[FM17] A Journeyman Story: Knocking José Mourinho Off His Perch

[noikeee]

5 minutes ago, Slipky said:

Could you check how Rolando Mandragora is doing in your save? Italian.

On Topic: Great progress with your career. Doing something similar, but too far into the story to start telling about it now.

Rolando Mandragora

The name sounds familiar, I think my scouts recommended him whilst I was at Twente. He just gained a 15.5M€ move from Empoli to Napoli, after 4 pretty good seasons for Empoli in Serie A (ratings between 7.01 - 7.15 every season). Also has just been capped for the first time.

It's not too late to start a thread, I've seen people do quick reviews of the seasons gone past, then start updating more in depth with what's going on at present.

[Slipky]

1 minute ago, noikeee said:

Rolando Mandragora

The name sounds familiar, I think my scouts recommended him whilst I was at Twente. He just gained a 15.5M€ move from Empoli to Napoli, after 4 pretty good seasons for Empoli in Serie A (ratings between 7.01 - 7.15 every season). Also has just been capped for the first time.

It's not too late to start a thread, I've seen people do quick reviews of the seasons gone past, then start updating more in depth with what's going on at present.

Cheers, but I've already got something new in the works

[noikeee]

 

August-September 2024

 

Transfers

 

We sold centre-back Robin Knoche for 1.8M€ to free up some funds for a kid that might arrive later, loaned out a few kids, and took on another kid on loan for ourselves:

 

 

He's just an extra squad option as I thought we needed a 5th striker as we sometimes use a 3-striker formation.

 

 

Competitions

 

 

After the friendlies, my introduction to real German football was a 16-0 win over a tiny club in the cup. Jesus!!! Fabián López introduced himself to Germany with a spectacular 6 goals on debut. We're unlikely to repeat the 16-0 scoreline in the next round as we'll meet Wolfsburg.

 

We got going on the league pretty good too, with a 4-2 win over Freiburg, Daniel de Pablo getting an hat-trick from the AMC position. Away at Hannover we could only draw, and we had to sweat to beat Mainz 3-2 with a late José Paredes winner in the 87th. Away to Schalke wasn't an easy fixture but I came back home disappointed with just a goalless draw as they'd had a man sent off; and we finished September with an utterly ridiculous tie vs Stuttgart - we created an unbelievable 12 clear cut chances (!!!!) but converted only 2, our forwards on dismal form and the midfielders doing their job instead.

 

 

It's a pretty strong start to my adventure in Germany, but I feel we've been a little flattered by the calendar, and the weaknesses of the squad here and there are noticeable on the pitch. Still I can only be happy with an early 3rd place in the table.

[BoxToBox]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

My first official match in charge of HSV.  I've never seen anything like this in FM17 before.

edit: it's a new club and competition record, too. Bayern once won 16-1 in 1997.

Christ!

[Rikulec]

10:0 at the break if I counted correctly.

[noikeee]

3 hours ago, Rikulec said:

10:0 at the break if I counted correctly.

Yeah I think it was 10-0 at half-time.  I was expecting it to go FM15-style and finish 10-0 with no more goals in the 2nd half as the team would get back into the pitch on complacent mood, but they just kept on scoring.

Perhaps we could've got even more, but I put on my boring, overly sensible manager hat and told them to "take a breather", "stand on feet" and "retain possession".

[CamillePunk]

Just read this from the start, absolutely fun read and looking forward to seeing what you accomplish in Germany.

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, CamillePunk said:

Just read this from the start, absolutely fun read and looking forward to seeing what you accomplish in Germany.

Thanks! I've been having fun playing it too! I think this is already my favourite career since the FM12 days. It's either this or my FM15 CSKA Sofia save.

I did have 2 lenghty journeymans with both FM15 and FM16 but there was something missing there. FM15 was a bit silly with too many goals and unrealistic tactics (and lots of annoying unhappy players on that version of the game!), FM16 on the contrary too dull and I couldn't quite figure out consistent winning ways.

My main goal now with Mourinho too distant to catch up, is to add a Champions League trophy to the Libertadores, I've never done both in the same career. And I've not won the Champions League since FM12 actually!

[deltablue]

Decent start in Germany.

[Benjoe]

That's also a way of destroying Heimstetten's morale forever. #RuiningGermanLives

 Any of the young Ivorians you want to add to your squad - apart of the 2 you already have?

[noikeee]

7 hours ago, deltablue said:

Decent start in Germany.

Could've gone worse!

3 hours ago, Benjoe said:

That's also a way of destroying Heimstetten's morale forever. #RuiningGermanLives

 Any of the young Ivorians you want to add to your squad - apart of the 2 you already have?

Eh, not really, at least I am not planning to. Maybe I could go for the left-back Gnahoua because he's such a bargain. However the brutal reality is that he's probably just a touch below of the level I want my HSV players to be at, so I've been saving my funds for more rounded players (and I've got one guy lined up for January who I want to turn into a left-back).

Come to think of it, that applies to the 2 kids I hired already. They're probably not good enough if I want to dominate the Bundesliga. However we're so crap at the back at the moment that they're both squad players, and N'Guessan is legitimately running to be a starter centre-back.

[noikeee]

Daniel de Pablo finally becomes a Uruguay international. 

Quite a few recognizable names there in Uruguay's squad! I've highlighted all of those that were part of the Nacional talent factory back then when I was there!

[Benjoe]

Great to see the legacy left behind by Dos Santos is impacting the national team. 

Although it is sad to see Acosta at Leverkusen and not with you at HSV.

[noikeee]

36 minutes ago, Benjoe said:

Great to see the legacy left behind by Dos Santos is impacting the national team. 

Although it is sad to see Acosta at Leverkusen and not with you at HSV.

Would've been nice to see the Class of '19 reunited and playing together, but I wasn't particularly interested in Acosta, certainly not at the price Twente would let him go for, so he ended up at Leverkusen. I think he's good but not world class and for example I rate Martín Merlo a little higher - with him being stuck in Mexico there's good odds I might be able to poach him when I get some more funds.

Another forward that wasn't called up this time, but often is, is Daniel Fernández (who used to pair Merlo upfront for my Nacional team). From memory he's been playing in Italy for a while, although not as successfully as I expected after completely tearing up South America.

[noikeee]

Btw, I'd love to see the Uruguay job opening up some time, so I can manage all of them together again!

[ManUtd1]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

Btw, I'd love to see the Uruguay job opening up some time, so I can manage all of them together again!

I've fallen back in love with managing national sides in this year's version. No discernible reason, really, but I have. Especially when you've got a connection of some sort to key players. Hope you get the job at some point!

[Benjoe]

4 hours ago, noikeee said:

Would've been nice to see the Class of '19 reunited and playing together, but I wasn't particularly interested in Acosta, certainly not at the price Twente would let him go for, so he ended up at Leverkusen. I think he's good but not world class and for example I rate Martín Merlo a little higher - with him being stuck in Mexico there's good odds I might be able to poach him when I get some more funds.

Another forward that wasn't called up this time, but often is, is Daniel Fernández (who used to pair Merlo upfront for my Nacional team). From memory he's been playing in Italy for a while, although not as successfully as I expected after completely tearing up South America.

That's fair. What did Twente demand, sorry if you've told before. And how is Merlo and Daniel looking? 

And I agree with @ManUtd1, really hope you get the shot at Uruguay. 

[noikeee]

3 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

I've fallen back in love with managing national sides in this year's version. No discernible reason, really, but I have. Especially when you've got a connection of some sort to key players. Hope you get the job at some point!

I enjoyed managing in the Olympic Games but that was only a quick tournament, I only had to call up players once. In the past I found managing international sides could be a chore and make a save plod along. But I'm willing to give it a try again, specially if it's a particularly meaningful nation like Uruguay would be.

1 hour ago, Benjoe said:

That's fair. What did Twente demand, sorry if you've told before. And how is Merlo and Daniel looking? 

And I agree with @ManUtd1, really hope you get the shot at Uruguay. 

I never got to even bid for Acosta, I did send my scouts to see him but they told me he'd be available for some ridiculous value of 20M€+ so my interest faded immediately, with plenty of other higher priority areas in the squad to improve. Although I've now looked him up, it appears Leverkusen managed to get him for 14M€, but it can increase to 21M€ with clauses.

Merlo has been doing okay-but-not-brilliant in Mexico for a while:

I've just compared him to Acosta and it appears their skills are very similar at the moment, more so than I remembered with maybe even Acosta just marginally better - but Merlo's got a release clause of 11.75M€ so that's why it made no sense to hire Acosta for much more if I wanted to go for that kind of forward.

 

 

And this is Danigol:

Sadly he doesn't seem to be doing that well for Bologna, limited playing time this season. He also seems to have stalled a little, I compare him for example to the striker I did hire this Summer, Fabián López, they're both very similar but Fabián is plain superior.

[noikeee]

 

October-November 2024

 

Competitions

 

 

There was a slight inconvenience as we went to Frankfurt draw 0-0, but we continued on a high note. 2-0 over Köln, a magnificent 5-1 away win at Wolfsburg with midfielder José Paredes shining with a brace and an assist, a 2-0 over Augsburg, and a very hard fought 3-2 away win over Leipzig with striker Marlos Moreno returning from injury with a spectacular hat-trick. That match marked our climb to 1st place in the Bundesliga!

 

Our winning run was still not over, with another excellent 3-0 now over Nürnberg. However, we now had our toughest challenge of the season so far, a trip to Dortmund. This finally ended our status as the only unbeaten team in the league, and rather abruptly, with a 3-0 loss. Nevertheless, thanks to Leverkusen drawing away at Freiburg the same day, we remain top.

 

In the cup, we hosted Wolfsburg just days after we trashed them in the league, but this time we could only score once as they parked the bus. Nevertheless we continue, and will play away to Hoffenheim next (only in February!), who just got relegated from the Bundesliga last season.

 

 

I'm pretty shocked at how easy this beginning of the season has been. The fact most of the Bundesliga at the moment lines up in 4-4-2 plays perfectly into our hands - on the Originals (3-4-2-1) we handle 4-4-2s very well, particularly aided by our superb duo of holding midfielders I've hired, Benjamín Fontanella and specially José Paredes who is on silly form.

 

Bayern having a dismal season is helping too - they've won every single season during my career bar 2022 (gone to Leverkusen - they're no longer Neverkusen), but this season they hired Jurgen Klopp and are performing way below their potential (exhibit A | exhibit B | exhibit C). This has allowed us to burst into what seems like an early 3-way fight for the championship, between us, Leverkusen (of Cristhian Acosta!), and Dortmund.

[Lenzar]

16-0 :o

And the guy who scored 6 wasn't even MoM

[noikeee]

Bit of random news through the winter break:

[noikeee]

On 10/05/2017 at 22:42, Lenzar said:

16-0 :o

And the guy who scored 6 wasn't even MoM

Strange yes, but that was because Marlos Moreno got 3 goals and 5 assists.  

[noikeee]

 

December 2024-January 2025

 

Transfers

 

A quiet transfer period, as we ran out of transfer funds, saw 2 youngsters arrive and 2 leave. DM Alessandro Rossi was loaned out, whilst more controversially, I decided to sell "promising striker" Alexander Christiansen, who is 16 years old, for a relative low fee of 325K€ (potentially 600K€ with clauses). The problem is that the kid has "Casual" personality and wouldn't allow himself to be tutored by just about nobody, whilst also not developing much despite his large potential on paper. This way I'm trusting Hertha to develop him instead, and I do keep a 50% profit of next sale clause, plus a buy back clause of 1.4M€ so I did cover our backs in case he comes good. We also have plenty of prospects so should not miss him.

 

The 2 kids that arrived:

 

 

I am hugely excited about this guy, dunno why my staff don't see mega potential, but I think he could grow to be extremely versatile and my idea is to retrain him to LWB, just like I did with Axel Müller a few years back!!

 

 

 

A lesser profile deal, I got him for just 120K€, don't expect him to make the first team but should probably grow a bit, enough for us to make a profit on him a couple years on.

 

Competitions

 

 

After the heavy defeat to Dortmund to finish November, we entered December on low morale and suffered our 2nd consecutive loss, the 2nd all season, to Hertha at home, 2-0. Which also gave Dortmund the table lead. It seemed like the wheels were about to fall off the wagon, but then Fabián López decided to have a superb month. 2 goals vs Gladbach gave us the away win, another 2 vs Leverkusen gave us an extremely valuable win over title rivals AND the return to the Bundesliga 1st place as Dortmund lost to Schalke in the derby. But Fabián wasn't finished. He scored the only goal in the local derby against Bremen, after we had been down to 10 men (!); and then surpassed himself with a magnificent hat-trick against Bayern in a hugely difficult match to finish 2024 before the mini-Winter-break. Unfortunately, despite us going 3-0 up against Bayern, we let their talented squad tie it and squandered the 3 goal lead.

 

Nevertheless we went into the break top of the table - just barely ahead of Dortmund - and when we returned, after drawing with Bayern again in a friendly, we beat Freiburg away 2-0 with both goals in the 2nd half, to retain 1st place. New teenager signing Rafael Rogowski picked up an assist on his debut here!

 

 

We keep up at the front, and in better condition as Leverkusen have spectacularly fallen apart, leaving us in a close battle only with Dortmund, although Wolfsburg are not that far. Whichever way this goes, this has already been a surprisingly successful season for the club, I wasn't even aiming at a Champions League spot just yet, but can we actually remain top for the rest of the season and claim the title?

[ManUtd1]

Rogowski looks tremendous, man. Even I'm excited about him...

[Northernpilgrim]

Great first half of the season. KUTGW!!

[noikeee]

On 2017-5-13 at 02:06, ManUtd1 said:

Rogowski looks tremendous, man. Even I'm excited about him...

This was pretty much my reaction when the transfer was confirmed.

On 2017-5-13 at 09:02, Northernpilgrim said:

Great first half of the season. KUTGW!!

Thanks!

[noikeee]

My handling of finances perhaps hasn't been quite optimal this season:

 

Meanwhile, after realizing there appears to be a lot of world class Portuguese players around, I went to check what happened with our national team over the last decade...

Umm, wow. 

[Benjoe]

Rogowski for 1m euro is a huge steal. I think he'll be great at LWB especially with his mental attributes and 18 technique. *drool* 

[noikeee]

 

Youth intake 2025

 

 

 

 

 

A good intake, although I'm finding it hard to adjust to judging 14 year old players. My staff think the keeper Emanuel Ramos is the star here, but I think the left-back Amer Hagic is just as good if not better. Interesting that 2 of the best players are Portuguese, I wonder if that's because of my own nationality.

[noikeee]

7 minutes ago, Benjoe said:

Rogowski for 1m euro is a huge steal. I think he'll be great at LWB especially with his mental attributes and 18 technique. *drool* 

He could do with a bit more pace, though.

For now he's been playing as a sub in the midfield. It's taking a while for his LWB position to become at least orange.

[noikeee]

 

February-March 2025

 

 

Competitions

 

 

It's been too close for comfort in the Bundesliga in these 2 months, with a few swings between us and Dortmund at the top. We beat Hannover 3-1 then dropped points at Mainz, although still retained the lead, but not anymore once Schalke came to our home and beat us rather assertively 3-1. We were now chasing Dortmund, and did well by winning away at Stuttgart 2-0, two 2nd half goals, and then repeating the result at home to Frankfurt, with Algerian striker Djamel Benahmed getting a rare 2 goals. Dortmund slipped this week, and we returned top... but only for this week. This because we then lost at Köln, defeated on the 87th minute and against the run of play. Wins over Wolfsburg (surprisingly comfortable) and Augsburg (very difficult, with a 81st minute winner) did not allow us to move back up as Dortmund now resist the pressure.

 

Perhaps a factor in our league slip-ups were two 120 minute cup thrillers, before both league defeats. In the Round of 16 we went to Hoffenheim, and let them equalize after our routine scorer Fabián López had scored the first. 1-1 it was and it remained even after extra-time, and it went to penalties. Plenty of players missed their kicks as we let 2 chances of grabbing victory slip away, but still somehow won the penalty shootout. We would not be as lucky in the quarter-finals against Schalke. This time it was our opponents that went 1-0 up for Fabián López to equalize, but we ran out of legs in extra-time and let Schalke score again. Cup run over at the quarter-finals.

 

 

In this restless league campaign, as ever things remain very close upfront - but Dortmund now has the lead. I would put them as favourites - they have goal difference advantage if we end up tied at the end; and we now have a very difficult calendar for the remaining 8 fixtures, including a trip to Munich to play Bayern in the final day, and a trip to Leverkusen 2 weeks earlier. However we also host Dortmund themselves earlier in April. Stay tuned for what seems to be building up to an exciting end to the Bundesliga season.

[deltablue]

Football, Eurovision, is there anything you guys can't do?

[ManUtd1]

15 minutes ago, deltablue said:

Football, Eurovision, is there anything you guys can't do?

Crochet an exact likeness of Bobby Mankini using barbeque tongs.

It always ends up looking like Mike Summerbee. I'm not sure where we're going wrong. It's very frustrating. 

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, deltablue said:

Football, Eurovision, is there anything you guys can't do?

It gets worse. Dortmund is managed at the moment by José Barros (Leonardo Jardim's assistant in real life). Guess where he's from.

Portugal dominating German football. 

49 minutes ago, ManUtd1 said:

Crochet an exact likeness of Bobby Mankini using barbeque tongs.

It always ends up looking like Mike Summerbee. I'm not sure where we're going wrong. It's very frustrating. 

I suppose it's art, either way.

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, deltablue said:

Football, Eurovision, is there anything you guys can't do?

Keep Hull up, but then I don't think anyone could have.

[ManUtd1]

18 minutes ago, noikeee said:

I suppose it's art, either way.

There is a surprisingly strong market on eBay for crocheted Summerbees.

There are some questions best left unanswered.

[Darius1998]

15 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

Keep Hull up, but then I don't think anyone could have.

Silva did a better job than most. Maybe with a non-Portuguese manager, they would have gone down earlier.

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, DB08 said:

Silva did a better job than most. Maybe with a non-Portuguese manager, they would have gone down earlier.

Reckon if he had a full season, they wouldn't have even been in a relegation battle, to be honest. He did do an excellent job regardless.

[noikeee]

I've been away for about a week or so, but matches like this might just convince me to come back:

[Benjoe]

Welcome back, @noikeee! Where have you been?  

And quite the performance from López!

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, Benjoe said:

Welcome back, @noikeee! Where have you been?  

And quite the performance from López!

I've not gone anywhere really, just haven't been feeling like playing FM much lately.

Fabián López has been so ridiculous this season that it didn't even feel like anything out of the ordinary for him.  He's on 40 goals now.

[noikeee]

 

April-May 2025

 

 

Competitions

 

 

We were in pursuit of Dortmund for 1st place but not on great form and suffered two setbacks at the beginning of April - a home defeat to RB Leipzig, and an away draw at Nürnberg. With the next match being 1st vs 2nd as we hosted Dortmund, we HAD to win if we were to still maintain any realistic hopes of the title. Instead, Dortmund crushed us. They opened a 2 goal lead, let us stage a bit of a comeback as we scored twice too and equalized... only for Dortmund to finish off the match with 2 more. This gave them a 7 point lead and our dream of becoming German champions was pretty much over.

 

A 3-1 away win at Hertha was much needed to insert some morale, and then we backed that up with that utterly insane, bizarre, exhilarating 8-4 win over Gladbach. Woah! Fabián López scored just the odd 8 goals in these 2 matches... However, he was injured for a difficult trip to Leverkusen, and we lost. In the penultimate fixture, a 3-0 win over Bremen was bittersweet: in the same day Dortmund were confirmed as champions, but we also clinched 2nd place and a Champions League spot right there.

 

This made us free to experiment with some academy youngsters in the final match. Unfortunately for our kids, it was the toughest match all season, away to Bayern Munich. I expected a defeat but not a shocking 7-1 - the only positive was that 18 year old forward Andreas Bastian scored on his club debut.

 

 

This turned out to be a bit anti-climatic - we just progressively faded through the later stages of this league campaign and couldn't keep up, as opponents also became warier of us which made things trickier, and makes me think we need to sign a few players if I want to keep this team at this level. Nevertheless, 2nd place and staying in the league fight until the penultimate day, is far beyond what I'd set out to do this season. I'll take it...

[noikeee]

 

Season review 2024/25

 

HSV's 2nd place in the Bundesliga is a sharp improvement from last year's 11th, and the best position the club has managed since 1987. It's also a return to the Champions League - the club actually qualified once not that long ago, after a surprise 4th position in 2020, but prior to that you'd have to rewind another 14 years.

 

 

Finances

 

An enormous ~87M€ prize money payment has now suddenly ramped us up from a dismal balance nearing -30M€, and on course to fail FFP, into a luxurious positive 57M€. The yo-yo nature of the massive Bundesliga prize makes it hard to read these financial records.

 

 

Statistics, best 11, and top 5 players of the season

 

 

5. Benjamín Fontanella (MC) - The Catalan on loan from Barcelona played an understated, unspectacular role at the base of midfield - so for him to achieve one of the team's highest ratings (7.20) is truly remarkable and speaks volumes of just how brilliantly talented he is. We might be in trouble if Barcelona declines to keep him loaned.

 

4. Marlos Moreno (ST, AMC) - His performances don't make sense. An ordinary striker on paper for this level - with not a single attribute above 15 - he nevertheless excelled with 14 goals and 18 assists. Was just sublime earlier in the season but then tailed off for a while.

 

3. José Paredes (MC) - Quite simply the best midfielder I've managed in my career so far, and probably the most talented player in this squad. Bought from Real for a daft 9M€ at the beginning of the season, he completely repayed my faith, by far exceeding the requirements for his role as I set him as a transition midfielder, or more rarely in more adventurous systems as a CM/A, by scoring 9 goals and 8 assists. I'm in danger of losing him as I had to agree to a 41.5M€ release clause (to clubs in the Champions League) when I signed him - would still be a massive profit.

 

2. Russell Fillion (WBL, DL) - If Paredes was a great signing, Fillion was a ridiculous one - I still don't understand why PSG were willing to let him go for just 2,3M€. Now this Canadian youngster is quickly becoming one of the best players in the world in his position, and made an excellent 15 assists this season.

 

1. Fabián López (ST) - No contest, Fabián was clearly player of the year. Also a Summer signing (I got him from Pachuca for 14,5M€), he scored a crazy 41 goals in 36 appearances in his first season in Germany, 33 of them in the Bundesliga. Weirdly, that was not enough for him to become the league top scorer as Bayern's Dmitry Makeev got 36!! My only criticism of Fabián is that he's the kind of player that contributes little if he doesn't score, which reflects on his ratings which are great but below other strikers like Makeev, but should I really complain about a guy that scores this many?

 

 

Mourinho watch

 

Amusingly, it's so far a trophy-less season as Man Utd sensationally lose the Premier League on the final day by losing 3-2 away at Arsenal, which gives the title to... Man City. However, Mourinho is on the FA Cup final vs Bournemouth so can still get even more points advance over me.

 

 

Career progress table

 

Season   League                  Cups                              Continental                    Other
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Central Español (Uruguay)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016     Segunda Div - 4th       
2017     Segunda Div - 1st                                                                        Champions, promoted
2018     Camp. Uruguayo - 2nd (Ap. 4th, Int. finalists, Cl. 3rd)                                  Qualified for Libertadores
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nacional (Uruguay)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2019     Camp. Uruguayo - 1st (Ap. 4th, Int. Grps 2nd , Cl. 1st)   Libertadores 1st Pre. Rnd      Lost Champions Playoff
2020     Camp. Uruguayo - 1st (Ap. 2nd, Int. winners, Cl. 1st)     Libertadores winners           League+Int+Libertadores treble
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twente (Netherlands)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21  Eredivisie - 13th                                                                        Joined in December
2021/22  Eredivisie - 9th        KNVB Beker semi-final
2022/23  Eredivisie - 1st        KNVB Beker 3rd round                                             Champions
2023/24  Eredivisie - 1st        KNVB Beker winners, JCS winners   CL groups, EL semi-finals      Won domestic double+Supercup
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HSV (Germany)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2024/25  Bundesliga - 2nd        DFB-Pokal quarter final                                          Qualified for Champions League

 

[ManUtd1]

6 hours ago, noikeee said:

I've been away for about a week or so, but matches like this might just convince me to come back:

What a match! Definitely come back, man. The place is not the same without you!

 

[Rikulec]

Painful to end the season like that. I hope you'll come back stronger.

[deltablue]

Shame you dropped off the title pace late on.

[noikeee]

18 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

What a match! Definitely come back, man. The place is not the same without you!

 

12 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Painful to end the season like that. I hope you'll come back stronger.

Eh, it wasn't really all that painful. I kinda saw it coming for a while. Other than the final day 7-1 defeat, but that's kinda what I deserved after going away to Bayern Munich and fielding four 18/19 year old kids that had never played in the Bundesliga before. 

Painful was a few years ago in Uruguay when I lost 2 playoffs in a week to Peñarol.

1 hour ago, deltablue said:

Shame you dropped off the title pace late on.

Hey, what the hell is up with the new avatar??

[noikeee]

 

The HSV talent factory - 2025

 

Hey, remember the Nacional talent factory from a few years ago? I don't have a half-bad academy here in Germany neither!! Tîme to present this lot.

 

There is however one difference this time - I will be including a bunch of kids that were purchased from somewhere else, rather than produced in Hamburg, because that's some of our biggest prospects. Included players are anyone 20 years old or younger.

 

 

Group 1 - Players that have broken into the first team

 

None yet, although a few are on the verge of it.

 

 

Group 2 - Players that are on the brink of breaking into the first team

 

3 U20 players have gotten a fair bunch of minutes this season - but all are my recent signings, rather than HSV youth products:

 

 

 

The Ivorian wingback broke into the starting 11 for a while, but then lost the place again to Ales Mateju. He is evolving better than his fellow countryman N'Guessan and whilst the performances haven't been 100% convincing yet, I expect him to be a valuable first team member for the long term future.

 

 

 

Early on his retraining regime to WBL, he has been deployed more as midfielder so far, but hasn't quite shown his quality on the pitch yet. I consider him the greatest prospect in my squad, but a major problem might be the competition from the established star Russell Fillion as WBL.

 

 

 

A slightly disappointing first season in Germany, and he's starting to look like at best a future backup now, rather than a potential star. I just don't think he's as good as Coulibaly. Nevertheless with the dreadful lack of options we have for CB, he's had some (limited) playing time.

 

 

Group 3 - Players who are a little behind and may or may not make it

 

 

The most promising out of the real HSV youth products. Born a winger, as I don't field wingers and as his defensive abilities are poor and I don't see him as wingback, I'm turning him into a striker instead. He's got a long way to go, but did score on his debut vs Bayern.

 

 

 

There's talent here, but I'm not seeing exactly where can he fit in, with poor passing for a midfielder, and poor dribbling/finishing for a striker.

 

 

 

I kept him in the first team all year, but only unleashed him vs Bayern, with very heavy competition for the LB spot. To be honest I don't see him making it.

 

 

 

Not far from starting to get a few more first team appearances - this is a good holding midfielder with a good spread of attributes, but capped in potential.

 

 

 

A future backup keeper, but quite probably that's it.

 

 

 

Not a youth product as I hired him in January - he's a good stereotypical poacher-esque striker, but hasn't shown much progression yet.

 

 

Group 4 - 17 year olds and younger

 

 

More promising - this 17 year old kid would have the potential to become a fabulous CB if only for one key issue - poor jumping.

 

 

 

One of my biggest hopes! However he's actually not a youth product, bought from Köln last season under the previous manager. Köln will make 40% of the profit on his future transfer, he was signed for just 525K€...

 

 

 

Rather similar to Bastian Ammelung, as not a great fit in attributes for what I want for neither my midfielders or my strikers, but like Ammelung he does have talent.

 

 

 

A top class keeper in the making? I like him a lot.

 

 

 

Potentially a pretty good holding midfielder.

 

 

 

Younger than Ahlburg so obviously behind in development, but I think Ahlburg's a bigger prospect.

 

 

 

So young he's got a lifetime to develop. Could be a really good wing-back, but it's too early to tell.

 

 

 

I think there might be something here, but again, too early to tell.

[deltablue]

13 hours ago, noikeee said:

Hey, what the hell is up with the new avatar??

We're now free to choose our own instead of having the mod badges. This is also my Facebook profile picture so it seemed appropriate

[13-gigi]

15 hours ago, noikeee said:

 

 

Rather similar to Bastian Ammelung, as not a great fit in attributes for what I want for neither my midfielders or my strikers, but like Ammelung he does have talent.

Give it a thought as a holding midfielder. He's got pretty good bravery, work rate and teamwork, also he's tall for aerial game for those who want to pump the ball straight to your pitch. Plus, with an very aceptable strength, stamina, aggression he must be a perfect bully. just need little balance, technique and passing to be the next Touré Yaya. Instruct him to play short simple passes out of trouble with his low passing on a defence duty and he could give you some quality minutes of rest for your best bully plus the first stages of the cup.