[FM10] South Korea Has A WMD, A Brazilian "Yellow Hurricane"

Sorry if the thread title is a little "inappropriate" but its the best I could think of given the brief but interesting history of the club i hope to have a very long career with. So anyway Ive started my save up on Huge database with Brazil(Third to First division), England(League 2 to Prem) and top two tiers of Spain and Italy as my playable leagues, And Ive set the rest of the world and every league in it as "view only".

The club I will be managing will be Centro Esportivo Nova Esperança or CENE for short, they currently play in the Third division of Brazilian football, I will give a brief background to the club(brief because there is not much i can find about them) and their "strange" background.

CE Nova Esperança

History

Centro Esportivo Nova Esperança, or CENE as they are usually called. The nickname of the club is Furacão Amarelo which translates as "Yellow Hurricane". The club was founded by a group of farm employees. They used to play football as a hobby on the weekends. The club was founded with the help of employees of other farms and local businessmen. The team was initially an amateur team, but the good performance of the squad brought investments, and on December 13, 1999, the club became a professional team, adopting the name Clube Esportivo Nova Esperança. (Now here is the interesting part about the investment they got)The team is owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, as is Atlético Sorocaba. The team plays in an all yellow home kit and an all blue away strip. Home stadium is the Pedro Pedrossian (Morenão) Stadium, capacity 45,000.

My Aim

I wanted to start a very long term game as a Brazilian league team with solid foundations to potentially produce brilliant footballers and to play fantastic free flowing attackive football. I never planned to manage in the lowest tier of Brazilian football but finding the "right" foundations is hard, as most teams pay rent on their stadiums or have loan debts of some sort hindering their financial potential in my opinion.

Anyway then i stumbled on this fantastic and fascinating looking club, a Brazilian amateur side that was bought out by a Korean religious movement and became professional, I thought that was a bit "strange". I mean what interest would a Korean religious leader have in Brazilian league football in order to buy 2 football clubs, its a shame i cant seem to find much info as to why this happened or came about.

But anyway, the club foundations are fantastic and just what i was looking for and it makes it even harder considering i have a longer journey to travel than i initially planned for. So they have no loan debts, 45000 seater stadium in which no rent is to be paid, with average training and youth facilities with a youth academy.

So anyway, that's my first attempt at starting something like this, i hope it is a fascinating read, and ill post again with a 1st week at the club pre-season report very soon

Sounds interesting, good luck.

Sounds very interesting! A Brazilian club with South Korean connections, something i've never heard of and must be one of a kind? Hopefully with fact that you have no debts and no stadium rent, not to mention a 45,000 seater, you can build something really special at the Yellow Hurricane. I look forward to seeing them becoming a force in world football!

Pre-Season 1st Week

Well, the first main thing i notice with my situation is that despite the such good "foundations" i was after, is that my current wage bill is double the wage budget ive been allocated So even if i manage instant success/promotion, my finances in the short term will suffer it seems, but im sure ill cope.

When it comes down to analyzing my squad the only stand out senior player is Robson. Im pretty confident he will bang in an awful lot of goals for me

On the youth side of things there are 2 that look promising, Fabiano And Rodrigo. Sadly for Rodrigo im not sure he will play much senior football at all for the club, as i was planning to play a 4-2-2-2 setup with 2 Mc's and 2 AMc's.

After an end to end 2-2 inter-squad friendly, i signed myself some quality looking players on wages that i really cant afford but can make the difference in a hopefully very successful first season. 2 of the players i signed were to use up 2 of my 3 foreign player limit, Gilvan Dos Santos And Christian Ortiz, signed them specifically for the system im hoping to play, Dos Santos as support striker for Robson, and Ortiz to play AMCL.

My first "proper" friendly was against chinese side Hebei, and my new signings settled in well including a top class performance from new signing Dos Santos Hebei Friendly

Just need to trim my squad now over the coming weeks before the season starts to lower my wages as much as i can afford to without compromising my depth for the season. But so far so good

Im very interested to see how you get on good luck.

Rest Of Preseason

After my convincing 9-0 first friendly victory i had a further 6 friendlies and a lot of personnel re-shuffling. The rest of my friendlies where against similar quality Brazilian 3rd division/non-league teams, except 1 friendly against first division Goias. Anyway here are the results...

Comercial(MS) 0-2 CENE

CENE 3-0 Operario(MT)

CENE 1-0 Vila Aurora

Atletico Sorocaba 2-3 CENE

CENE 0-6 Goias

CENE 1-1 Operario(MS)

It went fairly well, scored goals in every match except that thrashing by First Division side Goias. I knew i would get beat by Goias but 0-6 loss was a shock and a big realization of how poor my squad is and how far ive got to go to compete with the top teams in the country

And to make matters worse i went a bit mad on signing three highly rated youth found by my scout who's contracts where expiring at their clubs. So I was heading into the State Championships with a 2.7k wage budget and my current wage bill stood at 9.5k! But on the positives i was fairly confident of going into the first match day of the Third Division as MG do Sul State Champion.

MG do Sul State Championship

Final League Table

Woo! Champions! It was quite a solid performance from my team, really pleased, played very attacking and good football for the poor standard of players that are at my disposal. The main focus is the 4 attacking players in the box AMCL AMCR FCL FCR the linkup is better than i expected between them. And the key players in my system so far are...

Robson - Just as i thought this guy might not be my top scorer so far but has the highest direct contribution to goals in my squad (goals and assists) with 13 in 16 games.

Christian Ortiz - The best performer out of my 2 foriegn players i signed, just an injury limited his appearances to 11 in the State Championships but 7 goals and 2 assists is a pleasantly surprising return from playing in the AMCL position.

Deydson - This is one of the youngsters i signed who's contract was expiring, and got rave reviews from my scout, and he has totally surprised me with his performances. Atts wise he doesnt look like much at the moment but he is great to watch in my AMCR role i use him in, plays some great passes, has fantastic movement and fires in the odd fantastic long shot. Certainly going to be interesting to see how he progresses.

Also an honourable mention has to go to Rodrigo who i signed on loan to play at Right Back, just a shame i have no money at all to sign him.

I just hope i have similar performances from these players once the Third Division starts

Brazilian Cup

The 1st round draw for this Cup was very unlucky for me After getting slaughtered 0-6 by First Division Goias in preseason, guess who i get drawn against?.....Yeah thats right, Goias. Two legs against a team that beat me 0-6, oh no!

The first leg was great played really well at home, even if it was end to end and very open. It finished 1-1 but really coulda been any scoreline from a 3-0 win to 3-3 draw to 0-3 loss.

The second leg was always going to be tough going to their ground and getting a result, and how right i was, i lost 0-5. I dont think much more can be said about that, totally outclassed, ah well ill have to hope for a luckier draw next time around.

Either way i dont think that the early cup exit is the biggest of my problems, when im 141k in debt after only 4 months of the season, hopefully playing Third Division league matches will raise attendances and gate receipts, otherwise im in trouble unless the South Korean and the Unification Church owners are willing to help temporarily stabilize the finances in the hope i can attract brings bigger crowds. I dont want to have to resort selling my most valuable and most paid players.

Anyway now i have a few weeks break to get my players some rest before we get down to the real business of the Third Division and see how far i can progress through the interesting stages this league tier has.

Third Division

First Stage League Table

2nd Round First Leg

2nd Round Second Leg

Been a great first campaign, even if a part of me is disappointed i couldnt wiggle my way to the semi finals to get myself a promotion. The First Stage League went well, i lost more than i hoped for, but i got the job done with a good win against Londrina on the last matchday. So now i was venturing into the knockout stages in my first season above expectations.

The 2nd round put me against Brasil de Pelotas, a team considered favourites for both legs of the tie, so initially thought it would be very very tough, when in fact it was very close. The first leg i was unlucky not to find a 2nd goal, missed 1 or 2 opportunities that couldve been taken a lot better and outplayed them in the middle of the park. So going into the 2nd leg at their stadium the score stood at 1-1 with an away goal for them. I played well in the 2nd leg but they played a lot better and they shouldve scored at least 1 if it wasnt for an amazing performance from my 18 year old keeper, really proving he has what it takes to be a top keeper in the future.

So the final aggregate score was 1-1 and Brasil de Pelotas went through on away goals and my first season was over.

Some of the top performers from the State Championships failed to replicate that form against tougher opposition in the Third Division and 1 or 2 others stepped up the occasion, including a surpising match winning goalscorer.

Robson - The main man continued to perform as expected chipping in with more goals and assists, making him my top scorer and top assister in the squad throughout the whole season. Making it obvious that if i am to get out of the league he will be vital in my system.

Everton - The surprising goalscorer of my squad for the Third Division, he was 3rd choice DC for the state championships, and a poor run of form for Robinho saw Everton get a chance and my god he didnt half take it. Every other game it seemed like he appeared with a match winning/changing goal and they werent with his head, he just stood in right place on the second ball from set pieces and knew where the goal was finishing it most of the time. And not only that but for some of his awful atts he was solid defensively and formed a formidable partnership with Edilucio

Luis Guilherme - One of the 3 youth players i signed on a free from other clubs with wages i didnt have to spare, along with State Championship key player Deydson. This young 17 year old keeper from Botafogo's youth setup turned 18 after the State Championships and really improved an awful lot with 9 clean sheets in the 16 Third Divison matches including that MOTM performance in the second leg of the 2nd round. He has already developed during his first season at the club and my coaches say he has a long way to go in terms of development, so the future is bright between the posts

Disappointment of the Third Division has to be Deydson. After excelling in the State Championships i thought he would continue to shock everyone with similar performances in the Third Division, but i was wrong, with only 3 assists and 0 goals in the Third Division. He is still very very young and atts wise he has developed with the faith i kept in him by continuing to field him at such a young age regardless of form. Im sure he will have a great future, and im hoping he does what Luis Guiherme did and upped his game after his 18th birthday.

And yet another honourable mention HAS to go to Rodrigo, the guy has been immense, defensively and attackively. With the 4-2-2-2 system im playing the fullbacks are vital, and he bombs up and down that right hand side like a man possessed. Great dribbler, good passer and crosser, fantastic technical ability to tackle and i think his average rating is a great reflection of that. Played very reminiscent of Cafu in his prime, granted the quality of league is awful but visually watching him on the pitch its like watching a poor man's Cafu lol

Anyway here is the Squad screen for the season overall Squad Season 1

And to move on to my financial position, things are looking baaaaaaad, im now 400k in debt and it keeps dropping I need to lower my wages by over 6k to get it anywhere close to being acceptable, after selling 1 or 2 players i currently have a 2.7k wage budget and now a 9.2k wage bill. Its not looking good, im just lucky that my performance in competitions and the fans reaction to how well they think im doing, im currently "untouchable" even with the wages confidence bar being empty, im just unsure how long i can keep hiding behind "exceeding expectations". But i think ill have to try my best to sell off anyone i can with high wages regardless of who they are and rely on more loan deals next season maybe, have a squad of youth players and loan deals.

But overall im happy with my first season in charge, State Championship Title and Second Round in the Third Division, but this will now be a vital and long off-season period before the new season starts!

End Of Season 2010