Red Stars Munich

[mmunger]

It is the end of season 2 at Red Stars Munich and the team is a work in progress, with early success and a promising future.

I am a Bayern Munich fan who was challenged by the Top Eleven folks to try to implement my favourite club's vision here and write about it.



The vision

I set out to mold this team with an attacking style, with good balance to be able to defend. After much shuffling, I settled on a 4-4-2 since it seems to provide the best balance in T11, with a short and mixed passing game.

The squad



So far, I picked up a number of young starters on the transfer market, focusing on quiet hours to get talented Nordgens who would train fast and last long. They cost a lot of money, but I mostly avoided bidding wars and the boys are playing well.

Building from the back, I got a Norwegian keeper (Jan-Eric Rehmann, 21 years old) who rose to Scout status with game experience and training.

In defence, a fast-rising German pillar (Michael Gerba, 21), two Danish guys (Casper Vestergaard, 19, and Kristian Winther, 24), one Swede (David Fredriksson, 19) and then a Turkish veteran (Fatih Gümüspala, 30) from the scouting list. Together, they will rotate as a strong back four.

During the first two seasons, I realized the importance of a strong midfield line.

A pair of young German midfielders (Axel Jung, 18, and Otto Messer, 20) bought in recent days should become stars. On the right, a Romanian (Adrian Moldovan, 24) and a North Irish (Michael McManus, 27) pair up to take on defences.

Up front, I kept a Canadian striker (Mark Young, 20) from the original squad. He is one star under other starters, but he always seems to find the net, especially on headers. I also brought in a very fast trainer (Alexander Adler, 18)

The bench is made mostly of veterans who have enough quality to come in as a part of a healthy rotation. I sold a fair few players with high value because they could hardly come off the bench.



Results so far

We won the league in the first season.

We have gone to Champions League and Cup semis in the second year, but lost against superior opponents who had five-star and six-star players. The CL battle was a hard one. Ask the opponent who injured four players in the second leg, due to hard tackling on my part

The Red Stars finished second in the league this term, as rotation and tactical experimentation took their toll and as a Russian rival dropped few points. In fact, he lost one game... against us.



Finances

Finances went up and down during the season. Competition prizes allowed me to invest heavily in the squad and stadium.

The Red Stars will however finish the season with 2M in the bank with a squad that should be strong enough to earn a lot of money in the future.

Stadium

This is where I was the most aggressive. I did a little rushing to have the highest possible level in terms of youth academy, to have the luxury of having the first youth products available in season 3. We'll see how that goes. The training grounds and medical area already generate health packs.

The stadium brought in 2500 fans in most home games in the second season, in addition to money from merchandising and from the restaurant area.



I want to make this team competitive. Let's see how many titles it can win!