[FM20] It Gives Me Wings - A Red Bull Story

[itsMurph]

Europa League 1st Knockout Round Draw:

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Our European campaign continues in the the Europa League with a 1st Knockout Round draw to reigning Scottish Premier League winners Celtic. Despite being eliminated like ourselves from the Champions League, Celtic striker Odsonne Edouard still leads the current Champions League goal charts with 10 goals. A threat we cannot take lightly.

 

[itsMurph]

December 2019:

A quiet month in which the mid season winter break started after the Austria Wien game. We don't play a competitive game now until 8th February 2020 in a cup game home to 3rd placed 2.Liga side SV Lafnitz. The only botch on our record was a poor performance at home to SV Mattersburg where we just couldn't take any of our chances. Also there wasn't any real standout performances this month from any of our players worth noting.

January Transfer Window:

Our first outgoing transfer of our mangerial career see's 3rd choice goalkeeper, 23 year old Carlinhos is set to go back home to Brazil for Sport Club do Recife
after only featuring in just the single cup fixture this season. Valued by our staff at around £180,000, is a player that had originally started in the Red Bull Brasil side that came through the Red Bull ranks but never really developed as hoped.

In other rumours, both our Japanese wingers Takumi Minamino and Masaya Okugawa are wanted by clubs. Okugawa as you might recall, signed a long term deal at the start of the season is wanted by numerous German clubs such as Werder Bremen and Stuttgart while Minamino, who only has 18 months left on is contract is wanted by Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande and German side Frankfurt. Minamino, who is already one of our highest wage earners at the club on £25,000 p/w, is a player who I would like to keep as we are short of players of his quality who can play on the wings. It all depends on what new contract can be negotiated if possible, especially if he wants more money than i'm willing to give.​

 

[itsMurph]

Contract News:

Japanese winger Takumi Minamino has just agreed to extend his contract until 2024. Originally with only 18 months on his previous deal, Minamino has agreed a new 4 year deal on the same wages as previously, despite interest from China and Germany.

Player Profile - Takumi Minamino

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Takumi Minamino is a skillful, versatile winger who can beat a man with his high level of ball control and unpredictably. Currently playing in our system on the right side of midfield, his skillful presence cutting in from the right allows him to be a thorn in the side against the opposition.

 

[itsMurph]

January 2020:

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Just a few mid season friendlies to keep the squad's match fitness up while on the winter break. Good signs in that we kept clean sheets in all 3 games so far. We have 2 more friendlies at home to Viktoria Plzen and Shakhtar next before we are back to competitive football. Hopefully we'll keep the good form going into the campaign.

End of Transfer Window:

In:

Out:

All in all, a quiet window for us. Ideally we wanted a back up winger but there really wasn't much out there currently in terms of value for money, or the type of player I wanted. We did make 1 signing though. 18 year old Slovakian striker David Strelec was signed from Slovan Bratislavia for an initial £175,000 with the potential of going up to £850,000 in bonuses. We have also let him go out back on loan for some game time in the German 2. Bundesliga at Jahn Regensburg. In terms of other out's, Carlinhos was already arranged before the transfer window started, and we let first team striker Patson Daka go out to Nantes in France for more game time.

Player Profile - David Strelec

New signing David Strelec from Slovakia is a 18 year old striker with good potential. Comfortable on the ball and with good finishing stats for his age, i'm optimistic that if he can fulfil his potential he'll be a good option for us up front in the advanced forward role we have.​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Enjoying this. Be interesting to see how your progress in Europe goes given the league is pretty much yours every season!

 

[itsMurph]

February 2020:

A perfect run of results for us in February which sees us winning every since game in the month. League is now looking pretty much our's unless something catastrophic occurs to us with a comfortable gap now to 2nd place TSV Hartberg (who themselves are having a cracking season for a club of their stature). We also qualified into the 2nd Knockout Round of the Europa League after beating Celtic 5-2 over the two legs. Fortunately for us, previously mentioned dangerman Ousonne Edouard actually moved to Man City for £22.5mil on transfer deadline day, so it made life a little bit easier for us come match day.

Red Bull Salzburg Player of the Month - Takumi Minamino

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Japanese winger Takumi Minamino has been in a rich vein of form ever since signed new contract back in January. His performances were exactly what was required of him and was especially impressive over the 2 legs against Celtic in the Europa League.

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[itsMurph]

Europa League 2nd Knockout Round Draw:

Next up for us in our European adventure this year, we travel back to Italy where we'll be taking on Lazio. Currently 2nd in the Serie A just one point behind current league leaders Juventus, we'll have to be wary of the threat of exceptional midfielder Sergei Milinkovic-Savic controlling the game. Also in the draw, fellow Red Bull franchise RB Leipzig will be taking on Chelsea, while other interesting ties see an all German affair with Borussia Dortmund taking on Bayer Leverkusen.​

 

[itsMurph]

Youth Intake Day - 2019/20:

Overall, a pretty lacklustre intake with no real standouts. We handed contracts to the players with good personalities to help out with keeping the Under 18's mental game in check.

Best Prospect - Florian Almes:

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Florian Almes is a midfielder/winger in which he can play anywhere across the pitch in midfield. I do like he is versatile and he will most likely be selected as a winger when playing due to his high pace, but with a maximum of what the reports are suggesting as 3 and a half star potential, he'll probably be more than likely a back up option if he is to make it here.

 

[itsMurph]

League Update:

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A quick update in regards to that now the Austrian Bundesliga has now reached to the next phase. Rules are that the league is now split into 2 groups. A Championship Group (Top 6), and a Relegation Group (Bottom 6) where each team within that group will play each other twice, home and away. The other rule is that all teams will start with their original records (wins, draws, loses, goals for and against etc.), but the total points previously achieved is cut in half. That means our gap at the top is now down to 7 points. It adds an interesting dynamic to the season.

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Pretty disappointing batch of youngsters. what are the youth facilities like at RBS?

 

[itsMurph]

Europa League 2nd Knockout Round:

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Unfortunately our European run has come to an end by Italian side Lazio. After losing 2-1 away in the first leg at the Stadio Olimpico, a game where our star man Erling Haaland was forced to miss by injury after picking a knock a few days beforehand, the return leg at home we had a chance after taking the lead, meaning we'll go through on away goals until Lazio superstar Sergei Milinkovic-Savic broke through from deep and broke our hearts and equalised,ultimately knocking us out of the competition.

Other results see fellow Red Bull owned side RB Leipzig being knocked out via penalty shootout and Arsenal stealing a spot away from Sporting CP by scoring 2 goals deep in injury time.​

 

[itsMurph]

Pretty disappointing batch of youngsters. what are the youth facilities like at RBS?

Very good actually! Superb training and youth facilities aswell as exceptional academy coaching and youth recruitment. So yeah!, very disappointing.

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Very good actually! Superb training and youth facilities aswell as exceptional academy coaching and youth recruitment. So yeah!, very disappointing.

Always next year

 

[itsMurph]

March 2020:

March started off well where we got a solid 2-1 win over Sturm Graz to reach the domestic OFB Cup final. The domestic double was a requirement from the board at the start of the season and it looks like we are in a position to complete that objective. Of course, as previously mentioned, we were knocked out in the Europa League by Lazio. Unfortunate, but a learning process to see what we need to do going forward. We recovered superbly though against 2nd place TSV Hartberg with a 4-0 thumping at home.

Red Bull Salzberg Player of the Month - Erling Haaland

Continuing to show how good he is, Erling Haaland has proved to be one of Europe's top marksman with a great month scoring 5 goals in March. The scary thing is his still improving. A physical beast, terrorizing defences in the Austrian Bundesliga aswell as some accomplished performances in Europe.​

 

[itsMurph]

Data Analysis Upgrade:

More upgrades made to the club facilities, this time the data analysis facitilies begin upgraded to 'Superb' rating going forward.​

 

[itsMurph]

Red Bull Salzburg U18's Win U18 League:

Congratulations to our youngsters as they've successfully won the Jugendliga U18 league. Some good results throughout their campaign have meant they've comfortably won the title.​

 

[itsMurph]

Red Bull Salzburg win Austrian League:

Not to be outdone by the youngsters, the main squad have confirmed what all have expected by claiming victory in the Austrian Bundesliga. Some great performance throughout the campaign have left the board and fans happy and are looking forward to see what happens in the future with the talented squad at their disposal.​

 

[itsMurph]

April 2020:

As we come to near the end of the season now and with the league wrapped up, we've dominated the league with some great performances in April to clinch the title comfortably. There is still room for improvement going forward, I would like the side to keep more clean sheets as we have a tendency to get complacent in some games when we were winning.

Red Bull Salzburg Player of the Month - Erling Haaland

Yet again, Haaland shows his quality and continues his scoring run now 7 games in a row. The guy is a scoring machine with now 30 goals scored in the league. Surprisingly he isn't wanted by anyone yet but with the summer window coming up, i'm expecting some interest very shortly.​

 

[itsMurph]

Red Bull Salzburg win OFB Cup:

The club have successfully completed a domestic double in which Red Bull Salzburg thumped TSV Hartberg in the final with a 5-1 thrashing. This time it wasn't Haaland getting all the goals. Korean striker Hwang Hee-Chan bagged 4 goals in a dominant performance in which everyone expected.​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Best get that polish out for all the silverware!