[FM17] A Journeyman Story: Knocking José Mourinho Off His Perch

[deltablue]

Tough losing to Man United like that.

[noikeee]

8 hours ago, deltablue said:

Tough losing to Man United like that.

At least Mourinho got stopped - beat by Real Madrid in the semi-finals.

[noikeee]

 

April-May 2029

 

 

Competitions

 

 

Feels strange to only have the Bundesliga to talk about! Our pursuit of Bayern continued with wins over Mainz and Karlsruhe, and Bayern uncharacteristically dropped points losing to Stuttgart so the gap had shrunk - we still retained a hint of hope. This was dashed when we failed to break pass a spectacularly resilient Bremen bus - lame 0-0 draw at home. However, soon I regained a hint of hope: I noticed Bayern were to play Dortmund and Köln in the final 2 matches, so there was a window for us.

 

Indeed as we won 3 matches in a row, I arrived to the penultimate fixture just 3 points behind Bayern, as they'd lost another fixture, this time to Hannover. We still had a big goal difference gap so the odds weren't great even if they lost to Dortmund or Köln, but maybe they'd slip up twice? This soon became a pointless question. We suffered an unfair 2-1 defeat to Hoffenheim with the 2 conceded goals in the last 20 minutes, as Bayern smashed Dortmund 4-1 and were crowned champions. Weirdly Bayern did lose to Köln in the final day, as we beat Schalke convincingly to finish 3 points behind the champions and just about confirm 2nd place ahead of Dortmund.

 

 

 

 

It's somewhat amusing that by the end we finished with a record 83 points, 10 more than last year, and 6 more than 2 years ago when we won the title. So in a way we're better than ever, but it's still not enough. I'm happy to see the back of this season as it was mostly a disappointment, although in a perverse way it makes everything doubly interesting for the challenge this is all proving to be.

 

I don't have any magical solutions ready for next year, but have taken a lot of lessons, have at least ruled out a few tactical paths and am eager to use this experience to try to return to winning trophies for next year.

[noikeee]

 

Season review 2028/29

 

It's a slight step back for HSV. Having been European champions in 27/28 and German champions in 26/27, plus having won the German Cup both years, this year all we could win was the UEFA Supercup - a first in the club's history. We could've added a first FIFA Club World Cup, too, but squandered it in the final vs Cruzeiro.

 

 

Finances

 

Looking solid here. Even with an ever-increasing wage budget that's now reaching an insane 11.1M€/month, we are still increasing our bank balance, now up to 149M€.

 

 

Statistics, best 11, and top 5 players of the season

 

 

5. Jordy Ngongé (MC, AMC) - The ambidextrous French midfielder was pretty spectacular early in the year, amassing a lot of assists, most of them thanks to hitting a few setpieces, like corners, as he tends to play deeper as MC compared to other more advanced AMCs like Gords and Romero. His 2nd half of the season was not quite as great but still finished on 15 assists.

 

4. Alfonso Martínez (AMC, ST) - For his immense talent he didn't seem to quite extract all of it (it's very similar to what happened with Tinajero previously, yes), but in the final couple of months of the season I started playing the URU Tiki-Taka more often than the Shy3HB, which featured him as DLF rather than Shadow Striker, and he seemed to excel more in this position scoring a lot of goals - by the end he grabbed a total 17 goals.

 

3. Masataka Miyagawa (DR, DL) - I get the feeling his ratings are inflated due to now spending most of his time playing as IWB on the right (a role the match engine likes a lot) but nevertheless, according to the game's ratings he played better than anyone bar Fillion this season.

 

2. Fabián López (ST, AMC) - Not player of the year! That's a first since he's been here, after I named him best player 4 years in a row! To be fair it's not his fault, he played as good as ever, scoring 32 goals and even adding 12 assists as the circumstances of the matches have changed and I've also slightly tweaked the Shy3HB to play him as CF/A instead of Poacher. The thing is, an even better player emerged this year...

 

1. Russell Fillion (DL, DR) - Woof! The Canadian attacking fullback had a truly groundbreaking season, even if he'd always been quality for us over the years. Often deployed as our only wide threat against many defensive sides, this made him an assist machine... as he finished the season with an insane 25 assists! (most memorably, 4 of them in a single match vs Hannover in February). I am delighted to renew his contract.

 

 

Mourinho watch

 

This was not a good year for me with an almost trophyless season - José on the contrary racked up both (yet) another Premier League title, and a League Cup too.

 

The UEFA Supercup win (and the Olympics with Portugal) did help me leap up ahead of Artur Jorge and Paulo Bento for 3rd place in my nationality, however a new strong candidate is emerging in André Villas-Boas, whose Real Madrid side is in the Champions League final again, against Antonio Conte's Barcelona.

 

 

 

Career progress table

 

*** CLUB ***

Season   League                  Cups                              Continental                    Other
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Central Español (Uruguay)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016     Segunda Div - 4th       
2017     Segunda Div - 1st                                                                        Champions, promoted
2018     Camp. Uruguayo - 2nd (Ap. 4th, Int. finalists, Cl. 3rd)                                  Qualified for Libertadores
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nacional (Uruguay)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019     Camp. Uruguayo - 1st (Ap. 4th, Int. Grps 2nd , Cl. 1st)   Libertadores 1st Pre. Rnd      Lost Champions Playoff
2020     Camp. Uruguayo - 1st (Ap. 2nd, Int. winners, Cl. 1st)     Libertadores winners           League+Int+Libertadores treble
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twente (Netherlands)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21  Eredivisie - 13th                                                                        Joined in December
2021/22  Eredivisie - 9th        KNVB Beker semi-final
2022/23  Eredivisie - 1st        KNVB Beker 3rd round                                             Champions
2023/24  Eredivisie - 1st        KNVB Beker winners, JCS winners   CL groups, EL semi-finals      Won domestic double+Supercup
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HSV (Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2024/25  Bundesliga - 2nd        DFB-Pokal quarter final                                          Qualified for Champions League
2025/26  Bundesliga - 4th        DFB-Pokal quarter final           CL groups, EL 1st KO round     Qualified for Champions League
2026/27  Bundesliga - 1st        DFB-Pokal winners                 CL 1st KO round                Won domestic double
2027/28  Bundesliga - 2nd        DFB-Pokal winners, Supercup finl. CL winners                     Champions League + Cup double
2028/29  Bundesliga - 2nd        DFB-Pokal 3rd rnd, Supercup finl. CL 1st KO r, USC win, CWC fin. Only won UEFA Supercup

*** INTERNATIONAL ***

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ivory Coast U23s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2024     Olympics - finalists
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Portugal U23s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2028     Olympics - winners

 

[noikeee]

So here's Tinajero's final stats of the season for Bayern:

 

 

I'm totally not bringing this up continuously over and over again in a bitter obsession for the past 18 months.

[noikeee]

I just noticed one of my former players manages Uruguay now (because he came up on a news item that he had called up Emiliano Diana... his former team-mate in my Nacional side!!):

This is particularly interesting because this is a job I was really interested in at some point, but didn't notice it had become available the last time. In a couple years all the players I developed will be past their peak, so I think I missed my window to manage them at international level.  

[noikeee]

 

Uhh... no... I'm not sure my 25 year old Japanese fullback has been called up for the UEFA Under 21 championship...

[Benjoe]

Bummer about a lot of thinks here..

Missing out on the Uruguay team at the right time.

Missing out on catching up on Mourinho.

And seeing Tinajero must be like seeing the ex-girlfriend you still love being happy with another man and constantly, CONSTANTLY ****ing posting on social media about how happy she is now, and tagging you on each of the post with a #HappyI'mNotWithThatGuyAnymore.

[noikeee]

6 minutes ago, Benjoe said:

Bummer about a lot of thinks here..

Missing out on the Uruguay team at the right time.

Missing out on catching up on Mourinho.

And seeing Tinajero must be like seeing the ex-girlfriend you still love being happy with another man and constantly, CONSTANTLY ****ing posting on social media about how happy she is now, and tagging you on each of the post with a #HappyI'mNotWithThatGuyAnymore.

Speaking of exes, it's a top 3 of ex-ex-current lover in the Best Player in Europe:

The difference is the breakup with Furlepa was friendly...

This is starting to sound properly weird. 

[noikeee]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

No. Just no.

[noikeee]

Uh, what?

Apparently our run to the CL title last year was pretty much a one-off for German teams which are underperforming at the moment... I don't understand how given the sheer amount of talent us, Bayern and Dortmund have... even Leipzig are great.

[Lenzar]

10 hours ago, noikeee said:

Apparently our run to the CL title last year was pretty much a one-off for German teams which are underperforming at the moment... I don't understand how given the sheer amount of talent us, Bayern and Dortmund have... even Leipzig are great.

Perhaps the smaller teams that are sneaking into the Europa are playing poorly?

[noikeee]

5 hours ago, Lenzar said:

Perhaps the smaller teams that are sneaking into the Europa are playing poorly?

I'll have to check that out later.

Meanwhile, as I just saw in the lunch news on TV, it appears my personal garage has caught fire.  

[ManUtd1]

On 7/4/2017 at 15:41, Benjoe said:

 

 

[noikeee]

 

June-July 2029 - Pre-season transfers

 

Player sales and loans:

 

 

Total: 103M€

 

This is a long screenshot, in fact I had to cut off some more free transfers, but the big bulk here was that I just decided to release a lot of kids. In more important news, I'm sad to report I'm no longer managing anyone that links me back to the Uruguay days, as I sold Emiliano Diana to Arsenal for a 57M€ that may extend to 66M€. This was a bit of a strange deal as right now I don't want to sell first team starters, but Arsenal had another almost identical MC available for roughly the same price who was younger, so well, why not effectively swap players then?

 

Other big sales included forward Nicolás Mussin, gone to Real Madrid after 1 season for us, for a slightly low 21M€ fee (extending to 30M€) but I was okay with it as he was just a backup and we were stacked in the position. We also got a very nice 16M€ for right-back Ahmed Abdel Aal who hadn't been a part of the squad for a few years as I've just been loaning him out every season.

 

 

New signings:

 

 

Total: 75M€

 

A much shorter screenshot! I'm picky these days! To be fair, I am finalizing another deal, but that will come in August...

 

 

 

The guy that I effectively swapped Emiliano Diana for, he extends my current group of Mexicans to 3 players! The only thing I don't like is the "stays back at all times" PPM which doesn't quite fit for the CM/S role I used Diana in, sometimes I liked him joining up high too, but I can just play him as DM and move up Granit Rrapaj to MC anyway.

 

 

 

This was kind of an unnecessary one. With Ngongé, Gords and Romero we were super stacked on world class attacking midfielders, and I even often sometimes play an actual forward instead of one of those 3 (Alfonso Martinez as shadow striker). So the last thing we needed was another AM. But hey, at 18M€ he was bloody cheap and he's young too. He's pretty much identical to Ngongé so should rotate with him as CM/A.

 

 

The main squad for the 2029/2030 season:

 

 

Not much of a change to last season really, I'm bringing back or promoting some kids whilst others get loaned out, but the bulk of the side is the same, now boosted by Calvillo and León.

 

 

This was an unusually exciting pre-season. I amused myself by attempting a new, only barely serious, tactical experiment which I dubbed "Hipstergasm". Heavily inspired by @ManUtd1's strikerless nonsense, I went very fluid, overload, strikerless, and with a crazy duo of IWB/S behind a duo of CWB/As in a sort of boxy 4-4-2-0. That was ridiculous and 10 minutes into the match I realized it didn't work as I intended, and moved up the CWB/As to W/As in the midfield strata. And a thing of beauty was born. We barged past Cottbus and Sturm Graz at lightning quick pace. However the match vs Crvena Zvezda was a bit too crazy, with 20 out of 40 shots we attempted, being from long, and us looking generally ineffective. I decided this was a silly plan for us as we don't have any real wingers anyway, and went back to the Shy3HB... to beat Man City away 3-0.

 

Then **** got real with the Supercup. In a confident performance, we overturned a 1-0 defficit to go 2-1 up, and were seconds away from the trophy.... until Bayern equalised in the 89th minute. Then it went straight to penalties, no extra time. In a ridiculous shootout, we'd miss 5 kicks, Bayern missed 4, and the trophy was theirs. Again. It's the 3rd consecutive year we lose the Supercup, and this is still the one German trophy I'm yet to win. At least Tinajero missed his spot kick, the bastard.

[ManUtd1]

Coincidentally, Hipstergasm is the title of the Sonic Death Penguin tribute band that Pope Bob is putting together.  Truth is stranger than fiction, eh?

[noikeee]

I'm not thrilled to come across Mourinho's side yet again, this time in the groups, but I'm relatively comfortable with this draw. This year we were 2nd seeds and there wasn't really any teams that would scare us in the 3rd and 4th seeds pots.

[noikeee]

You may notice the above screenshot looks slightly different, I'm now trying the CFM Skin with a tiny modification as I splashed a dark solid background on it.

[Bedese]

That's a decent group 

[john1]

Not bad group, hope you can beat Man Utd!

[noikeee]

 

August-September 2029

 

Transfers

 

I'm gonna be honest - I'm an absolute idiot. I spent most of August desperately trying to free up funds for a brilliant striker I found transfer listed. After lots of offering out 2 players in particular, I finally managed to sell one of them - striker Jon Kitto, for a massive discount, for 16,75M€ to Chelsea, less than half of what we paid for him 2 years ago. And then... you guessed it. The funds still weren't enough, the transfer window ran out and the new guy didn't arrive. Doh!! What a monumental cock-up.

 

At least I did manage to confirm that signing later and he will arrive in January, so all will end well, hopefully. And the reason why we struggled so much to raise the money, is that we had already spent a fair amount activating the release clause of a Leipzig player:

 

 

Now that's what I'm talking about - a proper A-list signing. Big upgrade on Leandro Altamiranda (who frustratingly I couldn't sell, and whose contract runs out at the end of the season), German international and homegrown for the nation, professional personality, and not even all that crazy expensive at 27,5M€.

 

 

Competitions

 

 

First competitive match of the season was a routine 8-0 thrashing of lower league Hauenstein - the now sold Jon Kitto got 4 goals, 17 year old youngster Fabian Jung 27A got a goal on his debut. Nice.

 

The beginning of the Bundesliga... would not be as nice. We did begin with a surprisingly easy 3-0 over Leipzig, Fabián (the Mexican one) with the hat-trick, but then... slipped up twice in a row at Mainz and at Bremen. And if that wasn't bad enough... we got utterly shocked 3-1 at home by Freiburg, even if that was a rather unlucky scoreline. It was an absolutely dismal beginning to our title challenge, we were already 5 points behind Bayern! Thankfully we danced past 3 difficult fixtures to beat Gladbach, Schalke and Hertha, and close the gap to 2 points, but this was alarming...

 

In the Champions League, a very boring cagey match saw us open up the score against Mourinho's Utd only for Mbappé to make it 1-1 in the 2nd half. Also not a great result.

 

 

 

 

I'm... a bit concerned? It's all to play for but I'm seeing the same patterns of unconvincing performance as I saw last year. I've gone in many slightly different tactical directions but nothing's really clicked. Could've been just bad luck with a couple of draws there, but most matches we're winning, we're not winning comfortably neither. Something's off.

 

I'm also obviously pretty pissed off at missing out at signing the new striker just yet, despite all my efforts. I see him as the long-term replacement for Fabián, you guys will have a look by January.

[noikeee]

2 hours ago, Jupjamie said:

That's a decent group 

Even San Giovanni could get out of this group.

2 hours ago, john1 said:

Not bad group, hope you can beat Man Utd!

Erm, not yet, maybe at Old Trafford. 

[noikeee]

 

San José, Costa Rica - 21st of October, 2029

 

 

This is totally random but I've just grabbed a new part-time job. I'm the new Costa Rica national team manager:

 

 

The way this happened was, a press conference came up that I was linked to some job but then I pressed continue and couldn't see which club it was. I went to the job center and all I saw were 3 available national teams. Chile, just knocked out of World Cup qualifying; Paraguay, just knocked out of World Cup qualifying; and Costa Rica, just... NOT knocked out of World Cup qualifying yet. They couldn't qualify out of the groups, but are still in a final playoff against New Zealand.

 

 

 

 

I took it on a reflex without thinking much, but I honestly think this is just about perfect. Everything fits together:

 

- I get a chance to qualify for and play a World Cup (provided I beat New Zealand) without having to bother with all the qualifiers.

 

- It's a zero pressure job, which is perfect for me to find out whether I like being a more permanent international manager or not. The board doesn't even want to judge me on the playoffs performance.

 

- It puts me potentially in the position to pay some attention to the World Cup and maybe pick up a better international job after it, or stay and fight for honours in North/Central America (if I win anything, it's more points to go after Mourinho).

 

- It's a random new exciting thing to refresh my personal interest in this career which was kinda a bit stuck on the same note lately.

 

As for the team:

 

 

I've literally not come across any single of these players before, so I need to check them out more carefully later. The 3 guys more highly rated by my staff:

 

 

Brilliant CB!! With a jumping of 5. Oh.

 

 

 

Pacey winger. I may need to adopt a tactic with wingers (Maybe time to actually play the Hipstergasm in official matches???).

 

 

 

Specially because there's also this winger.

 

 

 

I'm also gonna take the chance to activate the Costa Rican leagues, that's the good thing about having Claassen's files active, I can just bring up any league in the world whenever I want...

[noikeee]

I was getting ready for my first match with Costa Rica when I received these news from the Mexico game...

That's not gonna make things easier when I return to Hamburg.  

[noikeee]

 

World Cup Playoff - Costa Rica v New Zealand

 

1st leg:

 

 

After carefully preparing a more sane variant of Hipstergasm that started resembling more of a 4-4-2 (4-4-1-1 with a Shadow Striker AMCL and a DF/S STCR), and which I renamed "not-so-Hipstergasm" I went to debut it straight into the World Cup Playoff. And you know what... it was AWESOME! At least for the first half. New Zealand were clearly rattled by our relentless waves of attack, supported by the 2 wingers, the 2 men upfront, the 2 midfielders, and the 2 IWBs on base of midfield, and we reached half-time 3-0 up, Jorge Arnáez as Shadow Striker having scored 2.

 

However New Zealand showed up re-energized in the 2nd half and pooped in our party. Two quick goals in the 70th and 73rd minute by Josh Henderson made it a far, far less comfortable final scoreline of 3-2 to take it to Auckland for the 2nd leg...

 

 

2nd leg:

 

 

My worst fears were confirmed as soon as minute 8. A quick play straight through the middle of our defence and New Zealand had the away goal. The not-so-Hipstergasm was crumbling... or was it really? We would spend most of the match aggressively haunting the Kiwis, and having a chance... another.... then another... In the 27th minute a cross from the left by Cunningham was cleared, but only onto MC Tiedemann, and he passed a simple enough through ball for right winger Carlos Aguilar, he shoots it in, 1-1.

 

1-1 was enough for us, but we surely wanted a more comfortable scoreline. And, oh boy, did we have chances to score more. We should've won this comfortably but missed all of them, and reached the final minutes praying for NZ not to get a goal. Thankfully, they didn't. We're in the World Cup.

 

[noikeee]

not-so-Hipstergasm - the Costa Rica tactic

 

 

It no longer has CWB/As right in front of the IWB/S. It's no longer strikerless. It's no longer on overload. It's almost like a normal tactic even.

But it's a ton of fun. Relentlessly fast, open football, with the eccentric quirk of the IWBs becoming actual midfielders, which they don't do in all my other tactics which don't have wingers ahead of them (I've noticed this a very long time ago in my previous career - when there's a winger ahead of the IWBs, they become almost like a different role!). See their positioning in this screenshot of the build up to the goal that took us to the World Cup:

 

 

My only hesitation is that this is actually a pretty poor Costa Rica side... and although I think we were a little unlucky with the scorelines, we could barely beat New Zealand. Can we deal with the Brazils and Spains?

A bizarre situation is that the Costa Rica league is getting active days before the World Cup... I don't know if just about early enough to generate the new players before I get to call them up. Could it be that I'm gonna be gifted a whole lot of new players just in time?

 

 

[noikeee]

My first reaction was YES PLEASE TAKE HIM, but then again whilst this would weaken Bayern, it would also just make Mourinho's side even more daunting. Which isn't great for my Hall of Fame chase neither my Champions League odds as we seem to face Utd every year.

[deltablue]

Wow, Costa Rica really was a bit of a surprise. Have fun at the World Cup. 

[ManUtd1]

The tactic has inverted wingbacks at least...you're still a hipster at heart!

[john1]

Well done on qualifying for World Cup  

[noikeee]

7 hours ago, deltablue said:

Wow, Costa Rica really was a bit of a surprise. Have fun at the World Cup. 

I think I even surprised myself there. Totally not on the plan.

4 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

The tactic has inverted wingbacks at least...you're still a hipster at heart!

My heart was once pure hipster. Then it got frozen and consumed by bitterness and hate on Tinajero.

40 minutes ago, john1 said:

Well done on qualifying for World Cup  

Thanks!

[noikeee]

 

October-November 2029

 

Transfers

 

2 years ago we had picked up 2 young Ivorian CBs for free. Now we sold them back to Ivory Coast - Mohammed Brou and Guy Konan went to Séwé for 130K€ and 200K€, respectively.

 

 

Competitions

 

 

In the Bundesliga, we've now found some form. Big wins (4-1 and 4-0) over Köln and Karlsruhe, were followed by 2-0 and 2-1 wins over Braunschweig and Wolfbsurg, and then when we went to Frankfurt to smash the local Eintracht 5-1, we were now top of the league!! Bayern had lost points meanwhile. However, we had to face Bayern themselves next, in a huge match. I thought we would yet again drop the ball as we went into half-time losing 1-0, but in the 2nd half Artan Stafa and Wim de Jong got 2 goals for us, and we won 2-1... with all this it's a perfect 2 months of all wins in the Bundesliga (we're now in a run of 9 consecutive wins), and we've turned a 5 points defficit to Bayern into a 5 points lead!

 

In the Champions League, the road to qualification began with a 3-1 win in Greece over Olympiacos. We nearly won in Turkey as well if they wouldn't equalise with the very last kick of the match... if Fenerbahçe had the luck there, it swung our way in the return match, as they frustrated us for 86 minutes until Alfonso and Gords finally got 2 goals at the very end. Then we went to Old Trafford and frustratingly, Mourinho got the better of me again. However, even with the defeat, we're already qualified.

 

There was however one serious shock meanwhile. In a routine cup tie against Bielefeld of the 2.Bundesliga, I felt comfortable enough to try some youngsters. It would prove a serious mistake. We failed to put our chances whilst our opponents did, and we crashed out of the cup with a humiliating 2-0 defeat.

 

 

 

 

It's a surprisingly good time here, as out of nowhere we swing a 5-points deficit into a 5-points lead in the league. Could it be... that we can get one over Bayern this year? In the CL we're also through, although as 2nd in the groups again. The only bad news really is that cup embarrassment, but if we can win the league, I'll soon forget about that...

[noikeee]

600. 

[Rikulec]

Doing really well there.

[noikeee]

Our kid breaks an European record!

[noikeee]

We've been given a nightmare group from hell. I'll be happy with a point against Croatia.

[ManUtd1]

That group is a nightmare.  Wow.

[noikeee]

A better draw. I'm surprised actually, we always seem to draw like Man Utd or Man City or something at this stage. For once finishing 2nd in the group didn't horribly backfire.

Now, of course, these could be famous last words...

[Benjoe]

Lots of great stuff happening here. Who was the striker you missed out on in August? 

Costa Rica should be fun. Expect you to pass through your group with ease... 

[argento]

just caught up, wow that world cup draw is awful. 

[noikeee]

15 hours ago, Benjoe said:

Lots of great stuff happening here. Who was the striker you missed out on in August? 

Costa Rica should be fun. Expect you to pass through your group with ease... 

All shall be revealed in the next episode update.   *

 

* I sometimes feel like the writer of Lost or Game of Thrones witb all these overblown cliffhangers I throw here and there. Except this analogy fails because this TV series argument here is far more mediocre.

Or perhaps I should write a spin-off TV show based on this. "A plane crashes and 3 Mexican strikers find themselves lost in a mysterious island...". Primetime TV, I tell you.

 

12 hours ago, argento said:

just caught up, wow that world cup draw is awful. 

Yes, it is. The Argentinians, Italians and Croatians are trembling with fear.

[noikeee]

To the risk of this thread no longer being "A Journeyman Story: Knocking Mourinho Off His Perch" but something more akin to "The Tinajero Life Story: A Footballer's Career", I'm starting to get sick of bringing him up into everything but thought this was relevant enough to post:

 

 

I did say, when I first hired him, that this was a future Ballon d'Or winner right there. I just didn't expect him to be a future Ballon d'Or winner for Bayern.

Not all is bad news though:

 

 

Fillion on the World XI again. Yay.

Hey, it's something.

[noikeee]

 

December 2029-January 2030

 

Transfers

 

January saw us sell backup goalkeeper Nick Armstrong for a slight profit, 6,75M€ to Everton. But the big news was one incoming signing...

 

 

 

Before the big signing, here's a kid we poached from Ivory Coast. Should be more than worth the 450K€ we splashed on him.

 

 

 

There you go, here's our new big superstar, finally. Arriving for 48M€ from Sporting, I'm expecting nothing less than for him to replace Fabián up ahead as our main striker. Fabián seems to be declining recently anyway with even an uncharacteristic goal drought, and I now play a CF/A instead of a poacher upfront so I want a more complete type of player rather than the run-and-shoot player Fabián is. Santiago is quite something else, but it's true he doesn't have the "relishes big matches" and "fairly consistent performer" traits of Fabián so we'll see if he'll perform to the same level. For now, he'll be playing in the Bundesliga only as I can't register him on the CL, having played for Sporting.

 

 

There was also a third signing, but he only arrives 1 year from now... he's so incredibly amazing I need to show him off right now, though:

 

 

 

I'm convinced he's gonna be nothing less than the best Israeli player ever. He's just had his 17th birthday three months ago. Ridiculous. Snapped him up for 5M€ + 500K€ after 10 caps.

 

 

Competitions

 

 

Our Bundesliga prospects were dealt a severe blow with a defeat to Dortmund, which cut our lead over Bayern. We recovered with 2 spectacular big wins over Hoffenheim and Leverkusen, but frustratingly drew goalless at home to Stuttgart. We were still in front, and continued in front after beating Mainz after the winter break, but just before January ended, we had a tough travel to Leipzig, and the local team scored in their only shot on target all game, beating us 1-0. This time, it was enough for us to drop the lead to Bayern again.

 

In the Champions League, a huge win over Olympiacos finished the group stage before we prepare to face Lyon next month.

 

 

 

 

Uh-oh, problems brewing up again as the league lead swings back to Bayern. Admitedly most of our points lost were in really tough fixtures away to Dortmund and Leipzig, but we know the standards are impossibly high and we can't afford any slip-ups, not even in matches like that - and remember we're yet to travel to Munich to face Bayern away too. The good news is we now have Santiago Quiñones who will hopefully help us recapture the Bundesliga title this year.

[BoxToBox]

I love all three of those signings, brilliant!

[ManUtd1]

Tremendous signings!  Quinones and Mish'an already look the business.

[Benjoe]

14 hours ago, noikeee said:

All shall be revealed in the next episode update.   *

 

* I sometimes feel like the writer of Lost or Game of Thrones witb all these overblown cliffhangers I throw here and there. Except this analogy fails because this TV series argument here is far more mediocre.

Or perhaps I should write a spin-off TV show based on this. "A plane crashes and 3 Mexican strikers find themselves lost in a mysterious island...". Primetime TV, I tell you.

Here I am, still waiting to see these amazing signings you spoke of? 

 

Spin-off! Spin-off! Spin-off!

 

I like your signings btw.

[noikeee]

21 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

I love all three of those signings, brilliant!

 

19 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

Tremendous signings!  Quinones and Mish'an already look the business.

 

8 hours ago, Benjoe said:

Here I am, still waiting to see these amazing signings you spoke of? 

 

Spin-off! Spin-off! Spin-off!

 

I like your signings btw.

 

I quite don't like the signings just yet, Traoré ain't half the player of our youth academy right-back Luis Blohm 27B; Mish'an is only arriving next year; and Quiñones has been spending more time in the physio room than on the pitch so far!

[noikeee]

 

Youth intake 2030

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I quite like Knochner, I think there could be a pretty good forward there. This year I decided to take the time to tag more players because I've noticed that some players I didn't tag in previous years are coming good - it makes sense to extend this a bit more. For example here Simplice Matumona is given pretty poor potential but I see a pretty interesting player forming up.

[noikeee]

After a first leg in which we squandered a comfortable 3 goal advantage to let them score twice, we went to France knowing we couldn't afford a slip up. After a tense 79 minutes we finally got one goal and then another in 2 set pieces to go through.

Now... who would we get in the quarter-finals...

Oh **** off UEFA. Just **** off. Unbelievable. It's the 4th time we face them in 4 years... including in this year's group stage already. We came off short in all 3 previous encounters.

[noikeee]

 

February-March 2030

 

Competitions

 

 

 

A few slight tweaks to the Shy3HB and we looked suddenly, utterly unstoppable against Bremen - 6-0 win. Then away at Freiburg, 3-0 win, Alfonso hat-trick. I thought I had finally clicked with something special. And then, massive shock. Everyone froze against Gladbach, we had an absolutely dire performance with just 1 shot on target and lost 2-0. It was a huge blow in our title chances, and not the last. Even though we beat Schalke away in a great day, we would repeat the 2-0 loss to Hertha, now massively unlucky. With Bayern winning absolutely everything, we were now 7 points back.

 

Our title charge had derailed but we still had to keep on doing the calendar. Not on a very good mood, mind you. The win at Köln came only courtesy of a 89th minute long shot. We dropped points again at Kalrsuhe, gap to Bayern widening to 9. Then against Braunschweig we beat them heavily, and somewhat surprisingly Bayern lost at Schalke to drop the gap back down to a still daunting 6 points.

 

In the Champions League, we were incredible in the opening minutes against Lyon - by the 7th we were 3-0 up. However, two Bruno Lacroix goals in the 2nd half made the tie far less comfortable to bring it to France. There we resisted for long until 2 late set piece goals confirmed qualification for us.

 

 

 

 

We've screwed it up. Absolutely screwed it up, again. With Bayern as good as ever, the two 2-0 home defeats were huge blows that might cost us the title. We basically need to beat them in Munich and still claim some extra 4 missing points somewhere else. It could happen, but let's be realistic, it won't. And having to face Utd again in the Champions League is the absolute nightmare scenario.

 

With the likely prospect of another trophyless season, it's a bizarre situation I'm facing here in Hamburg. I feel like HSV's Wenger or something. The success was very clear and lightning quick in my first few years, I quickly turned this club around to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League, things that had long been way above HSV's ambitions. However, as soon as our reputation went up and so did the expectations, I'm struggling pretty badly to go the final step and establish us as a dominating force in Germany and Europe, and am yet to repeat either the Bundesliga or CL glories even once.

 

I think it's a lot to do with our style of play, but I enjoy it a lot too and don't want to change, so have really cornered myself in a weird way. And moving to another club would just make me go back to stage 0. I honestly don't know where to go from here anymore.