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GylfiAsCharged

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    Bordeaux

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  1. Good luck and enjoy the save, they look like a great team to play as. Cherki has been fantastic in my game, they use him as the AM in a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 ahead of the same three-man midfield you set out and he always seems to score against me. Florent Sanchez has developed nicely after a couple of seasons too, so be sure not to overlook him! I feel like PSG's dominance puts people off the league, but having a front row seat to whenever they slip up (big, small, or ideally at your own team's hands) is really satisfying.
  2. Bit of a nightmare start to the summer transfer window, with key midfielders Branco van den Boomen and Darius Olaru demanding new and frankly ridiculous contracts that the club can't afford, and the board barely giving me a proper transfer budget despite finishing second and qualifying for the Champions League. Branco's replacement has already arrived on a free transfer, as I had agreed a pre-contract deal with Ethan Ampadu of Chelsea with the intention of playing him at centre-back, but he looks like an excellent ball winner in central midfield. Turning Sepp van den Berg's loan deal permanent means we are adequately covered in defence. Ander Guevara also comes in on a free transfer from Real Sociedad to add depth to the centre of midfield, and to replace Olaru in the Shadow Striker role we'll be demanding more from Facundo Farías who couldn't really get going after joining in January.
  3. 2023-24 Season - Bordeaux A brilliant first season back in the top flight. We moved into second place after the 18th game-week, and never dropped a spot from then onwards. Just like last year in Ligue 2, Josh Maja led the league in goalscoring. He always looked likely to score a hatful for us, but I was expecting more resistance from the PSG forwards. He somehow got pipped to the African Player of the Year Award by Andy Delort who bagged 19 goals for 13th placed Nantes, but unlike Maja he did play a few games for Algeria. Somehow the Nigeria manager hasn't called up our main man once despite him leading the scoring charts all season. And as good as our league campaign was, I certainly wasn't expecting to win any silverware this season. The path opened up nicely thanks to this glorious result early on in the tournament... Our run wasn't the toughest, but we made quite hard work of it at times, only looking fully convincing in the semi-final against the Monaco team I declined to manage this season. They ultimately opted to appoint Marcelino, which didn't go so well. Sacked with a month to go before the end of the season with the club sat outside the European places. His replacement Ange Postecoglou didn't have time to undo the mess he made as you'll see in the table at the top. 10th place was certainly not what they hoped for. I made a fun signing on a free transfer in January, and he was willing to join for peanuts as long as we funded a coaching course for him. He was totally immobile and only made one substitute appearance before retiring, but completed his coaching course and will be staying at the club, as shown above. Mbark Boussoufa also retired this summer, and after his invaluable contribution to our promotion season, it seemed rude not to extend his stay working with the Under 19s. A much more useful January acquisition was taking over the loan of Liverpool's Sepp van den Berg who swapped Burnley for Bordeaux. His £3.4m option to buy is definitely on the cards this summer, along with Timothée Pembélé who will cost £3.5m. I'm expecting our second-placed finish and Champions League qualification should give us enough budget to stump up for these two players key to both last season and our long term plans. My favourite match of the season was the one I was dreading. I put off playing the game for two real life days fearing a thrashing would ruin our morale and form with a cup final looming. It's definitely proving to be my favourite save of FM23 so far, and it'll take a long time to overthrow PSG as the dominant force in France, but things couldn't be going much better so far. Alberth Elis didn't deliver what I was hoping for after returning from his excellent loan at Brest last season, so I sold him to Crystal Palace in January. Club captain Fransergio sadly suffered a career-ending injury after fifteen games this season, but the veteran Brazilian is yet another former star working with our youngsters.
  4. Not the most challenging team to start with but I had a really enjoyable year with Bordeaux winning Ligue 2, and breaking some records. Can't remember the last time I had a team dominate a Team of the Season like this. All but one were club originals, with Poussin and Mwanga growing really nicely. Fabrice Olinga came in on a free as versatile depth up front and on the wings, but caused a stink wanting a contract he didn't warrant so was sold for £850k to Portimonense before the next preseason. A criminal omission from this team was 38-year-old Mbark Boussoufa who joined on a free as a player/u19 coach on a surprisingly low wage, playing almost every game scoring 11 goals and assisting a further 12, with an average rating of 7.40. A little surprise at the beginning of preseason, duly rejected: We've started the season well with 17 points from our first 9 games, good enough for 5th in the league but with a big gap opening up behind Marseille, Lyon and PSG as the top 3. Our board are only expecting us to finish in mid-table so I'm not too concerned about this. We haven't faced PSG yet and have only been beaten by Marseille and Nice, both away from home, I've not yet figured out how I want to set our team up as underdogs. PSG winning the Champions League granted the league an additional qualification spot, so it's good to see progress there that could hopefully benefit us at some stage. My transfer window saw quite a few young talents come into the club, including a player I've signed several times in recent years, Álex Collado from Barcelona B for £900k. I returned to Catalonia to loan in versatile attacker Estanis Pedrola for the season. My pursuit of PSG's unwanted young right back Timothée Pembélé was an unusual one, having agreed a season's loan with obligation to buy for £2.5m with PSG, they instead got impatient and sold him immediately to Monaco for £725k. Despite just buying him they didn't seem keen on him either, allowing me to agree a loan-to-buy deal but with an optional £3.5m price tag instead - he's started really brightly and I think he will be worth paying up for given his significant potential, assuming he stays fit. Collado aside, our most significant acquisition was probably central midfielder Branco van den Boomen from rivals Toulouse on a free transfer, a deal agreed earlier in the year which worked out nicely for him as Toulouse finished in 19th and were relegated.
  5. Gutting to see this, great work getting them as far as you did! Still going with them but FM has taken a back seat due to work this month, only just coming out of the winter break in season one but will keep flying the Vítkovice flag! Will be catching up and following your progress in Northern Ireland!
  6. Thank you, some encouraging stuff there especially about Netolička. Leixner isn't on our books, but I've not got access to check transfers out from last season right now. I've given Cverna a one-year deal as he looked likely to pack it in and he is the most influential player in a dressing room that isn't overly fond of me yet, so it seemed like a no brainer especially when he agreed to a wage cut. Always nice to keep them around when they retire at the club so I'll likely try doing the same! I've finally got an assistant manager, general coach, goalkeeping coach and a (frankly terrible) fitness coach. I clearly missed one of the responsibilities when setting the game up as our owner decided to appoint a u19s assistant manager immediately despite that team having only 2 players and no manager, and the first team not having a single coach.
  7. Oh nice! Didn't realise anyone else was playing with Vítkovice, will have to catch up on your posts and will be following with interest! Kubušek is still around but I found him transfer listed and exiled into the U19s presumably as he stated he was exploring his options at the end of his contract in a few days' time. I've made an offer and hope to keep him around, though I'd earmarked Guy Reteno Elekana the Gabonese winger as my likely starting striker. I'm pleasantly surprised at the quality of some young players in the initial squad, particularly Jan Dvořák (20 and 16 DET) in central midfield, Filip Šilhart (21) on the right wing and Tomáš Netolička (21) in goal. I'd be interested to know how they fared for you and if you saw much development?
  8. Time to get my teeth into this. Manager profile Club information Facilities Assessing the squad on my arrival, we're flush with wingers but don't have a single striker in the senior squad bizarrely. The squad looks best suited to a 4-5-1 or a 4-2-3-1, but I think I'll likely opt for the latter to begin with at least. Unsure if this is always the case with this challenge, but I've arrived to no staff at the club other than some doctors, so addressing that will be my priority ahead of the first season. These two have made badly timed career moves and have been frozen out to be sold as soon as possible.
  9. MFK Vítkovice Have struggled for a long-term save this year but fired up the game last night and joined newly-promoted MFK Vítkovice in the Czech Republic. My favourite save of FM22 was with Dukla Prague so giving this a go here seemed to make perfect sense. I'll upload my manager profile and some more season preview bits this evening, but can start with some background. In-game, the media are predicting a mid-table finish for our first season, and the club's facilities are pretty impressive. We ground-share with neighbours and top flight side Banik Ostrava at the 15,123 seater Městský Stadion. Our much bigger neighbours played in European competition several times around a decade ago, and won the 1. Liga title in 2003-04 and the domestic cup in the following year. That isn't to say Vítkovice have had no glory years of their own, just a little further back, winning the Czechoslovak First League in 1985/86, making their European Cup debut the following season, eliminating PSG in the first round before falling to eventual winners Porto next. They placed second in the league that year behind Sparta Prague. They would go further in Europe the following season, beating Sweden's AIK, Scotland's Dundee United, Portugal's Vitória de Guimarães before finally falling to Espanyol in the Quarter Finals. Unfortunately 1989's Velvet Revolution saw them lose a lot of their financial support from the city's iron and steel works, leading to a descent through the leagues and financial issues. Behind the capital Prague and Brno, Ostrava is the country's third largest city, situated in the east and close to the borders with Poland and Slovakia. We are the second biggest club in the city, so surpassing the established order locally will prove a huge challenge by only relying on youth players. The club represents the Moravian side of the city of Ostrava due to its roots on the one side of the Ostravice River, with Banik being headquartered in the Silesian part of the city, so there's a rivalry ripe for reigniting if we can make it that far. I'm not super familiar with the history of the region but if this goes well I'll be doing plenty of research alongside the save.
  10. Curious to see if any of your staff meetings have yielded anything quite as useless as this:
  11. Always wanted to have a go at building San Marino so I've downloaded Italy to level 5 and just started up with Victor San Marino. Not sure if I'll be able to get the National Team job down the line or if I needed to do that when setting up my game - can anyone advise please? Alternatively I see playing within the Sammarinese League is a popular approach, and I'd happily go down that route instead. I'm only in preseason so happy to scrap and start over if I've got it wrong.
  12. That's an interesting point about making the decision to play with youngsters and sticking with it, I think I'll be leaning into that from now on.
  13. Really enjoyed catching up on this, congratulations on your promotion! Have also been playing with Ceuta and finding the max 18 over-23 players rule absolutely brutal. Glad to see you having success with your youngsters as it looks like the way to navigate these rules! Crespo looks an absolute star in the making too!
  14. Any first window business for you guys? Had a bid accepted for Endrick at Palmeiras who is absolutely not interested in negotiating terms which is really disappointing. Playing the rather uncreative 4-2-3-1 I'm tempted to strengthen in midfield, but don't like the asking prices for Ndidi/Tielemans/Rice and am half tempted to just give Sambi the chance to grow into one of the deeper roles alongside Partey, using Xhaka and Elneny as depth there. If anyone has picked up a starting calibre defensive CM within budget I'd be keen to hear. Was tempted to look for a new, more attacking RB but Tomiyasu has pleasantly surprised me going forward in preseason. I'd also never heard of George Lewis before this save, what an unusual situation he is in. 22 years old without any real potential according to our very good scouts. Neither homegrown for club or country, so think he'll be going on the scrapheap.
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