FM23: Hungry For Success - Hamburger SV

[Jogo Bonito]

Hamburg? HSV? SV Hamburg? Since 1914, it's actually been known as Hamburger Sport-Verein.

So what do we associate with Hamburg, or Hamburger? Here is a snapshot....

But apart from a cult German TV series, McDonalds (from the days they were called hamburgers) and the waterside, what else?

 Football-wise the club used to be good. Very good

Six German top flight titles and three DFB Pokal trophies reflect that

They won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1977, and the European Cup by beating Juventus in 1983 (they also lost the 1980 Final)

They signed Liverpool & England star Kevin Keegan when he was at his absolute peak and one of the best forwards in Europe

They signed Franz Beckenbauer. They also had Felix Magath. Stop laughing, he was actually quite a decent player & managed them well too.

But back to Beckenbauer, as he gave me the extra nudge to take on this fallen German giant, now in the second tier (2. Bundesliga)

The reason for that dates back to my childhood when as a young boy I entered my first ever football competition via 'Shoot' magazine

Much to my surprise I won it, and the prize posted out was a bright white signed Franz Beckenbauer shirt - not of Germany, but of HSV 

This is the shirt below, with red collar & double sleeve stripes, and black BP logo as sponsor (no comment on BP profits needed)

The badge suggests club colours of white, blue and black but even in current times they wear red shorts - hence the nickname 'Die Rothosen'

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[Jogo Bonito]

Home is the very decent Volksparkstadion, which has a capacity of 57,000 that will be fit for purpose when top-flight football eventually returns

Nothing too radical with the 3D kits I have created, but I added a splash of red to the home one for nostalgia

I'm also pleased that I managed to get the shape of the badge imprinted across the white zones of the home version

The second is 'a bit Bordeaux' but works well, and the current club sponsor has been retained on all three

Now it's time to welcome a new manager to the club, who is Hamburg-born Hans Füll

The eagle-eyed amongst you might spot the familiar name of our new Technical Director below

Yes, I've added the out of work Jürgen Klinsmann as a Director - and endulged myself by also giving him an 'active' role too

69 times capped (West) German international right-back Manfred Kaltz was also inserted as club Director for purely cosmetic reasons

Kaltz is the club's record appearance maker with 568 appearances from 1971-1989 (76 goals) and another 13 games in 1990-91 before retirement

The Assistant Manager and first team coaches all saw their contracts terminated when manager Tim Walter was relieved of his duties

Those positions remain vacant, but hopefully will be filled in the near future

The new boss will have his 'hands full' to meet the demands of Chairperson Marcell Jansen, as automatic promotion is essential in 2022/23

I converted the currency to Euros and there is a healthy transfer & wage budget as shown below

The squad is decent, but very unbalanced - hence firing the AM and all the coaches

One natural striker, no natural senior right-back, seven wingers and only three proper central defenders means there will have to be a few ins & outs

Edited February 18, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[SixPointer]

Huge club in need of some help!

[Jogo Bonito]

On 20/02/2023 at 14:54, SixPointer said:

Huge club in need of some help!

Thanks. I hope I may be able to help, but it's been a REALLY tough start!

It's well-known in football that injured players or players transferred in late can really be set back by months if they miss a large chunk of pre-season. In our case, the issue was that the earliest game start was 4th July and the 2. Bundesliga season started 13 days later. I only had three friendlies, had not settled on a formation, tactics or made clear preferences on the players who would start regularly, and then we had to kick off and justify our tag as promotion favourites. Learning all this in competitive fixtures with such heavy expectations was far from ideal, and we have had some really poor results so far. Hopefully things will stabilise and improve before the board sack me.

[SixPointer]

Nightmare when pre season is short. I had the same issue with my Happel challenge on fm22.

This year I was sure to have my start date set early as possible by suing the Serbian start date. 

[Jogo Bonito]

Squad 2022/23

The club had already done a fair amount of wheeling & dealing in the summer, but had not balanced the squad well at all

There was a ridiculous surplus of wingers & plenty of gaps elsewhere that needed plugging

To remedy this, wingers Ogechika Heil (Go Ahead Eagles, €100k), Bakery Jatta (VfL Wolfsburg, €2.5 million) and Xavier Amaechi (released) were all allowed to move on

Joining the squad permanently were Esneyder Mena (América de Cali, €250k), Philipp Förster (VfL Bochum, €350k) and Florian Dietz (FC Köln, €300k)

Loan deals were also struck for Valentín Gómez (Vélez) and Youssoufa Moukoko (Borussia Dortmund)

The starting squad looked like this, although William Mikelbrencis was dropped down down a level after discovering that Moritz Heyer was usually deployed as a right-back

Board Expectations

Pre-Season

There are only two things to say about this really

Firstly, we only had 13 days before the season opener - no time at all to be prepared for a season in which we are expected to win the title

Secondly, the results were poor and did little to boost confidence ahead of what was clearly going to be a tricky start to the new campaign

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[Jogo Bonito]

Season 2022/23

The shambolic preparations for the new season meant we were not ready for the big kick-off

We had not nailed down our formation, tactics, or preferred personnel and July & August demonstrated this perfectly

We won a few games, but lost more (conceding way too many goals) and struggled to keep out of the relegation zone

We must have tried five or six formations during this spell, including three and four at the back, wingers and more narrow, lone strikers and a pair up top

Eventually we settled on a 4132 with a ball-winning midfielder in front of the defence and behind three central midfielders

The full-back roles were changed, and after tweaks were made to the central midfielder duties too, things finally began to gel

By the end of October we had surged to 4th - although only three points still separate us from the team in 9th

We are also in to the last 16 of the DFB-Pokal, although that run will probably end when we host Eintracht Frankfurt in January

The performance graph on the left shows just how tragic we had been at the start, but at least we seem to be heading in the right direction now

The continuing form of our strikers - in particular ex-Cardiff flop Robert Glatzel - remains crucial for any hopes we have of pushing on from here

In other news, we were also forced in to the sale of defensive midfielder Jonas Meffert as he made it clear he wanted to join VfL Wolfsburg when they bid

The fee of €2 million and 20% of any future profit would have been rejected, but we didn't want an unhappy player on our hands

At least we were able to insist on a loan-back for the year to help ease the pain

We managed to find a possible long-term replacement for Meffert in the form of Sao Paulo man Luan

The Brazilian defensive midfielder will arrive in January on a free transfer at the end of his contract there

Edited February 26, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[willemvandoorn15]

Good luck with HSV, i hope u can at least reach the playoffs otherwise u might be fired.

[warlock]

4 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

By the end of October we had surged to 4th

From the opening paragraphs I was expecting a much worse set of results. Home form looks tremendous with just three goals conceded so far (assuming I can count!). Away form starting to pick up by the looks of it.

All to play for 

[SixPointer]

Solid start! What system are you playing?

[Jogo Bonito]

On 26/02/2023 at 19:30, willemvandoorn15 said:

Good luck with HSV, i hope u can at least reach the playoffs otherwise u might be fired.

Thanks. Absolutely, it will be promotion or sack I think.

 

On 26/02/2023 at 23:25, warlock said:

From the opening paragraphs I was expecting a much worse set of results. Home form looks tremendous with just three goals conceded so far (assuming I can count!). Away form starting to pick up by the looks of it.

All to play for 

So sorry for slow reply. Would you believe I haven't even been able to log in to FM since my last post. And since then, there's been an update too.

On 27/02/2023 at 07:35, SixPointer said:

Solid start! What system are you playing?

It's a 4132 with the DM as a BWM, another BWM in the three ahead of him, and two strikers. I'll take a screen shot next time I log in. Again, sorry for slow response!

[Helginho]

I remember the clock in the stadium running how long they have been playing in the Bundesliga until they day it stopped...

Edited March 20, 2023 by Helginho

[Jogo Bonito]

On 20/03/2023 at 21:17, Helginho said:

I remember the clock in the stadium running how long they have been playing in the Bundesliga until they day it stopped...

Sorry for a slow response. I never knew that, that's a great little story 

I've not had any chance to play FM since my last update, and the lack of opportunities to play makes me wonder if I was being too ambitious starting outside of the top flight. Added to that, the winter update now being out gives me a nagging sense that I should take on a new top flight club somewhere. The two-year doping ban of Mario Vuskovic also tells me that I might need a fresh squad to manage.

Sorry that this one at Hamburger SV may well turn out to be a false start, which is not really the fault of the club as it was enjoyable for the short time I was engaged in it.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Jogo Bonito

[SixPointer]

20 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Sorry for a slow response. I never knew that, that's a great little story 

I've not had any chance to play FM since my last update, and the lack of opportunities to play makes me wonder if I was being too ambitious starting outside of the top flight. Added to that, the winter update now being out gives me a nagging sense that I should take on a new top flight club somewhere. The two-year doping ban of Mario Vuskovic also tells me that I might need a fresh squad to manage.

Sorry that this one at Hamburger SV may well turn out to be a false start, which is not really the fault of the club as it was enjoyable for the short time I was engaged in it.

If you don’t have that buzz for the save it’s better to find one that does. Especially with limited game time. Hence why my move to liege kicked me back into the save