keeper#1

Taking some inspiration from @danielgear and his QPR save, I've taken on a similar project but with a different club....Birmingham. This save starts on 29 March 2024 so there are just eight matches remaining in the season with Birmingham in 20th place just two points above the drop zone Why Birmingham? The club is struggling to perform in all phases on the pitch - they are averaging barely a goal per match (39 goals in 38 matches), they have allowed the second most goals thus far (55 goals in those 38 matches), and team discipline is awful (60 yellow card and three red cards to date) The club has no sense of budgeting and have pissed away all of the money that they made on the sale of Jude Bellingham to Dortmund. The club currently sits 9M in the red. The wage structure is awful. The club has a turnover of just over 12M but are spending over 19M on wages. The wage budget has been completely disregarded as Birmingham is spending 4M over the wage budget. Even the wage budget is an overspend of the club's turnover. The only positive at the club is the club's academy which continues to churn out potential star after potential star. The two stars that the club is going to need to build around and likely sell for a profit are 17-year old Romelle Donovan and I have my own 15-year old to add into the mix @danielgear and @_Ben_ in right back Mo Farah. Early Squad Impressions At first glance, the squad is old and on overpriced contracts. Taking a deeper look into the contract situation, I've already found some players whose contract expires in June and are no longer producing in line with the wages the club is paying them. CF Lukas Jutkiewicz - a 35 year old center forward who has played in just one match for us this season, as a sub, but is pulling 780K in an annual salary GK Neil Etheridge - a 34 year old goalkeeper who has played in seven matches while pulling in 1.092M in salary this season GK John Ruddy - a 37 year old goalkeeper who has been our starter this season while earning 480K in salary CB Marc Roberts - a 33 year old center back who has played in six matches but earns 520k in salary I'll need to bring in a new goalkeeper so I won't be lopping all of this money off the wage bill but these four players earn 2.872M in salary and only one of them is a starter. A player whose contract is up in June and I would like to keep but not at his current salary is midfielder Ivan Sunjic. Sunjic a solid rotational piece for us and is only 27 years old but he makes a whopping 884k this season. I'd like to negotiate a lower salary for someone is more a rotational option than a player to build the team around. I have four players who have contracts that expire at the end of the 2024-25 season who aren't playing a lot so I could use the combination of salary relief and transfer fees to help the bank balance. DM Callum Connelly - a 26 year old defensive midfielder has played in nine matches this season while making 374k. CF Simone Zaza - a 32 year old center forward who has played in 18 matches all off the bench and makes 311k. CM Greg Docherty - 27 year old midfielder has only seen game action in three matches this season while making 308k. CM Juninho Bacuna - probably the most valuable asset of the four - played in 27 matches scoring four goals and making 520k. Remaining Schedule Next post will hopefully be tonight or tomorrow AM. If not, it won't be coming until after I return from a workcation in Caribbean.

Well done, sir!

2029-30 Season Review - Save From Relegation: It's Demo Day! It was a long slog through the winter and into the spring but Union Berlin was saved from relegation with two matches remaining in the season. But it wasn't because we were winning matches with style and grace. We were grinding out draws. After we beat Dortmund 3-2 in early February, we only won two of our last fourteen matches. We had five draws in those matches to earn 11 points in the run-in to the finish. Not exactly great football but other clubs went even worse than us so we bobbed our heads above water to earn another season of Bundesliga football. So what's next? Blowing the whole thing up and starting from scratch. Most of the roster isn't cut out for Bundesliga. Heck, most of the roster isn't cut out for 2.Bundesliga football. I need to spend the summer selling what assets that I can, letting bad contracts expire, and finding younger players with upside come into the club. Here's how the three players that I did bring in over the winter fared: GK Adam Filip: Did solid work in net for a 21-year old kid thrust into the starting job probably a little before he was ready for it - He had a high GAA of 1.52 but kept five clean sheets which shows me that he can handle the lower teams in the league but struggles, like the rest of the team, when facing stronger competition. Definitely a player to keep around for future seasons RB Marco Gardsvoll: Another player thrust into a starting role before they were ready and did a good job of holding down the position - He didn't turn the ball over (92% pass completion rate), he won the ball at a rate that is one of the best in the league (84%) but he's weak in the air with a 33% headers won rate.. DM Jan-Phillip Engemann - Engemann is the player who had the toughest adjustment probably because it had the hardest role to fit into. The defensive midfielder has to get the offense started but make sure he is back in position to help the defense. It's a tough ask for a seasoned veteran. It's even tougher for a 20-year old who isn't quite ready for the job. He needs work all around his game. Tackling (72%), pass completion (89%), and getting involved in the offense (0 goals and 1 assist) Youth Intake A decent intake for the club. We got a top line forward and another forward who could help the club in a rotational role. We also got a midfielder who can also us going forward. Not a lot of help on the defensive side of the ball though. CF Aymar Kalonji 30A CF Petr Dvorak 30B CM Bilal Dogan 30C CF Gerhard Schaller 30D RW Gabriel Pascher 30E

Goalkeepers and defenders are always undervalued assets in the transfer market unless they are world class players.

February 2030 - Early Days In Berlin It's early days for me in Berlin and I've been looking for ways to clear some of the deadwood. A massive deadwood clearing will take place over the summer when a bunch of contracts expire. Right now, it's been taking offers for any players that other clubs find "valuable" and then replacing them with younger players. Will these new players have really long term futures at the club? Maybe. Maybe not. So, I was on the lookout for cheaper talent that I could potentially flip in a season or two once we become more settled and I'm not in a scramble mode to find players to save us from relegation this season. It's an improvement over the aging talent that the club has been relying on to save the club from relegation over the last couple of seasons. As I like to do, I work back to front when it comes to building the team. I'm an ex-goalie and the advanced stats have shown that it's easier to gain points around the margins on the defensive side than on the offensive side. A team can play defensive and earn a 0-0 draw easier than putting their foot on the gas and getting a 3-3 draw. We were going to lose our right back, Josep Jurnanovic, on a free at the end of the season by Dinamo Zagreb wanted to bring him home earlier than that. So, I needed to find a new starting right back before I attacked the spine of the team. I found a good enough 19-year old right back in Denmark at FC Nordsaelland in Marco Gardovoli. He is able to do the job on a weekly basis. He's not an ideal solution but he's an ideal short-term solution that can be flipped for a better long-term option as I get the scouting operation up and running. The biggest need that the club has is in net. Our starting goalie is listed as "Good 3.Liga." That's not a good thing for a club fighting against relegation. A trip through the Czechia U21 roster unearthed Adam Filip. Filip is a player who has a high ceiling but needs the time in net to fully develop and he's an improvement over my starting goalkeeper. A no-brainer type of deal. Jan-Philipp Engmann is a young German defensive midfielder who has time with the German U21 team. A player brought in after Shakthar took Andras Schafer off of our hands. Engmann is probably not quite ready for first team Bundesliga football but he can develop into a player, in my opinion, that will be a Bundesliga defensive midfielder. In a relegation fight, I went back to what I know best the 4-3-3 DM wide. We had a rough start before we ground out three draws which didn't help us in the standings but didn't hurt us either. After the Christmas break, we came out flying with an undefeated January and rode that momentum into an upset of Dortmund before, in classic fashion, we lose to last place Dresden in the very next game.

New City - Different Club - Same Theme Every season, I have club sniffing around for my services as their new manager. Most of the offers (Leece, Santa Clara) are quickly blown off. The bigger 2.Bundesliga clubs (Schalke, Stuttgart, etc) never have any interest in my services when their job become available. But one interview request caught my eye - 1. FC Union Berlin. They are struggling in the Bundesliga this season down in 17th place. They are club from the East Berlin side of the city so they played behind the Iron Curtain as well. I took the interview and they responded a day later asking if I wanted to make any changes in the backroom. I negotiated to bring my Head of Youth Development and coach Miroslav Klose with me to Berlin. The club is barely hanging on to a Bundesliga place. They finished in 15th place, last season, on 30 points to avoid even the relegation playout matches. They are on a similar path this season. The club has given me a wage budget which is three times larger than my wage budget at Magdeburg. But the club have found a way to almost 80k over that budget. Why? Let's take a look at the roster. A first team roster that is 42!!!!!! players (45 if you count the three players out on loan) "strong." The club does not have a reserve team so anybody that is promoted from the U19 team is dumped into the first team and then, it looks like, nothing happens with them. They just rot on the bench. There's no real youth development. The roster is full of players who are past their prime and falling from their peak but at the same time they are blocking the development path of the young players below. To me, it looks like a US team that is trying to piece together one or two more playoff runs from an aging roster when they should be blowing up the team and letting the kids develop. This team is trying to string together seasons that just save them from relegation but the youth development is stunted. I'm going to need to sell off some of the remaining assets, see if I can find some aging players to take a lump sum payment to leave the club, and bring in some kids with upside that I can develop into a team on more stable footing. In short - this roster is a mess. The finances are a mess too. I'm not sure that I am going to be able to offer aging players "gardening duty" money to just leave the club. The club doesn't have any money to offer them because of their bloated salaries. This is going to be a fun multi-year rebuild. Looking like a very top heavy youth intake will be coming in. I'd like a goalkeeper but they take too long to develop. A striker or two would be a nice boost for the club.

2029-30 Season - Part 1 I tried to stress quality over quantity in this summer window. I need players who can unlock a game with a goal or an threaded ball leading to a goal. Game changers. We lost a big game changer in the window as RW Tomas Castro Ponce left for Getafe for 4.1M with clauses to take the transfer up to 5.2M. Ponce led the team with ten assists last season. Ponce was a great piece of business for the club as we brought him in on a free right before the start of the 2028-29 season. Pure profit for the club. Coming in on the right side as Ponce's replacement is Gaston Hernandez who joins us from Uruguay. Hernandez is a pacy winger who can hopefully replicate Ponce's assist output this season. Also at the wing position, experienced left winger Myron van Brederode comes to the club after he was let go by Luton Town. He will be the new starting left winger to match new right winger Hernandez. In the middle, Mounir Saadi, who has scored 25 goals over the last two seasons for Bielefeld, comes to the club to give us some more goalscoring punch at the top of the formation. Three more players join the senior club as well but they all except to help the club, this season, in a reserve role: Joaquin Tipaldi at center back, Alexsander Bobek in goal, and Jannes Schulz at both wing positions. We've had some inconsistent play as I adjust to the new talent coming into the club and the new players adjusting to their new club. So far, we've been solid at home and poor on the road. This puts us right in the middle of the table but we aren't that far from the top. The xG stats say we should be higher up the table as our goalscoring is behind our xG pace. Another positive is we have a net positive xG so we are in every match. We just need to ways to win those matches. I also think we lead the league in "goals overturned by VAR." I feel like, at least, once per match; we have a goal overturned by VAR. Our penalty taking has also been **** poor (0 for 3) which has already cost us some points. The high point of the season, thus far, has been the 1-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen in the DfB-Pokal. I would say that it will be another trophy-less season for Bayer Neverkusen but they won the 2029 Bundesliga. Finished on points with Bayern Munich but won the title because of superior goal differential (+50 to +41) to claim their first Bundesliga title.

Sanchez did well for an 18-year old playing at this level. The plan is to take some small steps in the transfer market. Continue to cull the 3.Liga players from the rosters either through contract expiry or transfer outs and replace them with some talented youngsters I had out on loan last season. Hopefully, that's enough to improve us from 5th to 2nd and automatic promotion.

13th in 2026-27 10th in 2027-28 5th in 2028-29 During the 2026-27 season, they sold off all the talent that I brought into the club and it's taken them two seasons to rebuild into a club playing for a European slot.

2028-29 Season Review We were close but not close enough to make the playoffs or win relegation this season. We struggled offensively against the top teams in the league. They were very good at cutting off the midfield service to our attacking line. This, in turn, put more pressure on our defensive line while, based on the stats, was one of the best defensive units in the 2.Bundesliga this season just could not handle the constant pressure. This led to three 0-1 losses along with a pair of 0-2 losses. We don't need to turn all of these losses into wins. Heck, even if we turn just a couple of them into wins that's six points, we finish on 61 points and finish in a three-way tie for the league title. As the stats show, the defense is ahead of the offense at present. We are above average in just about every defensive category. On the offensive side, we are below average to average at best. In a way, this makes sense. I've been a lot of focus on improving the defense because I felt this is where we were lacking. Over the course of the season, it appears that there are problems which need to be addressed on the offensive side of the ball as well. We have one true goalscorer in Franco Pastrana, who led the team with 14 goals. However, 13 of those 14 goals came in the first half of the season. He couldn't find the net in the second half of the season. The second center forward option, Panagiotis Langditis, had a similar problem. Only four goals all season and barely over one shot per 90 minutes. Not a lot of output from the center forwards. Service came from one source as well, Tomas Castro Ponce, who led the team with ten assists. His problem was staying healthy. He was in and out of the lineup with nagging injuries. He never had time to gel with the team and gain that sense of where his teammates would be and when they would be there. Konrad Matysiak tried his best to fill his hole left by Ponce but Matysiak was just as interested in scoring goals as he was in creating goalscoring chances for others in the attacking phase. Next season, I hope that Ponce and Matysiak can be in the lineup at the same time and I use their strengths to improve the offense. The defense is in fine shape anchored by Terry Yegbe and winter signing Mladen Cvjetinovic in the middle. Dylan Gorosetto outplayed new signing Ezequiel Cannavo on the right side while winter signing Tomas Sanchez gave us a different look on the left side if Andres Borset was struggling to find the right pass. Overall, I'm happy with the defense and hope that no one comes after these players in the summer signing window. Season Stats Average Possession: 60% (1st - down from 64% in the first half of the season) xG: 38.29 (13th - 19.58 in the second half of the season and +0.87 from the first half of the season) xG/shot: 298 total shots for the season (168 second half of the season shots - +38 from the first half) 0.128 xG/shot Pass Completion: 90% (1st) Chances Created: 95 (8th - +5 from the first half of the season when we created 45 first half chances - improving but not showing on the scoresheet) Conversion Rate: 15% (2nd - down from 20% in the first half of the season) Final Third Passes/Game: 76 (1st - just dicking around with the ball in the final third and not creating) Tackles Won: 78% (3rd) xGA: 38.23 (4th - 18.72 xGA in the second half of the season down 0.79 from the first half of the season) xGA/Shot: 288 shots allowed (1st - down two from the first half of the season) 0.133 xGA/shot Net xG: +0.06 OPPDA: 4.67 (17th) Headers Won: 46% (13th - still showing improvement in this area) Backline Height Average: 39.06 yards (1st)

Yeah, it was copy and pasted from a site. What does the Statman skin say? I thought @_Ben_ put those hidden ratings in the skin but hiding behind a button.

Fickle (Newgen Players Only) • Ambition = 15 - 20 • Determination = 1 - 14 • Loyalty = 1 - 14 • Professionalism = 1 - 14

2029 Youth Candidates Looks like my new Head of Youth Development has done his work this year with this class. One elite talent (my first while at Magdeburg) and six top talents bring a good depth to this class. Not sure if the good talents will have what it takes to stick around beyond their trial period or even sign a professional contract with the club. But I like what I seeing on the surface with this group. It's a big class too. Two players larger than a typical youth class. But the personalities rear their ugly head again. Three of the top four players have unambitious personalities and another top talent has a low determination personality. Not sure what is causing the poor personalities to populate every class but it's getting annoying to see good players only to have poor personalities. Nino Agger 29A (Personality: Unambitious; Media Handling: Media-Friendly): Agger is a dynamic left-winger who can, with some physical training, be a very pacy player on the left flank. He has good dribbling and passing skills as well. He does have a lot of work to do on the mental side of his game. I will need to find a good mentor for him and get rid of the terrible unambitious personality. If he truly wants to be a great players, he is going to have put in the work to be a great player. Someone who will kick him in the butt and push him to be better. Maximilian Harant 29B (Personality: Fairly Professional; Media Handling: Level-Headed): Harant has the making to be a potential starting right-back for us in the future. He has speed down the flank. He has the ability to be a solid tackler. He has the decision-making ability to know when to make the right tackle and when to back off. He knows the game for a 16-year old. He will need to work on the aerial part of his game as that is his current weak spot. I really like what I see from Harant right now. Mathias Schossler 29C (Personality: Unambitious; Media Handling: Level-Headed): Another right back in Mathias Schossler and he is already a step behind Harant is just about every aspect of the game. I will need to see how willing he is to learn a new position so he can get on the field as well. Like Agger, I will need to find a strong set personalities to mentor him and give him the kick in the pants needed to work on his game so he can become a better player. Milan Petrovic 29D (Personality: Unambitious; Media Handling: Unflappable): The dual German-Serbian national Petrovic has the potential to be a good right winger for us but like Agger and Schossler, it is up to him as to whether he wants to tap into that potential or not. He is very much like Agger except on the right side of the formation. He has a lot of holes in the mental side of his game. My senior players are really going to need to work hard with Agger, Schossler, and Petrovic to up their games and push them to become better players. Meiko Queckenstedt 29E (Personality: Fairly Professional; Media Handling: Level-Headed): We have the makings of a very solid central midfielder in Queckenstedt. He is already a very smart player. He is a decent passer and possesses a good first touch. Looking at his body type, he appears more suited to be a player going forward on attack than a defender. He needs to work on his strength which should come with age and body development but, right now, he is a very weak player. Noah Gartner 29F (Personality: Resolute; Media Handling: Reserved): Gartner has the potential to be a great defensive midfielder for us. He has potential to be an elite tackler and break up opposition attacks before they can even get started. He has all the skills to be a potential starting holding midfielder for us. His offensive skills are below average but his passing and "recycling possession" skills are above average. I can work with a player like that and hopefully he turns into the player that I envision he could be. Peter Franzel 29G (Personality: Low Determination; Media Handling: Level-Headed): Franzel has the potential to be a great player for us on the right-side of the defense or as another holding midfield option. The only thing that stands in Franzel's way is Franzel. He has the ability to be a good player for us. His determination could be a big hinderance to reaching his full potential. If that improves, even a little bit, he could reach that potential. If it doesn't, then who knows. Definitely a player who needs constant watching.

Completely Blind Signing Fortuna Dusseldorf came in on the January Deadline Day and scooped up left-back Cameron Burdett for his 1.3M release clause. Not a terrible loss for me. He was griping about playing time and then not performing when I gave him playing time. But, I was not pleased with the left-backs that my scouts had written reports on. I went to my Director of Football, who loves Argentinian players, and gave me the name Tomas Sanchez playing for Aldosivi in the second tier of Argentinian footballing pyramid. I took blind trust in my DoF. This was the only scouting report the club had on Sanchez. Next, I made it public about the club's interest in the player solely so I could see what the market was looking at for selling price on Sanchez. 1.1M is a bit high in my opinion but it still meant I would turn a profit on the sales of Burdett and the purchase of Sanchez so I pulled the trigger at 1.1M as the initial offer (550k upfront and another 550k over the next three years). Aldosivi accepted the offer and I had a new 18-year old left back from Argentina at the club who has a very high ceiling.