FM22 | Ternana Calcio: 2021/2022

December 2, 2021

Hello, welcome back! If you’ve yet to catch up, You can read about the club, squad and tactic in the last post.

If you’re caught up, let’s take a look at Ternana’s 2021/2022 season.

Competitions

The backroom staff set up a wide range of competition to face during our preseason. We dominated a couple of clubs from the 3rd division and lost to one of our affiliates in the 2nd division. Our last friendly was against Jose Mourinho’s Roma, another affiliate, us winning the match (4-2) with Alfredo Donnarumma helping us two goals.

The Coppa Italia was next. Since we were in the Serie B, we needed a preliminary round to make into the cup. We faced Serie C side Avellino winning the match (3-0). Unfortunately, our time in the Coppa Italia would be short as we were drawn against Serie A side Cagliari, we went on to lose the match (2-2) on penalties. With the Coppa Italia behind us, we could now focus on the league.

The media predicting a 15th place finish. I personally believed that the team had the chance to finish in the playoff places, but with the first transfer window disabled there was no chance of us improving the prediction. The first match of the season was an unexpected (7-0) win against Pisa, an Alfredo Donnarumma hat-trick was the start of the best goalscoring season of his career. That win was followed by two (1-1) draws against Cremonese and promotion candidates, SPAL.

After those draws, something clicked. Teams such as Brescia, Crotone and Benevento were brushed aside along thirteen more teams. At the half way point of the season we sat in 1st place, 16 points ahead of 2nd place Benevento. We went on a 21-Match winning streak, scoring 50 goals to our opponents’ 7 and at one point we even maintained 6 clean sheets in a row (all Ternana & Serie B records).

The last fourteen matches of the season went as expected. Although our winning streak would be broken, we would maintain our unbeaten streak all the way through the end of the season. If you couldn’t guess by now, we would go on to win the league comfortably. Benevento were the closest team to us but with a 41 point gap between us there was no way they could catch up.

Serie A here we come!

Player of the Year

Alfredo Donnarumma was outstanding through out the entire season. He finished the season with 48 goals and 7 assists in 40 matches, along with 12 Player of the Match to average a 7.94 rating. I wish that I could make a compilation of all of his goals, they were fantastic. Alfredo also won goal, forward and player of the year awards.

He will be joining us next season as he already had a permanent move sealed before taking over. The Serie A will be a tougher challenge for our superstar striker but if he’s able to continue his fine form then we definitely have a chance of staying up next season.

Team Performance

Offense:

The team’s output this season was incredible. We topped the league with 100 goals scored. Set-pieces were pivotal this season, from the 100 goals scored, 23 came from set-pieces – 16 goals from corners and 7 goals from indirect free-kicks, both 1st place in the league. We also created the most chances (178), shots (846) and shots-on-target (339).

It wasn’t just Alfredo Donnarumma who had a fantastic season. Our two other strikers had a great season as well. Simone Mazzocchi (on loan from Atalanta) scored 14 goals and 5 assists. Stefano Pettinari scored 10 goals and 4 assists. Our center backs also joined the party, Frederick Sorensen scored 6 and Ivan Kontek scored 4 -All of their goals coming corners.

In terms of creativity, we had three players have 10+ assists. Luca Ghiringhelli (Serie B – Defender of the Year) contributed 17 assists, all coming from the right flank, gotta love a CWB(A). Loanee Ilias Koutsoupias (Serie B – Young Player of the Year) was second in assists with 13. Lastly, Terni’s golden boy, Antonio Palumbo (Serie B - Midfielder of the Year) assisted a further 10.

Defense:

On the other end, our defense was rock solid with 25 clean sheets. The backline conceded 15 goals and only 1 coming from set-pieces. We were also the best in shots allowed (305) and shots-on-target allowed (134). Our mid-block did as intended by regaining most of our possession in between our box and the halfway line.

We can’t talk about clean sheets without the man between the post, Titas Krapikas. The now Lithuanian international was outstanding all season. He had the highest save percentage with 90% as well as the highest expected goals prevented at 12.97. He was an absolute beast, thanks Titas!

Youth

Intake:

Our first intake at Ternana looks to be a decent one. I’m looking forward to the next intake as we’ve invested a bit of money into our Youth Recruitment, which is now viewed as “adequate.”

Three players were highlighted by the DoF:

Matteo De Rossi was the standout of the three. The 15 y/o is a BEAST standing at 6’6″ and weighting 174 lbs, what a specimen. He will be trained as Target Forward for the next year. He will also work on his pace and acceleration. Matteo made his debut in the last match of the season and scoring his first goal!
Dani Esposti and Giuseppe Paderno will be working hard in the next couple of years to make it to the team. Let’s hope they’re at least squad players.

First Team:

Leonardo Mazza played 11 (6) matches providing 1 assist. He averaged a 6.99 rating. He will be our second choice DM next season.
Ilias Koutsoupias was one of our standout players this season. He was second in assists with 13 and also scored 4 goals. He finished with a 7.21 average rating in.
Gian Marco Nesta played 7 (9) matches. He had 6 assists to finish the season with a 7.18 average rating.

U18s & U20s:

Both youth teams won their respective leagues but did not make it too far in their cups. Although the teams didn’t really have that much quality I believe the Godzilla 2.0 tactic was the key factor on winning their leagues.

I gave a couple of the youth players their debuts towards the end of the season but no one worth mentioning just yet. I have a lot of work to do this summer to sell or release most of our youth players so that I can properly create a pathway for the players that have potential.

Finances & Infrastructure

Aside from the above income, we received £2.13m for winning the league and made £1.3m in sales during the January transfer window. None of this income helped us in the bank as we were left with almost (£1m) in debt. Nothing to worry as we will be in a good shape by the time the season kicks off.

We’ve not made enough money to invest in any of our infrastructure. All of our facilities have remained the same. I can’t wait for the Serie A TV money.

Okayyy friends, I’ve ran out of things to write about. I had a ton of fun this season. Our playing style and goals were quite entertaining. Let’s see if we can carry this on next season. Now it’s time for us to prepare for a ton of business this summer.

Lastly, our friends St. Pauli finished 14th in 2. Bundesliga and Atalanta qualified to the Champions League by finishing 4th in the Serie A.

Feel free send a message on Twitter or Slack.

Until next time!
Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: Club Overview, Squad & Tactics

November 10, 2021

Welcome back!

In the last post, I spoke about my decision to manage Ternana, the goals that I want to achieve and the transfer policy.

We will be looking at the state of the club, a detailed look of the team and the tactics that I will be using through the save.

Club Overview

Stadium & Facilities

Ternana play in the Stadio Libero Liberati, it has a capacity of 14,995. The fifty-year-old stadium is the heart of the city of Terni. It has not seen enough in terms of upgrades and maintenance but it is still in decent condition. In IRL, there are plans to build a 18K capacity stadium by the 2024. The new stadium will replace the Stadio Libero Liberati, the construction will be phased to allow the team to continue to play matches. I’m not sure if this will be added to the game, regardless, a new stadium is a must.

The club doesn’t have the best facilities around. The corporate facilities are rated as “adequate”, the first team has a “good” training facility and the youth team’s is sadly “adequate.” The youth coaching and recruitment also need help, they are rated “average” and “fairly basic,” respectively. Upgrading everything will be a priority, more so than spending money on transfers.

Finances

We being the save with £2M in the bank, £o transfer budget (first transfer window disabled) and £151k p/w in wages. We received £1.1M in Sponsorship and how ever much further we from the 12k season tickets holders. We’re projected to have a balance of (£8.8M) at the of the season. If we are to spend on facilities or being able to add more players or staff to the team it will have to come through player sales or promotion to Serie A.

Squad

One of the main reason as to why I’ve never managed in Italy is due to the majority of teams having 100+ players in the club. In our case, Ternana has 110 players in total. There are 33 players in the First Team, 50 in the U20s and 27 in the U19s.

I enjoy having a smaller squad of 22 players in the First Team and use Youth Players for emergencies. The goal in the first season is to offload as many players as possible. I will send out as many players out on loan as I can or just say fuck it and “Sell or Release.” There are couple of players that are out on loan that have the chance to make it into the first team but I will decide their future at the end of the season.

Another issue is that Ternana only has 2 homegrown players in the team, and only a handful of players from the youth teams that might be able to make to the first team. It is going to be a lot of work trying to bring that number up to at least 11 homegrown players in the next couple of seasons. For now, here are the 24 players that will be staying in the First Team.

Goalkeepers

Defenders

Rightbacks

Central Defender

Leftbacks

Midfielders

Defensive Midfielders

Central Midfielders

Attacking Midfielders

Forwards

Youth Players

Tactic

The main tactic that I will be using is a 4-1-3-2 DM based on FMGrasshopper‘s Godzilla tactic from last year’s Junior save in Colombia. I loved watching the #gifgoals he would share on Slack and on his posts. That made me want to give the tactic a try during my beta save with Tromsø in Norway. After a couple of matches I decided to tweak around some of the roles and PIs, leaving me with the above tactic. I will continue to tweak it until I can’t anymore so if all fails, I’ll go back to my go-to 4-4-2 that I’ve used in the last couple of versions of FM.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m looking forward to properly starting the save, hopefully you stick around and follow along. The next post I will go over my first season with Ternana.

Feel free to say hello on Twitter or Slack.

Best,
José

FM22 | Ternana Calcio: Introduction

October 27, 2021

Hello and welcome!

Deciding which club to manager for FM22 was quite easy this year.

While on YouTube, I stumbled upon a short documentary by Copa90 Stories about Ternana Calcio, “Ternana Calcio: The Working Class Goes to Heaven.” Being the football romantic that I am, I was immediately attached to the team. From the club’s close relationship with the city’s working class and former players, to the friendships with Atalanta and St. Pauli, lastly their goals to be a forward thinking club.

There’s more to it of course, go watch the 26-minute documentary and you’ll see for yourself as to why it was an easy choice. I mean, the idea for the save was laid out perfectly for me.

Return to Serie A

Ternana Calcio have only spent two seasons in the Serie A, between 1972-1974. Since then, they’ve yoyo’d between Serie C and Serie B for most of their time. So the only task at hand will be to get the team back to the Serie A and to keep them up for as long as possible. The ultimate goal will be to win the Scudetto during my time at the club.

Transfer Policy

The transfer policy won’t be as simple as last year’s save with SC Verl, which basically was “don’t spend any money and develop your own players.” For Ternana I will allow myself to have a bit of fun. Here are the transfer restrictions:

Buy/loan Atalanta & St. Pauli Players

As mentioned above, Ternana has a great relationship with Atalanta and St. Pauli. Naturally, one of the transfers strategies will be to loan/purchase their players (regardless of nationality). I’ll do my best to form a link with the clubs by becoming affiliates but that’s not necessarily a goal.

Develop Youth Players

Terni has often been called the “Manchester of Italy” due to both cities being industrials hubs. As a Man Utd fan, I will aim to implement their importance of developing homegrown youth players. Aiming for the first team to be made up of at least 50% club-homegrown players.

Sign Chilean Players

I will be scouting Chile to hopefully unearth a couple gems. This might sound random but if you watch the short documentary you will learn about the connection that Ternana and their fans formed with the people of Chile during the 1970’s. General Augusto Pinochet and his junta forcibly took over Chile and held power between 1973-1990. During his time in Chile, Pinochet left over 3,000 people dead or missing, plus thousands more tortured and imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands displaced.

I’ve been excited to get on with this save as it’s been sitting in the back of my mind since I watched the documentary back in May. I’m not sure how it will all play out in FM22, but I’m going to do my best to enjoy the journey. I hope you follow along and enjoy it as well.

In the next post I will be taking a more detailed look of the team as well as the tactic that I will be using for the duration of the save. Feel free to join the Slack channel for a more detailed look once I get going with the save.

Best,
José

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