[FM19] Schwarzwald Fußball

[zlatanera]

18th June 2018, Freiburg

Lars Gruber awoke in a cold sweat. It was all a dream? That doesn't seem possible, it was all so...real, so...him.

He took over Freiburg with a plan - to keep one of the coolest clubs in the Bundesliga cool whilst actually bringing some success, sticking to their identity of a progressive 4-4-2 and slowly building up both the club and the first team. For a time he did...but then Rashidi posted a video about a Libero and he got distracted, derailing the project for 2 seasons. When he got back on track he hoarded players in such an Italian style that there were approximately 140 on the books come summer 2023, too many to manage. But on the other hand he had just qualified for the Champions League!

And now...he'll have to start over, in real life. It'll be slower, but at least he'll know to do it right this time...

Edited December 30, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

The Club

SC Freiburg are one of the Bundesliga's smaller clubs, hailing from the south-west of Germany. Traditionally a bit of a yo-yo club, they have become one of those "well-run club" that you hear about whenever the owner of another does something crazy. The club have a commitment to developing youth and playing attractive football, seen in the starting philosophies of "Play Attacking Football" and "Sign Young Players", developing the likes of Matthias Ginter and Maximilian Philipp in recent years. Some nobody called Joachim Löw is one of the club legends and their leading scorer with 81 goals. Per @Jean-Luc they were historically ahead of the curve in moving towards a back four with an offside trap, and in pressing. When promoted under Volker Finke in the 1990s they earned the nickname Breisgau-Brasilianer due to their attractive playing style, and Finke went on to become the longest-serving coach in German football history before stepping down in 2007. 

The club plays at the 24,000 capacity Schwarzwald-Stadion, which is Germany's first solar-powered football stadium. Internally as you can see it has a bit of the look of an old-school Premier League ground. Interestingly the pitch is 5 metres shorter than UEFA's minimum standard and as such the club had to receive special dispensation to use it when they reached the Europa League qualifiers, I don't know if this is implemented in the game, or if the club would have to play home European matches elsewhere.

In FM:

The short pitch (101m) is one of only two that aren't the standard 105m, the other being Borussia Mönchengladbach's 111m x 72m Stadion. 

With Great Training and Youth facilities but basic corporate facilities the club clearly has its priorities right, Above average youth recruitment is good enough for the size of club but I would hope to improve on the adequate junior coaching. 

The club is projected to make some pretty impressive profits over the next three seasons, provided there isn't another relegation. This is no doubt helped by having nobody earning more than £13,750 / week. 

Edited December 30, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

The Manager

"

Lars Gruber (no relation) is a Freiburg native, but not a supporter. Born on leap day 1988 he will presumably be spared the inane "wouldn't it be nice for the opposition to give you a win on your birthday?" question., and at 30 years old is something of an elder statesman in a league thats dugouts often resemble a kindergarten. In the process of winning 20 caps and scoring 5 goals for Germany (all in friendlies) he spent time in France and England, and so is fluent in the language of all three nations. 

Having completed the highest qualifications available, Gruber is considered an excellent coach of football, but almost useless when it comes to "the weird guy at the back of the team who can use his hands" (direct quote from Gruber himself).

Edited December 30, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Day One

The club philosophies already match pretty well with how I like to play the game. I have requested a meeting during which I'll try to add Develop Players Using The Club's Youth System added so that the board will be more keen to fund facilities upgrades. 

Avoiding relegation will be tough - the Bundesliga has a really strong mid-table that effectively covers everyone outside of the Bayern-Dortmund-Leipzig grouping at the top and Fortuna Düsseldorf who are expected to finish bottom - but the draw in the Pokal means we should really get at least half-way to what the board expects of us in that competition.

Unlike in the previous attempt at this save, I'm not going to delegate much responsibility. I just prefer what I know - I'm a Manchester United supporter - which is Manager-as-God, controlling everything. I'll entrust hiring/firing Freiburg II staff to our Director of Football Jochen Sauer, but will mainly use that team for low potential players to see out their youth contracts (if you leave it empty they bring in a bunch of journeymen to fill up the numbers, even if you have full control of transfers) and maintain personal control the B team's transfers (there just won't be any).

The squad is surprisingly large and imbalanced - we have 26 players in the first team (although one of those will be injured until 2019), with 6 strikers and 4 left wingers yet only 1 left full back. I'll attempt to retrain Vice-Captain Mike Frantz to be a left back to backup Christian Günter, but I'm definitely going to have some unhappy players. We have 4 central defenders, which is the number I like to have, however 3 (Philipp Lienhart, Manuel Gulde & Robin Kock) are all rated as 3 stars by my coaches which means they'll probably all expect similar playing time. Still, the squad is young, with room for growth in a lot of players, and generally there are quite high levels of Teamwork and Work Rate which will be essential if I'm to continue with the identity Streich has maintained of a pressing team in a 4-4-2. 

This is my predecessor - as you can see by his 'Tends To' section, he plays a very modern 4-4-2 with pressing and keeping the ball on the ground, not aimless lumps forward to a target man. I don't really want to move away from this, so based on a mixture of current ability, potential ability and wages, below is what will hopefully be my First XI for the season. Nils Petersen has our best Finishing ability, so gets the At duty striker position, with the more creative Haberer supporting. Both are Pressing Forwards to make sure we don't allow opponents to easily play out from the back. In the midfield Nicolas Höfler is perfectly suited for the holding role, he's only lacking in Vision otherwise would probably be a natural DLP-De rather than CM-De. Jérôme Gondorf is a natural BBM but for now I'll keep it simple with a CM-Su. Our wide players' abilities match up very well with the full backs. Yoric Ravet is a great out-and-out winger, whilst our DR options Pascal Stenzel, Lukas Kübler and Patrick Kammerbauer are all more conservative full back options (2/3 are converted midfielders). On the left meanwhile Roland Sallai is a natural IW and WP, right-footed so will always cut inside no matter what role I give him whilst Christian Günter's Dribbling (14) and Crossing (13) make him much more of an offensive outlet than the guys on the right. This should give some nice variation in where the assists come from. Dominque Heintz has a bit of passing ability and Vision about him so I'm happy for him to try some more ambitious passes out from the back but his partners will always be CD-De. Alexander Schwolow in goal is rated as a natural SK-Su but doesn't actually have much Vision (8) or Rushing Out (11) so I'll keep it simple with G-De (although his 9 Communication is also a concern).

In terms of the instructions, I find the Pass Into Space + Play Out Of Defence combo generates a nice, varied playing style with some possession play, some quick transitions...a bit of everything really. The In Transition instructions are copied from Streich, as are the Out Of Possession ones. I don't want to increase our defensive line as we're not the fastest team, but I feel we're capable of playing an Offside Trap as although my Central Defenders lack Aggression, they compensate with being mentally quite strong. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by zlatanera

[Muttley84]

Reserved

[zlatanera]

August 2018

Viktoria Köln (A): Niederlechner (13)

Eintracht Frankfurt (H): Heintz (86) Niederlechner (90+2)

TSH Hoffenheim (A): Ravet (56) Waldschmidt (68)

[zlatanera]

September 2018

VfB Stuttgart (H): We continue to struggle with injuries - never less than 8 injured (at the start of the save there were 3 who would be out beyond the first day of the season) - with the latest loss being Dominique Heintz, leaving us with only two fit centre backs. After 55 seconds we had a penalty and Petersen buried it on his return from injury! 50’ after a well-worked period of possession it was switched out wide for Ravet to whip in a cross and Petersen headed in at the far post! I subbed off Petersen soon after to avoid aggravating his injury, and 77’ his replacement Haberer laid it off for fellow sub Terrazzino to finish the game off. 90’ Terrazzino turned provider for Frantz to head in our fourth.

VfL Wolfsburg (A): We lost our only fit CM-De option Nicolas Höfler for a month in advance of this game. Hopefully Stenzel will fill in well enough, and then we still have two right backs. But if Stenzel gets injured…I might have to play a midfielderless formation! In the match Schwolow saving a penalty and Blaszczykowski getting a straight red spiced up an otherwise boring 0-0, which suits me just fine!

Schalke 04 (H): Terrazzino (56) Lienhart (90+2) That makes our 3rd time this season coming back from 2-0 down - unsustainable but brilliant!

FC Augsburg (A): Niederlechner missed a 1v1 in the early goings and that turned out to be the only chance of the game.