It is almost the end of the 19/20 season and I figured this would be a good time to profile some of the players that have made it possible to be in 2nd place in the UNL, the final of the UN Cup and Heidelberg even made it past the group stage of the Champions League, which is completely novel to our squad.
To start, let's look at my two goalies. Both of them were chosen because of their age and potential. The 19 year old American Philip Hulme is our starting goalie, he's been absolutely great for our team despite his young age. He is also supposed to have a great amount of potential according to our scouts. Our second goalie is another young German player, Manfred KneiBl. He's slightly smaller than Philip but still has a lot of the great qualities of a player that may develop into a world class player for us. As I've mentioned before, we're really trying to build up a team with young players. UNL is still developping into a really competitive competition, so we can still afford to use some less inexperienced players to get the job done, which gives them so much experience. This is certainly part of the reason they have been developping so fast.
In the back we currently employ Kelisson Roberto and Antonio Jose. Both are our Brazillian defensive prodigies. Both are great players in the air, Kelisson being a more defensive minded player while the capitain Antonio Jose does have a bit more speed available allowing him to play a cover DC role with some offensive capabilities.
Beyond these two fenomenal Brazillians, we also have our two veterans, the 34 year old Jose Goncalves, who much like Kelisson takes more of the stopper role, while the 29 year old Zelimir Busic is our other ait threat. This Croatian DC has been with us for quite a few seasons now, and still starts games for us on occasion.
As full backs, our left side has the talent of the Dutch John Berghuis as well as the Italian defender, Rossano Luppi. Bot these players are actually quite similar in style and both could potentially be long time players for Heidelberg if I can keep them in the club. Unfortunately, on this side of our defense our players are defense minded, which at this point does limit our attacking potential from these roles
In terms of right full-backs, our veteran Xavier Arellano still plays for our team. He is perhaps slightly faster than our other DR, Kevin Bigler from Switzerland. Bigler is a very technical and creative full back. Our right side however is weaker in talent when compared to our left side.
Our current tactics involves a 4-1-2-2-1 formation using a lone defensive midfielder, often in an anchorman role or sometimes a defensive DM role. For this position we have the Mexican Erick Cardenas, Cesar Guerreno, Javi Garcia and Freddy Mveng. Garcia is our veteran with a strong air presence and quite a bit of physicallity to supplement that. Mveng is perhaps our best DM in my opinion so far. This 27 year old Cameroonian is shorter but much faster than Garcia.
Both the Mexican Cardenas and the Paraguayan Guerreno are 19 years of age and still have a lot of developping to do. Cardenas is tall and more defensive minded while Guerreno can play a bit more of a playmaker role since he is much more technical.
Guerreno is also one of our options when it comes to the mid field, however the Spanish Efijota certainly has more creativity and attacking potential, so he often is made the started with a DLP supportive role.
Beyond the mid fiel we have left and right attacking midfielders, often with an attacking winger role or even an inside forward role. On the left side we have another pair of Brazillians. The 22 year old Nilson Chule and the 22 year old Marcos Roberto. Both of these players are actually fairly similar, very fast and technical. Both have been a great part of our success this season so far.
On the right side we have the Ukranian Ruslan Voytsekhivskyi, who we just recently aquired. Despite his usual role as a striker, we have mostly used him in the AMR position so far, which is alright considering his speed and attacking skills.
Beyond that, Yoshinari Kitazawa is our Japanese forward that we tend to use as backup to a lot of different roles up front.
Chang Joon-Ki, is our 18 year old Korean that has also been doing a great job showing his talent.
Our two biggest stars perhaps are the two forwards, Tihomir Maric and our Chinese star, Zhao. Zhao tends to play either as a complete forward or simply a target man. Maric is a bit smaller and tends to be used in speedier roles.
Robertinho is also 26 and he signed up with Heidelberg back in 2019 as a free agent from Santos. I'm not sure how this happened at this point since he's an amazing winger and getting him for free is bordering criminal. Robertinho has been a great power in the left wing. He is fast, he is agile, he is an amazing crosser and is also great at set pieces. He can basically do everything a manager would want from a winger. He has been probably the best overall player for the past year, not only contributing to Heidelberg but also for the Brazillian national team (which I also manage now).
Antonio Jose is Heidelberg's captain and has been for a few years despite his early age. He's been a stable force at the back alongside Kelisson Roberto, his Brazilian partner at the back. AJ is a strong CB with great aerial capabilities as well as a strong leader within the squad. He joined the team back in 2017 for 1 Million from Fluminense. Beyond that, he is a consistent player and is part of the reason we have had such a great season so far. 
