An exciting Independiente side strolled to a Liga Profesional success in 2069, which saw Trebor Mahtal tick off 22 out of the 26 letters he needed to complete his Alphabet Challenge. He now only needed to win trophies with clubs beginning with D, H K and the particularly troublesome X.
Upon resigning from Independiente, a couple of relevant job opportunities became available in Uruguay, as well as one in Germany. The latter was first in with an interview and quickly made an offer, which meant Mahtal took on a very different challenge as he returned to Germany for the first time since leaving Dortmund 24 years ago.
Who Are Hannover 96?
Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896 e.V. is a professional club based in Hanover, a city in Lower Saxony. The club was founded in April 1896, initially with a focus on athletics and rugby before football became the prime focus three years later, and incorporated a few other local sports clubs over the next few years. Like many clubs, it was dissolved after World War 2, but was re-established later in 1945 and joined the top tier Oberliga Nord two years later. It was also one of 16 teams to form the original Bundesliga in 1963. The club has technically been national champion twice, in 1938 and 1954, but has never won Bundesliga, with its only major honour being a DFB-Pokal success in 1992. It also has a fierce local rivalry with Braunschweig, local rivalries with Werder Bremen and Armenia Hannover and plays a Niedersachen Derby against Wolfsburg, despite them not actually being a specific rival.
During this save, Hannover has been a yo-yo club, playing one season of Bundesliga football in the first 14 seasons and dropping to 3. Liga for two seasons in 2039. They got back to Bundesliga in 2051, and jumped between the leagues multiple times before becoming a top-tier mainstay between 2059 and 2068. However, they remain in 2. Bundesliga after finishing 7th last season, and currently sits in a lowly 16th going into a winter break – with just 17 points and 4 wins from 17 games and 2 points from safety, but 4 points above the two automatic relegation places and 13 points behind the top three. But a pre-season prediction of 6th suggested there was plenty of improvement possible.
Hannover still play at the 49,000 HDI-Arena, which was built in 1954 and is supported by 17 youth recruitment and junior coaching and 12 youth and training facilities. It also has solid finances from nine years in Bundesliga, with £40m in the bank, a transfer budget of £25m and £140k of the £625k wage budget going spare. The club also had several sellable assets and an army of mid-aged dross in the B team, which Mahtal cashed in on by selling 18 players for a £22m profit and freeing up £70k in wages.
The best player remaining at Hannover was full back Bence Majzik on loan from Gladbach, along with Slovenian winger, captain and club icon Yanis Hardy, who has the second-best average rating in the league, pacey Colombian left back Yesid Chávez, unconvincing Spanish striker Manuel Merino, Croatian goalkeeper Maksim Boromisa, Mahtal’s former Young Boys midfielder Timo Altena, now 32, and attacking midfielder Pelle Neuwirt. They also had a few prospects who Mahtal threw into the first team in 16-year-old defender/holding midfielder Werner Esters, 18-year-old attacking midfielder Patrick Ahlburg, midfielder Michael Dallmann, attacker Fabian Aden and defensive midfielder Leandro Gudra.
Mahtal had limited time to strengthen the squad. However, upon realising his former Gamba defender Hiroshi Nagai, who’d made the foolish move to Chelsea, was interested, he wasted no time in doing a deal for £6m. And, despite being wasted at Chelsea, he looks incredible at 21. On deadline day, he was joined by a couple of Mahtal’s South American targets, striker Jorge González for £6.5m from Liverpool FC and midfielder Kevin Sanz, who’d retrain to play deeper, for £1.6m from Racing Club.
Mahtal tinkered with a few 4-2-31 / 4-3-3 tactics he’d used in the past, eventually settling on Wolze playing just in front of the two holding midfielders with Neuwirt and Hardy providing the wide threat.
Mahtal’s First Taste of 2. Bundesliga
A new decade marked Mahtal’s return to Germany as Hannover kicked off the 2070s with a trip to 11th-place Osnabruck. And both sides’ lack of match sharpness showed as Merino nicked a 1-1. A week later, Mahtal’s home debut saw leaders Dynamo Dresden come to town and they performed superbly to win 3-2 led by a Hardy brace before Merino got the only goal as debutant Nagai led a clean sheet on debut at home to bottom side Hansa Rostock. Merino made it goals in all four of Mahtal’s games as he rescued a 1-1 at Kaiserslautern before González scored 24 minutes into his debut in a 2-0 win at home to St. Pauli.
That saw Mahtal go unbeaten through his first five games, and move within just 8 points of the top three with 14 games remaining. But he tasted defeat for the first time at 3rd-place Nurnberg to realistically kill off any outside hopes of a promotion charge. González continued his bright start with the only goal at home to Union Berlin and scored again in a disappointing 2-1 loss at 15th-place Heidenheim, which left them 6 points clear of the relegation places with 10 games remaining.
Hardy put in an inspired performance, creating goals for Neuwirt and Merino in a 3-2 win at 4th-place Mainz. But Hannover had somewhat of a topsy-turvy conclusion to the season as defeats at Ingolstadt and at home to Darmstadt were followed by González scoring in wins at Paderborn and Holstein Kiel. That moved them well clear of any relegation concerns, before losing 1-0 to promotion-chasing Fortuna Dusseldorf and wrapping up the campaign with Gonzálz and Altena’s penalty securing a 2-0 win at bottom-side Greuter Furth.
That at least passed the board’s objective to “become an established 2. Bundesliga team,” finishing in a solid 11th place. They improved to 45 points after 12 wins, 9 draws and 13 defeats, scoring 41 and conceding 38, which was fewer than Hoffenheim and Mainz in 2nd and 3rd. However, during Mahtal’s time, they picked up 28 points from 17 games, compared to 17 from 17 before he arrived. At the top of the league, Dynamo Dresden won 2. Bundesliga to return to Bundesliga since 1995, while St. Pauli were relegated to 3. Liga for the first time since 2007.
Looking Upwards At Hannover
Mahtal was pretty happy with the team’s effort in his first six months back in Germany, considering he’d rung the changes and thrown a load of youngsters into the team. For example, 16-year-old Esters started all but two matches at the base of the midfield since Mahtal joined.
Merino led the way with 12 goals in 30 games, but Mahtal really wasn’t convinced by him and favoured González, who scored 7 in 14. Hardy was their best performer with 7 goals and 8 assists, but they needed much more contribution across the rest of the squad – given only eight players managed to score a goal and only ten got an assist!
Mahtal would be looking to strengthen the Hannover squad ahead of his first full season in charge. There were key areas he had to improve and, realistically, he had to target getting back into Bundesliga in their third season down in the second tier.
Could Mahtal strengthen Hannover to challenge at the top of 2. Bundesliga? Join us on Friday to find out!
Football Manager Addict 
Leave a comment