Settling In
Part 1 | Ingolstadt 04 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
Introductions
“It’s great to have you here, Daniel,” said the slightly plump man in front of me, smiling wryly, peering at me over his glasses. His eyes had an intense quality to them — lively, blue eyes that contrasted sharply with the grey of his beard and his balding head.
“I trust that you’ve gotten to know some of the players already, right?” That southern German accent captivated me, with its sing-song quality and sonorous smoothness.
“A little,” I managed, stumbling slightly over my words, trying to say as little as possible to disguise because of my telling American accent.
It was true, of course. I had gotten to know a few of the players. Most of the ones I met were in the medical unit, up with long-term injuries.
“You’ll feel comfortable with them soon enough,” chuckled Peter Jackwerth, head of the board and the man I now call boss. “I suppose we might have a few more personnel changes this summer, now that you’re here.”
“Perhaps,” I replied meekly. “I still need to analyze what we’ve got.”
“Well,” Peter said, hesitating slightly. “I’ll go ahead and come out with it. After being relegated, we unfortunately don’t have much of a transfer budget to offer you. In fact, we can’t give you anything at all. You’ll have to sell first before buying, I’m afraid.”
And there it was — the big kicker. A recently relegated club, complete with awful morale, multiple injuries, a completely inexperienced new manager — and no transfer budget.
My lucky day.
Hated
I’m not sure how I managed to get on everybody’s bad side so quickly.
My arrival at the club wasn’t exactly a momentous occasion. In fact, some of the players seemed downright angry to see me.
Our small coaching staff was concerned when I first met them. Nobody had been training well. It seemed like most of the players just didn’t want to be at the club. And my presence? It only seemed to make things worse.
Things weren’t exactly going swimmingly at home, either. In fact, we didn’t have a home yet, which was the first bone of contention.
Audi-Sportpark, the stadium and home of the club offices, was located in a fairly remote section of town, surrounded largely by other businesses. The team had put us up temporarily in a hotel about a 15 minute walk from the stadium, the Hotel am Campus. This was nice, but wouldn’t do permanently — and there weren’t exactly a ton of housing options in the area.
We wanted to purchase one of the new houses in Niederfeld, a suburb not too far from the park. My salary, as nice as it seemed, wasn’t quite enough to get us anything really fancy, however, and Charlotte wasn’t exactly in a position to make money herself.
She could spend it, though.
The Chinarestaurant Panda was her first discovery, and was a sign of things to come. I suppose we had to eat out; there was no kitchen in the hotel room, after all, and our pots and pans were still being shipped out.
Eating out every evening, combined with the constant refrain of “I want to go back home” and “German is impossible to learn” only added to my woes. The love of my life didn’t want us to be there, and none of the players seemed to want me there, either. What an auspicious start.
Expectations
Now, you’d expect that the surly atmosphere would temper expectations for the upcoming season, right? A club of sore players with poor morale led by a foreigner who barely knows what he’s doing isn’t exactly a recipe for success.
Well, if that’s what you thought, you’d be wrong.
“I’m not asking for much,” Peter went on. “I expect that we’ll earn automatic promotion to the 2. Bundesliga this season — that should be relatively easy and straightforward.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor. Going up right away my first season? With a team that looked so poor in the second league last year? And with no transfer budget?
I nodded slowly.
“I recommend that you focus on attacking football, just like you said in your interview,” Peter continued. “Oh yes — and focus on signing young players, players with high potential.”
I suppose that will be our secret strategy. Certainly no other German football club has considered signing young players that can grow.
The fans didn’t help much, either. Geoff Wrigley, my personal assistant (and isn’t it cool to think of little old me with my own personal assistant?!), kept me abreast of the conversation on Twitter. Nobody thought much of me, of course — but everybody clearly considered us favorites to move up.
Even the press thought we were a shoe-in. The season preview had us sitting in the number 2 spot, right behind Dynamo Dresden — favorites to move up unimpeded.
I guess our players have a good reputation. It’s not too bad to be on a team that is expected to win. Unless you wind up losing, of course.
Tactics
Planning out a tactic was no easy feat.
Obviously, my ignorance and lack of experience were my first two problems. I don’t have to tell you much more about that. I guess that’s what I get for trying to fraud my way into a better job.
However, the squad itself had numerous problems. Numerous players were out with long-term injuries. Visar Musliu, our popular centerback and easily the most talented player on the squad, was out for up to 6 weeks with a leg injury. Maximilian Dittgen, a recent signing and excellent attacking option, was also out for several weeks. Even Marius Funk, a goaltender we signed on a free transfer right before my arrival, was out for 5 weeks with an injury of his own. It felt like some sort of disease had descended upon our camp, and it wasn’t helping the mood much.
And then there were the coach reports.
I spent hours sorting through those in my first few days. Report after report came in. This player is inconsistent; that player is injury prone; this one can’t be counted on in big games. On and on it went.
I took notes, just like I would on my computer. I started to put little yellow markers by the players who the coaches were so concerned about.
The first team looked okay — but our second team was riddled with yellow marks.
And the youth squad didn’t look much better.
My plan was to come up with a tactic, and to come up with one quick. I figured that establishing a tactic would give me a better understanding of who should go and who should stay. Then, over the course of my tenure here, I could slowly work through the squad, flushing out the players who either didn’t want to be here or who didn’t deserve to be here.
Signing youth was a great choice — but we needed to be more intelligent in our signings. I vowed to let the scouts do the scouting, to keep my hands off until the very end, and to be more patient. No more of those Football Manager spending sprees for me.
All I hoped is that it would work. I didn’t have much margin for error, after all.
In this video I mention Cleon Hobson’s excellent blog post The Art of Possession.