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Post by fmamerican on Mar 17, 2019 18:35:29 GMT
 BFC DYNAMO - INTRO POSTI'm already a season into this save so I'll have the intro post and then a 2018-19 season recap post. BFC Dynamo is East Germany's most successful club. They won 10 straight East German titles from 1979 to 1988. Many of the other East German clubs hated BFC because they thought that BFC had the officials in their back pocket and they also made an important transfer that would push them to the title. After Germany's reunification, BFC were placed into what is now the 3.Liga but back in the early 1990's, it was Regionalliga football. The club, now forced to play third fiddle in Berlin, have spent the last 25 years bouncing between the 3rd and 5th tiers of German football. In the 2018-19 season, they are in the 4th tier and play in the Regionalliga-Nordost.
 BFC play their home matches in Friedrich-Ludwig-Juhn-Sportpark (a mouthful of a name). The stadium was built in 1951 primarily as an athletics facility since a track still surrounds the field. In real life, the stadium holds just under 20,000 fans but in FM, it has a seating capacity of just under 2,000 and a total capacity of under 20,000. The stadium has been used for a variety of sporting events. It has hosted UEFA Women's Championship matches, NFL Europe games, Speedway races, and was the venue for the 2018 European Paralympics. The infrastructure of the club is poor. The "best" of the facilities is the training facilities which rate as Below Average. All the other facilities are Basic or Fairly Basic. Much investment will need to be made in this area has the club progresses through the leagues.  
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 17, 2019 23:11:32 GMT
2018-19 BFC DYNAMO SEASON REVIEWSeason Table -- Fixtures 1 -- Fixtures 2 -- Season Stats -- Finances
It was a tale of two seasons for the BFC Dynamo. We played the fall season in a very aggressive 4-2-3-1 formation. We won games but we gave up a lot of clear cut chances. Teams were getting behind our high line and getting one-on-one with our goalkeeper. After the winter break, we switched the attacking midfielder into a defensive midfielder. The clear cut chances became almost non-existent. We allowed just five goals in the 14 games in the spring season. We won all 14 games. We moved from sixth place into league champions and gained promotion to the 3.Liga. PLAYERS OF THE SEASON
LB Joshua Silva (41%): Left-back Silva was our best player for the season. He led the team with the highest average rating. He got involved in the offense with one goal and five assists. On the defensive side, he won 90% of his tackles and 83% of his headers. His season was so good that Liga NOS Santa Clara came in with a big money contract to take him back home to Portugal for the 2019-20 season. RW Ronny Garbuschewski (27%): Good news: Garbuschewski was our team's leading goal scorer. The bad news: he scored just nine goals and was a winger not a center forward. He pitched in with four assists. Garbuschewski is a good Regionalliga player but I'm not sure his game will translate up to the 3.Liga. RB Christian Ehrnhofer (20%): Ehrnhofer was one of the few players that I brought in the summer off-season. He did not disappoint providing defensive stability on the right to allow Silva to go forward on the left. Ehrnhofer did not score any goals but did contribute six assists. The youth intake was absolute trash. The less I talk about it the better. Not a single useful player for the senior team going forward. I signed about 10 of them just to provide some real players for the youth team but that's it.   As a 3.Liga club, we are required to do to two things. First is turn professional. The second is install under-soil heating. The under-soil heating comes at a significant cost which required the club to take out a loan for the installation. Hopefully after a couple of seasons of professional football, the board will pay back the loan early though I'm not counting on it.  
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Post by chaodck on Mar 18, 2019 12:18:32 GMT
Another Berlin save, that's interesting. While researching for my TeBe Berlin save I almost ended up managing BFC Dynamo, but I took the slightly harder road of going a tier down and with a smaller club. I'll be following, but won't wish you good luck, as we're now rivals, haha. Cheers!
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 18, 2019 18:51:19 GMT
Another Berlin save, that's interesting. While researching for my TeBe Berlin save I almost ended up managing BFC Dynamo, but I took the slightly harder road of going a tier down and with a smaller club. I'll be following, but won't wish you good luck, as we're now rivals, haha. Cheers! Maybe if the club wasn't so focused on tennis, they wouldn't be stuck in the 5th tier.  I almost didn't do this save because of your TeBe save. But I found BFC interesting because it's a "what could have been" scenario with them. What if they were on the west side of the wall? Would they be a club with a history that is remembered by more people? Would they be a bigger rival to Hertha and Union Berlin? Just a fascinating and interesting club in my opinion. |
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Post by chaodck on Mar 18, 2019 19:02:46 GMT
Another Berlin save, that's interesting. While researching for my TeBe Berlin save I almost ended up managing BFC Dynamo, but I took the slightly harder road of going a tier down and with a smaller club. I'll be following, but won't wish you good luck, as we're now rivals, haha. Cheers! Maybe if the club wasn't so focused on tennis, they wouldn't be stuck in the 5th tier. I almost didn't do this save because of your TeBe save. But I found BFC interesting because it's a "what could have been" scenario with them. What if they were on the west side of the wall? Would they be a club with a history that is remembered by more people? Would they be a bigger rival to Hertha and Union Berlin? Just a fascinating and interesting club in my opinion. Totally get you mate, I almost chose BFC Dynamo for the same reason, my research started being focused on teams from the GDR. If you fancy a set of kits, I'll gladly do them, as a peace offer, haha. |
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 21, 2019 14:17:23 GMT
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Post by Robson on Mar 21, 2019 21:24:07 GMT
Looking a bit precarious there Tim. I expect you'll float up the table soon though. Nice to see you around.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 22, 2019 15:00:22 GMT
November/December 2019  Seven matches in November and December as we head into the winter break. We only lost one of the seven matches when we traveled to Braunsweig. We closed the first half of the season smashing last place Viktoria Koln. The 14 points from a possible 21 have seen us move into the top half of the 3.Liga table in 8th place. I doubt we will remain there. We have a knack for grinding out results and our margin for error is very thin. But with 32 points already in the bank, I'm fairly certain that we are safe from relegation unless we find a way to lose all 14 of our spring matches.  Center midfielder Jan Holldack has been the player of the first half of the season. He was one of the team leaders in goals with six (center forward Timo Bornemann and left winger Robin Kehr also have six). Holldack has also added three assists. He has been our engine in the midfield and quite the summer free signing.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 23, 2019 13:06:20 GMT
January/February 2020  Two more solid months have us thinking more about promotion than about relegation. But like the other months in our season, our wins are the result of grinding up a 1-0 or 2-1 victory. When we lose, we lose in spectacular fashion as I attempt to chase the game and try to get a game-tying goal. We scored when we were getting thrashed by Cottbus but we had already let in four. First place Lotte took us behind the wood shed in another road loss. But 16 points from a possible 21 see us move into 5th place.  Another absolute trash intake. I only signed four players out of this game and immediately fired my Head of Youth Development. Hopefully some improved facilities coming next season will help improve these intakes somewhat but I'm not expecting much.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 23, 2019 13:12:59 GMT
March 2020  Another undefeated month and eight points from a possible twelve. But, as always, it wasn't easy with a 2-1 and 2-0 victory. Robin Kehr was the player of the month for Dynamo scoring three of the team's six goals. We climbed up one spot in the table to 4th place and sit, now, just one point behind Lotte who have fallen from 1st to 3rd. We are also just two points behind 2nd place Zwickau for the automatic promotion spot. We open April with a match again 5th place Aue which should determine if we are going to battle for the promotion places or if we are going to be on the outside looking in.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 23, 2019 20:44:52 GMT
April 2020 Three games remain in the month of May and the standings are tight. Braunschweig is, probably, the only team that feels safe. Six points ahead of third place with three games remaining. Outside of that, any of the teams sitting in 2nd to 7th place could finish anywhere between 2nd and 7th place with just three points separating all the teams.  Seven points from nine and two wins in typical BSC Dynamo fashion: a grind out win. 18th place Halle gave us a good run too with a road draw. I'm encouraged that the fans are starting to come out and see us play. At the beginning of the year, we drawing just over 3,000 fans per game. Now, we are getting almost double that amount. We close the season with a pair of road games against bottom half of the table teams and close the season with a game that could decide who gets automatically promoted and who has to go through the playoffs.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 24, 2019 2:06:28 GMT
May 2020Longer season recap post coming tomorrow. But we are going up to 2.Bundesliga.  
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 25, 2019 23:30:31 GMT
2019-20 BFC DYNAMO SEASON REVIEWStandings -- Fixtures 1 -- Fixtures 2 -- Statistics -- Finances -- Commercial Summary
A season where we ground out results and didn't collapse when it got down to the end of the season. We had brought in a lot of people on loan to fill out the roster. It was the only way that we could put together a quality roster. The players who contracts expired at the end of the 2018-19 season were nowhere near the quality to play in the 3.Liga and the players available on free transfers were not a) plentiful or b) high quality. Basically, we needed loan players to get us through the year. I just realize it was going to push us through the 3.Liga in just one season. We barely made it on goal difference (+15 to +11) over Kaiserslautern. Players of the Season:
CM Jan Holldack (34%): Not sure I understand this decision from the media/fans. Holldack had a good season don't get me wrong. I just didn't think it was Player of the Year worthy. Holldack was third on the team with eight goals and tied for the team lead with five assists. He was one of our better passers at 86% and a good tackler in the midfield winning 88% of his tackles. He was a volume shooter as well and was second on the team in shots per 90 minutes. He will be one of the players that we will be building around as we make the move up to the 2.Bundesliga. LW Robin Kehr (29%): Kehr, in my opinion, was our Player of the Year. He led the team with 16 goals. The goals were big goals. They were goals which were either game-winners or game-tying goals. He was a much more efficient shooter than Holldack. Kehr hit the target 60% of the time. Took fewer shots than Holldack and scored eight more goals than Holldack. I tried to get him to sign up for another season on loan and use him to build our 2020-21 team around but he declined. CB Luca Kilian (24%): Kilian was another player who came in on loan and became the backbone of our defensive line. He was a rock defensively winning 97% of his tackles and 83% of his headers. A solid and steady defender who was one of the first names on the team sheet. Like Kehr, I asked him to come for a second season and like Kehr, he declined. So, I will need to rework our defensive core as well. We finished the season with a good deal of money in the bank after the end of season prize money and sponsorship money. I poured all of that money into the club's facilities.    Our youth intakes have been hot garbage and established players don't want to come to use our "third world" facilities. All of facilities needed upgrading and they are getting much needed upgrades. 2020-21 Goals:Avoid relegation even if we have to go through the playoffs. Collect the big 2.Bundesliga prize money paycheck and invest that money into the club facilities Start putting a core of players that aren't on loan but still have players on loan to help push the club forward (we just don't have the wage budget to sign a roster full of 2.Bundesliga players) |
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 29, 2019 20:30:30 GMT
August/September 2020  We went a friendly schedule where we could beat team outside of our payday friendly with Dortmund. We used the easy friendly schedule as a good springboard into the regular season. We have continued our grind it out form that we had all of the 2019-20 season. If we keep up this pace, we won't have to worry about relegation. Won't have to worry about promotion either which is fine with me. We are woefully undermanned to try to put together a Bundesliga-level team in the near future. I need a few seasons here to build up the infrastructure and overall quality of the club before I can think about promotion.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 29, 2019 20:34:59 GMT
October 2020
  We continue to just grind out games and results. No losses. Only one win. Only three goals scored. Only two goals allowed. It was just a boring month from a fan viewing perspective. We play boring football and that's okay. We don't get blown out. We don't blow anybody out. It's a grind to even watch. But it produces results. We still firmly in the middle of the table in 9th place and on 17 points which is 10 points ahead of the 16th place club. Just need to grind out a few more months and we will ensure safety which is the ultimate goal for this season.
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Post by fmamerican on Mar 30, 2019 16:11:02 GMT
November/December 2020  Two more months of grind it out football in the books and we have shot up to 4th place in the table heading into the winter break. The only blip was the 5-3 "track meet" match against 1st place Ingolstadt. I went away from my defensive tendencies and tried to play attacking football. It worked in the first half as we took a 3-1 lead into the break. I kept my foot on the gas in the second half and the next thing I knew we walked off at the end of the game with a 5-3 loss. Sitting on 30 points at the winter break means we are safe from relegation barring a complete collapse in the spring season. I'm going to stay the course and continue to grind out results as long as we can. Keep grinding!
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Post by fmamerican on Apr 5, 2019 14:20:11 GMT
Finished my first season in the 2.Bundesliga. Trying to find the time to write up the report.
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Post by fmamerican on Apr 6, 2019 20:13:52 GMT
2020-21 BFC DYNAMO SEASON REVIEWTable -- Fixtures (January-May) -- Statistics -- Youth Intake
It was a very successful season for BSC Dynamo. We finished the year in fifth place. We were led by our loanee Nikos Zografakis who led us in all offensive categories: Goals (13), Assists (10) and Average Rating (7.44). We got off to a good start and never really looked back. We weren't good enough to challenge for the playoff places but we were never under the threat of relegation. Just a very solid season on all fronts. We used some of the money we earned from moving from 3.Liga to the 2.Bundesliga and invested in the infrastructure. We upgraded both the training and youth facilities while making significant upgrades to the youth recruitment and junior coaching. We didn't reap the benefits of this in the first year as the facilities still lag behind the rest of the division. If we can spend a few more seasons in the 2.Bundesliga, we can build the club up and depend on our players as opposed to what loans are available to us. PLAYERS OF THE SEASON:
LW Nikos Zografakis (52%): Zografakis was by far our best player of the season. As I already mentioned, he led us on offense. His "hidden stats" were great as well. He got 50% of his shots on target from his left wing position. He completed "only" 40 passes per game but two of those 40 were key passes per game while creating close to one chance per game. His tackling was excellent as well with winning 71% of his tackles from the left wing position. Most importantly, he was willing to join us on loan again, from Hertha BSC, for the 21-22 season. CB Chris Richards (20%): Richards was the rock in our defensive line this season while on loan from Bayern Munich. Richards won 92% of his tackles and 82% of his headers which was good for 2nd best and best on the defensive line respectively. Usually he paired with Bradley Cross or Jan Boller. A nice solid defenseman. Bayern was kind enough to allow him to stay for a second season and Richards agreed. RW Marvin Obuz (17%): Obuz split time on the right wing with Dominic Fitz. The two players, combined, put up better numbers than Zografakis did on the left side. Fitz and Obuz scored 16 goals and added 11 assists. I rode whichever player was hot at the time. Obuz was the better goal scorer with nine of the 16 goals but only added four of the 11 assists. We really didn't have many standouts on this year's team and somebody had to the 3rd placed Player of the Year and the fans voted Obuz to have that honor. Goals for 2021-22
Finances have improved thanks to the improved 2.Bundesliga prize money so we intend to continue to improve our training and youth facilities with this prize money. (@chaddock - did you notice that there is no TV money in the 2.Bundesliga in your save) Use more players which are contractually tied to the club and fewer players that are loaned to the club Follow up the 5th place finish in the 2020-21 season with a similar finish in 2021-22. I really don't want promote this year. We just don't have the depth at the club to compete in the Bundesliga. We need to build up the depth at the club before we move up. That starts with upgrading the facilities and bringing better players through that way. |
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