The retirement of Alex Taylor Part 2

Good on you! Now I want a muffin!

Lippo Thanks man, and so do I curse Berbatov he is in the bad books

Contently eating a muffin on the flight to New York Alex had a look at the plan for the tour. After a stop off in New York to face the Cosmos they would head to LA to take on the Orange County Blues. They would then head east to Phoenix to take on Arizona United before heading for Florida to face Boca Raton. All the places were chosen for being large cities that also had large Mexican populations for whom Chicarito was an idol as he was only two goals off being the national team’s record goal scorer.

Alex headed back to his seat somewhere east of Iceland annoyed that his fun idea for team bonding had been thwarted. His request that the pilots put the plane in a bit of a dive so that all the players got scared out of their lives had been refused by the pilot. Alex felt that what the team thought to be a near death experience would have bonded the team but, the pilot refused to try it out.

Landing in New York with no near death experience to help them bond the only player for Leverkusen recognizable in North America was pretty obvious. Other than a couple of German tourists everyone but Hernandez could walk freely and be unknown Hernandez on the other hand could barely take a step without taking a selfie. To make sure it didn’t get to his head the team decided to give him a disguise before the next stop. After annoying the driver by getting him to stop outside a fancy dress store and bought a sombrero, an over the top fake moustache and a bright poncho.

As the bus pulled in near the hotel full of fans Hernandez was dropped off a street early as the rest of the team waited to see if disguising the Mexican superstar as Mexican worked. Surprisingly it did and he was able to walk right into the hotel. With the fun over Alex had everyone find their rooms and then the team headed out to eat.



After a day of training in New York the team struggled to deal with the fatigue from jet lag and let in two late goals to slump to a draw.



Before leaving New York Muntari officially signed for the team given them another experienced head and a hard working midfielder Alex could use. He wasn’t very expensive so just took the wages of Kruse and didn’t have any transfer fee so Alex still had some money to play with.



Alex was also able to get rid of transfer listed Hilbert made the move to Nice. The fee gained wasn’t huge the main thing was getting his wages off the books. Alex did feel that he needed to sign someone who could play at right and left back for depth and set about trying to find a target.

In Los Angels all of the new members of the team including Alex and Philippe had to do the team initiation, which was to perform a song in front of everyone. Alex was last and everyone had done alright with Berbatov pulling of a wonderful Frank Sinatra being the highlight. Alex went for a German classic in the spirit of moving their but was outraged for it not to count. But, apparently it had to have words and thus his wonderful rendition of Beethoven’s third symphony was not aloud to count. As Alex had expected the Germans to follow the letter of the law Alex had a back up song and would like to think his performance of The Lonely Island’s I just had sex was very tasteful.



Leverkusen ran out convincing winners over Orange County with a 6-1 win and the biggest cheer coming for the final goal that Hernandez scored, the player who most of the crowd had come to see.



The team headed off to Phoenix which even to Alex, who had lived in Qatar for two years, it was hot as hell. Fortunately for Alex it didn’t seem to affect his players to much as they ran out convincing 4-0 winners with young Kai Havertz bagging a nice goal to round off an encouraging performance.



Waiting for the team in Florida was new signing Danilo D’Ambrosio who Alex had bought from Inter Milan to offer depth at left and right back. He was good enough to start on both sides so Alex was pleased with the deal that saw them still able to keep some of the money from the Kruse deal and improve a position that needed some depth.



His debut came in a rather convincing win. Volland was able to claim a win over Hernandez by scoring his hat trick in 5 minutes to 20 for Hernandez and also added his fourth goal quicker than Hernandez could. Berbatov and Bellerabi added goals, Alex was concerned as they conceded another goal in the tour despite totally dominating. Four goals conceded in the tour slightly concerned Alex and it was something that he wanted Philippe to work on the defenders with.

With the tour of America over the side board a plane to head for Mallorca, unfortunately it wasn’t for some time off as they were again going to have to practice and play games in between stays at five star hotels. The life of a football manager Alex thought, but someone had to do it.

Well, Donald Trump wouldn't be happy with Hernández showing up in New York - ANOTHER Mexican for him to put up with!

Jack's comment literally has me laughing xD sad you sold Hilbert though, I rate him

Jack :D

I hope you can turn this inconsistent but talented squad into a real contenders. The old dog is back too, I see, nice.

Just make sure to play Joel Pohjanpalo, he's my Finnish legend

I just checked out your story, and I really like it. Looks like you're putting together quite a squad at Leverkusen. I literally laughed out loud over some of the details of the team's pre-season tour...what happens on tour stays on tour, right?

I'll be following.

Jack Hernandez isn't a bad hombre though Anyway to be safe he didn't take in any of the drugs. Such as super effective asprin and Alka-Seltzer perfect for the little head ache #Keeping the owners happy

Atoobie Hilbert was going to be a back up and I had to offload him to make space for D'Ambrosio who is better

Hellsdoom Thanks man, hopefully we can bring some silverware to the club. It deserves some after all the near misses

ScottT As I'm using two strikers he should have a decent bit of playing time and has done well in pre-season.

Greyfriars Bobby Thanks man, hopefully we can be big contenders. What happens on tour stays on tour

The squad arrived in Mallorca in the morning and Alex deciding to give the squad the day off of training due to jet lag and the run of training that they had been on in America. The team headed into the hotel and an official tried to organise getting everyone the room keys they needed, a task made harder by all of the German coaches and players seemingly disappearing for five minutes. Once they got back everything was sorted and Alex headed to his room.

Alex had kindly decided to give himself and the rest of the coaching staff the day off. As the club had got a separate pool area due to the bulk order Alex and Philippe decided to take advantage of it and spend some time sunbathing. They were surprised to arrive and see that all of the sun loungers had a towel and something random on them. The question was answered when Volland and Tah casually walked in and took their stuff off two sun loungers to use it. They were quickly followed by all the other German players and staff who had managed to claim dibs on all of the sun loungers.

“Bloody Germans occupying all the sun loungers like Germany did with…” Alex suddenly realised that he was in very hot water and he shouldn’t say the first thing that came into his head. With all eyes on him Alex finished his sentence “with Luxembourg between 1914 and 1918.” Alex had no idea where that came from and before anyone could question it he was thrilled to hear his phone ring. He grabbed it without looking at the caller and answered.

“Hello.”

“You said the house would be clean when we got to it.” Said an accusing voice that Alex recognised as his wife, Rachael’s.

“Oh yeah about that” Alex was again on the defensive “The plan kinda changed and we decided to not go back to Leverkusen in between America and Spain. Anyway how bad can it be, I was only there for a couple of days?”

“How bad can it be” Alex heard repeated and realised he had messed up. “Did you actually clean at all when you were here.”

“No, I didn’t” Alex admitted

“There is a Chinese left on the sofa for a start.” Rachael said before she was cut off.

“Really? I thought I finished it for breakfast the next morning.”

“Well you did not, the place is a tip…” Alex somewhat ignored the rest of a rant as one of the coaches had sworn at his phone and left with his towel.

Alex re-entered the conversation. “Sorry got to go urgent business.” With that Alex hung up and headed for the sun lounger by the door only to see Berbatov walk in and claim it.
“Damn, and now I want a muffin as well. Where does he keep finding them?” Alex asked himself aloud as he went off to try and find one for himself with Philippe tagging along.

They found muffins and also something they could use to get back at the players for stealing the sun loungers. Alex and Philippe walked back to the sun deck slowly working their way through the pile of tasty, unhealthy food on their plates that the players couldn’t touch in pre-season. They stood in the middle of all the player loudly talking about how good the food was and how sorry they felt for the players unable to eat it.

“Eating all that is why you two don’t have these” Tah responded with pointing to his six pack.

“No, the stress of raising two kids and management leading to stress eating and a lack of time to work out is why I don’t have a six pack” Alex corrected.



A few days later, where Alex had still struggled to get a sun lounger, Leverkusen took on Mallorca and Alex was pleased with the professional 2-0 win over them. Mehmidi and Baumgartlinger both scoring from inside the box.



The team headed to Madrid to take on Vallenco and all the pre-season betting odds were released. Leverkusen were made third favourites to win the league, which Alex felt was realistic.



Hernandez was also made the 5th likeliest to be the league top scorer, Alex felt that he was likely to score more than Gotze but, could see why the rest were ahead of him.



In the final pre-season match for Leverkusen they recorded an easy 5-1 win with five different goal scorers which pleased Alex. Youngster Kai Havertz grabbed the final goal to round off what had been a very good pre season for him which had lead to Alex deciding to keep him in the first team squad along with Atakan Akkaynak.

Overall Alex was pleased with pre-season and felt that his team was ready to get going in the season.

Dimitar sure does like his muffins.....

Pre season seems to have gone well, cant wait to see how Alex fairs! Good luck mate.

Some good results mate and an interesting signing in Muntari! Will be interesting to see how you fare in competitive games!

Lippo He does appear to be a fan of them, hopefully can make a good start at Leverkusen

Mgriffin Thanks, yeah figure on a free and not to much wages he's worth a punt. Hopefully well

The squad flew into Colonge from Madrid and Alex was able to get back to the same house as his family for the first time in quite a few weeks, unfortunately they were all asleep. That is until Alex forgot that their was a step down from the hall to the kitchen and took a fall down onto the floor. His loud exclamation meant that the family was now awake in the house with him. Alex rose uninjured and deciding to not bother with the drink of water and go to bed.



Alex got into work early the next day as he and the staff prepared for the first game of the season. FC Carl Zeiss Jena would be his first opponent; the ex-east German side had fallen to the fourth division so it should be an easy win for Leverkusen. Hopefully the biggest issue was that the logistics of getting to Jena were a nightmare and the best case scenario was a 4 hour drive to get their. With a non ideal plan agreed on it was time to turn to the bigger issue at hand. Alex felt that his job as manager entitled him to pick the playlist however, Voller felt that as the longest serving member of staff going to the game he should be able to pick the music. A compromise was finally agreed on where Alex would pick the music for the way their and Voller on the way back.



They finally got onto the team they were going to face, Jena. Joans, the Chief Scout, gave the presentation on Jena. “They have a very cautious manager and will play a deep defensive line and try and keep the game at 0-0. They will likely offer little going forward so we can push forward as many as possible to break the deadlock. A quick start and we can just take the rest of the game at half pace, a half strength side would be more than good enough to win the tie for us.



Alex took the advice on board however, he decided to go for a full strength team as he didn’t want to take any risks in losing his first game at Leverkusen especially against massive underdogs. The physio report was next and Kiessling was still out for a while and Jedvaj had picked up a small knock in training but, had got a cast for his wrist so would be able to play through it. Alex somewhat ignored the rest of the meeting and took training before heading for home to see his family all awake.

Alex was pleased to see them and also concerned by the appearance of a puppy that he had no recollection of having been consulted about getting a dog but, the family appeared to enamoured with a small looking pug. “We have a dog?” Alex asked.

“His name is Humphrey” He was informed by Lauren, his oldest child at ten.

“And how long have we had Humphrey?” Alex continued the questioning.

“We got him last week two days after we got here.” Jake, one of the twins who was 8, responded. “I wanted to name him Explosion of Awesomeness but, I got outvoted.”

“Unlucky” Alex consoled him “a good name but, I think Humphrey may be just better. Now where is mum?”

“Upstairs” Ellie, the other twin responded. Alex went up to go and find an explination as to why they now had a puppy.

“So we have a dog now?”

“Yeah, it was something to help the kids settle down here, moving again wasn’t easy for them.” Alex was surprised but, deciding to go along with it.

“Fine, but Humphrey as a name for it, I blame the time that they spent your parents for that.”

“They may be partially to blame for that.” Rachael conceded “considering their age though it could have been a lot worse.”

“Can’t disagree there.” Alex agreed. “Although I still feel like it was hasty to dismiss Explosion of Awesomeness.”

Explosion of awesomeness! Great name for a dog, hopefully, a better way to describe Alex's first competitive game with Leverkusan!