FM21 | SC Verl: 2026/2027 - Final Season

October 25, 2021

I want to thank everyone who’s given the series a read in the last few months. It’s been fun writing about my little journey with SC Verl. With FM22 Beta out, I decided this will be the last full season review for the save.

Last season was the most successful in the club’s history by winning the Bundesliga on the last day of the season. Could we win back-to-back titles? Let’s take a look.

Transfers

Out:

Samuel Lengle was the first player to leave, he joins Napoli for 25.5M (37M). André França had three RBs ahead of him so he’s off to Düsseldorf for £7.25m. Young Turkish CM Lukas Avci wanted more playing time included in his new contract so when FC Lorient came in with an offer I couldn’t refuse it, he’s off for £9.75m and 45% of next sale.

Matthew Hoppe had become one of my favorite players in this save. The American contributed to a ton of late goals coming off the bench to save us, time and time again. We would have not won the league last season without his effort. I offer him a new contract when West Brom activated his release clause (£31M) but he declined. In four seasons, he contributed with 59 goals and 27 assists, averaging a 7.17 rating in 110 games, 80 starts + 30 off the bench.

Squad

Goalkeepers: Christian Früchl (27), Tobias Leclerc (22)

Defenders: Manfred Chudoba (20), Bahaa Abdelhalim (22), Kilian Senkbeil (28), Ian Robinson (21), Didier Leger (22), Luca Netz (24), Jonathan Meier (27)

Midfielders: Ilkay Gündogan (36), Christian Frydek (28), Joe Hodge (24), Isak Hansen-Aarøen (22), Kentarô Azuma (22)

Wingers: Mika Schroers (25), Tjas Begic (23), Billy Jones (22), Ivan Perera (21), Roald van de Bosch (19)

Forwards: Florian Krüger (28), Paul Glatzel (26), Thomas Amang (29), Albert Braut Tjåland

German Supercup

We secured our first German Supercup (the 4th trophy of the save) after a tight game against Borussia Dortmund. Although we dominated most of the game, Dortmund snuck in a late goal to take the game to extra-time then eventually to penalties.

DFB-Pokal

After securing two resounding victories against Eichede (11-0) and Hoffenheim (3-0), our team's momentum came to a halt when we faced off against our fierce rivals, Hertha Berlin, resulting in a disappointing 0-1 defeat. Although our talented young players demonstrated their potential in previous matches, we were eliminated in the third round.

Champions League

This season’s group draw was a bit more favorable than last year. Real Madrid were the only top club in our group. Somehow were able to beat Real Madrid in both legs quite comfortably and the same went for Rangers. Our only lost and draw were caused by Ajax.

We faced Atletico Madrid in the first knockout round. The away leg was quite boring, neither team was able to get going. There were a total of 42 fouls throughout the game, ending the match (0-0). The return leg was competitive until Renan Lodi was sent off in the 33rd minute, we didn’t look back scoring 5 goals past Jan Oblak.

Just like last season, we were off to Anfield to face Liverpool in the Quarterfinals. This time around there were no threats of getting knocked out as we dominated both matches winning (3-0) on aggregate.

Our final stop in our Champions League journey would be Barcelona. The Catalans had come off a (9-1) aggregate win against Porto. Our trip to Barcelona was a disaster, they toyed with us the entire game, a goal by Marcus Rashford and 2 more goals by Lautaro Martinez followed ending the game (3-0). The return leg was the complete opposite. We dominated the game until Odsonne Edouard pulled one back in the 84th minute, sending Barça to the Champions League Final against Man Utd.

Manchester United would go on to win their 3rd consecutive Champions League!

Bundesliga

We began the Bundesliga season with arguably the hardest run of games. A (2-0) win against Bayern in the opening game of the season was a delight. That win was followed by a (1-2) win against Dortmund, the ever present Florian Krüger coming the rescue in the 90+1 minute. We dismantled Leverkusen (5-2) to finish the month of August with 9 points.

The next two months were relatively successful, we were still unbeaten in the league. In the 8 matches that were played between September and October, we were only able to win four. Three of our the four ties came towards the end of October, all three ending (0-0).

After three scoreless games, I decided to go back the original 4-4-2 tactic. The players have developed well enough to keep possession in the final third, which was a major issue a couple seasons ago. The changes helped us win four games on the bounce and two more ties to maintain our unbeaten run of 17 matches, taking us top of the league four points above Bayern.

The second half of the season started off with our first defeat in 17 games. The (0-3) loss to Bayern narrowed our lead on the league table to just 1 point. Then, two (0-0) draws against Dortmund and Leverkusen brought us 3 points behind Bayern. Our form picked up between February and March only losing 4 points out of 21 possible points. The nine game unbeaten streak brought us leveled with Bayern with seven games left to play in the season.

I wish I could tell you that we didn’t drop any points for the remainder of the season but unfortunately we lost to Schalke (1-2) putting us three points behind Bayern once again. This lost will haunt us for the rest of the season. In the next five games we only allowed 1 goal vs 17 goals that we scored against our oppositions.

It all came down to the last game of the season, we needed Bayern to lose as we were up on goal difference, sadly that didn’t happen, Bayern continued to be Bayern and won the league in the last game of the season.

Best of the Bunch

Like last year, we had a ton of players who had a fantastic season. Somehow none of them made it to the Bundesliga or Player’s Teams of the Year. I wanted to highlight one of my favorite players in the save. Team leader and Club Legend, Florian Krüger.

Florian Kruger did not set the the Bundesliga on fire since his arrival to SC Verl five years ago. The forward did become a great leader, specially in the last three season helping mentor our young forwards.

This season, he scored 21 goals and assisted another 5 in 32 (15) appearances. He was ever present and saved our skin plenty of times. Those goals helped Krüger become the all-time goalscorer for SC Verl with 111 goals in all competitions.

Youth

Intake:

After last season’s disappointing Youth Intake, I fired the HofYD right away and decided to bring in Andrey Arshavin as my new Head of Youth Development. A season later he brought in a “good group of players.” At least six players stood out to me, although only four are worth showing.

The cream of the crop this season was Pascal Bergjohann. The young Dutch striker looks like a world beater! Not sure if he would ever be at the level of Ed’s Alfredo, but with some . The other player that stood out is half German/half Singaporean striker Christopher Murthy.

We were finally able to bring in some young Nicaraguan players through our intake. Although, that was not of the objectives of the save, it was a lovely surprise. Juan Lopez and Jeremy Vega don’t look that great, but all I could dream about was them getting called up to Nicaraguan national team.

Development:

Ian Robinson made 39 appearances in all competitions scoring 3 goals and adding 2 assists, he averaged a 7.10 rating.
Billy Jones had a couple of injuries throughout the season that preventing him from cementing his spot on the left wing. He finished the season with a 7.10 average rating, scoring 1 goal and providing 6 assists in 16 (14) appearances.
Joshua Embers had a successful first season with the first team, the young defender finished the season with 4 goals and 1 assists with an average rating of 7.43 in 17 (4) appearances.
Roald van de Bosch had his first full season in the first team mainly coming off the bench. The Dutch youth international scored 2 goals and registered 8 assists in 12 (11) appearances with an average rating of 7.03.
Gabriel Sanclemente made 15 (5) appearances in his first season with the 1st team. The Colombian youth international scored 5 goals and assisted 6 averaging 7.10 rating.
Sattar Mousavi spent the season with VfL Bochum the 19 y/o forward made 32 (1) appearances in the Bundesliga. Although, Bochum were relegated and he did not have the best season, Sattar ended up winning the German U19 Player of the Year. He scored 6 goals, followed by 3 assists with an average rating of 6.59.
Pascal Skibbe made his first team debut, the 17y/o ended the season 2 (3) apps scoring 1 goal. Pascal won the German U17 Player of the Year. .

Final Thoughts

SC Verl has come a long way in the seven years that I’ve been at the club. I leave the club with the facilities almost maxed out. For some reason even with hundreds of millions of pounds the board did not want to build a new stadium, it would have been great to see the team player in at our grounds.

Because of the self impose transfer ban, I needed to figure out ways to get the best out of the academy. I harassed the club every time I could to add more foreign affiliates to boost our academy. We were able to add several teams from a wide range of countries, including Netherlands, Slovakia. Norway, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

As I said in the last post, I was too ambitious at the beginning of the save with the objectives but winning the Bundesliga with such a small and underrated team is the highlight of the save. I wished to have added the DFB-Pokal and at least the Europa League, but I am more than happy with my experience in Germany.

Now that FM22 Beta is out I’ll be playing beta save until the release of the game. With that said, the next post will be an introduction to the team that I will be managing on FM22.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and follow along on Twitter/Slack.

Best,

José

FM21 | SC Verl: 2025/2026

October 25, 2021

This post will recap the entire 2025/2026 season.

Last season we were able to squeeze into 4th place on the last game of the Bundesliga season to return to European football. Let’s see where we ended this season.

Transfers

Out:

The Champions League served as a great platform for some of our players to be scouted by other teams so I wasn’t surprised to see some of them go this summer.

Mamadou Doucouré (£17M, Monaco), Anthony Elanga (£34M, Rennes), and Dylan Levitt (£32.5M, Brighton) were some of our best performers last season, luckily we have replacements ready to step up. Squad players such as Nunoo Sarpei (£10.5M, Real Sociedad) and Jakov Šuver (£4.7M, Fortuna Dusseldorf) also left for more playing time. We also had two youngsters leave Sadick Antwi ( £1.9, Hamburg) and Pascal Schmidt (£275K, SCP07) as they were not highly rated by our youth staff. Kalilou Kouakou (£55M, Hertha Berlin) had a fantastic season while on loan, leading to Hertha activating his release clause. Samuel Lengle left on loan once again, I will try to sell him next season. Also, six youth players left on loan to gain some experience.

In:

Pre-contracts:

As mentioned in my last post, I planned ahead of my self-imposed transfer ban by agreeing three pre-contract signings before the beginning of the season.

Ilkay Gündogan joins from Benfica. He has spent the last three years in Portugal without winning any trophies. He will provide cover after losing Sarpei and Levitt.
Luca Netz rejected a contract from Hertha to make his stay at Verl permanent. He has spent the last four years on loan with us.
Manfred Chudoba also joins us from Hertha. He has mainly featured with their B team and spent last season on loan in Bundesliga 2. He will rotate with Bahaa Abdelhaim at RB.

Youth:

Júnior Felício Lorenz is a free agent newgen who is half Brazilian and half German. I’m not sure how he will develop but it was worth bringing him in.

Squad

The recruitment in the last two windows prepared us for the six outgoing first team members. Although the team is on the light side we have enough players in the 2nd team to be called upon if needed. Now that the squad is settled in terms of incoming players, the focus from now on will be to call up youth players when first-team players are poached by bigger clubs.

Goalkeepers: Christian Früchl (26), Tobias Leclerc (21)
Defenders: Manfred Chudoba (19), Bahaa Abdelhalim (21), Kilian Senkbeil (27), Ian Robinson (20), Didier Leger (21), Luca Netz (23), Jonathan Meier (26)
Midfielders: Ilkay Gündogan (35), Christian Frydek (27), Joe Hodge (23), Lucas Avci (20), Isak Hansen-Aarøen (21), Kentarô Azuma (21)
Wingers: Mika Schroers (24), Tjas Begic (22), Billy Jones (21), Ivan Perera (20)
Forwards: Florian Krüger (27), Matthew Hoppe (25), Paul Glatzel (25), Thomas Amang (28)

DFB-Pokal

Just like last season, I decided to play squad and youth players. After some surprising results we were able to make it to the semifinals where we lost to Borussia Dortmund. No shame in losing when you’re playing with kids.

Champions League

This season we were pinned against Man City, AC Milan and Krasnodar. I believed we had a better chance of qualifying compared to last year since Milan had barely made it into the top 4 in Italy and I did not see Krasnodar as a threat.

We beat Krasnodar (4-0) in both legs. Milan were also brushed aside (1-0) at home and (2-4) at the San Siro. As you can already imagine, Man City beat us comfortably on both legs, (0-2) at home and (4-1) away. The results were good enough for us to qualify for the knockout stages.

We had an all English affair in the knockout rounds. We first travelled to London to face Spurs (who are still managed by José Mourinho). We took an early 2 goal lead thanks to two errors from Sergio Reguilón. Pau Torres’ header wasn’t enough for the win but it gave Spurs the away goal advantage. In London, we went down 1-0 in the 57th minute after conceding a penalty, this would have taken Spurs to the next round but super-sub Matthew Hoppe‘s 88th minute goal ended Tottenham’s run.

We were off to Liverpool for the Quarter Final. We tied 1-1 away, Ivan Perera scoring the equalizer in the 43rd minute. The second leg was goals galore, we were tied 2-2 until Franck Kessié got sent off in the 61st minute. Ivan Perera put ahead in the 65th minute and Tjas Begic finished off the game in the 87th minute, ending the game 4-2.

The next stop on our English tour was Manchester to face my beloved Man Utd. The first leg was entertaining to say the least, both teams were showing why they deserved to be in the final, by the 80th minute we were tied 2-2 but then a defensive mistake by Killian Senkbeil cost us the game, (2-3) to United. Unlike the first leg, the second leg barely had any action, neither team could get going, our 23 fouls didn’t help either. The match ended (0-0) and were sent back to Germany.

Man Utd went on to win their second Champions League in a row by beating Chelsea.

Bundesliga

As you’ve read above, we’ve played a lot of games this season as we made it deep into both the DFB-Pokal and the Champions League. I know that it’s nowhere near the 90 games that you’d play in South America but when you only have 23 players in your team, it matters. Smart rotation was going to be key to what would be an unexpectedly successful season.

We began the Bundesliga season with two dominant wins against M’gladbach (3-1) and Bayer Leverkusen (0-2). In the third game of the season, we faced Hertha Berlin who beat us (1-2) at home. Hertha has become one of your competitive rivals off-and-on the pitch, by poaching players off each other and having a competitive head-to-head record. That lost to Hertha most of sparked something in the team, because by the end of October we were unbeaten in seven games. Including a (0-1) win at Dortmund and a (4-0) thrashing of Bayern.

Fast forward to the end of December and we’ve yet to lose in fourteen games, 12 wins and 2 ties, those two ties were in between CL games and mainly featured squad and youth players. We went into the winter break top of the league, ahead of M’gladbach by 5 points.

We started the second half of the season with Back-to-back wins vs M’gladbach (1-2) and Leverkusen (6-0). Christian Früchtl suffered a season-ending injury against Leverkusen, this meant that we would play the rest of the season with our young French goalkeeper Tobias Leclerc. Things didn’t end there, our 16 game unbeaten run ended in a disastrous lost against Hertha (5-1). (the head-to-head record is now at 5W-1D-5L)

In between February and March we began to drop points. We tied (1-1) against Dortmund, Perera once again come to our rescue in the 79th minute. Two big wins agains Nürnberg (0-6) and Freiburg (4-1) gave us the momentum to beat Bayern (2-3), that’s six unbeaten games vs Bayern in the last three seasons, putting us ahead in head-to-head, (4W-2D-2L). Hoffenheim’s Fred Chalov put two in the back of the net to salvage a draw (2-2). I decided to tinker my tactic and played 5-3-2WB against Augsburg and it came back to haunt me, losing (1-0) at home after 9 unbeaten games at the SchücoArena.

Now in April, the pressure on the team me started to mount, we were in the Pokal and in the thick of the Champions League. We responded well after the patchy spell in Feb/March with back to back wins against Köln (3-1) and Union Berlin (0-2). Things got a little more interesting as we were officially in a title race against three other teams. Bayern being the closest one to us by four points. As Oaky-FM said in the Slack channel, “The only one stopping you is yourself as it seems.”

By this point we had just beaten Liverpool (4-2) in the Quarterfinals of the CL. We had two more league games in April in-between two huge games, as we faced Dortmund in the Pokal Semifinal and Man Utd in the CL Semifinal. Schalke were first, we went a goal down early in the first half, we then bounced back with two goals before the half. Schalke tied the game in the 66th minute, they dominated us for the rest of the game, on the 80th minute Didier Leger brought down Hwang Hee-Chan in the box for a penalty, ending the game (2-3). We traveled to Frankfurt and I gambled the game with a heavily rotated squad, fortunately the players pulled through and won the game (0-1).

At the start of May, we were still in 1st place but Bayern slashed the point difference to 3 points. We hosted Leipzig before the second leg of the CL semifinals, so naturally, I fielded a weaker side but unlike the game at Frankfurt we ended up giving away a late goal for them to tie the game. Still in first place but Bayern were now just two points away. Getting knocked out of the CL semis lowered the morale of the team which reflected in the (2-1) loss away at Mainz, luckily Bayern tied against Leverkusen.

It all came down to the last match of the season, we needed a win. A tie would see Bayern snatch the title on goal difference if they won against Hertha. Wolfsburg on the other hand were fighting for survival. The game was quite even, both teams going back-and-forth. Although we dominated possession (61%), Wolfsburg kept countering and taking their chances with no end result. Forty minutes into the match, we have a throw-in… Abdelheim launches the long throw into the box… the goalkeeper and defender come out for it… they both miss the ball but it falls to Christian Frydek‘s foot for him to score his first league goal of the season. This goal was all we needed to lift our first Bundesliga title!!!

Beast of the Bunch

After the phenomenal season that we had, I was not surprised to see that eleven out of the 24 players in the first team had an average rating of 7 or higher. The Bundesliga Team of the Year and Player’s Team of the Year also featured two of our own, Didier Leger & Ian Robinson. I’m not sure how Christian Früchtl was not selected as he had more saves and clean sheets but hey, two is better than none.

Because of the heavy rotation throughout the season, we finished with five players scoring 10 goals or more and six players with 9 or more assists. Although I’d love to see one of my players have 20+ assists or score 30+ goals, I’m happy that I can rely on the entire squad to perform when called upon.

Youth

Intake:

This season there are two youth players that look okay but not worth sharing a screenshot, 16 y/o central defender Thuwan Joseph and 15 y/o midfielder Jean-Pierre Ombga. We will see how they progress in the next year or so, they will spend the rest of the season with the u19s but moved to the B team come next season.

Development:

Ian Robinson has become one of the first names on the starting lineup. The Ireland international started 36 games (3 subs). Playing the second most minutes in the team with 3,326 minutes in which he scored 4 goals and assisting 2. He finished the season with a 7.06 avg rating.
Billy Jones had his best season so far. The 21 y/o scored 7 goals and finished the season with the most assists in the team, 12. He averaged a 7.07 rating.
Joshua Embers spent the season in Bundesliga 2 with Rostock. The young defender had 2 assists in 36 games with a 6.99 avg rating. He will step up the first team next season as our 4th CD.
Roald van de Bosch stayed with us the first half of the season. He scored 3 goals in 10 games. He then spent the second half of the season with Bundesliga side Union Berlin, averaging a 6.55 rating in 14 games. He had no goal contributions.
Gabriel Sanclemente was loaned out once again to Paderborn, this time in Bundesliga 2. He was outstanding scoring 14 goals and assisting another 8 in 35 games. He finished with a 7.31 avg rating. He will spend next season with the first team.
Sattar Mousavi finished the rest of his 18 month loan to Dynamo Dresden in Bundesliga 2. He scored 11 goals and provided 5 assists in 28 games. Averaging a 7.36 rating.
Pascal Skibbe had a great season with our B team. He came off the bench 23 times and started 10 games. Assisting 5 and scoring 3 goals. He had an average rating of 7.14. He will spend another year with the B team/U19s.

Infrastructure

The board agreed to invest £7.5 into both our club and youth training facilities. Elsewhere, I’ve been harassing the board to add more youth affiliates and thankfully we were able to add four more teams – Norwegian club Tromso Il, Racing Santander from Spain, Romanian side Dinamo Bucuresti and Austrian club SKN St. Pölten.

Another year with no plans for a new stadium… we have over £430m in the bank ffs, just do it!

Now that I’m done with season 6 at SC Verl, I figured it would be worth going over the objectives that I gave myself at the beginning of the save:

Promotion to Bundesliga by 2025. ✅
Become Bundesliga champions. ✅
Surpass Bayern’s commercial revenue. ❌ (this was completely wild of me to believe that I could achieve such thing)
Have the best academy in Germany by 2030. ❌
Win the Champion’s League with 11 homegrown players from the club. ❌

After rereading my objectives & goals that I gave myself at the beginning of this save, I learned that I need to chill out with the objectives in the future. Some of them were a bit out there, or might have taken me longer to achieve. I play the game too slow for me to put 10+ seasons, smh.

With that said, I’m not sure how much further I’ll be able to continue to play but I will do my best to put out at least one more posts before FM22.

Thanks for following along 🌹!

Best,
José

FM21 | SC Verl: 2024/2025

August 26, 2021

(The following post is a two part series from the old Youth Intake site)

Hello there! SC Verl finished last season 2nd place and qualified for the Champions League.

Summer Transfer Window

Transfers In

Pre-Contracts:

Anthony Elanga joins from Manchester United. He will be our starting left winger.
Dylan Levitt joins fellow teammate from Manchester United. He was brought in to provide competition for Joe Hodge and Christian Frydek. He can also play a few different positions which is a plus.
Nuno Sarpei joins from SpVgg Greuther Fürth. He will provide cover and add depth to our midfield.

Loans:

Angelo Bruckner, Luca Netz and Sidi Sané are back for another season.

Youth Signings:

Aaron José joins from lower league Portuguese team Olímpico de Montijo. He looks like a better prosper than Andrè Franca.
Didier Leger joins from Serbian second division team Kaber.
Kalilou Kouakou joins from Serie C team Cesena. He looks quite the gem.

All three players will be sent out on loan.

Transfers Out

I made the mistake of having our Director of Football in charge of loans. I missed two offers that completely messed up our squad balance. Samuel Lengle was needed ahead of the long season, but he was upset about playing time so he's off to Hertha for the season. I messed up even more when I didn't see that ABT was off on a two-year loan to Freiburg, what's worse is that I can't terminate the loan, ffs. I've now taken over loans until I have a much more balanced team. Lesson learned!

We broke our transfer income record by bringing in over £15m in transfer fees from the sales of Roberto Massimo and Nicolas Kuhn.

Roberto Massimo had been injury prone these last two seasons so when Mainz came with a £7.5m (9.75m) offer, I could not refuse.
Nicolas Kuhn made a fuss over his wages and guarantee playing time. I did not want to sell him as we were already a bit short on the wings after the Massimo sale. Stuttgart came in with a few bids and were able to upset the player. He’s left for £7.5m.

Squad

As I mentioned above, the team was not balanced after a ton of outgoing loans. But it wasn’t until I began to type the first team squad for the upcoming season, when it hit me that I actually didn’t add any depth to the team. I now have less available players this season compared to last. I will look to either bring in a couple of players in the next transfer window or recall a couple of players from their loans. SICK 🤘!

Goalkeepers: Christian Früchl, Emil Hansen
Defenders: Angelo Brückner, Bahaa Abdelhalim, Kilian Senkbeil, Ian Robinson, Mamadou Doucouré, Jakob Šuver, Luca Netz, Jonathan Meier
Midfielders: Dylan Levitt, Christian Frydek, Joe Hodge, Nunoo Sarpei
Wingers: Mika Schroers, Tjas Begic, Billy Jones, Anthony Elanga
Forwards: Florian Krüger, Matthew Hoppe, Paul Glatzel

Preseason

The board wants us to avoid relegation although we finished in 2nd place last season, that gives us a lot of room just in case we collapse during the season. The bookies on the other hand have rated us to finish midtable.

We had another successful preseason starting a comfortable win against one of recent affiliates, Koln. We then jetted off to Italy for training camp and faced some decent competition, ending the trip with a 1-5 win against Udinese.

Finances

The last couple of years have been great for us financially. We have been able to accumulate over £100m in our overall balance. We’ve use our money wisely and the little spent has gone back into the infrastructure of the club. I’ve tried once again but our Chairman does not want to build a new stadium even though we have all that money sitting there, what shame.

In other news, we’ve moved one spot up in our Matchday and Ticket Revenue table to 17th, generating a little over £5m. In terms of Commercial Income, we’re still last with only being able to bring in £1.3m. Wages have now risen to £300k p/w but continue to be frugal regardless of our wage budget being £480k p/w.

DFB-Pokal

I’ll keep it short. DFB-Pokal was dead last in my list of priorities. I decided to only play squad and youth players. Unexpectedly, they took us far into the competition and into the semi-final, only to lose against RB Leipzig. Not bad for rotational and youth players.

Champions League

Our first Champions League campaign was off to a tough start drawning against Atletico Madrid, Tottenham and Shahktar in the group stages. My aim was third place, as long as we beat Shahktar twice then we were good.

We began with a 4-0 win against Shahktar in the opening game. Then we faced Atletico Madrid at home but that was too much for us, losing 3-1. Tottenham just about edged us losing 1-0. Things changed in the return fixture, Paul Glatzel and Matthew Hoppe proved to be a bit much for Tottenham, they teamed up on to finish this superb counter attack, winning the match 2-0. We brushed aside Shakhtar 0-2. A Krüger penalty was enough for us to beat Atletico and qualify for the knockout rounds.

We were drawn against the mighty Real Madrid in First Knockout Round. I’m not big believe in home advantage but somehow the team came together and surprised Real Madrid in a feisty 4-1 win. In the second leg, Madrid completely dominated us, we only were able to have four attempts on goal. Vinicious Junior and Jadon Sancho decided to come to play. By the beginning of the second half both had a scored a goal each and we were down 2-0. In the 73rd minute Sancho scored his second goal after catching our defense off guard. Tied 4-4 on aggregate and Madrid with the away goal advantage, we needed a miracle. Who would come to our rescue… none other than supersub Matthew Hoppe, scoring from close range after Elanga’s fantastic ball carrying. Helping us move to the next round.

Our trips to Spain were not finished as we were drawn against Barcelona. Once again, the first leg was played at our home. The players ran them selves to the ground and we were able to keep our hopes alive for one more game, tying 0-0. Unfortunately our luck had ran out. Barcelona wanted to avoid the mistake of their rivals. Goals from Coutinho and Greizmann sent us back to Germany.

Although our efforts didn’t pay off, it was great to see us go toe-to-toe against Europe elites. Let’s see how the rest of the season went.

Bundesliga

I knew that it was going to be hard to top last season’s achievement but with a smaller than expected squad plus the addition of the Champions League it became even harder. Maybe it was the thought of being in the CL but I smashed my space bar through more of the first half of the season.

We began the season with back to back wins against Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen, followed by back to back loses against Dortmund (1-4) and Stuttgart (0-2). That followed with a seven game unbeaten streak, which included FMing RB Leipzig 1-0. The last six games of the first half of the season is where the effects of the Champions League began to show. Winning two, tying two and losing two. We went into the winter break tied in 3rd place with RB Leipzig.

January Transfer Window

Transfers Out

January came and so did the offers from the big boys such as PSG and others. I was afraid that they would raid squad in the middle of the season. Fortunately, I rejected all offers that came for key players.

FC Köln activated Jens Castrop‘s £8.25m release clause to bring him back to his boyhood club. Castrop played 56 (21 sub) scoring 7 goals and providing 6 assists in the two and half years with us.

Transfers In

Thomas Amang was transfer listed for £1.8m by Sevilla but I had to remind myself that I’m not supposed to be buying any players so I figured I tried something different. Instead, I offered them £0 and 30% of the transfer fee when sold. Somehow that worked and Sevilla accepted the offer. Same story with Isak Hansen-Aarøen. He was transfer listed for £100k by Manchester United. I offered United the same that I did for Amang. United accepted and we were able to bring two versatile squad players. #FMHackz

As I mentioned in the transfers-out section, we were receiving a lot of bids for some of key players. I brought in these two young internationals on pre-contracts as a backup plan for rest of the season with the intention of playing them more next season. Iván Perera made his way from Peñarol, he refused to sign a contract unless he was a star player. Kentarô Azuma joined us from Sanfrecce.

Back to the league… a mixture of the Champions League, the rotation of players and two long term injuries kept us from staying consistent. Between January and February we only managed to win two games out of six, taking us from 3rd to 6th on the league table. In March, we recovered 12 points from four games helping us rise back to 3rd on the table.

April came around and so did the Champions League. The rotated squad was not good enough to guide us to a Top-4 finish. A 0-0 tie against RB Leipzig kept us in 3rd, followed by a 1-0 lost to Schalke then a 0-2 lost to Eintracht Frankfurt. These loses brought us back down to 6th place. We finished the month on a good note by beating Augsburg 1-3 rising to 5th place.

The last three games of the season were against Bayern (who had already qualified for CL), Hertha (who were two points behind us in 6th place) and Wolfsburg in 12th place. An early goal from new signing Iván Perera helped us get one over Zidane’s Bayern. Hertha were not going to give up their Champions League dreams and beat us 1-2 from by late goal by former Verl man Wang Zhijiang

It came down to the last game of the season, four teams having a chance to qualify for the last CL spot. We were leveled on points with Mönchengladbach at 60 points, only ahead on goal difference. We needed to beat Augsburg and we needed Mönchengladbach to tie or lose, thankfully for us they were playing against champions Dortmund.

We’re back in the Champions League!

Best of the Bunch

Matthew Hoppe finished the season with a 7.23 from 19 (10) games. He was also the team’s top scorer with 21 goals and 5 assists. He was outstanding when coming from the bench. He’s catching a lot of attention from clubs in Portugal, England and France. Supersub for sure.

Florian Krüger continues to be solid goalscorer and has now become Verl’s record goal scorer with 64 goals. He finished this season with 17 goals and 5 assists in 30 (6) games.

As you can below, our defense performed quite well even when rotating heavily throughout the season. Seven of the eight players with a 7.0 or higher avg rating were part of the defensive line.

Youth

Intake

Pascal Skibbe is this season’s only standout player from this season’s intake. He’ll be added to the list of youth players to keep an eye on.

Development

Ian Robinson continues to impress. The Ireland international finished the season with an average rating of 7.03 from 34 (2) games. Along with 1 goal and 2 assists.
Billy Jones our first “wonderkid” didn’t do so well averaging a 6.84. Jones played 17 (8) games with 3 goals and 3 assists.
Joshua Embers had an outstanding season on loan in the 3rd division with Viktoria Koln. He scored 8 goals from CB in 43 apps and averaged a 7.23 rating
Roald van de Bosch was loaned to 3rd division side Türkgükü. He scored 9 goals, assisted 6 and averaged a 7.03 rating in 42 apps.
Gabriel Sanclemente spent the season in the Bundesliga with Paderborn but was not able to help them in their relegation battle. He finished the season with 1 goal and 1 assist in the 24 games, mainly coming off the bench.
Sattar Mousavi spent half a season in the Bundesliga 2 with Dynamo Dresden scoring 2 goals in 5 games.

Infrastructure

Another year goes by without plans for a new Stadium. Even with £200m in the bank the Chairman doesn’t want to risk building a new stadium. At least the he is willing to invest in our youth. Our youth recruitment and youth coaching are now regarded as Exceptional. Upgrades for the training and youth facilities are also in the works.

With my silly little transfer restrictions coming into full effect this summer, I’ve been pushing the board to add a foreign recruitment affiliate. Finally, we’ve been able to add the first one in, PEC Zwolle. I will keep an eye out for future Dutch players in the upcoming intakes.

This is the last year that I can bring players from outside the club, I’ve gone ahead and signed a couple of players on pre-contract. Let’s hope they can make a difference moving forward.

I created a slack channel if you’d like to talk nonsense and see a bunch of screenshots that won’t make it on here. Thank you for following along.

Best,

José

FM21 | SC Verl: 2023/2024

August 10, 2021

(The following post is a two part series from the old Youth Intake site)

Hello!

Last season was a success for this young Verl side as they reached 9th place and well above the bottom three. Although the team is tipped for a relegation battle, I’m hoping that the squad can look to push for another mid-table finish or a Europa Conference spot.

Transfer Window

Transfers Out

Patrick Finger rejected a contract extension and joins Hamburger SV for free after playing 41 games (mainly off the bench) in the last three years.

Transfers In

Pre-Contracts:

Paul Glatzel, Nicolas Kühn, Jens Castrop, and Joe Hodge have come back to Verl after their contracts had expired with their respective clubs.
Jakov Suver joins for free from VfB Stuttgart. He will provide cover at Center Back.
Tjas Begic joins for £375k (compensation fee) from Slovenian side Gorica. He is an extremely versatile player who will be able to cover multiple positions.

Loans:

Sidi Sané, Luca Netz, and Angelo Brückner have extended their loans for one more year.

Youth Signings:

Gabriel Sanclemente will join the U19 team. He was a free agent and never joined a club. He has dual Colombian and German Citizenship.
Emil Hansen joins for free from FC København. He will train with first team and be available to play for the youth team.

Squad

Upfront, Florian Kruger and now permanent signing, Paul Glatzel will continue to lead the line with the help of Matthew Hoppe. Nicolas Kühn and Mika Schroers will provide cover if needed.

On the wings, Sidi Sané will split his time with fellow left wingers Mika Schroers and youngster Billy Jones. On the right, Nicolas Kühn will serve as out starter with Roberto Massimo and Tjas Begic providing cover.

The midfield is where the team has the most cover. Joe Hodge and Christian Frydek will continue to be our main midfield pairing. Jens Castrop and Samuel Lengle will step in when needed. Players such as Paul Glatzel, Nicolas Kühn and Tjas Begic can cover if any emergencies arise.

In defense, Luca Netz will continue to be our main left back with Jonathan Meier as backup. Angelo Brücker will start on the right. He will be helped by Bahaa Abdelhaim and Andre Franca. At center back Mamadou Doucouré and Kilian Senbeil will be our starters. Ian Robinson (who is now Irish once again, make up your mind up kid) and Jakov Suver are their designated backups. Joshua Embers is still too young but he will be able to be registered for the first team during the winter break.

Lastly, on goal. Christian Früchtl will be our first-choice keeper. Tobias Leclerc and Emil Hansen will battle it out to be the cup and backup keeper. One of them will be sent out on loan to gain more playing time.

The team looks a bit more complete compared to last season. The additions of Jakov Süver and Tjas Begic will give depth to our small squad. The scouting team and myself will be doing a lot of scouting to get ready for the winter break. I want to add another striker and possibly a young midfielder for the future.

Preseason

The team begins preseason with £44m in the bank, this is almost three times more than where we started last season. Matchday & season tickets accumulated to £4.2m with 9.1k season tickets sold. Another £1.3m came from commercial revenue which is 198 times more than what Bayern Munich was able to generate (I’m not sure I will ever catch up to them, sighhh). In terms of wages, Verl’s dead last at £175k p/w.

Italy was the setting for this year’s preseason. The range of competition was quite wide to say the least. Aside from the two blowout wins, the team faced some decent competition to prep us for the coming season. One of the highlights of pre-season was seeing a 33 y/o Mario Balotelli score two penalties in the 14-2 win against Serie C/A side Pro Vercelli, he has not aged well.

DFB-Pokal

For the first time in three years we finally managed to make it pass the first round of the Pokal. An easy 4-0 win against lower league side Nöttingen was then met with chaos in the second round when we faced Stuttgart. Seventeen minutes into the game Jens Castrop decided his night was over when he lunged towards his opponent with a two-footed tackle. Rightback Bahaa Abdelhaim put us on the front foot two minutes into the second half. Twenty-seven minutes later Bahaa tackles someone inside the box to give away a penalty, tying the game. The team managed to hold on to the tie and made it to penalties where we lost 5-4, Frydek missing the penalty.

Bundesliga

Something that I did not pay too much attention to last season was how often the players were giving the ball away in the final third while trying to “work the ball into box.” Due to my stubbornness to stick with the same tactic, I let the team continue to make the same mistakes. Those mistakes allowed our opponents continue to score against us when counter attacking.

So after losing the first two games of the season due to the mistakes stated above, I decided to tweak the tactic/s a bit. I gave the players a bit more freedom in the final third by removing “work ball into box.” While the amount of chances created increased, the shot conversation rate was poor. The only positive was that we stopped giving the ball away in the final third and we avoided getting scored on during counter attacks.

The tactical changes helped Verl go unbeaten for eleven Bundesliga games (breaking the streak in a 0-1 loss to Stuttgart). We were able to out score our opponents 28-8. The team was performing well above expectations and by end of the December we were sitting 3rd on the league table. Ending the first half a season with a 1-1 tie against the mighty Bayern Munich.

January Transfer Window

Transfers Out

André Franca and Tobias Leclerc will be sent to out on loan to our new affiliate Viktoria Köln for the remainder of the season. They will try and help them avoid relegation into the lower leagues.

Transfers In

Albert Braut Tjåland (aka ABT, aka Mr. FM21) joins on for free after his contract with Molde expired. He will stay in the first team and be our fourth striker until the end of the season. Hoping for some Samo magic.
Lukas Avci joins from Fenerbahçe, his contract was up at the end of the season but was available for zero to bring him in in the winter. He will go back out on loan to Super League Gençlerbirliği.
Thomas Kerner makes his way from across the pond by way of NYFC, he will operate as an emergency striker but will mainly play in our B team.

We came back from the winter break a bit sluggish, giving away a 0-1 lead to RB Leipzig for them to tie us in the 86th minute. The next five matches saw us win three games and losing two, a 2-0 lost to Wolfsburg and a 5-1 thumping by Dortmund brought us to 5th place by the end of February.

That 5-1 lost to Dortmund most of done something to the players. From March until the of the season we managed to win eight out of ten games. During this great run, the defense finally had clicked, keeping five clean sheets. The small tactical shift had also helped the attackers, scoring 29 goals in 10 games. Our new signings Albert Braut Tjåland and Thomas Kerner in their respective debuts, with Kerner coming off the bench to score two goals in a 0-4 win against Hoffenheim.

The great run of games even had us “battling” for the title against Dortmund. Two games later we secured our first European outing by qualifying to the Champions League. This season was definitely not what I was expecting. The cherry on top was beating Bayern 2-0 in the last match of the season with a heavily rotated squad, after we securing 2nd place. Both goals were scored by none other than ABT himself.

This season was outstanding. We finished the league with the best defense, only allowing 32 goals. We also broke our average attendance record once again. I’m hoping for more of the same next season as long as we continue to perform above expectations.

Champions League here we come!

Best of the Bunch

Defense:

This year’s standout player was Angelo Brückner. He was named in both the Bundesliga “Players’ Team of the Year” and “Team of the Year.” The fightback registered 7 assists from the right flank. I’ve yet to secure another loan for him for next season. Luca Netz continues to perform great as a LCWB, he recorded 5 assists in the 28 games he played. He finished the season with an average rating of 7.07. Due to his consistency we’ve loaned in for another season.

Offense:

Matthew Hoppe & Paul Glatzel finished as joint top scorers with 14 goals each. Hoppe played 19 (7) games and added 6 assists to his name. He finished with the highest average rating at 7.24 in the team. Florian Krüger scored 13 goals and 6 assists in 23 (4) games played. He is extremely versatile being able to play in all attacking positions.

Midfield:

The workload was split between our two starters, Joe Hodge & Christian Frydek and their backups, Samuel Lengle & Jens Castrop. No one truly stood out but were solid enough to remain in the team.

Youth

Intake

This year’s intake only had a couple of decent players but only one of them stood out. Our first decent homegrown striker, Sattar Mousavi. Attributes wise, he looks more like a winger and normal I would retrain such player to what’s more favorable but at the moment we’re quite stacked with wingers. I will try to improve his shooting attributes so that he can develop as a proper striker. He is one that I will be keeping an eye out for.

Development

Ian Robinson has made strides even at such young age. He scored 1 goal in the 22 (2) games that he played in. His avg rating was a decent 6.90. In his first two seasons with the first team he has played 47 (2) games, 4 goals, 1 assist with an avg rating of 6.88. To top it all off, he also made his debut with the Irish national team. Not bad for an 18 y/o.
Billy Jones is somehow now a wonderkid? I might be off, but I don’t think his attributes reflect it.
Joshua Embers and Roald van de Bosch turned 17 but they both spent the season with the B team. They will be loaned out next season.
Bahaa Abdelhaim played 11 (3) and contributed to the team with 2 goals and 1 assist with an avg rating of 7.00. I might have him be our first team right-back depending on whether or not I can bring in Angelo Brückner.

Infrastructure

I was able to convince the board to invest in our youth recruitment and youth coaching. Youth recruitment is now seen as a Good and youth couch has now moved up to Excellent. The board has yet accept my requests for a new stadium so we will continue to play at SchücoArena for at least one more season.

It will be Verl’s first time playing in the Champions League. I’ll be taking a look at our coaching staff to see where we can upgrade. I’ve also negotiated a couple of pre-contract signings ahead of the new season as we are lacking depth in certain positions.

Best,
José

FM21 | SC Verl: 2022/2023

July 13, 2021

(The following post is a two part series from the old Youth Intake site)

Hello there, Glad to have you back!

After being promoted to the Bundesliga, it meant that we needed to improve the team in several areas and prep for a difficult season ahead.

Transfer Window

Transfers Out

We were able recoup £625k in player sales, Julian Schwermann to Burnley for £150K, Berken Taz to VfL Bochum for £300K, and Phillip Sander to 1. FCN for £165K. Frederik Lach & Lars Ritzka were set for release after their contracts experired. We’ve also seen a few of our favorites players, such as Justin Eilers, Nico Hecker, Robin Brüseke, Zlatko Janjic and Lasse Jürgensen, demoted to the B team.

Transfers In

Pre-contracts:

Christian Früchtl: Früchtl joins us from Bayern München and will be our new no1. Basel did not want to renew Gebhart’s loan and Tobias Leclerc is not ready to be our no1.
Jonathan Meier: Another pick up from Bayern, Meier will come in as our backup left back.
Roberto Massimo: A product of the Stuttgart academy, Roberto will help cover in multiple positions when needed.
Matthew Hoppe: I have to admit, the only reason I signed him is because of his display IRL. Although his in-game stats are not bad. He will provide cover as our third striker.
Mika Schroers: He joins us from Borussia Mönchengladbach, he will provide cover in different positions with the intention of becoming a starter.

Loans:

Sidi Sane, Luca Netz, and Angelo Brückner are all back for another season. Joe Hodge, Paul Glatzel are also back, with both of their contracts ending at the of the season I will be making moves for them come January.
Jens Castrop: Jens joins us from Koln and will be staying us for the next season. His contract ends in 2023, depending on how he does this year then we’ll try and get him on a free.

Youth Signings:

André Franca: He joins us from Portuguese side Aves 1930. He will be train as a CWB-A and spent time with the first team but will play with Verl II as he is not quite ready.

Squad

Florian Krüger and Paul Glatzel will lead the team up front with Matthew Hoppe serving as their backup, Mika Schroers can also cover up front if needed. Sidi Sané will transition to be our IW out on the right, with Roberto Massimo providing cover, although not his best position we won’t have a natural right wing. Mika will take over Sidi’s role on the left and provide width, our young Irish Billy Jones will provide cover on both wings.

In the middle of the park, Cristian Frydek & Joe Hodge will be our go to midfielders for the rest of the season with Jens Castrop, Samuel Lengle and Patrick Finger providing cover. Cristian & Joe played a lot of games last season and have already bonded well.

If I have one worry in the team, it would be our young defense. Our oldest players being Mamadou Doucoure – 24 y/o, Kilian Senkbeil – 23 y/o and Jonathan Meier – 22 y/o. Luca Netz & Brückner are under 19. Our backups are only 17 y/o. Our youngsters are developing well but they are nowhere near Bundesliga standards.

Preseason

Not to my surprise, the pattern continues this year as the bookies have us destined to be relegated. I find it interesting the way the AI calculates the odds, given that we dominated the Bundesliga 2 yet Wolfsburg and Bochum ahead of us. I guess the team reputation has a lot to do with that and maybe the summer signings are not as good as I believe to help us stay in the Bundesliga.

As per the last two years; we’ve had the lowest wage – £95k p/w, transfer spending – £0, commercial income – £37k and match-day income – £2m.

The board put together a preseason tour in Austria where we faced some fairly decent competition to prep us for the upcoming Bundesliga season. We were able to heavily rotate the squad to gain familiarity with the tactics and to one another.

Due to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, we were handed a super crammed schedule (seventeen games in three months!). A lot of rotation was going to be needed throughout the first half of the season. Injuries would put a ton of pressure and needed to stay focused if we were going to be meet our goal of avoiding relegation.

DFB-Pokal

Verl’s journey in the DFB-Pokal ends in the first round. Where they faced Bundesliga 2 side – Würzburger Kickers. I rotated the starting line-up quite heavily this time around, giving 17 y/o Tobias Leclerc his first game. Unfortunately that was a mistake. They hit us with three great counterattacks, two that could have been stopped if not for the young GK. This meant the team was down 3-0 by the 55′ minute. The second-half changes were not enough to help us get back in the game with the match ending 3-2.

Bundesliga

The season started in full rollercoaster mode, a long long ride ahead. We drew 0-0 against Paderborn on opening day. Mika Schroers broke the record for “goals in a single game” when scored four goals in a huge 6-2 away win against Hannover. A 2-2 draw against Wolfsburg was followed by a 3-2 win against our fellow promoted side Bochum. Another round of draws and wins continued until we finally were beaten 0-2 against Schalke at the end of August.

The month of September was a nightmare for the physios. Mamadou Doucoure damaged his Achilles – out for 4 months, Luca Netz followed suit with a broken ankle – out for 5 months, Paul Glatzel twisted his ankle – out for 2 months. We finally were able to get back-to-back wins in the Bundesliga against Stuttgart & Freiburg. The injuries to Doucoure and Netz came back to haunt us as we could not stop letting goals in. We gave away two early goals against Hoffenheim, with young 17 y/o Ian Robinson saving us in the 80th minute to salvage a draw (breaking the youngest goalscorer in the Bundesliga!). We were not good enough against Bayern, only managing four shots and zero on target for the night.

Three long-term injuries to three of our starting eleven wasn’t bad enough for me so let’s even things out and make it four out of eleven starters. Roberto Massimo damaged his cruciate ligament and will be out for the rest of the season, leaving us to find a short-term replacement in the upcoming transfer window. Due to Massimo’s injuries, I called up veteran Justin Eilers from our B team to provide cover on the wings.

The team continued to drop points for most of October, managing one win, one loss and three draws out of 5 games. Dortmund thumped us 4-1, their new signing Pedro (wonderkid from Fiorentina, ex-Fluminense) scored a hat-trick in the first half and we were not able to recover. Ian Robinson found the back of the net with a lovely header from a corner against Mainz to give us the only win of the month.

We hit the halfway mark of the season in 7th place after 16 games with the second-best goals scored – 34, fifth-worst goals conceded – 28, worst disciplinary record – 51 yellow cards / 3 red cards, lastly the second-worst average attendance – 19k per match.

January Transfer Window

The team was fortunate to not have anyone leave during this transfer window. Most of the players wanted by other clubs were (un)luckily injured.

Transfers – In

Nicolas Kühn (on-loan from Bayern Münich): Nicolas joins us on-loan and will slot in as our right winger for the rest of the season. His contract runs out at the end of the season and will try to sign him during the off-season.

During the off-season, I was offered jobs at Arminia Bielefeld, Union Berlin, Eintracht Frankfurt, and Hoffenheim. I, of course, declined all interviews. The board was delighted to hear that I was focused solely on Verl.

The team headed into January in great spirit after winning four out of five games during our mid-season friendlies. Then the long-term injury to right-back Angelo Brückner dampened our mood and saw us lose three games in January. One of them being against Hannover, who got their revenge on the return leg by ending the 32-match unbeaten league home run in a 0-1 loss.

After ending our unbeaten home run, the team was not able to replicate the great home form that we’ve had throughout the last two seasons. We lost three more home games after the Hannover defeat, with four ties and only two wins at home for the rest of the season. The away form was a tad better, winning four out of eight games, tying once, and losing three more times before we ended the season. A brighter note was seeing Roberto Massimo be involved in the last few matches of the season after his nasty injury.

The rollercoaster ride finally ended. We finished in 9th place, way above what was expected of us. The team is very young, the youngest in the league averaging at 22.5 y/o. I’m expecting the team to be in a better place come next season.

The Average of the Bunch

This season the team was pretty average, with only Paul Glatzel finishing the season with an average rating just over seven, at 7.01. He helped the team with 12 goals and 3 assists. Due to his midseason injury, he only managed to start 19 games and playing 7 more off the bench during his rehab. Let’s hope he stays fit next year so we can see his numbers improve.

Christian Fruchtl was in my opinion the player of the season. The 6’4″ GK made some incredible saves through the campaign. The twelve ties we had were all thanks to him. He went above and beyond to keep us in games. He was also able to get 5 clean sheets, it may not sound impressive but it’s a great achievement if you take into consideration that he plays in a team where a 17 y/o CB started the majority of games and the constant rotation of the backline due injuries suffered earlier in the year.

Florian Krüger was not able to adapt to the Bundesliga as great as I thought he would. He finished the season with 10 goals and 5 assists. He missed more than a few sitters that could have changed a lot of our results. I will be switching his individual training from Shooting to Final Third with the hopes he improves his composure and decision-making. His 6.88 avg rating was the worst but there’s a ton of room for improvement there.

Youth

This year’s youth intake was a tad better than last year’s. The standouts are Roald van de Bosch and Joshua Embers. They had the highest potential and were highly regarded by our Head of Youth. They will play for the U19 for about a year. Once they turn 17 y/o, they will either be loaned out or be moved to train with the first team while they play for our B team (Verl II).

Ian Robinson: Our young now English man (Ian has switched allegiance, but has not declared for England) had a great debut season. After Doucoure’s injury, He managed to play 25 games all while scoring 3 goals and a single assist.

Billy Jones: Billy was part of the rotating wingers and was decent went called. In the 20 games (including 9 as a substitute) that he played, he got himself a man of the match award, and 3 goals to his name with the perfect 6.66 avg rating.
Bahaa Abdelhaim: Bahaa stepped in during Angele Brückner’s injury and managed to play 11 (7) games and providing 2 assists with a 6.79 avg rating.
Tobias Leclerc: Tobias was only able to manage 1 app this season and it was the defeat in the DFB-Pokal. His injury saw him out for a long time. If able to, I’ll send him out on loan next season, maybe he can fill up a bit more.

Infrastructure

After receiving £51.27m for achieving 9th place, the board decided to upgrade both the club’s training and youth facilities costing £3.3m. Also, the attendance record more than doubled this season going from an average of 7,597 to an average of 19,290 fans. This gives me hope that we might be approaching the time for a new stadium.

The board added £15.78m to the transfer budget and has increased our wage budget to £475k a week. I will move around some of the transfer budget to increase player wages and staff wages so that the club can attract better staff members.

Since one of the goals of the save is to do my best to not spend money on transfers, I will look into bringing in some familiar and new faces this summer, for free. The team’s cohesion is excellent right now and I do not want to take a step backward even if I have to bring players back on loan.

This has definitely been my favorite season that I’ve played on FM21 and possibly in any of the older versions. There were a lot of ups and downs, sometimes the AI is having just as much fun as you.

This is it, for now. See you soon!
Best,
José