12|04 DERNIÈRE LIGNE DROITE: Oliver Jensen Steps Down As Director of Football at Stade Rennais

SeasonTwelve.EpisodeFour | Dernière ligne droite

Welcome back to my Football Manager 2020 blog with Stade Rennais. If you missed my previous post, you can catch up with everything that happened, here:

Read more » 12|03 MERCATO D’HIVER: Another Quiet January Transfer Window

February 2031 – May 2031

So this is it. The final season I will have any say in the running of Stade Rennais. From first team manager, to Director of Football, it has been one hell of a journey. Football Manager 2020 has kept me entertained for hours upon hours, but now it is time to see how the AI handles things as we come to the end of the journey.

The Coaching Team

Hannes Wolf second season in charge of Rennes wasn’t as fruitful as his first. He still achieved a 90+ points total, but it wasn’t enough as PSG lost just one game all season.

I don’t think we can put too much blame on him, but we will let the AI decide if Hannes should keep his job. In terms of the results, there are some cracking victories here, including the win over PSG, their only defeat all season.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be. The Champions League wasn’t on the agenda this season either, with a defeat to Barcelona. Which isn’t the worst result, it is kind of expected.

One silver lining is the 2-1 victory over PSG in the Coupe de France final. But the league will always be the priority, and on that front we fell short for the first time in five seasons.

It was a valiant effort, but I don’t think the Rennes fans can be too disappointed. Second in the league, a Coupe de France win and semi-finals in the Champions League. A lot of teams would bite your hand off for that success.

The Business Side of Stade Rennais

When we first joinned Rennes, we had no money and were a team challenging for the Europa League places. When we leave, we’re one of the biggest clubs in world football. Our Champions League win saw us gain a five-star worldwide reputation, and we currently sit as the forth most reputable club in the world.

The only clubs ahead of us are, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Liverpool.

We turnover between €300-400m annually, which sees us in 11th place overall. While our finances are just okay, we have a brand new state of the art stadium and facilities. We are probably the best set up club in the world and are built for success with our extensive scouting network bringing in some of the worlds top youth players.

It’ll be interesting to see if the AI can maintain this.

Commercial Summary

Commecially we continue to sell the brand and attract new commercial partners, with our sponsorship income rising to €66m annually. I think there’s a lot more room for growth here. I’ll be key for the club to remain in the Champions League late places and continue to produce top talent from the academy.

We signed with a new affiliate, Shandong from China, which has seen income increase. We need to continue to drive this commercial activity in order to continue to be able to pay the wages we are now.

The Recruitment Team

This is where we’ve seen huge changes. The scout network now is worldwide, collecting data on the best young talents in the game. It’ll be good to see if the AI can continue to attract these types of players to the club, or if they decide to start buying ready made talent.

Hopefully they don’t rip the team up too much. But, we shall see…

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Thank you to everyone who has followed along with this save. It has been great fun. I’m starting to think about how I approach FM21 and what sort of things I want to write about, so if you have any ideas, let me know below.

As always, you can get in touch with me in the comments below, via twitter @fmfutbolmanager, or my slack channel #fmFutbolManager — if you’re not a part of the Football Manager Slack community, then you can join here!

Until next time, à tout à l’heure.

Oliver Jensen