Over the last number of FM editions, I have aligned myself with a specific club from some of the major European nations (in no small part down to the fact that I keep going back to the same clubs when things go wrong). In Spain it is RCD Mallorca, in France it is SC Bastia, in Netherlands it is FC Groningen.
Strangely, until now I haven’t found myself strongly inclined to managing any Bundesliga club. I’ve been to Germany a number of times for holidays, educational trips and football matches, although during that time I’ve never gained any strong feelings for any particular club there. In making my decision for FM23 I looked through the squads of the current Bundesliga sides - SC Freiburg stood out simply for the presence of two players I have managed in recent FMs (Woo-yeong Jeong and Ritsu Doan).
When starting any save game, I always like to start by picking out the four players I feel could be key in my first season. This is based on nothing other than a quick glance at their attributes and player traits.
The first player will always be the goalkeeper. Mark Flekken is a solid goalkeeper, not massively impressive but he’ll do the job for now. He’s comfortable with the ball at his feet, aerially competent and he still has a fair bit of time left on his contract. I always find goalkeeper the hardest player to replace so the simple answer is that if I don’t have to then I won’t.
Matthias Ginter is the highest paid player in the squad, a full £22.5k per week more than the next highest paid player. Freiburg born and a product of the youth academy, he’s back after spells with Dortmund and Gladbach. Reasonably strong attributes will mean I hope/expect him to stick around for a few years but that personality should make for a really good mentor to the younger players.
Maxi Eggestein may not be the most technical player but his work rate and teamwork are a massive win in my books. It’ll be interesting to see how that ‘plays one twos’ works out in the middle of the pitch.
Woo-yeong Jeong can play on either flank, strong with both feet and is relatively quick off the mark. At 22 years old, there’s still plenty of time for improvement under the right training conditions.
SUMMER 2022 TRANSFER WINDOW
I don’t like to do too much business in the first transfer window but I also don’t like to disable the first window. Sometimes this works against me, as it has done in this instance, but that is football.
Straight from the off, Roland Sallai was attracting interesting from England. After turning down the first bid, I had Sallai complaining which was quickly followed by his teammates encouraging me to let the player leave. I asked him to give me time, which was met with resistance. And so Sallai couldn’t wait. £13m upfront fee from Leeds United meant that I could let him leave and not look back in anger on the decision.
Carles Aleña and Borja Mayoral are part of an elite fmadventure club of players that I routinely look to sign every year. Matteo Ruggeri of Atalanta has just joined that club. A one-year loan agreed with a £350k upfront fee and the option to make it permanent for just £2.7m. An option that I will almost certainly be taking up.
Pre-season summed up: we drew in the intra-squad friendly before winning four games against lower league German clubs and a final victory at home to Anderlecht. 13 goals were scored and just 1 conceded.
The season began with a Freiberg-Freiburg (cue Spidermen meme) DFB Pokal game hosted by the Stuttgart based club. One defeat in the opening twelve games had us sitting up in the Champions League qualification spots but we really weren’t convincing enough in any of those games despite some of the big scalps (Dortmund, Leverkusen, Rangers).
My fears were found to have some substance to them as we then went on to only record two wins in the next nine games - with none of them coming in the Bundesliga! A change of tactic (to be discussed) managed to shake things up and we blew Union Berlin out of the water in a comprehensive win before elite club football breaks for a certain Qatar 2022 tournament.
Rookie mistake… I forgot to take a picture of the table as it was at this point. I was 7th though…
MY STRUGGLE WITH TACTICS
We weren’t playing terribly but then again; we weren’t quite playing well enough for me to suggest that I was happy with how things were going.
This season I planned to use largely the same tactic that I ended FM22 with - focusing on using a Raumdeuter from the AML position. I feel like I’ve perhaps jumped too soon to this one, when I don’t have all the right players yet to make it work. I will go back to it at some point.
In the few games immediately before the World Cup break, I began to look at a few other tactical set ups and styles using the presets. There was a fluid counterattack 5-3-2 and a gegenpress 4-2-4. Neither really clicked for me (and I don’t really enjoy the TI heavy presets anyway). A quick review of the squad and I settled on my final solution for now - a simple 4-4-2.
Solid at the back, runners from the middle and a TF/AF combination up top. The dividends were paid immediately as Höler grabbed a hattrick from AF, Peterson got one as the TF and Ritsu Dôan grabbed a brace as the IW from the right side of midfield in the 6-0 win over Union. Beautiful.
The Qatar 2022 World Cup happened and was won by Netherlands. Our players involved were Matthias Ginter (Germany), Woo-yeong Jeong (South Korea) and Mark Flekken (Netherlands).
On the other side of the Winter/World Cup break I will have a look at the positions in my squad that I feel could be immediately improved upon. I have £11m in transfer funds and £25k/week in wages to spend. There may be a few that leave just to try and reduce down our currently bloated first team squad - we currently have 25 first team players when I would ideally be working with no more than 20.
For the immediate future I think I will stick with the 4-4-2 but switching back to the Raumdeuter 4-3-3 in future will definitely be on my mind and in my consideration of any transfer business.