“Do you think it’s interesting he hasn’t announced who he’s supporting for Team President?” Hans asked.
“He has announced,” Sasha said around a mouthful of food.
“What? He hasn’t made any statements.”
“And that’s his announcement,” Sasha replied, after taking a drink.
“What?”
Sasha sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you can say exactly what you want to say without actually saying anything, ja?”
“Maybe?” Hans replied, a confused look on his face.
“Is this a Y Chromosome thing?” Sasha asked, turning to Tobias, who in response choked on his own drink and spent a moment coughing before answering “Maybe.”
“Look, if he supported Ammerbach he would say so, yes?”
“Presumably.”
“And if supported one of the other candidates he would say so, ja?”
Hans nodded in reply.
“Then by his silence he’s saying he doesn’t support anyone who is running, and why should he, they saddled him with this situation.”
“But we’re winning games, we’re at 23 points!”
“And I shudder to think what sort of Black Magic has been used to pull that off,” Tobias said, glancing over at Sasha, who was sitting in her chair, arms crossed.
“Don’t say it,” he said, and Sasha glanced over at him.
“Say what?”
Her gave her a look, and she sighed and threw up her hands, then went back to eating.
“She still upset at the Hertha game?” Hans asked, the ducking out of the way when he saw Tobias’s hand flying towards his head.
“Definitely a Y Chromosome issue,” Sasha muttered to herself, deciding to finish her meal before starting her rant. Again.
“We fight, we scratch, we hang on for dear life, and if we keep one finger on the cliff that stops us from falling, we will have been successful.ir kämpfen, wir kratzen, wir kratzen, und wenn wir einen Finger auf der Klippe halten, die uns am Fallen hindert, werden wir erfolgreich gewesen sein.” Nicholas Schmidt, locker room speech at the beginning of the 2025/26 season.
Limited funds, limited scouting, and a squad that on paper wasn’t good enough for the league we were in had me believing that even if we started the season strong, we may still be relegated. I tend to be a pessimistic about such things though, in that even if it’s mathematically possible we can still be relegated but highly improbable we won’t be, the voice (one of many to be honest) is telling me that we are getting relegated.
Tactically, I didn’t change anything, we’re still playing the 4-2-4, I’ll make pregame changes based on the recommendations, maybe a couple of in game changes, and while not overly religious personally, I do not tempt the FM Gods if I can help it.
The ‘Ost Cup’ was an idea I had to play a Friendly Tournament with former Ost League teams in an effort to generate more money thru gate receipts etc. It worked in that we didn’t lose a lot of money because noone wanted to televise the games, and getting thrashed by both Jena and Hansa Rostock certainly didn’t help the chances that we would do one next year.
Starting the season of with a win was good, beating Sandhausen in the Pokal then drawing with them a week later not so much, the after beating a pretty good Nuremburg team, the seasons theme began to develop. We lost three games by a total of three goals.
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s essentially a repeat of last season, in that if we win we win. If we draw, that’s fine too, but if we lose, if we can keep it close, that’s only going to help us when the season winds down, because Goal Difference is the first tiebreaker. And Dragan Pavlovic has been absolutely great for us in goal, in his first 8 games his ratings have been 7.8, 6.5, 8.4, 7.4, 6.6, 7.2, 6.8, and 7.5. That’s a trend line I can live with.
Heidenheim was the first game we lost this season by multiple goals, but the game of the season so far was our Pokal Second Round Match against Hertha. Chris Reher, one of our better defenders, was injured in the 6th minutes, and was replaced by Leon Roth, a product of the Youth system who joined the year before I was hired. He is not a good player, but because of our financial woes and other player injuries, he was on the bench.
This was the first game he played for BFC Dynamo. This was the last game he played for BFC Dynamo.
Neto scored in the 2nd minute, Davie Selkie scored his first goal in the 13th minute and his 3rd goal at 45+2, which would be impressive had Eljif Elmas not scored his first goal in the 16th minute, and his 3rd goal in the 33rd. For us a very nice Ott cross had Sanogo scoring a nice goal in the 27th minute. I didn’t yell at the guys at half time, just told them to go out there and do their best. Hertha made some changes at half time, I don’t know what they were exactly, but I went on the attack because why not, and that led to Sanogo scoring in the 53rd minute, and Suljic getting his own brace in the 56th and 59th minutes. At that point Sandro Schwarz said “Genug ist genug”, and Hertha’s defense clamped down, and we didn’t score after that. To be honest, after that second Suljic goal part of me was hoping we could complete the comeback, but Hertha is a Bundesliga team, with Bundesliga money and talent, and while we lost, getting 4 on them was an accomplishment.
The above is a screenshot from later in the save, which is why the rating’s aren’t populated, but Roth ended on a 5.8, and all but two of the Hertha goals went thru him…
We bounced back against Osnabruck, a Hamzic penalty kick in the 90th giving him a hat trick and us the victory. I made no comments about the VAR decision to award the penalty…Neither side wanted to win when we played 1860 Munchen, so in typical FM fashion neither side did. With almost two weeks of good training, a healthy squad of first teamers, a decent position in the standings I felt good about our chances against Dusseldorf, who were one of the better teams in the Bundesliga 2 and were tipped for promotion.
The FM Gods chose that game to laugh at us, as we were 2-0 by the 9th minute. Could be worse, we’re not Tottenham…
The first half of the season ended on a good note, we didn’t lose. A last gasp Hamzic goal in extra time at Augsburg gave us the win, and his heroics in extra time against Braunschweig meant we only lost by 1. A draw with K-Town and a snoozer at Karlsruhe (who had Weiß on the bench after not loaning him to us again because they wanted to give him more playing time…) meant we entered the winter break on 23 points, with a record of 6 wins, 5 draws, 6 draws, and a goal differential of -3, thank you Dusseldorf.
I am pretty sure this isn’t the Christmas gift I wasn’t looking for:
That said, I was looking forward to the January transfer window. There were some good players out there who might come in on a free, the loan pool may not have been deep but it was wide, and on 23 points, I was feeling pretty confident.
New Years came, the transfer window opened, and this happened:
“Fröhliches verdammtes neues Jahr” – Nicholas Schmidt, 1 Jan 2026, at about 11:55AM
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 