Since the start of the summer training camp in Hamburg, a warm-up match has been scheduled almost every few days to get the players back on holiday to get back to the game.

At the beginning, the opponents arranged were relatively weak, basically from the German paper league, and even amateur teams.

What Rosenheim 1860, Kiel Gausting, Nordstedt...... Pan Yi had never heard of it before.

Hamburg won all of them.

But when it came to slightly stronger opponents, Hamburg's performance was not as good as it could be.

They beat South Korea's K-League side Seongnam Ilhwa by a single goal to draw with Denmark's Los Charante but lost to Netherlands' FC Groningen.

This caused a lot of criticism in the local media in Hamburg.

But the media and fans also understand that this is just a pre-season warm-up game, and that Hamburg, as a Bundesliga relegation team, is not a particularly surprising loss to a mid-table team in the Eredivisie.

Their eyes were more focused on the first race of the new season in Hamburg.

It was the first round of the German Cup, which began on 20 August, with Karlsruhe hosting Hamburg.

Karlsruhe, a former Bundesliga side that has now been relegated to the Bundesliga, is certainly not on the same level as Hamburg.

And in such an official game against the weak team, if Hamburg loses again, the saliva sprayed at Pan Yi will definitely be indispensable.

……

Pan Yi naturally didn't care about the results of the warm-up match.

He mainly tests the effectiveness of the tactics in the game, especially which players are suitable for which positions and which players can better execute his tactical intentions.

Especially those veteran players of Hamburg, those players that Pan Yi is not very familiar with.

After all, unlike when he was in Milan, Pan Yi can be said to be a treasure for those Milan players.

How could he not know Gattuso, Ambrosini, Nesta?

But here it's different.

Even if he is the captain of Hamburg and the former German international Westermann, not many Dragon fans know him.

Including Lin Zhijian, Pan Yi had only heard his name and knew some of his stories in his previous life, but he had basically never watched his game.

As for what position he is good at playing, and what role he can play in Pan Yi's 4231, I don't know anything.

So in the warm-up game, Pan Yi let Westerman play center back, left back, right back, and even a back back, while Lin Zhijian played all the positions in the midfield, even the center forward played half the court.

Isn't it natural that Hamburg didn't perform at their best in a race like this?

But as the warm-up games were played one by one, Pan Yi not only gained familiarity with the players, but also realized a problem.

That is: Hamburg's squad depth is still too low at the moment.

In addition to Pan Yi's "appointed" main lineup, the rest of the Hamburg players feel inferior in terms of ability, and their adaptability to new tactics is also very average.

is still not like when he was in Milan, Pan Yi has Salah and Ibrahimovic, as well as Aubameyang and Inzaghi;

In addition to Gattuso and Van Dijk, there are also Ambrosini and Nesta......

And that's before the season even starts.

As the season deepens, after the ability values of these "potential stocks" under Pan Yi begin to rise sharply, the gap between them will only get bigger and bigger.

In other words, Pan Yi can only rely on the dozen or so main players in the Bundesliga this season.

So, how do you fix this?

Buying people again? There is no money left.

Rent?

First, most of the personnel who can match Pan Yi's requirements have high salary levels, which will also cause financial pressure on Hamburg;

Second, with Pan Yi's habit of playing FM games, he doesn't like to play on loan, because there is an unpleasant feeling of helping others level up but delaying the growth of his own children......

So that's the way it is for this season, at least until the winter window begins, or until new money is injected.

Therefore, Pan Yi made a decision.

That is to protect the results of the Bundesliga, and the German Cup is played with a rotating lineup, which counts wherever it can be.

With such a thin lineup, it is not easy to ensure the quality of single-line operations, and there is no need to think about double-line matters at all.

As long as Pan Yi can truly achieve the goal of breaking into the top four as he said at the press conference, being able to enter the Champions League is much more important than the German Cup or something.

Entering the Champions League, the team's funds will be more abundant, and the attraction of players will also be greatly increased.

After fleshing out the lineup, we will consider the matter of double-line and third-line operations.

Moreover, even if Hamburg goes all out to attack the German Cup, it may not be able to break through the blockade of strong teams like Bayern and Dortmund and get good results.

When the time comes, if you get the chicken and the egg to fight, you will lose a lot of money empty-handed.

In the history of football in Pan Yi's previous life, there is no shortage of such examples.

For example, Wigan Athletic of the English Premier League went all out against the FA Cup in the 2012-13 season, and actually defeated Manchester City in the FA Cup final to win the championship!

However, they were relegated from the Premier League and the following year they had to play in the Europa League as a Championship team and failed to qualify from the group.

Another example is the Spaniard in La Liga, who finished seventh in La Liga in the 2018-19 season, the season when Wu Lei joined, thus qualifying for next season's Europa League.

They did well in the group stage of the Europa League, finishing top of the group, but were relegated from repeated defeats in the league......

These teams are because the lineup is too thin, so they can't support the pressure of multi-front operations.

Once a player has a transfer, injury and other things, their strength will be greatly affected, and their results will plummet.

So Pan Yi didn't want to repeat their mistakes.

Besides, Hamburg's ancestors are also quite wide, and they don't really have any desire for the German Cup title.

As long as the results in the Bundesliga go up, any German Cup is a floating cloud.

Also, you can't expect a relegation team to go far in the German Cup, right?

To sum up, Pan Yi has already made a strategic plan for this season, including the next season.

And as time went on, the Hamburg first-team squad he was going to use this season has largely surfaced.

Forwards: Son Xingmin, Wu Lei, Vardy, Marcus Berry, Marcel Janssen, Lin Zhijian.

Midfielders: De Bruyne, Calhanoglu, Casemiro, Makoto Hasebe, Jakopo Sala, Shcherbre, Tescher.

Defenders: Rudiger, Kjaer, Carvajal, Westerman, Ogo, Mancien, Geoffrey Bruma, Dickmeier.

Goalkeepers: Keylor Navas, Neuhaus.

A total of 23 people.

Unlike other leagues, the Bundesliga is actually very lenient in terms of registration.

If you like it, there is nothing wrong with reporting 99 people, so any youth training, non-European, is not a problem in the Bundesliga, which is why Pan Yi was able to introduce so many players from various countries in one go.

The 23-man roster drawn up by Pan Yi is actually the first-team players he feels can be qualified for this season's Bundesliga games.

If it's just a one-line battle in the Bundesliga, these people are almost enough, and there is no point in having more.

The rest of those who did not meet Pan Yi's requirements in training and warm-up matches could only stay in the reserve team and youth team first.

And in case there are some attritions in the course of the season that need to be replenished, he will go down and promote some and put them up.

What he has to do now is to quickly improve the condition of these 23 people in order to prepare for the official competition that is coming soon!

(End of chapter)