Hello and greetings from Germany. After my Leeds adventure I’ve now turned my attention to my Blog Squad Secret Santa shirt, where the excellent Mr Ross Bell sent me a FC Koln away shirt.

I mean, isn’t that amazing. Reminds me of Cameroon for some reason, but anyway, FC Koln – or simply Cologne as they are known in the game, didn’t have the best of seasons in 1997/98. 20 years after they won the Bundesliga, they were relegated in 17^th place.

Looking at their squad, it’s not hard to see why.

Cologne

Of these chancers, I recognise Dirk Schuster, Pablo Thiam and Toni Polster. This is not the type of squad that instils confidence of returning Cologne to glory.

So what’s the challenge? Well, I want to give myself 5 seasons to make this team a force to be reckoned with in Germany and beyond and regular followers of my blogs know I like to work within certain parameters for signings – ex-United players, South American players, African players. And the Welsh ones.

So, I’ve decided I can only sign German players and players whose nation borders Germany. That means Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.

To make things even more interesting/frustrating, I’m only allowing myself to sign one player from Belgium, Denmark, France and the Netherlands and a maximum of two from the rest.

So players like Thiam and Munteanu will be transfer listed and it’ll be a Dead Mans Boots policy – sell before you buy.

Toni Polster will fill half of my Austrian quota for a season or two.

But players like Marcel won’t have much of a future

And players like this will be on their way as soon as I can garner some interest in them by playing some early friendlies.

Here are the players that may be interested in joining Cologne

You can’t go far wrong with Emmers. A steady presence in midfield.

The Incredible Sulk deigns to join us on a free as I don’t have the English leagues running, and shows an early amount of promise

Bayern kick the season off winning that weird 4-team league cup thing.

Paul Koch is a goalie from Luxembourg and his name is A1 banter. Erik Regtop will be my flying Dutchman for now.

Here’s how we line up for the start of the season. It does not fill me with much hope. We have little money and no one really wants to join us so the road may be long.

Or maybe not. 33 year old Toni Polster scores 3 in our first league game and I’m an instant hero with the home support. Emmers is also off the Marc (sorry) and Rene Tretschok makes a case for his retention.

Not to piss on Toni’s hat-trick flavoured chips, but this young striker is a rarity – a German player with seemingly good stats.

This guy looks like he can do a job at left wing back

And this guy may make the other flank his own

Sulkolas Anelka sees Toni’s treble and betters it by one. Stenzel scores on his debut and Marc Emmers adds some gloss.

15 goals in 3 games is really and truly a dream start. Is it because the standard in Germany is so low, or is this just ‘new manager bounce’?

After such a promising start from Austrian Toni (shame he’s not from Switzerland) this is a blow which I hope won’t derail things too much.

Not the best of games but we somehow squeeze through the Kracht with a win.

The form of Felgenhauer and Anelka in the absence of Polster Bodes well….

Our juggernaut of Germans and their close neighbours rolls on, the Wolves are downed by the new boys

And then the Saints go marching home. Makes you think.

Bayern then roll around to the Mungersdorfer Stadion and it was only a matter of time before we were stopped in our tracks.

Pleasingly, as Dolores O‘Riordan once sang, we didn’t let it linger and even Dave’s favourite striker after The Micker could spoil things for us.

Schalke are a different proposition with Mighty Max threatening to run off with all three points, but we settle for one each. I expect the third one goes to Bayern Munich somehow.

Dortmund put up a fair old fight but Austrian Toni is back to see us home with all three points this time.

Next up, 80’s pop rockers Berlin turn up at the Mungersdorfer but it’s they how have their breath taken away as we race to a four goal lead until Tom Kruse tries to rescue something but their Goose is cooked.

Talking of Gooses (or geese I suppose) time for some domestic cup action, at last and we face off with Schalke in what can only be described as a comedy of errors as we’re level at half time, full time and extra time and then Hauptmann goes and spoils it all. So just the league to focus on this season.

Tretschok and Anelka cancel out that chap with that name and our cup hang over doesn’t last thankfully.

It’s about Thiam we got rid of him. Best of luck Pablo, said to see you go but them’s the rules (that I made up).

Ironically, Fursth is the second departure. Good luck Christer.

Time to squeeze in one more league match before a look at the standings and frustratingly we manage to throw away a three nil lead. Stupid burgers.

Those two points would have actually put us top of the league after 12 games, but in all honesty, this is better than I ever imagined at the start of this save.

Well, it’s been a blistering start to the league campaign and I think we can confidently say we’re unlikely to be in a relegation battle this time around, but can we keep this up for the rest of the season or will we capitulate? Join me net week to find out!