The conference room was crowded. It was the first time in a long time that almost everyone on the staff of the club, including the scouts, were back in Berlin. Christmas had come and gone, the transfer window had closed, and Coach Schmidt had called everyone together, if only to put faces to names in some cases.
“How’s Barros looking, Fabrizio?” Aleksander Szymanski, the GM of the club, had an accent to his German, but most everyone at the table understood him. Fabrizio Angileri, the clubs scout in Uruguay and Argentina, looked up from his tablet and smiled.
“He’s got potential, that’s for sure. The question is whether or not he wants to overcome his shortcomings, and when he arrives here in the fall how hard he is willing to work on it. Pair him up with a couple of good mentors, Swift or Lobo, and he will get better. Technically speaking, he’s not a wingback, yet. And his club is playing him at centerback, which is where he plays best. He’s got the physicals to play wingback, but his technical skills…” Fabrizio lifted a hand and waggled it back and forth.
Szymanski nodded.
“Mamadou?” he asked , looking down the table.
“Some very good prospects, Mamadou Kone said. “I uploaded the videos and reports this morning. When I head back I am making a stop in Cameroon, a friend of a friend told me I should check some games out. Shouldn’t cost anything out of the ordinary,” he said the last, looking over at Thomas Stock, the Chief Scout.
“For the moment we are OK on the scouting budget,” he said.
“We can always transfer more to it if we have too,” Coach Schmidt said. For the most part he had been pretty quiet after the introductions had been made. Stock looked at the head coach, who nodded at him, and he returned it. Szymanski went down the table, talking to each scout in turn.
“Prospects?” Szymanski asked. The whiteboard in the main scouting room was updated regularly, as was the clubs database.
“Cross Tulli of your lists,” Aleksandar Jaric said. The Serbian, who had first sent news of Dragan Pavlovic two years ago, was sitting with his hands on the table. “His agent made it clear he wants first team playing time and first team money wherever he goes, and the bigger clubs are already salivating. In fact, you can also cross off Borsot and Zamora as well.” The three were Inters young trio of talent, and already had numerous scouts in the stands watching their every game.
“Anyone worth adding?” Szymanski asked?
“That fit what we are looking for? Barile, at Bologna. Good you Advanced Mid who could also be a playmaker in the midfield. There’s others looking at him though.”
“Djurgårdens shot down our offer for Chabalala,” Marciano van den Berg said. The Dutch based scout had sepent a month in Sweden, anbd the young left back had caught his eye early on. And about twenty other teams as well apparently. “He feels it important enough to at least honor two years of his contract, after that…” he shrugged.
People around the table nodded. It was the same thing, the good players were almost always found, and if a smaller club found a diamond in the rough in the 3rd division of Uruguayan Soccer, the bigger clubs would come in once they heard he was considering signing.
“Tresson at Bournemouth,Joyce at Fulham,” one scout called out.
Szymanski went around the table, getting names from all the scouts that weren’t already on their list.
“Peter?” he asked, looking at the gentleman across the table from him.
Peter Laudenklos was the teams Head of Youth development.
“As always,” he said, after taking a drink, “It’s a work in progress. The recent expansion of the Youth facilities will help, but as we all know, the club is well behind many of our competitors when it comes to facilities and the like. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the operation as whole is getting bigger and better.”
“If you had to choose between Facilities and coaching, which would you want to emphasize more in the budget?” Coach Schmidt asked.
“Coaching, for sure. Even if we have to overpay, I’ll take a good coach at a mediocre facility as opposed to a mediocre coach at a good facility any day. Kids these days may talk about equipment and facilities and kit, but the good ones want good coaching that will help them get better and on the first team sooner.” There were several nods around the table, including the head coaches.
“I agree. I’ve a meeting next month with the board, I’ll see what I can do.” Schmidt said, then stood up.
“A few words before we call it a night, if you will indulge me.”
“First of all, thanks for attending, I realize for many of you it wasn’t the easiest journey, but I wanted you all to come and see what your are helping contribute to building here. Now, we all know the nature of this industry. I will not go so far to say that everyone of you will always have a job here, heck I do not know that I will have a job here this time next year. That does not mean I am looking to move, I turned down the interview offers from Freiberg, Bayer and Roma because I want to see what we are building here come to fruition. I want to see us lift trophies, I want to see us win the league. I also know that’s not happening anytime soon, but that’s what we are building towards. While you are working for Dynamo, I ask that you give me your best efforts. You all have my phone number. That’s not to say that if you call me I will pick up, time zones are a bitch sometimes,” he smiled, as did most of the table, “but leave a message, and I’ll answer. I read all the scouting reports, all the analysts reports, when I call or email and ask questions, you might think I am pulling your leg, but there is a purpose: to help make this team a winner.
“You give this club, the fans, the players, me, you give 100% while you are here, that’s all I and the management of the club ask. If in the future, should you decide you want to move on, for whatever reason, we will not stand in your way, you have my word on that. As a club, we’ve come a long way in eight years. I think it’s going to take us at least another eight to ten get to where we want this club to be. So lets do what we can, while we can, to get it there. And under budget, preferably,” he smiled, and the room laughed with him.
It may not look like it, but we got off to a pretty good start this season:
Would I prefer some of those draws were wins? Of course, but I’ll take a draw over a loss any day of the week and twice on gamedays…
The Sebastiano Esposito in this universe was low rolled by the game when the database was being created, and to be honest if is CA is anything close to 130 I’d be surprised, but we really are a different team with him up top or on the wing. And Jose Louis Gomes is coming along very well, but the surprise for me thus far has been Mbaye Fall. The young winner is always in the mix, and he’s scored more the first half of the seasons than I thought he would all season. The draws were annoying, especially against HSV and Union Berlin, because on the pitch we were the better squad, but the win against Bayer 04 was nice, even though they are having an off year, as was the win against Stuttgart.
Predictably speaking, the wheels fell off in winter, but given the teams we were facing:
The Wolfsburg match was gut wrenching, as they scored in the 92nd minute to win. Mainz had a rash of injuries, and didn’t field their strongest squad, and it took a 90th minute goal for Koln to claw the draw back. It sucks being on the wrong side of those…
December started out great, beating Hertha was nice, but they were on a short week because of their Champions League matches. They scored the first two goals, but we came back and beat a tiring squad to win.
Losing to Bayer in the Pokal was annoying, because we are the better squad. There was also a few outside distractions as well:
BMG just outclassed us, everyone had a bad game, and while a Tiozzo goal drew us even with Bayern for a few minutes, Sesko’s goal and their great defense gave them the win. Dusseldorf is already slated for relegation, so while beating them was nice, it did feel kind of hollow when wrapping up the first half of the season, especially when the transfer budget wasn’t all that high.
But, the 1st half of the stage, we were in 9th place, on 23 points, which on paper should be well within safety, but its the Bundesliga. There was a bit of good news though:
Of course, there’s a lot more scouts in the stands now too…
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 