of the second season that came on the opening day.

The 4-2-3-1 approach was working very well, especially with the tweaks that I made after taking over.  The main benefit was the number of players that managed to get in and around the box.  A large proportion of goals are assisted from the left wing area and are scored by either our CF, AMC (AP) or AMR (IF).  With our new AML playing out wide and being supported by the FB a number of opposition players are drawn to this side of the pitch.  More often than not the advancing trio find themselves three against three and thankfully manage to score quite a few goals from these chances created my the AML.

 

Galatasary away once again proved a tricky game, but once again we gave them a good run for their money creating more clear cut chances.  Their keeper played a blinder but it was a sign that despite the gulf in finances and to some extent quality we can still give them a game.

Things progressed and a blinding spell in the middle of the season saw us secure Europa League football with three games to go.  Galatasary and Bursaspor were so far ahead in first and second that I got a bit of a shock when I checked the table with one game remaining to find that we were only two points behind second placed Bursaspor and the coveted second Champions League slot.

We had a home game against 12th placed Sivasspor and things looked a little more promising when I checked and found out that Bursaspor were at home to none other than Galatasary.  The positivity lessened a little when I realised that even if we won Bursa only needed a point due to their superior head to head record against us (3-3/0-3).  The next 90 minutes was a total rollercoaster…

3 GOAL Galatasary (3rd)
7 GOAL Bursaspor (3rd)
21 GOAL Sivasspor (3rd)
33 GOAL Galatasary (3rd)
45 GOAL Kayserispor (3rd)

At half time Gala are fulfilling their part of the bargain but we are drawing and struggling a little bit.  I decided to drop my AMC (AP) to CM (AP) to free him from the clutches of Sivasspor’s two DMC’s in the hope of creating a little more.

47 GOAL Bursaspor (3rd)
63 GOAL Kayserispor (3rd)
77 GOAL Galatasary (2nd)
89 GOAL Galatasary (2nd)

FT Bursaspor 2-4 Galatasary
FT Kayserispor 2-1 Sivasspor

Unbelievable as someone once said!  In all seriousness, 2nd place and CL is way beyond any expectations.  I didn’t see is breaking in to the top three for 4-5 years, so was ecstatic with this achievement.  I fear for us in the CL (if we get through the play off) but those worries are for another day.

I am looking forward to the financial windfall to improve the pretty poor infrastructure to hopefully avoid any further youth intakes as bad as this.

One last mention for the drastically over complicated cup that saw us lost in the semi finals and me fall out with my best CB after he was sent off 3 minutes in to the second leg of the semi against Fenerbache.  Things didn’t go well and the CB is on his way to Siena in Serie A (not much of a punishment really).

It was missed out earlier but I will chuck in the league fixtures too after I went to the both of cutting, pasting and joining.  As you can see, its never dull in Turkey.  I do think I need to look at tightening up at the back though, a few too many thrillers in there for a virtually ageing manager…

End of an Era

They say a picture tells a thousand words…

After 634 games and over 1,200 goals scored my time at Hansa has come to an end.  It has been a save to rival my epic Amiens effort on FM13, and was probably more rewarding as I never did manage to win the Champions League with the French club.  Only one trophy alluded me whilst at Hansa and that is the Europa League, which is a success in itself that I only competed in it twice.

I decided that the 2026/27 was to be my last quite early on in the season, and then played with a level of abandon as I had my heart set on a move.  At one point I was concerned about whether the last season might peter out, but how wrong I was.

Firstly we made four cup finals (I count them all!).

So four cups secured, and a comfortable league season meant that we won five trophies in my final season.  The haul of 78 points was the second highest of our six Bundesliga crowns.

A final look at this season showing the best 11 as assessed by the fans.  The real stars were Thoma Gerxhaliu who threatened to unseat Lamine Diallo from both club and national teams.  Welshman Wayne Edwards weighed in with 21 goals from AML (IF) and Peter Bosnkaj filled the Gentner shaped hole very well.

The all  time best 11 made interesting reading utilising the 4-5-1 that secured our first Bundesliga title.  Brinkies (GK), Grupe (CB), Diallo (MR), Schunemann (CM) and Cabral are all academy products which was one of my aims at the start of the save.

In the end this little club form Notrh East Germany managed a pretty impressive haul under the guidance of a managerial novice from North East England.  The GDR trophy is the last ever East German league title that Hansa won; everything else came under my stewardship from 2013 onwards.

The progress was slow to start as I had a few false starts, but once established at the top we held our own and then some.

It wouldn’t be a Hansa update on FM Ramblings without mentioning Lamine Diallo, a 14 year old local lad who came through my first ever youth intake at Hansa.  He went on to captain the club domestic and European glory and played for his country in a World Cup final.  A final Lamine screenie…

So with Hansa done and dusted, it was time to find myself a new home.  The wheels of democracy decreed that despite a scare of short summer seasons in Scandinavia, my next destination would be Greece or Turkey…

and 11 months and one day after leaving Hansa I was back in the game…

More of which later

 

 

 

 

 

Pastures new

Two seasons ago I began to get itchy feet at Hansa having won every competition possible during my time at the club.  I thought about moving on but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it so was pleased when the few kind souls who took part in a poll decreed that I was to carry on at Hansa.

The first season after the poll we won the Bundesliga and Champions League, the two big competitions we wanted at the start of the season.  Since then we have added a second European Super Cup and a second World Club Championship to the haul and with ten games to go of the season are still the the Champions League and German Cup as well as sitting top of the league.  I am hoping to go out with a clean sweep.

When I say go out, I mean that I have decided this will be the last season I spend in Northern Germany with Hansa.  It has been fun but a new challenge really does beckon.  The new challenge will be to win the Champions League with a club from a country that has never tasted success in the premier European club competition.

I plan to take over a top flight club from one of the aforementioned countries, but as ever, need a little help whittling things down.

Crossed straight off the list are England, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Scotland (I know) and Spain.

As well as those countries I am exercising some executive powers and crossing off Belgium and France after my Antwerp and Amiens saves of recent times.    I am also crossing off Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Wales as I want to manage in continental Europe.  The final exemption goes to Israel who aren’t really in Europe and managing there doesn’t appeal one bit (sorry any Israeli football aficionados).

I have included Serbia on the basis that Red Star were a Yugoslav team rather than a Serbian team when they won it (and they didn’t deserve to win it anyway!).

That leaves 20 countries that I have grouped together very loosely.

Alpine – Austria and Switzerland

Central Europe – Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia

Eastern Europe – Bulgaria and Poland

Former Yugoslavia – Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia

Scandinavia – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

Southern Europe – Greece, Turkey

Soviet – Belarus, Russia, Ukraine

Now it is time for another poll as to which area the challenge will take place in.  I will load all of the league from the winning area and take the first top flight job I am able to secure.  I have my preferred areas but don’t want to influence the wheels of democracy.  If you want to quiz me on twitter about my preferences then feel free (@FMramblings).

I will tie up the loose ends at Hansa with a post on here, but just want to get the new regions added on ready for next season.

Thanks for reading and please vote…

 

 

A German club for German people (and a few foreign chaps for now)

After the result of the first ever poll I’ve ran on FM Ramblings it was time to settle down for another season at Hansa.  The difference this year would be the self imposed 6+5 rule whereby I would have to have a minimum of six German qualified players in any starting line up in a competitive game.  Last season we won the league with a core of four German players (Gentner, Diallo, Framberger and Dohmen) with a lot of fringe players bringing up the average from time to time.

With these new rules in mind I set about bringing some fresh blood in to the squad.  I have a number of youth players who I hope to blood this season but they aren’t ready for regular first team football.

The first addition was Gerd Zeyer signed for £8m from Gladbach.  Zeyer was signed to replace Framberger who had turned 30 and started to decline in some key areas.

Following Zeyer through the door was Pascal Schroder, a young attacking left back signed from Frankfurt for £5.25m.  We do have the current German national left back Robert Dais in our ranks but he is more defensivly minded were as I am hoping Schroder will develop in to a top class attacking full back.

Conscious of the fact that the first two players brought in were to replace or compliment positions where I already had German players I decided to bring in a sub keeper after selling the Argentine Rae to Koln for a tidy profit.  My scouts didn’t bring back many promising options in all fairness but I splashed a modest £2m on Max Berg from Bayern.

Central midfield was dominated by Carlos Van Duijn (Dutch) and Devrim Karakas (Turkish) last year so I wanted to bring in options in this area.  First in was Marcel Richter signed for a bargain £1.3m from Leverkusen.  I envisage him sliding in at CM as a DLP and hope that he can flourish at Hansa.  He has time on his side and some promising stats.

Then things became a little crazy…

My scouts had identified a young lad by the name of Dieter Bauer (such a German name!) at 1860 Munich as a star of the future.

17 year old and valued at £975k which seemed reasonable.  He had only made a handful of first team appearances for the second tier side and I hoped to secure him for around £4-5m, heading up to maybe £7-8m if they played hardball.  1860 however played rock-solid-ball rather than hardball.  £15m?  Turned down. £20m?  Turned down.  £25m?  Negotiated to £40m!!  I baulked at that and decided against it.  Then I had second thoughts.  I had plenty in the bank having just sold Nestor Garcia to Milan for £29.5m.  £30m later (plus add ons!) and Dieter was on his way north from Munich to Hansa.  Had I lost my marbles?  Quite possibly, but he has bucked loads of potential and I still had £45m in the kitty after this deal was done.  Welcome to Hansa Mr Bauer (sounds like a line from 24).

Now for the serious business of fitting these players in to the team.  To say it was a seamless transition would be a bit of an understatement.

The first league game against Augsburg was a particular highlight.  Whilst we only won 2-0 (with goals from Stallbaum, an academy graduate playing AMR), we dominated from start to finish, as drawn out in the match stats.

It was a fairly spectacular first half of the season, with the nature of the wins but also the nature of the defeats we suffered.

13 wins and 4 losses was reasonable, but the four losses were 0-3, 2-6, 1-2 and 0-4.  The 0-4 at home to Leverkusen was a strange game to say the least.  We were foiled by a top class display from the Bayer keeper and undone with some clinical finishing at the other end including the compulsory goal from ex player Nioradze.

Things progressed steadily in the second half of the season with the goals continuing to go in at both ends.

Despite a final game loss against Hoffenheim we were able to retain our title making it a hattrick of Bundesliga crowns, once again holding of the might of Dortmund and Bayern.

One of the reasons we lost to Hoffenheim was that it wasn’t actually our last game of the season, following a Champions League campaign to remember.

The second leg against PSG saw a change in formation for the first time in three seasons.  I had become too comfortable and expected our attacking formation to conquer all.  Most of the time it was very good at doing so, but PSG had a obscenely strong squad and I didn’t want to get caught out going gung ho with a 2-0 first leg lead.  I was still confident of getting a result but reverted to the 4-4-1-1 that won us our first title 6-7 years ago (with some modifications).

The key to the win was the space Diallo was able to find between the two lines of four PSG fielded, winning a penalty then sliding a ball inside the full back for Edwards to net his second goal.

That brought us to the final against Juventus (who had just secured their fourth Serie A title in a row).  The final was being help in Germany at Olympiastadion in Berlin.  Whether this was an advantage I don’t know, but this happened…

A tight game where we had more of the ball but no clear cut chances.  That didn’t matter as goals from the evergreen Lamine Diallo and left back Robert Dais (both German!) helped us secure a second Champions League crown and an impressive double.  I did have concerns about this season but the change in approach has paid huge dividends.

So that was that, a more than decent season using 6+5.

Rather than waiting so long for the next post I am planning on doing a piece on some of the players that have come through this season and also some of the players in the u19 that I have high hopes for.  I will even give you some half baked tactical analysis, what more could you want?

One final mention has to go to Thoma Gerxhaliu who was brought in as the eventual replacement for Lamine Diallo but at times outshone him with 15 goals and 15 assists in his first full season at the club.

 

The people have spoken

At the end of my last post on FM Ramblings I mooted leaving Hansa for a job offer in Tuscany with Livorno of Serie B.  I was in two minds on what was best to do so left it to the long suffering readers to make the call.  With a turnout of 26% it wasn’t the most representative of polls, but these are the problems democracy faces in this day and age.

It was a close call to say the least, but my immediate future remains in Rostock according to you the people.

With this in mind I have decided to implement a couple of strategies and restrictions on myself to keep it interesting.  When I started out my plan was develop the academy and field a team primarily made up of Germans if not academy products.  I strayed away from that as things progressed and my scouts brought exotic players to my attention.

From this season onwards I will look to use the ill-fated 6+5 rule and have a minimum of six German qualified players in my starting line up in all competitions.  I will endeavor to make as many of these youth team graduates as possible.  The infrastructure at the club is excellent yet the last two intakes have been disappointing.  Hopefully this will change soon.

German players come at a premium financially so I imagine I will have to develop more than I buy, although I expect a little windfall when I sell some of the non-German players currently in the squad.

This is the first team squad as it stands with the German players highlighted.

Four of the ten (Christiansen, Diallo, Boll and Cabral) are academy graduates but I am hopeful they will be joined by another batch if not this season than next as I have a few who I need to throw in at the deep end to see if they sink or swim.  I will do another post soon introducing some of the prospects and detailing the ins and outs at the club.

NB – The 6+5 is a minimum,  the dream is a starting line up of home grown players.  I wonder who the next Lamine Diallo will be?

Auf Wiedersehen?

With the celebrations of our second Bundesliga crown fresh in the memory, it was time to get down to business and see if we could defend the title and add any further silverware to the cabinet.  As is always the case in Germany, it was soon time to crack on with the pre-season starting in June.  A number of the squad were away at the Euro 2024 tournament that was being held in Dubai following an investment from FIFA (I’m kidding).

I was more than happy with the squad at my disposal but as usual decided to freshen things  up a little bit as well as generate a little extra income.

Before looking at the transfers I thought I would share a few indicators of how the global profile of the club was growing.

A training kit sponsor was most definitely a new concept for Hansa Rostock, but every penny counts as they say.  With that principle in mind I decided to cash in on some of the crazy offers that were coming in for some of our players.  Guilio Pastore was sold to Man City for £17.75m 18 months after arriving on a free transfer.  He seemed solid enough but I had a nagging feeling that he was never going to be in the same league as the departed Sommer so took the money and banked it.  He was joined in the departure lounge by Brewster Spencer and Carlos Jansen.  Spencer was also signed on a free and brought in £2.1m from Schalke (where all my players seem to go).  Jansen was a tough one as he has been a solid performer at CB, but £15m for a 28 year old was again too good to turn down.

I brought a host of new players in to the club, some as first team challengers, some most definitely for the future.  In the former category we had Jesus Tomas (£0) and Nahuel Rae (£2.0m), direct replacements for Jansen and Pastore.

I searched all over for a keeper and I thought Rae was the best available within a reasonable price bracket.  That was until my scouts informed of a young chap called Andres who had just been released from the Nou Camp.  I decided to take a chance on him as he had the potential to be the true heir to Sommer’s throne.

To complement these signings I also brought in two teenagers identified by the scouts as potential stars of the future.  Klaus Adam joined form Sturm Graz for a bargain £7.25k and Christian Meyer came in from fellow Austrian club Rapid Vienna for a cool £1m.

I did get involved in some more wheeler dealing in the January window, more of which later.

It was an easy decision to retain the 4-2-3-1 formation that served us so well the previous season, with some tweaks along the way.  At home the DLP(D) wasn’t getting involved enough in the game given his level of ability so was occasionally switched to DLP(S) depending on the level of the opposition.  In addition to that we were still prone to a long ball over the top so I switched one of the CDs from defend to cover so he would drop off a little to try and sweep up any balls launched over.

As well as this I found myself setting silly targets.  After a good start I had it in my head that we could score 100 goals over the course a 34 game season (you can blame @Acidphire21 for that one after I read of his epic efforts with Inter).  The first half of the season panned out like this, so whilst it was a stretch, the 100 goal target was doable.

46 goals in 17 games left us needing 54 in the next 17 for the 100 goal mark.  Away from silly targets we were sitting pretty in the league, as you would hope after a more than decent first half to the season.

Then came the January transfer window, and things started to go a bit crazy.  In one day I was offered £110m for three of my players.  £30m for Monareng from Dortmund, £30m for Nestor Garcia from Juventus and £50m for Lamine Diallo from Real Madrid.  I decided that Monereng was the least important to the team and he was also due to head off to the African Nations Cup so coupled with the fact that we were 15 points ahead of Dortmnd the sale went through.

I took the chance to reinvest some of the money on two potential replacements for Monareng in the form of Thoma Gerzhaliu (£7.25m) from Freiburg and Stephan Woulfsbach (£500k) from FC Kobenhavn.  Gerxhaliu cost way more than I would have liked to have paid, but I haven’t made many gambles in this job and I had a good feeling about this kid.

The goals kept rattling in and we maintained our place at the summit, but after a 0-1 loss against Schalke (the only game of the season we failed to score in) the table was suddenly looking a little tight with only three games to go.

Back to back wins for both Bayern and ourselves meant that it would all be decided on the last day of the season.

We were at home to 15th place Hannover and Bayern faced 9th placed Koln at the Allianz Arena.  Our superior goal different meant that we just had to match Bayern and we would retain our crown.  Easy right?  Well…

At half time things we still on a knife edge as a nervy performance saw us leading by the narrowest of margins.  Bayern were matching us step for step.

The 82nd minute at the Allianz Arena saw Bayern go 3-0, yet we were still spluttering away.  We had plenty of the ball and plenty of chances but nothing was going our way.  Then in the 83rd minute Hannover broke on the counter…

The goal was dubious to say the least with a linesman’s flag conspicious in its absence.  Cabral was furious with the assistant referee, and rightly so.  Seven minutes left and the title was slipping away.  Bayern weren’t going to throw away a three goal lead so we HAD to score.  A few tweaks were made, and I knew we would get at least one chance.  I switched from extended highlights to full game.  We hammered on the door and Gentner put a chance just over from a left wing cross.

Four minutes remained when Edwards found Gentner on the corner of the six yard box with half the Hannover team trying to block him out.  He swung his left foot at the bouncing ball and it rocketed in to the far corner.  Think AGUEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOO as that is how I celebrated……on a busy commuter train!  In the nick of time we had snatched it and we also had time to hit the post in the last minute.  Gentner’s last gasp winner was our 92nd league goal leaving us shy of the 100 target but also an improvement on the 84 of the previous season.

PHEW.

Europe was the other aim of the season, but alas we bowed out the the Champions League despite not losing any games.

This run included a famous 3-2 win in the Nou Camp made all the sweeter by the goal and two assists from the every reliable Lamine Diallo.  To see a product of our academy who came through in my first intake score at the Nou Camp was superb.  We rode our luck a little, but don’t most teams away to the mighty Barca?

So another title, another decent tilt in Europe and yet another healthy trading profit in the transfer market.  In twelve seasons at the club we have spent £60.1m in transfer fees, only paying more than £10m on one occasion for Gentner (who just more than justified it).  In the same period we have earned£111.8m in transfer fees, a profit of more than £50m.  Coupled with the vast income from the German TV deal, Bundesliga prize money and the Champions League, this small club from the former DDR literally had more money than it knew what to do with.

At this point I found myself at a crossroads.  My feet had become a little itchy,  I was thinking about a move.  Could I do it?  Could  I bring myself to manage another club or should I have another tilt at the Champions League?

I had most definitely earned my spurs so to speak, winning every trophy we entered bar the Europa League (due to a flukey away goal!!!).

So I have two choices.  I saved the game at the end of the season and then splintered off a new branch.  The decision is to I stay at Hansa and continue to build a legacy and develop some of the extremely promising young players at the club, or do I have a blast at the first club in Tuscany who offered me a job?

Hansa Rostock or (Serie B outfit) Livorno, you decide?

Viva la Revolution

A change is as good as a rest by all accounts.  After finally getting over my own stupidity of playing a third of a season whilst under the influence and therefore cocking up majorly I had a decision to make.  Would I carry on at Hansa and look to rectify my mistakes or was it time to move on?  I knew deep down that I couldn’t leave Hansa without further success as it would be a bit crappy to leave on a low after everything that has been achieved.

After knuckling down and deciding to stay I then decided that a change was needed.  We were still playing (the albeit adapted version of) 4-1-4-1 that was set up in the third tier seven seasons ago.  The tactic was developed to give a steady base with the protection in front of the back four and also a busy midfield relying on players getting forward.  Since then the stature of the club and the quality of the players available has increased hugely yet we were still playing a fairly conservative formation.  I decided to move out of my comfort zone and try something totally different.

Following a conversation with @Acidphire21 on twitter I decided to try a more attacking formation and change the style of play to be more expansive.  Throughout most of my saves on all the FM incarnations I have leaned toward more conservative football and any success tends to be based on 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 wins rather than any thrashing.  Obviously there have been the occasional big wins, but they are the exception rather than the norm.  In five seasons in the Bundesliga we averaged 55 goals a season and conceded an average of 38 a season over the course of 34 games; 1.6 per game scored and 1.1 per game conceded.  Whilst this was solid enough, I felt that a change was needed as teams were starting to defend tighter as our rep increased.

Last season we used this back up tactic as a means of getting more players up the field, but it wasn’t thought out and still has the hallmark of my conservatism with two DMs.  It worked well but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the gap in midfield was too much.

Following the twitter conversation mentioned earlier I decided to mimic Acidphire21’s 4-2-3-1 which effectively meant pushing up the two DMs in to CM.

This kept some of the facets of our 4-1-4-1; namely the shorter passing, passing in to space, playing out of defence and hassling opponents.  New to my approach was a lower tempo and playing higher up.  Confession time now; I had never really changed the tempo option and before this didn’t understand the difference it would have.  I will offer a comparison to the difference it has had for me in due course.

We also had a busy time in the transfer market with some tough calls made when it came to selling players.  I am often over sentimental when it comes to retaining players longer than I should, and decided that a couple of offers that came in for some of our players were too good to turn down.  The two standout departures were Mats Daelhi and Matty Cuff for £17.25m and £13m respectively.  Daelhi was signed for a record fee of £2.5 prior to our first Bundesliga campaign five years ago although he was also with us during our 3.Liga years many moons ago.  Daelhi was now 28 and whilst he had produced consistently he was also rather injury prone featuring in on 65% of the league games during his time at the club.

The second departure was that of Matty Cuff, the English defensive midfielder signed on a Bosman free from Chelsea two seasons ago.  Whilst his stats were excellent he never really settled and the change in formation meant that whilst he could have been a useful squad player, £13m from Spurs was too much to turn down for a player signed on a free 24 months earlier.

The final major departure was a sad one as Ze Lucas left on a free after failing to agree terms.  At 28 his agent was desperate to get him a final big pay day, but we aren’t in the business of giving 28 year old Brazilian’s five year deals on double wages here in East Germany.

The change in tactic meant that a decent deep lying playmaker to play in centre midfield was needed.  Daelhi would have been the man but with £17.5m in the bank I managed to snap up Youri Tielemans on a free following the expiry of his contract at Benfica.  Alas he proved to be a replacement for Daelhi on the treatment table more than he and I would have liked in his first season.

With Ze Lucas having left I also decided to bring in another striker, and once again it was a freebie in the form of the pompously named Brewster Spencer joining following his release from Manchester City.  I was undecided but put it to the good folk of twitter and was convinced that he was worth a pop for nothing.

As usual, the day after the transfer window shut players started dropping like flies, with my main concern being the loss of Lamine Diallo, the fulcrum of the new formation at AMC.  I decided to be clever and sign a 33 year old Lewis Holtby on a free, only to realise just after offering him a two year deal on more money than was sensible that he would be ineligible for league games as the registration window had closed.  Oops.

So far it was a case of £30m banked and nothing spent on three replacements.  It was either very shrewd or would turn out to be a disaster.  Moving on to some actual (virtual) football, it was time to see how the new tactic worked out in preseason and what tweaks were needed.  To coin an understatement, the results were pleasing.

We switched to the new tactic after the Zenit game and proceded to bang in 29 goals in seven games against some reasonable opposition.  Happy with how things were panning out I decided to launch straight in to the league campaign.  I was happy that the depth in the squad would allow me to rotate heavily for the Europa League and German Cup and still have a chance of progressing in them.

A very pleasing first half of the season saw us progress from the Europa League and left us in contention in the title race as well.

The January transfer window was a busy one, and one where I took advantage of one of the new features available in FM14.  Two of my long term targets moved in to the final six months of their contracts and therefore became available on pre-contract agreements.  Both of them were happy to sign for Rostock so were lined up to join in the summer at the end of their contracts.  However, the new feature in question borrows something from eBay and has a “buy it now” option.

Thanks to this nifty option I picked up Wayne Edwards from Man City for £1.9m and Carlos Van Duijn from Olympiakos for £1.4m.  Needless to say, when they both joined in January their prospective values had increased somewhat.

They were joined by someone who I may or may not have bought (for £700k) purely on the basis of his name…

What does warrant a mention is the vast increase in the spread of goals that the change in formation brought.  Prior to this season our most prolific season in front of goal was the 2020/21 title winning season.  Ze Lucas bagged 26 goals but was the only player to get in to double figures.  With the new 4-2-3-1 both the AMR, AMC and AMR were weighing in with plenty of goals as well as Gentner up top.  All four would end up in double figures for the season.

The reason for this was quite obvious; they were all much higher up the pitch than they were in the 4-1-4-1.  Using the home league game against Bayern as a benchmark, the shots screen tells the story.

The left hand diagram shows shots from outside the box and also from angles were as the diagram on the right from this season shows a much more balanced approach with four goals coming from the six yard box.

The 4-1-4-1 lead to a large area of the pitch being empty even when going forward, and the fact that everyone apart from the CF had to make runs to support allowed the opposition time to get organised at the back, thus leaving us with the option of a long shot or losing possession as there is little support.

Following the switch to 4-2-3-1 we almost had an embarrassment of options as illustrated here.  We had seven against seven including two front post options, and on this instance Kouame highlighted in red slotted home at the front post.

The second half of the season was an equally fruitful time for us, and as the business end of the season approached things were looking like this.

With three games to go things were very much in our hands, but it wasn’t certain as we were due to face Leverkusen, Dortmund and Frankfurt.  This first two of these had potential to be tricky with Leverkusen in second place and Dortmund strong despite their league position.

We had the added bonus of being in both cups, although the Europa League looked a stretch too far as we lost 2-3 at home to Liverpool in the semi-final first leg following an 8th minute red card for my DLP (his third of the season the radgie!).  The second leg gave us a shout as we were 2-1 up.  In the 91st minute Kouame went and scored to make it 1-3 on the night and 4-5 on aggregate, sending us to the final.

In my excitement I just let the game play out and was spitting feathers when Liverpool scored in the 93rd minute to take the game to extra time.  It wasn’t to be and we bowed out on penalties having never recovered from the late late equaliser.

Back to the league and happier times as we beat Leverkusen 1-0 to win the league as Bayern contrived to lose their game in hand.

Our previous league title campaign saw us finish with ten more points but this time round we bagged a mighty 84 goals as opposed to 68 in 2020/21.  We did concede a hefty 49 this time round, 15 more than anyone else in the top four, but it was fun.  For the first time in FM14 I had a side that was winning 6-1, 4-2, 3-0, 3-0 as opposed to narrow wins.  It goes back to being a Newcastle fan under Keegan I think, happy to watch bonkers football (but with the bonus of actually winning stuff before anyone says it!).

The comparison between the goals scored in the two title winning campaigns tells a clear picture and makes for pleasant reading.

Whilst the new players performed well, that stars of the show were the wide men.  Nioradze was signed on a free three seasons ago but never really suited the old formation whilst Kouame was signed from Poland as a cover option for Diallo who was playing on the right flank.  He was given his chance in the new formation and repaid me with 23 goals and 13 assists and was complemented by Nioradze who weighed in with 16 goals and 21 assists.

Both featured in the best stats at the end of the year and Nioradze would have been even better if he hadn’t missed the last two months of the season through injury.

The final thing to look at is the German Cup which was my first trophy at the club five seasons ago.  As mentioned earlier I had used it to give games to squad players, but things progressed well and we soon found ourselves in the semi finals against Bayern.  0-3 down at home after 34 minutes and things weren’t looking great, but the one thing we do have in us is goals…

I was pleasantly surprised to see second tier Paderborn would be our opponents in the final and things went to the form book as we secured a league and cup double.

After the drunken disaster of the previous campaign I am delighted to have got things back on track and regained the league title.  Some tough choices lie ahead as some of our star players have some big money suitors and they are approaching the age where selling becomes an option.  Kouame and Niorade are both 28 and both are being tracked by Bayern and Real.  Those decision are for another day though, I aint done basking yet.

A final thanks has to go to Acidphire21 for sharing his 4-2-3-1 and feeding back to me during testing.  He aint too bad for a mackem…

EDIT: As soon as I loaded up to continue the save after publishing this piece the bids started coming in for our players.  £10.5m for CB Carlos Jansen from Spurs and £17.5m for Nhlakanipho Monareng from Porto.

 

Whisky Knows

An unexpected league title in 2020/21 followed by an even more unexpected Champions League triumph in 21/22 meant that 2022/23 would have to go some way to surpass the two previous campaigns.  As raised at the back end of the last post, achieving domestic and European success in the same season is something I have struggled with in the past and something I planned to rectify this season.  That was the plan, but you know what they say about best laid plans…

I was fairly happy with the squad at the end of the season but decided that resting on laurels would be a mistake with the club fighting on five fronts this coming season.  Having never managed to win the Champions League with Amiens in FM13 this would be my first ever shot at the European Super Cup and World Club Championship.

The first singing was the permanent capture of Matty Cuff from Chelsea after his loan spell last season.  I am still not too sure what his best position is, but he was on a Bosman free and I couldn’t not sign him for nothing.

Domestic or European?

With the DKB Arena still resonating from a surprise Bundesliga win thoughts soon moved on to the new season and the added pressures that it would bring.  Ever since promotion to the Bundesliga one my main aims was to secure Champions League football and the added exposure and income that it brings.  I didn’t expect out first campaign would be as Champions but that did bring the bonus of avoiding any qualification and threw us straight in to the group stage.

For the first season since promotion we only lost squad players rather than any first team regulars.  It was with a tinge of sadness that Johannes Brinkies and Tommy Grupe left as they had been with the club since I took over and played in all three divisions.  Alas Grupe wasn’t quite up to the rigours of top flight football and Brinkies wasn’t happy being unseated by Sommer and didn’t want to be a substitute goalkeeper.

I had identified the DM slot as the one area that I needed to strengthen in as a matter of urgency.  Max Christiansen was solid enough but I was toying with the idea of changing that role to a DLP in certain games and Christiansen doesn’t have that in his locked.

My first two targets were Niklas Hajek of Dortmund and Daniel Mollering of Chelsea.  I had bids accepted for both but Hajek decided to sign a new deal at Dortmund and Mollering decided to take an extra £10k at a week at Stuttgart.

Another level

2020/21 will be our third season in the Bundesliga, and I once heard say that three seasons should be enough to win any league on Football Manager.  Whilst I don’t subscribe to that, I did feel that this season should be the one where we make tangible progress.  The previous two seasons saw 6th and 7th placed finishes which is no mean feat considering we were a newly promoted club on the smallest budget in the division.  We are now buoyed by the riches of the Bundesliga and with some cash in the bank and a second successive Europa League campaign ahead of us things are looking up.  My aim was to make the Champions League; although not as financially important as it would be in a less lucrative league, it will still improve the reputation of both the club and myself, thus making it easier to attract the better players.

An example of the riches of the Bundesliga is the long term balance sheet graph.  The two recent Bundesliga campaigns are fairly easy to spot.

One thing I have been guilty of in my FM saves is hanging on to players too long, and after evaluating the squad at the end of the last season I decided that a bit of an overhaul was needed.  Kopplin, Martschinko, Schunemann and Eyjolfsson all made 30+starts but weren’t retained at the club.  Martschinko and Schunemann left as I wasn’t willing to meet their inflated demands.  They were both adequate but that isn’t good enough when pushing for the top four.  They would have made reasonable back up options but not at £25k+ per week.  Kopplin was only ever signed as a short term option following promotion and had lost his place Raphael Framberger last season.  Eyjolfsson I would have liked to have kept but at 29 he was demanding a five year contract and wouldn’t budge on it so he joined the others leaving the club.