From Nowhere to Everywhere

[santiago_hortez]

PERSONAL DETAILS ON SANTIAGO MAXIMO (THE MAIN CHARACTER)

Name: Santiago Rodolfo Perreira Maximo
Age: 48 years old
Date of Birth: 12.11.1961
Clubs Played For: Benfica, Juventus, Real Madrid
Club Career Goals: 17 Goals
Position: Goalkeeper
Professional club debut: (16 years old, Benfica vs FC Porto, Liga SAGRES)
International Appearances: 39 Caps
International Goals: 2 Goals
International Debut: Slovakia vs Portugal, World Cup 1982 Qualifiers (19 years old)
First International goal: Portugal vs Ukraine, Friendly (20 years old)
Clubs Liked: Real Madrid, Benfica
Clubs Hated: Manchester United, FC Barcelona
Favoured Personnel: Jose Mourinho, Ricardo Quaresma, Felipe Scolari, Harry Redknapp, Kenny Dalglish.

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Ever since that fateful day back in November, when a Liverpool player slid two footed on him and ended his career at the age of twenty seven in the Champions League match, forty eight year old Santiago Maximo had always wanted to regain his name in football. A rising star during his time, Santiago was an experienced international goalkeeper, having been in between the sticks for five long years for Portugal and for ten long years of club football.

Had it not been for that tackle, that wild lunge that the player made, as he ran out to gather the ball, he would have had a glorious career till the age of thirty seven at least. But fate cut him short by ten years. Today, he is forty eight. Desperate to get back to football and make a mark as a backroom member rather than a player (thanks to the horrendous tackle), he took up a job as a goalkeeping coach at Benfica (his first club), before moving on as an assistant manager at Blackburn Rovers, from which he was soon fired when the club owners changed. Now unemployed, this is his story of trying to find his way back into the hallowed halls of fame in world football, told in his own words.

He wanted to see his name and fame shoot up...

From Nowhere to Everywhere...

So I started off unemployed, with no job to do after I was fired from the Rovers. It was July and many clubs had vacancies for Assistant Manager. But I was not interested in them. I wanted to be a manager. I wanted to prove to the world that I could be the best at anything I do, given a chance.

So as I opened up the Job Opportunities Forum, where clubs usually post their vacancies, I see that on that particular day, a lot of new clubs have fired their managers. As I browsed through, a few clubs caught my attention.

HEREFORD UNITED
An nPower League Two club in England. A good place to start with. A tough club too with promotion not exactly in their books. Would be good.

LEON
Mexican club with very good chance of promotion. Good place to start of a job.

TuS KOBLENZ
Starting in Germany was one of my dreams and this is a very good opportunity to showcase my talents. Recently relegated to Third Division so the pressure of promotion is high.

Immediately, I typed out identical letters of application to the three clubs and awaited their response. By the next day, all had sent in contracts for my approval. I accepted only one of the three clubs...

CAN YOU GUESS WHICH ONE?
​

 

[Dunc]

Nice OP, good presentation, keep it up, I will check back in now and again.

 

[santiago_hortez]

The next update came out sooner than I expected...

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So, after having received offers from Hereford, TuS and Leon, I have decided to review each of them and explain why I chose the one I did as a starting point in my footballing career.

HEREFORD UNITED

This is the contract they offered me.

As you can see, a one year contract at a miserly 900 Euros was not what I wanted. I was an international footballer before and that had to be respected. If they had offered me a better two-year contract at least at a 2000 Euros, I would have taken it.

So goodbye Edgar Street, Santiago is not coming there this summer.

LEON

This is the contract that the Mexicans offered me.

A good offer with three years and above 4000 Euros as salary. But I chose to reject it because I have seen many managers who never get opportunities beyond USA and Mexico once they start there. Also, the limits on foreign players in Mexico would incredibly hamper my campaign to get Leon into the Primera Division in Mexico. So I had to reject it.

TuS KOBLENZ

This is the contract they offered me.

Slightly less than Leon monetarily and with no transfer budget. A good offer and Germany would be a good start, being one of the tougher European Leagues to compete in. And being in Third Division, pressure was high on us to get back to the Second Division and hopefully to the Bundesliga itself. Most importantly, there were no player restrictions in Germany, so I could get whom I wanted, though it was restricted to free transfers.

I love pressure.

I started loving Koblenz then. After some tough negotiating, I started as TuS Koblenz' manager, with a salary of 5500 Euros and a three year contract.

Wilkommen zu Koblenz.
Wilkommen zu Deutschland.

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A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO TuS KOBLENZ

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TRANSFER MARKET

One of the first things I did as Koblenz manager was to try and improve the squad. In general, the squad seemed to be lacking depth and the competitiveness required by the standards of modern day football. So I set about working on the transfer market, looking for players who had run out of contracts.

A lot of youngsters seemed to have been neglected by First Division and Second Division clubs and many had to look for new clubs to ply their trade in. Another thing was free agents who never got to get any club for quite some time and were desperate to get back to football no matter how lowly the club.

So after some 2-3 weeks of intense haggling about contracts, I signed thirteen players into the club, all on free transfers. They were:

Unless club indicated in brackets, they were free agents
Leon Kantelburg (FC Eindhoven)
Clement Halet
Walid Regragui
Serjej Karimov (Wolfsburg)
Jorn Neumeister (Dortmund)
Maximilian Sachse (St. Pauli)
Fait-Florian Banser (Kaiserslautern)
Robert Koch (Dresden)
Labros Choutos
Milivoje Vitakic
Benjamin Carpentier
Filip Krstic
Klemen Lavric

In this, the key players should be Regragoui and Vitakic, two defenders who will together bring huge experience to the Koblenz side in the defence. Choutos is a quality striker and Carpentier should be an exciting prospect between the sticks. Kantelburg also adds a lot to my midfield which is the key to my plans.

I am kind of looking forward to some of these youngsters previously at the big clubs. They should be good.

More could be coming up in the next few weeks to join the Koblenz squad at the Stadion Oberwerth with no or few departures if any.

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PRE-SEASON FRIENDLIES SO FAR...

We've played four pre season games so far, with my assistant taking care of three of them and me taking charge of the last one.

Results- My Assistant's Games

TuS Koblenz 1-3 Servette de Geneve Football (SUI)
Fortuna Sittard (NED) 2-0 TuS Koblenz
TuS Koblenz 1-3 Mainz

A bad preseason for my assistant. I got fed up and took charge of the next game. We were playing a lower league side from France but as my first game in charge, it was still significant. I didn't specify any opposition instructions and didn't mess around too much with tactics. This was to see how the boys play naturally based on which I can decide what tactic to use.

SR Colmar (FRA) 1-2 TuS Koblenz

It was a win yes, but I think we weren't impressive. We let them take the lead with Sylvain Meslien in the 11th minute. But Massimo Canizzaro, my star striker levelled things up in the 22nd minute. So we went 1-1 at halftime. Not a bad performance but we expected better. I took off my other striker, Choutos and brought in another newbie into the squad, Fait-Florian Banser, in the 70th minute and eight minutes later I saw him score a screamer from 20-25 yards out. That was enough to secure a win.

A tight match that could have gone either way, went my way. It was a good performance but definitely not the best we could give.

Final Score

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That was huge. Next update will be coming soon (probably by Friday)

Please keep following.

And Dunc, thanks a lot mate.
​

 

[Joshhh]

Looks good mate, I'll check from time to time

 

[rennomillo]

goodluck mate

 

[islam-muhammad]

Good luck mate
I play with Kickers Offenbach
In the same league as you in my pre-season
1-1 with reserves
2-1 werder bremen i was surprised by this win i think i will have a good season and qualify to german second division

 

[santiago_hortez]

Thanks everyone! Please keep following and commenting and giving suggestions!

 

[glova96]

very different and very good!
i will be following, keep it up

 

[JakeHartlepool10]

im following mate