FM23 - Union Berlin

Following the surprise departure of former manager Urs Fischer, FC Union Berlin have appointed an unknown Englishman to guide the team forward, as they seek to establish themselves as a permanent fixture in the Bundesliga in the virtual footballing world of FM23!

My years as a professional at Peterborough United helped me achieve some National acclaim, before a knee injury cut my playing career short. Unable to play, I focussed my energy on achieving my Continental Pro License before taking up my first management role at the  Stadion An der Alten Försterei in June 2022. 

Despite a 5th placed finish in the BuLi last season, ensuring Europa League football, and the sale of Taiwo Amoniyi for £17.75m to Nottingham Forest, Union's finances are modest to say the least. With just £800,000 to spend, and some gaps on the squad depth chart, I set about the task at hand - become an established Bundesliga team, be competitive in the Europa League, and reaching the latter stages of the DFB-Pokal.
 

With a number of hard working central midfielders, I settle on what I'd call a 5-2-3 formation as my main tactic - with wing backs, two defensive midfielders, an AMC, and two strikers.
 

It's a setup I hope will make us solid at the back, whilst giving us a chance to score a few goals - it also means I can cash in on the interest being shown in winger Levin Oztunali, selling him to Strasbourg for £3m.
 

I do my best to upgrade my staff - with David Platt and Dennis Bergkamp joining the club - but Union's reputation is still too low for me to entice some other notable names to the German capital. Never mind, this is a long term project.
 

Pre-season starts modestly - we do seem to be defensively sound, but we're struggling to score goals; Amoniyi's departure is being keenly felt right now, and when left back Niko Giesselmann tells me he will be 'assess his options' at the end of his contract next summer I have a choice to make. He's one of my better players, but if he's set on leaving...so I look to make a little cash again, selling him to Leverkusen for £2.5m (rising to £3m) and bring in Luca Itter from Greuther Furth as a replacement. It leaves me with £4.5m in the transfer budget, but following some contract extensions, and tying down some young talent, the wage budget has just £9.8k per week available.
 

Ideally I still want another striker, and another centre back - an issue compounded by Leipzig's offer for 23-year-old CB Paul Jaeckel - the player wants to go, so I'm working on the best deal I can here. There are few, if any, players that I'd say are untouchable, so if the money's right...cohesion is already poor, so now feels like the time to make changes, so as not to disrupt things later.
 

A good win over Babelsberg in our next pre-season game would be very welcome though, it has to be said - even just a couple of goals would be nice, having managed just one in four previous outings; happily we have only conceded one too, but stiffer tests undoubtedly await once the season gets properly underway.

We've reached February 2023 in Berlin, and things are going well.

Some tweaks to our tactics helped secure 3-1 wins over Babelsberg and Reggiana to finish the pre-season, before thumping Kaiserslautern 4-1 in the first round of the DFP-Pokal - hardly giants of the game, but it felt good to get that first competitive win under our belts, especially as the opening four games of the Bundesliga pitted us against RB Leipzig (1-0 loss), Hertha (away, 1-1), Leverkusen (thumped 3-0 at home...), and Dortmund (3-1 loss in Dortmund). A 2-0 win at home to Werder Bremen gets us up and running however, and a reasonable draw in the Europa League sees us come up against Kazakhstani side Tobyi, and Braga during September - winning both games! A 4-2 win over Stuttgart gives me hope, but three losses on the bounce (to Freiburg, Feyenoord, and then Gladbach) leads to a team meeting pep talk.

Happy to report it works, as we beat Feyenoord 4-2 in the return fixture in Berlin, squeeze past Hoffenheim in the Cup (on penalties) and confirm our passage to the knockout stages of the Europa League with a win in Braga before November is done.

Due to the World Cup, we have just four games in November - beating Tobyi at home and Mainz away, whilst drawing with Hoffenheim and Bayern in the BuLi to leave us in a comfortable mid-table position by the break.

A busy January sees us playing seven games, securing wins over Augsburg, Frankfurt, and Koln, and picking up points against Leipzig, Hertha (who got a last minute penalty to tie the game...) and Leverkusen! We also beat Kiel to advance to the quarter finals of the DFB-Pokal (where we will play Wolfsburg). A draw with Dortmund, followed by a win at Bremen, sees us extend our unbeaten run to 12-games as well! We're currently 7th in the league, fighting for a Europa Conference League spot, with a winnable tie against Trabzospor coming up next in the Europa League.
 

Given the Board just wanted us to avoid relegation, it's been a good season so far - one which I will admit has already taught me a lot due to the squads makeup and limitations, forcing me to break away from the 4-3-3DM and 4-2-3-1 I've played in basically every other FM23 save 🙂

Transfer wise, Jaeckel's departure to Leipzig gave me enough space to structure deals for Martin Baturina from Dinamo, and Alex Scott from Bristol City - the pair will either become the backbone of my Union team for the next 10-years, or net us a healthy profit down the line. Either way they've both been solid contributors this season, as has centre back Patric Pfeiffer, who I signed from Darmstadt to provide cover, but he's probably been my best defender this season!

Forward pair Sven Michel and Kevin Behrens have formed a strong partnership too, each netting 12-goals (all competitions) up to this point - a return far greater than I expected of them when the season began - while American Jordan Siebatcheu has also chipped in. Sheraldo Becker has been bobbins though, so a couple of other sales were wrangled into a clause heavy deal to sign Marcos Leonardo from Santos, while I am hoping youth prospect Benjamin Hoffmann - who I made Union's youngest ever player earlier in the season - recovers from a cruciate ligament injury in time for next season.
 

In terms of other departures, Aissa Laidouni's hissy fit at being left out of our Europa League squad quickly saw him sold to Dinamo for £3.7m, while Paul Seguin was shipped off to Southampton for £900k so we recouped something for him before his contract expired. Milos Pantovic was also eventually sold, as he became fed up with sitting on the bench. As he joined Union for free, the £375k fee still represented a profit for the club; I think I've managed to sell everyone at a (small) profit so far, which has helped to keep our transfer activity balanced so far.

Hoping we can continue play well and maintain out top-half position, giving us something to build on for next season and beyond.

When last we left, my Union side had just beaten Werder Bremen, were 7th in the table, and feeling good about ourselves.

A draw at Trabzonspor in the first leg of our Europa League Knockout tie extended our unbeaten run in all competitions to 19-games, a new club record! It would be fair to say it was downhill from here...

Wolfsburg thump us 4-1 in our own backyard to kick off a five straight defeats in the Bundesliga as we begin to slide down the table. A 3-2 win over Trabzonspor keeps the European dream alive however, and when we beat Real Betis 1-0 in the first leg of our Round of 16 tie I wonder if there's a little beacon of light at the end of the tunnel still; alas this too proved to be a case of 'it's the hope that kills you', as Betis take an early lead (aggregate score 1-1) before Kevin Behrens sees red 28 minutes into the match; we then lose captain Christopher Trimmel to injury, leaving us to finish the game with nine-men...naturally Betis score late to send us home. we do manage to grind out a win on penalties in the quarter final of the DFB-Pokal at Wolfsburg, but we play like crap in the semi-final at Frankfurt and lose 2-0.

In all, our last 16-games in all competitions yield just five wins, two of which come in Europe and the other is a shootout victory in the Cup. We still seem ok defensively, but our offence has run dry. It's a slightly depressing end to the year, albeit we wrap up the season with a 2-2 draw at Bayern and finish 11th, well out of the relegation fight, so the Board and fans are happy.

A second summer of squad upheaval follows, as I look to skew young and talented - because I'll either have a great squad for the next 5-10 years, or cash in on some of the games wonderkids and have some decent finances.

Out go Sheraldo Becker, who was frankly pish in season one, Kevin Mohwald (expiring contract), Tim Skarke, Danilho Doekhi, and Jerome Roussillon, all for a profit (albeit a small one in some cases). In come Josha Vagnoman, GK Florian Muller, and Dan-Axel Zagadou from Stuttgart, Diego Coppola from relegated Verona, Arda Guler, Romeo Lavia from relegated Southampton, and Marco John from Hoffenheim. Pretty much all of the deals entail instalments and clauses, but with an aim of growing the club, I'll take the chance that the on field growth will justify the financial outlay.

I try to simplify my tactics as well, switching off some of the instructions whilst resetting my 5-2-3 primary formation (three CBs, two WBs, a DM, a CM, an AM, and two strikers) - it served me well through the first half of year one, so I am hoping we can get back to winning ways with it again. I also have a highly structured 3-4-3, and a classic 4-2-3-1 (two DMs) as my alternatives.

Season 2023/24 gets underway with a Cup tie at Uerdingen, before the Bundesliga begins away at Hoffenheim.

Fair to say the 2023/24 season challenged me like few FM seasons ever have. After a solid 3-0 win against Uerdingen in the DFB-Pokal, we only pick up one win in our next twelve games!!! A brief uptick versus Freiburg (4-1 win) is quickly forgotten due to narrow losses against Leipzig and Wolfsburg. It's fair to say I am frustrated, and slightly at a loss as to how we've fallen apart in the way we have.

An absolute ding dong of an encounter at Koln seems to shift the sands though - somehow we come out of the game 6-5 winners, thanks in no small part to a four-goal performance from Marcos Leonardo. We win three of our next five games, but losing Leonardo to the Pre-Olympic qualifiers hurts us and we slip to three defeats from four games in February.

Thankfully things pickup in March following a tactical shift to a good old fashioned 4-3-3 DM; despite Kevin Behrens dismissal after just 8-minutes, we beat rivals Hertha 2-1 to kick off a run of sevens wins, one draw, and two defeats to end the season, helping us rise to 11th in the table.

In a bid to build on that late success, we sign Brandon Williams on a free from Man Utd, and add Yusuf Demir, Matheus Franca, and goalkeeper Robert Popa to bolster our squad depth, before also picking up former Liverpool midfielder Leighton Clarkson on a free transfer.

A good preseason is almost derailed at Dynamos Dresden in the Cup, but we manage to come through in extra time, securing a 4-2 win thanks to Laurenz Dehl's hat trick.

Frustratingly we can't seem to build on it when the league starts -  we out play Gladbach, but our defence seems to have collapsed, conceding two sloppy goals before giving up a LATE equaliser in the 96th minute (two minutes after the game was supposed to end…) to tie 3-3. A shoddy performance at Hoffenheim sees us lose 1-0, before we surrender a 2-goal lead to tie with Leverkusen.

Going forward we're doing well, but once again it is defence which is causing me headaches. Next up, an away trip to Schalke.