Managing All Over The World

Hello and welcome to the next post in my European Alphabet Challenge where I am now in Germany with Borussia Dortmund. I joined after pre-season meaning the squad was as the last manager left it. So here are the results for the season from when I joined up to the end of the January window:

We’ve had a terrific start of the season in all competitions. We have done really well in the Bundesliga, we also reached the Quarter Finals of the German Cup, and we finished 2nd in our Champion’s League group behind Liverpool.

So we sit 2nd place in the Bundesliga behind, of course, Bayern Munich. We are still in with a shot of winning the league but it will be very hard to overcome them. One thing I noticed from the season up to the January window was that the full-backs were terrible. The previous manager failed to realise that both the DR and DL were rubbish.

Here are the outs in the January window under me:

I allowed 3 players to leave permanently, for a total of £4.3m. I also loaned out several youngsters to feeder clubs to help them gain experience.

Here are the ins:

I signed 4 players, here they are:

Thulanganyo Matete: MC   (£3.4m Fee — From RB Salzburg)

I signed Matete as he was a very good player available to me at a very good price. I met his £3.4m release clause, again showing why Austria is a great place to shop during later seasons, and he instantly dropped into the first team. He should be a very useful asset to the club for the remainder of the season.

Alex Bell: DR   (£110k p/m Loan Fee — From AC Milan)

With not much available on the market, I had to use the loan system to provide a temporary improvement to the DR position. I signed the American International as his attributes are fantastic for this division and he should provide experience in that position. The previous DR was 34 and made a load of errors consistently, it can’t be hard to improve on that.

Patrick: ST   (£1m Compensation Fee — From Flamengo)

I am really excited about Patrick and although I probably wont be here when he reaches his peak, I am going to stay subscribed to him so I don’t miss his growth as a player. £1m is a terrific price for a player with 4.5 stars potential at top level football.

Raouf Jebali: DL   (£7.75m Fee — From SK Sturm Graz)

Jebali may not be the best DL in the world, but he was a damn sight cheaper than most others on the market and at £7.75m, not a really high price. Hopefully he can provide a vast improvement on the previous DL, Barda, who was 31 and also made loads of errors.

Thanks for reading and please comment/vote!