Start from the beginning here!

It’s 25th October 2017 and the day of our DFB-Pokal second round tie against Bayern Munich. We spend our time on the training ground in the days beforehand putting extra sessions into defensive work, knowing that this would be our toughest test yet to face.

It’s only in the cup, a competition we were never really likely to win, but it’d be nice to go a bit further than the second round. Despite that, the reality of the situation is that we’re against a team that could probably afford to buy our entire squad six or seven times over, so we’re probably going to get beat.

As it’s a cup game, I give a couple of the less regular players a run-out. This probably isn’t the most effective way to beat Bayern Munich, but if it’s the only way I can keep some players happy then I’ll have to do it. Niklas Moisander makes his second appearance since returning from a torn thigh muscle, not exactly match-fit. A very robust but creatively bankrupt midfield of Gondorf and Junuzovic starts and Max Kruse gets a start in attacking midfield, with Boubacar Barry starting on the wing.

The game begins and after 15 minutes we take the lead, with Eggestein playing in Kruse, who squares the ball to Rashica who hits it. Neuer gets a hand on it but it isn’t enough and the ball trickles in. Less than 3 minutes later, Bayern equalise as Wriedt hits a low cross for Kingsley Coman to tap in at the near post. By the 30th minute, Bayern are 3-1 up as Wriedt and Müller add to Bayern’s goals. Johannes Eggestein pulls one back for us in the 53rd minute but it’s too little to late as we offer very little going forward for the rest of the game. Langkamp badly misjudges a tackle on Evina late in the game and Lewandowski puts the nail in the coffin from the penalty spot.

Our defence put in a pretty abysmal shift however it was good to see Kruse and Eggestein put in good performances despite this. Kruse in particular with two assists and multiple key passes had a great game. Is this the beginning of his redemption?

The October dressing room report comes back from Wolfgang and the squad looks to be in great spirits. The managerial support is high, which is just as well because our next two games are pretty challenging.

We move on from this game, it’s confirmation of what we’ve known for months – Bayern Munich are better than us. Next up is an away tie to Julian Nagelsmann’s Hoffenheim. Nagelsmann was the hot property last season, with everybody linking him to lots of high profile jobs after getting Hoffenheim into the Champions League spots. Despite this, he sits 5 points behind us in the table after 9 games – not quite the great manager everybody thought he was.

I continue using our attacking 4-2-3-1 formation for this one, Junuzovic and Eggestein back as a midfield pairing, whilst Rashica and Bartels run the wings with Belfodil playing behind Eggestein up top. Veljkovic is back in for Moisander along with Friedl and Bauer. All but Langkamp have been rotated after the Bayern shambles.

Things don’t start well. Hoffenheim take an early lead thanks to Kramaric, who seems to have become incredibly overpowered. None of my players can get near him and he peels away from my defence with ease almost at will. He finds himself in a one-on-one with Pavlenka and buries it because, well, why wouldn’t he?

Bauer whips in a cross just before half-time and Johannes Eggestein, who is making a great habit of scoring goals, glances a header into the near post. We go in at 1-1 and, very much undeservedly, the scoreline is level. I try to encourage the team, telling them that we only need the one goal to make this ours. 6 minutes into the second half, Amiri hits a shot at Pavlenka’s near post and my keeper just lets the ball slap off his hand and into the net, earning Amiri the Man of the Match award in the process.

We don’t put in a particularly terrible performance, although the number of shots we manage to rack up in the game is slightly concerning compared to the number Hoffenheim manage. We just about get the lion’s share of possession, so it looks like the team is definitely starting to get to grips with the kind of football I’m demanding of them after the first ten games in charge. Hoffenheim’s quality just showed at the end of the day, which is a difference I’m going to find myself conceding a lot throughout the season.

No time to dwell on the result as the games are coming quickly. Our next game is against Leverkusen, who are sitting in 4th whilst we’re in 9th, however only one points separates the two of us.

We’re granted a huge boost by the absence of Leon Bailey, who’s out with a hernia, however their team still looks significantly better than ours. Kai Havertz, a player who would stroll into our team with ease, sits on the bench. The Bender brothers, Bernd Leno, Kevin Volland, Julian Brandt and Benjamin Henrichs all start.

Despite this, I persist with the attacking formation. With the same logic I used against Dortmund, we’re probably going to get beat and conceding goals is inevitable, so let’s concede goals while trying to score. This time Gondorf sits alongside Eggestein, providing a bit of tackling grit in the centre of the pitch. Johannes starts up front for us, while Kruse plays behind him in the number 10 position. Kainz and Rashica play on the wings, whilst Augustinsson returns to left-back.

The game gets off to a good start for us, as we get a corner early on and the resulting cross brings a defensive clearance which falls to Maximilian, who hits it first time on the edge of the D, forcing a great save from Leno who tips the ball onto the crossbar and out for another corner. The corner routine brings the same result, this time the ball falls to Rashica on the edge of the area who shoots again, only Wendell’s trailing leg diverts the ball which was otherwise going wide away from Leno, who was covering his near post. It’s an own goal but I’m not too worried about that, we’ve taken the lead.

10 minutes later, Johannes expertly tackles Restos deep in Leverkusen’s own half, hitting the ball out wide to Rashica who plays a low cross deep into the box, finding Kainz who taps it in at the back post. 2-0 up in 20 minutes. Johannes hits the post before Leverkusen find their way back into the game just before half time, with Alario calmly slots away a one-on-one with Pavlenka.

The second half begins and Johannes finds himself with only the keeper to beat, but Leno is equal to the shot and the chance goes begging. Shortly afterwards, Augustinsson hits a bit of a nothing clearance with absolutely no direction and Leverkusen pick up the loose ball. There’s a swift counter-attack and Volland drills a shot perfectly into the bottom corner, levelling the score.

In a fit of rage I bring off Augustinsson, who effectively handed possession back to them. Eggestein has missed too many chances for my liking, so I bring him off for Belfodil, who I move back in behind the striker whilst pushing Kruse higher up the pitch.

On the 81st minute we find the back of the net, however it’s disallowed as Langkamp is judged to have been offside when Belfodil’s shot rebounded off him. A minute later, my sphincter tightens once again as Kießling heads the ball into the back of the net, again judged to be offside. It’s still 2-2 and we’re running out of time to find a breakthrough.

The 92nd minute comes and a great move down the right hand side develops. Pavlenka passes to Bauer, who runs forward and passes to Bartels, who cuts inside past Wendell and hits it into Belfodil. Belfodil looks up and instinctively plays the through-ball which finds Kruse, who’s managed to get a yard on his opposing defender. He runs into the box, ball at his feet and hits it low and hard, past Leno and into the back of the net.

I go mental on the touchline, hugging Rolff and jumping up and down. I punch the air multiple times, screaming “VAMOS” loudly, using the completely wrong language. Johannes Eggestein leaps up from the bench and I shake his hand in the same way that Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers do in Predator before hugging him. This is a huge win for us. It almost makes me want to take Kruse’s name back to yellow highlighter rather than blue. Almost.

The celebrations in the changing room are unlike anything we’ve experienced before now. It gets so rowdy, in fact, that the Leverkusen manager, Heiko Herrlich, comes to the changing room, demanding that we turn down the music we have playing. Pavlenka responds to this by throwing milk on him, before a marauding shirtless Jonathan Tah overhears the commotion and gets involved. Pretty soon the corridor between the two changing rooms is a melee of players shouting and arguing, whilst most of my own team, myself included, just keep chanting celebratory songs to wind them up even more.

We’re a third of the way through the season and the table is looking pretty kind for us right now. We’ve managed to gain a substantial gap between ourselves and the bottom half of the table, however the middle is still a huge clusterfuck with 4 points separating 11th and 1st. If we keep up this admittedly inconsistent form, or even improve on it, then we may be able to do something special this year.

Read Part 7 here!