FM19- Bundesliga Thread

[matsnor21]

I have always loved to play in the Bundesliga, even more this year after the league was licensed. Was after a long term save and in the end i decided for Mainz. Purely because of my admiration for Jurgen Klopp, and Mainz will of course play a gegenpressing style. And rely on buying young players for the future. The board wanted avoid relegation and the bookies tips was 14th place. But with the right addition and some luck i was hoping to fight for a Europa League Place. 

Transfers:

Absolutely love playing with Mainz, they have some real talents. We were doing good in the league from the first kick on the ball, way ahead of the expectation. When we came to the winter breake we were 4th and we started dreaming about a sensational place in Champions League. RB Leipzig were flying in the first half of the season, 10 points ahead of Bayern before the 2nd half of the season. But with two straights defeats in january, and we suddenly were sniffing on a league win.

It was so tight, as you can see in my previous post, and with 3 games to go we had RB Leipzig home, and would with a victory be on level points. 2-1 to Mainz, after a 93 minute goal from Pierre Kunde. That win meant that with two match days to go, Mainz, RBL and Bayern all had 59 points. Unfortunately we lost the next game away to Frankfurt, and Bayern beat Leipzig. And they were crown champions!

On the last match day both Werder Bremen and Hertha Berlin got past Dortmund and RB Leipzig , and stole the Champions League spot away from them!

But so happy with the first season. Going to be a much tougher 2nd season. And will try to bolster the squad with a good bbm.

Edited January 11, 2019 by matsnor21

[matsnor21]

So the difficult 2nd season with Mainz is under way. Its been a busy transfer window, shaping the squad with some real talented players. With so many young players its going to be some ups and downs this season. But were hoping for at least a Europa League spot. Its going to be tough, with the other teams improving their squad with a lot more cash than we. Especially Bayern , who has signed Julian Brandt and Federico Chiesa!

Transfers:

Really happy with the transfer window. Got some quality in, Palacios and Almada will be in starting line up, the rest will rotate and be given a lot of game time as well. Going to be more rotation than the last season, since were now in Champions League, Not the worst group , but not the easiest either. 

[lblanc]

Aaron Martin is amazing bought him for my Dortmund team

[lblanc]

Borussia Dortmund

Season Drei

Transfer window has passed on my 3rd season, no new in's of note bar just an 18 year old regen on a free who has potential but not sure if he will make it

Spoiler

on the out front Origi has joined Real Betis on loan with an option to buy for €20m . I've sent Luca Unbehaun out to Holstein Kiel on loan hopefully he'll get some game time there (They did bring him in as first team so I'm hoping he will) which will help develop him. Burnic went on loan to Jahn Regensburg with them having an option to buy him for 2.55m 

As for matches so far I've played 2 league games and the two super cups

A penalty shoot out victory gave us the Domestic Super Cup and a last minute Milik goal gave us the European Super Cup, Two more trophies in the bag.

As for my league games the first game of the league campaign vs Bayer Levekusen would finish 2-2 having been 2-0 behind a half time I was happy to get the draw even though I wasted so many chances in the first half alone to win the game comfortably. My second league game seen me beat Hertha 2-1.

The two significant things about those two games was they seen Isak and Brunn Larsen score their first league goals for us. Isak had scored in the first round of the Cup in a 3-0 win over Neustrelitz a game I probably should have done better but I'm through to the next round to play Union Berlin (Same as last year).

Champions League draw was also made, Can I retain the Trophy only time will tell, I've been drawn in an easy group with Liverpool being my only real test

 

Talking of cups I took on the challenge of winning Olympic Gold in the summer with France

My group seen me up against USA,Tunisia and Australia

An opening 0-0 draw against Tunisia was disappointing, that was followed by a 3-2 loss to an Impressive US team. This meant only a win against Australia and hoping Tunisia failed pick up points to the Americans would see me through.

I done my part and so did the Americans. Through to the 1/4 finals by virtue of goal difference.

In the 1/4 final I'd play Portugal

I had initially thought i'd won it when Edouard scored in the 87th minute but Mario Rui leveled in the last minute but Mbappe scored in the 105th minute to setup a semi final and at least a chance of winning a medal. 

In the semi I played the Germans

Another close game but it was Alban Lafont who was the hero saving 3 penalties in the shootout. 

As you can see above the Final would be a rematch of the World Cup Finals 

And it was the wonderkid Mbappe who stole the show with 2 goals as I won Olympic Gold ALLEZ LE BLEU

I will also like to post about the surprise Euro 2020 winners SWEDEN

 

 

Edited January 12, 2019 by lblanc

[zlatanera]

Started another Dortmund save, figure I'll post in this thread as there's more people to talk to. The aim is to get more out of Reus - so far this has been stopped by injury, but I'd just like to highlight Sancho with his best one-two yet: 

Yes, that's a Rabona in the box...

...that sends the ball into arguably a worse position than before, but luckily Wolf heads it...

...which Sancho volleys at the GK so hard he can't stop it, clinching his hat-trick!

[lblanc]

Sancho has been phenomenal for me, really took his chance for me last season when Reus got injured.

Reus was excellent in my first season and is still a capable deputy.

[zlatanera]

@lblanc yeah Reus was good on my previous attempt - I kinda hamstrung his stats by putting my GK on set pieces though. I'm really hoping I can finally get something out of a CAM playing him as a Shadow Striker. Alcacer got a hat-trick in his first game in the role and I think Reus actually has better finishing than him so I'm hoping he'll come good with time. 

[zlatanera]

After 14 games, we have scored as many goals as Klopp's team did in the whole 2014/15 league season! 

[dothestrand]

Big fan of Leverkusen's ruthless efficiency there - they must've won all their games by a single goal!

[lblanc]

@zlatanera

You put your goalkeeper as your set piece taker?

 

[zlatanera]

9 hours ago, dothestrand said:

Big fan of Leverkusen's ruthless efficiency there - they must've won all their games by a single goal!

Yeah they're very tight defensively - in my first 5 games I scored 22 goals, then lost at BayArena 1-0. After 17 games they've scored 22 and conceded 13 with 7 1-0 wins. There's been some very tight defences though - its a low-scoring league with 1 glaring yellow exception

  

S/O to Wolfsburg for their ridiculous record of F 12 A 12!

Those top 4 defences would be even more impressive if I wasn't in the game though - if you remove games against me then Leipzig have only conceded 10, Leverkusen's is still 13, and Bayern would have only 7 goals against. I don't know how they're all managing it  given the long shots situation - highest average possession in the league is 57% and I can't see any of them playing especially defensively. 

4 hours ago, lblanc said:

@zlatanera

You put your goalkeeper as your set piece taker?

 

Inspiration from this thread:

Which in itself follows on from this older one:

I'd tried it with River Plate my GK got injured and retired, when I got Lafont in I noticed he had decent FK and Technique (12 and 11, I think) so I gave it a shot. Not sure if he got past 5 goals a season.  He was only on free kicks though, not penalties. Not doing it this time because I really want to try push Reus towards a 20 goal season.

[Gungner]

I'm tempted to go for Frankfurt this year... Maybe when my current save is no more fun.

[zlatanera]

My first home loss of the season, in excruciating fashion, puts Leverkusen 1 point ahead of me...I think they're going to win the league. 

[lblanc]

Nah they'll be left at the altar as per

[zlatanera]

On 23/01/2019 at 19:37, lblanc said:

Nah they'll be left at the altar as per

Before that game, they'd only lost twice in the Bundesliga (3 times in all competitions):

Putting the Never back into Neverkusen 

[zlatanera]

2018/19 Season

I set out for this season with two specific goals - have Marco Reus as my top scorer, and win the Bundesliga 1st season as will hopefully happen in real life. For the tactic, look to the 3rd post of this thread:

For the results, read on...

I played with no first window transfer budgets, so no movement in the summer window  but I also elected not to make any moves in the January window. Shinji Kagawa (£30m to Shanggang) and Ömer Toprak's (£10m to Jiangsu) departures were arranged for the summer, and by 2nd February I had also arranged the purchases of Benjamin Pavard (£31.5m from VfB Stuttgart) and Miguel Almirón (£14.25m from Atlanta United) for the summer, but the only remotely significant movement in January was Dzenis Burnic heading to Augsburg for 18 months. 

We really made a meal of it in the German Cup - weakened teams easily got through the early stages of the cup, but given we were averaging over 3 goals per game in the league at that time 4-0 against a semi-pro team is disappointing (we put 5 past RB Leipzig in the next game). A tough game against VfL Wolfsburg led to the weakest possible draw in the quarter final...and our backups made a meal of it, before then embarrassing themselves against Holstein Kiel in the semi-finals (they then lost to Mainz in the final, so at least it was two final debutants fighting it out). Putting 4 past Schalke in the Revier Derby 2 days after that loss made it worth it too.

A reasonably tough group was qualified from in 4 games as we struggled to a 2-0 win over Ajax, had a heart attack against Juventus (88th minute Götze winner) and smashed Young Boys at the Wankdorf, then took our foot off the gas to qualify as group winners. We were rewarded with a tie against Dynamo Kyiv, one of the weaker sides in the knockout rounds, setting us up to meet one of the strongest. We fell to a late, lucky Sergi Roberto goal off a set piece, but I knew we had a chance with a 1 goal deficit at home. Sadly, despite outplaying them for 89 minutes and 55 seconds, in the other 5 Rakitic got enough room to curl one in from outside the box, sending us out of Europe. 

As previously mentioned, we burst out of the blocks by hammering RB Leipzig 5-2, and followed that up with consecutive 4-0 wins, a 4-4 draw and a 5-0 win before Leverkusen brought us crashing down to Earth with a 1-0 defeat. We didn't lose again in 2018, with highlights including a 6-2 thrashing of Bayern (Delaney missed a penalty too). In the second half of the league we were actually only the 5th best team as RB Leipzig picked up 36 points and Bayern, Leverkusen and Frankfurt got 35 to our 34, and following our 2nd defeat to Neverkusen (one of only two times we dropped points at home, Hoffenheim got a 1-1 to go with their 4-4) I thought we'd thrown it away. However, they lived up to their name and Leipzig were our main rivals, level on points until game 33, and still with a chance to win it on the final day. Sat on a club record of 99 goals, following a thrashing of Fortuna Düsseldorf where Marco Reus grabbed a hat-trick in spite of missing 2 penalties, I thought we were a sure thing to smash our Borussen Derby rivals and beat Bayern's 101 goal haul. However, some abysmal finishing and a goal-causing mistake from Abdou Diallo left us to lose 2-1. Luckily, Werder Bremen had beaten Leipzig by the same scoreline and the league was ours! 

So, one objective achieved, as for the other?

Marco Reus was indeed our top scorer, with 23 goals and 6 assists in 31 starts! 20 in the league had him ranked 3rd behind Timo Werner and Sébastien Haller (both on 24).

Mario Götze scored 16 and assisted 4 in 30 starts.

Jadon Sancho lit up the world with 11 goals and 21 assists in 33 starts.

Paco Alcacer as a sub and despite missing 2 months through injury scored 10 assisted 3 in 11(12) apps.

Jacob Bruun Larsen - 15(16) apps 10 goals 5 assists - Shinji Kagawa - 10(7) apps 9 goals 1 assist - Christian Pulisic - 30(3) apps 8 goals 8 assists - and Thomas Delaney - 30(4) apps 7 goals 7 assists were the other standouts offensively as 19 different players scored for us.

 

Going forward, despite our success and coming so close to breaking Bayern's goal scoring record I've decided to move towards a 4231 as the False Nine still wasn't functioning quite as I'd like, only really appearing to come deep when we would counter-attack and he'd take the ball on the turn and play it forward for the WP, SS and W to run onto. To this end I've arranged one further transfer - Timo Werner for £25m(£50m) from RB Leipzig!! Who his backup in the striker position will be is one of my key deliberations (I may simply trigger Sebastien Haller's release clause and have the top 3 scorers from this season in my squad, as I'm not fancying Alcacer this time, and quite like the idea of my entire squad having faces), along with potentially replacing Raphaël Guerreiro and Roman Bürki. No doubt it'll all go to hell and we'll only score 50 goals!

[EvertD17]

I already started a save with Borussia Dortmund, but im struggling with the tactic.

Can someone give me a link of a tactic that suits a team like dortmund pls, maybe @lblanc ?

I already bought:

De Light - Vagnoman - Fiete Arp - Tierney

Sold: 

Guerreiro - Toprak - Delany

Wishlist:

Havertz - Werner - Arne Maier - Frenkie De Jong 

I want to have my wonderkids (Sancho, Pulisic, Bruun Larsen) banging goals and have ton of assists, also i want Reus to be effective

Edited January 26, 2019 by EvertD17

[zlatanera]

58 minutes ago, EvertD17 said:

I already started a save with Borussia Dortmund, but im struggling with the tactic.

Can someone give me a link of a tactic that suits a team like dortmund pls, maybe @lblanc ?

I already bought:

De Light - Vagnoman - Fiete Arp - Tierney

Sold: 

Guerreiro - Toprak - Delany

Wishlist:

Havertz - Werner - Arne Maier - Frenkie De Jong 

I want to have my wonderkids (Sancho, Pulisic, Bruun Larsen) banging goals and have ton of assists, also i want Reus to be effective

I linked to one in the post above...

[EvertD17]

11 hours ago, zlatanera said:

I linked to one in the post above...

You play with 2 strikers? 

Are you using another tactic now , bc the false nine isnt working. And you have Werner now.

Edited January 26, 2019 by EvertD17

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, EvertD17 said:

You play with 2 strikers? 

Are you using another tactic now , bc the false nine isnt working. And you have Werner now.

The False Nine still got results, it just didn't behave exactly as expected - more like a DLF-Su without "Hold Up Ball" selected. I've only played 2 games of the new season, and given Roman Burki gave up 2 goals in a 4-2 loss in the supercup and the other was a cup tie against a 3. Bundesliga or semi-pro team, I can't really say anything about the effectiveness of it. 

[steakfaced]

12 hours ago, zlatanera said:

The False Nine still got results, it just didn't behave exactly as expected - more like a DLF-Su without "Hold Up Ball" selected. I've only played 2 games of the new season, and given Roman Burki gave up 2 goals in a 4-2 loss in the supercup and the other was a cup tie against a 3. Bundesliga or semi-pro team, I can't really say anything about the effectiveness of it. 

The guy has 3 posts, all asking for tactics. He doesn't care what you have to say, how you built your tactic, he just wants to download and win the game.

[EvertD17]

9 hours ago, steakfaced said:

The guy has 3 posts, all asking for tactics. He doesn't care what you have to say, how you built your tactic, he just wants to download and win the game.

This guy has indeed asked 3 times for tactics, but he still cares how the tactics works, otherwise i would picked one of the many succestactics and win everything. Im just curious what tactic other people use for Dortmund. A tactic that suits Dortmund and likewise they play in real life. I just want to get the most of Sancho, Pulisic and my forward

I am maybe a bit too straight forward for you. But if you could see my posts were all about Dortmund.

Edited January 27, 2019 by EvertD17

[EvertD17]

22 hours ago, zlatanera said:

The False Nine still got results, it just didn't behave exactly as expected - more like a DLF-Su without "Hold Up Ball" selected. I've only played 2 games of the new season, and given Roman Burki gave up 2 goals in a 4-2 loss in the supercup and the other was a cup tie against a 3. Bundesliga or semi-pro team, I can't really say anything about the effectiveness of it. 

The false nine maybe work but im not realy a fan of the idea of false nine, espec when im targeting Werner and already have Fiete Arp and Isak. And Gotze isnt performing that well for me.

BTW despite steakfaced suggest, i really appreciate the fact that you explain your tactic or player roles

Edited January 27, 2019 by EvertD17

[lblanc]

9 hours ago, EvertD17 said:

The false nine maybe work but im not realy a fan of the idea of false nine, espec when im targeting Werner and already have Fiete Arp and Isak. And Gotze isnt performing that well for me.

BTW despite steakfaced suggest, i really appreciate the fact that you explain your tactic or player roles

Shall post my two tactics tomorrow which  I used to win treble.

[lblanc]

@EvertD17

 

So the main tactic I use is a slight tweak to the default Gegenpress with a 4-2-3-1 formation

That AP changed half way through the season when I sold Witsel. also against weaker opposition or when I was losing in the last 10 minutes I'd change mentality to Attacking

My Second tactic is the default Vertical tika taka

fyi for both above it was Guerreiro instead of Horn and Pulisic instead of Brunn Larsen. Reus spent majority of last season in and out with injury but mostly covered for Sancho and Pereira

[EvertD17]

26 minutes ago, lblanc said:

@EvertD17

 

So the main tactic I use is a slight tweak to the default Gegenpress with a 4-2-3-1 formation

That AP changed half way through the season when I sold Witsel. also against weaker opposition or when I was losing in the last 10 minutes I'd change mentality to Attacking

My Second tactic is the default Vertical tika taka

fyi for both above it was Guerreiro instead of Horn and Pulisic instead of Brunn Larsen. Reus spent majority of last season in and out with injury but mostly covered for Sancho and Pereira

Nice! Thats a Dortmund tactic i want to see , do you have the links of those two. Im now using a 4-2-2-2 that is working wel, but i have more midfielders that i want to bring or buy. Currently playing with :

                     Burki

Hakimi   -  De Light  - Diallo  -  Tierney

           Dahoud  (Mez)  -   Witsel (Mez)

Pulisic (AP)                              Sancho (AP)

                 Reus (P)    -   Paco (P)

Credits to Rego8 for the tactic. 

Top of wishlist: Werner and Havertz

So the 1st tactic of Lblanc would suit very good for those players.  Is the defence not too exposed to opponent's attacking midfielders? 

[lblanc]

18 minutes ago, EvertD17 said:

Nice! Thats a Dortmund tactic i want to see , do you have the links of those two. Im now using a 4-2-2-2 that is working wel, but i have more midfielders that i want to bring or buy. Currently playing with :

                     Burki

Hakimi   -  De Light  - Diallo  -  Tierney

           Dahoud  (Mez)  -   Witsel (Mez)

Pulisic (AP)                              Sancho (AP)

                 Reus (P)    -   Paco (P)

Credits to Rego8 for the tactic. 

Top of wishlist: Werner and Havertz

So the 1st tactic of Lblanc would suit very good for those players.  Is the defence not too exposed to opponent's attacking midfielders? 

At times yes, but I feel the Box to Box works well in dropping back to cover and break up play there. I think it's very important to do look at the Analysis of the teams you face , use your analysts. I usually for big games assign one or two of my analysts to their big players to see how they are playing I pay attention to two things

1) Their movement - heat maps

2) who supplies them and from where, passing stats plus heat maps

Cut them off and you cut off the danger.

if I see for example an attacking mid or winger is their main threat I'd assign either my full backs (for wingers) or my box to box for (CAM) to man mark them, Use the pre match tactical briefing to focus them on this, I feel it works.

No real need for me to really share anything wise as it's all their above just select the default gegenpress and mark the positional changes to roles as are above.

 

[zlatanera]

Werner may have repeatedly gone on dry streaks, only scoring in 6 games this season, but scoring this game almost makes the £50m worth it!

[zlatanera]

So, I think I may have mentioned that at the start of my 2nd season Roman Bürki made a couple of catastrophic errors to cost us the supercup vs. Mainz. I responded by dropping him and promoting Luca Unbehaun:

He's been performing well, not making many mistakes, and developing quite nicely as well...with the exception of that low Positioning attribute, which has stuck on 8.8 for 3 months now. I've started intensively training GK shot-stopping, as despite the lack of mistakes I still think someone better at Positioning would save more chances (the old "De Gea isn't that good they're all hit straight at him!" vs. "De Gea is exceptional at positioning himself" debate). That combined with my desire to have an entire team with faces led me to search about...however, very few players offered a significant upgrade on Bürki, and were in possession of a face. The two stand-outs were both at Juventus: Mattia Perin and Wojciech Szczesny. So most likely uninterested and unavailable, right? Wrong, both interested and Perin available for £10m. But he's apparently averse to big games and prone to injuries. So, I made an opening bid for Szczesny and, well...

Welcome to Dortmund, the new most expensive goalkeeper in the world! If this pays off it will be the catalyst for us to start making serious in-roads in Europe. But if his Eccentricity attribute of 16 (even higher than Bürki and  Unbehaun's 13!) lets us down...I'll be looking a lot like this (only uglier):

[lblanc]

You paid 150 Million for Szczesny !!!

I was never a big fan of Burki (though he done well in the cups and CL for me) I brought in Cilessen for 10m from Barca as my first choice, sold Burki too Spurs for 20+m start of the second season. Nick Pope came in as number 2.

I'll add that Unbehaun has progressed nicely I'm in my 3rd season now. He played one or two cups games in season 2 for me, this season I've sent him out on loan to Holstein Kiel were here is getting some much needed first team football I'm hopeful he'll be ready for backup next season.

 

 

 

 

[LukasZ_VCF]

Question to people who play with for example Bayern are your reserve team playing in 2nd league ? Players have to be register or you can move them any time you want to 1st team ? Are they developing well in 2nd league reserve team?

[zlatanera]

2 hours ago, lblanc said:

You paid 150 Million for Szczesny !!!

I was never a big fan of Burki (though he done well in the cups and CL for me) I brought in Cilessen for 10m from Barca as my first choice, sold Burki too Spurs for 20+m start of the second season. Nick Pope came in as number 2.

I'll add that Unbehaun has progressed nicely I'm in my 3rd season now. He played one or two cups games in season 2 for me, this season I've sent him out on loan to Holstein Kiel were here is getting some much needed first team football I'm hopeful he'll be ready for backup next season.

£90m. £30m + £60m over 3 years. The graphics on transfers are constantly misleading people. 

My first save, Bürki was out after the first season and I brought in Alban Lafont, who is one of the best young keepers in the game, but I decided I wanted to do an "only guys with faces" thing this time, so he was out of the question. Szczesny did make the exact same mistake Bürki had done, in only his second game, dwelling on the ball and getting tackled as we lost 4-2 to Hoffenheim, whilst Unbehaun made 11 saves and then saved the 5th penalty to send us through in a 3-3 slugfest against Bayern in the cup, so this may not have been money well spent. 

54 minutes ago, LukasZ_VCF said:

Question to people who play with for example Bayern are your reserve team playing in 2nd league ? Players have to be register or you can move them any time you want to 1st team ? Are they developing well in 2nd league reserve team?

I don't think Bayern II are in an active league, the same as the rest of the teams' reserves. But you can move players freely. I have found an error though where despite firing all my Dortmund II staff, and selling off all the players, and putting myself in control of transfers and contracts, they still signed 4 guys. 

[BadAss88]

Why dont you download a facepack? @zlatanera

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, BadAss88 said:

Why dont you download a facepack? @zlatanera

Its not that I mind having players without faces - its that I so quickly ended up with a large amount of money and needed some way to restrain myself from just buying players to stop other teams getting them then being unable to loan enough out, which is usually what kills my saves between mid-season 2 and the end of the season 3. Given I had unintentionally ended up with only players with faces after letting my two La Liga loanees return to their clubs, this seemed to make sense as a way to go.

[zlatanera]

2019/20 Season

I've posted a couple of things earlier, but here's a full season summary. First, transfers:

The first three were pre-arranged, with the switch to 4231 and not signing Alcacer permanently, I brought in Arp from Hamburg, and then following his recommendation also signed Josha Vagnoman to be our first choice RB, effectively demoting Piszczek to 3rd choice in his final season. Szczesny was mentioned previously and will come up again. In terms of outgoings, Toljan was never good enough and £50k / week for a 3rd choice rb / 3rd choice lb / 6th choice CB is ridiculous, so was happy for a slight profit. Isak was sent on a two season loan to Frankfurt - sadly as they didn't lose Haller in the transfer window he struggled to force himself into the team, and despite scoring goals never got starts and I may look to recall him and find another move. The board and fans were disappointed with £40m for Philipp, who was valued at £39.5m but for a striker with that low composure, who had not really contributed much all season, to double our money was good business. Wolf went out with a loan option as we just couldn't find any takers despite much better form than Philipp (and more appearances as I tried to keep him happy) and Dahoud, amazingly went for £45m to Bournemouth, double his value (the first time I've ever had a player accept such an overvaluation as acceptable when he asked to leave, too). Hitz was an odd one - he was on a free, valued at £4m and I hoped perhaps we'd get his value, then Wolfsberger AC of all teams came in with £9m up front. Given they'd make a net profit of around £300k on transfers over 18 months and were "Secure" financially I had not idea where this came from, but took it.

In terms of tactics, this was our strongest lineup. Moving Reus out wide meant Sancho playing out of position, but he still played well. Pulisic and Bruun Larsen lost playing time though. Götze had statistically a much worse season than last, but he seemed to always be involved. Guerreiro, amazingly, didn't ask to leave when the PL clubs came in in both windows. 

The Supercup, aka the Bürki incident, aka The Fall of Roman's Goalkeeping Empire. Without him it would have been 2-2. Let's move on.

In the CL we progressed in 2nd from a tough group, it all came down to the last day though - on 80 minutes Lyon were 2-1 up and going through in 1st, by 86 they were 2-3 down and in 3rd. We then got a tough draw in the KO rounds, and Liverpool just obliterated us. Despite the issues on Mac arising from the last update, they still seemed to be moving rapidly and fluidly. I had no idea how to stop it, although at least in isolation the 2nd leg doesn't look bad.

After last year's missed opportunity, we were treated with much tougher draws in the 2020 portion of the competition. The Bayern game was a classic, Unbehaun saving their 5th penalty to send us through after a game that saw the lead swapped 3 times. Hertha was a slog, every single attack they had looked like a goal and we offered nothing until about 80 minutes when I went Very Attacking. Bringing on 3 subs at 90 minutes was the key as we overran them in ET. I assumed we'd lose to Leverkusen, but I guess they had to live up to their name, so we were surprisingly comfortable, setting up a final against our loanee Isak at Frankfurt. Poor guy got a start but barely had a touch as we ran the game from start to finish, making my 2nd domestic trophy!

 

In the league we weren't as good as last year in the first stage, but were even worse in the 2nd leaving to this situation on the final day...

...when we were away to Leverkusen. Between our cup game and their living up to the 'Neverkusen' title last season I was a really confident, however it was not to be as we fought back twice to 2-2 courtesy of an OG, before a Pavard OG made it 3-2 to them and crowned Hoffenheim unlikely champions! I now bring your attention (if you're actually still reading this sh**) to my comment on my £90m goalkeeper:

On 30/01/2019 at 13:29, zlatanera said:

Szczesny did make the exact same mistake Bürki had done, in only his second game, dwelling on the ball and getting tackled as we lost 4-2 to Hoffenheim, whilst Unbehaun made 11 saves and then saved the 5th penalty to send us through in a 3-3 slugfest against Bayern in the cup, so this may not have been money well spent. 

That "2nd game"? A 4-2 loss to Hoffenheim. In the real world, social media would probably say he cost us the title. Personally I think a striker who went on at least 3 runs of over 5 games without a goal or assist, and a poor tactic, cost us more. Playing a 19 year old GK for the first half of the season probably didn't help either.

As you can see, Hamburg really missed Arp and Vagnoman (and should probably have tried to loan Isak from me). Köln being relegated bodes well - Jannes Horn is a left back target who has a £5m relegation clause, and Horn will probably be more willing to be a backup GK too. Bayern nearly missing CL football is nice to see too! 

The Bundesliga in this save is really competitive, hence Hoffenheim having the lowest points total of champions since Bayern in 2009-10 (Edin Dzeko was top scorer, ahead of Kießling, Barrios, Kuranyi and Pizarro whilst Mesut Özil got 17 assists for Bremen, that's how long ago that is). If you look at it, the top 10 I'd wager could easily take points off each other any day, although only 7 teams having positive GD might not indicate it. Stuttgart and Wolfsburg still have quality players too. 

I had planned to leave it after this season and either manage Ajax or Juventus, but inspired by this series:

I'm going to stick at it, and keep changing tactics (although I'll be much more sentimental with players than he was, and may start a separate Bayern save to use the Raumdeuter). Next up is strikerless.

Our Cup win means we play Hoffenheim in the Supercup next year - the previous games being 4-4, 1-1, 2-4, 4-2 I'm expecting a 0-0 at 120 minutes going into a penalty shoot-out where 9 players miss. 

Edited June 28, 2019 by zlatanera

[Bunkerossian]

Thinking of trying Bremen, but struggling to make sense of the team's strengths and weaknesses. Intelligent, but not hard-working or strong physically. Can't go with a deep defense, but the centre backs seem too slow for a high line. Preset tactical ideas are a poor fit for this team. At least playing youngsters isn't a philosophy I'll struggle with.

[Gary_Parker]

Really enjoying playing as Hertha at the moment. 2nd season, smashing the league so far, their young players are amazing at times. Signed in Vagnoman and Arp as well as young Croatian Lovro Majar and a 4-2-3-1 asymmetric narrow formation. Working absolute wonders. Trying to stay with German players as much as possible, but its very tough with Bayern, RB Leipzig and Dortmund spending millions each transfer window.

[matsnor21]

Got a crash dump on previous save with 1. FSV Mainz 05, so had to start over again. Did well on  my previous save, finished 2nd in Bundesliga with 62 points in the first season. Will also this time playing a 4-2-3-1 gegenpressing inspired tactic. And stick with the same system, not mine it up all the time, with i did the last time. 

Have started very well, and after 7 games in Bundesliga we are 1st, with 6 wins and 1 draw. Will upload after the season.

Transfers:

Just bought Francisco Trincao as well, he will be joining us january 1st.

 

[matsnor21]

Champions of Europe in season 2.

[daho]

So I just won Bundesliga and Champions league and this happens the following season.. Paderborn are not even in Bundesliga

[Pavi]

Hallo guys!

So, my last save just crashed (was managing Athletic) and I am drawn towards the Bundesliga. But I really can't decide between Dortmund, BMG, and Köln.

- For Dortmund, given their position and since I usually do long-term saves, I would put some slef-restrictions. Like signing only players home-grown in Germany or U18 (to be then considered club-grown). It's a way to avoid becoming too dominant domestically.

- BMG, the idea would be simple, turn tham back to their '70s glory and be the new Dortmund.

- Köln, this would perhaps be ideal for a real long-term save. They have such a great squad for 2. Bundesliga with Horn and Hector and some interesting young players.

 

I am really torn....so many nice clubs so little time to play.

[DoubleDenimSuccess]

11 minutes ago, Pavi said:

Hallo guys!

So, my last save just crashed (was managing Athletic) and I am drawn towards the Bundesliga. But I really can't decide between Dortmund, BMG, and Köln.

- For Dortmund, given their position and since I usually do long-term saves, I would put some slef-restrictions. Like signing only players home-grown in Germany or U18 (to be then considered club-grown). It's a way to avoid becoming too dominant domestically.

- BMG, the idea would be simple, turn tham back to their '70s glory and be the new Dortmund.

- Köln, this would perhaps be ideal for a real long-term save. They have such a great squad for 2. Bundesliga with Horn and Hector and some interesting young players.

 

I am really torn....so many nice clubs so little time to play.

I will throw Eintracht Frankfurt into the reckoning!

Great stadium, no debt, squad good but not top class so still work to do to become dominant.

[Pavi]

Cheers @DoubleDenimSuccess, I know they're having a great season IRL....will take a look at them.

[Carambau]

To have a real challenge, I would try Darmstadt 98. Though they are in the 2nd tier..

[zlatanera]

@Pavi Freiburg are a decent one to play with too. They've not won anything except Bundesliga 2. a couple of times, they've historically been very patient with managers (current one Christian Streich has been around since 2011 despite a relegation in that time) and focussed on developing youth (the likes of Matthias Ginter and Maximilian Philipp in recent times), their all time top scorer is Joachim Löw, and they were apparently one of the first clubs to move away from a back three and Libero towards a back four and an offside trap back when Liberos were still a thing.  

[Pavi]

43 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

@Pavi Freiburg are a decent one to play with too. They've not won anything except Bundesliga 2. a couple of times, they've historically been very patient with managers (current one Christian Streich has been around since 2011 despite a relegation in that time) and focussed on developing youth (the likes of Matthias Ginter and Maximilian Philipp in recent times), their all time top scorer is Joachim Löw, and they were apparently one of the first clubs to move away from a back three and Libero towards a back four and an offside trap back when Liberos were still a thing.  

You're not helping me your giving me even more options!!! (I am joking of course) - It's another good suggestion and would make for an original save. And this what I love about these threads, I always learn new things both for the game and football history. Thanks.

[zlatanera]

26 minutes ago, Pavi said:

You're not helping me your giving me even more options!!! (I am joking of course) - It's another good suggestion and would make for an original save. And this what I love about these threads, I always learn new things both for the game and football history. Thanks.

The main thing that holds me back from starting a new save when I tire of one is having too many options and only so much time to play. I'm still intending to go back to FM15 and play a Real Madrid save with Ronaldo at his peak...

[Pavi]

23 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

The main thing that holds me back from starting a new save when I tire of one is having too many options and only so much time to play. I'm still intending to go back to FM15 and play a Real Madrid save with Ronaldo at his peak...

So true!! Now I might come out as the nerdest of nerds but sometimes I wish to be a millionaire not for having a fancy car, just for having time to play as much as I'd want 

[Trent71]

 

Decided to stall my Palermo game a bit and do a big revamp at Die Bayern. With an ageing squad and a lot of the players wanting to move for a new challenge, there's a lot of work to do. 

 

 Jerome Boateng was the first to go, as he was offloaded to Arsenal for 45M Euro, Robert Lewandowski went to Man Utd for 75M Euro, the injury-prone Thiago was sold to PSG for 50M (+50% from next fee), Rafinha picked up a trade in China for 9.75M, Serge Gnarby moved to West Ham for 18M, Javi Martinez moved to Liverpool in a 32.5M deal and last, Corentin Tolisso went to Dortmund for 30.5M.

 

Or in other words, a total of 261M Euro added to our starting warchest of 112M, which means we have the finances for some pretty big names...but I'm not that type of manager

 

In goal, we're obviously going with Neuer and Ulreich, with Fruchtl looking like he can make a few apps this season too. On the wing-backs, one could think that we have Alaba and Kimmich, but they would be wrong - both players will be utilized in the center of the midfield. I've always thought Alaba's qualities suit him there best. 

 

On the right-back, we added... Niklas Stark from Hertha in a 20.5M deal. Someone might say that he's a center back! Buuut I like his pace and I've always been one for experiments...  Kevin Mbabu will be his understudy, as he joined from Young Boys for 10M. In the center of the defense we have Hummels and Sule, with new additions Stefan Bell (Mainz, 7.5M) and Matthias Ginter (M'gladbach, 27.5M) to be used in rotation with them. On the left back we have Gunter (Freiburg, 5M) for backup and Philipp Max (Augsburg, 10M) for first choice. The deal for Max was important also in the sense that he's homegrown at Bayern, which would help a lot with registrations for the CL. 

 

In the center of the midfield, as understudies to Alaba and Kimmich, we have Goretzka and Renato Sanchez. I always wanted to give Goretzka a shot, as I've always liked him and found the AI neglegance  (sp?) of him as surprising. I wasn't so sure for Sanchez, as I figured I can loan him out, but at least for the first half of the season we'll rely on the Portuguese - the warchest to splash the money on the likes of Rabiot can be used if needed in the winter transfer window.

 

On the left wing, I figured I'd use Robben and Ribery one last season, but a pre-season injury to Robben's hip means he could just as well be finished already. Kevin Volland, the 30M signing from Leverkusen, was promoted to regular left winger, as prior to Robben's injury I figured he'd be a backup on the right wing. On said right side of the attack we have Coman and talented Batista Meier, who impressed quite a bit in the friendlies.

 

Up front we have Thomas Muller with the addition of Timo Werner as 2nd choice (Leipzig, 42.5M).

 

Stay tuned!

 

[zlatanera]

@Trent71 I've been considering abandoning my Freiburg save to do something similar...would definitely have moved for Pavard though. I'm surprised you sold Lewandowski too, possibly the best all-rounder centre forward in the game. I guess you're going for a Poacher or Pressing Forward if you're using Müller and Werner? 

Edited March 6, 2019 by zlatanera