FM24 VfB Stuttgart pt. I | Introduction
To anyone else, it was Monday 3rd July, 2023. To David Hertner, it was the start of his new career. Born in Stuttgart to a German mother and English father in 1988, his career in football was cut short at only 21 years old. He’d made it professional for his father’s boyhood club Lincoln City before suffering a career-ending injury. A brief spell out of the game led to a downward spiral for the German-English national prior to his discovery of data analytics. Fast forward to the his role at 34, a data analyst for VfB Stuttgart — a club that had welcomed him with open arms into a new role.
As he got ready for the first day of pre-season, he opened his laptop to find a flagged ‘urgent’ e-mail from director of football Fabian Wohlgemuth. The club was taking a new direction, and Hertner’s services would no longer be required as head data analyst for the club.
A month after passing his EUFA Pro License, he’d now been awarded A two-year contract for the managerial post at his hometown club, VfB Stuttgart.
Statistical Analysis, Transfers and Development.
As you could’ve guessed from our protagonist’s background the save is going to have a reliance on statistics. Whilst this won’t be a ‘moneyball’ save, scrimping for the best value possible at the behest of ambition or possible achievement; or an ‘attribute-less’ save, removing a key indicator of a player’s ability from the game, it will take elements from both.
I play the game as normal, with all attributes visible, no exploitive scouting — but I will be using statistics and analysis to guide the team into a more successful future. Personally, I’m of the belief that attributes are not the tell of a player’s ability, more of a guide as to how they’ll perform in the match engine.
With the improvements to in-game statistics in more recent FM’s, and FM24 being the most advances, it stands to reason that we can use these in-game statistics to find shortlists to scout future signings, analyse the players within our club and pass judgement on our own tactics — making sure tweaks are grounded in fact.
VfB Stuttgart.
Having gone without any major honours since their Bundesliga triumph in 2007, Stuttgart are a club with a strong amount of domestic success. Throughout the 1950s they achieved two national championships and two DfB Pokal’s, perhaps presenting their best run of success amongst an eight-year period. In spite of this success, Stuttgart have neither achieved a domestic double nor any Europeans trophies, besides the summer Intertoto Cup, throughout their 130 year history.
The club have many icons, with their ‘Centenary Eleven’ from 2012 hosting Timo Hildebrand, Sami Khedira and Jurgen Klinsmann to name a few — not to mention the contribution of legendary german striker Mario Gomez.
In the modern era Stuttgart have been a yo-yo team, spending two seasons since 2016/17 within the 2. Bundesliga. With three seasons back in the top flight, the Reds have achieved stability — but with Hertner at the helm I have a feeling they’ll achieve a lot more.
