Who would have thought all of this was possible

With a rather impressive first half of the season, Hannover was out of the DFB Pokal as early as the second round although they sit 3rd in the league only behind Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen with 17 games played. Would the second half play out as nicely as the first one, or would Rudi’s boys drop down the table and sink to dark places, even dealing with the threat of an once seemingly unstoppable relegation?

Season 2018/19 – Bundesliga

Wildest of seasons in the national regular competition. And not just in Hannover, but around all of Germany.

We started the second half we supposed to have played the first one. Yes we smashed Werder Bremen at the very start, but then we lost two in a row and couldn’t get three points in a four-game span from mid February to mid March. Thanks to a little run we were able to solidify our position on the European places and although we crawled to the finish line with some late struggles, we did enough to snatch a point from Bayern and saw them draw their last game to not overcome us in the 5th position.

Our results couldn’t have been better. We toyed with the Champions League but it was never in my mind, as neither did the Europa League classification if I’m honest.

RB Leipzig was expected to finish 6th, Mainz 13th, and Hannover 16th

The league was clearly dominated by BVB from start to finish as they were on the top spot for all but two weekends since the 11th match day of the season back in November. Our 3-4 defeat against them, though close at the end in the scoreboard, was a total demolishing of our side by a terrific Jadon Sancho.

What pleases me is the fact that the team started to play its best football from March on and although we ended on a low with two draws and a loss, we deserved a little bit more. On top of that, the core of the main XI was finally established around our own players without relying on loaned players barring Palko Dardai, whose €4.5M option was exercised and will join the team full time starting next season. Niclas Füllkrug posted some doubts during my first weeks managing the team but he turned out to be a killer in the end and finished the season with 20 Bundesliga goals, leading the scorers table. Our best player by Avg was Kevin Akpoguma at 7.19 (23rd overall). It was kind of expected and sadly he will leave this summer as his loan deal expires and we weren’t able to bring him back for another year as Hoffenheim wouldn’t allow him to. Füllkurg followed him at 7.15 (32nd), and then we had Waldemar Anton at 7.04 (60th). This last one has already extended his contract until 2023 after a little dispute during the early part of the second half of the season in which he demanded a new contract but I wasn’t sure of handing it to him.

One to remember!

At the end of the season, our Best XI as voted by the fans was totally predictable. Only Akpoguma isn’t contracted to the club as Palko Dardai already has signed his new deal. As can be seen, also, the acquisition of Ramiro Carrera during the winter transfer window proved vital. By rotating him,Iver Fossum, Walace, and Meritan Shabani we established a tremendous midfield that is poised to be the core of the team for years to come.

Chilean wing-back Albornoz scored the goal of the season against none other than Bayern to give us the three points

Also during the winter we signed probable Miiko Albornoz’s replacement, fellow Chilean Bryan Saavedra, and loaned him back to Palestino for the rest of the season. Albornoz is followed by Newcastle, who already paid €11M (could reach €12M) for our winger Ihlas Bebou, who was producing enough (9 games, 4 goals, 2 assists) but I deemed replaceable at the top of his level, so I opted to cash in and sell high. Felipe never played a game for us and we send him to Royal Antwerp for €600k.

Rudi was able to secure no less than nine (!) new players during the month of January, who will be coming to Hannover during July of 2019 and 2020 from South America and Japan, although I will discuss them in another episode.

All in all, the season was a really great surprise as I expected to suffer a long and tedious one that would ultimately see us fighting to avoid relegation. Getting out of the cup early was a bummer given what we achieved later, but I guess we could fully focus on the league and that also helped us.

As couldn’t be otherwise, the board was happy with Rudi’s job and although Miiko’s situation and a couple of transfers raised eyebrows (more on that on the next episode), the successful Bundesliga campaign along the supposed finances sustainability and big matches against some of the big German teams made for a great overall package.

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: