Welcome back to another season in Germany, my 4th full season with Wolfsburg. Challenge-wise this save is going amazingly but as mentioned in my last post it is about to get very difficult.
80 nations left, not a single nation in the top 80 in the World, the highest nation left is Panama. So for a top-end German team the players that come in are on the whole not going to be good enough.
After finishing last season I sat at my laptop for about 3 hours working out what to do. At first I decided to bin the save off, I had planned to move to another nation where the rules are loose enough that I can buy any player but unfortunately that left me with Ireland, after a trial run on a new save it became evident that even the likes of American Samoa and Tuvala those players wouldn’t even entertain a move there as they felt it wasn’t the right time.
So I felt stuck, do I quit? At first the answer was yes. I left the save for a couple of days but then after a chat with those closest to me I decided to give it another shot, this time staying at Wolfsburg, I knew it was going to be tough. I had to get rid of my players who had ticked their nation off, keep a base of decent players about and then run the risk of signing not as good players and hope they performed out their skin.
It did not go well!
Mid-November came about and we had been nothing short of awful. Results rubbish, the players I signed really weren’t up for the fight, it proved my point that my time at Wolfsburg was close to being up, the nations I had left just were not going to be good enough to continue our success here.
Then came the invetable.
A board meeting. Please don’t sack me!!!
We want you to get 12 points from the next 5 league games!!
Oh shit! We have only got 4 in the first 10 games!!!
First game….WIN!!!!
Second game…..lose
Third game…..WIN!!
Fourth game……
It was all over.
Absolutely gutting but I won’t lie, I kind of expected it. I tried my hardest but the nations that are left are just too difficult to get with a team expected to be challenging at the top end of the Bundesliga.
So now I’m jobless but challenge-wise, even though we were absolutely shocking wasn’t too bad! Somehow we actually managed to tick off another 7 nations!!!
Nation 147 – Lithuania
As ever the opening German Cup game gave us the opportunity to get things going and this season was no different. A 4-0 win over Wegberg, a game in which Lithuanian Striker Tadas Dedura, a £350k signing from Suduva scored and got a 9.4 rating, he had played 16 games before my sacking, scoring 6.
Nation 148 – Zimbabwe
Jordan Zemura joined in the Summer from Southampton for £2.6m, the best Zimbabwean I could find and the left back wasn’t too bad. He got a 7.8 in the 3-1 win over Mainz and scored in the 3-2 loss to Leipzig. He played 14 times.
Nation 149 – Congo
Beni Makouana signed for £1.6m from Montpellier, the Winger/Striker scored and got a 9.1 in the 4-0 German Cup win, overall though he wasn’t great, scoring 1 goal in his 15 appearances.
Nation 150 – Panama
Jose Luis Rodrigues came in from Real Oviedo for £4.1m, again the best Panamanian around but he wasn’t great. He got a 7.5 in the German Cup win and then scored his only goal in the 2-1 loss to Leverkusen. He made 13 appearances.
Nation 151 – Honduras
Javier Hernandez has been here for 2 seasons now and had played more than enough games in that time, he got a 7.5 in the previous season, the 5-0 German Cup 1st round win and then eventually, in his 35th appearance scored a penalty in the 3-1 win against Werder Bremen, just before my sacking!
Nation 152 – Indonesia
Muhamad Sulaiman joined from Persebaya for £60k, an awful looking player for this level but the star of the Indonesian national team! He actually wasn’t too bad, averaging over 7 in his 11 appearances, he got a 7.5 in the 4-0 German win and then scored in the 3-1 win over Werder Bremen.
Nation 153 – Lebanon
And finally, Lebanese Striker Abdullah Mezher, a Summer signing from Burghausen for £450k. Really poor but again, the best player in their national team. He made 13 appearances before my sacking, scoring in the 2-1 loss to Nurnberg and then getting a 7.6 in the 3-0 win over Dusseldorf, my penultimate match.
7 nations ticked off in one of my worst half seasons in FM history! Not bad really!
And that means, after 13 seasons, I have ticked off 153 nations, only 73 left to go.
This is what is left, as you can see it is nearly all small nations and nearly all non-EU. I tried my hardest here, to tick off as much as I could, but it was just too much.
So what next?!
I don’t want to end this save, I have enjoyed it so much. The issue is where the hell do I go?
Ireland – No one wanted to join the clubs.
Holland – No rules but there is a minimum wage spend on a non-EU player, this is £6.9k per week. The average wage budget in Holland’s 2nd tier is £50k per week, no chance!
So the only other nation with no rules is…Germany!!
I have to stay here but I cannot drop to 3.Liga, there is a squad rule where the club can only have 3 non-EU players in their squad.
So I have to look at 2.Bundesliga. It may still be that the clubs and the league is too big for some of those minnow nations but it should be low enough to give it a go.
The plan is to find a club with a big enough stature and finances to bring these players in and also a club that is good enough to end near the top of the league BUT not good enough to actually go up. If we go up to the Bundesliga I will have the same issue as I have had at Wolfsburg, we will get relegated and it’s likely I’ll get the boot….again!
So a decent club, in the 2nd tier of Germany, just don’t get promoted!!!!
The job hunt begins!!!!
Thanks for reading.
Steve/LutterworthFox
LutterworthFox 
Leave a Reply