Gladbach — Season 2

Hello friends! So here is season 2 of my adventure in Germany. I am sorry it took so long but I was caught up in getting ready to go back to college. So I’m back in the swing of university life so here is the overdue update of my second season with Die Fohlen.

Pre-Season

So the post-season awards came out and Reus’ goal against Hannover in February won Goal of the Season. The very dangerous Podolski, who gave us quite a bit of grief, was Europe’s second best marksman. And the board has agreed to upgrade training and youth facilities (both are now 5 starsJ) and expand the stadium by 2000 seats and convert some of the standing room to seating room! So we will have a nearly 58,000-person stadium, and about 40,000 of that capacity will be seats.

I’m sure many of you are wondering about my transfers. The board gave me a budget of 11.75mil for Europa League qualification; more than thrice as much as last year!

Here is what I did with the money:

I gotta say, this was a pretty stressful transfer season. By the end of last season, 3 of my players had handed in transfer requests, Christoffersen and Diallo wanted more playing time, and it was a shame because they had a lot of potential. Gaye was the other player and he was a troublemaker because he would ask to go back to Spain every few weeks. Apart from that, I sold players because I got offers that were either too good to turn down, like in the case of Dante and Ciciretti or the players started demanding ridiculous wages like Martinovic did. I am very happy with the players we brought in, though. Overall, I think the squad has the potential to be better off.

Squad for the season:

GK: ter Stegen and Darren Keet

ter Stegen will stay my first choice while I got Keet from South Africa as an able back-up.

DC: Bamba, Varazdat Ghazaryan, Obih, and Werner Horn

So I lost my super center-back Dante but I was happy that I got to keep Bamba, last season’s top performer. I think he and Obih will be my starters. Ghazaryan is an incredibly player I was able to pinch from Saudi Arabia. He is Armenian and is poised to become a star so expect to see a lot of him this season. Horn is a high potential youth I promoted from our U19’s.

DR: Echevarne and Jerry Vandam

Zimmermann was my starter last season but he was annoying me about his contract. Echevarne’s progress was great over the course of last season and Vandam was a great free transfer I was able to sign. I think the two of them will alternate this season.

DL: Wendt and Olaf Boris

Carpentieri progressed better than Echevarne did and he was going to give Wendt a run for his money, not to mention be my star left-back in the future. But when Feyenoord came knocking, he decided he had to take it. I couldn’t find any good replacements so I decided to promote Boris from my U19’s. He is the highest potential player in my youth players but he is not ready for this level — not yet. I guess this will be a test of his mental fortitude and I hope he is up to the challenge since he is the jewel of my youth set-up. In any case, Wendt was my starter for last season and if he can stay fit, I shouldn’t have too much of a problem at left-back. There are simply too few great left-backs!

MC: Leonardo Franzino, Mirko Stevanovic, Di Stefano, Soylemez, Owen Garvan, and Amer Abdulrahman

So lots of change in this position. Too many unhappy players or offers that were too good to turn down. Soylemez will be a solid back-up — he developed quite well last season. Di Stefano on the other hand is a player who is in the last chance saloon because he did not improve very much. Stevanovic is the third player I promoted. I ran out of time to sign another midfielder so I just went ahead and promoted him. Leonardo Franzino is the player I am most excited for. I tried to sign him last season but he turned me down. Now he’s come around for a club transfer record and I think we have a great prospect on our hands. Garvan comes to us from Leicester and he was performing quite solidly in the Championship. I think he will be able to adjust pretty easily to life in Germany and he will be a starter. My other starter will be Abdulrahman. I am shocked that I got him for so cheaply. He was absolutely destroying the UAE league. He had a rating of and 8 and had 14 assists. I think he will be a great midfield maestro for us.

ST: Kruno Ivanovic, Reus, Herrmann, Allagui, Hanke, and Juhasz

Very little change here. Ivanovic is a great prospect for the future and I hope that he and Juhasz build up a great partnership. I was always under the impression that I needed a 20 goal a season striker but last season showed me that it might not be the case. Reus and Hermann both got 14 goals last time and Hanke chipped in with 7 while Allagui gave me 6 in half a season. I think with a better midfield this season, we should see more goals scored with these same strikers. And I think with Allagui settled, he will break into double digits. Reus has also just mastered the striker role with as much skill as his natural right winger role, so we should see him get pretty close to 20 in my opinion.

So that’s the team for the season.

It’s believed that these boys will finish similar to last season, which I think is actually quite reasonable. It could very well happen if we don’t get the right results. On a side note, Dortumund approached me! Of course, I wasn’t going to sign for a rival and quickly decline ;)

Check out the next page to see the next season!
July and August

We blazed through the friendlies. My personal favorite was against Remscheid where Bamba scored 4. Hanke, Herrmann, and Juhasz were all finding the net but my midfield was a little shaky. My defense played very well and my center-backs are smashing in headers. So with the kickoff of the real Bundesliga, I was pleased with our first month. Reus, Herrmann, Hanke, and Allagiu all scored while our defenders, particularly Bamba, made a contribution as well. The match against Wolfsburg was a bit of a downer but credit to Wolfsburg defense for keeping the game in the midfield. I was also pleased with the game against Ingolstadt because it featured all of my youngsters who stepped up well. The scoreline does not accurately show our dominance.

September

The Bundesliga wasted no time in handing us a tough run as we had back-to-back derbies for the third time. The game against Koln, who came third last season, was quite exciting. We were both playing very well, creating a decent number of chances but staying solid defensively — it was a very even game. Then in the 60th minute, Podolski suffered a leg break, which I later found out put him out of action for four months. Even without Podolski, Koln were still proving to be a threat. But in in the last 20 minutes, Bamba pulled off a great header and Koln just fell apart. We had 12 shots on target in the last 20 minutes, but Koln’s keeper, Rensing, was keeping us at bay single-handedly. It took another header from Bamba a little after 80 minutes to seal the game before we gave up a consolation goal. The next game against defending champions Dortmund started out terribly, with us giving away a penalty and an owl goal within the first 15 minutes. But we rallied back and my strikers, particularly Herrmann, showed off their pinpoint accuracy. I was especially happy that the captain, Reus scored a goal as well as getting 3 assists. Not much to talk about the next two games as my strikers ran riot across the field. Abdulrahman seems to be settling very well and he is really controlling the distribution of the ball across the field. His pass completion rate isn’t as high as I would like since he is not used to hanging back like I want but he will get better. I think it might be because he doesn’t understand German yet. I am happy though that we are having to rely on our defenders to score goals from corners. I think I was right when I said that my strikers needed better service from the back.

So after 7 games we are leading the Bundesliga! I think the most notable thing on this table is how poorly Koln are doing at the moment. As you can see, their goal difference isn’t too awful but it’s gotten quite a bit worse since Podolski broke his leg during the match against Gladbach. He seems to be as crucial to their team as Van Persie is to Arsenal; maybe more!

October

We started the month with a win against Stuttgart that reminded me very much of how Man Utd played last season. We were by no means even close to our sparkling best but we were able to grind out the goals. Reus and Herrmann, the latter of whom is leading the team at scoring with 6 goals, drove us forward. In the game against Nurnberg we had to rely on our defenders getting us the goals again. Our Armenian center-back Ghazaryan opened his account with the team during that game. Our strikers returned to their scoring ways in the next two, with Allagui getting his first hat-trick for the team. I was particularly happy with the win against Hoffenheim because they were a team we had never beaten. Our first loss against Hannover was a little frustrating. Keet had never played a game for us yet so I decided to give him a run since we had tossed them aside in the German Cup not too long before. Keet let in such a tame shot; I am sure he would have been a Youtube sensation. The opposing player was cutting inside the box from the left and tried to pass the ball to a teammate who was standing near Keet. The pass was a pretty weak one and was misplaced, going too far to the left, near the inside post but Keet went to go cover the teammate and let the ball creep in! Reus, Herrmann, Allagui, and Hanke are all contributing goals when called upon, while Abdulrahman has been flawless in the middle. Shoutouts to Ghazaryan and Bamba as well, as they have created a great partnership in the back. I moved Obih to midfield, where he has been reliable along with Garvan.

November

Allagui scored his second hat-trick in the first game of the month. Our next game was a little troubling. Leverkusen managed to keep the ball in the hole between our midfield and defense. I pulled the line back a little and set Obih to act as a holding midfielder but it didn’t help too much. I guess I should have added a second individual to help him but I was banking on a counter-attack that never happened. In the 89th minute we were punished by Hugo Rodallega and gave up a potential point. Reus capped the month off for us with a strong brace against Schalke.

December

In the first match against Hertha, we needed to rely on Ghazaryan to come up for us and score. The next two matches were quite troublesome. We controlled the game against Bayern but we are suffering quite a few injury issues right now. Echevarne, Wendt, Vandam, Bamba, Abdulrahman, and Herrmann are all injured for different lengths of time. Despite that we were in control at Bayern but got hit on the counter-attack. HSV was  shameful performance but it was a hodgepodge team and I got to add Hanke to my injury list. I was expecting to leave the German Cup; being knocked out by Bayern for a second year in a row. Abdulrahman came back and he along with Reus and the young Juhasz who came on in the last 15 minutes all hit home to push us over Bayern to the next round.

So at the halfway mark of the season, before the winter break, here is how the table looks:

We are still in the lead, but only on the number of goals scored; not even goal difference! I need my injury problems to clear up so that I can continue my title-push. The big shock at this stage for me is how defending champions Dortmund are doing. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of my player ratings at this stage but go on to the second page to check out the second half of the season!

January

So we played some friendlies to keep fitness but complacency grew in the squad before the game against Freiburg so we duly lost. The next derby against Dortmund was quite thrilling as both teams played well but in the 86th minute we gave up a late goal. My team seems to have a lot of issue with maintaining concentration after the 75th minutes, which is when we’ve let the crucial goals be served. We’re out of the cup but we still have a league we need to face.

February

This is when I start to get jittery because of bad experiences in February. For those of you who have been with me since the original Evian, you will recognize that I speak of the breakdown my teams tend to have. Not to forgot, I have some injury issues. In any case, Hanke came back and he gave us the narrow win against Wolfsburg. The Augsburg game was disappointing since it is a match that we are supposed to win to prove our title challenge is real. Since they were no threat the last time we faced them, I decided to field the kids against Augsberg. But they couldn’t deliver me the win in a game where we were only slightly superior than the opposition. I was happy in the next game to record double wins over rivals Koln, thanks to a brace from Allagui. In what is becoming a habit, we couldn’t punish Dortmund like I had hoped. We were behind at all times and it took a header from Bamba to give us a share of the spoils. The game against Mainz was another annoying one because I let complacency creep into the team. I relieved when Reus decided to take things seriously and he sent the ball between the keeper’s legs.

March

March had little to be happy about. We should have wrecked Kaiserlautern but we couldn’t find the net. Stuttgart are the frustrating team of the season as they almost perfectly replicated our previous meeting with them. I was glad to cap of the month with an easy win against Nurnberg, courtesy of Captain Reus.

Here is the table at the end of the month with only 8 games left.

So Bayern are creating quite a nice cushion for themselves. They turned on the scoring and from all the awards he is winning, it seems Arjen Robben is having the season of his life. Turn to the next page to see the exciting conclusion of the season!

April

So quite a busy month for us. We started with a loss at Hoffenheim. I don’t quite understand what happened, but their player, Larson, completely against the grain of play scored a brace and took all the points from Hoffenheim. My strikers didn’t play up to par but we had Obih to put in a header. Things started to look bad and worse after those bums at Hannover held us to a draw. I was very happy with the four wins later. We were in decent control for all those games and they seemed to alternate between games where my strikers are in the zone and games where we rely on the defense to win set-pieces.

May

So Bayern played better than us for their last games and the other results went their way so they won with 2 games to spare. They fielded their scrubs so Reus and Allagui had a field day. I believe in real life my squad would have had to form an honor guard for the Bayern players. The next game against HSV was still important as it was to determine if we got to jump straight into to the Champions League group stage or if we had to go through qualification, i.e. it was to determine who from the Bundesliga would win second place after Bayern. Again Allagui and Reus dropped absolute bombs on HSV.

So here is the final table. Koln won their playoff game and got to stay in the Bundesliga while we get to go straight into the group stages of the Champions League thanks to that six game win steak we had. As you can see, we scored just as many goals as Bayern. If result in February went out way, we would have been in that number one spot over Bayern. Next season the squad will be strengthened but I am sure people realize we are a threat now.

A stunning 12 players broke 7, with Allagui leading the way in scoring and rating. I knew he just needed a little time and he is pretty much that 20 goal a season striker I desired. Reus wasn’t so bad himself! There will be some slight tweaking — I am still a little unhappy with my midfield — so next season should be brighter!

Quite a substantial amount of money we got. I hope this translates to a nice, fat transfer budget of at least £15mil, but we shall see.

Before I leave you all, I thought you might be curious to see how Evian did? They didn’t win any silverware and got knocked out of the group stage of the Champions League, to the Europa League, where they lost in the quarter-finals to Anzhi Machachkala. In the Ligue 1, they came in 4th, behind OL, OM, and PSG, so I think they are doing fine without me at the moment.

That’s all for now. I hope you didn’t mind the length of the post. Please tell me if you like how I wrote this update and whatever else feedback you have would be great! Happy 2012 everyone!