[FM10] A Tour Of The Danube

A Tour Of The Danube

Aim

Manage and bring success to teams based on the Danube river, which flows through 8 European countries

Version:

FM10, 10.1 database

Active Leagues

Playable (lowest level): Germany (3), Austria (2), Slovakia (1), Hungary (2), Serbia (2), Croatia (2), Bulgaria (2), Romania (2).

View-only: England (1), Italy (1), Spain (1), Brazil (1), Argentina (1)

Database size

Large

Manager reputation

Sunday League Footballer

Starting club

Unemployed

Latest career summary

[b]Season	Club	   	Country		Div	League		Cup	Europe		Rep[/b]		  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09/10	Unemployed									1500, 1500,  750
09/10	FC Bdin	   	Bulgaria	2	10th		R1	N/A		1585, 1753,  947
10/11	FC Bdin	   	Bulgaria	2	4th		R2	N/A		1657, 1862, 1117

The Danubian Clubs

Here are the clubs who are eligible for management - all are based in cities, towns or villages through which the Danube river flows.

Not too many household names, except perhaps those based in the four capital cities: Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Bratislava.

[b]Country		Div	Club			Club rep[/b]
---------------------------------------------------------
Germany		3	Regensburg		4150
	3	Ingolstadt		4450


Austria		1	Austria Vienna		6700
	1	Rapid Vienna		6800
	1	Lask Linz		5750

	2	First Vienna		3250


Slovakia	1	Slovan Bratislava	5750
	1	FC Petrzalka		4250


Hungary		1	MTK Budapest		4750
	1	Honved Budapest		4800
	1	Ujpest			5250
	1	Ferencvaros		4500
	1	Vasas			4000
	1	Paksi FC		4100

	2	Vac 			3500
	2	BTK Elore		2900
	2	REAC			3750
	2	Szigetzentmilkos	2750


Croatia 	2	Vukovar '91		3350


Serbia		1	Partizan Belgrade	6800
	1	Red Star Belgrade	6600
	1	Rad			4550
	1	OFK Belgrade		5150
	1	BSK Borca		4500
	1	Cukraricki		4550
	1	Vojvodina		5900
	1	FK Smederevo		4600

	2	Bezanija		3500
	2	Mladost Apatin		3850
	2	Novi Sad		3600


Romania		2	Delta Tulcea		4100
	2	Dunarea Galati		3750
	2	Dunarea Giurgiu		3650


Bulgaria	2	Dunav Rousse		2950
	2	FC Bdin Vidin		2150

New club: FC Bdin, Bulgaria (Div 2)

By a very happy coincidence (I'm not making this up, load up a game and check for yourself!), the only one team on the list who started without a manager was also the team with the lowest reputation of the lot – Bulgaria's second flight team FC Bdin.

Things are obviously not too great for Bdin, because immediately after I'd applied for the post, they called back and offered me a 2-year contract.

Location

Bdin are based in the north-western Bulgarian town of Vidin, right on the border with Romania.

Danube test

Within about 1km of the river, not bad!

An interesting concept and one which attracts my following. Being a keen amatuer geographer myself, I like the set up in which you've chosen. I guess your aim would be to take over one of the German clubs being as they have the highest league rep allowing you more chance of signing players and reaching success?

Like the Google maps too!

Season 1 (09/10): FC Bdin, Bulgarian Div 2

Background

The second level of Bulgarian football is split in to two 15-team divisions, East and West, where one team from each division goes up automatically, and the two runners-up playoff for the third promotion spot. We're in the West, and probably more interested in the fact that two teams from each division are relegated in to the abyss.

Unlike any other team in the division, Bdin's squad was made up entirely of amateur and youth players.

On the down side, our best player was apparently a 41-year old amateur striker. On the up side, none of the amateur players took a wage and so (despite having no transfer money) we had a generous £7,000/week to spend on bringing in full-time players.

With that in mind, the two scouts were off and about trying to find anyone under 40 with some basic co-ordination and athletic ability. By the time the season started, we'd brought in 7 new players for nothing, leaving us to pad out the rest of the team with amateurs and youth players.

Season report

Media prediction: 15th (16 teams)

Board expectations: fight bravely against relegation

Transfer budget: £0

Despite starting off with two wins, the first half of the season was largely a mess. A ten-game run without a win (first round cup exit included) made for an uncomfortable December/January winter break, just one point above the relegation spots.

Every possible combination of match strategies, player roles, touchline instructions and team-talks was attempted at some point, but there was no masking the fact that half of the team were totally useless, the other half the team had only just met eachother and holding them all together was a manager that didn't speak any Bulgarian and kind of wanted to go home.

If there's one thing that's very obvious in lower league football on FM, it's that morale is very, very important. When the whole team's morale is 'very poor', it's near enough impossible to say anything to motivate them and you basically have to try your best to engineer a freak win against the odds. And that's pretty much what happened in our first game back from the break. Playing against the league's bottom team at home, we somehow won 1-0, after they went down to ten men in the first 15 minutes, scored an own goal and then missed a penalty and a hatful of other chances.

Things got a bit better from there, and with a few extra full-time players brought in through January (thanks scouts!), we won and drew just enough games to edge away from the bottom of the league and towards a comfortable-enough midtable position.

End of season report

Not too bad a season, given the state of the squad and the pre-season expectations. Next year we'll start out with near enough a whole full-time squad.

The manager rep went up marginally, but not really enough to start applying for any other jobs. We still need to achieve a fair bit more with Bdin before anyone's going to take any notice!

[b]Season	Club	   	Country		Div	League		Cup	Europe		Rep		 Star player[/b]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09/10	FC Bdin	   	Bulgaria	2	[url=http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af303/RobT83/BulgarianWestern_B_Group.png?t=1259258701]10th[/url]		R1	N/A		1585, 1753, 947  [url=http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af303/RobT83/bestplayer09.jpg?t=1259258811]Link[/url]

what is the distance limit between stadium and danube?

without wishing to offend you ground looks like a park

@Raware

Glad someone's reading!

I haven't really thought too much about where I want to end up, but you're right that the German league's probably the only one where you can really build up a team's rep.

I'd quite like to try and win something in each country though, and it'd be a nice challenge to try and bring some European success to some of the more famous Slovakian/Austrian/Serbian/Hungarian club teams or, dare I say, national sides

@Steak

I haven't checked out all the stadium-Danube distances yet, but I doubt any of them are any more than 5k from it - there are a few in Hungary that are practically on it

Believe it or not, that's a 15,000 capacity stadium right there.. I had to check on wikimapia to make sure that was actually the ground, because you're right, it does look like a park!

trying to find anyone under 40 with some basic co-ordination and athletic ability

I'll play! (if you relax the athletic ability bit :o)

Seriously, a really good first season considering the circumstances - those things can go seriously pear shaped.

Good luck mate, subscribed here.

The bad news is that only Croatian team ('91 Vukovar) managed to get themselves relegated from the bottom division in season 1, so I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that they get their acts together at some point, if I'm ever going to complete that leg of the tour

Looks like an interesting concept. Good luck.

As others have said, very interesting idea and a solid first season. Good luck with this

Good concept for a career save and good first season considering what you had to start with

Great concept, you should post it in CSE

Its a great read so far, KUTGW

A great concept!

Do you intend to work your way 'to the source' so to speak, or will you move up and down the great river as the jobs become available?

Thanks all.

DodgeeD: I did actually think about starting in Romania and moving 'up' the river, but it would have been a bit too complicated So I think I'll just take jobs as they come up, depending on whoever'll take me! It'd be nice to win something in each country though.

Very "diffrent" idea here, but a good challenge, best of luck mate. I will be following.

Season 2 (10/11): FC Bdin, Bulgarian Div 2

Background

The first thing I did after the end of season 1 was to release all the remaining amateur and part-time players. We brought in a few more full-time freebies - including a very promising Brazilian striker Tiago Santos, to join last season's top scorer Korbankolev. That left us with about twenty full-time pros and a group of youth players as backups.

With a few wins in pre-season, I was quietly confident that, despite the media predictions, we might have an outside hope of challenging for promotion.

Season report

Media prediction: 11th (16 teams)

Board expectations: safe mid-table position

Transfer budget: £0

Unfortunately, things didn't quite start the way I'd hoped.

We lost our first game at home and couldn't seem to pick up any momentum in the opening few months. Injuries to a couple of key players didn't help, and we found ourselves in a disappointing 10th position at the half-way mark, before the two month winter break. To make matters worse, despite being comfortably within our wage budget and having spent no money on transfers, we were losing about £15k a month and almost £100k in debt.

After the break (despite my schoolboy error of forgetting to play any winter friendlies, leaving us with no match practice when the league re-started!) things began to get better. I spent a few games watching games on full-match highlights to get the tactics right, and it paid dividends. We were always a bit too far behind to have any real chance of getting in to 2nd place, but finishing with five wins (including 4-0, 4-0, 5-0 and 4-1 hammerings) saw us end the season in a fairly decent 4th.

End of season report

A poor start, but a much better second half to the season which bodes well for our hopes of promotion in season 3.

The board injected £60k in to the club, but we still finished the season about £120k in debt. Whether that will cause any short-term problems for me I don't know, but it does suggest that it'd be good to achieve some success sooner rather than later!

The manager rep crept up a little bit again, but still not enough to give me any real chance of taking over any of the other Danubian clubs for a while.

[b]Season	Club	   	Country		Div	League		Cup	Europe		Rep		  Star player[/b]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11	FC Bdin	   	Bulgaria	2	[url=http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af303/RobT83/BulgarianWestern_B_Group-2.png?t=1259516285]4th[/url]		R2	N/A		1657, 1862, 1117  [url=http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af303/RobT83/9IvanKorbankolev.png?t=1259516251]Link[/url]

Oh nice work and a very imaginative choice of career! Look forward to hearing how you get on, as you meander through your career!

Uh-oh. I think a flood of river-related puıns is about to start flowing.

A very good idea for a career RT, good luck for next season it looks like you have got the tactics right to a promotion could be on the cards.