The celebration after winning the game was muted, Bayer 04 had walked off the field, Jaissle shaking Nikki’s hand and congratulating him.
Then the big screen switched to the Borussia Munchen-Gladbach-Mainz game. BMG had drawn with Dynamo two weeks prior, and then had played a listless game away at Hoffenheim the resulted in a draw, meaning Dynamo no longer controlled its own destiny. They needed a win, and a BMG loss or tie, and it looked like they might get their wish. Mainz was in the relegation zone, but had been playing BMG tough, they were currently tied at 2 all wih just under 15 minutes left.
“Didn’t they start the same time as us?” Sasha asked?
“Stadium had a power outage right before the second half was supposed to start, delayed the game by about 15 minutes,” Heinrich said, staring into his phone.
“Oh, crap,” said Klaus, watching the big screen. Vladimir Camara, the former Dynamo player, lofted a long pass across the field, where Bernd Anacker ran up on it, dribbled around the Mainz defender, and lofted a cross in at the top of the box. Ulrich went for the header, but instead of directing it towards the goal towards Naldo, he kept it going right, where it bounced in front of Joe Gelhardt, the veteran winger waiting until it was a few inches in the air, before blasting it into the upper left corner of the goal past Yusufu’s outstretched hands.
14,000 voices all groaned, Sasha’s loud “VERDAMMT!” caused more than a few people around her to step away.
Fifteen minutes later, despite Mainz’s best efforts, BMG’s defense held, and the ref whistled the game to an end. Coach Schmidt called the team to huddle around him, gave a short speech to them that no one heard, then had them line up, he and his coaching staff shaking their hands as they headed to the stands to applaud the fans. Schmidt and his coaching staff followed, walking around the stadium, clapping for everyone who remained. As they headed towards the entrance to the lockers, a small crowd of men in suits came out. The coaching staff stopped in front of them, and there was a short discussion. There were handshakes and congratulations all around, and the coaching staff, still waving and clapping, headed inside.
Before entering, Coach Schmidt turned around and called out, and the chairman turned around to look at him.
Coach Schmidt raised his hand, and made the universal ‘spending money’ hand gesture, then turned and left, before he could see the chairman face go red with anger.
We only had two outs in the January transfer window. Joan Vallejo is a capable midfielder, but he wanted a new contract that guaranteed him First Team playing time. I countered with Squad Player, because up to this point that’s what he was, a very capable M(C)/DM player off the bench who could get the occasional start when players better than him needed a day off, but he wasn’t having it. I am not a babysitter, so out he went, for €1.1M.
BMG made an unsolicited offer for Federico González. He had a really good season last year, with 4 goals and 10 assists in 18 appearances, and at the halfway point this season had 5 goals and 3 assists in 11 games, he was part of a very good rotation, but he jumped at the chance to go to BMG. I couldn’t figure out why, until I saw they were already playing Europa League Ball, and he would be a full time starter there. FYI they lost in the Semi’s to Inter on aggregate, they have a very good team, and for a €7.75M fee, González joined them.
I did sign a bunch of youth players, a couple might have potential, but they are more to help the squads have more options so my younger players don’t get hurt. The Youth Intake this year was a great big bucket of “Meh”, it will be another year or two before I see some top talent coming thru.
The highlight in this series of matches is that we beat a full strength Bayern Squad. They had more shots on goal, but they also had more Yellow Cards, and were just off their game the entire match. I would have counted this seasons mostly successful if we had been relegated but beat Bayern on the way down. We’re reaching the point where mistakes are starting to catch up to them in a couple of years other teams will be challenging for first place. The only real disappointing result in this run of games was losing the Pokal to Hannover, only to turn around 5 days later and beat them. Annoying AF to say the least.
We went on a rampage in March, only to pay for it in April and May. We had the opportunity to finish 2nd, but let it slip thru our hands, which I am upset at. I can take some solace in the fact that BMG and Hoffenheim are both decent squads, and to be fair so is RB Leipzig, but 3rd is not 2nd, even though we came away with European Football and a lot of money.
The team, is still struggling to find its offensive identity, which is odd considering how well we did this year. Maclennan and Cezar each had 12 goals, Novotny led the team with 9 assists, and I had 15 players start at least 15 games. Maybe I am tinkering to much, and that’s affecting things? The enemy of ‘Very Good’ is perfect, and it seems I am not a fan of ‘Very Good’ lately. I still think we are a couple of players away from being better than ‘Very Good’, but the nice thing is, the club now has the money to spend, and as long as I spend it wisely, we’ll be playing European football for a long time to come.
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 