The club were in lower midtable when I took over, and wanted me to pull clear of the relegation playout. Easy enough, I thought, considering there were 4 points separating 14th and 7th which was the last European place.

In came a couple of key players from Sparta Prague, including a striker who just shat out goals. He continued this at Frankfurt, scoring 16 in 12, or 14 in 10 in the league.

I’d taken over in January just as the winter break began, and after winning my first game 3-1 at home to Hoffenheim, we only lost two in the league including a mauling at the hands of Leipzig, drawing three and winning the rest to surge up the table into 6th place. On the way, we’d beaten Bayern which allowed Dortmund to nip in and claim the title. 

In the Pokal, or Cup to you and I, we beat Leipzig (pens), Bochum and Bayern on the way to losing 2-1 to champions Dortumind in the final. We’d taken an early lead but a quickfire double around half an hour in was enough.

The club is in a bit of a state financially – then again, top tier clubs always seem to lose money hand over fist. I’ve got my eye on a few players already as I know exactly who I need to get rid of and replace.

According to the league rules, 6th is a Europa League place but we ended up in Europa League II, so not sure why that is. But my aim for next year is Europa League football and maybe the Cup.

Edit – Just got a news item telling me we DID qualify for the Europa League after all. Not sure what the f*ck that is, but not complaining.

Oh and Sparta absolutely p*ssed the league.

I managed to hold onto my best players, and added a few more from teams gone by. Also managed to pick up a couple of young stars that had fallen out of favour at their old clubs and chose not to extend their deals.

In the league, we got off to a great start, going unbeaten in our first nine games. We’d been in among the frontrunners early on and it looked as though we could even challenge Bayern. Then we had a bit of a f*cking massive wobble in November, winning one in four league matches and we fell away.

Three points from nine in January saw us drop into the upper reaches of midtable, but a run of only three defeats in 13 saw us make a late dash for the final Champions League place. We actually clinched the position in the penultimate game of the season – as it happens, a win against Bayern, and their only league defeat of the season – but we only had a point over 5th in the end.

In a Europa League group containing Rangers (of course), Napoli and Sporting Lisbon, we qualified with ease, only dropping points at home to the Bears. A 6-0 aggregate win over Fenerbahce was followed by a 6-3 win over Arsenal, seeing us meet Roma in the semi final.

Despite a 3-2 win in Frankfurt, we weren’t able to overturn the first leg defeat. Still, a semi final isn’t a bad result.We only made it to the third round of the Cup before Bayern f*cked us 4-0.

I’m in the process of sweeping away the remnants of the old regime in the playing squad, and I’ve since moved on a couple of old favourites that, while had the quality, didn’t quite fit in. I’m also starting to flesh out the other squads (we also got an Eintracht Frankfurt II team this year) with better players, so we should be looking at a bright future – especially with Champions League money flooding in.

Bayern were streets ahead of everyone else.  C*nts.

Sparta Prague are still sweeping the board in Czechia and Wisla Krakow are still perennial runners up.