From Berlin to...(update 3)

Well new season started.The new november,but it still have something like november last year, two years before and so on.FM is reborn.
In FM I had no doubt about which team to play with,it was Barnet(Coca-Cola League 2),and managed to bring them to Premier League,do well in Premier League and UEFA CUP and Champions League, and to eventually win UEFA Cup,just before leaving the club and joining England,Later I went to Bayern.
Now FM09 is ready.It has some good new options.looks good.
Now the first thing I was thinking about,what club to play with???
There was some teams like Red Star Belgrade(low probability),Napredak Krusevac(good probability),Batnet(good probability),and some German Third Division team.
I gave up from Red Star easilly.
Fu*king work permit was going on my nerves in FM08,so I decided not to play with Barnet.
There left Napredak,but than I remembered that Serbian league is very bad,so even if I win the championship,I wont be good enough for Europe,so I was determined to find some german third division team.
I was looking some teams and make a shortlist,Dynamo Dresden,Union Berlin,Fortuna Dusseldorf,Wacker Burghausen.Then I asked my girlfriend to rate that teams, Union Berlin liked her most,so I choosed Union Belin.


Now, THE BEGINNING

I got one year contract.
Season goal was to ensure mid-table position at the end of the season.To do that,board gave me :
Wage budget: around 32.000
Transfer budget: 0
Now,I wasn’t scared because of that transfer budget,ok I had to play with the players I have.
Now the players, they were good enough,but I had problem,there was not any winger in the team,just some mid’s trained for some side mid positions.I really hate that,because I ussually play with wingers.
First season was full of ups and downs,but still I was able to be in the middle.

1ST part of 2008-2009 season
Like I said before,I was win in one leg,lose at another,without some good run of wins,or some run of losses.Until half-season brake I got 7 wins,6 draws,7 losses.
In that time some players showed their quality,and gave me reason to believe in them.The most important player was:
Nico Patschinski,forward,32years at the time.

At the brake I realised that some players wont sign extension with the club,so I had to look for others who had contracts expiring.Also I had tranfer budget 32000,but team wages were about 36000,so I decided to let all the players with wage above 1000.i thought that I will gain some money that way.Now ploblem was finding good enough replacements.I found some players, but I am not to post about them now,that will come later,because some of them became first team players.The best thing their wages was between 600 and 1000 euros per week.

2nd part of 2008-2009 season
Just like the first one second part of the season was good,even better that first one.I managed to get 7 wins, 7 draws, and 4 losses.
At the end I had: 14wins,13draws,11losses sitting at the 8th place.
As I expected Nico Patschinski was the best scorer ,not just in the team,but in the whole league with 22 goals.
the biggest win was against Unterhaching.


Season was behind me now,some players are going ,new are coming,and I am hoping about some cash

New season came,new players came,but the problem is the same.
Now,Union Berlin plays at An der Alten Forsterei,stadium that have 18100 places.
In the first season, I had average attendance of 7652,and board came to idea to expand the stadium,with no real need for that.They gave about 2milion for that.

Now,the club is in bad financial condition,and my new transfer budget is the same-no budget at all,and wage budget is even smaller,at 27976.
Now that I managed to cut down some wages to 32000,they gave me new problem with that 27976.

Now,it will be another hard season,without transfers,without good coaches,and just with that players I have at the moment.
The only positive thing is that some players are showing that they can do the work,just I need to make them work good together.
We will see at the end of this one:)
--------------------------------------------------------01.12.2008

Well the second season started with a bad financial situation.
As I was talking before,team was realy able to play good,they showed me that.

Season started good with two wins,but than came cup game against Augsburg ,wich we lost to penalties.


……It was December,transfer window aproaching.
Eight of my players are having contracts expiring.
These are: Jan Glinker(GK),Patrick Kohlman(DL),Torsten Mattuschka(AM),Christian Stuff(DC),Nico Patschinski(ST),Daniel Shulz(DC),Kalla(DM),Broniszewski(DM).
Their weekly wages are 14125 in total.So I was thinking,some of them will not even want to extend contract,I cant even offer the same contracts,because financial sitation is bad,I will lose them anyway,so it is better so sell them now, in december.and of course to avoid other clubs negotiating with them I offered them to other clubs before transfer window.
Christian Stuff-he started just one leage match this season,so I offered him to other clubs for 0 euros.I wont get any money,but I will save 2300 each week.8 clubs offered 0 for him,and I accepted all of them.
Patrick Kohlman-played as standard first team player in both seasons,but gets 2500 each week.I also asked 0 for him,because I already was in transfer window.There was also a lot of offers.
Jan-Philipp Kalla-had some good performances,but not great.i offered him also for 0.He don’t want to extend contract anyway.
One thing surprised me,very positively,board gave cach injections, on 3.1.2010. with 240k and on 10.1.2010. with 75k.It is not much,but nice.
I managed to extend contract with:Daniel Shulz(standard first team player)
I sold:Kohlman,Stuff,Kalla.
One more good this is that I managed to sign contracts with 3 players:Bojan Miladinovic(Napredak),Timo Gebhart(Munich 1860),Vladimir Bogdanovic(Red Star),and they should be important players in my team.They will have good wages,but I think they will play very important role in the next season.



I have managed to put down wage expences to 24585.Sure I understand I lost much on quality in this transfer window,but without money club can not exist,so it was ugly and most necessary action.
It is 20th Jan.2010. I am under wage budget,but still 720K in minus.
Also I tried to sign some coaches,but board didn’t let me to sign anyone.

I think I would be able to go for promotion in the next season.

Now second part of the season started with game against Holstein Kiel at home ground.
They got the lead in 20th minute, I thought that my team can not recover from this game,because they were playing real bad,first half finished with result 0:1.I noticed that my players are passing the ball forward too early,and eventually loosint it,so I decrease tempo.In second half we started to play nice,with a few good chances.Vasic and Mattuschka used two of them in 70th and 77th minute,for 2:1,and in 90th again Mattuschka for 3:1.In this game I saw two teams of Union Berlin.First Half team,that is very bad,and Second Half team,that can maybe do enough for promotion.
We won,but I am not under illusions that I can easily win 3rd place that leads to promotion playoff.

After that I won against Unterhaching,and draw with FSV Frankfurt before playing highest scoring game in the season.I lost 6:4 to Dresden.It was 4:4 until 87.min,but then we conceded two goals.

As I sold some players in the january transfer window,I lost on quality,and I felt that every time someone got injured.I was having problems with injuries,and every time my team sruggled to get result.
In the remaining games I managed to win three games in a row with the same result 2:1,against:Wuppertal,Elversberg and Aue,and in the next game we lost to Burghausen with the same result.At the end Union was 5th.

So I have to do real good this year,but to be honest,I think we could get promotion,just to avoid selling players and we will be at one the first two places.


PS.Next update will be written when I finish the whole next season,because it is the best way to do it,so it will have more fluent story.Last few weeks I was in a real mess with studying,as you see it took me 10 days to play half of the season.Of course I intend to write something about tactics too.


----------------------------update 2---------------19.12.2008.

Well, new season is here,third with this team.I finally feel that we have enough quality to win promotion.I am not satisfied,because i needed two seasons to make good team,but conditions were tough,especialy financial situation.

Of course I expected to be in the top at the end.And for now I am,and I am writing this in february.
I started this season with formation 4-3-1-2,and basicly I didn’t change much over it.
Only changes was pulling CM to DM and AM to CM,so the formations I used mostly was 4-4-2 Diamond,4-3-1-2 and 4-1-3-2.
The formation was always similar,but game plan no.
I tried to go into games with balanced tactics,and changing it in the match for specific opponent .
That has resulted with good play in the second half and scoring more goals in the second half of the match.

I arranged only two friendlies before the season starts:
Union Berlin(3) - Freiburg(2) 2:1
Union Berlin(3) - Koblenz(2) 2:0
It looked great in these games,wining against 2nd league teams,but then came league games:
In the first two games Union was unable to win,having two draws without goals.Then came cup match against some lower league team named Hallescher at their stadium,but it turned out very hard.



In that moment I realized that tactic from last season is not going to work,so I started to change things like I said a few minutes ago.
Then things started to go nice.Until next cup game I had 5 league games and scored:3 wins and 2 draws.Then came second cup game.The opponent was Borussia Dortmund  .
I lost that match 3:1.



After that I had only league games.Util January my team never scored more than two goals,except once,I was wining with 2:1, 1:0, 2:0 and lost with these results,and just one time had 3:0 win against Jahn Regensburg.

After 20 games I was first with 45 points with: 13(w) 6(d) 1(l)
So far I am at good way to accomplish season goals.Best players was:
Michael Bemben(RB) 17apps 7.21avgr
Stefan Jarosch(RM) 20apps 7.18avgr
Timo Gebhart(AM) 23apps 7.15avgr

-Transfer window
January came and I was over my wage budget that was 25000 p/w and I already had 29000p/w so I couldn’t even extend contracts with the players I have,and club was in minus about 500k,so I made decision to sell some players,but this time,sell them for money.
I offered Karim Benyamina (Striker,played 14 games in the first part of the season) for 150k and FSV Frankfurt sent offer to my club,of course I accepted.
Then there was Daniel Schulz(defender,played 19 games in the first part of the season,and regullar first team player in the last two years) , I offered him for about 600k,and best offer(425k) was made by CSKA(Sofia).
Last one was Broniszewski(defensive midfielder,played 8 games in the first part of the season) the best of these 3 players,I offered him for 1.5m,and I was very surprised when I saw offer from Loko(Plovdiv) for 1.4m.
Now thing was that from these 2m only 700k I get immediatly.The rest was monthly installments.
But even with that 700k board increased transfer budget,of course I modified budgets,lowering transfer budget,and increasing wage budget.That alowed me to sign new players that will come at the end of the season.They are not nothing special,but will fill some places.
They are: Franco Jara(LM),Vuk Mitosevic(AM) and Vaclav Kadlec(ST).I also signed Holger Lemke(was out of contract) just to fill the place for 3rd striker,because when Benyamina left,I had only two strikers in the first team.Of course all of them are young and not ready for first team,but maybe some of them will become first team player.i think Mitosevic would become good player.


2nd half of the season.

Well I played again two friendlies.
Union Berlin(3) - Koblenz(2) 2:1
Union Berlin(3) - Hoffenheim(2) 0:4
I didn’t feel bad about loss against Hoff,I just wanted to do well in the league,now,second part of the season starts,first game against Unterhaching,I expected a win,but we managed to play good enough for draw.Union was slightly better,but Bogdanovic got red card in the second half,so it is nice result.
Second match was against Aalen,2nd team at the moment,I knew that if I win I will increase my chances a lot in the championship,but to be honest I would be pleased with a draw.The match itself was boring,not many shoots,but in 67.min I had a great chance,a penalty.Stefan Jarosch used it well 


After Aalen ,we played nine games with 3 wins and 6 draws.No defeats in that nine games,but still ,just a 3 wins,so I am not pleased,maybe I can even tro to find reason,I see one,too many injuries.
Now is 18.April 2011 I have five injured players,four of them are standard first team players.
That is my main problem,when my midfielders get injuries I have problem in attack.I thought that I can play 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 in these situations,but then I need some quality striker,and I don’t have him,so I stay at 4-4-2,but I hope I will play with the best team soon,because it is important now,seven games until end to secure first position.
On 30.4.2011. I played Ingolstadt,now,I was talking that I have only 3 strikers,and for that game I had two of them injured,so I had to play with one striker,I played 4-1-2-2-1,and managed to win 2:1.It was very important win for me.


After that we played two games without goals,so just two points in these two games.Now I am in very tough position,just two points ahead of 2nd team Fortuna Dusseldorf,with two matches to go.
Matchday 37.
Union against Eintracht Braunschweig.
I started in 4-4-2 Normal,because I needed goals.When I look statistic,Union was better in the first half,but with no real chance until 46th minute when referee pointed at penalty.Bojan Miladinovic took the penalty and scored,so ti was 1:0 for Union.
In Second Half we still had not played good ,but in the 52nd minute Mauricio scored his first goal after injury,and then I realized we would win this one,I made some substitutions in the last minutes and at the end we won.Union finaly scored after 3 matches without goal.
The most important thing was, Fortuna Dusseldorf –Oberhausen 1:1.
Although my target was promotion,we managed to win third division.Now I feel a lot better.



Matchday 38.
In the last match we played against Jahn Regensburg
I played with mixed team in this one,and I lost 2:1.Well never mind,the most important thing is that we won third division 


To be honest I am happy ,just 4 games lost in a whole season(including cup),the only thing I didn’t like is 16 draws,but we will get better 
I saw I have big problems with my team,there is not constant play,we have dificulties to score,and so on.
The thing I got to do before next season starts is to play a lot of friendlies.
I am making a plan like this:
Friendlies against second division teams.
1st friendly on first day(some random day)
2nd friendly after 3 days
3rd friendly after 3 days
4th friendly after 4 days
5th friendly after 4 days
6th friendly after 5 days
7th friendly after 6 days
So about 7 frienlies(didnt manage to play 7 frienlies as described above) in a month before season starts.I think it would be enough for making tactic that would fit the players.
One good thing is that I finaly hired coaches, now I have ten coaches and 7 stars training,also I will soon ask board for training grounds,but I don’t think they will build anything.
Also Partizan offered me DM,MC Milos Nikolic for 65k and I bought him.


Time for the pre-season came,so I arranged some friendlies with teams from 2nd division.
These are results:

Played with Kaiserslautern 3:3 but I managed to win on penalties
I have good team,team that will win 3rd division for sure,but here I expect decent games with end at the top half of the table.
---------------------------update3-----------------------------03.01.2009