[FM20] Climbing a Mountain with Kaiserslautern - Call me Destiny's Child because "I'm a REVIVER"

[Chevie]

The Team

Bundesliga Champions as recently as 1998, four-time winners 1. FC Kaiserslautern were relegated to the third division of German Football for the first time in their history in 2018.

Boasting a nearly 50,000 capacity stadium, this is not a club that should be this low down the German football pyramid.

 

The Goal

To return the team to the top flight, playing an entertaining, possession-based brand of football before embedding ourselves as a permanent fixture towards the top-end of the Bundesliga whilst also making an impact on the European stage. I will be aiming to make good use of the club's academy to create a home-grown core of players that I can build around, using the transfer market to supplement the squad.

 

The Challenge

I will taking responsibility for all areas of the club. This is not something I have done before, despite being a 13 year veteran of the series, and have usually relied on my staff to deal with things like training and setting up the scouting network. However, to fulfill my vision for this team I will be micro-managing everything to a completely new level so wish me luck!

Any advice that anyone may have where they can see I'm making glaring mistakes would be greatly appreciated

 

 

And with that, on to the start of what I hope will be a greatly successful career ...

Edited November 14, 2019 by Chevie

[Chevie]

Pre-Game Club Profile

The predicted finish of 4th place this season should give me enough leeway implement my style of play without the risk of the sack if I'm not leading the way for promotion.

Great training and youth facilities, as well as the club's culture to develop players using the youth system, all fit perfectly with my goal to build a core of the squad around home-grown talent.

 

Manager Profile

I prefer to keep the attributes assigned to my manager as evenly spread as possible, meaning I can provide cover where we may be lacking in the coaching set-up. I sacrifice any goalkeeping coaching ability to boost the rest of the coaching attributes. The coaching badges and past playing experience have been assigned automatically by the game.

 

Club Background / Team Report / Club Vision

         

With promotion not expected until the end of the fourth season, there is plenty of time for me to shape the squad into the playing style I am after, providing I get a new contract before then that is!

[Chevie]

The Tactic

So with the idea of playing possession based football, I have packed the team with support duty players. The team instructions are also what I think should work. I've added "Be More Expressive" because I'm hoping that will help the possession we do have to not be too sterile and boring.

 

The Squad

Judging by the attributes I think are required for my desired style of play, I do think this team is going to need quite an overhaul to achieve this with any sort of success. Especially in midfield where there is a horrible lack of depth. We're also overly stacked with wingers so will look to potentially move a couple of them on if possible to free up transfer funds and wages. I also would like a little more in terms of options at full back.

 

Club Comparison

Decent first touch, work rate, teamwork and aggression is useful for the style of play I'd like to see. What worries me is that awful passing attribute. There will be a lot of focus on passing in training throughout the season to hopefully improve this. Our great training facilities should help, but a technically able midfielder is definitely going to be my main focus in the transfer market this summer.

[ManUtd1]

Loving all the detail to start. Good luck!

[Kingofcm03]

The 3.Bundesliga is a good place to start this year. So many good and interesting stories with 1.FCK, 1860 Munich (always a great save) and I FC Ingolstadt who have gone from Bundesliga 2 years ago and straight down twice!

[Deisler26]

Good luck! I've been to the Fritz-Walter and you will certainly get fit walking from the bottom of the hill to the stadium!!

[Chevie]

Squad Comparison Continued

    

    

Looking at the squad position-by-position, there are a few key areas I would like to improve.

The goalkeepers are OK for now but my aim will be to improve them soon as we're not going to get far with just average players in this position.

My defence is slow, not great when the positive mentality I want to play with pushes the defensive line slightly higher by default. This is something I will want to improve on.

As highlighted previously, midfield is a major area of concern - I'm not sure I want to go any further into it as I may start crying ...

On a more positive front, I like the way we're looking up front!

 

Other Squads

    

There are a couple of players here with decent potential who may be able to bulk out the first team (especially midfield) although I still think that hitting the transfer market would be a better idea in the short term.

[Chevie]

Staff

FC 1. Kaiserslautern Overview

Kaiserslautern II Overview

Kaiserslautern Under 19s Overview

I'm going to be trying something a little different with my staff and transfers (more on them in another post) during this save. Rather than using the staff search screen and finding the best ones based on their attributes, I will instead try to make this a little more realistic and place adverts to then have people approach me for a job. I will then evaluate each candidate and see if I want to take them on. No-one suitable, then the advert remains until I find the right person. The current set up looks OK but I am hoping to improve and get closer to the highest in the league.

Of the three coaches currently working with the first team, I have one general coach, one goalkeeping coach and one fitness coach. With three spaces remaining I will probably look to bring in one more of each. For Kaiserslautern II there is only a fitness coach so I will be after a general coach and a goalkeeping coach. Finally for the Under 19s I have a goalkeeping coach and two general coaches. I will be mutually terminating the contract of one of the general coaches and bringing in a goalkeeping coach.

I will also look to fill out the other staff vacancies I have. Especially the scouts as I will be looking to use them to find players rather than the player search tool - just like with staff recruitment I feel this will more accurately reflect real life.

[Chevie]

Scouting

With just the one scout currently employed at the club, I will wait to do a write up on my plan for scouting players until I have a full set waiting for assignments.

 

Transfer / Wage Budget

With little-to-no wiggle room here I will have to look at moving on a lot of players in order to raise funds for the rebuild that has to happen (or even just completing the midfield!).

 

Training - Individual

I prefer my footballers to develop as well rounded players rather than concentrating on just specialist attributes for their position / role. I usually stick to the following set of rules:

 

Goalkeepers train as Sweeper Keeper (Attack)

Full backs train as Complete Wing-Back (Attack)

Central defenders train as Libero (Attack)

Central midfielders (right through from defensive to attacking midfielders) train as Box To Box Midfielder (Support)

Wide midfielders / attackers who I want to keep the width and provide cross train as Defensive Winger (Support)

Wide midfielders / attackers who I want to be moving inside train as Inside Forward (Support)

Strikers train as Complete Forward (Attack)

 

For the additional focus on each player, I try to match these against the 'Squad DNA' attributes from the squad view I posted before and mould them into someone who is able to play for my club.

 

Looking at their attributes, there is one of my previously surplus to requirement wingers who may be able to cover as full backs in the short term:

I have them training as per my rules above so these may help save me money this summer.

 

Rest / Training Intensity

These are my go-to setting for training intensity. All players will be set to "Automatic" so they pick up the correct amount of rest when required.

 

Edited November 16, 2019 by Chevie

[Chevie]

General Team Training

Having gone through every training module available, I will look to build my schedules around the following ones:

General > Possession

Match Preparation > Teamwork

Attacking > Attacking Patient

Defending > Defending Engaged, Defending from the Front

Technical > Chance Conversion, Ball Retention, Play from the Back

Goalkeeping > Distribution

Set Pieces > Attacking Corners

Physical > Endurance

I feel these fit the tactical style I want to implement. I will be using some of the other modules around these but I want them to be my base. I've included attacking corners because I feel an effective set piece can be a huge help if ever I'm struggling to break a team down.

 

Finances / Debt

    

With the finances in a decent state and no debt hanging over the club I am happy with how this currently looks.

 

And now, finally, I have assessed the main areas of the club and I will be able to hit continue for the first time on my save

[Chevie]

Harst Contract Mutually Terminated

As mentioned previously, I have mutually terminated the contract of one of my Under 19s coaches, Tobias Harst. This cost the club £16k. I felt the other coach, Stefan Meissner, had better all round attributes and his preferred playing style of "Passing" better suited the club DNA I am trying to build here.

This has freed up a space for me to bring in an Under 19s fitness coach which I have placed an advert for and I'm waiting on responses.

[Champfan10]

There's some real sleeping giant in Germany with huge stadiums to boot.

Good luck with the save, very tight purse strings to work with!

[Chevie]

Loan Offers Rejected for Tuure Mantynen

Having only offered a proposed playing time of "squad Player", I've rejected all three of these loan offers as I would prefer my players to be getting a lot more minutes on the pitch than that. With the lack of depth in the club as well, I feel it would be too much of a risk to loan anyone out unless they're playing very regularly.

[Chevie]

Code of Conduct

[Chevie]

New Manager Team Meeting

At the end of the meeting, I was pleased to see that the morale of a lot of my players has shot up considering how poor it was when I first took over. They reacted positively to my hopes for the season of a potential play off push as well as the code of conduct I have put in place.

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - vs. Kaiserslautern Under 19s

Starting XI:

With 6 players missing through injury, holiday and international duty (including both of my left backs), this is my first starting eleven for the friendly against our Under 19s. In this game, and through out all of my friendlies, I will be looking to see how my players cope with the style of play I wish to implement.

Result:

A solid and dominant performance against my Under 19s. The deadlock was broken via a header from a corner so it was pleasing to see that tactic worked out as a way to get a goal if we're struggling to break a side down. It was also nice to see a man of the match performance by the winger I'm converting into a full back.

[Chevie]

Staff Start on Coaching Courses

Ehrmann, Metz and Hoh - Studying for Continental Pro Licence

Laping - Studying for Continental C Licence

Stegmaier - Studying for National A Licence

[Chevie]

Knock for Lennart Grill

[Chevie]

Training Camp Squad Decided

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - v.s. FSV Offenbach (A)

Starting XI:

Result:

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - v.s. OB (N)

Starting XI:

Result:

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern II Goalkeeping Coach Applicants

I have approached Tomasz Bobel for the job.

 

Kaiserslautern Sports Scientist Applicants

I have approached Roger Kuche for the job since Phillip Hubers was asking for too much money.

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern II Coach Applicants

I have approached Mirko Altwegg for the job since he has the best personality (Fairly Professional).

 

Kaiserslautern Head of Sports Science Applicants

I have approached James Roberts for the job.

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Matches Picked for Television

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - v.s. TSG Kaiserslautern (A)

Starting XI:

Result:

[Chevie]

Injury Blow for Andre Hainault

[withnail316]

Nice to see lots of German threads this year. Best of luck. 

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Under 19s Sports Scientist Applicants

I have approached Marco Feichtenbeiner for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Data Analyst Applicants

I have approached Maximilian Bohmann for the role due to the fact he has a better personality than Frank Dahne (Fairly Professional compared to Balanced).

 

Kaiserslautern Technical Director Applicants

I have approached Janis Schnitzler for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Fitness Coach Applicants

I have approached Harry Korner for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Goalkeeping Coach Applicants

I have approached Tomislav Piplica for the role.

[Chevie]

New Sports Scientist Signs for Kaiserslautern

[Chevie]

Latest Update on Season Ticket Sales

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Under 19s Data Analyst Applicants

I have approached Jimmy Grozinger for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Physio Applicants

I have approached Arndt Prohl for the role.

[Chevie]

3. Liga Transfer Window Opens

[Chevie]

Player and Staff Contracts Set to Expire at Season's End

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Head Physio Applicants

I have approached Sotirios Balatsos for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Scout Applicants

Not much on offer here but I need to get some scouts in soon to start them looking for players to bring into the club. Because of this, I have offered a job to Felix Goller but I will keep the advert out there to get more scouts applying.

 

Kaiserslautern Cheif Scout Applicants

I have approached Ede for the role.

 

Kaiserslautern Coach Applicants

I have approached Lars Fuchs for the role.

[Chevie]

New Head of Sports Science Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

New Coach Signs for Kaiserslautern II

[Chevie]

New Data Analyst Signs for Kaiserslautern

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Under 19s Physio Applicants

I have approached Heinz Sieger-Rebbe for the role.

[Chevie]

New Sports Scientist Signs for Kaiserslautern Under 19s

 

New Technical Director Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

New Fitness Coach Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

New Goalkeeping Coach Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

New Data Analyst Signs for Kaiserslautern Under 19s

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - v.s. Saarbrucken (H)

Starting XI:

Result:

[Chevie]

*** I cancelled the job offers to Tomasz Bobel (I didn't realise that I'd offered him a job for the first team rather than Kaiserslautern II) and Sotirios Balatsos (Somehow I missed that I already had a Head Physio employed). ***

[Chevie]

3. Liga Promotion Odds

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Under 19s Fitness Coach Applicants

I have approached Ronald Hornek for the role.

[Chevie]

New Scout Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

New Coach Signs for Kaiserslautern

 

Search for New Physio Continues

[Chevie]

Kaiserslautern Squad Numbers Announced

[Chevie]

3. Liga Top Goalscorer Odds

[Chevie]

Scouting Assignment Created to Find New Midfielder

[Chevie]

New Physio Signs for Kaiserslautern Under 19s

[Chevie]

Match Day - Friendly - v.s. Idar-Oberstein (A)

Starting XI:

Result:

[Chevie]

3. Liga Top Player Odds

[Chevie]

Search for New Chief Scout Continues