FM24 - Can FC Heidenheim survive their first ever Bundesliga season?

[Jogo Bonito]

FC Heidenheim - 'Die Heiden'

Last season 1. Fussball Club Heidenheim 1846 secured their first ever promotion to the German top flight

Despite the full name, this incarnation of the club began in 2007

The original 1846 reference doesn't actually even belong to their first football club, which first appeared in 1910

The below link tells a great story of their history & rise through the pyramid - done without corporate cash backing unlike some others

https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/who-are-heidenheim-promotion-frank-schmidt-11872

And here is the club history summary from in-game - the upward trajectory is really impressive and the significant trophies are all recent

The Set-Up

The man at the helm since 2007 is Heidenheim-born manager Frank Schmidt, a club legend in every sense of the word

Frank obviously does not deserve to be sacked, not now and probably never

The pre-game editor was used to put Frank in as Assistant Manager (contract also extended until 2029 on the same pay)

In this virtual world, we are going to say that Frank had achieved the unthinkable and wanted slightly less pressure on his shoulders

And he seems happy enough about it

The club already had two Assistant Managers in FM24, so one (Dieter Jarosch) will now put his sadly poor attributes to use with the U19 squad

The Stadium

The Voith Arena capacity is small at 15,000 (6,000 seated) and even this season there are only 9,000 Season Ticket Holders

The New Manager & Club Profile

Enter Thomas Schmidt, no relation to Frank and a native of Stuttgart

A new season also means new kits, as shown in the welcome above and in the club profile below

Thomas himself has gone for a more casual look, in keeping with the style of modern German managers who don't like suits

[Jogo Bonito]

This is my first FM save that I have made any progress on after trying with Southampton in the early release version and Notts County in the original full release (let us call that the goal-crazy full release version) both only got as far as October 2023. I made my kits for both and tried really hard (results were good, enjoyment was not).

The plan in Germany was and is to manage VfB Stuttgart again as they were great fun in FM23 and they are a joy to watch in the current Bundesliga season. And also there are several EFL teams (or levels below) that I would like to give time to in the near future. And quite a few clubs in other countries (mainly Europe). Actually I tried AIK in Sweden too, but again it didn't get too far.

But I digress....

First, I needed a challenge - possibly just one season - to get in to this version and see if my early experiences of FM24 can be forgotten with the game being significantly improved now. On that front, so far so good.

[Jogo Bonito]

FC Heidenheim squad - 2023/24

Below is the squad assembled for the first part of the season - there were just two new signings made here by Thomas

The most important of these was central midfielder Tsiy-William Ndenge (500,000 Euros from Grasshoppers in Switzerland) who arrived on 24th July

And versatile full-back Nicolas Oliveira was added (season-long loan from Hamburg SV) on 1st August just for extra cover as 3rd choice for both roles

The only departure under Thomas was midfielder Dennis Thomalla who was allowed to join Fortuna Dusseldorf for 550,000 Euros on 25th July

The two star men are striker Tim Kleindienst (25 league goals from 32 league appearances last season) and Jan-Niklas Beste (12 goals and 12 assists last year)

The club expectations are outlined below - there is just one aim: attempt to avoid relegation

[Jogo Bonito]

Season 2023/24 - Friendlies

The first tactical shape was a 4141 as the club would face stronger opponents every week in the Bundesliga and needed to be prepared for this

The set of results below were better than expected, and gave confidence ahead of the new campaign

Season 2023/24 - Part 1

That confidence was buoyed by a comfortable DFB-Pokal First Round win and an away draw with VfL Wolfsburg where the hosts had to come back from behind

But after that, things didn't go well and by the end of September a 3rd or 4th formation 5122 was being trialled to remedy matters

The new and current tactic which has been used since near the end of September

The new formation wasn't always smooth at the start, but soon began to gel with the players 

In fact, the only losses in recent times were 1-0 at Bayern Munich (a heartbreaking 87th minute penalty by Harry Kane) and a narrow 2-1 loss at then-leaders FSV Mainz

Amazingly, the club is also still in the DFB-Pokal, although this really doesn't come high on the list of priorities for Thomas this year

The winter break came now and after 16 of 34 league matches, here is the status of the club

As you can see, the early parts of the season were worrying - hovering in 17th and 18th for quite a number of weeks and wondering where a win may come from

To be 10th of 18 clubs at this point now is incredible, and whilst this does not mean relegation will be avoided, it gives Thomas every hope that he can achieve his goal

With the financial position not looking great, a few very low-key (and cost) signings have been made for January - more on those will follow when the window closes

Significant improvements have also been made on the staff front during the season, with good quality added as shown below

The staff moved out were loyal servants and in real life did not deserve to be culled, but sadly their attributes did not meet the new club or league standards

Edited December 13, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[warlock]

50 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

To be 10th of 18 clubs at this point now is incredible

Yes, indeed! The old 5122 still doing the business, I see.

Glad to have you back with us, and looking forward to the rest of the season 

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Nice choice in teams Jogo. I look forward to seeing how you progress with them.

I will agree that FM24 even though it is better then FM23 was I still struggle to keep myself interested in a long term save.

 

[TheJanitor]

Great start! Also, nice to see that you brought in the staff members I usually sign when starting with a German team

[Alejandro_FM]

Kudos on the first half of the season. Nice start for sure. 

How do you find "high press" performing so far with this shape, with so many deep players? 

[Jogo Bonito]

On 13/12/2023 at 23:24, warlock said:

Yes, indeed! The old 5122 still doing the business, I see.

Glad to have you back with us, and looking forward to the rest of the season 

Thanks mate. I had no intention of using the successful 5122 but results weren't encouraging and it was the 3rd or 4th derivative I tried. It seemed to work, at least then...

On 14/12/2023 at 01:16, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Nice choice in teams Jogo. I look forward to seeing how you progress with them.

I will agree that FM24 even though it is better then FM23 was I still struggle to keep myself interested in a long term save.

 

Thanks mate. End of season summary to follow soon.

On 14/12/2023 at 11:31, TheJanitor said:

Great start! Also, nice to see that you brought in the staff members I usually sign when starting with a German team

Thanks very much. That's interesting on the staff. I try to keep it realistic, look at the previous clubs they worked for, check they hadn't been out of a job for like 10 years etc.

8 hours ago, Alejandro_FM said:

Kudos on the first half of the season. Nice start for sure. 

How do you find "high press" performing so far with this shape, with so many deep players? 

Thanks for the kind words. Well it worked better than when I tried to soak up pressure and counter-attack at the start. The idea was that two strikers could press high, the midfield would start fairly deep but be able to fill some gaps ahead of them, and then the back six would keep a zone that would make it harder for the opposition to slice through. With most of the attacking support coming from the full-back positions, I hoped the 'cross early' might mean they could put the ball in the box when they got in to a half-decent position and see what the strikers could finish. I tend to use low crosses in most versions so just kept my preference for that.

Was not noticing a big issue with large gaps, although would in no way pretend that this wasn't happening! We are a very limited team in terms of ability so whatever we went with was going to throw up some problems - it was just a case of trying to find a formula where the lack of quality could be overcome on occasions. Will add some more comments on the shape when doing the end-of-season summary. 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[Jogo Bonito]

Season 2023/24 - Part 2

After the mid-season break, the challenge set was to see if Heidenheim could maintain their positive form and stable league position

After losing the first game back in January, two solid victories saw out the month in positive fashion

February was tougher, with only one win from four league games, and an exit from the DFB-Pokal

March again saw the struggles continue, and only one win - although it achieved 'the double' over relegation zone occupants VfB Stuttgart

The inability to win at home stretched to seven matches by the end of April, but a draw at bottom side Darmstadt did secure Bundesliga status 

At the start of the season, this was the only mission objective, so to do it with three matches to spare was a satisfying accomplishment

But the form in 2024 had been mediocre at best, so with safety assured it was time to try something different in May

Switching to 442 with two orthodox wingers looked like a eureka moment when comfortably beating FSV Mainz (their 3rd was a 93rd minute penalty)

This formation was toned down to 451 for the trip to Freiburg, where a good point was earned

And for the final fixture, the 451 was maintained and good enough to edge past mid-table FC Koln

The final league table is as below, and thanks to a final day swing the team had pushed from 10th to 8th

The season-high ranking was 7th, and after the early results keeping us 17th-18th, most of the season had been spent around 10th or 11th

So whilst 8th did slightly flatter us, it had been an impressive season and we passed our test with a degree of comfort 

Bayern held off Dortmund and RB Leipzig to claim the title, long-time leaders Mainz came 4th, and Stuttgart recovered late to survive

Augsburg overcame Hamburg in the relegation/promotion play-off to preserve their top-flight status

The club was around 15 million Euros in debt by the end of season, but the below competition money erased that and boosted the bank balance nicely

The performance graph below shows two main phases, the early season struggles and then from the end of year onward, mid-table stability

The financial graph dipped on a monthly basis until that cash boost in May

The key player stats and team stats also give an overview of the performance

Here are the player stats across all competitions

Tim Kleindienst was always leading scorer, but after 10 goals in his first 20 games he might have hoped for more than 14 in 36 by the close

The other 'star' player Jan-Niklas Beste flourished when moving to left midfield instead of wing-back, so his returns were probably kept low by the main role he was given

The board set the budgets for next season, which is considerably better than 2 million Euros in 2023/24

The club reputation will probably still limit the recruitment to loans and low-key cheap signings (like Elijah Krahn, who joined in January for 125,000 Euros)

But the answer to the topic title can now be addressed, best summed up by the banner the club could continue using in 2024/25 

Yes, FC Heidenheim can survive in the Bundesliga!

And the man that deserves to continue smiling about this outcome is not Thomas Schmidt, it's this man...

This was a one-season challenge to see if this could be achieved, and to see if my FM24 experience could be enjoyed

The answer to both questions is, Yes!

With no evidence of the goal-crazy curse of the early access and first full release, this played beautifully in terms of the match engine

With my faith restored, I am now looking to a more long-term destination, either in England or Europe

Thanks to anyone who read or commented, see you all again soon...

Edited December 16, 2023 by Jogo Bonito