Bayern and Beyond

My first attempt at documenting a career game here at Susie, and my first time doing this on any board for nearly ten years. This is basically going to serve as a test run for when I get FM 2015 and start my first planned save game. Think of it as a series of pre-season friendlies. A couple of things to get out of the way first:

• I'm playing as Bayern Munich because they are my favourite German team. I tend to play the teams I like in Football Manager. I'm not big on LLM, I stick with teams and players I know and follow.
• Yes, this is an FMC game. I play FMC, because it's what works for me. At the end of the day, I just want to play matches, fill out team sheets and make transfers. I don't want to deal with press conferences. Training has bored me since the first day I played Champ Man back in 2001. All that extra stuff that seems to make it into each release - I appreciate the depth, and know it works for a lot of people, but it's not for me. My time, now that I have a young son, is at a premium. With FMC, I can play a season in a week. For me, that's fast. I play FMC, and I make no apologies. I also don't do any of that buying unlockables bullshit.
• I started this game two weeks ago, so I'm actually into my third season. This is crucial, because the third season is where a lot of my games tend to peter out. This is my way of encouraging myself to keep going with this game, because I'm having a lot of fun. However, the posts on the first two seasons are going to be a bit of a high-level synopsis, I'm afraid. I want to rush through them so I can get back to playing the game!
• As I said, I've been playing FM/CM off and on for 13 years now, but this is actually my first ever game in Germany. Go figure.

With that in mind, let's go!

2013-14 Season

Jeroen van den Herten is my Dutch alter ego. I developed the persona back when I was playing some Ajax and Haarlem careers, and figured that it made sense to use him for a German save as well. I'd post his profile, but then that'd be spoiler for the past two seasons. I set the experience level fairly high, due to all his managing in Holland in previous saves.

Board expectations were also high. In fact, they haven't changed in the three seasons I've played this career: win the Bundesliga, win the DFB Pokal (German Cup), make the finals of the Champions League, and the German Super Cup doesn't matter. In 2013-14, we were also entered in the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Championship due to Bayern's winning the Champions League in 2013 IRL.

So how did it go? First, the two Super Cups:

DFB Super Cup


UEFA Super Cup


Notice a trend?

The transfer window closed the weekend following the Super Cup, and we followed up our earlier capture of Branislav Ivanovic to shore up the right side of our defence with a loan deal for Manchester United starlet Adnan Januzaj. A good start to the season, also, with wins in our first five matches. However, Dortmund is matching us blow-for-blow, and led on goal difference. That led into our first Bundesliga match against Die Schwarzgelben, with a predictable result:



So no change there, then.

Not bad scooping two trophies on penalties, good luck mate

Things were ticking along nicely in all competitions; we bounced back from the draw against Dortmund with five straight wins in the league before finally losing to Stuttgart in the Sud Derby. However, Dortmund kept the pace, and just when we looked like we might get some daylight, that loss put Dortmund back on top. The Club World Championship was a success - we easily handled Egyptian side Zamalek before facing surprise package Monterrey in the final. We absolutely slaughtered them to lift our third trophy of the season:



We still couldn't shake Dortmund, and an extremely embarassing 5-1 loss to Leverkusen in our final match before the Club World Championship, combined with Dortmund getting to play an extra match in the league whilst we were in Morocco, meant that they claimed the Herbstmeister ("winter championship" ) on goal difference, leading the table going into the winter break.

Another quiet transfer window in January, backup keeper Tom Starke went down with an injury in training, and I signed Kasper Schmeichel on loan from Leicester City as cover for the rest of the season. But my favourite piece of business came at the end of the window, when I negotiated for Adnan Januzaj's loan to be extended until the end of the 2014-15 season, and I managed to get a €25M purchase clause put in. That will get activiated just as soon as I get next year's transfer budget...

After the break, normal service resumed. Four or five match winning streaks interrupted by a draw here and there. Unfortunately, the match in Dortmund was a loss, but that didn't cost us our spot at the top of the table, though Dortmund was never more than six points behind at any stage and we must have swapped the lead a hundred times (that's what it felt like, at least). The Champions League knockout saw Bayern matched against my former club Ajax, but there was no room for sentiment as we smashed them 5-1 on aggregate. A 9-0 triumph over Werder Bremen in mid-February set all sorts of records, but my favourite result was the one on 5 April:



Ah, sweet revenge.

After dispatching Ajax in the first round, we were drawn against Ivanovic's old club, Super Cup opponents Chelsea. Not surprisingly, the tie went all the way to penalty kicks. We survived the infamous lottery to advance to the semi-finals, where we met Barcelona. After drawing 1-1 at the Nou Camp, we managed a 5-3 victory at home to book our place in the Champions League final and match the board's expectations.

That Barcelona match on 30 April turned out to be the final match we won all year. We absolutely stumbled into May - with a draw and three losses, two of them in cup finals, we were completely worn out. Take a look at the fixtures after the 7-0 Stuttgart match - it doesn't make for pretty reading.

222

Here's the final league table. Thankfully (for us), Dortmund also had a shocking run in. Schalke and Werder Bremen flirted with the relegation zone all year; indeed, Werder had to go through the pro/rel playoffs to keep their spot in the first division. Well done to overacheivers Mainz - third place in the league means Champions League football next year. That's on top of their victory over us in the DFB Pokal.



Our transfers for the year. Not a lot of movement, but that will change. I sent a lot of young players out on loan to gauge their future suitability. As FC Bayern II was promoted to the Third Division next year, a lot of those players will be staying at the club next season and getting regular work in the reserves instead.



Julian Green and Pierre-Emile Hjobjerg, for example, will feature more prominently for the senior squad next year. Mitchell Weiser is also one to keep an eye on for the future.



Our Best Eleven, as selected by average rating the fans. I mainly play in this 4-2-3-1 formation with the right centre mid primarily responsible for defensive duties and the left centre mid in an automatic role (mainly support, but can move up if need be). Not sure why the AI the fans put Januzaj in the left center mid spot as he was primarily an attacking mid or on the right wing. Schweinsteiger was our main centre mid, and Javi Martinez our main defensive midfielder. Also, Boateng and Ivanovic's positions should be swapped.

Thanks Dan! I've found quite a few "clustered" scorelines in this save, as you can see by the three 2-2 matches, some 1-1 draws in April, and that bunch of 0-1 matches at the end of the season

Thanks for reading - I enjoyed your FC United career story.

Yeah the BETA version has a lot of bugs revolving around scores at the minute but yours seem alright! Had a very good season, unlucky losing the CL final though!

Thanks, not sure what I'll do career wise this year around.

2014-15 Season

Once again, the board's expectations were to win the Bundesliga and the DFB Pokal, make the finals of the Champions League, and they didn't really care about the Super Cup. I, on the other hand, really wanted to win as it would be a form of revenge on Mainz, the DFB Pokal holders who beat us 1-0 in the final. I was also keen to dominate the league more. Last season's performance, winning by three points, wasn't very Bayern-like. Bayern teams win the league with five, six or more matches to spare.

I was disappointed by the transfer budget of €34 million, as I had already earmarked €25 million to activate the purchase clause in Adnan Januzaj's loan deal. A couple of weeks after the end of the season, Manchester City made me an offer for my talented left back David Alaba that would have doubled my transfer kitty. I didn't really want to sell, but with that kind of cash, I could find the next David Alaba and buy him. Negotiating, of course, I put in a pie-in-the-sky figure (€50 million), expecting to get back a crappy counter involving something like €5 upfront and €37 million spread out over 120 months. You know, typical FM AI bullshit. Instead, I got the following message:

Manchester City feels the offer is acceptable.

Holy crap! For that money, I could sign Januzaj, replace Alaba with a wonderkid, and still probably have €40 million left over, easy. Saying the offer was too good to turn down, I quickly accepted it before they changed their mind. Well, I guess that got the hackles up on the other side of Manchester, because a few days later United comes sniffing around with an offer for Xherdan Shaqiri. Now, I really like Shaqiri (I signed him in my last Chelsea save), but I've also got Januzaj, Mario Gotze, Thomas Muller and Arjen Robben in the squad. United was going to have to pay for it, though, so I negotiated them up to €33.5 million and a deal was done. Sure, I was going to send €25 million of that right back to them as soon as the transfer window opened up, but I'll trade Shaqiri for Januzaj and €8.5 million every day of the week.

Here's my transfer business for the season:


Robert Lewandowski is an IRL transfer that was already in the 14.3 database, but I'm glad to welcome him to the club. His arrival, much as actually happened, lead me to try and offload Mario Mandzukic. More on that later.

Stefano Denswil is the player I've marked to be Alaba's replacement. At €5 million he's pure bargain, particularly with 4.5 star potential. Dutch international Bruno Martins Indi will also see significant time at left back.

Riechedly Bazoer, Youri Tielemans and Florian Thauvin are all ones for the future that are highly recommended by my scouts. All have been loaned back or loaned out to other clubs. Marco van Ginkel you all know about I'm sure, I loaned him back to Chelsea because I already have a crowded midfield. He basically serves as my replacement for Shaqiri, starting in 2015-16. Oier Olazabal is my new backup keeper, even though I still have Tom Starke on the books. He'll be suited up for Bayern II this year.

Oh, about that Super Cup match:


Victory is mine! First Stuttgart, then Mainz. Now to get revenge on Leverkusen for that 5-1 defeat that cost us the title of Herbstmeister last year:



Dammit!

I'll quickly recap 2014-15, because frankly, it's hard for me to write enthusiatically about seasons past, and I can feel my momentum for this career slipping away the more I don't play it. Here's the first half of our season:




As you can probably guess, we easily won the Herbstmeister in 2014.

Contrast our performance with Hoffenheim, who we played on 8 November:



Ouch. 13 straight losses in the league to start the season. 0 points after 13 matches. That's worse than a point deduction. At least they're doing well in the German Cup...

Second half of the season - normal service resumed:



Then it was off to Leverkusen again. Could we finally get our revenge?





League champions, again, wrapped up with five matches to spare. Unfortunately, Stuttgart knocked us out of the cup in the quarter-finals, and Manchester City dumped us from the Champions League in the semis. At least we've got their cash...

And what about poor Hoffenheim, who found themselves rooted to the very bottom of the Bundesliga? Well, they managed to translate their cup form to the league, winning three straight matches and going into the winter break on 9 points instead of 0. Then they kept it up, and amazingly passed both Gruenther Furth and Frankfurt (4th in the Bungesliga in 2014!) to make it into the pro/rel playoffs, which they won, keeping their status for 2015-16. Oh, and they didn't stop winning in the German Cup, either:



So not only did Hoffenheim manage to escape relegation, they'll be playing in Europe next season!

The final 2014-15 table:


The FC Bayern Munchen Best XI for 2014-15 (again, in my preferred 4-2-3-1 formation):


Oh computer, going strictly by average score. Mandzukic may have rated 0.01 higher than Lewandowski, but that didn't mean he was the best striker on the team!

Next, some actual real-time updates!

Another good season ther matey, shame you couldn't scoop the german cup or CL but tough tie to City! well done on the league title

Thanks again Dan. The German Cup is a trophy I want to win this year. I think that the squad is strong and deep enough to win the league again without too much difficultly, but the cup can be a crapshoot. I think the board might actually be starting to lose a bit of patient - I win the league, but fall short of their expectations to win the cup, too. It's bad when they expect you to do the double every year. Of course, this is Bayern we're talking about, a club that sacked its greatest ever manager. Twice.

Currently playing through my preseason friendlies. While I'm doing that, here's the pick of my regens from the past two intakes:








Already signed to a pre-contract for his professional forms




My only goalkeeper in the youth system. Thank goodness he's decent. Just signed him to a pre-contract, too


This guy has an agent and he's asking for 10 grand a week. Uh, no.



And here, as promised is my profile after two seasons:


Confirmation of my place in the Hall of Fame. I'm the sixth-best Dutch manager in history.

Although this is a bit suspect, because Rinus Michaels and Johann Cruyff, the two best Dutch managers in history, aren't on this list. Cruyff has never been in the Hall of Fame in any issue of FM - I don't think he allows for his name and "brand" to be used (how very Cruyff of him). But Rinus Michaels - I could have sworn I remember seeing him in past versions of FM.


My assman. If you can't get Cruyff, then hiring Neeskens in the next best thing. Although he's retiring at the end of this season

Credit where it's due, Hoffenheim managing to stay up after that hellish run.

And good job mate, though it is slightly easy considering it's Bayern....

Thanks Eric. It may be a rich club with lots of resources at my disposal, but I have no doubt that if I don't win at least one trophy each year I'll be out the door.

I like Hoffenheim, and I'm glad they stayed up, too. They're predicted to finish 11th this time, and you'll see how they did in the Super Cup in my next post.

2015-16 Season

Monthly or twice-monthly updates now, as I've caught up and am actually playing the game again! Here's my preseason results, along with the Super Cup and the first round of the DFB Pokal (which are practically preseason matches, anyway).



As you can see, if the game doesn't count, the players score in buckets. But if it's not a friendly, all of a sudden we become unable to put the ball in the back of the net. In the two competitive fixtures, my opponents have scored as many goals as we have. And we've kept two clean sheets.



It's not like we're not getting chances. They're the classic Football Manager "no f-in' way!" matches.


I knew Schweinsteiger was going to miss that penalty. It was that kind of match. At least we won. Another trophy for the case.

The season starts now. The next update will be the August matches and a transfer window update. Let's just say that Manchester City gave me another bucket of cash for one of my players...

I don't know what I was worried about. As you can see, we're banging in the goals just fine, highlighted by a 6-0 demolition of newly-promoted Bochum (welcome to the top flight!) and a 4-0 victory over supposed-to-be-good Wolfsburg. The Mainz result was pleasing, in a way, because we let a 2-goal lead go, only to get it back in the second half.

We've been drawn against Arminia Bielefeld in the second round of the DFB Pokal. Speaking of draws:



Could be better, but with Lille and Monaco both in the 3rd-placed pot, it could have been a lot worse, too.


Here's an interesting story. A news items popped up saying that this man denied wanting to level Real Madrid to go to Dortmund. I pulled up his stats, and, intrigued, had my scouts file a report. It got better, and I believe that he could be a long-term replacement for Franck Ribery at left wing (up until now, I hadn't even been thinking of replacing Ribery). My chief scout (the great Paul Breitner) seems to think he's availabe for €22 million - €29 million. As you can see, he's very small. Like Lionel Messi small. Should I gazump my main rivals and sign him at the transfer deadline, which is tomorrow?

The answer, and my summer transfer roundup, will be revealed in my next post!

Well, the window has closed, and boy did I go shopping. I honestly think I buy too much - I forget who I have on loan sometimes and buy someone else at that position. No matter - that's what Chelsea does, and they just sell on the youngsters to make it through Financial Fair Play.

So...what happened on August 31? Did I buy Lorenzo Insigne?


Of course I did. For €22 million. Then I loaned him right back to Real for the rest of the season. I don't have room for him right now.

Here's a list of all of the deals, from the 1st of July:


Obviously, what sticks out is the €52 million deal sending Javi Martinez to Man City. It was another "too good to turn down" deal and basically paid for my acquistions of Bernard, Emre Can and Insigne. None of whom play the same position as Martinez, but that's the beauty of it. With Schweinsteiger, Kroos and Thiago, you can make the case that Martinez was surplus to requirements. And when was the last time someone got that much money for a player that was surplus to requirements?


Quick, hide the crown jewels! The Germans are taking them one by one! First I signed Januzaj on a sweetheart deal, now James Wilson when my only competition was a loan deal with Bournemouth. I probably should have loaned him back like I did with my other young signings, but I didn't really want United to keep him, and now he wants to stay. Riecheldy Bazoer said the same thing, only to agree to go out on loan in the January window. I'm hoping the same thing this time around with WIlson. At any rate, his presence, and Bernard's, allowed me to send Mandzukic back to Wolfsburg, and the Diego Contento transfer was in the cards back when I had signed Bruno Martins Indi.

There's one more transfer that's not on the list:


Kurt Zouma, signed for €27 million. His arrival will spell the end of Ivanovic's time at Bayern. Branko was my first transfer, but I feel I can do better and he's really just a deputy anymore. Next season, my projected back four is Denswil, Zouma, Boateng and Lahm, with Martins Indi and Bazoer providing cover. Boateng can deputise for Lahm at right back when necessary. This year's defense so far is great, but I think next year's will be even better.

Finally, a word about Arjen Robben. I wanted to sign him to an extension, I really did. However, his agent was demanding €240,000 a week - a €50,000 per week increase over his old deal. Plus, he was on the wrong side of 30, and he kept getting hurt. I would periodically try to see if his demands were lowered, but they never were. At the end of the day, it didn't make sense to keep him.

On deadline day, after two months of unemployment, he signed a contract with AZ Alkmaar for €20,500 a week. Whoops!

I hope he fired his agent.

September/October 2015


Boy that Werder loss sticks out like a sore thumb, doesn't it? It was just one of those games were nothing seemed to go right, and for a while it looked like it would be worse than 3-1. The Schalke match was a lot of fun to manage, but the Hertha match was frustrating. I'll show you what I mean:



My squad building has resulted in some unrest, and I think I may need to sell a player or two in the January transfer window. It's tough, because I don't want to come up short in case of injuries, but at the same time, with more players coming in next season, room needs to be made.

One player who didn't annoy me, and was rewarded handsomely for it, is Thomas Müller:



Signing him through 2020 is important, because once our leadership team of Philipp Lahm and Bastain Schweinsteiger move on, Müller will take on the role of "Mr. Bayern". That's an important position at this club, and I needed to do whatever I could to ensure that he stayed around.

But it's deserved. Last season, Müller scored 12 goals in 24 league matches. He's already equaled that number in 10 matches this season.

Here's the table. Unfortunately, we can't seem to shake Dortmund. When we win, so do they. When they lose, so do we. The only difference is their two draws:


The next update will take us through the winter break. It's shaping up to be a fairly quiet January transfer window. A couple of player sales, but no purchases. I'm planning on playing around with some new tactical ideas during the January friendlies.

That's it for now. I'm off to watch the real-life Bayern v. Dortmund, Der Klassiker.

Flying again this season matey! Great work in the transfer window as always!

Thanks mate. I'm happy with my squad, I just need to stop buying so much! All these euros burning a hole in my pocket.

I'm going to have to sell some players in the January transfer window. That said, we limped into the winter break with a makeshift midfield. At one point I had four center mids injured! We'll have a couple back in time for January but Kroos is out for a few months yet.

We still won the Herbstmeister, the second time in three years. And even though we're ahead of Werder and Dortmund by seven points, we couldn't beat either of them on the road.

(Although I'm sure there's a lot of you out there who think this is more appropriate)

Full November/December update to follow soon...

November/December 2015

Well, I'm pleased to say that we won our second straight Herbstmeister as the team on top of the table at the winter break. Here's a look at the table after 17 matches (more or less):



We've got a nice cushion against Dortmund and Werder, but we haven't actually managed to beat either one of them, instead fattening our record against the smaller sides. That doesn't really bode well for the DFB Pokal, where both Dortmund and Werder are still in it, or the Champions League going forward where we'll have to face even tougher sides. Thankfully, we drew Borussia Monchengladbach (16th in the Bundesliga) in the Pokal and Porto in the the CL knockout round.

Here's a look at our form the last two months. Not as good as the two months prior, where we only lost one match (to the aforementioned Werder Bremen)


Have a look at that Juventus match! Sure it was at home, but they're leading Serie A and we smashed 'em! Maybe I don't feel so bad about the Champions League after all.



The Football Manager journos can be so cruel sometimes...



Here's a 3-5-2 formation I've been experimenting with. With three friendlies scheduled during the winter break, I'm going to have some opportunities to play around with things. It's loosely based on the actual formation Pep Guardiola used against Dortmund in Der Klassiker this weekend. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'll see you at the end of February with another update.

Great winter so far mate! good to see you still battling in Europe

January/February 2016

With the winter break, there weren't a lot of matches to be played in January. As I mentioned before, I played a few friendlies in the effort to try out a new 3-5-2 formation and a new, slightly defensive match plan for use on the road.

Injuries were the order of the month in February, with Toni Kroos, Adnan Januzaj, Stefano Denswil, Franck Ribery and Jerome Boateng all missing games this month. As a consequence, the results weren't quite what was expected:



We've got work to do in the Champions League, but at least we have two away goals in our pocket. Unfortunately, we need to win outright, a draw won't cut it. At least the second leg is at home.

Here's the table. Bochum is in real trouble of going straight back down, and Freiburg isn't in much better shape:


No players bought in the transfer window, but Julian Green, James Wilson and Branislav Ivanovic were all sent out on loan. Ivanovic is off to Inter, with a 5 million purchase clause attached. Then he went and got hurt about a week later. Of course he did, so did every other defender on my books.

A mini update for March, the month that started out great, went to shit, and then got a little bit better:







A great way to start the month, with a demolition of Werder Bremen (the first team to beat us this season) followed by a smashing of Porto that sent us through to the next round of the Champions League. However, both those wins were at home, and our away form has been quite poor of late, as evidenced by the next two matches. The Hamburg match was courtesy of a 90th minute winner (ouch!) whilst we were never competitive against Hertha and found ourselves down 3-0 at half time. Thankfully, Dortmund also dropped points, so our lead in the league remains at 11 points with six matches left.

Finally, a road win, and quite a decent one against Lille in the Champions League. When Salomon Kalou put them ahead 1-0 in the 13th minute, I thought we were going to go down to our third successive defeat, which would have been the longest such streak since I took over. Thankfully, the whole team responded with Lewandowski getting the equaliser, Muller the match winner, and Januzaj an insurance goal direct from a free kick.

One more thing about the Werder match - this is something I've always wanted to do, and now I've done it:


Next update will be the year-end review. Hopefully we'll be playing until the end of May...

Good and bad results there, good seeing you overturn the defeat of the first leg against porto!

Epic updates mate!

Thanks guys. It's always good to know I'm not just talking to myself. If you liked that tie against Porto, wait until you see the semi-final tie against Chelsea!

April/(most of) May 2016

A great run to end the season, with two matches remaining. By 12 April, this had happened:


After defeating Lille in the Champions League, we were drawn against Chelsea. And what a tie it was. Here's the first leg, away at Stamford Bridge:


I thought we were in big trouble when we were down 4-2, but thanks to Stefano Denswil (gotta love those goal-scoring centre halfs!) and his two goals, the second coming with 10 men following Thauvin's injury. We managed to put ourselves in a strong position, effectively needing only a draw because there's no way that Chelsea would get four away goals also, right?

Here's the second leg, home at Allianz Arena:


Well, I stand corrected. But you can imagine my excitement when Ribery's goal went in, and you can also imagine the barricades I set up afterwards.

That tie set up this final:


A chance at revenge for them dumping us out of the Champions League last year. And you know this team is very good at getting its revenge. Meanwhile, in the Bundesliga...


Spare a thought for Hertha Berlin, who defied expectations and hung around the Top 5 all season. They found themselves in 4th place (and a Champions League spot) going into the last weekend, only to have exactly none of the results go their way, ending up in 7th place and dumped out of Europe entirely. Meanwhile, on our end, history was made:


The complete results for the two months:


The Champions League and DFB Pokal results to come in their own post...

Whaaat? 9-8 on agg Good luck against Man City.