The plan, like all plans, was not the same at the end as it was at the beginning. We were solidly midtable, and while we made some moves in the transfer window, I spent more time fighting off transfers for my players, Petrov in particular, than I did scouting and signing.
Unfortunately, I do not have screenshot of the players I signed, and I do not have a save file for this season (PBKAC error on my part), but I can give a recap of each one.
Joan Vallejo is a depth signing, at €1.6M he provides a solid backup option at both the M(C) and DM spots. If he were better off the ball and dribbling, he’d be a very good AM, as it is he has better than average Technique, Movement, and Passing skills, and excellent first touch. He’s probably not going to improve that much, but that’s OK, as he is a very serviceable DLP in my opinion.
Juan Ayala is similar, but he can play AM(C), with Excellent Technique, good Movement, Ball Control and FInal Third skills, his excellent Decision making compensates for his lack of positioning, and his Endurance ill probably never be more than average. Of the two, Ayala will probably get more playing time, but they would be a solid midfield duo for most non top flight clubs IMO.
Alexis Portocarrero is an AM/M everywhere player. Excellent Technique, good in the Final Third, decent Positioning, and with Excellent Ball COntrol, Movement and Passing attributes, he also has very good endurance attributes. My only quibble with him, and it’s a big one, is that he tries to Play his way out of trouble way too often, which against lesser opponents in the 3 Liga and Bundesliga 2 he could get away with, but not so much in the top flight.
On the outs, Teden Mengi wanted a new contract. He thought he was a Full Time starter, and maybe a couple of seasons ago he was, but I saw him as more of a bench player. He disagreed, and now he’s playing the MLS at LAFC.
Teams started coming after Aleksandar Petrov before the January break, but I was bound and determined to hold onto him, and eventually we did. Although to be honest when Tottenham HC Pep Guardiola (!) announced they were interested in him, any hopes of signing him to a new long term contract went out the window. But Petrov took the interest to heart, and decided that if a few teams were going to go out of their way to take a look at him, he was going to get all the teams interested in him, and he did.
The RB Leipzig game wasn’t as close as it looks, goals in the 89th and 94th minute were the result of Leipzig being lackadaisical than our good fortune. Petrov’s Hat Trick at Hoffenheim, goal at Wolsfburg, and effort in the loss against Wolfsburg were noticed by more than a few people, the news feed was p[populated with messages about coach so and so from Big Team in Big League watching.
February was very good, although we had to claw the draw back against Stuttgart, good wins at Werder and Hertha were very nice, especially as Espositio came back from his hip injury and looked to pick up from where he left off. Scoring the equalizer as well against Bayer, I thought maybe he was back for sure, and wouldn’t be suffering from any sort of drop off as a result of his injury, but I was wrong.
March was Petrovs, a brace against Frieburg, the last coming in the 92nd minute to claw the draw back, and in the loss at Mainz put him well ahead of everyone else on the team in terms of scoring. I rested him against Braunschweig, but Quigley and Tiozzo picked up where he had left off.
At this point, we had been flirting with 5th place, but we had a tough schedule coming up, and my goal was to qualify for European football.
The losses at Dortmund and Bayern proved we still have a ways to go before competing at the top level, and while the draw at Frankfurt was nice, we didn’t deserve to win the game at Union. Hell, we didn’t even deserve to draw we played that poorly, but we did. The victory at Koln secured us 7th place, so I played a very rotated side against Hamburg, and it showed.
The other piece of good news was that the teams training facilities were finally upgraded, the bad news was it took me almost resigning to get the to do that…
So we qualified for European Football, and the board rewarded me with a €42M p/a payroll and a €21M transfer budget…The bad/good news in all of this is that some of the youngsters I have are going to be moving, Petrov in particular could being in well over €40M, and we get most of that back.
On one hand, that’s good, but on the other hand, that’s bad because as you can see Petrov was our primary goal scorer. And on the Gripping Hand (IYKYK) while Tiozzo and Quigley are capable players, I can’t rely on them to be the focal point of an attack against better squads. Especially as Esposito lost a step and a half due to his hip injury, and Rukavina is not a Bundeliga level player in this iteration of the game. I have a lot of good young players with potential, but giving them playing time here is an iffy proposition because I don’t want to be relegated any more than any other team does, but were hamstringed by the club because out two affiliates at the moment are both RegionaLiga teams, and all of my players are too good to play at that level, and lately when I do send them out on loan to clubs outsider the country, then end up playing out of position, or not at all.
But we still need improvements to the club, especially if we want to attract and keep better quality players. There’s going to be a decent amount of change next year at the club, some of it intentional. The question is will we qualify for European football again? The answer is most likely no.
His jaw hurt, a sign he had been grinding his teeth more lately. He had avoided going to the bar, because not only was it becoming too crowded, there were to many non supporters hanging out there for his tastes. There was talk of making it a members only place, but there were a lot of hoops, legal and otherwise that d to be jumped thru in order to make that happen. As it was he was pretty much done talking to the board face to face. At the moment, noone outside the organization was aware of it, but if people knew he and the board weren’t getting along,
He was sitting on the balcony, enjoying a drink, watching the evening sky, when his phone buzzed. He looked at it, a message from his agent.
KLAUS: YOU ARE GOING TO GET A PHONE CALL IN ABOUT 5 MINUTES. DO US A FAVOR AND AT LEAST PICK IT UP AND LISTEN?
Sighing, Nicholas was still debating a response when it rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t stop it from answering.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Nicholas Schmidt, Head Coach of BFC Dynamo?” The voice on the other end of the line was surprisingly cheerful for the lateness of the hour.
“It is.”
“Good,” the voice on the other end said. “My name is Rens van Dalen, I’m the Chairman of the board of Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax, and was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time?”
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 