Dave — FM2011 Ultimate European Challenge, Stuttgart Season 16/17

Hello and welcome back so soon after my last post!  My most recent one saw me finishing 6th in the league but with a cup winners medal.  Stuttgart are certainly heading in the right direction.  I have really gotten into my game at the moment so instead of this being a half season report as intended, it will now be for the whole season!

League

I will split this up into the 2 halves of the season rather than bog you down with it all in one go!  In my last post, I was worried about perhaps making too many transfers.  The season fast approached so games through to the winter shutdown went as follows

The season started excellently with the 4-1 demolition of Karlsruhe.  I was feeling pretty good about future challenges at that point but it went swiftly downhill after that!  In fact, by October my job was actually listed as insecure and I was really worried about being the first manager on the Ultimate European Challenge to get the sack!  Luckily we managed to turn it around.  I did this by dropping my new players from the team and using the experience of the older members to guide us through. Thankfully it appears to have worked!  Unfortunately I did not take a screenshot of the league in December but I believe I had clawed myself back into 6th when I got as low as 12th.

I won’t bother showing you the friendlies during the winter break as they are non-events really but I did learn a lot about my team in the 5 games we played.  I used this opportunity to have a major look at the squad and see how I could improve it or if I needed to spend any more cash in the January transfer window.  What I saw was that I had quite a few more than capable youngsters in my under 19 squad so I felt I would be fine until the end of the season at least. They were given game time in the friendlies and I can honestly say that none of them embarassed themselves.  The downside to this though is that my squad now appears huge so I will have to trim it down at some stage.  Bearing all this in mind and the fact that results had started to pick up, I headed into the second part of the season with renewed confidence.

A much, much better second half of the season!  Most notable result is beating Bayern 4 nil :)  I also beat them earlier in the season so very pleasing to do the double over them!  Worst result was the draw against St Pauli who were awful this season yet amazingly they took the lead against us!  My goalie came rushing out to get the ball, got to the edge of the area then just stopped with the ball just a foot or so in front of him!  There stiker did well to score though, he must have found it difficult to see the goal with the tears rolling down his face where he had been crying with laughter!

What I didn’t realise at the time, is that I only lost to Frankfurt in this period and that was an incredibly frustrating game which I should have won.  I think I took them for granted and played a couple of fringe players and ultimately it cost us when you look at the league table

2nd!  An absolutely incredible feat in the end!  I was worried on the last game of the season about myself and Leverkusen drawing and Bayern overtaking both of us to claim the title!  Thankfully that didn’t happen.  Leverkusen were up the top for the majority of the season so it came as no surprise that they did win it in the end.  I cannot help but wonder how we would have done if we didn’t have such a poor first half of the season?  Still, I am very proud of the lads and think I will have a very good chance next season :)

Cup

In theory, I don’t need to win this trophy again having won it last year.  But it’s there to be won so I will go for it unless I feel it compromises me in other competitions.  Here is how I got on

A very comfortable passage through to consecutive finals!  And yet again, I beat Bayern but this time on penalities — still very sweet though!  The final will be played against Gladbach so am feeling very confident.

2 Cup wins on the trot will do me very nicely!  I would normally show the video of the final here but the game was so dull and my goal was from a corner kick header so nothing exciting there either.  Bit like a real life FA cup final I suppose!  That will be another 100 points for my tally on the Ultimate European Challenge rankings then so slowly clawing myself back into contention!  Next season I intend to go into the Cup with the same attitude and see if I can make it 3 in a row!

UEFA Cup

This will be my first proper campaign in the UEFA Cup.  Not quite Champions League so am hoping to get quite far.

I made it into the group stages easily and found it just as easy to get out of them too.  I got as far as the 2nd knockout round which was what the board hoped for but I was gutted to be knocked out by Galatasaray.  I thought I had done well to get a 1-1 draw away from home.  I was leading most of the match in the 2nd leg on my own turf, until disaster struck and they scored in the dying moments!  I was pretty angry at that point and fuming when my team lost on penalties.  As it turned out, Galatasary made it to the final where they narrowly lost 1 nil to Inter.  Could have been me though……

Final Thoughts

So there is my round up for the whole season!  In the end I will have to say that I am pretty pleased with how everyone reacted after the very poor start.  It proves to me that this side has got character and they will need that to continue on improving.  Will I win the Bundesliga next year?  I can’t say for sure but I think it will be our best chance to do it!  For now, some individual awards were won

Nice to end the year on picking a couple of awards up myself!

Last but not least, I actually remembered to take a screenshot of my squad for you all to peruse!

Thank you all for reading!  I will be back soon with a pre-season update!