Hamburg’s Season 24: Challenges and Future Prospects

Season 24 was another disappointing one. Like last season we started badly, just one win in our first eleven league games.

Bizot was our Szczesny replacement. He wasn’t cutting the mustard, so we replaced him with the “very experienced” Franco Armani. The transfer was for cash from Besiktas. Shortly after we had our best run of the season, seven games unbeaten.

Not much else to say except we ended just about where predicted safely in mid-table.

Mid-table Mediocrity

We were safe enough to give Radoslaw Majecki a few games in goal. We also tried out SM’s new fangled tactics options. This unfortunate combination led to a catastrophic and hugely embarrassing home defeat to Luuk de Jong and the Manchester United youth academy.

This in turn set off a nuclear chain reaction. David Walsh, new manager at PSG who was doing well and trying to keep them up resigned claiming match-fixing. Despite Dan’s best efforts to claim the final relegation place, United stayed up relegating Beddows’ not-so-Super Samp by one goal. PSG missed out by five points and five goals in the end, and Frank Hirst has yet another unwanted horse’s head to dispose of.

Transfer Tango

On the transfer front, our main signings during the season were Noa Lang from West Brom with Alessio Romagnoli going to The Hawthorns. That allowed Memphis Depay to go to Liverpool with veteran Argentine Nicolas Otamendi coming in to replace Romagnoli.

We also brought in Brazil in winger Kevin and left-sided Dutch defender Jayden Oosterwolde from Southampton with Renan Lodi moving to St Mary’s. Kevin helped the youth team to the Youth Shield semi-final where we lost out to eventual winners Flamengo.

We broke the club’s transfer record dropping £77m on Talles Magno from external. We hope he can live up to the hype and the promise he once showed!

Next Season

Post-season, we traded Lang for Alex Iwobi and Idrissa Gueye. Lang’s a talent, yet unfulfilled, but we needed more depth and Iwobi and Gueye are seasoned PL players doing well in real life.

We let our star player Piotr Zielinski move to relegated PSG under new boss Josh, bringing in the younger, talented duo of Sergio Gomez and Hamed Traore. Also some great versatility there.

In some ways, perhaps our biggest and most surprising move was to bring Maxence Lacroix back to Hamburg, allowing Tomas Araujo go to Bayern. Both are progressive young centre backs, but Lacroix is an upgrade for us now and that was the determining factor in planning for the new season.

Youth Team

On the youth front, we’ve got plenty to be hopeful about. We signed Luka Stojkovic, Jonathan Jesus, Igor Serrote and Pape Demba Diop all from external, and they will all get rises soon, along with Breno “the Brazilian Pedri” Bidon, Radek Vitek, Adama Bojang, Joane Gadou, who are all playing regularly for their real life clubs.

Comparison

S24/25 starting XIs:

Bizot 87 / Armani 88

Hamari Traore 89

Azpilicueta 89 / Lacroix 88

Romagnoli 90 / Otamendi 90

Lodi 89 / Azpilicueta 89

Casemiro 91 / Casemiro 90

Zielinski 91 / Bourigeaud 89

Forsberg 88 / Iwobi 89

Greenwood 88 / Greenwood 89

Immobile 90 / Ekitike 88

Depay 89 / Hamed Traore 88

We’ve lost some ratings, but should get some rises in the next couple of months. The first team has a younger age profile, and the youth team is only going to get better.