Out From The Iron Curtain | 1. FC Union Berlin

[keeper#1]

At one time in the history of German football, the title chase ran through one city in the hear of Bavaria.....1. FC Nurnberg.  The club has lifted the "salad plate" representing the Bundesliga champions nine times (ranking second behind Bayern Munich's 33 titles).  Why does this club have a more prominent place in the history of European football?  Five of their nine titles came before World War 2 and their last title came in 1968.  This is WAY before the Champions League was the TV event that it is today.  Their deepest European run is a semi-final lost to Atletico Madrid in the 1963 European Cup Winners Cup.  The other problem that they have run into is more of problem of geography.  Munich is the largest city in the region and Bayern Munich is the new king of German football.  It's hard to be a football superpower when one of the bemouths of European football is a two-hour drive away.  Bayern became what Nurnberg was and it it became that club during the television era.  Bayern took advantage of being a larger city   Bayern took advantage of winning their titles in the TV era.  They took further advantage by lifting European silverware.  What happened to Nurnberg?  Since winning their ninth title, they have become the ultimate yo-yo club.  To go along with their nine Bundesliga titles, they have been relegated to the 2. Bundesliga a national record nine times.  Nine times the German national trophy has been lifted up in Nurnberg.  Nine times the club has been relegated down to the 2. Bundesliga.  Nine Up.  Nine Down.

 

I've plugged myself in as the new manager of the club.  Why?  I wasn't feeling very creative and didn't want to deal with a managerial backstory.

The biggest obstacle that I will face is winning over the fans who clearly have the ear of the board when it comes to board decisions.  Lose the fans and my job will quickly be on the line.  Need to bring up players from within and beat Furth when we play them while ensuring in top 9 finish.  Those are the goals.  The Top 9 finish should be the easiest to achieve since the media think we will finish 7th.

 

I have a squad that is clearly in transition.  Some of our best players are some of our oldest players.  My goal is to let these players age out of the club gracefully while making sure their younger internal replacement is ready to go when it is their time.  Once those older players age out, we have the potential to be a young and energetic club that can push for promotion in the next couple seasons.

The U19 squad has three players who will be ready for first team football when the 2024-25 season rolls out.  Depending on injuries and player decline, Can Uzun, could be ready as early as this season.  He's a talent to build the club around.

We will mainly go with a 4-2-3-1 as our primary formation and looking to put the opposition on the back foot.  We aren't going to sit back and let the opposition dictate their philosophy on us.  We are going dictate our philosophy on them.

We are very deep at the center back position with six players who are all ready for first team football.  Our backup formation will be a 5-3-2-1 to take advantage of that center-back depth and our strong wing backs who like to bomb up the field.

With just two friendlies before the league season starts, I will need to figure out who is who and what their abilities so these formations could see some changes as the roster shakes out in the first few league matches.

[Hootieleece]

Good luck in Germany! 

What happened to the other thread? Did you need a new challenge?

[keeper#1]

1 hour ago, Hootieleece said:

Good luck in Germany! 

What happened to the other thread? Did you need a new challenge?

I came home from my trip and just had no interest in continuing the save.  Sometimes happens when I take a long break from a save.

Won't have a problem with that when I travel to Europe later this month.  I start in Munich before making stops in Vienna, Linz, Melk, Brataslava and Budapest.  So, I will be "close to home" with this save.  The best part of the trip: the travel supplier is flying me over in business class.  Not crammed into an economy seat for nine hours to Germany for me!

[keeper#1]

2023-24 Midseason Update - On the Struggle Bus

At this point, Nurnberg is just not a good team.  They are definitely average.  Full of inconsistent average players that the club really can't move.  The players are either old and on an expiring contract or younger, over-rated and under-performing.  Either way, we can not get much value out of them.  We are just sort of stuck in mid-table mediocrity.  Plus, the club is about four million euros in the red.  Not in a good place on the field or in the boardroom.  The second half of the season might see us call up some of the kids and let them loose.  Start building for the 2024-25 season.

We just can't streak any wins together.  The loss to Dortmund in the DfB-Pokal sent us into an tailspin as we headed into the Christmas break on the heels of our best run of the season.  It's been a frustrating first half of the season to watch.  

Not a single standout player in the first half of the season.  Average players = average team

Injuries have played a key role in our choppy form.  Schindler is one of our top center backs.  He's 33 and showing major signs of regression after recovering from an ACL injury.  Gyamerah is our starting right back and has been in and out of the lineup.  Flick is a starting defensive midfielder and his absence from the lineup is felt.  Handwerker is the starting left back.  Duman and Castrop are rotational option in the attacking midfield and defensive midfield respectively.  Not listed is our starting goalkeeper Christian Mathenia has been out with a damaged spine since mid-October.  The trainer is earning his paycheck this season.

Our 4-2-3-1 formation has morphed into this alignment to get us more balanced in attack and a little less go-go-go.  We need to be solid in defense playing with a back-up goalkeeper for most of this season.

Not a great group of kids, at first glance, graduating from the academy this spring.

[Hootieleece]

Sometimes the intake preview fools you......depending on the staff. Wait till you see them for yourself. But don't get your hopes up.

[keeper#1]

2023-24 Season Review - Defense Good Offense Bad

I made some more tactical tweaks to improve our defense which was one of the worst defenses in the 2.Bundesliga during the first half of the season.  The offense was good.  I switched the formation from a 4-2-3-1 formation into a 4-3-3.  Our defense and midfield is where we are strongest so it made sense to get seven of those players on the field at the same time as opposed to six in the 4-2-3-1 formation.  We had immediate success with the formation switch and went on a 10-match unbeaten run which saw us move from eighth in the table up into fifth place and flirting with the promotion playoff place.  Then, the offensive wheels completely fell off.  We scored just one goal in our last six matches and those promotion playoff dreams fell and fell hard as we slid back down to eighth place by the end of the season.

Looking at our general performance, it shows just how average of a team we were this season.  We follow the average edge of the octagon in just about every category but pass completion rate where we are above average at 87.4%.  Every other category....we are the average.  Average teams finish mid-table and that's exactly what we did.  I took a deeper dive into the season-long team stats to see what went wrong this season:

Average possession - 49% (7th in the league) - interesting that a team with below 50% possession finishes in the top half of the average possession stat

xG - 39.83 (10th in the league)

xG/shot - We had 361 shots on the season (5th in the league) and our xG/shot was 0.110.  Hannover, who won the league, had an xG/shot of 0.118.  Fine margins here.

Pass Completion - 87.4% (7th in the league) - strange that the octagon had us as a outlier in this category when we were close to the league average

Chances created - 74 (15th in the league) - Bloody awful

Conversion rate - 11.36% (15th in the league) - More bloody awful but close to our xG.  Both areas need to improve.

Tackles won - 76% (11th in the league) finished just ahead of league champions Hannover

xG Against - 42.62 (10th in the league)

xG/Against/shot - We allowed 334 shots (9th in the league) which results in a xG/Against/shot of 0.128 - more things are bloody awful

OPPDA - 4.87 (13th in the league)

Headers won - 44% (15th in the league)

So....despite being strongest in defense, we had one of the worst defensive in the league.  Combine that we playing a backup or 3rd string goalkeeper for half of the season....I think we were lucky to finish in 8th.  It should have been much worse.

With a team of average players.  I'm choosing to single out four of our youngsters that I think we should be building this team around.  The rest of the team: if another team wants to make a transfer bid, I will gladly listen.  I'm not attached to anyone over age 24 right now.

Jens Castrop - Castrop is a good versatile midfielder who can play in a variety of, primarily, holding roles.  He can also drop back a play as a right back.  When I put him in that position, I set him as an inverted back so I can him into the midfield as an extra passing option.  A low-end Bundesliga player/top-end 2.Bundesliga water-carrying midfielder.

Finn Jeitsch - Jeitsch is going to be a great center back for us as we continue to try to improve the squad.  He is going to be the center back that we build our back four around.  I inserted him into the starting lineup to see if he could provide me with some defensive stability that players like Jannes Horn and Christopher Schnilder could not.  He stepped up to the challenge and at just 17-years old is a starting center-back for us.

Laurin Ulrich - We bought Ulrich from Stuttgart for 625k early in the season.  He spent most of the season splitting time at the starting left forward with Kanji Okunuki before he took over the starting role full time.  Four goals and two assists in just 17 2/3 90-minute sessions is a good start for the 19-year old winger.  I'm hoping for an increase in both goals and assists out of him next season.

Nicholas Ortegel - Ortegel has the highest ceiling, in my opinion, out of these four players.  He got some run in goal when the starter was our and Carl Klaus was not up for the job.  Ortegel was not without his faults.  He has let in the soft goal from time to time which has put pressure on our offense.  Hopefully, if we can get some solid defenders in front of him, he can start to play to some confidence and that save percentage can start to improve.  I can't go with a goalkeeper with a 56% save percentage as a long-term option in net.

We will look in the offseason for some good young options to fill out the squad and try to push out some of the average older talent from the starting lineup (and most likely the club if they aren't willing to take a lesser role with the club).  Here's to a successful off-season!

[DavideToreroFM]

It looks like you have a challenge on your hands. Great deep dive into the stats, it will be interesting to see how this changes how you line up for next season. 

[keeper#1]

20 minutes ago, DavideToreroFM said:

It looks like you have a challenge on your hands. Great deep dive into the stats, it will be interesting to see how this changes how you line up for next season. 

It's a big challenge.  The stats never lie.

[Shrewnaldo]

Are you going with the attributeless version of Ben's skin? 

[Domoboy23]

On 12/02/2024 at 11:24, Hootieleece said:

Sometimes the intake preview fools you......depending on the staff. Wait till you see them for yourself. But don't get your hopes up.

Absolutely. Not even the preview either. The ''elite'', ''good'' talent list etc when you do get them. I usually prefer the players in the poor section quite often more than the good ones!

[keeper#1]

5 hours ago, Shrewnaldo said:

Are you going with the attributeless version of Ben's skin? 

Nope.  I using the new one with the 1-20 attribute ratings.

[_Ben_]

4 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

Nope.  I using the new one with the 1-20 attribute ratings.

I appreciate your continued support with my skin! I'll drop you a DM in a couple of days with the updates - such as staff attributes and QOL fixes - before it goes public.

EDIT: Oh, and someone else who is in Germany - good luck! The 2.Liga is a fun place to be.

Edited February 15 by _Ben_

[keeper#1]

3 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

I appreciate your continued support with my skin! I'll drop you a DM in a couple of days with the updates - such as staff attributes and QOL fixes - before it goes public.

EDIT: Oh, and someone else who is in Germany - good luck! The 2.Liga is a fun place to be.

With my trip to lower Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary starting next week, Nurnberg seemed like the perfect place for a one-club rebuild type of save.

[keeper#1]

2024-25 Season - 10 Games In - A Story of Two Tactics

When I started the 2024-25 season, I went into the season thinking that we were going to stick with a revamped 4-3-3 formation.  The logic behind this was two-fold: 1) finished the season strong playing a 4-3-3 formation and 2) I felt it was the best formation for the makeup of our squad.  However, there were a lot of warning bells that went off in the pre-season.  We opened with a 5-4 loss to Aarau during our tour of Switzerland.  I brushed that off to the opening match of the season and we scored four goals which was good considering we did not score in our last six matches of the 2023-24 season.  Then, we slogged our way through a series of boring draws except for a 3-0 victory over one of the lower teams from Freiburg.  Not a great lead-up to the campaign.

Then the season started, the same problems from the 2023-24 season started to rear their ugly heads: the lack of offense, the defense switching off late in match, the goalkeepers allowing screamers from outside the box into the goal on the nights when the defense did play well.  We scored six goals in the six matches but we scored two goals in the first four.  We won none of those matches and that included an early exit from the DfB-Pokal in the first round.  We tweaked the formation with a little success: a win over Elversberg and a draw against Dusseldorf.  Even with the win and the draw, I still was not satisfied with how we were playing.  After just five matches, I felt a full tactical revamp was needed.  If we waited too long, the season would be completely lost and I could be out of a job.

I switched back to a 4-2-3-1 formation that I started the save but made a lot of tweaks to roles, patterns of plays, how much we were going to push forward, etc.  It may be the same 4-2-3-1 formation but it plays entirely different.  More pragmatic in nature.  Not so much ALL GAS NO BRAKES style of attack.  The results have been positive.  We have not lost any of the five matches since switching to this new style of attack and play.  The offense has improved by leaps and bounds - scoring 12 goals in the five matches (2.4 goals per game).  The defense has improved as well.  We are playing some of best defensive football since starting the save - allowing only four goals in the five matches (0.8 goals per game) which includes one of our now-famous screamer from outside the box that finds its way into the net.  We've allowed 12 goals in the ten early season matches and three of the goals have been on 25-yard bombs that find the way into the back of the net.  Frustrating to watch the defense play well only to watch the goalkeeper turn what should be an easy save into a goal.

What to make of the early part of the season in terms of our statistics:

xG - improving from last season and we are scoring way above our expected goal total (will we regress to the mean as the season wears on though)

xG/allowed - vastly improved from last season and teams are over-performing their xG (will they regress to the mean)

Possession - has improved by 3% (49% to 52%) from last season

Shots on Target % - not a lot of improvement from last season

Conversion Rate % - we have improved by leaps and bounds here - last season we were at 11.36% - now we are at 16% - clear improvement

Chances - 28 through 10 matches (2.8/match) - last season was 74 in 34 matches (2.2/match) - more solid improvement

OPPDA - 5.04 - lower than last season but our defense was awful to start the season and still need to see how the tactic switch impacts this number as the season wears on

All told we are right back where we were last season - solidly upper half of the table but not in the playoff hunt.  It should be noted that our only win in the first five matches was against last place Elversberg.  In the second five matches, we've beaten 5th place Schalke, 11th place Hertha, and 14th place Dresden while drawing with 15th place Karlsruhe and 17th place Osnabruck.  Not a tough stretch of opponents but I can see the improvement on the pitch in these five matches compared to the first five matches of the season and that's enough for me to stick with the tactical switch to the 4-2-3-1 formation.

 

 

[keeper#1]

2024-25 Season Mid-Season Review - Stats Don't Lie

Sport is a wonderful thing.  Anything can happen in any given match.  Upsets happen.  David beats Goliath.  But over the course of a season, the stats don't lie.  The teams that lead in major statistical categories will find their way to the top of the standings.  Nurnberg had some tough matches early in the season as we worked out the tactical kinks but as the season wore on, the offense started to shine and the team started to climb the standings.  Now at the midway point of the season, Nurnberg sits atop the 2.Bundesliga standings by three points over second place Schalke.  Looking at the gross stats, we are tied for most wins (11), lead the league in goals scored (37), tied for second in goals allowed (17), lead the league in goal difference (+20).  It goes even deeper than that looking at the more advanced statistics.

We are pouring in goals at a higher than expected rate and we've only had a penalty kick all season which we converted.  How have we done it?  We have trained chance creation and chance conversion hard this season.  Training each category once per week.  The result: we are 2nd in conversion rate at 17% which a 6% improvement over last season, we are getting 45% of our shots on target which is also a 6% improvement over last season.  But that's not the only category where we are seeing improvement.  We already have 63 chances (leading the league) on the season.  That's 3.7 chances per game and just we are just 12 chances away from last season's total of 75 chances.  Marked improvement.  I'm also proud of our in the penalty box passes.  We have 82 on the season compared to our opponent's 57 penalty box passes.  We are a +25 on the season.  However, we are losing possession more frequently than our opponents.  We have gained possession 1,632 times compared to losing it 1,772 times for a -140.  I'm going to take this as a reflection on having the ball more often than our opponents so we have more chances to lose the ball than they do.  But long story short, we are in first place and it's no fluke.  The stats back it up and the stats never lie in the long-term.

[Shrewnaldo]

I like the simplicity of training the skills that your team has been underperforming at. I need to check my schedules for chance conversion 

Looks like Can Uzun has been doing really well for you. How are you using him? 

[Hootieleece]

Chance Creation and Chance Conversion are in every training schedule matches allow for me along with Team Bonding, Match Review, and Recovery after matches.

Quite the Turnaround in the season with the change of tactics.

[_Ben_]

12 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

2024-25 Season Mid-Season Review - Stats Don't Lie

Sport is a wonderful thing.  Anything can happen in any given match.  Upsets happen.  David beats Goliath.  But over the course of a season, the stats don't lie.  The teams that lead in major statistical categories will find their way to the top of the standings.  Nurnberg had some tough matches early in the season as we worked out the tactical kinks but as the season wore on, the offense started to shine and the team started to climb the standings.  Now at the midway point of the season, Nurnberg sits atop the 2.Bundesliga standings by three points over second place Schalke.  Looking at the gross stats, we are tied for most wins (11), lead the league in goals scored (37), tied for second in goals allowed (17), lead the league in goal difference (+20).  It goes even deeper than that looking at the more advanced statistics.

We are pouring in goals at a higher than expected rate and we've only had a penalty kick all season which we converted.  How have we done it?  We have trained chance creation and chance conversion hard this season.  Training each category once per week.  The result: we are 2nd in conversion rate at 17% which a 6% improvement over last season, we are getting 45% of our shots on target which is also a 6% improvement over last season.  But that's not the only category where we are seeing improvement.  We already have 63 chances (leading the league) on the season.  That's 3.7 chances per game and just we are just 12 chances away from last season's total of 75 chances.  Marked improvement.  I'm also proud of our in the penalty box passes.  We have 82 on the season compared to our opponent's 57 penalty box passes.  We are a +25 on the season.  However, we are losing possession more frequently than our opponents.  We have gained possession 1,632 times compared to losing it 1,772 times for a -140.  I'm going to take this as a reflection on having the ball more often than our opponents so we have more chances to lose the ball than they do.  But long story short, we are in first place and it's no fluke.  The stats back it up and the stats never lie in the long-term.

I echo the sentiments about your quality of turnaround here. Keep it up!

[keeper#1]

10 hours ago, Shrewnaldo said:

I like the simplicity of training the skills that your team has been underperforming at. I need to check my schedules for chance conversion 

Looks like Can Uzun has been doing really well for you. How are you using him? 

I'm using him as an AP (s) in the attacking midfield strata.  He plays better when he can let the two attacking wings and center forward get ahead of him and play off of their runs.  Playing him as a AP (a): he gets lost in the attacking runs and can't pick out the right pass.

This is what we are doing for training just about every week.

Edited February 18 by keeper#1

[Hootieleece]

Decent all-around training for matches, but your players might whine about it not being "Physical" enough. The day after matches is most important after away games. Before Home matches I often do a community relations block where you have match tactics. I think it helps with the fans. 

[keeper#1]

2024-25 End of Season Update - We're Going Up!

Mission #1 for the Nurnberg save has been completed: Getting the club back into, what I think, it's rightful place in the Bundesliga.  Once we got to the top of the 2.Bundesliga table, we never gave it up, cruised to the table and clinched the title with two matches remaining.  The offense, this season, really clicked.  We brought in a couple of new faces into the attack.  Nelson Weiper joined us from Mainz.  Weiper led the team and 2nd in the 2.Bundesliga with 18 goals in all competitions.  On the left side, Assan Ouedraogo came to us from cash-strapped Schalke.  He added six goals and seven assists.  On the right, we ventured outside of Europe and found Gianluca Prestianni at Velez.  He seized the right sided role after a failed attempted as the attacking central playmaker.  Prestianni poured in ten goals and chipped in with seven assists as well.  In the middle, we have our revelation of the season.  The rapid development of Can Uzun.  Uzun was tried, as an experiement, in the attacking central midfield role when we switched to the 4-2-3-1 formation.  He absolutely thrived in the role.  He has all-around game to become a top playmaker in the Bundesliga.  He added seven goals and 12 assists - 4th in the 2.Bundesliga.  The youth infusion was solely on the offensive side of the ball.  Nathaniel Brown took over the left-back position and played with skill beyond his 20 years.  He won 81% of his tackles and was integral in getting the ball transitioned from defense to midfield with a 90% pass completion rate.  In the middle, Finn Jeltsch is one of the top young defenders in Germany and was one of the first name written on the team sheet.  

Our general performance showed that, as a team, we were above average in both offense and defense and worthy of promotion to the Bundesliga.  

After taking a look at the young players and their contribution to our club's improvement.  I wanted to see, combined with our revamped training (discussed in an earlier post), how we ranked how that season is over.

Average Possession: 54% (4th in the league - +5% from last season) - a great job of possessing ball compared to last season.  We worked on ball retention and ball distribution a lot this season

xG: 54.59 (+14.76) 3rd in the league - addition of better players upfront and midfielders to get them ball helped us achieve one of the best xG rates for season and a +0.43/game improvement from last season

xG/shot: 416 shots on goal - 4th in the league and a 54.59 xG - 3rd in the league led us to an xG/shot of 0.136 which is an improvement of 0.026 from last season

Pass Completion: 88.51% (+1.11%) - 4th in the league - Another phase of the game where training ball distribution aided us this season

Chances Created: 122 (+48) - 2nd in the league - We easily could have been first in the league but I played the reserves all 180 minutes in the two matches after we clinched the title.  Still a vast improvement from last season as we averaged 3.59 chances per game

Conversion Rate: 17.55% (+6.19%) - 1st in the league - We trained chance creation and chance conversion every week.  It was the bedrock of our training routine and it paid off for us with an offense that led us to the title.

Tackles Won: 76% (unchanged) - 10th in the league - we moved up one place but our tackling rate did not change.  We trained defense each week as well.  However, we are young on defense and that youth may explain the lack of improvement on the defensive end.  Young players develop offensive games before they develop their defensive game.

xG Against: 35.37 (+7.25) - 3rd in the league - even though our tackling rate did not improve, we did improve on the defensive side of the ball by preventing the opposition from shooting the ball on goal from quality positions on the field.

xG Against/Shot: 289 shots on goal allowed - 2nd in the league - We had an xG Against/shot of 0.122 this season which was not improvement from last season.  We took a step back.  But because we allowed fewer shots, our xG Against improved.

OPPDA: 4.50 (+0.37) - 6th in the league - We had a team instruction to have our defensive line step up and individual instructions for our two midfielders to press the ball more.  This helped shrink the space in the midfield.  We created a lot of midfield turnovers so gave up fewer shots but when the young defenders made the wrong decision, we gave up quality scoring chances leading to a higher xG Against/Shot.

Headers Won: 46% (+2%) - 13th in the league - Still not great but improving.

The board did not give us a lot of money (350k transfer budget) to improve the team.  We are going to need to depend on these youngsters who had rapid development this season to lead us away from the relegation zone next season so we can, hopefully, have a higher transfer budget next season.  

Edited February 21 by keeper#1

[Hootieleece]

Congratulations on returning to the Bundesliga.

 

[keeper#1]

Thanks

[keeper#1]

2025-26 Season - 10 Games In - Things Looking Good

I always like to do a review of things once I complete ten games in the season.  I've played a variety of opponents (both good and bad) so I have a chance to see how the tactic is working or not working.  Plus, I can the division in my head when it comes to things like averages and such.  So, how are things looking for Nurnberg in their first season back in the Bundesliga.

On the face of it, things are really really really good.  We are sitting in 5th place and punching WAY above our weight.  But there is a major thing to note, in terms of who we have played, we have not played Bayern or Dortmund and two of our three losses have come against Leipzig and Leverkusen.  But still 17 points in ten matches has us just about halfway to our goal of 35 points to stay out of the relegation battle.  We are doing what we should be doing against teams weaker or equal to us and have lost to the teams that are more talented than us.  Not bad for a bunch of plucky upstarts from the 2.Bundesliga.  But there is an alarm bell ringing.

We are back to having a hard time putting the ball in the back of the net.  In fact, we are the worst team when it comes to performing to our xG.  If we performed to our xG, we would be in 4th place not 5th!  Nelson Weiper is having a hard time putting away his chances.  Part of it is the Bundesliga defenses are better at denying him service from the midfield.  The other part is he has been asking for a better contract a couple of times during the season and I've had to tell him no because we can't afford it.  He says he understands but I can't help but think that it is impacting his performance.  Only 11 goals in ten matches means we are playing on a razor's edge and any further drop in offensive performance could have a significant impact on our standing.

As a team, we are defending very well as a unit.  We ranked 2nd in xG against and in OPPDA of all things considering that last season we were more willing to let the opposition play on to us.  I haven't changed the tactic from last season at all.  We changed the personnel and now have a defensive midfielder partnership of Tomas Handel and Seko Fofana both of whom joined us on frees in the offseason.  Handel is our playmaker and Fofana is our destroyer.  They have helped us rank in the top half of average possession and passing completion percentage.  Not sure where we would be worth them.  

[Shrewnaldo]

Frustrating as that xG underperformance is, you can't really beat disappointed with that start to the season. Has your xG/shot gone down? Nearly 0.14 is really quite good but I'm guessing that's reduced a lot since promotion? The shots per 90 from individual players still look really healthy 

[Hootieleece]

You seem to being hit by the injury bug to important players. Your team is still performing better than my Hertha. Our offensive numbers have fallen off since the first match where I think playing the New Formation confused the opponent.

[keeper#1]

19 minutes ago, Shrewnaldo said:

Frustrating as that xG underperformance is, you can't really beat disappointed with that start to the season. Has your xG/shot gone down? Nearly 0.14 is really quite good but I'm guessing that's reduced a lot since promotion? The shots per 90 from individual players still look really healthy 

xG/shot is 0.1204 which is down from last season but the level of competition is higher.  We are getting decent chances based on that metric but they just aren't going in

[keeper#1]

Champagne Football while waiting for my flight to Germany.  

 

[Carambau]

Can´t go wrong with Can Uzun in your squad  Congratulations on promotion!

[keeper#1]

Quick 2025-26 Midseason Update

Just a quick mid-season update because, well I'm tired from flight....barely slept even with a lie-flat business class seat.  

We slipped in a bit in the table.  We beat Bayern!  

But then we didn't capitalize on that momentum dropping our last two matches of the fall season to Hoffenheim and Dortmund.

The good news is a fair number of players are getting a good amount of playing time to help them develop.

Playing right about in line with our stats.  Lack of goalscoring is still a bit troubling

 

[Jogo Bonito]

First time view of your spell at Nurnberg, but great to see what you have done so far and well told as usual. Nice work with the squad, and I'm especially pleased to see you have Weiper in your ranks.

[keeper#1]

14 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

First time view of your spell at Nurnberg, but great to see what you have done so far and well told as usual. Nice work with the squad, and I'm especially pleased to see you have Weiper in your ranks.

Thanks for finding the thread and following along.  Weiper is a quality forward at such a young age.

[keeper#1]

My travels took me to Vienna today so I took a walk this afternoon up to Ernst Happel Stadium.

[SixPointer]

4 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

My travels took me to Vienna today so I took a walk this afternoon up to Ernst Happel Stadium.

“The challenge stadium” 🤣 I’ve always wanted to visit Vienna its definitely on my list. 

[keeper#1]

16 hours ago, SixPointer said:

“The challenge stadium” 🤣 I’ve always wanted to visit Vienna its definitely on my list. 

It's a great city.  I did a bike tour in the morning and then explored the city by foot in the afternoon.  The bike tour provided me with enough memorable landmarks that I could find my way back to the ship if I got turned around.

[keeper#1]

Finished the 2025-26 season while sitting in the airport lounge waiting to complete the last leg of my journey home.  Finished in 3rd place.  I feel the save and the 3rd place finish feels very unrealistic so I scrapping the save and renaming the thread with a new German journey.

[Jogo Bonito]

3rd is a bit of an over-achievement but perhaps you're just an elite manager 

I look forward to reading about your spell with FC Magdeburg. Will that be starting afresh in 2023/24 or picking up from where you ended? I'm guessing the former.

[keeper#1]

3 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

3rd is a bit of an over-achievement but perhaps you're just an elite manager 

I look forward to reading about your spell with FC Magdeburg. Will that be starting afresh in 2023/24 or picking up from where you ended? I'm guessing the former.

Actually, it's going to be the latter.  Magdeburg just got relegated into the 3.Liga so it's going to be quite the rebuilding project - something I will enjoy more than taking them over in 23/24 as a 2.Bundesliga side.

[SixPointer]

FC Magdeburg a great East German giant revival, great fanbase some good European success winning the cup winners cup if I remember rightly. Great place for a story 

[keeper#1]

8 hours ago, SixPointer said:

FC Magdeburg a great East German giant revival, great fanbase some good European success winning the cup winners cup if I remember rightly. Great place for a story 

1974 Cup Winners Cup Champions!

Jet-lagged me watched them beat the **** out of Schalke last week on German television.  The broadcast network had 90 minute pre-match show for the 2.Bundesliga match!?!?!?!

[Hootieleece]

47 minutes ago, keeper#1 said:

1974 Cup Winners Cup Champions!

Jet-lagged me watched them beat the **** out of Schalke last week on German television.  The broadcast network had 90 minute pre-match show for the 2.Bundesliga match!?!?!?!

Maybe It is the German Vesrion of College Football in America.

Also Schalke04 is one of the biggest clubs in Germany even though they might disband after this season due to debt.

[keeper#1]

52 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:

Maybe It is the German Vesrion of College Football in America.

Also Schalke04 is one of the biggest clubs in Germany even though they might disband after this season due to debt.

It was all German so I understood nothing that was said.  I know Magdeburg completely embarrassed Schalke 3-0.   

[keeper#1]

Out From The Iron Curtain - 2026/27 Season - The Exodus

The biggest challenge I had to deal with in the offseason was the absolute mass exodus of experienced talent.  Nobody wanted to stay at a club that was sinking into the 3.Liga.  I was not going to stand in their way.  Cue the talent drain.

As you can see by the fees and the clubs involved, that we had a very talented squad and a squad that should have survived in the 2.Bundesliga last season.  But all of these transfers has filled out bank account with lots of cash and a potential transfer war chest once we move back into the 2.Bundesliga in a future season.  Looking at the players, we are replacing most of the starting XI from last season.

In it's place, I have a very young and hungry roster ready to take on the 3.Liga.  I go into detail about some of these players in a later post.

[keeper#1]

Out From The Iron Curtain - 2026-27 Season Part 2 - The Kids Are Alright

We are ten games into the season and it's my usual time to take a look how we are performing as individuals and as a team.

We've got a game in hand on the Dortmund 2nd Team but we are playing very well rolling with 4-2-3-1 formation that I used at Nurnberg.  Our defense is the best in the league.  Our offense has been inconsistent but we are young up front and older along the backline but I like what I am seeing on the whole with the team.

The defense has been a bit more leaky lately but the offense has been there to bail out the defense.  Our only loss has been to Bundesliga side Stuttgart and we put up a valiant fight against them.  

A whole lot of five gold dots with a lot of players.  We are overperforming our xG and our xGA against which is what has us in 1st place as opposed to our expected 8th place.  But I want to take a deeper dive into some of the young players who are leading the charge.

CF Panagiotis Lagaditis - Lagaditis joined us in the offseason on a 215k transfer from Ulm.  He is our leading goal-scorer with just five goals but he is leading the line in a manner that I expect from the center forward.  He is getting others involved in the play with his 87% pass completion rate and he defends from the front with 86% tackles won ratio.  He gets plenty of shots on target but he is not a high volume shooter which is putting a damper on his xG but he gets off a lot of high quality chances which has led in the xG overperformance.  He needs wingers and midfielders that can run in behind the defensive line in order to be most effective.

AM Alexander Boy - Boy is a product of the Magdeburg academy and plays in the attacking midfielder role behind Lagaditis.  He has the potential to be the heartbeat of the midfield for a lot of clubs.  He runs the full length of the pitch and gets involved in both the offensive and defensive phases of the game.  Like Lagaditis, he gets high quality shots on frame.  But he is more willing to try that high risk pass to spring somebody behind the backline.  I like what I see from a potential Lagaditis-Boy partnership at the top of the formation.

LB/CB Cameron Burdett - Burdett was a big money signing (1.8m from Schalke) but I think he has the potential to be a quality leftback/centerback for us in the future.  He has become our starting left side centerback this season.  He's a bit on the small side so he gets beat a lot in the air than I want I to see out of the centerback position (65% headers won).  But he makes up for it by being one of the best ball playing centerbacks in the league.  I don't play him in that role but he puts up numbers like a ball playing centerback.  A solid player going forward.

RF Syaband Ali - I inherited Ali who came to use from the Viktoria Koln academy.  Ali is a playmaking right forward.  He thinks he is a center forward but I have found that he plays better out on the right side.  He is a great passer - one of the best passers in the league.  He is not a great shooter.  I'm not going to put him in a position where he has to shoot a lot. He's going to go out on the wing and be a playmaker for us.  There's what you think you are and what you actually are.  

 

[Jogo Bonito]

That's a really strong start to the season, especially after shedding so much of the better talent on relegation. Keep up the good work!

[keeper#1]

Thanks.  I'm back to playing the save.  Out of all things that my daughter wanted to do for her first college spring break, she wanted to go to Disney with dad.  So, I've spent the last week fighting the crowds in Orlando and had zero time for playing because this past week was all about her.  Back to the grind of the 3.Liga!

[_Ben_]

Just caught up on this and don’t think the ‘grind of the 3.Liga’ will be a forever problem! You’ve started really well! Assuming the plan is built around promotion this term?

[keeper#1]

4 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Just caught up on this and don’t think the ‘grind of the 3.Liga’ will be a forever problem! You’ve started really well! Assuming the plan is built around promotion this term?

The plan is to bounce back straight away.  By next season, most of the kids will have a full season of first team matches under the belt and be ready to take on the 2.Bundesliga.  The roster was really bloated with a lot of overpriced talent.  I couldn't keep their salary on the books, this season, and keep the club in the black.  Even with the trimmed down salary, we are still losing around 200k per month but we have over 24 million in the bank.  2.Bundesliga football will be needed to keep the club afloat long term.  There's no prize money in the 3.Liga.

[SixPointer]

Your save really makes fall in love with German football again. So many big clubs with good history that have fallen from grace. It’s shame it’s ruled by Bayern at the very top. Hope Leverkusen do it this year. 
 

It’s seems like your building nicely for the long term. East German powerhouse be nice to add to there European success from many moons ago. 

[keeper#1]

Quick Mid-Season Update

We hit the mid-season break in a bit of a goalscoring slump.  We've some matches that we had no business winning on the back of stoppage time goals. But we still top the table.

A very top heavy youth intake should be incoming this April