Welcome back to the beautiful and historic city of Düsseldorf here on the River Rhine. It’s been an eventful season for Frank Athlete and the club, with great progress made on the pitch and plenty to talk about as some of our exciting prospects really start delivering on the their potential. Let’s not waste more time here in the intro, let’s go straight through and get into it. Bring your drinks with you…
Season Summary
Team: Fortuna Düsseldorf
Division: Bundesliga
Season: 2030/31
Players in: Mehran Nakisa, Esteghlal (€325K); Samuel Burbano, Liga de Quito (€1.4M); Stefano Bifulco, AC Milan (€450K); Wesley Daniel, Borussia Monchengladbach (Loan - €230K)
Players out: Pascal Wagner, Schalke 04 (€2.7M)
The Board’s transfer budget left a lot to be desired again, but thanks to some shrewd scouting, Frank’s recruitment team had managed to unearth a few gems that were available for peanuts. Iranian centre back, Nakisa, signs to provide competition to Lekovic and Rekik, while Burbano will be retrained as a False 9 despite his low finishing attribute. Both see their value soar on joining the club, largely down to their wonderkid status. Bilfulco will provide cover at DL while Wesley joins on loan to back up Alair in the left Inside Forward role.
Pascal Wagner is the only departure as the playing time he desired wouldn’t be possible. That also means that Rodolfo Gomez stays at the club despite interest from elsewhere.
With the new signings now settling in alongside last season’s recruits, Frank’s squad is really starting to take shape with many players showing real potential in preseason, albeit with a lot of youth and inexperience among the team too.
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Dusseldorf’s preseason friendlies returned a mixed bag of results, ending with a pleasing 4-1 victory over Napoli in the last warm up game of the Summer. As usual, the season opener would be in the DFB-Pokal where Frank’s men had drawn 1860 Munchen as their opponents in the First Round. Despite the gap in league places, Dusseldorf struggled to get a hold of the game, and it took until extra time for them to grab the winner, with the game ending 3-2.
The cup game was followed by three league matches across the remainder of August, with the side collecting two wins against Mainz 05 and Eintracht Frankfurt, followed by a thrilling 3-3 draw at home to Wolfsburg. An unbeaten start to the season saw the Fortunen sitting comfortably in the top 4, hopefully a sign of things to come at the end of the season.
Back to back losses to Bayern and then Hamburg in the next games allowed a few teams below to catch up, but over the course of the next few matches the side notched up five more wins and only two losses up to the end of November, leaving the team in the European places heading into December. Sandwiched in between was also a comfortable 2-1 DFB-Pokal Second Round win against Hamburg, setting up a Third Round tie RB Leipzig in February.
Next, a difficult run saw the team secure draws against Dortmund, Bayer 04 and Hannover 96, as well as a win against Leipzig to remain unbeaten, with the final match of 2030 ending in defeat against Darmstadt 98.
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As the Winter Break beckoned, so too did renewed interest in star man Rodolfo Gomez. His performances on the pitch had started to win him many plaudits off it, including the World U21 Footballer of the Year award and the European Golden Boy award, both for 2030. This seemed to pique the interest of a number of big clubs, but it was Wolfsburg who initially came forward and met his release clause of €54M, swiftly followed by Bayern Munich who did the same. It was the latter that proved to be Gomez’s first choice and everyone at the club took a moment to wish him well on his journey to the top.
With money in the bank, the Board were generous in allowing Frank to reinvest most of it into the squad. Off the back of the recruitment team’s newfound success of identifying cheap foreign players that could step up in the Bundesliga, Frank went about recruiting in a number of key areas while also opting to move on a few old hands to make room for the next generation footballers he was bringing in. Central midfield trio Morten Holst, Robert Wagner and Arne Meier were all shipped out for a combined fee of €2.4M, while Gabriel Coelho joined on loan from Porto to cover at CM-At and Peruvian playmaker, Renan, came in to challenge for a first team place at AP-Su for a mere €600K from Alianza.
The remainder of the budget was spent on improving our wide options. Argentinian forward, Manuel Pinero, joined from River Plate for €12M and will play as a right winger, while Brazilian attacker, Alair, signed from Coritiba for €3.3M as an Inside Forward on the left. Alair would free up Lazetic to cover as a striker, leaving Dike and Burbano to lead the line in the absence of Gomez.
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January’s league fixtures began with a difficult 2-2 draw away at Mainz 05, followed by a bitterly disappointing 3-2 loss at home to relegation contenders, Eintracht Frankfurt. Not the best of starts after a promising first half of the season, but a win was secured in the next fixture as Dusseldorf battled to a 1-0 victory over Wolfsburg.
February began with yet another defeat to Bayern Munich, although the two goals we squeezed past them did at least show the progress being made under Frank’s leadership. Next up was the DFB-Pokal Third Round match against RB Leipzig who’s league form had been suffering and so an opportunity to progress was definitely on the cards, even though the game would be played on their patch. After an even start, a penalty was awarded to Fortuna before half time and Dike converted it to give them the lead at half time. Despite Leipzig equalising on 58 minutes, it was winger, Alexis Trouillet, who got the winner just 8 minutes later, booking a Quarter Final against Stuttgart in a week’s time.
Seemingly in preparation for the cup game, an away tie against Hamburg in the league ended 6-3 just a few days later, as Dusseldorf came from 3-2 down to win the match in emphatic fashion. With the fixtures stacking up, it was just a few days rest before the Quarter Final against Stuttgart, a third consecutive away match for Frank’s men. At half time, it was 1-1 and at the end of 90 minutes it was 2-2, Daryl Dike equalising in the 88th minute to take the game to Extra Time. Another 30 minutes of frantic football couldn’t separate the two sides and so it would come down to the luck of a penalty shootout to decide who goes forward, and thanks to Charlie Setford’s heroics in goal, Fortuna Dusseldorf advanced to the Semi Final where they would play Bayer Leverkusen in 2 months time.
Back to league action, and the last two fixtures of February ended in a win and a draw against rivals 1. FC Koln and 1. FC Nurnberg respectively, giving way to back to back defeats at the start of March, the first time since September that the team had lost twice in a row, and shipping four goals in each game in the process. Despite the downturn in form, Dusseldorf responded magnificently with an unbeaten run of five games, taking 13 points in total, and three each off of Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig.
With the side in such rich form, they headed into the DFB-Pokal Semi Final with plenty of self belief and confidence that a result against Bayer 04 was on the cards. Despite finding the net 14 times in the last 5 games, Leverkusen proved to be a stubborn opponent and after 120 minutes of football, the deadlock was yet to be broken. Unfortunately for Dusseldorf, the shootout heroics from the last round couldn’t be repeated and it was Bayer Leverkusen who stood firm to progress to the Final. It was a cruel end to an impressive cup run, but certainly gives hope for future success in this competition.
With the DFB-Pokal dream over, attention immediately shifted to the league where with a few more favourable results, Fortuna stood an outside chance of securing Europa Conference League football next season. By strange coincidence, the next league game was another home fixture against Bayer Leverkusen, just three days after the cup defeat, but instead of taking revenge the side succumbed to a 1-0 defeat, meaning that as they headed into the final two games of the season, it would take a slip from either Hoffenheim or Mainz 05 for Fortuna to secure 7th place.
The team rose to the occasion, bagging consecutive wins and two clean sheets to give themselves the best chance of success, but in the end both Hoffenheim and Mainz did just enough to stay ahead with Dusseldorf missing out on Europe by two points.
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Considering where the team have come from, having only been promoted a few season ago and now climbing into the top half of the league alongside a successful cup campaign, this has been an overwhelmingly successful season and gives a really exciting platform for the team to build on next year.
Fans of the club could have been forgiven for feeling pessimistic when Rodolfo Gomez exited the club and Frank Athlete opted not to bring in a replacement striker in the January Transfer Window, but Athlete was vindicated in his decision as Daryl Dike really stepped up and ended up having his most successful season yet. An average rating of 7.4, no less than seven Man of the Match awards and 9 assists were capped off with 25 goals from all competitions, an impressive return from the American forward.
With one or two more signings in key positions, Frank and his side have the potential to continue their upward trajectory next season and hopefully go one better in the league and qualify for Europe. One thing is certain, the gap between what were Fortuna’s fellow relegation rivals a few seasons ago is ever increasing, while that gap to the European spots has shrunk significantly.
Results Overview
DFB-Pokal
Prediction: Second Round
Actual: Semi Final
Summary: A run to the semi-final was such an impressive feat, but in truth, losing to penalties made it feel like a missed opportunity. Hopefully next year we can capitalise and be a little more ruthless in front of goal.
Best moment: The euphoria of winning the penalty shoot out in the Quarter Final will be hard to beat, it was a great end to a great match.
Low moment: Hard to look past that Semi Final loss, with opportunities aplenty to score in the 90 minutes, but it wasn’t to be.
Bundesliga
Prediction: 12th
Actual: 8th
Summary: An 8th place finish is a big jump and proves that this squad, while young, have real potential to progress in this league. Aside from Bayern Munich and Stuttgart, we took points from all of our opponents which was really pleasing to see.
Best moment: Coming from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 away at Leverkusen was certainly a highlight, as was the 6-3 demolition of Hamburg, despite trailing 3-2.
Low moment: Missing out on Europa Conference League football was a bitter blow, especially as it was just two points in the end.
Facts and Figures
From a financial standpoint, Rodolfo Gomez’s departure has been life changing for the club and has seen our financial status upgraded to “Rich”. It also enabled us to do some upgrades to our youth recruitment and junior coaching which should help us in the future too. The valuation of our wonderkids Nakisa and Burbano (both €40M +) has also given us a future revenue stream, assuming they move on at some point in the not too distant future.
From a statistical point of view, the side have improved in almost every metric. One thing in particular that was really pleasing to see was our goals, where both in total goals scored (69) and goals per game (2.03), Fortuna Dusseldorf were the league leaders. We also increased our Shots per Game from 8.59 to 13.74, and still managed to keep 44.33% of those on target. Defensively, our stats were very simialr to the previous year so wit was good to see us not lose ground at the back, while improving in attack.
Around the Grounds
In this section we share some of the other stories from elsewhere in the FM universe that have caught the eye this week…
Welcome to Bulgaria - FM Eadster announces the next chapter for Ruslan Chepiga as he heads to Eastern Europe in search of a place to lay low for a while.
"Heir to the Empire" - Faceless - FM Grasshopper’s latest update provides some closure on Bastardo’s story, but it feels far from concluded as his legacy lives on.
Casual Calcio | #5 | Looking For A Turnaround - Oaky_FM presents a mammoth update from Catania as Jens Richter looks to go one better than his Serie A second place finish last time out.
Ternana Calcio: 2026/2027 - FM Youth Intake returns with another instalment from Ternana as he bids to make it three from three Serie A league titles.
Player Comparison Visualiser - FM Stag and A FM Old Timer have been busily collaborating on a superb comparison tool that allows you to compare two players across multiple data points from within your save universe.
Do you have a blog that’s missing from the above list? Please send me the link on Twitter so I can have a read.
Thanks for reading this update, I really hope you enjoyed it. You’ll find more updates from me, as well as blogs from some other fantastic writers at CoffeehouseFM so make sure you check them out. Feel free to leave a comment below, or you can message me @fm_athlete if you feel like getting in touch.
Thanks for coming. I've been FM Athlete. You've been ‘swimming against the tide’. See you next time.