As we're underway in Germany too (apart from the Bundesliga) it's time for a little update!

I'll start with the teams we played in pre-season. Darmstadt have enjoyed a good start to the season, winning both their opening games and scoring five goals in the process. Kaiserslautern lost their opening game but won their televised clash against Schalke thanks to a debatable penalty. I wasn't very impressed by them but it's early days.

In the fourth-level Regionalliga Südwest, Stuttgarter Kickers have also won two out of two, including an impressive win against promotion favourites SV Sandhausen. So a positive start, but that league is a bit of a shark tank and only one team goes up.

So all in the garden is rosy? Not quite. SV Waldhof Mannheim, i my view Germany's coolest club by far, have supplied plenty of drama and the parallels to Notts are unnerving sometimes. The club appointed a young coach six games before the end of last season and just about squeaked to third division safety. However, this coach (let's call him Dominik) was already under contract at another club as a youth coach from July onwards. Hence, Waldhof spent most of the summer in negotiations to release Dominik from his contract there (during which time barely a handful of players arrived) and ended up paying a transfer fee for him. A six-figure sum was rumoured; not bad for an under-19s coach.

Two league games and one point later, Dominik had managed to fall out with the DoF, the club's best striker and the long-serving club captain (who departed) and was sacked. He was replaced by the head coach of the Luxembourg national team the following day. On the plus side, the solid goalkeeper they let go has been replaced by a tall Dutch bloke, so what could possibly go wrong?

This could be a very good way for me to take in some information about the German league, so consider me interested in being educated. I might be able to tell Jake something he doesn't know the next time he beats me on FC 2025, or whatever version it is.

I will also be keeping tabs on Darmstadt, as some of their fans have been very friendly to Notts since the friendly game between us and them.

It would be nice if we could invite them to play at Meadow Lane in the future.