VfB Stuttgart - The Fifth Largest Club In Germany?!

[001PDG]

Only four points from a CL spot, already a strong debut!

Even if only half of the prize money linked to your final ranking in the Bundesliga will be available for transfers, you'll be pretty well prepared to find the poacher you need for next season, or maybe you don't need to spend big: how's Roberto Massimo evolving with Bielefield?

Mainz on top, only in FM...
Who's their star player?

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Only four points from a CL spot, already a strong debut!

Even if only half of the prize money linked to your final ranking in the Bundesliga will be available for transfers, you'll be pretty well prepared to find the poacher you need for next season, or maybe you don't need to spend big: how's Roberto Massimo evolving with Bielefield?

Mainz on top, only in FM...
Who's their star player?

They've had a host of players play out of their skins this season, but the two that really stand out are Gerrit Holtmann (8 assists and 11 goals, average rating of 7.39) and Robin Quaison (15 goals and 4 assists, average rating of 7.24). Both their full backs also maintain average ratings for the season about 7.30 which is impressive! It'll be interesting to see how many of their players they lose this Summer as the likes of Dortmund and Bayern with loads of cash could easily raid them for half their squad if they wanted!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Saturday 18th May 2019

Saturday 18th May 2019
'Wrapping Up A Decent Enough First Season In Charge, But No European Football Next Year'

Is this normal?? Most clubs in Germany seem to have made a profit over the last year when it comes to transfer spend! Leipzig have made nearly as much in profit, as what Bayern have lost!

Matchday 28
Formation; 4-2-3-1
Mentality; Attacking (changed to Balanced on 27 minutes, changed to Attacking at half time)
Lineup; Zieler, Maffeo, Pavard, Kempf, Insua, Ascacibar (Aogo40), Gentner, Thommy (Sent Off 69), Didavi (Gonzalez 69), Lanzini (Donis 69), Origi

Frankfurt are well in the hunt for the Champions League spots and they put a dent in our aspirations of finishing in the top 6 here with a win over us. They were the better side so we can have no complaints, but it was a disappointing showing from my lads who should have come here on a high after we beat Bayern in our last game!

Matchday 29
Formation; 4-2-3-1
Mentality; Attacking
Lineup; Zeiler, Maffeo, Pavard, Kempf (Kabak 66), Insua, Gentner, McTominay (Aogo 58), Gonzalez, Lanzini, Didavi (Donis 66), Origi

Our defence let us down today. We were really bad at the back and Mainz took full advantage as they take another step closer to a surprise title!

Matchday 30
Formation; 4-2-3-1
Mentality; Cautious (changed to Positive at half time)
Lineup; Zieler, Maffeo, Pavard, Kempf, Insua, McTominay, Gentner, Thommy, Didavi, Lanzini, Origi

Last time we played Leverkusen, I said that they were the best team we'd played all season, and I still stick by that statement. They're ****** awesome and although they sit 3rd in the table, I'm shocked they are not closer to the front 2!

Daniel Didavi won't feature anymore this season!

As is Holger Badstuber's! But this one's a biggy and will keep him out well into next season as well!

Matchday 31
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Mentality; Attacking
Lineup; Zieler, Maffeo (Sent Off 63), Pavard, Kabak, Insua, Acacibar, Castro, Gentner, Thommy (Beck 63), Lanzini, Origi*

Our poor run of form called for a slight tweak to the formation for this one and I dropped the AM for a DM and it worked an absolute treat as we thrashed Gladbach! Divock Origi was in sensational form as he bagged all 6 of our goals and I think it's the first time on FM ever that I have had 1 player score 6 in a game!!

Matchday 32
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Mentality; Attacking
Lineup; Zieler, Beck, Pavard, Kempf, Insua, Ascacibar, Castro, Gentner, Thommy, Lanzini (Gonzalez 73), Origi (Kliment 73)

Every Mainz fan in the country was looking on and supporting us as anything other than a Leipzig win, would make Mainz champions of Germany! But unfortunately, we couldn't give them the favour they wanted as Leipzig proved too strong for us! Well, in all fairness, it was a very tight contest with both sides matching each other on stats...they were just a bit more clinical with their chances than we were!

Matchday 33
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Mentality; Attacking
Lineup; Zieler, Beck, Pavard, Kabak, Sosa, Ascacibar, Castro, McTominay (Aogo 70), Thommy*, Lanzini, Origi (Kilment 70)

Nurnberg don't really have anything to play for now, with relegation already confirmed for them! So it was no surprise that we ran out comfortable winners in this one which puts us back in with a shout of finishing the season in the top half, even though the European qualification places are now out of reach!

Matchday 34
Formation; 4-1-2-3 Wide
Mentality; Attacking
Lineup; Zieler, Beck, Pavard, Kabak, Sosa, Ascacibar, Castro (Aogo 61), McTominay*, Thommy, Lanzini (Gonzalez 61), Origi

Scott McTominay signed off the end of his loan spell with a winning goal in the final game of the season against Bremen! They managed to beat us 2-0 early in the season so it was nice to finish the campaign with a little bit of sweet revenge!

So we finish my first season in charge in 9th place which secures us a top half finish....just! We overachieved against the media's prediction of 11th and the board's expectation of a mid table finish, so I think we can be pleased! And as for our comparison against Stuttgart in real life last season, we achieved a whole 23 points more than they did, so it was a fantastic achievement in that respect! As far as the rest of the league goes, I don't know what is more surprising, Mainz winning the league or Bayern finishing outside of the top 6!!! It's been a strange old season that's for sure and I'd expect Dortmund and Bayern to spend big during the Summer window and return with much stronger title challenges next season!

Our 9th placed finish earns us just over £50 million in prize money!

Which takes the bank balance (which has been declining all season) to £17 million in the black which is good. Not sure what next season's budgets look like just yet!
​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

End of Season 2018/19

Thursday 20th June 2019
End of Season 2018/19

Competition Winners

Bundesliga; Mainz
Bundesliga 2; Koln
Bundesliga 3; Karlsruher SC
DFB-Pokal; Arminia Bielefeld
DFL Supercup; FC Bayern
Champions League; Barcelona
Europa League; Valencia

The media are praising our season as a good one, although for a good third of the season it looked like we might challenge for a place in the top 6, but I can't be too hard on the team and our 9th placed finish definitely gives us something to build on. Baring in mind, I have had no cash to actually bring any of my own permanent signings into the club yet either!

The board are happy enough with my performance!

The commercial summary for the past year makes for decent enough reading, but the reason for the big prize money in the Bundesliga soon becomes clear...there is **** all money in German football for broadcasting rights by the looks of it, with the club raking in less than £1 million compared to the multi millions of the English Premier League!

We remain 121st in the European club rankings!

And according to the domestic rankings, we are now the 11th biggest team in the country!

Divock Origi has done himself a world of favours this year spending a season on loan with us! He wins the top goalscorer award for the Bundesliga to raise his profile before he returns to Liverpool to compete for a first team spot with the likes of Firminio, Sane and Salah!

And that goalscoring record was good enough to see Origi make the Bundesliga Team of the Year as well!

It was no real surprise that on loan Divock Origi landed the fan's player of the year award, as he was probably our best player, and certainly our most prolific goalscorer by a country mile! He also picks up young player of the season, although there was no permanent signings made so there was no signing of the season award to hand out!

Looking over the squd, there were a number of players to achieve over a 7.00 average rating for the season which is the benchmark I generally look for! However, on closer inspection, we can actually see that a number of them are players we had loaned out to other clubs, which means our side here were actually a slight disappointment on their individual ratings! The defenders were solid though, with Badstuber, Kabak, Pavard, Kempf and Insua all turning in good performances this season! In attack, Divock Origi was superb finishing the season with 23 goals in all competitions. The same cannot be said for Mario Gomez who was nothing short of a massive let down. He really struggled and only netted 5 times in 24 appearances! Daniel Didavi also returned 9 goals this season from his attacking midfield role, although I would have expected more creativity from him as he only grabbed 2 assists all season from such an attacking role. Incredibly, it was Erik Thommy who topped the assists chart with 7...I say incredibly because he only played 10 games all towards the end of the season, and there is a good chance he will feature more heavily for me next season based on the way he ended the campaign for us!

My Player of the Season; Divock Origi
My Young Player of the Season (U23); Benjamin Pavard
Must Do Better; Santiago Ascacibar
Most Disappointing; Mario Gomez

Everyone in the squad seems pretty happy at the end of the season and all are in support of my management at the club!

To improve the squad this Summer, I'll have just shy of £10 million made available to me! However, we do have the outgoing transfer of Benjamin Pavard to Bayern Munich for £31.5 million on 1st July and I assume that some of these funds will be made available to me....at least I ****** hope they will!

Summer Plans; There is definitely going to be some departures this Summer in a bid to not only boost the transfer budget, but get some availability in the wage budget too! Mario Gomez has got to go and I'll be doing everything possible to offload him, whilst Santiago Ascacibar could also be another major departure...he was disappointing this year and with a value of £14.75 million, I may look to cash in, if there are interested parties of course. Origi, Lanzini and McTominay will all return to their parent clubs and it's likely I'll need to replace all three of them, but with minimal funds available (at the moment), I might need to go scouting the lower European leagues for some hidden gems that I can pick up for a cheap pricetag! The squad doesn't need a major overhaul though and I think we are probably looking at roughly 3-4 departures and maybe 4-5 incoming! With little money available, I'll also be wise to keep a close eye on the loan market too! Finally, I will of course take a look at some our our youth and see if there is any talent ready to take the step up and be given a shot next year in the first team!
​

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Tough ask to replace Origi, McTomminay, Lanzini and Pavard even if get all the money to spend. £40m doesn't go very far and you'll no doubt be wanting to add a few extra to improve overall squad. Difficult, but interesting times ahead!