Bayern and Beyond

Superb start pal!

Wait until you see my next Champions League match against Atleti!

November/December 2016

In the past two months, we managed six clean sheets. Strangely, the scores of those matches ended up being 1-0, 2-0, 3-0. 4-0, 5-0 and 6-0 (although not in that order):


I started Insigne due to his previous experience in Spain, and it paid immediate dividends. Atletico was never in the match; we scored for fun in both the first and second halves. If this was an ice hockey game they would have pull the goalie halfway through.


Then we go from one of the best matches we've played all season to one of the worst, against newly-promoted Köln. The less said, the better.


This wasn't the best way to bounce back, but a win's a win. Twice we fell behind to Kaiserlautern before equalising, then Pierre-Emile Hjobjerg popped up with the winner near the end. Did we deserve to win? Probably not. But who cares?


After the Atletico match, our qualification was secured for the knockout stages. As a result, I fielded a second XI for the final two group stage matches. It definitely showed here. Muller saved our blushes with a late goal to make the scoreline respectable.


Don't piss off Robert Lewandowski. You wouldn't like it when he's angry. Clearly, Hoffenheim's early goal pissed him off.


The final group match, and Shaktar couldn't stop even a second choice side. We should have beat them in their place, and we definitively did so at ours. Shaktar's chances of advancing were slim to begin with, this confirmed their elimination.


Lewandowski just keeps rolling. Wolfsburg started out brightly, and this match was a 1st v. 2nd battle at the time. Not anymore as Wolfsburg drops to 3rd.


We advance in the DFB-Pokal at Leverkusen's expense. They've had a horrible season so I felt comfortable starting Dejan Stojanovic and other backup players, such as Man of the Match Jonathan Tah. We draw Mainz in the quarter finals. Coincidental, because...


...our next Bundesliga match was against them. 1-0 as Muller scores in the 28th minute and the defence makes it stick.


Our final match before the winter break. Our status as Herbstmeister is confirmed for a third straight year. Marco van Ginkel was named man of the match, and his agent was straight away looking for a new deal at doulbe the weekly wage. Uh, I don't think so

Overall, here's the results for the two months and the table. Schalke had climbed up to 12th, but a run of bad performance saw them fall back and Bielsa got the sack. Hamburg is still hanging around for a Champions League place and Köln is strong in their first season back in the Bundesliga since 2012-13:




Bad news for the Championship League draw. They were actually a second-placed team, finishing behind Monaco in their group. We haven't played them since the 2014 Champions League final.

And finally this message appeared:

A big club to be sure, but so's the one I'm at. I don't really fancy managing in England right now.

Next update - January 2017 and all the transfer news. I don't plan on being active, except for fending off unwelcome advances for my players!

Thats what you're really saying isn't it!

I would stick with Bayern

Doing superb at bayern, plenty of clean sheets coming,building a wonder team here it would seem!

BMG - yeah, I suppose that's true, although now Chelsea and Milan have been popping up from time to time

Dan - Wonder team? That's the plan, although events seem to conspire against us in the Champions League (such as our draw this season)

Johno - I agree, I'm staying at Bayern. We're really building something here, and I want to see what happens, particularly as some of my first class of youth players are going to break into the squad next season...

January 2017
Transfer Window update

A bit of a quiet transfer window I'm afraid. There wasn't much for me to do, other then send some youngsters out on loan. Surprisingly, I only had one approach for a player - Real Madrid wanted to sign Lewandowski, issued a frankly insulting offer, and then improved that offer only slightly.

Holder Badstuber has done a very good job for me as a rotational option at centre half, but during contract talks with his agent on a renewal, we could not agree on either a length (I wanted two years, he wanted four) or the squad status. Badstuber wanted to be recognised as a first-team memeber, not I was only prepared to have him continue as a rotational player. After one last attempt to sign him at the start of the year, he ended up signing a pre-contract with Mainz.

I still have to decide what to do about Franck Ribery's contract, which expires at the end of the season. At least, unlike Arjen Robben, Ribery's agent has lowered his demands as the months have gone on. However, even though Ribery would now be taking a paycut, I've been planning for the future and it doesn't really include him.

I've already lined up a new centre-half to replace Badstuber, going back once again to my old stomping grounds of Ajax:


Here's the month's results. Not the best start, drawing to Werder Bremen, but still top of the league. We'll play Werder again in the German Cup semi-finals in April.

February 2017

A busy month to make up for the one match we had in January. Eight matches in the shortest month of the year ensured there would be two matches a week every week and squad rotation would be the order of the day.



We advance in the DFB-Pokal, although it was a bit nervy at the end. Lucas Podolski shows that he's still got it at the age of 78. From our perspective, Florian Thauvin has been a bit disappointing - but with the Olympics and other appearances for France, he didn't have much, if any, of a break this past summer. I'm just about to draw a line under this season for him and hope he bounces back next season with suitable rest.


Schalke's woes continue. Thankfully for them, it doesn't look like they'll fall below 15th place so they're safe from relegation. A nice performance by Pierre Hjobjerg, who is really starting to come on for us.


I'm pleased with this, and why wouldn't I be? Frankly, I was playing for a draw, preferably with an away goal or two, and that's exactly what I got. What would we do without Robert Lewandowski?


After a horrible start to the season, Leverkusen has started to come good after sacking Michael Laudrup and hiring Franck Foda from Dynamo Dresden. They were 9th when they played us and have since worked their way up to 7th position.


Massive hat-trick from Jonathan Tah! He's starting to get more responsibility as the season goes on, and is making me re-think both his and Kurt Zouma's role in the squad.


I thought this was kinda funny, since I play a 4-2-3-1 in every home match. Tactical surprise, indeed!


Hard to believe that we actually fell behind the team that has a stranglehold on 16th place, but we did. A dull first half suddenly came to life in the first ten minutes of the second half, with three goals scored, before settling back. Sadly, Lewandowski got hurt in this match, a cruel blow as he won't now be available for the Champions League second leg against Manchester United.


Last season's surprise package is still in the Europa League, but their league form is suffering and they find themselves in 13th place. Performances like this one, where we match our high score for the season, aren't going to help Hertha much, but they're not really in danger of relegation. Unfortunately for us, Mario Gotze landed funny in the match, damaging his elbow and ruling him out of the Man Utd match.


With one eye on the mid-week match against Man United, I sent out an essentially second-choice side for this match against Hamburg. It looked like a good choice anyway when van Ginkel and Bernard staked us to a 2-0 lead in the first ten minutes. But 2-0 is my least favourite scoreline to defend. At halftime, I took off Januzaj, again because I wanted him to be fresh for the vitally important Man U match. Then, in the 57th minute, Ribery got hurt, further weakening the lineup and making him the third player ruled out of the Manchester United match. Unfortunately, we couldn't hold the lead, and they scored their two goals in the last 13 minutes of the match, a virtual bookend to our early strikes. Still, a point on the road is decent enough, particularly as Dortmund also drew.

The current Bundesliga table:


Special bonus March 1st fixture:
We went into the second leg of our match against Manchester United level at 1-1 and with an away goal in our pocket. However, as much as I wanted to, I didn't really expect for that to hold up, not with Lewandowski, Gotze and Ribery all ruled out of the match. The only consolation is that our back line was in excellent shape, so maybe a defensive strategy would be the way to go.

We were playing at home, and the supporters wouldn't have wanted to see that. I decided to field our customary 4-2-3-1 home formation; we were going to win with glory or die trying. Muller gave us a dream start and the lead in the tie when he finished off a cheeky backheel from Jonathan Tah. Sadly, Juan Mata's moment of individual brilliance leveled the scores and had me planning at halftime about substitutions with regards to my better penalty takers.

Marco van Ginkel made sure that wasn't an issue anymore, but three minutes later, Manuel Neuer saw fit to punch the ball away (which he hardly ever does), only for it to fall to Fellani just outside the box. He, of course, powered a shot that beat a still-out-of-position Neuer and gave them the lead on away goals.

We had ex-Man Utd starlet Adnan Januzaj, and they had our oldboy Xherdan Shaqiri. Who would strick a decisive blow against their old team?



Next up will be a combined March and April roundup.

Good run going there, unbeaten since 23rd November!

Brilliant run your on as bmg said! Superb work and well done knocking united out!

Great run, just keep up the form and the Bundesliga is easily your!!

March 2017


A short month with only five matches, the biggest was the Champions League second leg against Manchester United. However, we had no less than three derby matches, the Süd derby, followed by the Bayern derby, and Der Klassiker against Dortmund.



Derby season kicked off with the Süd derby against Stuttgart. With most of the players from the Man Utd match getting a well-deserved rest, we were able to comfortably handle Stuttgart anyway. However, the Bayern derby was a different matter. Nürnberg was pumped up for a derby match at their place, and we twice gave away leads in the first half before settling in for the draw in the second half.


Braunschweig is quite poor this season, and at this point the best they can hope for is 16th, which would put them in the pro/rel playoff against the 3rd place team from 2.Bundesliga. We scored for fun, and Bernard continued to feast on lower-level opposition with a brace. Then, it was on to Der Klassiker:



Can't complain about a win against Dortmund. The result means that at the end of the month, we're sitting pretty, with a twelve point lead and six matches left:


April is a very busy month, much like February was. If we beat Arsenal in the quarters of the Champions League, we'll have two matches every week once again.

Good stint, april will be tough though!

Thanks Dan, let's find out how April went, shall we?

April 2017

Our busiest and most important month so far began with a Bundesliga match against one of the two teams to have beaten us, Köln. From there, it was the Champions League quarter-finals against Arsenal and more matches against mid-table Bundesliga sides as we look to wrap up our fifth-straight league title (and my fourth):



The match was 2-1 in our favour, and we did in fact score two goals, but one of them one an own goal by Phillip Lahm. In actual fact, both teams' captains scored own goals in the match, as Mertesacker put one into his own net as well!


1-0 was good enough, thanks to Thomas Muller's strike five minutes before half-time and two away goals from the first leg. We tried to get a second, but after 75 minutes switched to defensive mode so as to not to throw away the tie. We'll face Valencia in the semi-finals.

Another Bundesliga win, but Dortmund kept pace so we wouldn't be able to clinch just yet. The longer this keeps up, the more I have to play some of my top players in both Champions League and Bundesliga matches each week.

A diappointing loss, to concede late in that fashion. However, we have two away goals in the bag, so we can afford to concede one (or worst case scenario two) at Allianz-Arena and still go through provided we win.

Our Bundesliga match against Wolfsburg was scheduled for a 18:30 kickoff, and Dortmund played at 15:30. With a 9 point lead and three matches left, we needed only to earn one point or have Dortmund drop a point. Before our match started, this message appeared in my inbox:


Welcome news because now I could change my teamsheet and second out a reserve side for the evening's match, resting key players for the return leg against Valencia. Unsurprisingly, this happened:


No worries, as the title was secure. On to more important matters then. I opted to start out quickly to get the goal I needed to claim the tie, then switch to a more balanced and standard mentality and take things as they come. I never expected for this to happen:


7-0, our best-ever Champions League performance and against a quality side to boot! After Lewandowski's penalty, I switched to a defensive mentality and we still scored four more goals! (Well, technically three as the seventh was an own goal by real-life Bayern man Juan Bernat). Valencia couldn't stop us, no matter what we did.

Looks like we'll be playing our old friends Chelsea in the Champions League final. Maybe the third time's the charm for me. This is at least a team we know we can beat.

Our final match of the month, and final Bundesliga home match of the year, extends our home winning streak to 36 matches.

With one match left in the season, I'll post the table next month.

Wow that second leg tore Valencia apart! Another good month, just to beat Chelsea now!!

May 2017

Well, first the good news:


Our second straight DFB-Pokal, and the club's 18th overall. Wolfsburg was no match for Mario Gotze's hat trick and Bernard's brace. I really need to figure out a way to get Bernard into the lineup more often, he always seems to bag a brace whenever he does play. I used to think it was because I always played him against inferior competition, but as you can see by the final league table, Wolfsburg were no slouches:



I thought our defence would be better than last year's, and I was right as we allowed the least amount of goals in the league for the first time in my tenure as Bayern boss.

Now the bad news...we lost in the Champions League Final, again. 2-1 to Chelsea and I was so mad I didn't take any screenshots. Oh well, I suppose it's my own fault; I didn't put Bernard in until the 80th minute and by then we were already down 2-0. He did pull one back but it wasn't enough time to get an equaliser.

I've already played through to next season's transfer window, and will update that next. There is, shall we say, a controversial transfer on the horizon...

Well done on a good season, defensively superb in the league by a long way! Unlucky in the CL though! Next year you'll win it!

Thanks Dan. I'm really happy about the defence because that was the area I really focused on in the close season so I'm glad my decision to get rid of Martins Indi and Ivanovic and bring in Zouma paid off. Not sure about the Champions League - this is three seasons out of four that we've made the final, only to lose to an English team. We'll see how we go.

A busy offseason saw three big names come in on transfers:


Zlatan is the player I was alluding to earlier when I said I was tracking a big-name player who was out of contract. As it happens, he re-signed with PSG for a season, but they must have had buyer's remorse as they transfer listed him. I ended up having to spend €800,000 instead of getting him on a free, but that's okay because he agreed to terms that were €50,000 less then he was asking for on a pre-contract back in March. He'll serve as my second-choice striker, and will get his contract renewed if he makes 20 league appearances. If he's doing well, I'll make sure that clause is triggered. If he stinks up the joint, I'll make sure he doesn't even see the bench. But with those ratings, I feel confident that he'll perform well in the Bundesliga.


Here's the big signing. Özil was transfer listed for some reason, and I was able to get him for the knockdown price of €15 million (especially when you consider that Arsenal paid €50 million for him). He's just 28 years old, but I had to give him a sweetheart five-year deal as I faced competition from Liverpool and Dortmund to sign him. One part of his contract is a 10% sell-on clause, which is fine with me because I have no intention of selling him - he'll play out his contract and we'll see what happens then as he'll be 33.


Bayern's new record signing, secured from Lazio for €55 million. 20 years old when I signed him and already a 3.5 star player, my scouts think he'll be 4.5 stars when all is said and done. But wait - why sign a striker for so much, especially when I've already signed Zlatan as cover. Surely, after spreading that much, I wouldn't just loan him out? The answer as to why I signed Barbosa lies with my next graphic:


Lewandowski gone to Madrid. I was able to negotiate them up to €70.5 million; €63 million up front, and the further €7.5 million after he scores ten league goals for Real. Once that deal was done, I needed to get a premium striker, and money was no object. I considered Higuain, but Barbosa is eight years younger with similar ratings.

The signings in full. As you can see, even after making a club-record signing, I still made €3 million in the transfer market this summer. I was able to negotiate Saul up to €25 million from PSG, they originally offered less than I paid for him. Visser and Vollmann were in my first crop of regens, those players are now at the point where I can make money selling the ones not good enough to play for Bayern:


The loans out:


And the free transfers. Franck Ribery solved my problem for me by announcing his retirement, but I think he's having second thoughts because he's twice pushed back his retirement date by a month and I can't see what his backroom staff attributes will be yet. Again, Muller and Neumann are regens whose time at the club has come to an end:


Here's the results of the friendlies. An unbeaten pre-season, but we weren't able to defend our Super Cup title, the streak ends at five. This was Jurgen Klopp's first piece of silverware since I arrived in Munich


And finally, here's August's matches that matter. Barbosa is off to a flyer with three goals in two matches, Özil's providing goals and assists, and Zlatan has managed to get himself on the scoresheet as well. After signing Timo Horn, he's more of a squad player than a back-up goalie so I decided to give him the start against his old team Borussia Monchengladbach. That might have been a mistake


The table shows the story. Had the Gladbach match occured in November, it would have been a mere blip. But because it came in Matchday 3, we're in fifth place on goal difference.

Wow, Ibrahimovic and Ozil! Didn't see that coming!

Neither did I! Great signing, even if Zlatan is 35. I've also tried for Barbosa at Everton; too expense for my budget sadly, but he looks like a solid player.

Great summer, Barbosa is a good signing, shame you didn't get him a few seasons earlier and cheaper! But made the money back you've spent! Dortmund not only beat you, but stuffed you in the super cup!

Thanks BMG, Gendo and Dan (I think)! I must admit that I was also surprised to get Ozil. Barbosa should do the business and when Real agreed to 70 mil for Lewandowski how could I say no? Lewandowski already has five league goals on the season so I am halfway toward my other 7.5 mil!


The board wanted me to sign a five-year deal, but I had already knocked that back a few months ago. I suggested just a one year extension, expecting them to counter, but they accepted.



At least I've got my captain's support.

September 2017



Zlatan with the hat trick against Augsburg! Unfortunately, we let in three as well.

I'm really worried about our defence. It hasn't changed from last year's championship-winning squad, but we are letting in goals all the time. The only loss was Holder Badstuber, and he didn't really get a game in after signing a pre-contract with Mainz in January.

Timo Horn has been horrible. He hasn't won a game in the Bundesliga (Neuer, by contrast, is 6-0-0) and lets in goals left and right. He was supposed to be more of a job share for Neuer than a backup in case of injury, but right now I simply don't trust him. I forgot to rotate Neuer out of the squad for the German Cup match, and frankly, I'm glad I did because I don't know if Horn would have succeeded against Freiburg. We've got Matheusao, who's supposed to be our keeper of the future, but he's still a few seasons aware and needs to go out on loan for a few years a la Thibault Courtois. Back to the drawing board for the keeper situation, I guess.



Normal service has resumed at the top of the table, both for us and Dortmund. We'll play each other on 16 October, just after the international break. We've also drawn Nürnberg for a Süd derby in the third round of the DFB-Pokal. 1860 München beat Dortmund(!) and I was really hoping to draw them, but alas, it was not to be. They've drawn 2.Bundesliga side RB Leipzig in the next round, so there's a chance Die Loewen could still progress and we could meet in the quarter-finals. Here's hoping!

Great start in the league for you there mate. Shame about the Porto game

October 2017

Five matches this month, thanks to the international break. Why can't the fixture congestion ever occur in the first part of the season when everyone is fresher?


Our defensive woes continue. As you'll see, this is a recurring trend throughout the month. And the season. I just don't understand how the same defence that led the Bundesliga last year with 26 goals allowed can be leaking so many. At this rate, we'll pass that total by the winter break. It's a good thing that we score a lot, too.


This is more like the Bayern that I know. Five goals from five different goal scorers including both centre halfs. I decided, with a match at home against a mid-table opponent, to throw caution to the wind and put our home winning streak on the line by starting Timo Horn in goal. It turned out that he didn't let us down. Last year's defence is back, this year's would have made the score 5-4.


Two weeks later it was the first Der Klassiker. We travelled to Dortmund rested and relaxed, and never trailed in the match. The first goal may have been credited as an own goal, but Barbosa would have put it in the next if the Dortmund defender hadn't. Kurt Zouma scored two more in identical circumstances, headers off of goal kicks. I'm glad Dortmund was unprepared defensively - our centre halfs have been heading in corner kicks since, oh, the moment I got here.


A bit of a letdown when we travelled to Belgium for the Champions League. Schweinsteiger scored in the 3rd minute, and asking this defence to protect a one-goal lead for 87 minutes is a bit of a fool's errand I'm afraid. Somehow, 5 points from the first three matches is still good enough to top the group:



The last match of the month. We fell behind early and went into the locker room down 1-0 at the half. Ever-reliable Bernard hit the equaliser, and Thomas Muller put us in the lead, important to maintain our place top of the table.

The month's results and goalscorers:


The Bundesliga table. Note how it's us and Hoffenheim. What is this, 2008?

Agood month mate! Hoffenheim trying to get back in the driving seat in germany!?

Thanks Dan - things are moving along pretty well, but not as smoothly as last season. Although I suppose that makes me a bit like the lady with a Virginia ham under each arm crying because she doesn't have any bread...

November 2017

As with October, we had five matches, three in the Bundesliga and two in the Champions League:

Shut out against Kaiserlautern on the road, and this is notable because it is actually the first time since the 5th of November, 2016, that we failed to score. That's 364 days since we were shut out in a competitive match. Our defence was fairly decent, given that we only allowed one goal, but three points dropped as far as I'm concerned.


The return leg against Genk, and the win puts us in the driver's seat to advance to the knockout rounds. Porto also won their match against Shaktar, meaning we're both on 8 points going into our match together on 29 November


We return to our clean sheet ways of the past year with this 2-0 win over Hertha at home. Gotze and Ozil score in the first half, and the defence makes it stick. However, with 34 shots, we really could, and should have scored more.


Another 2-0 win, this time away from home against a Freiburg side that started the season brightly but slipped into mid-table obscurity and are now closer to the relegation zone than the European places (although not by much). Thauvin makes the most of his start to open the scoring, and the second goal was scored by Gabriel Barbosa, with his first goal for us since August. Not exactly what you want in a striker, but I was willing to overlook things given how well Zlatan, Gotze and company have been scoring.

After the match, this popped into my inbox:

Cha-ching! I knew he wouldn't have any problems scoring those ten goals. Does it make me a little remorseful that with him doing it so quickly, it might have been a sign I shouldn't have sold him? A little, but with any luck Barbosa will still be banging them in for us long after Lewandowski has retired.


Our big Champions League showdown against Porto, and we take all three points and confirm our passage to the knockout stages. Barbosa, clearly relived at having broken his drought, bagged a brace which proved to be crucial in the final margin. Due to Genk beating Shaktar, we have pretty much secured the top spot as well.

This month's results and goalscorers:



Here's the standings at the end of November. With four matches until the break, we're in good shape to claim the Herbstmeister for the fourth season running. Hoffenheim has faded somewhat, but Leverkusen has come on strong and is now in second, five points behind us.

At the other end of the table, whilst Nurnberg's point total is still in the single digits, they are actually a point closer to safety than they were at the end of October. Things are very tight at the end of the table, with 11th through 17th no more than three points away from either potential relegation or safety.

Its just looking easy for you. Complete dominance! A bit late here but what a great signing is Gabriel Barbosa (in Brasil he is known as 'Gabigol' the kid has a future!