The FM Library

To the outside world, it is just another day in the German capital. The sun is rising from the east and the Berlin residents are preparing for another day in modern Germany. For Dave, he starts his day just like any other, with a coffee on his bedside table, the steam climbing from the piping hot drink and forming a light cloud formation.

Today is no ordinary day for Dave, his contract expires today and it marks the start of his new journey. Dave had been working at Union Berlin as a recruitment analyst for the past two seasons, assisting Urs Fischer who has just guided the German side to a fourth place finish in the Bundesliga and into the Champions League. Dave’s main role had involved assisting Fischer with his recruitment plans and implementing a data driven approach at the club, alongside the traditional scouting regime.

Dave reaches for his freshly brewed coffee and takes the first sip, always the best part of a coffee Dave thinks. He reaches for his tablet and opens his e-mails and upon clearing the usual junk mail he spots an urgent e-mail from Union’s president, Dirk Zingler. Dave had been expecting to turn up to the training ground today and undertake his last day at the club, however, a new contract was on the table…

Who is ‘statman Dave’?

David Erkle, to give him his full name, is a 45 year-old recruitment analyst currently working for Union Berlin. Now known as ‘statman Dave’ due to his impressive work in his role as a recruitment analyst, he has performed the role for the past 7 years. Erkle, a native German, has built up an impressive CV, having worked under David Wagner, Jurgen Klopp and now, Urs Fischer.

Impressive right? Well yes, but Erkle is better known for his glittering playing career. The German central defender made 88 appearances for Germany, scoring an impressive 22 goals. Erkle started his playing career in the Union Berlin academy before moving to Italian giants, AC Milan. From Milan, he joined Arsenal and then returned to Germany to join Bayern Munich where he finished his career. Dave’s trophy haul is particularly impressive, with three Champions League winners medals and most notably, the Ballon d’Or, which he picked up whilst playing for Arsenal.

Erkle is a global superstar on the playing stage, having been compared to the likes of Maldini for his style of play. He is loved in his homeland and is widely thought of as Germany’s greatest ever central defender and one of Germany’s best players of all time.

Dave was quite sure that once he hung up his boots he wanted to remain in the game. His love of statistical analysis and data within football got him his first chance as he joined up with David Wagner and became his right hand man with all things data and recruitment. Coupled with his role, Erkle started studying for his coaching badges. Although he loved data, he always knew that his dream was to become a world renowned coach and possibly, the greatest manager of all time.

Cleary intrigued, Dave opens the e-mail from Zingler and reviews the content. It’s a contract offer, a new one year deal to remain at the club. He loves the club, it is where he started his career and it is his home town club. Erkle sits up and takes another sip of his coffee, calming his shaking hands as best he could to ensure that he didn’t spill any coffee onto his fresh white sheets.

This hadn’t been what he was expecting. Urs Fischer had announced his departure from Union overnight to explore other opportunities within the game. Zingler has offered Dave a one year deal to take over from Fischer and lead Union into the 2023/2024 season.

Erkle decided not to extend his contract at Union as a recruitment analyst as he was looking to make his first venture into management following the completion of his final coaching badge. This offer now presents him with a very real chance to start his managerial career but is this the right job for him?

Save Objectives

For the past few versions of Football Manager, I haven’t really managed any of the ‘big’ teams and with all the new features in this years’ version I thought now was the perfect time to rectify that. The premise of the save is that of a glory hunter, made popular by Doctor Benjy.

The aim of the save is to win the following competitions:

• Premier League (England)
• Ligue 1 (France)
• Serie A (Italy)
• Bundesliga (Germany)
• La Liga (Spain)
• Uefa Europa League
• Uefa Champions League

The one big change I have implemented is that I will not be focussing on winning the respective domestic cups that are usually part of the challenge. The main reason for this is that I do not want the save to go stale which may be the case if I am constantly trying to fit in a domestic cup. It will keep the blogs more entertaining for you guys and will hopefully stop any potential burn out. This is going to be a long save as it stands!

Part of the making of this save idea was inspired by @FM_Grasshopper ‘s ‘SuperClub Diaries’ blog. I’m looking forward to managing the elite clubs, developing elite talents and spending a ton of money! Being a data nerd, I knew that I wanted to incorporate a data element to the save to give it some narrative and keep the enjoyment levels up.

Statistical Analysis and Transfers

As you may have already guessed, the save is going to have a focus on statistics within football manager. Before I elaborate, this is not a Moneyball save, nor is it a full ‘atrributeless’ save. Neither of those are what this save is intended to be nor would I find it enjoyable to do so.

We will be playing the game as normal but with a focus on using data and analytics to influence transfer decisions. This can work in two ways. Firstly, we can use the data to analyse how our current players are performing and use key metrics to determine where the squad needs strengthening. This can lead to us making decisions on which players we look to move on and which we look to keep. Secondly, and probably the most interesting of the two, we can compare players we have scouted with our own players based on the data available. We will compare some of the key metrics for each position and use them to help us recruit our new players.

The narrative plays quite nicely in that David Erkle will take his transfer philosophy with him to all of his clubs and he will implement it. Whether he has any success is a different story!

In order to get some quality data, I am going to be using the FM Rensie skin, which is an incredible skin I must add! The skin makes use of FM Stags data calculations and analysis and will be a very useful tool when considering transfer targets and comparing them to my current players. Here is an example:

In my beta save, I have been taking on the Pentagon Challenge (more details at the end of this post if you are interested in that). I am at the end of my third season and my ball winning midfielder just hasn’t cut the mustard this season. You can see from the FM Stag Stats that he probably lies in the ‘average category’. We can quickly see that he is great at pressing but poor when it comes to interceptions per 90 and pass completion. Not ideal in a team looking to dominate the ball. I am then able to supplement the above data with the following analysis.

The analysis function can be tailored as I please. A quick glance shows me that there is a clear weakness in his headers won when compared to the rest of the league. I have therefore ascertained that he is poor at heading, pass completion and interceptions. Whilst he is by no means awful, this analysis allows me to go out and look for players with better passing and heading and I can then compare their season stats to my own to see whether there is an upgrade available.

Above is a really interesting example. Our star striker, Joel Kojo, he scored 28 league goals in 27 appearances. Surely no upgrade would be needed here? The first two stats would suggest there is room for improvement. Then you look at his non-penalty xG per 90, shots on target per 90 and conversion rate and you can see how prolific he is. The data tells us he isn’t great in the air and he doesn’t like to dribble with the ball but he is deadly in the box. Is there an improvement out there? The stats will help us find one if there is.

In the words of Dries Belaen (head of recruitment at Anderlecht), “you should never recruit a player based on data along“…”on the other hand, we will also not only recruit a player based on video or live scouting, we need the full picture“.

This is very much the model that I will be taking forward. We will focus on using the data to lead us with potential transfers but I am going to keep the attributes showing as this will reflect the element of ‘true scouting’.

You will have to bear with me when it comes to transfers and please do tell me if you’ve had enough data talk!

The start of our journey – Union Berlin

It is a well established fact that the best place to start this challenge is in France with PSG. Let’s be honest, it probably is the best place but where is the fun in that? Dave will be taking a one year contract at Union Berlin to ease him in to his managerial career. From there, who knows?

What’s next? In my next post I will do an introduction to the club, take a look at the squad and analyse our pre-season. Hopefully this will be out later this week.

If you’ve made it this far, then thank you! This is my first attempt at blogging and I am super excited to get started with this save. Have a good one!

** For those interested in my Pentagon Challenge that I referenced above, here is a link to my thread on the SI Forums – https://tinyurl.com/2p9uyz2k **