Welcome to Deutschland--leave your cash at the door.

retired_blondielovespink · 01-23-2003, 07:04 AM

Well, as promised, I have started a new career game. This one begins in the Regional North of Germany. The club of choice- Rot & Weiss Essen.

Why? Well the chairman is mildly patient (12), but his expectations aren't matching his cashflow. He expects promotion, but he's given me 145k Euro to work with, 80k transfer, and my wage bill which came due 2 weeks after I took the job put me just as far in the red as our team jerseys.

So is he out to lunch? Can I promote the side, or will I get the sack and the side go into administration? We have a stadium that 'could' see 30000 fans, but we have a tenth of that present for league matches, which is half of the seating, and "adequate" facilities for training our youth. Obviously, with the nonexistent cash flow, even if we do get promoted, staying in Div 2 will be a blast.

The talent on the squad is good, for the Regional. I also brought in a couple veterans to aid the side, one a 33 yr old Austrian left wing (who already got himself injured once), and the other a 34 year old Italian center back (who doesn't have the stamina to last a whole match, but averages an 8 while he's in).

Our goalkeeping is above average, our strikers solid, but we have no central midfield to speak of. The best of the lot may be a 16 year old French AMC my scout found. And I tried to seel off one of my DMRs (rated as an "important first team player" when I arrived, but he had a pace of 3). I had him sold off for a sale that 'would' have cleared my debt (back then). But they couldn't find the cash after delaying the transfer once, so I cancelled it. And of course, now the player is "angry at manager for not being allowed to move clubs."

So now I'm further in debt and he is even madder at me.

My coaches stink, my scouts (of which there are 4--one of the reason I took the club) are little better. And even if they found someone, it's not likely they would join us. Let alone the fact that we couldn't afford to sign them anyway. Sound like fun? I thought so!

[This message was edited by shawng1 on 23 January 2003 at 06:28.]

KingsbayYHPE · 01-23-2003, 11:24 AM

Good luck, shawn. I enjoyed my time in Germany, but I maintain the step from Bundesliga 2 to 1 is the toughest in CM. There's so many top class Clubs and players it's a bitch to try to consolidate your position in the top flight. Lovely!!!

KUTGW!!

retired_holden · 01-23-2003, 11:30 AM

The less said about my season (singular!) in the German regionals the better! :o Needless to say I couldn't offer advice even if it was allowed

Hope you have a cracker

retired_tinkfaeree · 01-23-2003, 11:30 AM

Welcome to Germany! - I haven't ever had success in the German Regionals, I guess playing there is hard for me since I know most of the players and I'm unable to forget about this knowledge. So usually I end up playing players on positions they would play IRL, but not in the game.

(and of course, my team sucks then).

RW Essen are a team with a great history and have lots of fans in Germany. In 1955, 8 years before the founding of the German Bundesliga, they even won the German Championship, after winning the German Cup two years before.

Essen played in the Bundesliga then for seven years, (not continuously) but after 1977 they never came back into the top flight. After their second relegation from the 2. Division in 1991 they are in big trouble, always having ambitious chairmen who want to bring back the old glory and risking too much.

Have fun there and KUTGW!

retired_blondielovespink · 01-23-2003, 11:39 AM

Well, that would explain "expect promotion" for chair's expectations when we have no cash a bunch of players with pace that could be measured with a sundial.

Yep, it ought to be fun. And iajafer, I tried to make the jump from 2 to 1 once before with Eintracht Frankfurt. 4mil Euro in the red and a relegation later...let's just say it was my most humiliating moment in CM, I did jump before I was pushed though. So yep, this ought to be fun.

I suppose I should add we have 24 players (including the one I'm trying to sell), and no reserve team. As of the time of the writing, we're already 800k Euro in the red, too. Wage bill of 400k a month, and I used my balance on my 2 signing bonuses.

Like I said, leave your cash at the door.

[This message was edited by shawng1 on 23 January 2003 at 10:49.]

retired_tinkfaeree · 01-23-2003, 12:04 PM

Yeah, this explains it pretty much. There are many teams with lots of tradition in the German Regionals that share the same problem (Fortuna Düsseldorf, Dynamo Dresden, 1. FC Saarbrücken, and others). Old tradition keeps telling them that they don't BELONG to the regionals

Oh, and the thing with the reserve teams:

In Germany there are only 2 professional leagues. The 1. Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. Reserve teams of professional clubs can play in any non-professional league but can't get promoted (unless the professional club would get relegated into the regionals).

Clubs like Dortmund now used their amateur teams (which are also playing in the Regionals) to play their star players either as punishment or to get match praxis for them. The problem of course was now, that the other teams in the regionals were not happy with this because they said it's not fair that they had to play against international superstars the one day, while on a different day the same team would play only with some kids. For this reason the reserve team regulations are stricter than for example in England. (From now on professionals can't play anymore for the regional teams).

retired_blondielovespink · 01-23-2003, 12:23 PM

Oliver,

I was aware of the reason why there is no reserve side, I was just noting this for the purpose of making the crowd aware that I have only 24 squad players total and no "grey" players to add to my lineup by doing the semi-legal merge of reserve teams with regular teams. Which I don't do anyway unless I don't have enough for a 1st team squad period, but won't be an issue here.

Thanks for the background on RW, I was trying to brush off my rusty German (rusty, he says, that doesn't even begin to tell the story). But I couldn't make much headway with the site, and there's no English version.