robbieboro82

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The Beautiful Game: A Football Story



After writing a few stories on here over the last year or two I have finally decided to start a serious career on here, no fancy stories or pre editing, just go with the flow and see what happens. I haven't really got a specific style, it will be more freestyle as I go, taking the good points and a few ideas from the hundreds of amazing stories on here already, have a few ideas of my own which hopefully will be cool, but all I aim to do is have fun playing and hopefully put a bit of FM entertainment out there.


So, I have decided I won't be sticking with one team and will move around gaining a Global knowledge of Football. I won't be putting a time limit on staying at clubs, just have to see how well, or bad, I actually do at each club in the various countries I manage in. Each season will be its own chapter and I will update every 3 months until April 2014 and then I will go into monthly updates, with Team News, Results, Transfers, Tables, World Football News and Specials on World Cups and other Major Tournaments.


Ok, so who to begin with?......It's very easy to start with the top teams, but at the other end of the scale, it's hard to start right at the bottom. So I wanted to get the balance right. After looking into various teams throughout the World, one team stood out to me as being a bit of an underachiever..... well a massive underachiever if you take a few things into account. The team I'm thinking about have not won their top division since 1931 and since then have only won Two Cup Finals. They Play in one of the top Countries in World Football not to mention one of the best Leagues. What is even more extraordinary is the Fact they play in the Capital City of this Country and are the biggest team in the City, the stadium can hold just over 70,000 which gives the club a huge fan base and the potential and attraction should be huge.



Pierre Van de Velde

So I have decided to start my story at German Bundesliga team, Hertha Berlin and try my hand at turning the Sleeping Giant into a team to match the likes of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and the other Huge teams from around the globe. I have created a fictional Manager to base my story on, Pierre Van de Velde, born in Bruges, Belgium in 1982, he was a professional footballer who played most of his career at underachieving Cercle Brugge not winning anything of note until his career was cut short by Injury. He moved into coaching at Club Brugge and after successfully coaching the Youth Squads his big opportunity came when Hertha approached him. He has a addiction to Regens and will hope to find the best of the best coming through the various Youth Ranks. My aim is for this to be my main save taking me right up to the release of FM15 so I hope you join me in this story and this will only be made worthwhile if I have interaction from you guys, any feedback, suggestions or requests, they are most welcome, the more the better.............thanks for reading. Robbie

Career History

SeasonClubFinal League PosDomestic CupsEuro Competition Top Scorer
2013/2014Hertha Berlin-German Cup
2nd Round
NA-
2014/2015?----

Regen Player Histories (Coming Soon)

???


Olympiastadion, Berlin

Chapter One - Hertha Berlin
- -

1.0 - Intro
1.1 - June, July and August 2013

1.2 - September, October and November 2013
1.3 - December, January and February 2014
1.4 - March and April 2014
 
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1.0 - Introducing Hertha Berlin



For a Club in one of the main Capital Cities in Europe, Hertha Berlin are serious underachievers!!
Just 2 Top Division Titles to their name and they came in both the 1930 and 1931 season.
Gaining a reputation lately as a Yo Yo club, the new manager will want to change that as soon as possible!!
The last two years however have seen the club lift the German League Cup on two occasions with the stature of the club finally starting to grow, it now time for Belgian Pierre Van de Velde to have a crack of the whip and get his teeth into a Bundesliga Season.
Berlin has a fine Training Facility and the Youth Set-Up should bring good quality players through, this will need to be improved massively as the Club will rely hugely on its success in nurturing the new Hertha Stars of the future.




Olympiastadion
Huge 74,000 Seater Stadium in the Capital Berlin should be full to the Max if on field success is achieved, the fan base of this club could be huge, surpassing that of even Bayern and Dortmund.



Finance
So I was not expecting to go into the Job with a ZERO transfer budget but we do have 75 percent from any future transfers, so the Players For Sale sign will be popping up soon!!!
The Wage Allowance is set at 377,000, but we are currently Spending 379,000 so are -2,000 in wages, this will need to be reduced before any players and staff are brought in.





First Team Squad

Not a great deal of Quality in the squad, much will be needed to improve the team, can understand why the board wants us to avoid relegation. Ramos looks like the star player, hopefully Baumjohann can supply him with the ball plenty and he can get some goals. Anthony Brooks has good potential so I might go with him in Central Defence to get this ability up.


Second Team Squad

Average Players throughout this squad, many will be up for sale to bring in some much needed cash to improve the First Team Squad, though Gersbeck, Andrich and Mukhtar look like decent Youngsters.


Youth Team Squad

For the First Season I am very lucky to have two very good Regens right from the off, Kai Bernhardt and Samir Ramakic are the stand out players, 16 and 18 years of age, do I risk them in the first team from the start?


Coaching Staff and Directors


Star Player



Top Youth Products 2013
 
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Seems awesome, following! I'll be doing same this year, sticking with a club till the next iteration of the game comes.
 
1.1 - The Beginning of a New Era
June, July & August 2013





Transfers In



Not much money to bring anyone in right now, a few youngsters but they are a while away from first team football






Loans Out



Transfers Out



Staff In



Staff Out








Club News

The Club have announced that they will be Upgrading the Youth Facilities at a cost of 2m, they will be completed towards the end of 2014.

The Scouting Knowledge has been increased by 10% over the last 3 months.



The Club has announced a Link with Stuttgart Kickers, players from Berlin can be loaned to them during this linkup.

The Value of the Club stands at 43.5m and are currently the 13th most Valuable team in Germany.



Despite having no Transfer Budget, the board allowed slight tweaking with the Budget to allow a few players into the Club. Having no money to spend is putting us at a major disadvantage, the players released and future sales should improve the Wage structure and available Transfer funds.





Results

Pre Season



Quite a good pre season, we fared much better than what I thought we would have.
Won 5, Drew 1, Lost 1.

The team managed to score in every match, 16 in total, but only managed 1 clean sheet, conceding 9 more goals.
The highlights being Adrian Ramos scoring 5 and Sebastian Zdanowski making an impressive debut versus River Plate and scoring 2 goals.

The low point was ending pre season with a loss, but we can take heart from the result as we played very well.



1st Round
Illertissen ... 0 ... Hertha Berlin ... 4 ...
Zdanowski (2)
Baumjohann
Weiser


Easy Win against lowly Opposition, brilliant stuff from Zdanowski.

Season Odds




Bayern Leverkusen ... 3 ... Hertha Berlin ... 1 ...
Ben-Hatira

Poor start to the season, was expected though.



Hertha Berlin ... 3 ... Hoffenheim ... 0 ...
Baumjohann
Cigerci
Ben-Hatira

Bounced back with style, made it look easy.



FSV Mainz ... 2 ... Hertha Berlin ... 2 ...
Ramos
Brooks


Winning at one point, then losing on 90+1, only to equalise on 90+3. Good stuff.




Hertha Berlin ... 2 ... Borussia Dortmund ... 2 ...
Ramos
Skjelbred


Very pleased with a draw here against the big boys! Still haven't failed to score which is pleasing as I really thought we would struggle.




How the Table Looks: 1st September



Player of the Month


Alexander Baumjohann

Only a few games in, but so far one of the players I'm thinking about releasing has been the top performer, 3 Assists, 2 Goals and a MoM award to go with his 7.44 ave

Top World Transfers

 
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1.2 - Sep, Oct & Nov 2013



Transfers In



Still not much activity due to restricted funds for wages and transfer fees. 2 youngsters brought in and Anthony Annan to add some grit to the Midfield.

Transfers Out



Young players out to Stuttgart Kickers Affiliate for season, plus a nice 2.5m in to give us some breathing space in the future.

Youth Players Signed




Possibly may have to put these players straight into first team football if injuries pick up, expecting good things from hem both.



Results




Good away win, easily winning these sort of games.




Second win on the bounce, never in any danger of losing this one.




Shocking defeat against lowly Duisburg, only thing is to concentrate on the league now.




Another defeat, outplayed from the start, consolidation goal at the end.




Gutted we conceded a last minute goal, threw away 2 important points.




Good win against Bremen, doing well and hovering in European Zones.



Boring!!!!





Totally gutted we let a 3-0 lead slip away, we're actually lucky to come away with a point, shocking second half.





Kraft own goal pretty much summed up this game, very uninspiring.





Second defeat in a row to a team we should be beating, not good we have Bayern next.





Outplayed by the best team in the country, should have been about 5-0. Also have failed to score in last 3 games!!!



Results Overview



Bundesliga as of 1st December



Not a bad period, not the greatest either. Shown we can attack and score plenty of goals but we are suspect at the back, gonna need to tighten up or we are eventually going to get punished.

Progress



Statistics




 
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1.3 Dec 2013, Jan and Feb 2014

Transfers In

Ibrahima Diomonde - From: AFAD Djekanou - Free
Patrick Tano - From: AFAD Djekanou - Free
Solomon Semakor - From: Asante Kotoko - 75k
Lewis Holtby - From: Tottenham - Loan



3 Young African based players with decent potential were brought in, Diomonde and Tano from Ivory Coast and Semakor from Ghana. Hertha's new worldwide scouting pool could be unearthing gems already.

Snapping up the youth of Africa


Transfers Out

Jonas Nickel - To: Leverkusen - 30k
Peter Niemeyer - To: AZ Alkmaar - 800k
Sandro Wagner - To: Free Transfer
Ibrahima Diomande - To: Leibzig - Loan


Results

Hertha Berlin V Gladbach



Good home win, bouncing back from 3 defeats, let's hope we can get a roll going.


Hannover V Hertha Berlin



**** of a game for a neutral, I was tearing my hair out, 3-0 up in 20, then pegged back to 3-3. Took the lead on 51 mins, pegged back to 4-4 on 71 mins, then in stoppage time Hannover score the winner!!! Typical!!



Hertha Berlin V Freiburg



Totally hammered in the first half, showed spirit in the second but was not meant to be.


Hoffenheim V Hertha Berlin



One up at half time, only for a bad second half to cost us the points again, 3 losses in a row now.


Hertha Berlin V Leverkusen




Again..... One nil up!!! They equalised on 28 and deep into injury time they scored the winner, seriously out of luck lately.


Hertha Berlin V Mainz



Home game we should have won and desperately needed to. Five losses in a row and we are getting sucked into the dogfight.


Dortmund V Hertha Berlin



Not a bad effort against the big hitters. One nil down with 10 to play, lovely Zdanowski goal on 80 mins to rescue a point, only for Aubameyang to score a winner on 90+3..... Bad luck strikes again. 6th defeat in a row. Need a change.


Hertha Berlin V Braunschweig



Total change of tactics for this game and it nearly worked, 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4 and finally we score in added time to rescue a 4-4 draw. We are looking great going forward, but can't defend for ****.


Augsburg V Hertha Berlin



Finally a win, but made it difficult for ourselves again 2-0 up at one point and then pegged back to 4-4 again, luckily this time Holtby and Kadic finished Augsburg off.



Hamburg V Hertha Berlin



Second win in a row, tactic change seems to have worked and Anthony Brooks is I top form, the defender is now our top scorer, lol.

Bundesliga as of 1st March 2014


Was getting seriously worried that if the poor run continued that we would be gone, but the recent good results have helped and are putting points between us and the bottom clubs.



Statistics


American Anthony Brooks tops the scoring charts and he is a defender, the strikers need to pick their game up. The new pairing of Ramos and Kadic seems to be developing well now, let's see how well they can do in the last few months.

Anthony Brooks



World Cup Draw - Brazil 2014


Brazil the hosts will face Pierre Van de Velde's home nation Belgium. There isn't really a 'group of death' as it has become known, though England will have a tough test against Argentina and the Aussies!!


Best Players in the World


Surprise, Surprise...... It's that man Messi again, with Mata of Chelsea as runner up and surprisingly Ronaldo in 3rd.
 
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