Ruprecht Prusseit found himself on the managerial scrapheap within two years of starting his Football Manager career. The Dresden-born coach was unceremoniously sacked when his FSV Zwickau side was dumped out of 3. Liga in dramatic fashion by local rivals Erzgebirge Aue.
It was safe to say that Prusseit didn’t exactly have the most appealing profile for clubs in East Germany. In 80 matches, he’d lost more than he’d won (36 to 28), had a win percentage of 35% and a goal difference of -5. But he did at least have a National C licence and two seasons of management under his belt.
It took while for relevant jobs to become available but when they did Prusseit wasn’t considered, as Energie Cottbus and Magdeburg didn’t even offer him interviews. A year on from departing Zwickau, he remained jobless and offerless, as even newly promoted Bayern II (who obviously aren’t an available option) didn’t offer an interview. Eventually, he was offered an interview by third-tier strugglers Hallescher who, despite the interview going pretty well, decided to look elsewhere.
He even considered new approaches like international management or under 23 international sides purely to try and build his reputation and attributes. However, even Costa Rica weren’t interested in his services, which tells you it’s time to give up the ghost.
The end of OstDeutscher Sieg
This is a real shame, as I really liked the concept of trying to win a first title with an East German side. However, the decision to create a manner with such a poor reputation limited our effectiveness in the role and made finding a new job with a professional club absolutely impossible. Furthermore, even if we had found a new job – such as Hallescher – fighting against relegation would have been a really hard task and we probably would have been sacked again!
Additionally, this save highlighted some of the severe shortcomings of FM23. For example, the new recruitment system is terrible and I honestly don’t understand why they’ve implemented it. I wasn’t allowed to use the player search screen so I could only sign players that had been recommended by my scouts and wasn’t allowed to sign players I didn’t have any knowledge of. That made discovering and signing players of sufficient quality almost impossible. So I will not be doing that ever again.
Watching Zwickau matches was probably the most painful experience I’ve ever had in any Football Manager save. I don’t know why they routinely conceded the opponent’s first shot / first shot on target – and I tried multiple tactics, instructions and player roles to try and prevent it – but it was excruciating knowing it was going to happen in every match.
So we have no choice but to call an end to OstDeutscher Sieg, for now. I do like the idea, so I might revisit it in the future, but for now it’s time for a new challenge. And, luckily, I have one in mind that kicks off on Monday!
The clues I’ll give you are that if you like wonderkids, youth development and nation building, then is going to be the save for you! Join us on Monday to find out more.
Football Manager Addict 
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