“What has gotten into this team?” Heinrich asked for the umpteenth time
“Are you complaining?” Uwe asked. They were sitting next to each other, ignoring the scenery outside the train.
“No, I’m just…”
“We all are,” Sasha said from the seat up front. “Don’t complain about it, other wise you’ll jinx us. How much longer?”
Hans sighed, and your could feel rather than hear his eyes roll. “We literally left the station 15 minutes ago. It’s 128 kilometers to Berlin, so maybe another hour or two.”
“Thank you Hans,” Sasha replied, sitting back in her chair and looking out the window. Hans resisted the temptation to turn back around and look at her, instead he turned enough to see Dietrich looking at him with a shocked face. Sasha rarely said thanks, but since the ‘Bar Incident’ and the month helping clean the stadium out as part of the cleanup crew as penance, she was a lot less quitter and more polite version of herself.
The next fifteen or so minutes passed quietly, they talked amongst themselves about work, and the upcoming games, debating whether or not to travel to Cologne for the game there in two weeks. There was a loud noise, and then the door closest to them opened, and a group of Magdeburg fans, wearing the teams blue and white colors, came in. They stopped short when they saw the Dynamo supporters sitting.
“You lucky bastards,” one of them said, pointing an unsteady finger. “You bribe the ref for that 95th minute foul?”
“No, we bribed Chukwuma to push Eisenhunt when they went up for the jump ball,” Uwe said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, it was a VAR decision, you have a problem with it, complain to them, and then your own player.”
“That was a bullshit decision,” another Magdeburg supporter said.
“Maybe it was, it’s not like you didn’t a few calls go your way back in September, ja?” Dietrich said. “Today was a good game, we both came away with a point, helps you with not being relegated-“
“WE AREN’T GOING DOWN!” a third supporter yelled, stepping forward.
“Goddammit,” Sasha swore. “I was sleeping! Who’s yelling?” She stood up, taking a look at the group of Magdeburg supporters.
“Just a group of supporters upset at the outcome, Sasha,” Heinrich said.
“YOU’RE RIGHT WERE PISSED YOU BERLINER-” The original antagonist started to yell, until the guy standing next to him put his arm around his shoulder, then his hand across his mouth. The guy yelling was surprised, and started to resist, which led to his friend putting him into a headlock.
“You’re Sasha, from the BFC Ultras?” the guy holding his friend asked.
“Yes, I am,” Sasha replied, clearly confused as to what was going on.
“Sorry to wake you up,” he said. “Good game today, nice comeback.” He smiled, turned around, taking his friend with him, started walking to the back of the car. The others followed him, confused as well.
“She’s the one who beat up those three guys at the bar before Christmas,” the guy holding his friend said, before opening the door and dragging his friend thru it.
Sasha looked back from the door and saw everyone in her group staring at her. Then she rolled her eyes and sat back down.
“I’m going to sleep. Wake me when we get there.”
2028 has gotten off to a decent start for us. Transfer wise the window was quiet. Despite some scouting and some offers, the only person to sign for us in the January transfer window was Niklas Kölle. I’m taking a bit of a flyer on him, he’s a ‘Jack of All Trades, Master of None’ type of player who loves big matches but is injury prone, and he’s a bit older as well. He’s going to compete for a starting position, I just don’t know which one yet. He’s had some solid seasons at MSV Duisburg and Hoffenheim II, but last season at Sønderjysk in Denmark he didn’t do so well, but he’s here on a free, and if he contributes, I’ll be happy. On the outs, noone of consequence left.
Schedule wise, 2028 has gotten of to a great start. I think a lot of that is because Mile Rodic finally decided he could score.
The friendly at Cracovia was nice, not only did we get a decent tuneup game against a solid opponent, they also paid us a bit of money to travel.
Munster is the worst team in the league this year, they need a miracle to not be relegated, but Rodic getting a brace in the 4-0 win was definately a highlight. He scored again as we beat Dynamo Dresden, and made it three games in a row when he scored against Schalke in the victory there.
Against Kiel he reverted to his old ways, and then everyone had a horrible game when we played Regensburg. An injury kept him out of the KSC match, but everyone who did play had a mare of a game, Mehri ended up on a 7.1 due to the goal, everyone else was sub 6.7. We beat Darmstadt thanks to a very lucky Injai goal, and then was Magdeburg foul in the last minute of the game gave Nezri a chance to score, which he did, which clawed the draw back for us.
The Winter of Rodic appears to be over, as he went 6.3 in that match. The Spring was just as frustrating.
Drawing at Braunschweig was bad, but considering we had 16 shots, 1 on target, and a 73% possession rate against their 4 shots and 0 on target, despite half the team being 7.0 or better player ratings wise, the only thing that would have been worse would have been losing to a team fighting against relegation.
The 1-0 loss at Koln may look bad, but they are running away with the league this year, and are going to be promoted, so holding them to 1 is a good thing. Rodic had a 6.1 this match, so of course he scores at Heidenheim, and then a brace at Armenia Bielefeld. We’re neck and neck with Bochum in the standings, so a draw is nearly as good as a win, and like the 1-0 loss to Koln earlier, losing to 2nd place Nurnberg by the same amount isn’t too bad either. Kaiserslautern is fighting relegation as well, they’ll need a lot of help to stay up as well, but of course Rodic scored another brace.
I really want to like him, I think he has a ton of potential, but there’s not a lot of ‘in between’ with him, he’s either scoring goals, or he’s invisible.
What’s interesting for us is not only are we finishing top half, but we are challenging for 3rd place. The only games left this season are against a solid Hannover squad, and an 1860 Munchen squad that’s fighting to stay in the Bundesliga 2. Some things go our way, we have a shot at 3rd place, and that would be great, if only because the €16.79M prize money will finally make me feel secure about our finances, and the reputation boost couldn’t hurt either.
Fingers crossed…
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 