FM13: Borussia Dortmund - Echte Liebe.

[tomtuck01]

£48million is amazing, can't imagine getting anywhere near that amount for himself as I don't use him as an out and out goalscorer, thus his value probably won't rocket up too much.

If I decide to sell, I'd be delighted with anything around £30million.

[batty1]

Damn it, I meant to put £45M! Still on too bad I guess.

[Safce]

Tried to get back into my Dortmund save today due to the activity in this thread lately, however I just can't tear myself away from Pescara presently. Anyway if anyone would like some screenies of 6th season Dortmund players/finances yarda yar I'll happily provide within a reasonable time frame lol.

[Ryknow]

Season 2014/15 Review

As I said before we finally won the title. This was mainly down to finding two tactics that worked really well resulting in us only losing one game all season in the Bundesliga.

Bayern hit god-mode after Christmas though winning all their Bundesliga games with the exception of one, which was a draw. This resulted in us having 83pts and them 81pts. Crazy season.

Won the DLF Super Cup against Bayern, got knocked out of the DFB Pokal by the eventual winners Kaiserslautern and met our fate in the UCL Semi Final against Neymar's Manchester United.

Standout performers were Lukaku with 32 goals in 35 appearnces, Hummels the rock in defence and Ter 'thou shall not pass' Stegen.

All in all it was a good season, but the Bundesliga clubs need to do better in Europe or we'll lose the 4th UCL spot to Italy. Still not confident of winning the UCL due to the other teams, and my team while good, not on the same level as Barca, Real Madrid, Man Utd, Porto, Juve and PSG. I believe I should be able to in 3 seasons, but in no rush to win it tbh.

Average age of the squad going into the 2015/16 season is 21 years old, and 67% of the squad is German. This figure should continue to increase each season. Hopefully this prolongs the difficulty of my save, as I want this save to last until after Christmas.

Start of 2015/16 Season

As mentioned in a previous post we beat Kaiserslautern on penalties, with my newgen backup GK saving 3 out of the 4 penalties.

So that's the DFL Pokal in the bag.

INS

Sebastien Bassong - Free (pre-contract)

Brought in as a backup CB. Provide some experience to the younger CBs.

Seydou Doumbia - Free (pre-contract)

Brought in as a backup ST as I sold Sobiech. Scored a hat-trick on his debut.

Sebastien Corchia - Free (pre-contract)

Brought in as backup/rotation RB. Just as a note, he plays well at LB when you are dominating. He cuts in and gets forward. Scored a goal on his debut doing this.

Jeroen Zoet - Free (pre-contract)

Brought in as a more experienced GK backup. Probably won't get many games as my newgen GK is quality.

Lars Bender - €28mil

Tracked him all season and made a few bids to test the waters, with one being €40mil...I don't even really need him. Just wanted a big buy. Anyways, Chelsea listed him on the last day as he wanted to leave and set a price of €54mil. I started from €20mil and worked my way up and they accepted €28mil! Great buy.

TOTAL EXPENDITURE - €28mil

OUTS

Denys Garmash - €20mil

Quality player and pushed Bender for his spot alongside Gündoğan. However, suffered a torn hamstring later in the season but still gained interested from the big spenders. As he isn't German, or HG I sold him.

Jakub Blaszczykowski - €12.5mil

Suffered a torn calf muscle a few seasons ago and never full recovered. Failed to get a great deal of match time and therefore wanted huge appearnce bonus to sign a new deal. Sold him instead.

Sebastian Jung - €10mil

Mr. Inconsistent was sold for that very reason. While a good player, I prefer fullbacks with some aerial ability. He needs the game time to add to his 2 German caps, so sold him for that reason too. Not needed after Corchia arrived.

Johannes Flum - €7mil

Got him on a free as backup, rarely played but was solid when he did. With the newgens such as Lepper being promoted there was no room for him in the team.

Marian Sarr - €2mil

I never took the time to develop Sarr, and I have far better newgens now.

Artur Sobiech - €6mil

Was handy as backup but had to be sold as Doumbia arrived.

Some additional newgens sold, loaned out. Dead wood released.

TOTAL INCOME - €59mil

As you can see I bring bosmans in as backup/rotation players with the view to sell them. If they impress they stay, but all depends on if there are any arriving the next season, or any youth being promoted. Won't need to do that as much now as newgens start turning 17 and therefore become playable.

UCL Group:

Man Utd

Dortmund

Shakhtar

BATE

Nürnberg got beat by Chelsea in the playoffs, so only 3 German clubs again, as last season Union Berlin got beat in the playoffs as well.

[john1]

Congrats on winning the league I also went for Draxler after they accepted my 35M for him and refused to hold talks with me

[Ryknow]

Damn it, I meant to put £45M! Still on too bad I guess.

That's still a great price. I sold him to Barca for €48mil, not sure of FM exchange rate but should be around £41-42mil. You've done well, plenty of spending money.

Shame about Hernandez. PSG just buy everyone, then don't use them. I'm always find 5 top players listed on the market by them.

Re. Getting youngsters poached - you'll need to sign the top ones down to pre contract deals as Bayern have a habit of poaching German newgens. I've been lucky a few times after forgetting and the youngsters chose to stay instead.

[batty1]

Some nice transfers there! Talking of Kuba I'm currently deciding on accepting a straight swap from Napoli for Insigne (mainly a striker but can play on the wings).

[john1]

That's still a great price. I sold him to Barca for €48mil, not sure of FM exchange rate but should be around £41-42mil. You've done well, plenty of spending money.

Shame about Hernandez. PSG just buy everyone, then don't use them. I'm always find 5 top players listed on the market by them.

Re. Getting youngsters poached - you'll need to sign the top ones down to pre contract deals as Bayern have a habit of poaching German newgens. I've been lucky a few times after forgetting and the youngsters chose to stay instead.

Man City mostly buys everyone on my game, they won CL 3 times in a row I believe and got players like Muller, Gotze, Mata, Hamsik.

[tomtuck01]

Some nice transfers there! Talking of Kuba I'm currently deciding on accepting a straight swap from Napoli for Insigne (mainly a striker but can play on the wings).

Depends how often he plays and how he performs for you. I know some have sold him fairly sharpish, but for me he has been magic in the first half of my opening season.

[batty1]

He played quite regularly in the first half, but in the 2nd half I tweaked my tactics slightly and played Reus on the right and Groskreutz on the left.

[john1]

November 2015

Shocking loss to Gala, we was **** poor and deserve to lose. Bayern absolutely ripped us to pieces. Mixed feeling to the month to be honest. Now we got to try and beat Man City for any chance of finishing in top 2 Jovetic and Reus injury have disrupted the team.

Table

[tomtuck01]

In that case I'd probably take the deal.

[batty1]

Decided against the deal! So at the moment I'm looking for a CB and possibly two strikers but certainly one and a RB/LB, have around £60M to spend

[Ryknow]

Oczipka could be a cheap backup option. All depends on the timing, I got him fairly cheap and he's very good going forward. Depends if you mean a backup LB/RB or first team one. I got Jung and Oczipka as my back up options second season.

Volland, Lukaku, De Jong as forwards?

Ginter, Bell or Sokratis as CB?

I'd avoid swap deals as you could get a good few for Kuba and invest it elsewhere.

Who have you brought in, and who are your targets?

My FM13 knowledge is limited to the Bundesliga somewhat.

[batty1]

Squad is as follows

GK:- Weidenfeller, Langerak

RB:- Piszczek

LB:- Schmelzer

CB: Hummels, Subotic, Gunter

CM: Sahin, Bender, Gundogan, Rode

AMR:- Reus, Kuba
AML:- Schurrle, Grosskreutz
AMC:- Gotze, Leitner

ST: Schieber

So yeah still have £60M to spend. I'm certainly looking at Volland, as I like the interchangeable German attacking players

[john1]

Squad is as follows

GK:- Weidenfeller, Langerak

RB:- Piszczek

LB:- Schmelzer

CB: Hummels, Subotic, Gunter

CM: Sahin, Bender, Gundogan, Rode

AMR:- Reus, Kuba
AML:- Schurrle, Grosskreutz
AMC:- Gotze, Leitner

ST: Schieber

So yeah still have £60M to spend. I'm certainly looking at Volland, as I like the interchangeable German attacking players

Why not try Podolski?

[batty1]

Good shout with Podolski but hes not interested.

[Ryknow]

And he'd prob ask for over €100k pw and huge bonuses. Well he did for me, not worth it in my opinion.

You're set in the midfield, what happened to Bittencourt?

Your first job is deciding on your number 9. Need to find 2-3 targets to pursue before they got bought by someone else.

You didn't get any bosmans?

[batty1]

Loaned Bittencourt out to Mainz (who I have in the Super Cup), he'll be a first team regular there. Nope no bosmans.

[john1]

I would definitely keep him of him if I was you, Batty1 He's great player for me and is currently injured

[batty1]

Don't worry I intend to, just wanted him to get some top flight experience

[john1]

Knocked out of Champions League Lost 2-1 to Man City and Gala won their match. Frigging gutted.

[Ryknow]

Knocked out of Champions League Lost 2-1 to Man City and Gala won their match. Frigging gutted.

Damn. The UCL group Stage? You get 3rd spot?

[john1]

Damn. The UCL group Stage? You get 3rd spot?

Yup, going into Europa League now, Not happy at all, I thought we could get the top 2 spot but team didn't turn up against Gala.

I'm determined to strengthen the team next season and gun blazing for Champions League.

[batty1]

Unlucky John! We just threw a 2 goal lead against Mainz in the super cup away and lost on pens.

[Ryknow]

Yup, going into Europa League now, Not happy at all, I thought we could get the top 2 spot but team didn't turn up against Gala.

I'm determined to strengthen the team next season and gun blazing for Champions League.

Yeah that sucks. Look at the positives, you can win a trophy you normally would never qualify for.

[john1]

Well....... this is out of blue!!

They just sacked Mourinho. Villa-Boas was favourite to take over the job and I wasn't mentioned at all lol.

I'm more like to say up yours Man Utd but what shall I do?

EDIT: They offering 54K p/w on 5 years contract which I am on 28K p/w and they want to play attacking football and use the youth academy.

[Ryknow]

I can never leave a club I'm with because I build with a long term view. Been offered contracts from Liverpool, Chelsea and Bayern. I made an alternative save file when Bayern approached but doubt I'd ever use it, and don't enjoy managing in England.

Make an alternative save incase you get bored at BVB.

[john1]

I asked Dortmund for new contract and they have offered me a new contract with same wage and until 2020.

[batty1]

Just waiting for Insigne to arrive for £10.75M (only £2M more than his value) and that will be my summer transfer business over!

[tomtuck01]

Just waiting for Insigne to arrive for £10.75M (only £2M more than his value) and that will be my summer transfer business over!

That's a corking deal!

[batty1]

I think so too. Wasn't even transfer listed but saw Arsenal have a bid of the same value accepted so thought I'd have a go and he chose me! Also even managed to flog Schieber

[tomtuck01]

I think so too. Wasn't even transfer listed but saw Arsenal have a bid of the same value accepted so thought I'd have a go and he chose me! Also even managed to flog Schieber

I don't mind Schieber in all honesty, makes for a decent back up.

[Ryknow]

Just waiting for Insigne to arrive for £10.75M (only £2M more than his value) and that will be my summer transfer business over!

Not as your main striker though? Never win a header haha. Good price though!

You'll have to post your transfer dealings when you have a chance. Be interested to see how you went.

[john1]

Turned down Man Utd job and accepted new contract with Dortmund I'm at Dortmund for long term and hoping to get a stadium named after me.

[Ryknow]

I did that in FM12. Was so proud, 130,000 seater stadium! Hopefully can do it again, although I like the Westfalenstadion.

In FM12 you could have it expanded, doesn't look like it in this version.

[john1]

I don't think you can either

[batty1]

After winning the Bundesliga and the DFB Pokal last season, I'm looking to add the Champions League to that this year. Anyway here's my transfer dealings.

IN

Hendrik Bonmann - RW Essen - Free - Hes a non regen GK, 19 years old, looks nothing special. Not sure when my head of youth developement made an offer for him.

Andre Schurrle - Leverkusen - £12M - Had already agreed this deal before the summer. Quite the coupe imo, look forward to see how Gotze, Reus and Schurrle link up.

Sebastien Rode - Frankfurt - £8.25M - Snapped him up as soon as Frankfurt got relegated. Should be a good rotation option for my BWM slot, fairly decent price too

Kevin Volland - Hoffenheim - £18.5M - Quite a steep price, but he always is I think. Decent young German striker fairly versatile too.

Bastian Oczipka - Frankfurt - £6.25M - That was his min release fee for higher division clubs. Should be a decent back up to Schmelzer. (Cheers for the suggestion Ryknow)

Gino Peruzzi - Velez - £6M - I know I wanted to stay with HG players but he seemed a better option than Jung and threw his toys out the pram when Velez rejected my first offer

Neal Maupay - OCG Nice - £7M - A lot for a 17 year old but I've heard good things about him.

Marquinhos - Roma - £10M - Looked to be a better option than Santana and I've never used him before.

Lorenzo Insigne - Napoli - £10.75M - Got him for a reasonable price and again I've never used him so look forward to him running rings around Badstauber and Boateng.

OUT

Zakaria Bakkali - Anderlecht - Loan

Leonardo Bittencourt - Mainz - Ln Fee £55K pm -Wasn't going to get much first team action this year and Mainz said they'd give him a lot of first team Bundesliga football

Marvin Bakalorz - Aue - £130K

Robert Lewandowski - Barcelona - £45M -Would have been mad to turn that fee down, it payed for 3 more strikers with a bit of cash left over

Felipe Santana - Zenit - £10M - -Again a damn decent price, may have been quick but wasn't impressed with his mentals. (Marquinhos has better)

Mustafa Amini - Kaiserslautern - Ln Fee £4.5K p/m

Julian Schieber - Deportivo - £4.8M He was ok when called up on but thought I'd sell him anyway

[john1]

Decent transfers dealing there Looking forward how Schurrle does for you.

[john1]

Man Utd came back and offered me the job and turned down straight away.

[batty1]

Safe to say Pep didn't expect this in his first game in charge of Bayern haha

[numero uno gunner]

@batty1 - Maupay and Volland wont let you down. Glad to see you have opted for creating the 'Four Germigos' as well! Be interesting to see how Rode does, I'm still trying to make a decision on whether or not to bring him in. I think it'll come down to price.

@john1 - I had Chelsea offer me a job out of the blue three quarters of the way through the season I won the Champions League. I made them wait until the end of the season, and then turned them down. The Arsenal job came up two weeks later, and that was hard not to apply for. Its strange really, I set out in this save with the ambition to do well enough at Newcastle to land a top job (which I did) and then use that as a platform to try to win the league in the five main European leagues (England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France). Now I'm not sure I can ever see myself leaving Dortmund. Funny really.

@Ryknow - Good season review, and interesting transfer dealings. Good luck in your quest for the Champions League!

I'm going to load my game up now, hopefully finalise my squad ready for the season ahead. I've already brought in some future prospects, who I think will end up playing for BVB II this season, despite their tender 17 years.

[john1]

@john1 - I had Chelsea offer me a job out of the blue three quarters of the way through the season I won the Champions League. I made them wait until the end of the season, and then turned them down. The Arsenal job came up two weeks later, and that was hard not to apply for. Its strange really, I set out in this save with the ambition to do well enough at Newcastle to land a top job (which I did) and then use that as a platform to try to win the league in the five main European leagues (England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France). Now I'm not sure I can ever see myself leaving Dortmund. Funny really.

Yeah, I think it would be a such a waste to leave when you're building the team for the future with Dortmund, I also got decent backroom staff as well.

[tomtuck01]

Well seen as I've been fairly active in here over the past few days I thought I best post an update of how my save is going!

--------------------------

First off, here's a pretty picture of the kits that I decided to change in the editor. No idea why I did it really, just fancied a change;

Secondly, the other things I decided to change in the editor were a couple of the youngsters, (Jonas Hofmann has been improved a touch as now in real life he is in the first team squad, and I have changed Eric Durm's position to reflect that he has now been converted into a fullback), and also I've put in Mario Goetze's transfer to Bayern into the game, so come the end of the season he will be leaving me for the sum of £32million. (Works out at around €38million I believe).

Transfers

The only sale was that of Felipe Santana. He has very good technical defensive stats, but christ I didn't like the look of the rest of him especially mentally.

The whole fee for Santana was upfront, and because of that I was able to stretch the budget further by paying for the players I brought in over X amount of months rather than fee's all at once.

Toby Alderweireld came in to add competiton to the backline, with just £2.5million of the fee paid upfront. And Leandro Paredes I see very much as the long term replacement for the outgoing Goetze. Just £1million of his fee was paid upfront. The other lads brought in are for the future, including Mitchell Djiks, whose loan will be made permanent.

Tactics And Preseason

Well tactically I went for a 4-2-3-1 shape, as I pressume many have. However, I decided to deploy two DM's instead of two CM's as they offer great defensive cover. Here is how it all lines up;

The usual strategy is "Control", but I do change that to "Counter" for certain games.

Preseason was not to my taste as there were a couple friendlies in there I could't cancel. Add to the fact that alot of players were away until late July, it meant I had a bit of an unfit squad for the Super Cup final against Bayern. Be that as it may, we played very well and should have won it. However, as 2-1 up with seconds remaining we conceded a 92nd minute penalty. Cchweinsteiger scored to take things to penalties, which Bayern duly won.

After the Bayern game we went on a rather poor tour to England, however, I was happy enough as players got some match practice heading into the campaign.

Could have been worse I suppose.

Bundesliga

Well things have gone well so far. We have been excellent at home, winning all of our matches. Away from home things have been a bit stickier, but we've still picked up three wins from from eight games. The result against Bayern was unfortunate, after all, we finished the game with nine men!

Plenty of hope for the second half of the season that we could well lift the title.

DFB-Pokal

Well I may rotated things a bit, but we still haven't really delivered performances that have been anywhere near good enough. We had to wait to get the breakthrough against Bielefeld and when we did we got three. We then struggled past Paderborn despite an early goal, and were then staring exit in the face against Dresden before been rescued by Schieber and Grosskreutz in extra time.

Still, we have made it rhough to the quarters, where we face Sandhausen at home.

Champions League

Fair enough we didn't get the toughest of groups, but I was delighted with the manner in which we qualified for the next round. We put in a few very good performances, but the greatest was without a doubt away against Porto as we came from behind to snatch victory. The result on the final matchday was pleasing aswell as I rested a few players, but we still destroyed Kiev 4-0.

In the next round we face Malaga, with the first leg away from home in Spain.

--------------------------

That's it for now. the next update will probably be at the end of the season.

[phoenixemperor]

Time for a 3rd season review

No three-peat for you Barca!

I like the difference Ter Stegen made in the goals conceded and less draws

Hummels, Reus and Ter Stegen the standout stars in my opinion. Adam Krzak was increasingly impressive in his appearances and even played 65 minutes of a CL Final at 17 and acquitted himself just fine, a future superstar there

Now let's see how our title defences go with the additions of Jack Wilshere, Kurt Zouma and Seydou Doumbia already arranged.

[numero uno gunner]

Bit of a crazy transfer deadline day for us!

Plattenhardt has come in for £1.7m from Nurnburg to provide cover due to Ademola's injury.

Rode has joined for £15m from Leverkusen, and will provide competition for Bender in the BWM position in the centre of midfield, allowing me to make Goretzka a box to box player.

Sippel has also come in for £6.25m, to provide back up to Kawashima, and allow me to give Volpicelli some game time for BVB II.

Cuenca has left for AC Milan for £6.75m. I didn't really have space for him in my squad, as he wasn't home-grown, and now I can give Vukasinovic some serious game time.

Karanka has gone on loan to Villareal in La Liga, which will give him top flight experience.

Lewandowski (a central midfield regen, not the Polish striker) has joined him in La Liga at Getafe.

Manuel Adam has gone East, joining CSKA on loan who have offered to play him at AML, and make him a valuable first team player, which is what I wanted.

Really happy with my squad now. The plan is to see how we get on without De Jong upfront, with the potential to move him on next summer. My issue with that is that I really like him, and he hit a goal a game last season. I'm doing the same with Halilovic, using Lazarou instead. Essentially, with the exception of Kawashima, who has been developed with us so is practically home grown anyway, I'm trialling a home-grown squad (or players who will be home-grown when they have been here long enough). Fingers crossed my faith in the project is rewarded...

[Ryknow]

Congrats and thanks to everyone posting in this thread and making it active. Good to have somewhere to discuss our saves with other BVB players.

Batty1: Good transfer there. Who you planning on being the number 9?

Hopefully Oczipka gives you as good form as he did with me. Remember he can play LM and LW rather well. I was impressed with him at LM as a winger and even a wide midfielder. The latter he'd cut in and score a few. He has an extremely high cross attribute so take advantage of that, usually from deep. Last season as backup he had 9 assists in 15 appearances from LB.

As número uno gunner said, Volland won't let you down and he develops really well. Maupay looks great on my save and he's still at OFC Nice. His deal ends this season so I might try and get him.

Also, props on getting £10mil for Santana! And, good prices for Schürrle and Rode.

Tomtuck01: Nice midseason update. You got lucky with that UCL group draw, but still good results v Porto. They are really good in my game.

Phoenixemperor: Congrats on the UCL and BuLi wins! Ter Stegen truly is a god for me too. So impressive.

Have you posted an image of Adam Krzak? 17 yrs old and 3 star CA, that's like Lepper(my newgen) in my game. He's already starting games. Probably get less game time now Lars Bender has joined.

Número uno gunner: Well done on getting so close to your project. Now that I can finally play my first intake as they're 17, I'm looking at promoting as many as I can. With the view to having all German/German born HG first team, eventually full squad, with a few exceptions probably. German ratio is now 68% so at least I met a target from my original post. Also, I have no British or Spanish players. However, Bale is listed for only €35mil....haha

[tomtuck01]

Tomtuck01: Nice midseason update. You got lucky with that UCL group draw, but still good results v Porto. They are really good in my game.

I quite agree we were fortunate - even with Porto, I dont think I could have had an easier group.

On another note, I've agreed a deal for Henrikh Mkhitaryan to join in the summer for just £11.75million. Can't believe he decided to join us ahead of Man City and PSG!

Goetze's replacement, or something else........

[Ryknow]

That's a good fee as he always joins PSG in saves I've had for around £16mil.

Very versatile being able to play MC, AMC and ST and has the attributes for all those positions.

And re. Your group, I thought I had an easy one last season, Sporting CP, Shakhtar and Anderlecht. Finished with the same record as you, 16 wins and 1 draw. Least this season Man Utd will test us.

[batty1]

Talking of Champions League, I just got battered away at damn Liverpool. Somehow Downing scored 2 headers and Griezmann 1 header for 3 of their goals. Fuming an shell shocked.