The Broken Factory, aka Rudi Gelsdorf, aka Hannover 96



There is something beautiful about football in Germany, and it is how it has evolved and how well-engineered it looks to the foreigner considering how at the start it was a plain and simple goddamn mess.

For my purposes here, only one thing about it matters tho, and it is no other than the classic definition of the German foot-to-ball abilities needed to come out winner in the game of football. It can be seen as something like this.

Classic German Footballing Traits: Organization, power, counter-attacking. Consider those the gospel of der fussball.

Forget about the new kids on the block and all their fancy names for older-than-your-granny strategies. German football equals balls-to-the-wall football. Full stop. And if Rudi couldn’t run anymore, well, someone would have to do it for him, even more now, and to greater pressure and expectations on no less than the Niedersachsenstadion on a weekly basis in front of more than 45 thousand souls.

The dream that was not



After years of grinding. After years of suffering. After impossible to track hours of training and giving it all on the muddy pitches of upper-Germany, Rudi got the call. Never considered much of a star playing in the lower categories of Hannover 96 he made the jump to the first team in early 2013. By the end of the year he was already an established starter and by start of 2014 a serious candidate to take part on the following summer’s World Cup.

Then, the call. And more important, the call-up. Gelsdorf was named one more of Die Mannschaft squad and his debut was slated to happen against Chile on March 5, in Stuttgart, in preparation for June’s big tournament.

Fast-forward to the fateful day. The ball was kicked-off at 20:45 CET. Four minutes later, not even dinner-time in Spain, Rudi’s career was done for good. Nobody known at the time, and for days. The diagnosis, a torn ACL on his left knee, wasn’t something that hundreds of elite athletes hadn’t overcome. But on this case, the operation didn’t end with the classic and expected “successful” label attached to it. Complications popped out of nowhere and just like that, Gelsdorf had to leave football once for all. Actually, he didn’t quit football. He rejected to accept his fate, so he stayed attached to Hannover on a low board-role handling this and that for the club.

Now, in 2018, and after a tumultuous Bundesliga run that almost saw Die Roten relegated back to the second tier, something had to change. For real this time. Who better than a homegrown man with a pair of cojones?

Die Bälle: Fussballfabrik Gospel

You already know what makes German football German. If you tell a kid to draw “Germany”, the concept, he will come with a factory producing stocky silver Volkswagens in an endless row, stem flowing through huge roof-installed chimneys. For Rudi, that idea must be present in football to succeed. Ergo, Die Fussballfabrik Gospel.

Principle (I): Be Athletic

Football was built by and for men. No bullshit here. We need soldiers, not players. We need strength and abilities and shinny bodies out there. If you don’t have the physical presence needed, Auf Wiedersehen!

Principle (II): Work As Hell

What are you supposed to do here if you don’t plan on working as hard as a motherfucker, son? If your Work Rate is lower than sublime,Auf Wiedersehen!

Principle (III): Stay Versatile

So you say you can score. So you say you can tackle. So you say you can pass. You better put it all together all over the pitch whenever needed, mastering every position you can imagine, or oh boy you guessed it right, Auf Wiedersehen!

Summary in FM terms

Die Fussballfabrik Gospel in a nutshell

What I’m looking at here is to build something akin to the classic preconceptions of Germans. Rudi is young but old-fashioned. He considered himself a workhorse of a player, and will demand the same from his pupils (or oldies, probably in most cases). For this, he has set up the already introduced Fussballfabrik Gospel which in the FM-world will translate to the following things while looking for players to get to the team or maintain in it:

Work Rate (WR): 10+ minimum, 13+ preferred, 16+ optimal.

10+ minimum, 13+ preferred, 16+ optimal. Physical Attributes (PA): 10+ average attributes minimum; 12+ average attributes preferred; 14+ average attributes optimal.

10+ average attributes minimum; 12+ average attributes preferred; 14+ average attributes optimal. Positions (POS): Players should be competent in as most positions/roles as possible. I have never been afraid of playing guys out of position and don’t care what the game says, but the better they are in the most possible places (by in-game terms), kudos to them as media won’t harass me for playing them where I “should not”.

I must say tho that Hannover is such a crappy team that I won’t totally fix myself to those terms, and won’t probably start applying them (most of all in terms of selling) until at least the first January transfer window as I like to know what I have in my hands before doing any crazy move. But rest assured Die Fussballfabrik Gospel will be followed to the letter sooner or later.

On the next episode of…

This concludes the introduction to Rudi Gelsdorf and his mentality. I hope everything is clear and if there is any doubt regarding the last part in terms of attributes or what I meant with any of the principles and their FM translations, just let me know over here or Twitter at @chapulana, so I can clarify!

Up next, the introduction to the shitty team you will be reading about for some time, Hannover 96. Believe me when I say it is shitty, because it is as shitty as they come.

Just wait, and thanks for reading!

You can stay updated to the minute between new episodes drops with the little pieces of content that I will be publishing on Twitter & Slack, where I live-post stuff as I play the game so you can follow Rudi’s path as closely as possible: