Turning It Around?
Part 11 | Ingolstadt 04 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
Breaking Through
Charlotte was right.
I don’t like to admit it. It hurts my pride.
It’s too simple, after all. She doesn’t know anything about the sport. She knows nothing about tactics. She doesn’t spend the time pouring over Jonathan Wilson books, scouring the internet for tactical recommendations, or searching through endless scouting recommendations.
But she was right. All we had to do was tell the boys to attack, and they attacked.
We weren’t brilliant against SC Freiburg II. We did have our moments, though.
Justin Butler finally broke through with a goal in the 35th minute. Valmir Sulejmani followed up with a second two minutes later, and I thought we were really going to make it.
Our defense fell apart in the second half, however. Freiburg was able to score two more in short order, and came dangerously close to scoring a third.
Butler should have had that third goal, actually. He had several chances inside the box, and, well, he just flubbed them. I’m not sure if it’s the pressure or his finishing, but whatever it is, that intangible thing prevented him from putting us over the top.
No worries, though. Butler got the Man of the Match, and even wound up with the Player of the Week award.
A 2-2 draw isn’t brilliant, but it’s a lot better than what we’ve been doing so far. Maybe I’m not a failure after all.
Hey — it beats losing.
Defensive Crisis
In place of the constantly injured Visar Musliu, we decided to bring up a young player named Luca Lechner. He’s young and home grown, and looks like he has quite a bit of potential. He’s also not quite 17 1/2 years old.
Schröck might wind up having to play centerback for us from time to time, unfortunately. The Musliu saga is really concerning, and I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about how much we’re paying him to sit in the infirmary.
My plan is to sell Musliu once the winter comes around. I just hope he’s healthy. If he remains injured, we might have to keep him around until his contract expires. What a mess.
Domestic Bliss
“You’re a genius, honey,” I said at dinner, hoping to smooth things over a bit. Things had been topsy-turvy at home up until the end of transfer deadline day. I’ve only recently begun to convince myself that I might be able to keep this job after all.
She glared at me in silence.
“I mean it,” I continued. “You were right about attacking. We drew, sure, but at least we scored. That’s a lot better than where we were.”
“Did you really think you’d score by passing the ball around in your own half?” she replied, with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“Well… I just…” It’s not easy to compliment somebody who doesn’t want to be complimented. “I mean,” I stammered, “maybe I should have hired you to be my assistant after all.”
She laughed at that, with a hint of scorn in her voice. “I’ve got more important things to do than worry about that silly game,” she said. “And you should have gone for that 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress from the start. Everybody knows that.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Mannheim
We face SV Waldhof Mannheim next, in a game that we really ought to win. If we don’t win this one, I’m going to start regretting buying a house.
I still think that our poor run has more to do with dynamics than with tactics. A win or two might be just what we need to get things running right around here. And if these young players develop like I think they will, we’ll be unstoppable before long.
Hope springs eternal.