Something a little bit different

The door to the conference room opened, but only a few people inside stood as he walked in. Today was a casual day, slacks, nice shirt sports coat. He took a seat at the end of the table, and poured himself a glass of water.
“The answer,” he said, after taking a drink, “To your first question, is no, I haven’t decided yet. Herr van Delen was nice enough to give me a few days to consider.”
“Is it about money?” Rudolf Schneider asked.
“Yes, but not in the way many of you believe,” he replied, taking another drink of water.
“I have a contract, I just signed it, I am willing to honor it, and in the future, taking into consideration the direction the team is going, I am willing to sign a new contract with similar terms. Any articles you have seen, read or watched was not put out by me.” He said the last part looking at one of the men sitting in the back, a member of Hans Biermanns communications team at his construction company. The young man looked at him briefly, then glanced away.
“I have said it before, I will say it again, and if you do not believe me, I am not going to waste any more effort. We need to spend money. Smartly. This Schwabian Grandmother attitude of taking everything we get and sticking 30% of it in the savings account while only spending the remaining 30% we have left will endure us years of mid to lower table mediocrity, with the occasional European Conference League appearance. We will become a turnstyle club, young players will come here for low money, they stay a few years at best, improve, we move them on for big money, which we then sit on and do not improve the club with, with no gaurentees that we stay up either.. That’s not the sort of team I want to coach, I’m sorry, but there it is.”
The table was quiet.
“I am committed to the long term success of this club,” Nicholas said, finishing his water. “It just seems some of us have a different definition of what success means to us.”
“Can you promise European football next year?” A board member asked.
“No. If anything we will fall off to midtable.”
This was met by a series shocked faces and noises.
Nicholas filled his glass again and took a drink. “Aleksander Petrov is leaving, probably for Tottenham, because he wants to play for Pep and play European football, that is a higher level of European football. Teams are asking about Dragan and Christopher, and I suspect Sergio is going to get offers as well. That’s our Star Forward, Keeper, our left wingback, and our right wingback, for starters. And right now I get 25% of whatever I move them for, on top of the €20M you were…generous with.”
“Are you saying you can’t work with that budget?”
“Not at all,” Nicholas said. “I’ve proven in the past I can work and succeed on a shoestring. The problem is this is the Bundesliga. If you want to stay here and achieve great things we need to spend, smartly.”
“So you can’t work with the budget,” Biermann said.
“You misheard me,” Nicholas said, sitting back. “It’s not that I can’t work with this budget, it’s that I won’t.”
The room exploded, angry voices trying to outdo each other.
The loud “SMACK!” of the hand hitting the table silenced everyone, and caused more than a few people to drink.
“Enough with this childish bickering,” Klaus said. The outgoing President of the Supporters club was one of the few still sitting down. “You all are worse than my grand kids, and all three of them are younger than four.” He started to cough, and pulled out a handkerchief and spent more than a few seconds with it held to his mouth.
“This club has come a long ways in nearly ten years. If you had told me we would be in the Bundesliga, I would have died a happy fan. Now we are in the Bundesliga, we are a rising club in Europe, and we seem to be afraid of success. Why?” He coughed again and looked around the table.
“We have one of the best young coaches in the game, who could have left of at anytime in the past decade for greener pastures. We have had success in the Bundesliga, we are playing European football this season, and yet for some reason we hedge our bets against future failure? What good will this huge balance do us in Bundesliga 2? In 3.Liga? And he says to us all that we need to be smart, to not overspend, to not become another Kaiserslautern, or 1860 Munchen. Why are we fighting him on this? It certainly isn’t greed, is it?”
He looked around the room, and more than a few people avoided his look.
“Coach,” he said. “Nicholas…Nikki.” He smiled, somewhat paternally at the younger man. “I do not know why you have stayed with this club for as long as you have, why you have turned down the opportunities that have come your way as a result of how well you have guided the team so far. Before this meeting, the Supporters Club had one of its own, and I’ve been asked to tell you that you should take Ajax’s offer, and go work for a club that will appreciate your hard work, work with you hand in glove, and reward your efforts. We will not hold you responsible for leaving. Its obvious to us that this current board has no desire to do that,” he stopped talking for a moment, which is why tomorrow the Supporters Club will put forward a No Confidence Motion before the rest of the teams ownership. I suspect it will pass.”
Nicholas sat up like had touched a bare wire, he was not the only one, the meeting descended into shouting and screaming.
It came to a crashing halt when Klaus started coughing blood into his handkerchief, and collapsed on the floor.

It was what his dad used to call “Typical East German Weather”, dull grey, streaked with rain, and chilly without being cold.
The funeral was supposed to be a quiet affair, but when you had been the Supporters club president for almost fifteen years, “Friends and Family” took on a whole new meeting. There were few eulogies, but it was gratifying to see almost every player had shown up to pay their respects, including most of those who had been on vacation.
He had sat in the front, as was expected, but as the crowd began to thin out, after hugging Joanna and Hannah and a few others, he sat, until he was by himself. The rain was barely noticeable, just enough to be annoying, but he didn’t care. Standing up and stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked down the headstones for a little bit, feet taking him on a path they knew well.
He took a few moments to clear the leaves and other detritus away from the headstones, kneeling down and wiping the dirt of his mothers with his hand.
“Hi Coach,” he heard a voice say quietly. He turned around, and saw Sasha and Ulrich standing there.
He nodded.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ulrich said, but Nicholas waved that away.
“Your parents?” Ulrich asked quietly, and he replied with a nod.
“We are on the way to talk to mine,” Sasha said. She pointed in a direction but Nicholas didn’t look. “I come every couple of weeks to get them caught up on all things Dynamo,” she said.
“All things?” Nicholas said, looking at her and smiling. Ulrich covered his mouth, trying to hide a laugh that he turned into a cough.
“Yes, Coach-” she stopped talking when Nicholas held a hand up.
“Here, it’s Nicholas, OK?” They both nodded. “I suspect we’ve crossed paths before here, but-”
“Boundaries, Coach, I mean..Nicholas,” Sasha replied.
He nodded.
“How long has it been since you talked to them?” he asked, standing back up.
“Couple of weeks,” Ulrich replied.
“Lets go say Hello then, shall we?” Nicholas said, gesturing for them to lead the way.

It was a short distance, in which Nicholas found out Ulrich and Sasha were first cousins, their dads were brothers, both of whom were still alive, and Hertha fans apparently. Sasha looked like she was going to be physically ill mentioning it, but swallowed her pride and pronounced it like it wasn’t a curse word.
“Did you know Klaus was sick?” he asked them as they walked along the path.
“We knew something was up when he announced he was stepping down,” Ulrich said. “My understanding from talking to his wife was that he went to the doctor about eight weeks ago complaining about having a cold, and they found out it was Stage Four Lung cancer.”
Nicholas nodded, and they were quiet until they got to a family plot.
Nicholas stood aside as they others did their own maintenance on the area, then after listening to Sasha talk for a minute, to tell them about Klaus, she mentioned she had a special guest.
He stepped forward, and introduced himself.
“Hello, my name is Nicholas Schmidt.. You may know me as one of the two gentlemen who bailed your two daughter and nephew out of jail,” he said with a smile, turning around to see both Sasha and Ulrich looking anywhere but him. “I am the head coach of BFC Dynamo, and your grandchildren you were fans of the club as well, in fact some of their earliest memories were watching games at the old stadium.
“If they have been keeping you up to date, you know there has been a bit of turmoil at the club lately. Our friend Klaus, who you will meet, if you haven’t already, can fill you in on the details. I’ve already told my biggest fans the news, but I thought maybe sharing it with you would be appropriate as well, for as much headaches as they’ve given Klaus and I thru the years, they are the best group of Ultras a club could have.”
He turned and looked at Ulrich and Sasha.
“Before the funeral, I called Chairman van Dalen, and told him I couldn’t accept his offer to join Ajax.”
He expected the happy scream from Sasha.
He didn’t expect Ulrich to faint.

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?”

“What is with this team?” Hans asked. “Have we turned the corner, so to speak?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Maybe,”

Hans looked over the top of his mug, and found Sasha, Ulrich and Joachim staring back at him.

“I don’t want to get my hopes up. Again,” Sasha said.

“Land of perpetual disappointment, Population you,” Joachim replied, smiling at her. Sasha didn’t react, which worried everyone else at the table, more than they let on.

“What’s going on?” Hans asked.

“Rumor has it Coach and Biermann got into a pissing match a few weeks ago. Despite the clubs recent financial success, Biermann and the board are keeping the purse strings tight. Coach wants to improve the facilities, the scouting department, the board keeps shutting him down,” Sasha said, looking glum.

“I realize we aren’t exactly sitting on a huge pile of money, but given what the club went thru to get to where we are today?” Joachim replied.

“They spent it when we didn’t have it, and now we have it they don’t want to spend it.” Ulrich’s statement was met by nods from the others.

“You think he’d leave?” Hans asked

“To where?”

“Koln? Stuttgart?”

“He wouldn’t got to another club in Germany, unless something happened to piss him off so much he’d want to extract his revenge…” Joachim said into the remainder of his drink.

“Could Biermann do that?”

“Maybe he already has, Coach didn’t endorse anyone in the election this year,” Sasha said. This caused everyone else at the table to sit up. Not saying something was often Coaches way of saying something he wanted to say, but couldn’t because it would cause more issues than it would solve. But the last time he did just this, the last club President was ousted.

“Torino. Genoa. Roma,” Hans said, looking at his phone.

“Boavista,” Joachim replied

“Leicester, West Ham, Palace,” Sasha said, looking at her phone.

“Nice, Bordeaux, Marseille,” Ulrich added.

“Lot’s of good clubs looking for a coach of his caliber,” Joachim said.

“Well, lets not put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse. At the moment, no news is good news,” Joachim said, turning around to order another round of beer.

“I swear, if Biermann does anything to drive coach away…” Sasha said, holding her empty mug.

“Give me a call,” Joachim replied. “My dad owns a heavy equipment company, lots of ways to dispose of a body with those.”

We didn’t exactly hit the ground running, but that’s because I finally switched from the 4-2-4 I had been playing to a 5-2-1-2 formation that I was pretty confident in, and all things considered we got off to a decent start:

The team was still shaking itself out, the formation change came late in the preseason, and while I was not looking for a fast start, something that would leave us middle of the pack would be nice, and we got that.

The close loss at Leipzig was annoying, as we were clearly the better squad. The Quigley brace at Hoffenheim was nice, but then we laid an egg at BMG, and Quigley rescued us with an extra time goal at Wolfsburg. Stuttgart was a nice win, and while 5-3 may come across as a ROFL Stomp, Werder is not a very good squad, but Petrov getting a Hat Trick was nice to see.

Hertha FM’s us with a late goal to claw the draw back, and everyone decided to take the day off against Bayer, like 6.5 was the highest score we had. Freiburg has a very good squad, so losing byu one to them is not as bad as it looks. 1860 seemed to be going thru the motions at the Pokal, so we told them to keep going thru them while back in Munich.

The Petrov brace against Mainz was good to see, the last few games even though he hasn’t scored he’s been visible and present, which pretty much makes him the anti Mile Rodic. Braunschweig is going to get relegated, but they are fighting hard every game, take out the 7-0 thrashing Bayern put on them their goal differential was -14 at the Winter break, and they made us earn the 2-1 win

We shut BVB down after ten minutes, but it was 2 goals too late. Bayern bossed us from beginning to end, the Quigley goal just makes the score look close, but the malaise carried over to the Pokal, where a very game Paderborn squad took us to extra time before we won on peanlty kicks.

The loss at Eintracht I am attributing to the Paderborn game, the players seemed more interested in collecting yellow cards than scoring, or passing, defending was an iffy proposition at times…

We ended strong though, a Petrov goal at Union gave us the draw, Tiozzo had a Hat Trick against Koln, and a very nice Zabukovnik goal gave us the win against Hamburg and we went into the winner break with 7 wins, 3 draws and 7 losses, good for 24 points and solidly midtable in 8th place.

The board thus far has turned down every request I’ve made this season, and our offense really took a hit when this happened:

Then Biermann won the election, and offered me a new contract.

Transfer window wise, I am keeping my options open. More than a few teams have expressed some interest in our players though, but I think I can keep everyone until the end of the season.

Here’s hoping 2032 starts well…

Dinner was overpriced, but as he wasn’t paying, he didn’t care too much. If he was still hungry on the way home, he’d swing by the pub and grab a sandwich.
“The board and I have concerns.” Hans Biermann was a small man whose waist was expanding as fast as his hair was thinning. A Long time supporter of the club, he had joined the board before Nicholas had been appointed, and after the previous election, he had kept a tight rein on the board, including the finances.
“About?” Nicholas said, sitting back.
“The finish last season.”
“We finished a point lower than the year before,” Nicholas replied, drinking his water.
“And Five spots lower.”
“We got lucky that year. I’ve said as much, there were a lot of bad teams, we were the best of them.”
Biermann looked at him thru heavily lidded eyes.
“The board is expecting better,” he said.
“The board is getter better than it’s paying for, including me,” Nicholas said.
Biermann blinked.
“Our payroll is second lowest in the league. Our Commercial income is second lowest in the league. Our transfer budget is in the bottom 5, our facilities are average at best. I am one of the lowest paid coaches in the league. Are you not happy your are getting the results you are paying for?”
Biermann blinked a few times.
“I’ll be honest here Hans, I am not sure what your position is on this. If you are unhappy with where we have been finishing, with where the team has ended up the past couple of seasons, you should be doing more to change that. You haven’t, ergo I can only assume that you are happy to be getting the results you are with the current financial structure in place. You want change, I have to be able to spend more in the market. I have to be able to tell a player we have good facilities them to play at.” Nicholas saw a waiter walking by and asked him for a drink.
“Now, I am not saying we have to spend like Bayern or Leipzig. I am not saying i need a hundred million euro transfer budget to go out and sign one player who won’t help us in the short term. I am saying if you want better results, if the board wants better results, we have to spend some money. Wisely.”
“There are questions about your ability to do that,” Hans replied, as the waiter returned with Nicholas’s drink.
“Hans, as they say ‘Pardon my French” but that’s fucking bullshit and you know it.” He raised the glass and drank everything in one go. “Ever since I took over as head coach this club has been operating on a budget that sometime shoestrings would laugh at. Have I made some bad personnel decisions? Of Course, but that happens in football. If you want perfection you are in the wrong business, and you know that. There has never not been a time where I have presented the board with a proposal that has not been well thought out, well prepared, and well researched.”
Hans stared at him for a moment, then frowned.
“You assume to much,” he said.
Nicholas stared at him for a minute, then pulled the napkin out of his lap and stood.
“Up until this minute, you and I have had a perfectly acceptable relationship Hans. You stayed out of the football side of things and didn’t tell me who to play or what to do. In return you have done some of the things I have asked you in the past to do, and yet for some reason now you are upset at me because I ask you to spend more? So the club and you can earn more in the long run? Do you want to make me your enemy Hans?”
Hans sat back in his chair, shocked.
“You forget your place!” he finally said after a few moments of trying to figure out what to say.
“My place,” Nicholas said, bending down so he could stare the chairman in the eye “Is on the sidelines, coaching the teams I put together with the funds at hand. In nine years I’ve helped this team go from the RegionalLiga to the Bundesliga. I’ve turned down I don’t know how many coaching jobs to stay here, because I was certain the board was on board with the shared vision we both have. Are you telling me the board feels differently?”
“You are not irreplaceable,” Hans said angrily.
“I am not. But once any prospective coach calls me and asks what happened and I tell them, you will not get a good coach here. Oh sure, you might get lucky, but even then unless the club doesn’t change it’s ways the stay in the Bundesliga won’t be long. I would go so far as to say within five years this club would be back down in the RegionalLiga if it weren’t for me and my staff, all of whom would leave with me. And you are forgetting one very important thing Hans.” As he talked, he leaned in closer.
“Elections are coming up. Some of the board love me. The players may not like me but they respect me. The fans love me.” He smiled.
“I don’t have to run against you, but I can find someone willing to, someone who is more than happy to go in front of the press, go online, and talk to people about why Dynamo where it is and why the current state of the club is where it is. That means you, going out in front of the fans, the press, and the public, justifying your position.”
“That’s Blackmail!” Hans said.
“No,” Nicholas replied with a smile. “Blackmail is coercing you to do something against your will and self interests. You like being the club chairman. You want to be the club chairman for a long time. So either help me do the things we need to do to improve this club and stay chairman, or be prepared to fight hard for them to remain the same place. Your choice.”
Nicholas smiled, and then turned on his heel and left, leaving a spluttering club chairman behind him.

I am not saying we are in a bad spot, but we can be doing a lot more, especially with out finances. I remember having to not sign players I wanted to sign because we didn’t have the money, now we have the money and they aren’t letting me spend it. And it makes no sense. But that is football, right?

The transfer window was quieter than I thought it would be, and while we made some moves, we could have been a lot more active. But I am also not in the position where I want to sign a player just to say “Look at me, I did something!” unless I can justify it in some way, and soothing my ego falls somewhere very low on that list…

On the outs, Zidane Iqbal went to Beşiktaş. He was a part time starter for us last season, but wanted more playing time, and I just don’t have it for him, especially as I want to develop some younger players if I can, so after turning down a couple of loan offers, he left.

Luis Quevedo just never developed. I knew when I signed him he wouldn’t get a lot of playing time here, but did loan him out to some very good squads, but he never seemed to get any better.

I have no idea what AZ were thinking when they came after Julien-Lee Magath. I signed him last year for U19 and II Teams depth, on a free. They offered me 220K for him, why would anyone say no to that?. Esteban Abad could never crack the starting lineup. And it seemed for every good game he had, we went missing the rest of the time. That’s not always a bad thing if you are consistently good, but Abad wasn’t. Even his loan spell in Belgium two years ago was underwhelming. I made him available, and Cartegena snapped him up for 400K. Maybe Liga.2 will be better for him.

Flavian Frey was one of those low risk/high reward players, who we bought for 1M from PSG. He was never good enough to crack the lineup there, but maybe he could in Berlin, so why not give it a try? Well he tried, but he didn’t do all that great. There was a possibility he could have made the AM(L) position his own, but he couldn’t, and with better players there I decided to move him on, and Huesca picked him up for 2.6M

I had no intentions of moving Babacar Fischer. We signed him last season for 11.25M, and he was solid for us, given that the wheels almost fell off. He finished with a 6.75 rating and 6 assists, again not world beating but in light of last years season, respectable. The Sheffield United decided they needed a DM and went after mine, offered 23M for him, and he left before the ink was dry. It happens…

Lamine Injai lost a step after his injury, then was crowded out of the attackers. He wasn’t even a started at Braunschweig last season, coming off the bench 17 times, and he asked to leave because he wanted to be a starter. I’m not sure what happened at Banik Ostrava, he went on loan there, then went on loan there again. I blame someone not submitting the paperwork on time…

I’d like to think I am an honest coach. “Yes, you want a star player contract. But your performance says you should be collecting splinters from the bench in both cheeks. Alaster Halfacre looked good, he practiced well, he was a good teammate, he just never did anything to stand out, and as I said above thats not a bad thing, if you are competent at what you are doing. Halfacre’s issue wasn’t that he was incompetent, it’s that other players were better. He wanted more playing time, I told him he wasn’t going to get it, so we agreed on a loan, and Zulte Wagram picked him up.

Roy Ruizendaal needed first team playing time, so he went on loan. Rukavina, as much as I like him, is part of the “Too many lessors” crowd to choose from at winger, but I feel like I owe him, not just for this save, so I sent him out on loan.

On the Ins:

First up, Federico Gonzalez

His best position might be AM(C), but with those Better than Average Movement, Passing, and Final Third Attributes, and with his excellent Technique, I am probably going to play him as a CM. His tackling skills are a bit too low for that, but his traits, especially Dictates Tempo and Plays One Two’s, makes him the ideal pivot player in my formation, and the fact he gets into the oppo are often means I can and will push him farther up, where many an attack will start on his right foot.

Jon Jimenez is the current record holder for highest amount we have spent on a transfer player. So Far. He’s one of those midfielder’s who’s above average at all the DM positions, but his better than average defensive and positioning skills means I’ll probably keep him back at HB or DLP. We probably overpaid for him, in fact one we made our first offer like 12 other teams came in for him, but he chose us, and I think we will get some good work put of him.

With Halfacre wanting more playing time, I needed some solid depth at the D(C) position, but there wasn’t really anyone out there I could afford to go after since we signed Jiminez. Palace listed Guiam Bonfante for loan, and he fit the bill perfectly, especially as all we were doing was covering some of his salary. He’s a perfect player for us, not a full time starter, but capable of being one, and happy enough to come off the bench. Plus he could be a monster mentor for us. He’s not the best D(C) Palace has, but I’ll take him in Dynamo Black and Red for a season no problems.

One of the issues I ran into last year was when the injuries hit, I ended up having very good wingers playing OK striker. I’d like to try and avoid that this year if I can, but in order to do that I need a solid striker who’s versatile enough to play other areas if needed and is OK being a bench player. Enter Mpho Mathenjwa, from South Africa via France. He’s one of those players who could dominate at say, the 3.Liga, but he’s willing to take less money and sit on the bench ion the Bundesliga, and do a capable job if called upon. I am all over that.

Goals for this season: Survival of course. Last year was an oddity, I think, and this year I think we can finish around midtable. I like that we aren’t making a ton of changes, we have a solid group of players, younger guys with potential and older capable players as well. It’s a good mix of players, they are all familiar with the tactic, and if our defense improves, so should our standings, assuming nothing else goes sideways.

BLIVET!

The pressroom had a few more bodies in it these days, which wasn’t a bad thing really. The tone of the last couple had been a bit more…challenging, especially after the loss against Bayern, but with the January transfer window coming up, and the rumors floating around, there was reason for it to be crowded.

Coach Schmidt took his jacket off, folding it over the chair, and sat down. As soon as he did hands were raised, and voices called out.

“Jeremy,” he said, pointing at the young reporter from Planet Football.

“Thanks coach. I was wondering if we could get your thoughts going into the transfer window. A Lot of rumors going around about Games and potentially a few others leaving.”

Coach Schmidt nodded.

“It’s highly probable, but there’s always an opportunity he could stay as well. He’s a great young player, he’s having yet another good season for us. If I could go back and resign him all over again I would have made the Release Clause even bigger,” he said with a smile. He pointed, but the reporter he had looked at was interupted.

“What do you have to say to the rumors your are moving him on because of what happened in November?” Michael Amber, from Berlin Soccer Post, had apparently decided being confrontational was the way to make himself known. Thus far, Coach Schmidt had either ignored or let the criticism not affect him. Between Armin and Michael though, he had his hands full lately.

“Those rumors are unfounded. If I was to let go of every player who had some sort of altercation, I wouldn’t have a starting eleven, or a second eleven.”

“Do you think what happened will scare away other teams, or lower his value?” Michael followed up his first question with another.

“Why would it? The facts of what happened are quite clear, there’s a reason the state decided not to press charges.”

Michael sniffed, and looked away. Coach Schmidt sighed, and ran his hands thru his hair, then made a motion to a smartly dressed young man, who handed him a manila folder. Coach opened it, and took out a sheet of paper.

“An Article from the Berlin soccer post, January 12th, 2012,” he started to Read. “As the national teams continues its quest in winning the Euro Championship, and winning the World Cup in 2014, noone can deny that the country has done a very credible job of rebuilding after the 90’s. One of those reasons was identifying and cultivating excellent youth prospects, who although they are on the young side now, may well become the National teams next star in the next decade. Earlier in the week at Stadion auf dem Wurfplatz several of us had the opportunity to watch several talented youngsters for both Hertha Berlin and Borussia Dortmund play. While several young players had fine games, this reporters opinion is that the player of the match should have been Hertha product Nicholas Schmidt. The midfielder was everywhere, tackling, passing, running, but what amazed many onlookers was that he all but shut down Borussia and German National team starter Mario Gotze. The Borussia attacking Midfielder has been a key component of their rise to the top of the Bundesliga, and although his recently announced hip injury due to cartilage inflammation may have slowed him down in the game, anyone who was present will have seen that the way Schmidt was inside Gotze’s front pocket all day, the Dortmund attacking Midfielder was going to be in for a long struggle. Had Samed Yeşil not scored three goals and an assist, it’s very likely Schmidt’s performance, including an assist in which he all but emabarassed Gotze on defense, would have won the award.”

Schmidt stopped reading, and held the paper up.

“The byline on this article has the name Joachim Mueller on it.” he asked. The press room was silent.

“But Herr Mueller didn’t write it, did he Michael?” Schmidt lowered the paper to the table folding his hands.

“Those of you may not remember the scandal back then, but Herr Mueller was the senior reporter for Berlin Soccer Post, and he used to send younger reporters out, promise them a byline, and then claim credit. He was caught when another young reporter reported him to management, and after an investigation had found out that it was a practice he had done for about three years. But he was powerful enough that he could ruin a young reporters career, and he did, on more than one occassion. But in their defense, and to their credit, Berlin Soccer Post found out, investigated, fired Herr Mueller, and spent the next decade rebuilding its reputation. I’m proud to be a subscriber.

“But what you may not know is that Herr Amber and Herr Mueller had a physical confrontation over the issue, isn’t that right, Michael.” Coach Schmidt stopped talking, and stared at the reporter, who returned the stare in stone silence, until he folded his notebook, shoulder his bag, stood up and walked out of the press room.

“I bring up that story to illustrate a point: None of us here think any less of Herr Amber. That he got into a physical confrontation with a coworker is on one hand regrettable, but knowing the reasons why, I would be hard pressed to say there is not any of us in this room who would not have done the same thing. How does this relate to Jose?

“Jose is a good, young lad. But he’s out of his element here, there is quite a bit of difference, culturally amongst other issues, between Berlin, Germany and Mindelo, Cape Verde. To help him adjust, Jose brought a few of his friends along with him. One of those friends stole from him, amongst other things. Jose found out, they had a fight, and Jose beat his friend up, in a public space. That’s why Jose was arrested and let go, that’s why his former friend was arrested, let go, and sent back to Cape Verde. You,” Coach said, pointing to the reporters in the room, “know all this because it’s public record. Jose didn’t miss any games as a result. He has been cleared not just by the police, but by the team, and by me.

“So, if you will pardon my language, any team who comes after Jose, and they will, that want to use this incident against him to try and lower his value, lower his salary, lower his standing in the game, are fucking idiots who haven’t done their due diligence, and that’s not a team I am willing to sell Jose to, and I don’t care if they offer us 10 or 100 times his release clause amount.

“Young Men will make mistakes,” he said, taking his glasses off and polishing them with a handkerchief he retrieved from his pocket. Putting them back on he scanned the silent room. “Sometimes those mistakes are justifiable, sometimes they are not, but if I were to use Jose’s mistake against him, keep him off the squad, it not only hurts the team, it hurts him, because punishing him for doing the right thing means the next time he’s in a similar situation he may not react the same way, and that can only hurt him in the long run. Am I happy he got into a fight? No. Am I proud he stood up for himself? Very. And if I am going to hold his mistake him, I have to hold all of my players mistakes against them, and then just to be fair will have to extend that consideration to my staff, my scouts, and eventually those of you sitting in this room right now. And if I were to do that, how many of you would be here in two weeks?”

He gave them a look few had ever seen, Nicholas Schmidt well and truly angry and pissed off. He scanned the room, looking reporters in the eye as best he could until they either looked away or nodded in agreement.

“That’s it for the off field Jose questions,” Coach Schmidt said, a statement of fact noone in the room was going to argue with. “Now, who has a football related question I can answer?”

The past few seasons have become familiar to us at Dynamo. We start out strong, get afflicted by the holiday malaise, stumble through Spring, and hang on for dear life until math and circumstance determine we aren’t being relegated, despite my fears otherwise. I was really hoping this season would be different, but the issue is I’ll have to wait till spring to find out. Until then though, we had a few issues, like playing down to our opponents.

Yes, that is us needing PK’s to beat Lubeck in the Pokal. An 86th minute gasp of a goal by Frey gave us the draw, and we lucked out. Had we not beaten the RegionalLiga team, I suspect my job may have been on the line.

Davide Tiozzo has gotten off to a good start, which has been very nice. I doubt he will ever be world class, but I’ll take very good for a guy whose capable of playing the wing and up top. They Bayer 04 game was annoying, even Gomes finished on a 6.9, with the goal. We just were lackadaisical everywhere, and it showed. Stomping Union made everything feel a little better anyways.

Moukoko equalized for Red Bull in the 86th minute, and I threw my hands up, cursing the FM Gods, when Rukavina scored the winner for us in the 89th minutes. I spent the next ten minutes prostrate in front of my tower thanking the FM Gods for their kindness and generosity, they rewarded me with a draw against an Eintracht teams that is having issues this season, and a last gasp win against an Augsburg teams that is getting whiplashed from all the pro/rels its been going thru the past few seasons.

The things started to fall apart as they usually do: Slowly at first, then suddenly all at once.

Hoffenheim and Freiburg are not great teams, and we barely eked out draws against them. Wolfsburg is having a bad season as well, but put 5 past us. By the time the Pokal came around again, we beat Hoffenheim, but at that point, FIVE of my starting XI for the season were on long term injured reserve, including Esposito, who tweaked a hip. Then we also had this:

Mehri has been with us since the beginning,he was part of the first intake IIRC, and he’s had some solid seasons while we were in the Bundesliga 2. He’s not a Bundesliga player, in fact if he CA was above 90 I’d be shocked, but he’s been a team leader and a really good mentor, and losing him for 4 months hurts the youth team development.

November was just…ugh. Getting ROFL stomped by BMG is understandable, they are a good squad fighting for a UCL slot. Getting stomped by a bad Koln team, and then a bad Hertha Squad whose board wanted me to interview for the job three days prior? Just salt in the wound.

Braunschweig is the best team in the Bundesliga 2, but Gomes Hat Trick was a thing of beauty, and we brushed them aside. So of course he disappeared against Borussia, and a Tiozzo goal in the 85th minute saw us thru. Then we crapped the bed against a horrible Nurnberg team, if they aren’t relegated it’s because they had a second half for the ages. We played Bayern tough, but despite a 7.5 from Pavlovich, we lost. we finished the first half out by barely beating a poor Stuttgart team.

And now it’s the January transfer window, the phones won’t stop ringing; everyone’s been so jealous that people are getting a rest by getting hurt they want to get hurt so they can get a rest…and the bad news is we aren’t that lucky this year. The number of bad teams we are better than is maybe five, and it’s possible 33 or so points may not be enough to keep us from getting relegated. Right now we are at 21, and this isn’t going to be one of those “Addition by Subtraction” transfer windows. If it weren’t for the fact we have about 30M to spend, it might drive one to drink…

“I can’t believe we sold Luca,” Sasha was sitting at the table, head in her hands.
“Are you mad they sold him, or only sold him for-” Lars was asking before he was interrupted.
“5.25 Million!” She all but yelled. The rest of the table sat and drank their beers, the tables around them ignored her outburst, either because they were used to itr or didn’t want to draw her ire.
“He’s worth twice that, if not more,” she said.
“We know,” Hans replied. “But we all knew he wasn’t going to stay long, and who knows, there could be additional fees.”
“You think?” Sasha replied.
“If he’s as good as we think he’s going to be? Yes,” replied Ulrich. “Another beer?” he asked, and she shook her head.
There was a chime, and the crowd quitted down, turning its attention to the flatscreen TV near the bar.
“Coach Schmidt, with the transfer window now closed, is there any other business you can tell us about today with the club?”
“Well Rolf, the late bid for Luca was a shock, to be sure, but we promised him when he signed that he could leave if and when he thought he received a good offer, and while it looks like he may have left for less than his overall value there are some backend clauses I am sure will help make up for any future considerations.” The bar murmured with talk, Sasha was studiously quiet, which could be good or bad.
“Any last minute signings you can announce?”
“Well, yes,” Coach Schmidt said with a smile. “I am happy to announce that the club agreed to terms with Tacuarembó FC to sign Santiago Barros. His name may not be well known here in Germany but my scouting department assures me he is going to be a very good center back in a few years time.”
“A replacement for Luca?” Rolf asked.
“Potentially,” Coach Schmidt said with a smile.
“Well, that’s some good news,” Ulrich said in a hushed voice, isn’t it?”
“And will Barros be arriving soon?” Rolf asked.
“No, as part of the signing agreement, he is going to stay on loan until the end of the season with his team in Uruguay getting first team playing time there, then report here in the summer.”
Ulrich watched as Sasha drew in a breathe to scream out in frustration, as Uwe and Hans both reached out for her. Lars frantically signaled for the waitress to bring more beers.

The only other out in the January transfer window was Teden Mengi, who we got on a free from Morecambe three seasons ago. A steady if unspectacular D(C), he wanted to renegotiate his contract. I said sure, he wanted ‘Important Player’, I countered with ‘Regular Starter’ even though my GM said he was at best a ‘Squad Player’. He pitched a fit, I sent him to Turkey. I have other things to worry about.

It’s not they we are losing, it’s that we are losing without anything to show for it. A Goal, a close fought loss, I can appreciate. Eintracht, Leipzig and HSV are all Top 6 teams, and while Leipzig eked out a win with an 87th Minute Goal, thats a loss I am OK with, because it helps us in the goal differential department.

We made up for those losses by blitzing Bayer, Union Berlin and Werder, buit to be fair if we had lost any of those games I would have been really mad, because they are worse than us, in fact I am not sure but I think Werder was already mathematically regulated at this point.

But as bad as January was, February was good, and I felt confident going into the end of the season. I should have known better.

Six points in our last 10 games. Blech. And the thing is, with the Bayern game, we could have won all of them. Well, maybe the Wolfsburg game as well. And we probably should have lost to Mainz, but a Rodic(!) goal saw us eke out the draw there.

It was just…frustrating. The good news, and it is good news, is that our first half performance meant we stayed up.

And to my amazement, we ended with a positive goal differential as well. How Stuttgart managed to finish above us with a -16 differential I am not sure…well, wait…a 7-4 loss, 5-1 loss, 4-0 loss, OK I see that now…But the better news is 9th place gets us €60.23 Million, which helps solidify our finances. The board is happy, the fans are happy, the team is mostly happy, and I a €30.53M p/a payroll and a €17.59M transfer budget, and my payroll at the moment is €18.4M p/a. So I have money to spend, I just need to spend it wisely.

Not to shabby for a team picked to finish 17th…

Player Performance wise, I am pretty happy with the season the guys put in:

Jose Luis Gomes had a breakout season with 19 goals, and Fall was the best all around performaer with his 8 goals and 11 assists. t Esposito had a fine season, as did Rukavina. Rodic, well, as much as I want to like him, he just goes missing in too many games for me. He is going to be one of those players who could have been so much more, if he wanted to be.

Pavlovic was worth every Euro we spent on him, and he will only get better, and Tiozzo had a decent season, and Frey is showing promise.

As promised, because I didn’;’t have them at the beginning of the season, here’s all the players we signed and how they looked at the end of the season:

Some of the youngsters definitely have promise, and players like Esposito I fully expect to keep things steady until someone younger and better is capable of replacing him. I’m not mentioning the Youth Intake because there wasn’t anyone worth mentioning…

This season was a solid success IMO, despite our falling off at the end. There’s some solid talent, and a transfer budget I can work with, especially with some of the promising youngsters out there…

And Jose Luis Gomes has a 3.4M release clause? Who gave him that?!?