In November 2039, Robaato Rasamu completed four fifths of his Pentagon Pursuit mission as his Athlético Paranaense side lifted their first-ever Copa Libertadores. The one remaining task was arguably the most challenging – to, ideally, win the European Champions League with a team that has never previously been Champion of Europe.
Just to make that challenge even more difficult, Rasamu had no desire to work in England. So upon resigning from Paranaense, he turned off all the South American leagues and activated France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. And, after 16 years of near-non-stop football management, he took a seven-month holiday – during which he watched a lot of European football and started learning a few languages on Duolingo.
Of course, when the leagues turned on all managers were Stable so it took a while for jobs to become available. The first to pop up was German side VfB Stuttgart, whose manager Sebastian Hoeness quit to become Germany manager. Rasamu applied on 23 August, was offered an interview two days later by director Phillip Lahm, then offered the job on 29 August. Stuttgart offered a contract worth £25k per week, Rasamu’s wage so far, for the next three years. So Robaato Rasamu was moving to Germany!
Who Are VfB Stuttgart?
Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V., which translates to Association for Movement Games Stuttgart 1893, is a professional German club based in the city of Stuttgart, the state capital of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany. VfB Stuttgart is the eight-largest football club in Germany and has separate departments for fistball, hockey, table tennis, track and field and, perhaps most intriguingly, football referees. It continues to play at the 60,449-capacity Mercedes-Benz Arena, which was built in 1933 and was originally called the Adolf-Hitler-Kampfbahn (renamed the MHPArena in July 2023).
The football club began with the formation of Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart in 1912, originally a group of clubs formed of middle-class school pupils who learned sports like football and rugby from English expats. The modern football club was formed in 1933, when German football was reorganised under the Third Reich. It’s been through its fair share of ups and downs but claimed five German titles in 1950, 1952, 1984 (Rasamu’s year of birth), 1992 and 2007, three DFB-Pokals in 1954, 1958 and 1997 and a record three UEFA Intertoto Cups.
With the German leagues only just activated, we have no idea how Stuttgart has done in recent years other than a 3rd-place finish in 2030. The club has solid infrastructure with 15 training facilities, 14 youth facilities and junior coaching, 16 youth recruitment and 3.5-star reputation. It has a fierce local rivalry with Karlsruhe, with whom it plays the Baden-Württemberg Derby, as well as a local rivalry with Stuttgarter Kickers, against whom it plays the Stuttgarter Derby. It also has the Süd-Gipfel Derby with Bayern and another Baden-Württemberg Derby against Freiburg. Stuttgart are also in a decent place financially with £49.5m in the bank, a transfer budget of £30.5m and wage budget of £941k of which it’s spending £777k.
Meet The Stuttgart Squad Of 2040
Rasamu was relatively happy with the squad he’d inherited at Stuttgart. The best player at the club is apparently 24-year-old Polish midfielder Jakub Szpakowski, who attracted interest from Liverpool, along with right back Maximilian Frankenberger, who’s racked up 306 league games for the club. But Rasamu believed the most exciting talent may be 21-year-old striker Dejan Vujicic, who’s just signed for £4.3m from Augsburg. Other key players may be midfielders Christopher Asare, 5ft 3in Felix Pelko and Moriké Kanté, goalkeeper Marek Bílek and attackers Johann Krenc, Fynn Neitzel and Tom-Luca Siech.
There’s also plenty of talent in the youth sides, led by striker Thomas Wieland, right back Jordan McCann, midfielder Adrian Keckeisen, who Rasamu promoted to the first team, centre back Matti Vejzovic and 6ft 5in striker Alexander Rechner.
Rasamu had just four days to assess his squad, move some players out and make signings with only one scout. He took two gambles on Iranian centre back Hashem Salari for £22.5m from Vitesse, based mainly on the fact that Real Madrid were interested in him, and Paraguayan winger Ángel Galeano, who he’d scouted while in Brazil, for £900k from Olimpia. And the gambles paid off with Galeano instantly becoming the best player at the club and Salari the third-best.
Rasamu quickly assessed the players available and decided a fairly standard 4-2-3-1 was probably the most suitable approach. He’d inevitably evolve it as time went on, but initially went with this:
Straight Into Bundesliga
The bookies fancy Stuttgart to finish 10th in Bundesliga with title odds of 100/1. Unsurprisingly, Bayern, who have won a ludicrous 28 consecutive titles, are 4/11 favourites followed by Dortmund (12/1), Leverkusen (16/1), Leipzig (18/1) and Wolfsburg (33/1). And after two games, Stuttgart were 8th after beating Dusseldorf 4-1 at home then losing 3-0 at Bayern.
Rasamu arrived at Stuttgart just three days before his first match, which gave Die Schwaben supporters a chance to see their new manager entertain Union Berlin on 1 September 2040. They started brightly and made it count as good play down the left by winger Matthias Schulz put a goal on a plate for Vujicic. The striker returned the favour 80 seconds into the second half, going down the right and squaring for Schulz to double the lead before collecting the ball from Kanté and doubling his tally with a sweet strike from 20 yards. Union got one back against the run of play but this was an impressive start.
Rasamu’s two signings made their debuts in his first away day at Koln. Galeano had an instant impact as his cross caused chaos in the defence for Kanté to score then chipped the keeper deliciously after Vujicic’s throughball. And the promising Keckeisen came on to kill the game off for another 3-1 win.
The winning start ended as they threw away a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 at home to Dortmund. They threw away the lead twice to draw 2-2 at Hamburg led by Kanté, who’d started really well under Rasamu and already surpassed his goal tally of three last season, making the first and scoring the second. But they bounced back with consecutive 1-0 wins at Freiburg and at home to Frankfurt before Rasamu’s angry teamtalk inspired a Galeano brace and Pelko’s first of the season in an excellent second half comeback to win 3-1 at Greuther Furth.
Galeano’s strong start continued with the only goal at home to Wolfsburg and Vujicic continued his fine form with a hat trick in a 4-0 win at Hoffenheim, which took Stuttgart into the top three. A 1-1 at home to Hertha took them into a tough run of games that started with Galeano and Pelko inspiring a 2-0 win at managerless Leverkusen before Vujicic and a wonderful Szpakowski solo goal downed Schalke 2-0. Krenc nicked a deserved 95th-minute equaliser at Leipzig and a superb Galeano brace edged a 2-1 win over Werder Bremen.
Stuttgart were in superb form, heading into the three-week winter break on an 11-game unbeaten streak. Under Rasamu, they’d lost once in 14 games, which had lifted them up to 3rd just two points behind leaders Bayern. However, the top five teams are separated by just three points, so it could be an exciting first season in Germany.
Vujicic currently leads the way with 10 goals and eight assists, while new boy Galeano has eight goals. But Rasamu felt January 2041 might be a busy window.
Could Rasamu maintain Stuttgart’s push for European football and possibly even challenge Bayern? Join us on Friday to find out!
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