MarcxD

Netherlands NT 2033 Actually a weak performance in the group, but qualified which is all that matters of course. Also that is my second Nations League win, once again beating England in the final. Now for the real job next summer, the world cup which was the entire reason I took the job. The world cup group we have been drawn in is probably the easiest draw I have ever seen.

Awards 2033 Not as much to note as last year, but still a few:

August - December 2033 Continuing the way we were last season. It was definitely not a fluke, we are just really strong. Just a few highlights: beating Bayern 4-1; beating Dortmund in the cup 7-1 (!); beating Milan 4-1 AND 6-0 in the CL... Just two draws, however, and Bayern has caught up with us. A repeat of last season incoming? I have a feeling it will be another tense title run, that's for sure. Pretty straightforward in the end.

Summer 2033 Well I did not know what I was expecting but not what ended up happening... Almost 400M worth of sales.... Especially in the spirit of this save there were just too many bids I could impossibly refuse. Ebenezer was a talented central midfielder whom I had signed for free from Volendam and after a season on loan and only one season here in the first team he is gone to Man Utd for almost 100M. Brahim Diaz was very good for us but at 34 and him wanting to go to Atlético the money was fine so he is leaving too. I have plenty of young and coming wingers, so I am not too shaken up about that. I was however shaken up when Real Madrid accepted my renegotiated price of 164M for Pojuzina! Holy. I definitely did not want to sell him but that is just insane money. Blasiak was my back-up striker who did very well when he was called on, but Real Madrid came along again and paid big money. And finally a transfer I doubted on, but Antiste was definitely getting up there in age and getting a possible 60M for a 30 year old who wasn't first choice anymore, I'll take it. He'll probably still be a very good player for Leipzig however. Of course I had to do some targeted business to keep the squad strong. Petrovic is a direct replacement for Pojuzina, another strong (and Serbian!) young central defender. 75M might have been overpaying slightly, but he is close to the level of Pojuzina so it was necessary. Carrasco is a direct replacement for Blasiak and Antiste as a back-up striker and back-up AMR. He is 24 and with some good mental stats (20 determination yes please) I think he should be great for the club in the long-term. Alhassan is a new midfielder who will strenghten our core there even more who I could pick up for a relatively cheap price. As an aside, this is how the market ended up.... Not unexpected of course, but that contrast is hilarious. Especially in the context of this. Another German supercup lost. I have accepted that I will not win that ever. The friendlies paint another picture... Pretty tough CL group, but right now we should be able to handle anything.

2033 Club World Cup Before the summer business, or actually more like at the same concurrent time, we also had to play the new format CWC. I hadn't really thought about it that we hadn't played yet after being in several CL finals, but of course now it's only once every four years with a ton of clubs competing. It was a weird one, because for parts of it some of my players were on international duty. FIFA, fix your scheduling! Actually, for one game I did not have any GK's and the game bugged and wouldn't let me play with a greyed-out one so I had to holiday that just to continue (when the greyed out GK did play). No harm done in the end. But anyway, we did win the thing! Of course somewhere along the way we did have to face Bayern, and this time it wasn't a close call at all. Apart from the German supercup we have now won every possible trophy!

Thanks! I definitely felt Bayern as rivals myself so it's fun to see the game set that in stone. I will definitely continue the save, although perhaps not so long at Köln now. Thanks mate! That's Bayern for you. Leverkusen actually went down a couple of seasons ago, so yeah they've definitely had a big drop off. I know right! Why can't they just let me win.

Post-season overview 2033 A great team, made up of quite a nice mix of ages. Quite a few players are wanted now (as you can see for instance I set Pojuzina's transfer price at 135m to ward off clubs but you never know what's gonna happen...), so I am curious to see what next summer will bring. Big bids will probably have to be accepted, so I might have to spend big myself to replace some players. I do not necessarily plan to splash the cash besides that apart from another player like Wang Zhiqiang coming along for anything that comes close to a reasonable price. (I am not going to spend over 100M, that's for sure.) Bayern will be out for revenge next season, and I will go for the hard task of repeating the title and going for another CL run, hopefully a fourth straight CL final? After having lost twice in a row there it would be nice to win it again! However, I am also thinking about the end of my stay at Köln. I think I had previously said I was going to quit here in 2034, and that might still be a good plan. That would mean one more season here. Hoping to win some more trophies and to leave the club with massive wealth. That summer will also have the World Cup after which I will resign as NT manager, so a good fresh start on all accounts. After that, I am now more seriously thinking of making a step down to a smaller league. Perhaps Poland or Denmark would be nice - countries within the scope of this save. We'll see what comes available then. But first, another season here at Köln. It helps to sign a Chinese player! Especially if he's playing like this. A nice stadium expansion for which we do not pay! (Because we do not own the stadium, tbf.)

May 2033 Hahaha yes! Not only did we beat Leipzig, we did so in style. After winning the second tier in the Netherlands with VVV it took me 11 more seasons to finally win a league title in the highest tier! And what a way to do it, unbeaten and followed by an insanely strong Bayern. Who did manage to beat us in the CL final, a third in a row for Köln, because they would not let me have all the fun. And yes, that finally means I'm an icon here. They weren't quite satisfied with me winning the CL before.

April 2033 Well, we did win all the games in April - and I was right that we needed to as Bayern is annoyingly strong still. We are also in with a good chance at making a third straight CL final, which is kind of crazy. Now it all comes down to that last final match of the season, and we play RB Leipzig who aren't having a shabby run either....

Thanks man! Much appreciated. Good luck with your endeavors too. I shall keep an eye on your thread for that

January - March 2033 We continued to do well but oh my March is getting us into trouble... and after winning the first game of April this is the run. We definitely have the tougher set of games and I expect we need to win all 5 games. Including the final day of the season against Leipzig!

Transfers & Intake 2033 I did not sign any players, but there were some departures, albeit nothing too important. Best intake at Köln yet, perhaps. Although I am not sure if I'll still be here when they are good enough to make the step up to the first team.

End of the Year awards A lot of my players got awards after the incredible performance in the previous months. Warmelink Ebenezer Jamiu Agu Wang Zhiqiang

Netherlands NT 2032 Nations League A weaker group but not a great performance, we still have a chance to win the Nations League again.

August - December 2032 Incredible run in the first half of the season! Not a single loss in the league, and only lost once in the CL when rotating a bit too much. Surely this has to be our year!

Summer 2032 Before it even got started in Germany I lost pretty much my best player. I decided to sell him for a couple of reasons, mostly because I think in the spirit of this save I can't really reject offers of this magnitude - I signed for 18M so a nice profit. I also had a replacement in mind... There were a lot of other sales though, in total almost selling worth of 400M in players. Jorgensen kind of flopped and got pissed at me for not giving him a new contract, so I sold him for a slight profit to our title rivals Bayern. Not the ideal buying club obviously, but okay. They also bought Eyüp Aydin from me for 50M. That's 10 times the amount I had paid to them several seasons ago when I signed him for 5M. A decent midfielder for us, but not worth rejecting that kind of money. A similar case was Tommaso Cuc, another rotational option in central midfield who went to Hoffenheim; and Vanderson, a right-back and AMR who went to Real Madrid for another big sum. The only other real first team player who left was Timothy Weah who was getting up there in age and not really getting much playtime anymore. The other big sales in Urrutia, Eliseo Calle, Alberto Guerra, Paulo Briceño and Manel Segarra never really even played for my first team but were on loan previously. Of course this all meant I had to spend some money myself. I already had a transfer budget of over 100M before the madness started, so I certainly could have spent more than the 250m pictured above. The logical replacement for Nelson Henrique just had to be Nino Warmelink, who came through at VVV when I managed there. He is also my goalkeeper for the Dutch NT. He is slightly cheaper, and about as good as Nelson. One of my regrets about leaving VVV was that I had barely been able to manage him, so now all is right in the world again... Most of the other signings were actually talents, some of whom I am very excited about (like AMR Urgurcan Isci), but they won't feature in the next season. Quite a few I sent back on loan to the clubs I bought them from. The two signings from PSG however are first team players. Cherkaoui is mostly a replacement for Timothy Weah. At 26 he should have a good amount of years at the club. He is very useful as he can play on both wings and in central midfield. Wang Zhiqiang was a player I had been looking at all summer. I tried earlier in the summer, but he wouldn't go down enough in his wage demands for me to feel comfortable signing him. On deadline day I tried again, and he was a bit more flexible. He is still very much the best-paid player at the club, but he is also very much the best player at the club. He is a midfielder but can also play as AMR if needed. It was Köln's summer allright. We lost another supercup after some rousing victories in pre-season...

Euro 2032 Decent run to the tournament although not that convincing as we are presumed to be one of the favorites. The squad is pretty old, mostly consisting of players who were already in the game at the start. We did make it through the group of death, albeit very close. We scraped through the knockout rounds, until we had to face France again in the final. Sadly, it was not to be.

April - May 2032 Two sales to Middle Eastern clubs - players I could lose and they always want to go for those money moves. It was always going to be tough to compete in the CL, the Cup and having to win all league games. We couldn't quite do that, but we did win the cup again and made it to a second straight CL final which just went the wrong way for us in the end. So yeah - another second place. Less points than the previous season, and apart from Bayern we also had a real competitor in RBL this year. Disappointed because I definitely felt like we had a chance this year, but on we go for another try. Bayern has won 20 championships in a row and spends ridiculous amounts of money, so it was never going to be easy to topple them. Brahim Diaz definitely outperformed my expectations as a 32 year old attacker, but he still had it in him, being pretty much the best player of the year. Another surprise was Agu, who had been on loan previously but made huge developments and played really well in the center of defense. Also very pleased with newcomer Maïga, who has overtaken Gabriel as first choice left back (although both will continue to play quite the amount of game time) Less ideal were performances from new signing Jorgensen who will probably leave and young central defender Niels Brandt, who didn't turn out to be really ready for this level yet. There will probably be some players sold, and I will have quite a bit of money to play with. Financially things are going incredibly well for the club. If we can continue to rake in the prize money I could leave the club with a balance over half a billion in the green.

January - March 2032 Damn, we did not keep it together in January and February. Losing to both our title rivals in January and then dropping points in back to back league games in February, just a little too much when you're competing with Bayern just behind. However, we are once again doing well in the cup and the CL, so not all is lost. We do need Bayern to slip up in the last two months to win the title though. And I'm not very hopeful about that. After one more win in April, this is now the situation. We do have the kindest run in. Perhaps if we win all games we have a chance. The draw for Euro 2032 has also happened. Group of death would be understating things!

Transfers & Intake 2032 Two big sales: Murray was a rotational midfielder whom I had signed for 10.5M from Ajax a few years back, so that's great profit for a player I can do without. Rodrygo I had signed for 27M and was decent for us but no worldbeater, and as he's in his thirties I was very fine with selling him for a slight profit. Sales from the B team... It seems Bayern really doesn't want us to win the league this year. Similar to recent years - some okay players I'll likely be able to sell for some extra money in a few years, but no real prospects to make the first team here.

Netherlands NT 2031 Apart from a surprise loss to Iceland it was a comfortable year all around and there is also the first international trophy, albeit the Nations League.

August - December 2031 Not the strongest start in the league imaginable, but we did have a really hard start facing Bayern, Hertha, Leipzig & Dortmund in a row - and we managed to beat Bayern! After the surprising loss to Frankfurt we had pretty much three months of straight league wins. In the CL we did okay, however we were bested by Barcelona. Really strong stuff in the league so far. I hope we can keep this up, we probably need to, to win the league with Bayern and Leipzig closely behind.

Summer 2031 Only one player who was with us last year around the first team is leaving: Jousse, whom I had signed for 25M is sold for a nice profit to Barcelona. He was back-up central defender and right back. The other big sell in Muller was a player who had been on loan a few times. I was considering him as a back-up player for this coming season, but the offer was too good for me to reject. Incoming there are a couple of players of note. Brahim Díaz at 32 will have a short stay here, but he is the best AML at the club now. Good free signing for one or two seasons at least. The other notable signings are Maïga and Jorgensen. Maïga is a very talented left back who can also play on the other side, and thanks to his limited fee at Schalke he was affordable for us. After the transfer went through the game has given him a transfer value of over 100M. Jorgensen should play quite a few games in midfield. At 29 he is here to strengthen the squad in the short term. Pre-season including the super cup games went well. We drew in both Supercup games, losing and winning one on penalties. At least it shows we still got what it takes to compete. Pretty straightforward group - should go through with Barcelona.

The Squad The CL-winning squad, once again only around 20 players, with many multi-positional players as well. Of course the two young Brazilians are most eye-catching and luckily I have managed to tie them down for quite a few more years on okay salaries for now a top tier European side. My only real worry for squad management is the age of my wingers, with Bryan Gil and Rodrygo at 30 years old, Timothy Weah at 31 and Janis Antiste at 28. Them being all around the same age and nearing the later stages of their careers, I will need to see if younger players at the club can replace them or if I need to spend big within a season or two. Otherwise, I am generally happy with the squad and only remarkable deals will be struck for new first team players if a chance arrives. With us winning the CL the player values are somewhat higher than normal, so it will be interesting to see whether any bids come in from the super rich elite clubs this summer. Some of the key players (Pojuzina is a few posts higher in the thread): Might be the best GK I've ever managed in an fm. Of course limited by his size and jumping reach, but in his role as pressing forward and his insane work rate he is still insane.

April - May 2031 Insane! We had to play Bayern in both the semi's of the cup and the champions league - which I thought was the end of our hopes at a trophy this season... but in the cup we were very lucky and we were actually the stronger side in the Champions League games! After beating Bayern Hoffenheim was easy prey in the cup final and then came the CL final... We were lucky to get away with that win. Not a great game for the neutrals, that's for sure. But I'll take it! a header by Callum Doyle from a corner got us the win. As I alluded to in my previous post, the draws were too much and Bayern had an insane season. 225M in prize money My contract runs until 2034, and my plan right now is to stay here for those three years and seek a new team when that contract ends. I hope to be able to win the Bundesliga at least once in those years... I have now won three European trophies and multiple cups but still no league title except for the second tier in the Netherlands with VVV! After Köln, I have not decided yet whether I will go to England or take a step down and manage in one of the smaller countries left in the Hanseatic League - for instance Denmark or Poland. I could also join another team in Germany based in a relevant Hanseatic city and try to build up a second club in the Bundesliga. I guess it all depends mostly on what is available at that time.