Start from the beginning here!

The winter break is upon us and it’s time to assess our season so far. We currently sit 11th in the table, not a huge distance from European spots in terms of points and also building up a decent gap between the teams below us. The main issue is that our goal difference sits on -1, meaning we’re either not scoring enough goals or conceding too many. Or both. The 5-0 battering we took from Energy-Drink FC did us quite a bit of damage, combined with some stupid results against the likes of Stuttgart.

Johannes Eggestein is repaying my faith in him with the 19-year-old topping the scoring charts with 9 goals. Despite our early differences, Kruse is actually performing well for us when given the opportunity, a close second in assists to Rashica despite significantly less game time. Maximilian Eggestein is our consistently best performer with the highest average rating.

On the whole I feel pretty good about the team. It’ll do for now, at least, although we definitely need to make some changes in the coming transfer windows, preferably in this January window if we can. Now that we’ve been given a budget then we can look at some players.

First off, there’s a new contract to hand out. Johannes Eggestein is fully deserving of a new contract so I give him one. His wages increase to £17.5k per week with a buyout clause of £22 million. The clause was initially lower but I managed to negotiate a higher one in exchange for a bit more wage.

My scouts have been all over the world in the last few months and I’ve had my eye on a couple of players myself. The main player I’ve told my scouts to watch is Dario Maresic, who will finish the season as a free agent. Our financial situation, combined with the fact that he’s at a club we could easily poach from, make him an ideal candidate.

However, he’s also being closely monitored by Tottenham, Juventus and Chelsea, so I’m facing some stiff competition. January 31st comes round and immediately I approach him, hoping to beat the others to the punch. Unfortunately, his agent is fairly wise to the interest in his client and negotiations do not go well.

I ring the number of the agency attached to Maresic.

“Hello, is this the representative of Dario Maresic?” I ask.

“Yes, this is Mino Raiola speaking.” My heart sinks. Negotiating with him would have been difficult enough competing with top teams, now Mino fucking Raiola is his agent as well.

“Ah Mino! I’ve heard a lot about you, we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. I’m the manager of Werder Bremen…”

Mino laughs. “I know you, you are the clown who thinks he is Bill Cosby. What do you want?”

“Actually I don’t think I’m Bill Cosby, I just used to… anyway, that isn’t the point. I’d like to talk to you about the availability of your client at the end of the season. We’d like to offer him a contract.”

“You?”

“Yes, us.”

“Werder Bremen?”

“Unless I’m the manager of Inter Milan then it can’t be anybody else.”

“Yes, well,” Mino starts. The sarcasm may not have been a good move, “before we even talk money, my client would need assurances before we even consider your club.”

“Go on…”

“First, my client does not want to spend his career at a club of your level. He wants to play for a huge team. Bayern Munich, Manchester United, that kind of club. We expect an offer from Chelsea any day now, a much more appealing prospect. I want you to assure my client that if a club of this stature tries to sign him then you will not deny him the opportunity.”

“Alright, I can accept that. We hope to change his mind while he plays for us.”

“Second, my client would like you to improve your midfield.”

I look at my phone, confused, certain that there’s been a technical issue. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Your midfield. It is shit. Too limited. We want you to improve it. We will give you two transfer windows to make changes.”

“Any more requests?” I ask, through gritted teeth.

“One more. We want you to win the Bundesliga. Preferably next season. If you do not, we will hand in a transfer request. Oh, my client would also need a buyout clause of £5 million. Just to make sure you don’t make things difficult should we wish to leave.”

“I’m sorry, Mino, but Maresic isn’t exactly Franco Baresi. He’s a good, young player with the potential to go far. If he would rather warm the bench and join the loan farm at Chelsea than play week in, week out at Bremen, then we officially withdraw our interest.”

Mino laughs, “But wait, we haven’t even talked about my fee!”

I put the phone down, unwilling to even dignify his ridiculous demands with any attention. That’s one transfer target I can put in the bin.

The winter break brings a much needed break from training and constant dealing with players. Unfortunately, it brings no such break from the dramas the media can bring along with it.

I awake on January 1st to several texts and missed calls from various colleagues and friends. At first I think something went terribly wrong at the team’s New Year’s Eve party the club organised and begin to panic. It turns out Max Kruse has employed a new agent.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I think to myself, ‘not Raiola again.’

It’s much worse.

I open the Bild app on my phone and go to the day’s headlines. Sure enough, a picture of Dmitry Seluk, infamous agent and professional shit-stirrer to Yaya Touré, accompanies the news article confirming Kruse has found a new agent.

My phone rings in my hand as I’m reading the article. It’s Rolff, my assistant.

“Wolfgang, guten morgen.”

“Guten morgen, boss.”

“I assume you’re calling about the Kruse situation?” I rub my eyes. I almost can’t be bothered to discuss it.

“Ja, boss. This is going to get bad. Really bad.”

“What can we do?” I ask myself as much as him, “We’ve got a day, max, before Seluk starts telling every newspaper outlet that’ll answer his phone calls that Kruse feels victimised by the management, i.e. me, and the narrative is going to be completely focused on him.”

“That’s why we have to beat him to the punch.” Rolff says. I sit up in my bed. The evil genius is right.

“So we just leak a couple of stories about Kruse being lazy and shit at training and having a huge ego…” I say, “I like it.”

“I’ve got some friends from my old Bremen days, I’ll get onto the locals and national press. If you know anybody in the UK, you should get onto them. Seluk is going to make this go global, your name is going to be everywhere.”

“Right. I’m on it. Thanks, Wolfgang. Feel free to take tomorrow off. In fact, you can take time off until January 8th, when the squad returns.”

“But, boss, it’s the winter break, I’m already off. I shouldn’t even be doing this right now.”

I sigh. Rolff doesn’t understand jokes. “Goodbye, Wolfgang.”

Rolff does a great job and within hours Bild, Sky Germany, SPORT1 and all the local Bremen media are stringing out all sorts of reports. From his back-chatting to the manager, his disobedience in training, his ego within the dressing room and his general laziness, we throw a lot of shit at the wall.

I get onto people in the UK, or at least I attempt to before I realise I don’t have a relationship with any. Instead, I email Archie Rhind-Tutt of the Guardian Football Weekly podcast, though it turns out he isn’t actually a guest on the pod that week so it doesn’t go very far. I send emails to Gabriel Marchotti of The Times, Phil McNulty of the BBC, Ed Malyon of The Independent and Barney Ronay of The Guardian, hoping that somebody will run with it. Only the BBC do, in appallingly little detail, though a couple of smaller websites pick the news up and it has some small-scale impact.

The next day, Seluk responds to the reports and, in a spectacular rant on national radio, implies that the reason the reports have come out is because I wish to see Kruse’s career end, worried that he’ll accomplish more in the game than I ever will. Whilst I do, in fact, want to see his career end, the idea that it’s due to any kind of intimidation is ridiculous. It’s because he’s a prick.

Seluk continues his bizarre tirade – at one point he refers to me as a pygmy human, which I actually quite enjoyed – slandering the club itself as well as myself, claiming Bremen would be rotting in Bundesliga 2. were it not for Kruse giving the club charity by playing for them, wilfully ignoring the fact that he’s earning more than any other player at the club and simply isn’t performing at the level that warrants it.

Thankfully Dmitry goes overboard and, if anything, people start to pity the club and myself for having to put up with his antics for the foreseeable future. It’s safe to assume, however, that this isn’t the last we’ve heard from him.

Read Part 9 here!