Wilkommen zurück in Leipzig! It’s the finale of season one, and we’re 2nd in the league with 4 games remaining. There are no play-offs, it’s a simple 3 up and 3 down scenario, and with promotion not yet guaranteed, the pressure is on.

We start with more injury news, as Rost is ruled out for a couple of weeks. The board remind me that they’re delighted, and I will be too if we’re promoted!

To the 1st game we go, and it’s Meppen at home. They’re 9th in the table, and beat us 2-1 last time. We lead after a 2-minute Sritong-In brace, and Nyamah chips in with a goal on half an hour to make it 3-0 at half time. We don’t score any more, but manage to see out the game despite a Meppen consolation on 70 minutes.

Dortmund are crowned Bundesliga champions, Younga-Mouhani returns ahead of schedule, and Petkovic is fit again, great news with some crucial games coming up.

Next is a Monday night trip to 7th-placed Frankfurt. It was a stalemate last time and they are still in with a chance of promotion. Frankfurt are the better side in the first half, but can’t capitalise and it’s 0-0 at half time. We lead after 3 second half minutes and it’s 2-0 not long after as Oelkuch scores yet again. The hosts reply immediately, and just as I’m preparing to celebrate another win, they grab a last minute equaliser, boo!

Freiburg and Jena both won, so we slip to 3rd, but a home win against Fortuna Köln, who we’re level on points with, will secure promotion as we have superior goal difference. After a nervy first half an hour, Gomes gets us off the mark and we lead at the interval. As we head towards the final 10 minutes I’m literally trembling, but Gomes seals it with his 2nd goal on 80 minutes, and it’s party time tonight in Leipzig!

We’re awarded £1m for finishing 3rd, which is a tad premature because we could still finish top of the league.

The final day of the season arrives, and the permutations for us to finish top are as follows… We need to win, Jena need to lose or draw, and Freiburg need to lose, draw or win by a margin of 2 goals less than ours.

We face relegated Wattenscheid away. Normally I. It’s 1-1 at half time after the hosts instantly cancel out Nyamah’s opener. Petkovic and Sritong-In make it 3-1 around the hour, and Wattenscheid gift us a 4th goal. After shaking hands with Wattenscheid, it’s all eyes on the other results. Jena won, but we bettered Freiburg’s margin by 2 goals, so we finish 2nd.

We receive an additional whopping £34k for finishing a place further up the league, every little helps.

So this is how things finished up. Ourselves, Jena and Freiburg will replace Duisburg, Wolfsburg and Cologne in the 1.Bundesliga next season.

While I’m gutted not to have finished top, I’m delighted to have finished 2nd because I had zero expectation at the start of the season, and the bunch of players I threw together on a shoestring budget have done me proud.

I waste little time in trying to get rid of some of those dreaded big club-release clauses, and manage to get Kläsener, Müller, Sritong-In and Gomes to commit. Rost also signs a new deal, but he didn’t have the clause.

Werder Bremen beat Stuttgart Kickers 4-1 in a surprise German cup final, and in a quick roundup of the other leagues… Man Utd did the domestic treble, winning the premier league and both cups, Barcelona won La Liga, Real Madrid the Copa Del Rey, PSG the champions league, and Atletico Madrid the UEFA Cup.

Petkovic was called up by Yugoslavia for the World Cup, which Brazil won after beating Belgium 1-0 in the final.

So to the summer transfer window, and I have a budget of £1.1m, but I’m going to try and spend as little of it as possible because I want to try and make the club’s finances more secure, so free transfers and regens are the order of the day.

I use this opportunity to use the new regen finder, which you can download here, and I cannot recommend it highly enough, a big well done to Dave’s mate for creating it.

I was surprised that no top internationals retired, but 2 players that did were Darren Anderton and Paul Gascoigne (presumably through injury). I missed out to Liverpool for sick note’s regen, and Ruud Gullit’s was only available on loan and rejected our officer, but I’d like to introduce Gazza mark II, a.k.a. Ben Oliver…

I also snapped up Mick Quinn’s regen, so hopefully young Kelvin Yates can match the Micker’s goal-scoring ability.

The 2 regens were free, but I spent £190k on this guy from European champions PSG. His stats look great, and he’ll provide competition for Glaubitz at left back, and he can also play in the centre.

After bringing a few in, I try and balance the books a bit, and sell Mota to Wattenscheid for £81k, and transfer list Duncan, Boateng and Salihamidzic.

So there we have it, as I said, I had zero expectations at the start of this blog, but we defied the odds and Red Bull definitely gave us wings to fly up to the 1.Bundesliga, where we’ll surely face a much tougher test next season. I’ll leave you with a picture of the squad that we will start next season with, a bit different to what we started with!

That’s it from me, I hope you’ve enjoyed this new adventure. I’m now off to the airport to catch a flight to Spain to start season 3 of Basque Boys. See you soon!