SEASON 6 - 2027/28
Having left Bayern in the summer I was hoping to get back into work pretty quickly however that didnt happen. There were some big jobs available like Napoli and my favourite FM team Athletic Bilbao but they didnt appeal to me at that moment so I took the chance of staying unemployed. Well kinda as will be shown later.
In the end the Borussia Dortmund came up in December and I jumped at the chance. They were giving me a healthy transfer budget and despite themselves languishing in 11th place in the Bundesliga they were still in the German Cup and in the Champions League but the squad I inherited was nowhere near good enough to win that.
Some of the players I inherited were Lutharel Geertruida, Matheus Cunha, Hamed Traore, Renato Sanches, Francisco Trincao, Sergio Gomez and Datro Fofana. Unfortunately there was no Moukoko because I signed him for Bayern last season - I was regretting it instantly.
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PLAYERS IN
In all I spent £150m to rescue the season. I immediately shelled out £60m to bring in one of my favourite FM23 players, Assan Ouedraogo, from Man Utd. He was transfer listed there and was on his way out so I snapped him up and he is German as well so that ticked all the boxes.
Newgen defender Timo Corti was good enough to get into the first team so he came in from Freiburg for £27.5m while another newgen Volodymyr Popov joined from Dynamo Kiev for £26m to compete for the LB spot.
I then signed 2 young German players who came through the ranks at Bayern. Eyup Aydin cost me £39.5m from Leverkusen while Noel Aseko Nkili joined from Bayern for £23m.
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PLAYERS OUT
I took in a fair bit of money for just 3 players. Veteran German internationals Niklas Sule (Man Utd £30m) and Serge Gnabry (AS Roma £29.5m) were deals that I could not afford to turn down while Ramy Bensebaini joined Crystal Palace for £6.75m.
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From 11th place to 3rd and Champions League qualification. It was a decent second half of the season as we only suffered 2 defeats since I took over as manager. In the end my record was 12 wins 4 draws and 2 defeats which shows how bad they were doing before I turned up!!!
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We won the German Cup and in some style as we thumped FC Augsburg 5-0 in the final. We strolled the competition really but I didnt manage the team in the first 2 rounds admittedly.
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UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
WE ONLY WENT AND WON THE ****** THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I took over with the final 2 group phase games to play and we won them to book our place in the next round. We edged out Atletico Madrid which was fair enough before we played Bayern. The Bayern team that I strengthened so much and who was romping to the title and was the holders. Yet we beat them in both legs - 5-4 at home and 2-1 away - to reach the quarter-finals. In the 2nd leg lady luck was on our side as we were 2up inside 10min thanks to an own goal and a penalty while they had a man sent-off and had a goal disallowed!!!!
I fancied our chances against RB Leipzig as they were having a poor season and we knocked them out to setup a tie with Liverpool and thats where I thought our run would end as they had signed Kylian Mbappe the season after I had left and were much better than us. We won the 1st leg though thanks to a late Traore goal and in the 2nd leg we defended manfully but were losing 1-0 when Matheus Cunha popped up to send us into the final.
We were to face the might of PSG but their side was nowhere near as stacked as I had expected. They had Alex Scott who I had signed for Man City and Nico Williams but other than that they had a load of players in their mid 30s and had Evan Ferguson leading the line - decent but not world class. Also the final was to be played in Germany - were never going to get a better chance.
We fell behind early on but Matheus Cunha quickly levelled and he put us in front shortly after the break. We just had to see the game out but Giovanni Reyna had other ideas as he smashed in a 3rd and the trophy was hours.
In truth I didnt enjoy managing Dortmund so I was overjoyed that we fluked the win. I suppose I have to win 24 Champions League trophies and an unlikely win was bound to pop up once or twice and this was definitely one. I think the main factor why I didnt enjoy managing them was that I was managing a squad that I had very little say over.
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SQUAD
I was only in charge for 6 months so the stats are slightly skewed. Matheus Cunha was top scorer with 37 goals and 12 of those came in the Champions League. Eddie Nketiah struck 22 times but they were the only ones who got into double figures. My £60m man Ouedraogo did well with 5 goals and 10 assists in just 24 games.
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SCOTLAND
At the beginning of 2027 when I was manager of Bayern Munich, Steve Clarke left the job as Scotland manager to take over at Chelsea so I jumped at the chance to manage my nation so I was technically still in a job when I left Bayern. I will post the results at the end of each calendar year so here are the results for 2027 - the first 2 fixtures I wasnt in charge of.
We qualified for the 2028 Euros by finishing 2nd in the group behind Germany. The Scotland team has a wealth of class at full backs with Ramsay, Hickey, Patterson, Doig, Robertson and Tierney while Ben Doak is a magnificent winger. Elsewhere in the team Gilmour and Ferguson are decent in midfield as are Turnbull or Lowry at AMC but there is a lack of strength and depth throughout the squad.
Alfie Bavidge is my main striker but he never gets a game at Villa but he is the best of a bad bunch (my good friend Mr Donald will shoot me for saying this) while I have been unsuccessful in trying to make Tino Livramento, Elliot Anderson, Anthony Gordon and Harvey Barnes into changing their nationalities. (Funny how all 4 play for Newcastle now and we turned Matt Ritchie Scottish too!!!)
David Turnbull scored 5 goals in the 8-1 win against the Faroe Islands and 2 games later scored a hat-trick in the friendly win over Egypt. Alfie Bavidge scored a hat-trick against Macedonia.
