Guten tag! and welcome back to Germany, where Nick has created RB Leipzig and dropped them into the German league to see how they fair. As usual there is a twist though, and he has some rules to follow, so I’ll hand you over to Nick to explain all…
There are three rules for me to abide by in this blog… I can only sign players aged 24 or under, there is a salary cap of 13.3% of the highest earner’s wage (currently £7,315 based on Ryan Giggs’ £55k p/w), and there must be at least twelve German players in my squad. If you want to know where these rules came from, all is explained in part 1 here.
So anyway, this is the current bunch I’ve cobbled together. I’ve made three summer additions so far, Christophe Odé from PSG, and the regens of Gazza (Ben Oliver) and The Micker (Kelvin Yates). I’m on the lookout for more, and will offload a few for the right price.
We finished second in the German second division last season, so we’re in the Bundesliga now, which is sure to be a test, but one that we’re up for. But before the league action commences, we’ve got a couple of pre-season friendlies to play…
We start with a comfortable win over Darmstadt, where my double-barrel duo up front carry on where they left off last season, and Micker Jr gets a debut goal off the bench.
As it’s been just over a year and a half since the last episode of this blog, I’d completely forgotten that I’d accepted some bids for Andrew Duncan, and after a change of heart, I pull the plug on him joining Leeds for £160k.
Our other friendly is at home to Augsburg, and it’s another walk in the park. I shuffle the front end around, as the Gazza and Micker regens both start and do well. The two wingers get on the score sheet, and it’s a good day all in all.
Such is my faith in Nikolai’s “VVV” formation, I’ve decided to start with that, and we’ll see how things go. This is how we line up for our opening match against fellow promotees, Jena.
It’s a rampant start, but the game eventually settles. Petkovic pulls the strings in midfield, assisting one goal and scoring another and it’s so Nier yet so far for Jena…
My next dip into the transfer market brings in the legendary Billy MacDonald, but the board won’t let me list him for loan, which could be a problem when he gets good.
I also made an attempt to get another legend on loan, but annoyingly he chose Charlton, what Addick…
Dietmar Wuttke joins St. Pauli on loan, you’ll remember him as one of KingOfTheRooks’ frauds in CLM last year, so he’ll be no loss…
Rostock are our first home match. Billy Mac makes his debut, but it’s a disappointing loss after having the lion’s share of chances. Ode red, I repeat… Ode red.
We grab a point away at Munich 1860, which doesn’t seem a bad result, especially after not having a shot on target all match.
Cup time, and I go full-strength against second division Meppen. We deservedly lead, but our keeper gets sent off and concedes a penalty. I’ve made three subs, so Duncan dons the gloves and it’s all downhill from there, as we go out on pens.
This minus man shouldn’t be a bad little signing, even if it is only on loan…
Simão goes straight into the team against BMG, where Micker Jr makes it two goals in as many games, but a hat trick from old Andrily sends us crashing to defeat.
We recoup the money spent on Billy Mac and make a tidy little profit in the process as we offload Gomes in our first sale of the season…
A visit from Dortmund is expectedly tough, and we’re stricken by Ricken in a narrow loss.
I thought I’d left the super keepers back in Italy, but apparently not. Despite going close a few times at Bochum we can’t add to Simão’s early strike, and it ends all-square.
A goal at the start and end at Kaiserslautern is good, it’s just everything else in between that’s the problem.
We defend resolutely against Werder Bremen, and don’t let them have a single shot on target, but it’s all in vain as we can’t score ourselves.
Schalke brush us aside with ease. Nothing’s gonna change Madeiros’ love for scoring goals, if only my front line could hit a barn door.
Maybe a new (free) signing will help, he wasn’t much cop in real life for Arsenal, but this is CM Land, so you never know…
We battle back from a goal down to salvage a point against Hamburg. Wreh makes his debut, but gets a measley 5/10, maybe I made the mistake of being drawn in by his stats…
Bayern are last up this week, and after going behind, we roar back on half an hour with two goals in a minute. We can’t hold on though, and Alexander makes us Zick. Still, the board say it’s a superb result, so every cloud…
To be frank, that was a terrible start. We’ve taken points off some good sides though, which is encouraging, but the bottom line is that we’re a third of the way through the season and in the relegation zone. This is going to be tough…
So that’s it for our first visit back to Germany. I’d like to have brought you a more successful episode to restart this series, but hopefully we’ll have more luck next week. We need to find some wins from somewhere though, or we’ll be going straight back down. Auf Wiedersehen, pets.