Hello everybody, we’re back again to catch up with my Cologne pretenders as we approach the fag end of season 4. Success has been an illusive mistress so far, but we have made it to the Pokal Cup semi-finals, so anything is possible.

In the league, we’re very much amongst the also-rans

Let’s pick up the action with a first – a clean sheet against Miss Jameson..

The only thing I know about Meppen is that Leeds boss Daniel Farke once played for them. Oh and that we beat them two one.

Oh how I would love Christian Worns at the centre of my defence…

Or even Viktor Onopko, but due to my border countries only rule, big Viktor is not an option.

Still, as long as we score a hatful of goals, things will be ok, right?

The plus side of having a team full of no-hopers, is that when the German FA decide to schedule the domestic cup semi-final at the same time as the International Break, the loss of players isn’t too disastrous….

The same can’t really be said for our opponents – we might be in with a chance here lads….

And so it came to pass, we had a little too much in our locker for Bayern this time out and its a date with Dortmund in the final. Pflipsen has been outstanding of late for us.

The exhilaration of reaching our second cup final in four seasons takes its toll however and we conspire to chuck away a win at Rostock who I guess just had more Unger than us in the last few minutes….

Against Munich 7pm however, it’s our turn to rescue a point with a latish goal, Wittek getting his first ever goal for the club, nice.

If ever an image captured our erratic form over the past four seasons it’s this one

So with those run of results, where we’ve basically taken our foot off the gas after securing our final spot, all means we can’t finish higher than 5th and potentially as low as 7th after our final league game. Dortmund are champions again, so win or lose in the cup, we’ll be in europe regardless of our league placing. Every cloud I guess.

In the end, we get a narrow win to confirm 5th place in the league, a backwards step really from 2nd place last season.

I’m not really sure we really recovered from that awful start to the season. The change in formation made us a bit more solid but evidently less potent in attack.

With that in mind, I have to think about Dortmund and the up final. Here’s how they’ll line up. Very attacking and packed with talent.

I decide to fight fire with fire, at least in the attacking intent sense of the phrase…

At it works like a charm! Jorg Albertz gets his first goal for us after a fairly underwhelming season and we have our first taste of silverware!

Shocker indeed

With the season finished, I set about reshaping my team for my fifth and final season with the sale and release of a disappointing goalkeeper and a faithful defender/captain, plus the Swiss winger who sounds Turkish.

And as the credits roll on Season 4, a chance to look at the awards, where we are once again bystanders!

Well, there you go, finally some silverware – can we build on it next season? Join me next week to find out.