Achtung Borusse!

Fantastic result! The results you've gained so far are extremely promising.

WORN OUT BVB STRUGGLE THROUGH ROUGH BUNDESLIGA GAUNTLET

After escaping Paris with three points, Favre would face a brutal stretch of three games in seven days. Adding in the Paris SG game and it would be four games in ten days, not something anyone would like to go through.

Bundeslia (A) : Borussia Dortmund 1 - TSG Hoffenheim 1
Hoffenheim was ready and waiting for BVB, and they were lucky to get away from this one with a point as they were essentially outplayed. A mostly full strength side, with Götze playing the No. 10 role after sitting out the PSG game, struggled to take control and appeared tired. Raphaël Guerreiro left with a slight injury at 29’ and depth became more of an issue with Jeremy Toljan stepping in for him. Both teams basically lived in the middle third, both struggling to make significant inroads as Favre saw his team playing on it’s heels.

Marco Reus put Dortmund up 1-0 after a dubious penalty call on Kevin Vogt. Maximilian Philipp made the most of the incidental contact between him and Vogt, and Reus was happy to knock it in to start the second half with the first lead of the game. Things went back and forth with Hoffenheim the clear aggressor, constantly attacking and making BVB sweat. Things broke Hoffenheim’s way in the 72’ when Steven Zuber dispossessed the freshly substituted Marius Wolf at midfield and hit a long through ball to Nadiem Amiri that caught Lukas Piszczek moving forward. Amiri had acres of space and moved to attack the near post, the pass was so good it created a lose-lose scenario for Abdou Diallo that was essentially a two-on-one with Dominic Solanke attacking the center. Amiri smartly passed to Solanke just as he split the central defenders and easily tucked it into the right side of the goal.

That was it for the action as Hoffenheim seemed to lose steam, a well deserved point that easily could have been a loss.

“I would be lying if I said we weren’t tired” admitted Favre “but that is no excuse, Hoffenheim were the better team today. We got away with one today.”

Bundeslia (H) : 1. FC Nürnberg 0 - Borussia Dortmund 1
Marco Reus curled a free kick into the box and Axel Witsel headed it in at the 8’ mark, and that was it for the game. This time BVB were by far the more dominant team, with Nürnberg happy to concede possession and try to wring a point out of a tough road game. Without that early goal, this would have been a frustrating draw with a 23:6 shots advantage that essentially evaporated when you consider it only amounted to an 8:3 shots on target advantage.

The real kicker here was Christian Pulisic going down with a foot injury late in the game, and it didn’t look good.



Bundeslia (A) : Borussia Dortmund 1 - Bayer Leverkusen 0
If you like dull games, this would have been the game for you. Dortmund played rather poorly, which was most disappointing because this game almost featured a full first choice squad. The 3000 BVB fans that traveled to the Bay Arena must have left feeling like they should have stayed home.

Marwin Hitz started in goal and Marius Wolf took the place of the injured Christian Pulisic, but it isn’t clear if any of that mattered. Dortmund dominated across the board, but it took a clumsy tackle by Leverkusen’s Wendell to set up Marco Reus for a penalty that decided the game. Wendell earned a yellow for his fateful tackle, one of five for Leverkusen.

Things got testy as the game went on with both teams exchanging yellow card worthy tackles before Wendell got his second in the first minute of stoppage time at the end of the game. Favre left the game in a prickly mood and didn’t have much to say afterwards.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FRUSTRATION BECOMES BUNDESLIGA DISASTER

October opened with a rough stretch that would potentially alter the course of the season. A two-game week, facing Galatasaray on the road and FC Augsberg at home would look easy enough on paper, but things would turn sour quickly.

Champions League (A) : Borussia Dortmund 0 - Galatasaray 0
A disappointing result in a game BVB could have and should have won. Overall the game was very dull, with a pile of yellow cards the only reward for fans. BVB was able to enjoy possession but failed to do much with it. The only upside of this result was a point, but it definitely felt like they left points on the table.

Aside from 58% possession, Dortmund looked almost identical to Galatasaray on paper which meant they were not playing to their potential. Even with Marco Reus running the offense, this team looked uninspiring and toothless.

After opening the group with a surprise win over PSG Dortmund sits 1st with (4) points, but any more games like this will see them plummet toward the bottom of the standings.

Bundesliga (H) : FC Augsburg 1 - Borussia Dortmund 3
An easy win that quickly felt like a Pyrrhic victory, Augsburg were awful as BVB romped to a comfortable three points. Paco Alcácer put on a real show today, continuing to put aside his quiet preseason. He opened the scoring at 20’ after Marco Reus snagged the ball on a bad throw in and found him with a killer through ball. He made it 2-0 off a Jacob Bruun Larsen throw in close to Augsburg’s goal, and nearly completed the hat trick with another through ball from Reus that found the woodwork just before the half. Just after halftime Manuel Akanji made it 2-1 by scoring an unfortunate own goal, but made up for it in the 88th minute by heading it into the correct goal off a Reus free kick. Reus didn’t score himself, but he didn’t need to as he showed why Favre has favored him in the No. 10 role. He ended the match with a 9.00 rating and easily took home the PoM.

The Pyrrhic victory came in as BVB announced that Axel Witsel, who left injured during the game, would be out 2-5 months with a hip injury. Mamoud Dahoud would now slot into his DM role, and the decision not to sell Weigl looked rather prescient. BVB’s deep central midfield suddenly got very shallow, the only thing standing between Favre and a total midfield disaster was a petulant player dragging his feet around the training ground every week.



The team will have about two weeks to recover with VfB Stuttgart coming up, but they will not have long to rest after that with two games against the Red Bull clubs (Leipzig and Salzburg) in one week, with the DFB-Pokal date with Leipzig a must win.

A decent set of results, although that draw to Galatasaray is extremely frustrating. Hopefully you'll be able to recover there.

The draw with Galatasaray isn't great but they can be a very tough team to beat if they turn up!

2018-12-16 21:30#253597 mgriffin2012 : The draw with Galatasaray isn't great but they can be a very tough team to beat if they turn up!

I think this was my first game where it burned through the first half without a single highlight. The second half was similar, I think I got a few at the end but it was like even FM was bored by this game.

VFB STUTTGART & FC RB SALZBURG (CHAMPIONS LEAGUE)

If anyone needed at least a full week off, it was BVB. The break between games allowed everyone to get treated and back into match shape, especially the starters with a long history of being injured. While facing Stuttgart wouldn’t be easy, it was a lot better than facing them on two full days of rest.

Bundesliga (A) : Borussia Dortmund 2 - VfB Stuttgart 1
Things started off very poorly for Favre, even with a full week of rest it seemed like things were going against him right out of the gate. Only 28’ in Jadon Sancho pulled up limping and had to be taken off, forgotten man Shinji Kagawa came on and Marco Reus shifted out to LW with nobody else on the roster available to play LW. Not long after at 37’ Mario Gómez snuck through the defense on a through ball, stepped around Marwin Hitz, and put Stuttgart up 1-0 on an open net.

BVB looked to be in disarray when Kagawa headed in a cross from Lukas Piszczek and rescued some sense of control heading into the half 1-1. Marcel Schmelzer, on a yellow and piling up fouls, was taken off for Jeremy Toljan at halftime. BVB started fighting back, turning the tide against Stuttgart and began to threaten in their third. Dortmund finally broke through on a Reus free kick from the left, almost to the goal line, headed in by Marius Wolf on the far post to go up 2-1 at 78’ and seal the fight back.



“I’m proud of the team” said Favre after the game “they were down, but they stayed true and pulled out a tough win.”

Champions League (A) : Borussia Dortmund 1 - FC RB Salzburg
Possibly the weakest team in the group, Salzburg wouldn’t necessarily be a pushover. They have already struggled in the group, but with Dortmund coming off a tough game with Stuttgart there would be an opening for Salzburg to take at least a point.

It certainly seemed that Salzburg were playing for a point, matching Dortmund’s 4-2-3-1 and concentrating on keeping them from getting shots around the box. In terms of exciting action, the game was rather dull, but Salzburg played well to mute a BVB team determined to attack.

Things finally broke down, and decided the game, at 58’ on a clever exchange of passes. A Lukas Piszczek throw in almost at the right corner flag found Mahmoud Dahoud, who quickly tapped it back to Piszczek, finding Mario Gotze on the goal line, tapped to Jacob Bruun Larsen who cut in on goal and drew off three Salzburg defenders to open up Thomas Delaney standing on the penalty spot. It wasn’t hard at all for Delaney to knock it in with everyone moving to Larsen, and that ended up being it for the game.

Seven points from three games would be good enough to top the group after the first go through. A second date with Salzburg would loom on November 7th, the second game against PSG at home would likely determine the group.

Fuck off Salzburg

Two solid enough victories.

EPILOGUE

First I need to thank everyone who has read and made comments since I started this, but as I have been playing more and more I’m rapidly outpacing my ability to write. I’m already two league games into the season of year three, and I don’t plan on slowing down. I’m just going to rush through the highlights of the last two seasons and sign off as a writer.

2018-2019 Season
After losing Witsel things really started to fall apart and, to nobody’s surprise, I lost Marco Reus for two months. Heading into the transfer window my board blessed me with £100M+ in transfer fees, and boy did I need it. Unfortunately I was not paying attention to UCL registration rules, so as I cut bait with players no longer needed I ended up desperately needing them for the first knockout round as all of my new signings were not available. Liverpool absolutely eviscerated me 5-1 at Anfield, and I don’t understand how I got that one goal. They finished me off 1-0 at home, and that was the end of the UCL.

I limped through the Pokal and Bundesliga until everyone made it back, never dropping from 1st place but Bayern Munich was gaining, and with everyone back I just put the league and Pokal away to secure a double.

2019-2020 Season
The first thing I did in the offseason was make Paco Alcácer a permanent move for a paltry £20.5M, a signing I wasn’t planning on making but the market for 4 star strikers was brutal and his sale clause was a bargain. I also bought a stud LB in Kieran Tierney, and a CB José Giménez to pair with Dan-Axel Zagadou to make both of my central defenders 4 star players. Those were literally the only non-youngster purchases I made, considering I won the league with the previous roster I thought I was fine just adding to my weakest areas (I was ravaged by CB injuries, missing Manuel Akanji for the first three months of the season).

Man, that Alcácer signing was a major dud. Maybe it was my change of tactics, but that guy ghosted me for literally the first half of the season. Alexander Isak scored eight goals as the back up before he scored once, but he picked it up in the second half and finished with 14.

The story of this season was Marco Reus, who just ascended to God Level across all competitions. Leading the team in goals, assists, and rating per game (7.90!) before… getting injured and being out for over a month. The cool thing was Christian Pulisic said “hold my beer” and ascended himself. He made 33 starts and finished with 16 goals and 19 assists with a 7.82 average rating and possibly maxed himself out at 4.5 stars at age 20.

Kieran Tierney was a beast, got elected to the World Team, and helped me win the double again. I clinched the Bundesliga with four games to go, and it could have been sooner as I needed only a single point with five left but I lost. I learned my lesson from the Liverpool Massacre and made it to the UCL final where I lost 1-0 to Juventus.

Sad to see this end, you bought something different to the section and an exciting story

It's hard to find a balance sometimes between writing and playing. I hope to see you return with a new story and save soon, as this was a good read. Congratulations on winning the Bundesliga, but unlucky in the Champions League final.

2018-12-27 11:49#253861 ScottT : It's hard to find a balance sometimes between writing and playing. I hope to see you return with a new story and save soon, as this was a good read. Congratulations on winning the Bundesliga, but unlucky in the Champions League final.

I'll be back! I think after that first season I found a way to manage Match Load, at least half of my serious injuries were from playing Russian Roulette with Match Load. I have to deal with a lot of people complaining about first team soccer, but so far in Year 3 I'm 16-1-0 in the Bundesliga and haven't lost a game all season (Including UCL & Pokal) even with some inconvenient injuries.

2018-12-27 10:43#253854 mgriffin2012 : Sad to see this end, you bought something different to the section and an exciting story

Thanks, I've been doing stories / dynasty reports for years and always end up getting behind the game and it kills the fun.

I was really looking forward to writing about Julian Weigl without a massive string of expletives... a real challenge.



I finally got sick of his whining (even after he established himself as a regular starter in year 2) and sold him to PSG for £40M and let him be their problem.