Career Mr Manager's 2 Bundesliga Challenges for the Price of 1

[Mr.Manager]

Mr Manager takes on 2 Bundesliga Challenges for the Price of 1

What better way to kickstart my FMM18 career then by knocking off two challenges in one go?

From browsing through @danovic78's brilliant Challenge Index I noticed that two Bundesliga-based challenges could be done together. In this career, I'll be taking on "Der Bomber: The Gerd Müller Challenge" and "Borussia Mönchengladbach: The Golden Decade Challenge".

Feel free to check out the challenge links for more details but the basic gist of it is to replicate the achievements of the legendary Gerd Müller, whilst also looking to match Borussia Mönchengladbach's incredibly successful period during the 1970's. There's different time limits for each challenge, so I'm going for the shorter one - I'll be taking them both down in just 10 seasons.

I have gone through a few casual games offline but this is my first serious attempt at a career since FMM17, so hopefully it'll be interesting to see how I get on!

Club Record	Gerd Müller	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6	S7	S8	S9	S10
Bundesliga	0/4
DFB-Pokal	0/4
DFL-Supercup
Champions League	0/3
Europa League
European Super Cup
FIFA World Club Cup	0/1
Player Record
Season Goals	0/40 (league)
Total Goals	0/195 & 0/398
Top Goalscorer	0/7
Bonus
MOTY
POTY
Points

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Mr.Manager

[Titjes]

Good luck mate   Nice to see you will try and take on 2 challenges at the same time  

[1899]

Might as well do the double-whammy while you're at it. Good luck, dude!

[Nucleus]

All the best mate 

[Mr.Manager]

6 minutes ago, Titjes said:

Good luck mate   Nice to see you will try and take on 2 challenges at the same time  

Thanks mate! Ha yeah, I thought I'd ease myself in slowly...

added 0 minutes later

6 minutes ago, 1899 said:

Might as well do the double-whammy while you're at it. Good luck, dude!

Cheers dude!

added 0 minutes later

Just now, NucleusNT said:

All the best mate 

Thanks mate! 

[samhardy]

Best of luck @Mr.Manager. Loved your two careers last year so thoroughly looking forward to this one.

[Taff]

Glad to see you're back dude, and taking on a double act to start sounds about right for you

Good luck

[Mr.Manager]

1 hour ago, samhardy said:

Best of luck @Mr.Manager. Loved your two careers last year so thoroughly looking forward to this one.

Thanks mate! Hopefully i can live up to that and put in a good showing in the Vibe Premier League!

[Mr.Manager]

4 minutes ago, Taff said:

Glad to see you're back dude, and taking on a double act to start sounds about right for you

Good luck

Thanks @Taff, it's good to be back. Great to see all of the same faces (and some good new ones), and even a little bit of Taff-bashing... Haha. 

Cheers man

[BatiGoal]

Back with a bang! Some challenge you're undertaking. Best of luck! 

[Mr.Manager]

Season 1 - Choosing a Gerd striker

Being a decade-long challenge, I need to remember that this is a marathon not a sprint. How I do with my starting squad in season 1 is not that important right now. But if I choose the wrong striker to be my Muller 2.0, this challenge could fail before it's even started.

The Player

Per the rules we need a German striker from the lower leagues, so I can't be smashing it with top young marksmen like Werner or Volland. @Gav77has already nailed the Müller part of the challenge with Felix Platte so to keep it interesting he's out of the question too.

With that being the case, I plumped for a teenager called Emmanuel Ihoya:

At the minute he looks… ok… But he's got a decent mix of pace and power, aerial ability, dribbling, technique, finishing… And at 19, he should hopefully improve a fair deal.

It was a mixed first season for the lad. He scored in fits and starts but also picked up a couple of injuries. Overall, he managed a pretty respectable tally in the league, but Lewandowski still scored nearly twice as many league goals as him!

All in all, he plundered a decent 25 goals in 29 games.

He was also honoured with a place in the Bundesliga team of the season.

There's no young player of the year award for some reason but I imagine he would have had a good chance of picking that up too.

The lad looked a lot better by the seasons end. His teamwork's a bit high though, we need him to be a bit more greedy than that!

The Team

The board were looking for Champions League qualification as a bare minimum

Usually I'd automatically adjust that to finishing as champions straight away, but I was a bit wary about the strength of Bayern and the fact that it wouldn't really have got me much more money to work with…

And it's a good job I used that caution, as Bayern absolutely destroyed the league!

I'll take that second place though.

The limited funds available meant that I had to be fairly creative with my transfers. The only incomer for more than £10m was Widmer - a right back I really rated in the last game. Otherwise, I had a scattering of cheaper players and a couple of really important loan signings in Lo Celso and Bentancur. I think it's amazing that you can get both of them for free at the beginning of the game, and I'm probably going to bring them in in every career I do this year!

With a raft of players leaving the club I ended up with a net spend of just £6m. Not bad.

Finally, we managed to go all the way in the German Cup, beating Bayern in the final. Woop!

Summary

Club Record	Gerd Müller	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6	S7	S8	S9	S10
Bundesliga	0/4	2
DFB-Pokal	1/4	W
DFL-Supercup		-
Champions League	0/3	-
Europa League		-
European Super Cup		-
FIFA World Club Cup	0/1	-
Player Record
Season Goals	0/40 (league)	19
Total Goals	0/195 & 0/398	25
Top Goalscorer	0/7	-
Bonus
MOTY		-
POTY		-
Points		45

Edited February 14, 2018 by Mr.Manager
Images

[samhardy]

Enthralling first update here. Looks like he could turn out to be a gem of a player! High teamwork isn't necessarily a bad thing, needs it to keep the attacks flowing and less chance of them breaking down. 11-13 is normally what I look for.

[BatiGoal]

"Gerd" is looking good. Nice developments and a decent number to kick things off with. No doubt season 2 is going to be bigger. 

[Taff]

Decent looking young player there dude, and a good first season, I don't think anyone can compete with Bayern in the first season unless they go out and splash £100M+ on new players

But a good start to the double challenge

[FuddledFox]

Sorry I missed the start of this but I have caught up this morning. Great idea to do two challenges in one career and looks like you have made a good start.

[Titjes]

Good start  Bayern will be a pain in seasons to come  

[Mr.Manager]

10 hours ago, samhardy said:

Enthralling first update here. Looks like he could turn out to be a gem of a player! High teamwork isn't necessarily a bad thing, needs it to keep the attacks flowing and less chance of them breaking down. 11-13 is normally what I look for.

Thanks mate! That's a good point about teamwork, i hadn't really considered that.

I'm still really getting to grips with the game - only towards the end of the season did i realise that the shoot on sight tactic can really boost the number of goals he gets!

added 0 minutes later

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

"Gerd" is looking good. Nice developments and a decent number to kick things off with. No doubt season 2 is going to be bigger. 

Thanks mate. Yeah it's not a bad start but hopefully we can kick on from here. Being in Europe might help as we just didn't have that many games to compete in!

[Mr.Manager]

2 hours ago, Taff said:

Decent looking young player there dude, and a good first season, I don't think anyone can compete with Bayern in the first season unless they go out and splash £100M+ on new players

But a good start to the double challenge

Thanks Taff. Yeah, they were insanely good this season. Managed to beat them in the German Cup though so hopefully that's a sign of things to come...

added 0 minutes later

1 hour ago, FuddledFox said:

Sorry I missed the start of this but I have caught up this morning. Great idea to do two challenges in one career and looks like you have made a good start.

No worries mate! You didn't miss much anyway... Ha thanks, if it goes well i might see if there are any other double challenges i can take down!

[Mr.Manager]

1 hour ago, Titjes said:

Good start  Bayern will be a pain in seasons to come  

Haha cheers mate... If I manage to make enough money i might have to steal Lewandowski off them to stop him from taking the top goalscorer crown!

[mcandrew003]

Excellent to see you back mate and what a cracking career this is going to be! Great first update too, things are going well and you'll only get closer to that Bundesliga title 

[Mr.Manager]

19 hours ago, mcandrew003 said:

Excellent to see you back mate and what a cracking career this is going to be! Great first update too, things are going well and you'll only get closer to that Bundesliga title 

Thanks mate, good to see you! Glad you like it. I'm sure there's going to plenty of ups and downs over the next 10 seasons...

[Mr.Manager]

Season 2 - Borussia Sprouts

 

We made a decent start in season 1, but we're really going to have to pick up if we're going to match Müller and Mönchengladbach's 70's heyday.

 

The Player

 

25 goals in just 29 games was a respectable effort for the teenage Ihoya last year. He's turned 20 now, and with stronger stats and better teammates, I'm hoping he can manage more games and surpass the goal per game mark…

 

He started the season on fire:

 

 

9 goals in 3 games! Including 6 in 2 against our main rivals Bayern!

 

This imperious form came with a new set of issues though:

 

 

The vultures are circling. We batted them off without any problems this time around, but if they keep coming - or the big boys come a-knocking - there's a danger that his head may be turned…

 

Anyway, he wasn't able to keep up his 3 goals per game form of the early weeks, but…

 

 

Golden boot winner! Just edged it ahead of Lewandowski.

 

He managed to play almost twice as many games as last season, and finished with a respectable end of season tally of 36 goals.

 

 

Happy with that, although after such a scintillating start it is a little disappointing that he couldn't at least manage a goal a game.

 

Still, the football world was impressed. He appeared in the Bundesliga team of the season again…

 

 

...And even more impressively was selected for the World XI for the first time!

 

 

The lad is developing well and his stats are beginning to show it. I'm hoping for a massive season next time round.

 

 

The Team

 

As I already hinted at with Ihoya's amazing start to the season, we began the season on fire. Our first game was the German Supercup against Bayern. And we absolutely destroyed them…

 

 

We also managed to hold them off in the league, going the whole season undefeated and finishing 10 points ahead of our big rivals

 

 

We didn't have it all our way though, as Bayern bumped us out of the cup at the quarter final stage.

 

 

Our most enjoyable run though came in the champions league, as we battled our way all the way to the final.

 

We were eventually beaten by Manchester United but it was really encouraging to see us get that far.

 

 

Aside from Ihoya, two of the reasons for Borussia's blossoming came from the wings. I'd signed Pavon in my first transfer window but he has developed really nicely since then. And I continued to exploit the loan system by picking up the excellent Zivkovic on loan from Atletico Madrid.

 

Both players were successful at the end of season awards.

 

 

No manager of the year for me though… I only went the season undefeated and reached the champions league final, that's all…

 

 

Summary

 

Club Record	Gerd Müller	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6	S7	S8	S9	S10
Bundesliga	1/4	2	1
DFB-Pokal	1/4	W	QF
DFL-Supercup		-	W
Champions League	0/3	-	F
Europa League		-	-
European Super Cup		-	-
FIFA World Club Cup	0/1	-	-
Player Record
Season Goals	0/40 (league)	19	23
Total Goals	0/195 & 0/398	25	61
Top Goalscorer	1/7	-	W
Bonus
MOTY		-	-
POTY		-	W
Points		45	95

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Mr.Manager

[Gav77]

Quote

Great season overall, undefeated in the league is no mean feat. Building nicely it would seem

That 40 League goals is such an awkward one to get though.....

 

[BatiGoal]

Is this a 'chat' or 'career'? 

Good progress and great to see BMG dominating the Bundesliga and what a player Ihoya is turning out to be. If those seven 13s/14s become green you'll have the next phenom on your hands. 

[Taff]

He’s developing nicely and the team is looking very impressive.

kiu dude and you’ll smash this in no time 

[mcandrew003]

Your striker is developing really nicely, looks to be well suited to your training schemes. 

Well done on a superb season, I'm confident you'll only get better! Don't worry about that Goal-To-Game ratio just yet, you've got a few years before that becomes an issue. Just tinker and test with the tactics, you've got something that works so don't be afraid to try something crazy as you can always just go back to your current tactic.