[FM11] Barcelona’ing the way through the lower leagues – is it even possible?

[Unknown Hacker]

I just had a look at your formation and it's weird that we both created exactly the same structure whilst attempting to play good football. That said my formation will undoubtedly be more rigid than yours since I just want pace and passing rather than pace of passing. I've managed to get back-to-back promotions with this tactic and I'm currently on course for a third with a different team so Barcelonaesque tactics can certainly work in any division provided that you have the players who can do that.

I will be following this, KUTGW!

[noikeee]

Tks for the comments to push this to page 2. Will probably edit a few older posts to replace a few videos/pictures for external links, so that the 1st page gets lighter.

I just had a look at your formation and it's weird that we both created exactly the same structure whilst attempting to play good football. That said my formation will undoubtedly be more rigid than yours since I just want pace and passing rather than pace of passing. I've managed to get back-to-back promotions with this tactic and I'm currently on course for a third with a different team so Barcelonaesque tactics can certainly work in any division provided that you have the players who can do that.

I will be following this, KUTGW!

Interesting, but are you talking about my initial Barcelona 4-3-3 formation (post #1) or the 4-2-3-1 I'm playing now (post #76)? Because I've abandoned my initial principles and went into something completely different with Venezia, as an answer to my failure managing Kettering. It does have developed into something resembling good football again, but certainly does not mimic Barcelona at all as my pair of defensive-minded midfielders are very rudimentary, and I'm using classical wingers rather than inside forwards like David Villa and Pedro Rodriguez.

2017/2018 pre-season update should be up in a day or two, and I have a massive lot of 14 new players to show... not sure I should have done such a radical revolution with the squad.

[noikeee]

Unione Venezia 2017/2018 - season preview

Transfers

Here's all the new signings, all free transfers or cheap loans:

Stéphane Merle (AMR) - French youngster with some potential that may be a bit late to fulfill it.

Emanuele Gonnella (ML) - The italian left-sided counterpart of Merle.

Yannick Agro (AMR) - Likely bench/2nd option for the right wing, can play as striker if I'm desperate.

Raffaele Vallefuoco (AML/ST) - The italian left-sided counterpart of Agro, I rate him a little higher though.

Nicola Saccone (DC) - 5th option for centre-back on cheap wages.

Michael Chacon (AMC/ST) - This summer's huge, superstar signing. I didn't need a AMC or an ST at all but this player was far too good for me to pass up. I suspect he'll be superb at this level.

Michele D'Amico (GK) - 2nd/3rd option for keeper on cheap wages, on loan.

Michele Cerbella (MC) - One of many new promising MCs in the fight for a starting eleven place.

Alessandro Camisa (DC) - Rather good experienced centre-back, probably a bench player.

Thomas Maier (MC) - Another promising MC, but on loan.

Emanuele Giorgi (ST) - Highly promising striker but I don't think he'll break into the first team just yet.

Fabio Uggeri (ST) - 3rd/4th option striker, on loan and cheap wages. Very complete striker.

Marco Biffi (DC) - Another experienced centre-back alternative if I have to break up the hugely successful Gerardi-Ballesi partnership.

Giovanni Langella (DMC) - Another youngster in the fight for the MC place.

Besides these 14 players, I also managed to re-loan 2 vital players of last year's campaign: centre-back Marco Gerardi and midfielder Andrea Raffaeli.

As you may notice, a big factor in a lot of these signings was their low wages, as they come to replace a few overpaid guys that were released or sold. DMC/MC Antonino Profeta was the only usual starting eleven player included in this bunch, but I also got rid of Tjeerd Korf, Giovanni Iodice, Paul Grischok, Peter Verhoeve, Giuseppe Angarano, Nunzio Di Roberto, Oswaldo Contreras, João Vilela, Anthony Gaillard and Dani Verruschi. French striker Gaillard became my highest fee sale so far, for 30K€ - exactly the same I paid for him 3 years ago.

Full Squad



TIM Cup

We're out of the cup already, but it was an utterly bizarre match as we got defeated 5-4 at Foggia. New star Michael Chacon got a brace as Foggia's Christian Pasquato shone even higher with an hat-trick.

It was not the greatest beginning of the season but it was definitely a very entertaining start. We've followed it with an unexciting debut game in the Serie C1/A which we drawn 1-1 at home versus Casale and that's all the official matches I've played so far. Unfortunately Bojan Petrovic got a very serious injury and will be treated for a few months...

Objectives for the season

• Prove that the media prediction of 16th is rubbish and survive relegation (we need 13th for that, or 14th-17th then luck in the playout). I'm actually expecting a mid-table finish, so more like 10th or something.
  
  
• Defend our Serie C Cup title as strongly as possible.
  
  
• Prove the club is sustainable by finishing the season with less than 400K in debt. Currently owing 350K, and paying roughly 100K of wages per month which is a big rise from the Serie C2 years.
  
  
• Watch out for better jobs now that I have a few titles and a promotion in my CV. Time to go climb the career ladder.

[Deisler26]

Good luck dude!

[noikeee]

Unione Venezia 2017/2018 - mid-season update

Transfers

Three players arrived in January. Yannick Pereira is a full-back that comes on loan to add depth to the squad, while I also signed a duo of austrian youngsters on free transfers, namely the promising defender Julien Schick and the incredibly quick striker Matthias Hauser - I'm putting lots of hope in the latter.

Meanwhile, Venezia's youth product Federico Barone was sold to Pordenone with a fee of 3K€ which may increase as it's a co-ownership deal.

League



It's been a wild up and down ride so far, with the teams being so close to each other - the league positions graph explains it well. At a point we were even first, but that was shortlived and we have been spending most of the season battling for a promotion playoff place. We've just suddenly dropped to 10th but are still 2 points away from the 5th place so it's no major concern, all I was aiming for was a mid-table place like this anyway. I just want to be sure we don't slide into the relegation playout.

It's a weird league this, the top 3 sides are way ahead of everyone else, there's a few sides that are sort of bad, and the rest are all pretty much equal. We've been excelling on defensive performance as our attack has been underwhelming, while also accumulating a strangely high amount of drawn games.

Cups



After that bizarre TIM Cup first round 5-4 defeat, we did not do much better in the Coppa di Lega Pro (aka the Serie C Cup). We've limped on penalties to beat C2 side Lecco after another high scoring 3-3 match, then lost at home to Spal. A poor performance after last year's triumphant campaign to lift this trophy.

Players



Two things really stand out from this: we have no decent goalscoring stream coming from anywhere, and Michael Chacon has been a big flop given my huge expectations for him. In the middle of this mediocricity, wingers Miranda and Bucci have excelled the most. Meanwhile, Bojan Petrovic is just starting to get match fit after his long-term injury, and the austrian Matthias Hauser has just arrived, so I'm expecting one of these 2 guys to finally click as a good striker for this level.

I've also been disappointed with my midfield youngsters, it's been a struggle to settle for any of them despite their obvious talent.

Tactics

Did a minor adjustment as I moved the team's default mentality from "control" to "standard" as I had to face a tougher division, with lots of stronger teams.

Finances

Further down to 611K€ in the red despite taking it easy on the wages somewhat. I'm tempted to just forget about this and spend all the money the board gives me. Hopefully the results on the pitch would then make us progress through the leagues enough to pay back this debt.

Rest of the season

It would be nice to make it to the playoffs (and quite possible), but frankly I think my team isn't ready for the Serie B at all, and I don't trust us to beat any of the top 3, so I highly doubt promotion is going to happen.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to get bored of Venice. After reading Iacovone's career, I'm a bit worried that if I leave I'm going to find myself in a very similar position: unable to get a good job despite promoting a team to the Serie C1 while winning the Serie C Cup. I think I'm going to risk letting my contract run out though. I'm not intending to make a career in Portugal, but if everything else fails, I've been constantly linked to Liga Orangina clubs. Good clubs, even - likely to easily get promoted back to the top tier in Portugal. So I expect the next few months to be my last in Venice, even if I have lined up a few signings for next season already, and if I feel that this club deserved to be pushed further up in the italian football pyramid.

[iacovone]

KUTGW noikee - a solid start to the new season

[Deisler26]

Good luck with making the playoffs!

[AK22]

4th-10th is very close, so a good run will put you right in the mix

Interesting to see a couple of Austrian youngsters being signed, often an overlooked nation. Maybe there's a reason for that

[noikeee]

Thanks for the comments showing encouragement. Meanwhile I was busy advancing quite a bit in the game, so will have to write retrospectively which makes things harder. Here's how that season with Venezia ended up:

Unione Venezia 2017/2018 - season review

Domestic league

We were looking good to actually hit the playoffs after the usual good run of form after the winter transfer window. From mid-January to mid-April, we didn't lose a single game and made it to 4th place (5th was enough for us). However two consecutive defeats to Triestina and Carrarese made us into shaky ground into the last 3 matches. A win over Pisa put us back up in 4th but then draws against Sambenedettese and Pro Vercelli dropped us to 6th. That was a mere 1 point behind Pisa and Spal who made it into the playoffs - quite a frustrating finale of the season.



Cups

Covered in previous updates. We were sh*t this season in the cups, being knocked out in the very first TIM Cup round then making a very poor defence of our Coppa di Lega Pro title, losing to Spal at home at the second round.

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Johannes Focher (GK) - Keepers never are obvious picks for this as their average rating are invariably lower, but I did feel that "foching Focher" made a difference for us.

4. Matthias Hauser (ST) - The only of our forwards that seemed to score goals at an half-decent rate, still nothing spectacular though.

3. Marco Gerardi (DC) - Another good season for the youngster, at a higher level now. Unfortunately never managed to sign him permanently.

2. Alessio Ballesi (DC) - Top goalscorer despite being a defender. A settled star at the club.

1. Paulo Miranda (AMR/AML) - Top assists, top MoM, decent share of goals. Another good season by the portuguese winger, who deservedly won the fans player of the year award.

Interesting facts: we had the worst ever discipline record for this league, which was weird as I didn't set out my team to kick the opponents on purpose at all. I'd also like to brag about coming 3rd in the Manager of the Year awards, which was slightly surprising even if our squad definitely overachieved. I had won Manager of the Year last season, which I didn't mention before.

Finances

Definitely failed at keeping the club sustainable as our bank account crumbled to 748K€ in the red in the very last screenshot I took before leaving the club. Yes, I left, more on that later.

Career overview

Season     League (tier)             Other competitions                       Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praiense (Portugal)
2010/11    2ªDiv.Sul (T3) - 4th      Cup 4th rnd                              
2011/12    2ªDiv.Centro (T3) - 1st   Cup 2nd rnd                              Lost in promotion playoff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kettering (England)
2012/13    BSP (T5) - 7th            FA Cup 2nd rnd, FA Trophy 1st rnd        Joined in October
2013/14    BSP (T5) - 22nd *         FA Cup 4th Q rnd, FA Trophy 2nd rnd      Resigned in November
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unione Venezia (Italy)
2013/14    Serie C2/A (T4) - 15th    Coppa di Lega Pro group stage **         Joined in December,
                                                                              won relegation playout
2014/15    Serie C2/A (T4) - 4th     Coppa di Lega Pro semi-final             Lost in promotion playoff
2015/16    Serie C2/A (T4) - 3rd     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             Lost in promotion playoff
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round
2016/17    Serie C2/A (T4) - 1st     Coppa di Lega Pro champions,             Promoted, won the double
                                     2nd in Supercoppa 2ª Divisione
2017/18    Serie C1/A (T3) - 6th     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round                  

* at the time of resignation
** played before my arrival

Future

Okay then, while I would like to get this club into Serie B, I was getting a bit bored of Venice and decided to let the contract run out, even before knowing we were going to miss the playoffs. I rejected like, 3 or 4 contract offers, and would also reject an offer from Santa Clara in the Liga Orangina in Portugal, hoping for something better to arrive.

Unfortunately, despite trying to leave on a good relationship with the board and fans, it seems like that didn't work out well as my name was removed from the club's favoured personnel. Perhaps I would've had to make it to "Legend" or "Icon" to stay there permanently.

I didn't neglect the future of the club even if I was leaving, and brought in a few players. Fabio Uggeri who was on loan was signed permanently, while José Carlos Fernandes, Ricardo Catarino, Alexandre Pinto, Bjorn Netten and Ionut Anton were all free transfer signings left for the new manager to handle. I also arranged a club record sale of Enzo Lacalamita for 55K€.

Old club watch

Kettering - 4th in the BSP, then lost the playoff semi-final yet again.
Praiense - a positive season finishing 3rd in the 2ª Divisão Zona Centro.

[SnakeXe]

I think when you leave a club the game puts you on the disliked person list so they don't offer to rehire you (someone correct me if I'm wrong!).

Unlucky on missing out on the playoffs, good luck finding a new club

[jt_northender]

Just read the whole career noikeee - great read. Nice touch that you signed on the promising players for Venezia - I hope your replacement appreciates the signings!! I'm sure I managed them around cm01/02 era. So, is it to be a new country for your next foray?

[noikeee]

I think when you leave a club the game puts you on the disliked person list so they don't offer to rehire you (someone correct me if I'm wrong!).

Unlucky on missing out on the playoffs, good luck finding a new club

I think that's only when you resign or get sacked, hence why I let the contract run out instead of resigning early to have more job options - I don't rule out coming back to this club later in my career, so wanted to leave in a friendly note! I'm not entirely sure I got into the disliked list, because the "favoured personnel" list I disappeared from seems to include only people who still are at the club, so it's entirely logical I'm not there anymore.

New club has been found.

Just read the whole career noikeee - great read. Nice touch that you signed on the promising players for Venezia - I hope your replacement appreciates the signings!! I'm sure I managed them around cm01/02 era. So, is it to be a new country for your next foray?

Thanks. I'm going to a new country, yes. Although I quite like Italy and would certainly like to come back.

[markyosullivan]

Congratulations on becoming champions!

[noikeee]

World of Football, 2018 edition

New feature here as I'm now 8 seasons into the game, so inevitably there's been quite a few shifts of power in international and top level football. Let's take a look at how some of the most important competitions have unfolded.

European Championship 2012, hosted by Poland/Ukraine

World Cup 2010 finalists Spain and Netherlands surprised everyone by not making it into the competition at all, and the group stage would take care out of another two favourites, Portugal losing to Serbia and England in Group A, France coming an humiliating 4th place in Group B, behind Ukraine, Bulgaria and Norway(!!). England were looking like favourites at this stage with 7 goals scored and 0 conceded.

However, come the quarters and the team that wowed everyone were the germans - with a 6-0 thrasing of Slovakia in Kyiv. Hosts Ukraine died at the hands of Serbia, while favourites Italy and England took care of Turkey and Bulgaria. The semis would have the most classic game of the tournament, England beating Germany 3-2 on extra time despite injuries to Andy Carroll, Ashley Cole and an own-goal by Joe Hart, whereas Italy took care of the tournament's surprise team Serbia. The final would give an unlikely first ever european title to England as Walcott and Lampard turned round a 1-0 defficit in the second half after a very early Montolivo goal. England lifted the title in Chorzow, whereas Marco Borriello was a strange winner of both Best Player and Golden Boot awards.

World Cup 2014, hosted by Brazil

Portugal and Netherlands (again) failed to qualify for what would be a mixed-feelings competition of thrilling games and cagey 0-0s decided in penalty shootouts. No big surprises happened in the group stage, with all of the big guns qualifying and home nation, big favourites Brazil topping the goalscoring lists on 10 goals. The road seemed further open to Brazil as Spain, Argentina and Germany were all eliminated out in the 1st knockout round by lesser-rated countries, nevertheless Italy and France seemed dangerous. Both limped out of the quarters, Italy turning a 2-0 defficit to Ivory Coast to win 3-2 with an 89th minute goal by Acquafresca in a phenomenal game, France knocking out England in the penalties. They were to meet each other in the semis, whereas Brazil and Uruguay both just about defeated fellow south-american nations Chile and Colombia 1-0.

Italy had to pull-off another 3-2 thriller to reach the final, this time after France had gone from 2-0 down to tie 2-2, Quagliarella deciding it with an extra-time goal in another superb game in the Maracanã - only to be sent off a few minutes later and ruling himself out of the final. Meanwhile Brazil hammered Uruguay 3-0 with a Pato brace, surely on the way to a title on home ground? Well, the Maracanã was to prove a jinxed location for their national team (remember 1950!) as they went on to lose on penalties to Italy after no goals in 120 minutes, sort of a payback for the 1994 final with Filipe and Thiago Silva missing their kicks. Italy lifted their 5th world title when Antonio Cassano converted his penalty. Pato came out of the tournament with the Golden Boot and the Golden Shoe after 8 goals in 6 games.

European Championship 2016, hosted by France

The first ever 24-team format Euro Cup ensured all the favourites qualified for the tournament, but Portugal were again going to disappoint by being again knocked out at the hands of Serbia in the group stage, whereas Northern Ireland shocked everyone by topping a group shared with Germany, Croatia and Romania. They were to be defeated 2-1 at the hands of England next round however, Belarus stealing their limelight as the shock team of the competition by beating Germany 3-2 and making it to the quarters. France and Netherlands were also surprisingly beaten by Sweden and Croatia.

The quarters, while allowing Spain and Italy to beat lesser opponents, and Belgium to profit from a kind draw to beat Switzerland on penalties, further confirmed Belarus' status as the big shock by kicking holders England out of the competition with a 1-0 win in Lens. Their luck was to run out in Marseille in the semis, despite holding Spain for 79 minutes until finally Andres Iniesta's goal came. World champions Italy unsurprisingly hammered Belgium 3-0 with an Antonio Candreva hat-trick, then were to add the Euro Cup to their World Cup with a 1-0 win over Spain in Saint-Denis, a very controversial game settled by a Giovinco penalty, and Fabregas being sent off later on. Italy dominated the individual awards, Montolivo being named as the best player of the competition followed by Giovinco and Candreva, Golden Boot going to Candreva.

World Cup 2018, hosted by Russia

A slightly wacky group stage saw Argentina being knocked out at the hands of France and Mexico, whereas the huge shock was seeing world and european champions Italy beaten by Portugal and Senegal. The 1st knockout round was about to be far more bizarre and memorable though, euro cup finalists Spain were hammered by home side Russia 3-0, Belgium and Senegal beat Brazil and France, Portugal-Mexico ended with an highly entertaining 4-2 scoreline, but the craziest match surely was United States beating Paraguay 7-0!!!

The quarters were pretty straight-forward, with none of the games needing extra time and all of the favourites going through, host nation Russia beat Uruguay, United States beat Belgium in a kind draw, England beat Portugal and Germany beat Senegal. The semis had two great games though, Germany shattered Russia's dreams by winning 4-1 in Moscow, United States nearly went all the way to the final, as England needed an 84th minute Rooney equaliser, then a 7 penalty shootout to beat them. They looked like pulling off the same trick in the final, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas equalising in the 86th minute, the game ending 1-1 and going to penalties, but then Germany won as usual. James Milner and Jonjo Shelvey missed, Thomas Muller scored the decisive kick. France's Nolan Roux was a weird pick for Golden Ball award, despite his awesome record of 8 goals in 4 games which saw him claim the Golden Shoe as well.

UEFA Champions League

This competition has seen a strange superb performance by french clubs, with Lyon lifting the title in 2012, then Marseille getting it in 2013 and later on in 2018, surely helped by their world class superstar Paulo Henrique "Ganso". Arsenal won a London derby final in 2014 over Chelsea, then Man Utd became the first club since AC Milan 1989/1990 to succesfully defend their Champions League title, as manager Mike Phelan led them to the 2015 and 2016 titles. Villarreal were shock winners in 2017, despite the godlike performance of their star Mario Gotze, as they are yet to ever win a spanish league title! Italy can complain about bad luck as they've lost 5 finals in these last 8 seasons, twice through Napoli, twice through Inter, once through Roma.

UEFA Europa League

Not the most interesting competition as it's sort of became Europe's 2nd division in recent years, but it seems to have been taken seriously by the top teams in-game as every year it's been won by big teams: Lyon, Arsenal, Man Utd, Sevilla, Liverpool, Tottenham, Napoli and then Liverpool again.

FIFA Club World Cup

Often deemed a pointless competition where the european clubs go to prove why they're so much better than everyone else, well it's not exactly been the case. Cruzeiro beat Barcelona in 2011, River beat Arsenal in 2014, São Paulo beat Man Utd in 2016, and Villarreal didn't even make it to the 2017 final which was a weird match-up between Cruz Azul and Al-Hilal - the mexicans winning it.

England

The Barclays Premier League is still the top rated league in Europe, and it's seen recent domination by Man Utd, particularly with 4 consecutive titles from 2014 to 2017. Indeed, with this plus their 2 consecutive european titles, you could argue Mike Phelan has been an even better manager than Alex Ferguson. Arsenal won in 2012 and 2013, Chelsea are the latest winners after grabbing the 2018 title - Man Utd weirldy finishing only 6th all of a sudden. Man City have come second 4 times but are yet to win the title under the Abu Dhabi owners.

Spain

Barcelona remain one of the worlds biggest clubs, and Spain's most successful in recent years, as they've won the 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 titles. Real Madrid grabbed it in 2012 and 2014, but the big surprise has been their city rivals Atlético winning it in 2018, 22 years after their last title. Real only came 4th, behind Zaragoza...

Italy

Milan may have won the first in-game title of 2011, but since then there's only been two teams really: Inter and Napoli, who have had a wonderful comeback to world class football. Inter wins the Serie A on even years, Napoli on odd years - and the trend seems to continue as Napoli is dominating the early 2018/2019 season. Last season saw a weird final table with Parma and Palermo coming 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

Germany

Still somehow Europe's 4th biggest league despite the french clubs success in Europe, whereas german teams have not reached the Champions League final since 2010 and have not won an european cup at all since 2001. The domestic league has been a bit more competitive than you'd imagine, Bayern did win 4 titles (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015), but Dortmund got one, Leverkusen got two, and Werder Bremen won it last year.

France

Lyon and Marseille have dominated it as you'd expect, with the european titles and all, so Lyon won 4 french titles and Marseille won 3. Surprisingly however, Bordeaux came away with the 2014 crown. The french league is now up to 4 stars, the same as Italy and Germany, but they still remain in 5th place in terms of reputation.

Portugal

The league has fallen behind Russia, Ukraine and Netherlands in importance, but it's still something important to me. We have seen a strangely highly balanced league, with Sporting, Benfica and Porto getting a title each in the last 3 years. Porto seem to be falling a bit tho, only 3 titles in the past 8 years (Benfica got 4, Sporting 1) so I'm eager to manage them back to where they belong later in my career.

FIFA Ballon D'Or

The world's most prestigious individual award has been exclusively dealt to a mere two players in the past 8 years, which cements them as two obvious legends of football for generations to come: Barcelona's Leo Messi has won it now a record 6 times, while Marseille's Paulo Henrique "Ganso" grabbed three consecutive titles in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

World Soccer Magazine Player of the Year

Few changes to the FIFA Ballon D'Or other than Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas won it in 2012 and 2013 rather than Leo Messi.

-----

Oh god, I wrote far, far too much. And I still have to cover my new club, maybe later tonight...

[Deisler26]

How have Leiria done?

[B.W.G]

Unlucky with missing out on the playoffs.Not liking Man City's lack of silverware and especially coming 2nd to Utd of all teams!!!

Best of luck where ever you end up at

[noikeee]

How have Leiria done?

Screenie

They've done pretty well actually, bouncing between 5th and 7th most seasons, and an all-time record of 3rd place in the 2014/2015 season - unfortunately not at a time where the rankings would've given them Champions League qualification. Also won the Bwin Cup (League Cup) in 2013.

Unlucky with missing out on the playoffs.Not liking Man City's lack of silverware and especially coming 2nd to Utd of all teams!!!

Best of luck where ever you end up at

I've ended up in a place that will be familiar to you.

[noikeee]

Dresden - 10th of November, 2018

After a few months of applying for good jobs, and waiting for good offers, I was starting to doubt my decision of leaving Venezia. I was being turned down everywhere. Until in November, an offer showed up that I couldn't say no to. This is my new office, the Glücksgas Stadium, headquarters of Sportgemeinschaft Dynamo Dresden:



Dynamo are a former force of East Germany football, who won eight national titles in 1953, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1989 and 1990 - before the reunification of Germany, of course. Since then, it has had a fringe appearance in the early 90s Bundesliga, and faded into the lower leagues. In-game it has become a yo-yo club between the 2.Bundesliga and the 3.Liga, as this screenshot of league positions will tell. They were relegated from the 2.Bundesliga again last year, and evidently the media expected far more than the 14th place the former manager Uwe Klein left me to handle (media prediction was 6th):



Needless to say, the club has already been knocked out of the German Cup - in the very first round vs Ingolstadt.

Finances

Finance-wise it's a shaky club. The stadium was demolished in 2007 and re-built for the 2011 Women's World Cup, it has a wonderful capacity for 32000 people, and it is named after a sponsor, but it was still bloody expensive to build. The club's estimated value may be 4.1M€ (a significant step-up from Venezia who were worth 475K€!), and we may have 2.2M€ in the bank, but we're owing a staggering loan debt of 16.5M€. Moreover, we pay 2.4M€ to rent the stadium every year. To top it off, we're way over the wage budget of 120K€/month, as the current squad is paid 156K€/month. Altho the board does give me 346K€ for transfers.

Squad



The dreadful conclusion about this bunch is that it's way too short, horribly unbalanced, and the good players are paid gigantic wages. Striker Mustafa Kucukovic has been a star of the club for 8 years, scoring goals for fun every year but there's no way I'm keeping a veteran paid 20K€/month. Likewise belgian winger Gert Nyssen is quite good, but valued at 500K€ I'd be mad not to sell him. Other overpaid, quality players are left-back Safet Sivsic and uruguayan playmaker Leandro De los Santos. My first measure in charge of the club will be the very unpopular decision to sell probably 3 of these stars (if not the 4 of them).

The main squad wasn't looking good, but once I looked at the youth I got a grin in my face:

(Youth Squad)

We seem to produce bags of talent at will, with "good youth facilities + youth academy" and "above average youth recruitment". David Simecek is more than good enough to be a first team player already, and can get much better. Azat Yermolaev and Marcel Schulte are obviously promising as well.

Goals for this season

We're far from promotion spots and I don't believe we're bad enough to get relegated, so I'm basically writing off this season completely, not caring about results, and focusing on building a balanced, sustainable squad. I've got a contract till the end of 2020 so this is a 2-seasons project, on the first year I want to build the team, and on the second I want to get promoted. It's entirely possible but a lot of work needs to be done.

[Deisler26]

Woo! Are you gonna come back to Portugal?

[B.W.G]

Best of luck with Dresden,hope the financial side doesn't mess you up too much!

[iacovone]

That turned out rather well for you noikeee - good luck at Dresden!

Slightly more fortunate than when I left Treviso...Wycombe, Etar, Nadarzyn. Hmmm.

[AK22]

Dresden is a great place to visit. Well, it is if you're a 20th century history geek like me! So, I approve of your appointment!

You've definitely got good foundations to be a successful club, however, that loan/financial situation would worry me. I would say you'll need to get back into Bundesliga 2 pronto, otherwise the club's likely to go into meltdown.

[noikeee]

Woo! Are you gonna come back to Portugal?

Unlikely anytime soon. I'd probably only consider managing one of the big 3 later in my career - with preference for the club I support, FC Porto. Altho managing Benfica or Sporting would be interesting for a change.

Best of luck with Dresden,hope the financial side doesn't mess you up too much!

Tks. I knew someone had managed Dresden recently in this forum, searched for the thread and noticed it was you. Any financial problems in your experience?

That turned out rather well for you noikeee - good luck at Dresden!

Slightly more fortunate than when I left Treviso...Wycombe, Etar, Nadarzyn. Hmmm.

I think it's probably because of reputation. I had national reputation for a while already, so I knew I could get a good job somewhere. Maybe your rep in your career got a hit with some of the relegations.

Dresden is a great place to visit. Well, it is if you're a 20th century history geek like me! So, I approve of your appointment!

You've definitely got good foundations to be a successful club, however, that loan/financial situation would worry me. I would say you'll need to get back into Bundesliga 2 pronto, otherwise the club's likely to go into meltdown.

Yeah the finances are looking worse than I expected, as the next post will show.

[noikeee]

Dynamo Dresden 2018/2019 - mid-season update

Transfers

14 new players!

Eugene Volynets (GK) (free) - wonderful keeper for this level, unfortunately is having problems settling in Germany

Sheriff Suma (ST/DL/AMR) (free) - veteran super-versatile player, handy to have on the bench

Dominic Rau (DC) (free) - we already had a few good centre-backs but I needed one that wasn't horribly slow

Dennis Rath (DR/WBR) (free) - promising youngster, not good enough for the first team yet

Gino Felixdaal (DMC/DC/MC) (free) - above-average defensive midfielder

Daniel Endres (GK) (8K€) - backup keeper

Jim Muller (ST/AMRLC) (5K€) - bought him when I was a little desperate for wingers, maybe could've done without this signing

Sebastian Schiek (DR/WBR) (26K€) - very good right-back but I'd find an even better one right at the end of the transfer window...

Alexis Quintulén (MLC/AMLC) (3K€) - inevitable once I saw he was transfer listed. I've bought him for Praiense, for Venezia, and now for Dresden. He was never a superstar in my previous clubs but is handy sometimes.

Pedro Lopes (ML/AML) (24K€) - probably our best signing, I'd like him to have a little more pace, but great winger nonetheless

Alexander Kost (MRC/AMRC) (loan) - cheap backup with some proper pace and no obvious weaknesses

Zoran Sinkovic (AML/ST) (loan) - likely 2nd choice for left-winger

Mikko Kontio (ST) (40K€) - I'm placing big hopes on him as he's my only really good striker. Very, very quick

David Bormann (DR/WBR) (95K€) - I went a bit crazy with what I paid for him but I think he's worth the money. Awesome right-back for this level, incredibly quick.

Total spending: roughly 200K€. But I cashed in 625K€ with the sales of Gert Nyssen (450K€), Mustafa Kucukovic (100K€) and Safet Sivsic (75K€). Keeper Lukas Rose and full-back Vladimir Skarka were released on frees.

League



It hasn't changed much, has it? A look at the fixtures will tell you why:



I annoyed my team by offering a few key players to other clubs, and morale hit rock bottom before the Winter break. Hence, 4 consecutive defeats which is something I'm not much used to. I arranged a few friendlies with lower league sides to get the morale up again, and with all my new signings things seem to have picked up. 2 games is far too early to take any conclusions from, but that 4-0 win at Chemnitz was great. I'm hoping to see more of that.

Tactics

Same 4-2-3-1 as used in the later seasons with Venezia.

Finances

Oh dear, money is disappearing fast. REALLY fast. Did I say we had 2.2M€ in the bank? Wrong. We only have 713K€ now. Much of this has been because of my incompetence at bringing the wages down (with all of these transfers we're somehow paying the exact same 156K€/month), but the board already knew that when they hired me, right? The problem is the fact I couldn't get rid of a few overpaid players. Akbari is paid 8K€/month, Moussiliou 6.5K€/month, and two guys that were in my reserves with long term injuries (who I don't rate) are paid 9.5K€ and 9.25K€. That is the problem. Well, that and the gigantic loans we're paying.

Rest of the season

I think it's time to start climbing up the table, promotion is pretty much impossible but a top 10 finish certainly can be done. Maybe even the media prediction of 6th if we do really well. I'm a little more worried about the finances which I imagined would be under stricter control by now, but I've had bad finances in my clubs through all of my career and nothing bad has happened. And I'd rather be happy watching good football than watching the bank account look good. This is a game after all, not serious managing where people can get fired and families stop being fed if the company goes bankrupt.

The exciting thing about this club is that it has a lot of very promising youngsters. If things get tight, I think we can make money out of them anyway.

[B.W.G]

My financial problems were down to high wages,high loan repayments and not enough income as they have a big attendance at times but with cheap ticket prices,it doesn't really cover it!!

Hopefully you'll be able to turn the team around and fire them up in the next couple of seasons!

[duffy89]

Great read this noikee

Good Luck!

[noikeee]

Dynamo Dresden 2018/2019 - season review

League

Things looked dodgy after that 4-0 drubbing of Chemnitz mentioned before, as we lost the following two games 2-0 and 3-0. And the next game looked set in the same direction, losing 2-0 at home at half-time, to Frankfurt, only for us to turn things miraculously in the second half. That result pumped new life into the team for the rest of the season, as we only lost 2 of the remaining 13 games. In fact, one of those defeats was in the very last game against Dusseldorf, and cost us the 6th place I had aimed for as the best possible result. 8th was a decent enough finishing position:

(League positions graph)



Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Michael Rietz (DC) - Proved to be a good cover centre-back despite the worrying lack of pace.

4. Maximilian Schwarz (DL) - The 18 year-old has surely a wonderful future ahead of him as he has already established himself as one of the stars of my side.

3. David Bormann (DR) - The only of my signings that I had big expectations for, that actually delivered. Definitely worth the 95K I paid.

2. Zoran Sinkovic (AML/ST) - Unlikely first team choice as Pedro Lopes was homesick. I'll definitely try to renew the loan of this 17 year-old superkid.

1. Clemens Urban (AMR) - As we lacked goals from our underwhelming strikers, they had to come from the wings and Clemens certainly did the job. Worth his big wages.

I think we were slightly unlucky with GK Volynets and AML Pedro Lopes unable to settle themselves in Germany, and ST Mikko Kontio failing to score as many goals as I expected, hence the signings didn't make the expected impact. But certainly some blame must fall in my transfer dealings - nevertheless, the team performed alright.

Finances

352K in the red. I also got a message in my inbox that we're starting to pay a new loan now, not sure what that's all about as in my finances overview page there's only 2 loans - there used to be 4.

Career overview

Season     League (tier)             Other competitions                       Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praiense (Portugal)
2010/11    2ªDiv.Sul (T3) - 4th      Cup 4th rnd                              
2011/12    2ªDiv.Centro (T3) - 1st   Cup 2nd rnd                              Lost in promotion playoff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kettering (England)
2012/13    BSP (T5) - 7th            FA Cup 2nd rnd, FA Trophy 1st rnd        Joined in October
2013/14    BSP (T5) - 22nd *         FA Cup 4th Q rnd, FA Trophy 2nd rnd      Resigned in November
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unione Venezia (Italy)
2013/14    Serie C2/A (T4) - 15th    Coppa di Lega Pro group stage **         Joined in December,
                                                                              won relegation playout
2014/15    Serie C2/A (T4) - 4th     Coppa di Lega Pro semi-final             Lost in promotion playoff
2015/16    Serie C2/A (T4) - 3rd     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             Lost in promotion playoff
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round
2016/17    Serie C2/A (T4) - 1st     Coppa di Lega Pro champions,             Promoted, won the double
                                     2nd in Supercoppa 2ª Divisione
2017/18    Serie C1/A (T3) - 6th     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round                  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dynamo Dresden (Germany)
2018/19    3.Liga (T3) - 8th         DFB-Pokal 1st round **                   Joined in November

* at the time of resignation
** played before my arrival

Future

I definitely want promotion next season to ensure our club doesn't disappear into a black hole of debt. I think it's doable too, as our climb to 8th in the second half of the season proves.

I'm just not sure how to actually manage the squad though. Nobody's interested in buying my overpaid donkeys, and since I'm way over the wage budget, I can't renew the contracts of the players that matter - over half of my team has contracts that expire next season. Besides, my scouts seem to think I'm sitting on a pot of gold as 99% of the good players they find are paid way more than I can afford.

Old club watch

Kettering - did not make it into the playoffs for a change: 8th in the BSP.
Praiense - average season finishing 6th in the 2ª Divisão Zona Centro.
Unione Venezia - flirted with relegation for a while but recovered to finish 10th in the Prima Divisione Girone A.

[AK22]

Good recovery Hopefully a solid summer of wheeling/dealing will make you one of the favourites for promotion next season.

The finances are looking worse than ever now though I'd be tempted to get out before it gets any more severe!

[B.W.G]

Made a solid start to life in Germany so far and hope your able to improve next season.

With regards to your overpaid donkeys,have you tried releasing them on a free.It may cost you in the short term but long term,you won't have ridiculous wages on your books!I had to do that with Morelia as we well over budget when I took over.

[noikeee]

Good recovery Hopefully a solid summer of wheeling/dealing will make you one of the favourites for promotion next season.

The finances are looking worse than ever now though I'd be tempted to get out before it gets any more severe!

I'm not moving until the contract runs out at the end of next season. Might even be tempted to renew it and try to get this club as far as possible, I want the Bundesliga. I'm only leaving if the finances get so bad that the club goes into administration and points are docked.

Made a solid start to life in Germany so far and hope your able to improve next season.

With regards to your overpaid donkeys,have you tried releasing them on a free.It may cost you in the short term but long term,you won't have ridiculous wages on your books!I had to do that with Morelia as we well over budget when I took over.

Yeah I think I might have to do that, haven't done it yet because while they're overpaid, they're not THAT bad players and I find it a bit puzzling that nobody wants to buy them, even for frees as I've offered them multiple times for 0€. Also it's always more expensive to pay the termination fees than to pay the contract until it runs out. I might have to do it though, because at the moment I can't get new players as the board won't let me offer even low, affordable wages.

[noikeee]

Dynamo Dresden 2019/2020 - season preview

Transfers

In a semi-desperate effort to reduce the wages paid per month, a ton of players were released on free (mostly youngsters who had no potential) and quite a few others were sold. Daniel Braun moved for 8K€, Dominc Rau for 22K€, Eugene Volynets for 12K€, Leandro de los Santos for 8K€, Gino Felixdaal for 28K€, and even Michael Rietz, who I had picked as one of last season's key players, wasn't spared, being sold by 18K€.

This of course, opened the door for the arrival of many new faces. 17 of them in fact, all on frees or loans:

Marco Lambertz (MC) - Mildly promising youngster, gets into the U19s.

Predrag Matijevic (DC) - I intended to make him a first team regular, but disappointed badly in his first 2 appearances.

Aleksandar Berger (DC) - Lacks jumping to be a centre-back but has tons of potential, I consider him an financial investment for the future.

Kevin Galm (AML) - 2nd choice left-winger with potential to become 1st choice in a few years.

Jens Zander (DM, MR, AMRC) - Highly versatile 20year-old primarly fit to play as right winger. Likely 2nd choice.

Janis Marx (MC, ST) - Another youngster who won't get much playing time soon. I think he fits the striker role better.

Steffen Adler (ST) - Another young quick striker who lacks the excellence to be a regular yet.

Alessio Ballesi (DC) - Wonder player for me during my many years at Venezia, couldn't pass up on him once I saw he was released on a free. Even if my staff don't rate him.

Josef Machacek (GK) - Not as good in theory as my previous goalie Volynets, but crucially, much cheaper in wages. The 22-year-old czech should prove himself an unquestionable 1st choice.

Sebastian Beeck (DL) - The 19 year-old may stiffle Max Schwarz's progress as the regular left-back, but I couldn't pass on this another gem.

Ali Benomar (MC) - Solid veteran for the midfield, may be a regular on the bench.

Elia Miceli (MC) - Italian on loan just to make up the numbers on the midfield. Will probably use him only if desperate.

Rasmus Boesen (MR) - Promising winger who should not challenge Clemens Urban for a first team spot yet, but maybe in the future.

Jorg Wilke (M/AML) - Couldn't get Sinkovic back on loan so settled for this guy as my short-term 2nd left-wing option.

Marco Troiano (DMC) - My best signing on paper, an hugely talented midfielder that just shone in the U-20 World Cup for Italy.

Lothar Eckert (ST) - Late loan signing as I got further and further desperate for strikers.

Nestor Salinas (AMC) - Should be decent as the trequartista, haven't figured out yet if the first choice will be him or Quintulén.

Full Squad



To be honest I'm not quite happy with this, we did decrease our wage spending dramatically but I expected to find more talent, I'm lacking a top left-winger and a reliable top striker.

Early league performance



Yep, this hasn't started well at all. I only promised my board a top-half finish and if this performance continues, that's all we can aim for, which is frustrating. I wanted promotion. Currently only 14th after these 5 games.

Finances

Thankfully, the summer gave us some considerable income, from last season's prize money, and this season's TV rights, plus the sale of season tickets. We even were in the green for a while, but at the moment we're back to 205K€ in the red.

Wage spending was decreased remarkably from 156K€/month to 106K€/month. That is STILL about 2K higher than the much diminished wage budget set by my board for this season.

Objectives for the season

• Overcome this very bad early form and put together something resembling a challenge for the promotion spots.
  
  
• Not get beaten in the first round of the cup (draw hasn't been made yet).
  
  
• Control the financial situation as much as possible. If I can finish the season under 1M€ in the red that'll probably be good.
  
  
• Continue developing our highly promising bunch of youngsters, hopefully some will make it into the Bundesliga one day.

[jt_northender]

Hope you turn it round Noikeee. You've got a good young squad that will only get better over time - lets hope they grow up quick! Liking Marco Troiano - you think some Bundesliga clubs might come sniffing if he has a good season?

[noikeee]

Troiano has had a good season so far (I'm at week 14 or 15 of the league IIRC), better than most of my team in fact. No clubs interested yet, I think because he's valued very high. He's definitely good enough to play at a higher level already, and is going to get better.

[gunners4eva]

Marco Troiano is...wow...It will be hard for you to hold on to him when you get promoted. KUTGW

[noikeee]

Dresden - 30th of November, 2019

The 30th of November seems to be a bad day for myself as it was exactly 6 years ago I resigned from Kettering. This time I didn't bother to take a screenie but the bottom line is the same, the season was going poorly, the game no longer felt fun, so I offered my resignation. I wasn't under pressure by the board, but they accepted it.

It was a bit of an hot-head reaction to a very bad run of results, as we had been doing decently in the previous month and had climbed to 7th. Then this followed:



The final straw was the incredible game against Erfurt. We made a decent effort in the 2nd half to recover, but we had reached half-time on the wrong end of an incredible 0-5 scoreline. At the end they won 6-3, and my pride was hurt. I offered resignation straight ahead.

For the record, here's the league table on the day I left:



And the usual screenie of player stats:

(Player stats)

What went wrong

First, we didn't have a good enough team. I may have been optimistic prior to the season, but pretty much every club in the division could offer 2x as much wages as we could, as we were in a very bad financial position. Our wingers were slow (particularly the AML Pedro Lopes), my AMCs never performed decently so at the end I just decided to go back to the 4-2-4 and ditch the AMC. It culminated in that serie of 4 defeats..

Second, I just didn't pay enough attention to details. I've long abandoned deep tactical analysis in the vein of the initial seasons, and just quickly simulate games on the quickest setting, paying little attention to where the goals are coming in. No wonder it's gone wrong.

Now what?

I sense my reputation has taken a minor hit as I was rejected by a few clubs where I expected to have a chance (this one hurt me more than just a little!), but have landed a decent job anyway. Will write back soon, hopefully still today.

Career overview

Season     League (tier)             Other competitions                       Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praiense (Portugal)
2010/11    2ªDiv.Sul (T3) - 4th      Cup 4th rnd                              
2011/12    2ªDiv.Centro (T3) - 1st   Cup 2nd rnd                              Lost in promotion playoff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kettering (England)
2012/13    BSP (T5) - 7th            FA Cup 2nd rnd, FA Trophy 1st rnd        Joined in October
2013/14    BSP (T5) - 22nd *         FA Cup 4th Q rnd, FA Trophy 2nd rnd      Resigned in November
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unione Venezia (Italy)
2013/14    Serie C2/A (T4) - 15th    Coppa di Lega Pro group stage **         Joined in December,
                                                                              won relegation playout
2014/15    Serie C2/A (T4) - 4th     Coppa di Lega Pro semi-final             Lost in promotion playoff
2015/16    Serie C2/A (T4) - 3rd     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             Lost in promotion playoff
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round
2016/17    Serie C2/A (T4) - 1st     Coppa di Lega Pro champions,             Promoted, won the double
                                     2nd in Supercoppa 2ª Divisione
2017/18    Serie C1/A (T3) - 6th     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round                  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dynamo Dresden (Germany)
2018/19    3.Liga (T3) - 8th         DFB-Pokal 1st round **                   Joined in November
2019/20    3.Liga (T3) - 13th*       (none)                                   Resigned in November

* at the time of resignation
** played before my arrival

[noikeee]

Lisbon - 20th of December, 2019

Say hello to the Estádio do Restelo, home of 1945/1946 portuguese champions Clube de Futebol "Os Belenenses":



How far have they fallen. Admittedly, Belenenses' golden years between the 1920s and 1950s were before the boom of European continental football, therefore they never got any international recognition. But at that time they were by some margin Portugal's 4th biggest club. The 1946 title was the only by a non-member of the "3 Grandes" (Porto, Benfica and Sporting) until 2001 when Boavista repeated the feat. In fact, Belenenses were quite unlucky not to win more titles in the 1940s as they came close a few more times.

Apart from a short good patch in the 1980s, with a third place in the league in 1988 and then a Portuguese Cup title in 1989, it's been a long decline ever since. The last few years they even became a yo-yo club between the top two divisions. That seems to have continued in FM-years (2010-2019), with a few promotions and relegations. Last season they got relegated from the top flight again. However this season has been far below all expectations and a second consecutive relegation to the 3rd tier seems a very real possibility:



Finances

Finances don't look good at all, we're 810K€ in the red. Good news is that we haven't taken any crazy loans like Dresden, and we're within the wage budget, 78K€/month for a budget of 81K€/month. We also have a 28K€ budget for transfers, which I might as well refer to as nothing at all.

Squad



I have not had time to look through the squad deeply yet, all I can see is that the squad is short and annoyingly, the better players are paid big wages and/or about to have their contracts running out. I quite like this Milan Gajic guy, the portuguese Hélder Pereira, Rui Cardoso and Marafona are tipped by my assman as the other key players.

Goals for this season

Well besides avoiding relegation, I have no idea. All I want is to put a new decent tactic together. I've been reading this guide to a 4-2-3-1 tweeted by SI earlier today, and it looks awesome, I'll try to emulate that somewhat.

I need to hurry up in making a plan for the squad as the market opens 10 days from now, and it's that time of the year where you can sign Bosmans for next season.

[B.W.G]

Unlucky in Germany,hope managing in Portugal will give you a bit more success!

[gunners4eva]

Belenenses...brings back good memories from FM 2009, when I took them to the UEFA Cup (League?). Good luck, finances in Portugal are a bit tricky if you're not one of the "Grandes".

[SnakeXe]

The 4-2-3-1 guide was an interesting read* - obviously the Dortmund players will suit it though as that's a good approximation of how they really play. It'd be interesting to see how well you can replicate that with having to build the squad at the same time.

*Quite similar to my 4-2-3-1 with Messina in many ways, but with differences in how the midfield two and striker/AMC interact. The overlapping fullbacks and diagonal passes between the opposition fullback and centreback are very reminiscent of our play though!

[AK22]

Back to the drawing-board then! Probably a good decision to jump at Dresden, as the future didn't look very promising for the club as a whole.

I'm sure you'll be fine with Belenenses. As long as you can turn it around this season, I'm sure they'll be back near the top of the table again next year. Good luck!

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2019/2020 - season review

It's been a while, I haven't been playing much lately but anyway here's the summary of how the 2020 season ended up.

Transfers

Now that I'm out of Italy I can actually put a transfer screenie that doesn't look too messed up:

(Transfers)

Remember I arrived here in December so disregard anything earlier. The sale of keeper Marafona by 450K pleased our accountants a lot, and our fans liked that fee too for a fairly aging player. Meanwhile, I got a few frees, a few loans and one overpriced keeper to replace him:

Ludvig Larsson (GK, 45K€) - 45K€ worth of rubbish. I gave him 2 matches and don't intend to play him again. Plus he's overpaid. Bugger off, Baiano's better.

Diego (DMC, free) - Fairly good young def.midfielder but José Freitas and Gajic got that position covered ahead of him.

Szymon Misztal (ST, loan) - A good signing as he grabbed the ST position even if more as a creator than a goalscoring machine.

Fernando Baiano (GK, free) - Only got him after Larsson and wish I could've known I'd sign him for sure as I'd pass up on those wasted 45K. Still it's not like he had a wonderful season, a bit below par but he's young.

David Jardim (DL, loan) - I needed a full-back as I offloaded the veteran Marco Airosa for minor cash. David did the job... barely.

Rubén (ST, free) - I thought I had a gem here but he didn't quite deliver yet.

Artur Fernandes (AML, loan) - Fairly good but wingers without pace definitely have a big handicap in this game.

Sebastian Maier (AMRC, free) - Decent backup for Rémi Sergio who I desperately signed as I ran out of ideas for the position, as soon as he started playing really well, he got a serious injury and that ended his season.

League

Okay then, the all-important league. It was a strange season, obviously I had to get the team out of the hole it was in, and we did it, but I never quite figured out if we were heading in the right direction or not. As soon as he'd hammer Feirense 5-1 or Portimonense 3-0 we'd be battered by Beira-Mar, Olhanense, Boavista. Over half a season in charge and I only tied 4 matches, it was either win or defeat. We were also much better at home than away, perhaps I need an alternative defensive tactic.

At the end we comfortably got 10th which was a decent improvement over the 15th I found the club at, but a very slow start (3 consecutive defeats in January/February) and a short bad form run at the end cost us 9th or 8th which were entirely possible. Ultimately what the fans will remember is that this was the worst ever finishing position of the club in the portuguese football pyramid.





(League positions graph)

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Yohan Tavarès (DC) - Good season from the veteran CB who unfortunately is being paid a little too much for my taste.

4. Milan Gajic (DMC) - The club's classiest player is also a bit old and expensive but I did everything I could to hold on to him as he just has that touch of quality, even if his best performances were before I arrived (his avg rating was something ridiculous like 7.7 at that point).

3. Szymon Misztal (ST) - Like said before, not a massive goalscorer, but 4 goals and 6 assists in 893 minutes means an average of 1 goal per match he participates in, not bad. Wish I can re-loan him next year.

2. Rémi Sergio (AMC) - Frankly frustrating as he never seemed to influence the games that much visibly, yet he would contribute assists at a decent rate, and every 3 months would have an awesome match scoring a brace

1. Fabio Silva (AMR) - Totally brainless, selfish tit, but his great pace often put him in good positions and simply gained a lot of yards for our team. Somehow ended up as our top scorer with 8 goals. Was the league's 2nd best young player of the year.

Tactics

Well, this is my brand new flowing 4-2-3-1. Forget Barcelona's 4-1-2-3, this is a lot more like Real Madrid or Dortmund:



As a radical move into micro-management, I watched 7 or 8 full matches as I built the tactic, so ended up with all sorts of minor slider twists here and there through all the players. The idea was to turn that 4-2-3-1 guide into reality, but I sort of had to adapt it a little bit to my team. I'd like to give it a proper explanation, but frankly I've built it like 2 weeks ago and don't remember half of it. I think the major compromise was to switch MCs to DMCs as they were contributing almost nothing to attack anyway in the MC position.

At a point I stopped caring, decided the tactical job was done, and started watching games on key highlights on full speed again. When the tactic works well it's really nice to watch, the problem is that it doesn't always works well. I just don't have enough patience to fix it on a game-by-game basis.

Finances

Remember that bollocks about not having over-the-top loans? Yeah, I seemed to have missed the fact that we do actually have a little bit of them. 8.75M€ of loan debt. So we slipped to a fairly worrying 1.6M€ in the red during the season. I swear I'm not doing anything particularly stupid to lose this much money, it's just the club that's messed up. Again.

Career overview

Season     League (tier)             Other competitions                       Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praiense (Portugal)
2010/11    2ªDiv.Sul (T3) - 4th      Cup 4th rnd                              
2011/12    2ªDiv.Centro (T3) - 1st   Cup 2nd rnd                              Lost in promotion playoff
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kettering (England)
2012/13    BSP (T5) - 7th            FA Cup 2nd rnd, FA Trophy 1st rnd        Joined in October
2013/14    BSP (T5) - 22nd *         FA Cup 4th Q rnd, FA Trophy 2nd rnd      Resigned in November
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unione Venezia (Italy)
2013/14    Serie C2/A (T4) - 15th    Coppa di Lega Pro group stage **         Joined in December,
                                                                              won relegation playout
2014/15    Serie C2/A (T4) - 4th     Coppa di Lega Pro semi-final             Lost in promotion playoff
2015/16    Serie C2/A (T4) - 3rd     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             Lost in promotion playoff
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round
2016/17    Serie C2/A (T4) - 1st     Coppa di Lega Pro champions,             Promoted, won the double
                                     2nd in Supercoppa 2ª Divisione
2017/18    Serie C1/A (T3) - 6th     Coppa di Lega Pro 2nd round,             
                                     TIM Cup 1st Q. round                  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dynamo Dresden (Germany)
2018/19    3.Liga (T3) - 8th         DFB-Pokal 1st round **                   Joined in November
2019/20    3.Liga (T3) - 13th*       (none)                                   Resigned in November
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belenenses (Portugal)
2019/20    Orangina (T2) - 10th      Taça de Portugal 5th round **,           Joined in December
                                     Bwin Cup 1st round **

* at the time of resignation
** played before my arrival

Future

Got a decent bunch of free transfers agreed for next season, I just hope it doesn't kill my wage budget, but I'm willing to sell a few overpaid guys. I'm worried the club will collapse either way, so why don't just forget about the bills and go for it.

I'd like to actually have a go at a club that isn't on an horrendous financial standing (okay, Venezia wasn't horrendous when I arrived, I'll grant you that), and the pressure of this club's big reputation is a bit worrying too (media prediction was 2nd place!!), but for now let's see what happens next season.

Old club watch

Kettering - champions of the BSP and promoted directly, what the hell!! Well done guys.
Praiense - 5th in the 2ª Divisão Zona Centro, sort of the usual season by now.
Unione Venezia - doing the Serie C1/A playout as we speak and looking good to just about miss relegation through there.
Dynamo Dresden - new manager Reiner Maurer improved on my mid-season 13th place and pushed the team into 9th.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2020/2021 - season preview

Transfers

Made a few.

(Transfers)

Ludvig Larsson, Fernando Mendes, Hélder Pereira, Yohan Tavarès, Rui Cardoso, Diego, all left for money, a total 1M€ in fact, yet I've seen none of it in my club's bank account so far, as it's all being paid on monthly fees. And we're STILL leaking money every month.

So we had to bring frees and loans. Just a mere 21 of them.

Ilies Thevenet (DL, DR) - Versatile full-back who should be a backup.

Miguel Melício (DC) - Promising centre-back trained in Sporting CP's world class youth academy, already given some first team action.

Sebastian Hayer (AMC, ST) - Young german who I'm not entirely sure I can give playing time.

Alex (AML) - Decent experienced winger for a position I have few options for.

Olivier Diarrassouba (AML, AMC) - Would've been better if he didn't have a severe injury after agreeing to sign for us, lost a bit of pace which he didn't have much of already.

Hugo Jorge (DMC) - Well balanced defensive midfielder who should be handy.

Luka Hadzic (AMC, ST) - I really like this guy, very good AMC, great finisher, very intelligent with his movement, should be a great buy.

Didier Cissé (DR, DL) - Superquick fullback who should be a first team player, but is a massive donkey crossing the ball which I don't like.

Marco Gerardi (DC) - Remember this man? I do. Great guy back then for my Venezia side on loan, was delighted to get him on free for my team.

Hugo Vieira (M/AM RC) - Promising 19 year-old, should be one or two years before getting his break.

Baiano (AMR, ST) - First of many loanees. Should be 2nd choice for AMR, I like the fact he can do ST too.

Hugo Roque (DMC) - Even better than the other Hugo DMC, probably my best loanee.

Szymon Misztal (ST) - He's back! I was delighted when I managed to extend the loan of my creative, intelligent striker.

José Manuel (AML) - Another decent option for AML, should rotate with Alex.

David Jardim (DL) - Another loanee who's back, is improving his stats at a very nice rate. First team player for sure.

Francisco Leite (GK) - Loanee keeper who may steal Fernando Baiano's starting lineup place, for now I'm giving him the bench.

Ernesto Sitoe (GK) - Controversial promising keeper who I signed on a free and loaned immediately to my feeder club Atlético.

José Nunes (ST) - Another youngster, signed and loaned immediately, but to Odivelas, my other feeder club.

Toon Verhaeghe (ST) - Yet another one of those. Given the Atlético destination.

Pablo Lacoste (DC) - I found myself with 3 centre-backs after the sales of Tavarès and Pereira, so had to do something and ended up paying an higher salary than I wanted for this veteran uruguayan.

Alfredo Almeida (DC, DL) - Signed him on a gamble without being able to look at his attributes. Turned out great. Thank you mr. agent for offering him.

Full Squad



An overblown large squad as usual. I wanted to get rid of a player or two but the team is alright this way. Lots of youngsters which makes financial sense, plus the odd bits of experience here and there.

Start of the season



It's looking good. Leiria are the best side in my league (just got relegated from the Zon Sagres) so no wonder I lost to them. We got through of the first group stage of the Bwin Cup anyway, and then beat Paços away in the first league match. I'm optimistic.

Goals for the season

• Not get bankrupt.
• Get promoted or as close to promoted as possible (media prediction is 7th, official goal is top-half finish).
• Have fun watching these muppets try to play good football.

[AK22]

Things are looking a bit bleak financially again Hopefully, a bit of investment comes your way soon.

21 transfers! That's a hell of a lot, should push you up the league though.

[noikeee]

Things are looking a bit bleak financially again Hopefully, a bit of investment comes your way soon.

21 transfers! That's a hell of a lot, should push you up the league though.

Finances haven't been a problem this season... because every other month the board decides to randomly pump 500K into the bank.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2020/2021 - mid-season update

Transfers

A bit of a quiet January as I only brought in three players, and they're all youngsters who won't get playing time, that would be nigerians Andrew Issah and Samuel Ayeni, as well as colombian Víctor Duque. I think I've gone way over the top with screenies the last few updates so not bothering to take screenies of these minor players.

I did sell some, third keeper Pedro Gaspar was released on a free; overpaid uruguayan centre-back Pablo Lacoste went back to his country for 28K€ after a disappointing half-season; and the highly promising forward Rubén left for Córdoba for 100K€ + 50% profit of next sale. Rubén was good in theory but didn't seem to fit my system, the AI should have good use for him, hopefully his value will rise.

League



It's gone well as we've been key players in the fight for promotion, constantly jumping between 1st, 2nd and 3rd all season long so far. My favourite games were the two consecutive 5-1 batterings of Leixões and Feirense, back in the early season - but we've been dodgier lately and can't seem to settle neither for good form or bad form. My sides tend to do well at the end of the season so I'm pretty confident my career will finally reach the top tier of a national football pyramid next year.

Fixtures and cups



Might as well lump everything into a single screenie, and this one will show that while the league has gone well, the cups haven't. We had a catastrophic performance in the first round of the Portuguese Cup we were entered, beaten 4-3 after extra time at Reguengos, a lower league side. In the Bwin Cup (League Cup) things went smoothly in the group stage, but then we faced Estoril who are fighting for european qualification in the Liga Zon Sagres and unfortunately it was rather one-sided in their favour. Frankly that was a disappointment as I thought we could have done better.

Key players

Italian defender Marco Gerardi has performed even better than in the Venezia days, and forward Baiano, on loan for Porto, has been awesome, deciding quite a few matches so far. Croatian playmaker Luka Hadzic has been another good addition to the squad, setting up a few goals - albeit he was far more spectacular in his first two months or so than lately - and we still have the star Fábio Silva from last year, providing pace and goals from the wing.

Tactics

Same ultra-flowing 4-2-3-1, but I'm now using a slightly more defensive version of the tactic for away matches and very tough home matches. We're still not as good away as at home, but we've improved.

Finances

Thanks to our generous board who has injected 500K at least two times (was it three? can't remember) we're still "only" 941K€ in the red.

Rest of the season

Get promoted. As said before, I think we can pull it off. I'll be looking to extend my contract when I am offered it, regardless of promotion or not - don't want to repeat some mistakes I've done in my career by jumping clubs too early.

[B.W.G]

That is a mighty close league,hope you able to pull away from the chasing pack in the 2nd half of the season

[SnakeXe]

Good luck, hopefully things will come together and you'll pull away from the pack - definitely seems to be there for the taking for anyone who can move through the gears.

[noikeee]

Tks for the good luck wishes, indeed it is a very tight league just like in real life, the Liga de Honra (recently branded as Liga Orangina) is one of the most unpredictable competitions I know of.

As the season progresses a gap has opened up between the top and the rest, I'm holding onto 2nd still, it's looking good but just had an heavy defeat to one of our opponents which I hope won't have long term psychological effects. 8 games to go now as I type.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2020/2021 - season review

League



A tough season with lots of ups and downs, and a remarkably tight pack in the mix for promotion. During most of the 2nd half of the season, us and Leiria occupied the two top places, and at a stage we opened up a gap of 5 points over 3rd place. But that was only temporary, a few bad results and we were barely hanging on to the 2nd place by a point or two.

Heading into the final 4 matches we were still in 2nd but the calendar was extremely tough as we'd have to face two of our biggest opponents away: Boavista and Leiria. We grabbed a 0-0 draw at Bessa in a game where we dominated the checkered-flag kit home side, but in Leiria we lost 1-0 and the pressure was on - Boavista was back to a mere point behind us in 3rd. Then we pulled a very hard fought win over Santa Clara, while Boavista drawn at Gondomar, meaning that we headed into the final game needing only a point away at Farense - with the extra assurance that if we'd lost, Boavista had to win to overcome us. Meanwhile, Leiria were champions.

It all nearly went catastrophically wrong as our side entered the game nervously, lacking ideas, and conceded a goal just before half-time. While Boavista were beating Trofense. Things didn't improve in the 2nd half in our game as our team just seemed unable to face the pressure, thankfully Trofense were awarded a penalty in the 75th minute of their match, scored it, and decided it for us. Farense 1-0 Belenenses, Boavista 1-1 Trofense, and Belenenses was promoted.



(League positions graph)

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Luka Hadzic (AMC) - I never quite managed to figure him out. Whenever I expected performances, he'd disappear. When I was losing faith in him, decided games for us. I suppose 5 goals, 8 assists is a decent tally, but after that stunning early season start I was expecting more.

4. Marco Gerardi (DC) - Rock-solid and a prolific goalscorer with his head on set pieces.

3. José Freitas (DMC) - I only started to play him regularly mid-season as both my DMCs got injured, and quickly he went from regularly not even being on the bench, to becoming an utterly key player. 10 assists in 20 games played, many from corners, but still, brilliant.

2. Baiano (ST) - 11 goals and 7 assists, but lost some fire in the later part of the season. I hope I can renew his loan for next year though.

1. Fábio Silva (AMR) - Totally exceeded my expectations and perhaps his own ability too, as he ended as the league's top scorer with a 15 goal tally, despite playing as AMR all season long. Total legend.

Finances

1M in the red. Board just injected 500K yet again. It's getting to the point where I wonder if I should even sell players at all, I've pulled some really sweet deals (watch out for youngster Hugo Vieira about to leave for 275K€ despite being obviously not good enough for us and near his full potential), but why lose players when I can stick to them and have the board give me money instead?

Future

At last, a major breakthrough in my career. I'm delighted to finally reach an elite division after 11 years of lower league hell - although the portuguese league is not quite world class and has decreased in reputation over the last few seasons.

Evidently, I renewed the contract with the club. I'm not entirely sure of our financial future, but we certainly deserve to be in the Liga Zon Sagres as one of the biggest clubs in the country, as our average attendances of 7800, the biggest in the Liga Orangina this season, prove.

It may not have been that much of an achievement to get Belenenses back to where they belong, but I have two big challenges for next year: test my attacking tactics against teams that are better than ours; and rebuild a team largely based on loans. A big bunch of signings is ready to arrive, but most are total gambles for the future. Given the success of signing centre-back Alfredo Almeida totally blind, unable to see his attributes, I decided to follow on that and bring 3 U-20 uruguyan internationals plus 3 U-20 bolivians. It's a very low risk gamble as they're all arriving on free transfers and low wages.

Career overview

I've simplified this slightly as it was getting a bit too long:

Season   Club (nation)     League (tier)                             Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st               Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd            Resigned mid-season
         Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th     Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th      Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd      Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st      Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)     Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 13th                         Resigned mid-season
         Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                   Promoted

[Deisler26]

Congrats on the promotion!! I'm back in Portugal with Sp. Covilha as well.

[B.W.G]

Congrats on the promotion

[AK22]

Well done on the promotion, you certainly only just clung on at the end there though

Enjoy your first season in the top flight.

[SnakeXe]

Fantastic job winning promotion in an incredibly tight league

[noikeee]

Tks. I'm now suffering some FM withdrawal because my gaming PC is out for repairing (the USB ports were acting funny). I did go as far as the 1st league match of the new season before taking out the computer, but lost 4-0 at home to Porto which was a slightly annoying start. Probably was a bit naive to field 7 or 8 new signings in the starting eleven...

[Deisler26]

Tks. I'm now suffering some FM withdrawal because my gaming PC is out for repairing (the USB ports were acting funny). I did go as far as the 1st league match of the new season before taking out the computer, but lost 4-0 at home to Porto which was a slightly annoying start. Probably was a bit naive to field 7 or 8 new signings in the starting eleven...

I've found that if you get them early enough, you can max out the team prep for 'team blend' and play a lot of friendlies. Worked for me.

[Do you like dogs?]

Great thread noikeee, I always enjoy your posts. This has given me food for thought for my current Barnet save (on FM10 though) in which I generally aim to do the same, but in more of an Ajax/constant position-swapping mold. KUTGW.

[noikeee]

I've found that if you get them early enough, you can max out the team prep for 'team blend' and play a lot of friendlies. Worked for me.

Yeah I do the same, but let the assman do the friendlies and maybe that's why the team doesn't gel as he doesn't pick the same guys as I do.

Great thread noikeee, I always enjoy your posts. This has given me food for thought for my current Barnet save (on FM10 though) in which I generally aim to do the same, but in more of an Ajax/constant position-swapping mold. KUTGW.

Thanks. Barnet playing like classic Ajax sounds ambitious.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - season preview

My computer's back, woohoo.

Transfers

(Transfers)

I really outdone myself this Summer as went to the absurd extreme of bringing in 27 new players. Yes TWENTY SEVEN. A lot of those were youngsters though, many signed completely blind before the board allowed me to scout the world (it's such great news to get this request accepted), so I ended up with a bloated reserve squad with a ridiculous amount of strikers.

I'm not going to post screenies of every signing again, it's pointless, so here's a few high profile purchases/loanees/freebies who should be regulars this season:

Celso Borges (M/AMC, ST) - Veteran Costa Rica international legend, his pace has disappeared but I'm hoping his exceptional footballing brain and technique will still be a valuable asset for us.

Juninho (ST) - Wonder youngster on loan from Fluminense, I have no doubt he's going to be first choice upfront.

Luis Sánchez (DR) - The best of my many youngster signings. Luis is only 19 but is already becoming a regular for the Bolivia national team and there's a lot more to come from him.

Luizão (DC) - Another of the veterans, it's puzzling to me that he still has decent pace for a 34 year old, my assman tells me he is a great centre-back for this level but I was not impressed with his first 2 performances so far.

Marco Costantino (GK) - In theory, a huge boost in quality in goal, the italian's attributes look great. Already made a match deciding mistake though...

Renatinho (M/AM L) - Veteran winger also able to play as AMC, there's still a hint of pace left in him so I'm expecting to still be good. Seems to be a bit of a hothead as he got furious because I substituted him in a match.

Ruud Nijholt (MR, ML) - Dutch 21 y.o. winger with greatly balanced attributes, it's a shame he's not natural neither as AMR or AML as that's the positions I use in my tactic. Already under a retraining program.

Zé Lopes (DMC) - A very rare national signing in the middle of all these foreigners, quite clever, strong guy also able to pass a ball. Should be good.

Full Squad



Plenty of options so I'm going to have alternatives to the inevitable odd few flops.

With such a large reserve squad I suppose I might as well include a screenie of that.

Start of the season



Humiliated in the first match, unlucky in the second (hit the posts twice, beaten by a keeper blunder), about to face current title holders Benfica in the third. What a wonderful start.

Goals for the season

• Prove the media are idiots for predicting a 16th place for us (dead last), and grab at least 14th so we don't go back down to the Orangina.
  
  
• Make some sense out of the overblown squad I built again. At the end of the season I want to trim down the squad and get rid of whoever doesn't perform, selling a few of our youngsters would be nice too, as their estimated value is hilariously high in some cases.
  
  
• Survive another year without getting bankrupt. My monthly wage spending not only doubled, almost triplified since last season so that's not helping.

[noikeee]

Lisbon - 24th of October, 2021

This should be fun. Manager Pedro Emanuel was sacked despite going past the first round of qualifiers for the European Championship, I'll have the honour of playing Switzerland, Slovenia and Italy next May in the second round. Meanwhile, I've arranged a friendly versus Spain next month just for practice.

[jt_northender]

Diego Hermoza valued at 1.2M Euros!? Dodgy indeed! Looks like you've made some good signings and you certainly have a diverse squad!! Hopefully you can get a good couple of years out of Borges and Nijholt could be one to watch though might take time to adapt - good idea to retrain. I love having players that can play AMR and AML like Barnetta on my Leverkusen save.

[deltablue]

You can't say you're short on options anyway.

[noikeee]

Diego Hermoza valued at 1.2M Euros!? Dodgy indeed! Looks like you've made some good signings and you certainly have a diverse squad!! Hopefully you can get a good couple of years out of Borges and Nijholt could be one to watch though might take time to adapt - good idea to retrain. I love having players that can play AMR and AML like Barnetta on my Leverkusen save.

No, the dodgy bit was watching Hermoza's value drop from 1.2M to 80K the very next day. Must've been a bug or something.

Borges has been a big flop so far, together with a few other overpaid veterans, I think it was a big mistake to sign them. Nijholt went from competent to accomplished in AML in no time, but is yet to find his good form too, I'm willing to be patient with him tho.

You can't say you're short on options anyway.

I like having big squads because you never know who's going to be a flop and you don't want to have to rely on them, on the other hand I really went over the top this season. With the promotion I was able to attract much better players and offer much better wages, so went on to improve my team, meanwhile for every player I sign it becomes obvious that there's other positions in the squad that there's not on par with the new guys. So when I realized it all had snowballed into too much spending, too many new players.

My next job is to stabilize the squad and trim out the fat, as long as we don't get relegated (looking good) and don't get bankrupt (not looking good) before I get the chance of doing that.

[AK22]

Good luck for the forthcoming season with your super-size squad Tough start, but I'm sure you'll turn it around.

A squad that size would generally cause me a lot of headaches, as it's almost impossible to keep everyone happy. I reckon you might have to micro-manage a lot of egos to keep the harmony of the team together. One positive is that you'll have competition for places, so if someone has a poor couple of games you can just call on the 'next taxi at the rank'.

[shauno_19]

Enjoyed reading this mate, especially as I've just started my own journeyman career and also took the job at SC Praiense. Already becoming fond of this little team.

Good luck for the season with Belenenses.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - mid-season update

Transfers

(Transfers)

Went sort of in the opposite direction to last summer as plenty of players left as part of my effort to solidify the increasingly worrying finances, and trim the squad back to a reasonable size. The big news was the sale of angolan centre-back Alfredo Almeida for 1.5M€ to Lierse, a club record sale, but backup players Guilherme, Sebastian Hayer, Boban Zaric, Ernesto Sitoe, Telmo Castanheira all left for money too, while Alex and Filipe Joaquim were released on frees, a few others sent on loans, some of them with agreed fees for the definite purchase of players. All things summed, the club went from an extremely poor financial record of over 2M€ in the red (and increasing every month) for just 750K€ currently. Wage payments per month also went down, obviously.

Meanwhile, we did sign one player as parent club Toulouse sent us Messi on loan. No, not THAT Messi.

League





We've had a great turnaround after that poor start, actually. With the difficult matches against Porto and Benfica out of the way, we've set out to pull some difficult wins in difficult stadiums (4-2 at Braga a great peak performance!), while still being solid at home. Suddenly we're fighting for european qualification places. It's bizarre for a career that started as an attempt to emulate Barcelona up to a point, that we're now playing rather defensive, counter-attacking football to great success. The front 4 (AML, AMR, AMC, ST) are still told to be very fluid, to roam a lot, and the full-backs to support the attack, but with so many tough fixtures, I've played the more defensive version of my tactic a lot more than the "normal" version. The pace of a few of my attacking players has been absolutely key so far this season.

Cups



Despite often fielding our 2nd line of players in the cups, to keep my key players fit for the league, we've done sort of well. We're out of both cups but have been quite unlucky in my opinion. The Taça de Portugal run ended in Braga, where we had just won for the league, after we missed a penalty and Braga's ukranian keeper Anton Kanibolotskyi had a great match. As for the League Cup, we were set to qualify as group winners 5 minutes before the final whistle of the final match, when Naval scored at Aves, then Sporting finally scored past us as we kept a 0-0 for all match long with a very good defensive performance.

Key players

It's been all about Juninho and I have no idea on how earth are we going to replace him once his loan is over - he's top scorer with 11 goals, the next guy has 5, and the next has 2. That speaks for itself. Meanwhile, winger Fabio Silva has been as great as ever, and I'm having some major doubts on whether I should field him or the also highly impressive Sebastian Schreier. I've tried placing one of them as AML, but both seem to perform only as the most attack minded AMR in my tactic.

Rest of the season

Well, Europe would be nice, wouldn't it? Even if the Europa League gives very small financial rewards. 6 teams qualify, so 6th place may give us qualification depending on the cup winner, that's what I'm aiming for. But I actually doubt we can keep up this level of performance for long, many games that we've won have been tight, I think we're overacheiving and this performance is not sustainable, at least not yet.

[AK22]

Promising first half of the season noikeee, looking good for Europe too

I'm sure you'll find another striker for next season, especially if you can offer them Europa League football. You might be able to convince Juninho to stay too, he looks pretty handy.

[Amethyst21]

Just read through this career, an excellent read for a dreary monday!
Having managed in Portugal, I find it relatively easy to get to the mid table in the league, but it is rather difficult to knock off the Big 3 of Portuguese football, as the have huge finances, good squads and great reputations.

KUTGW!

[noikeee]

Thanks guys, meanwhile I've ended the season, review coming up soon.

The big 3 do have a big advantage but I've never seen it in FM as pronounced as in this career, usually after a few seasons a smaller club randomly catches up, this time the gap between the big 3 and the rest has actually increased, and in a very extreme way!

[Ashcymru]

Just read the entire thread, absolutely brilliant to see someone do this and finally get their break. Just letting you know you have another reader.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - season review

Transfers

Sold veteran Renatinho to japanese side Icasa in March for 45K€, and saved lots of further money in the disproportionate wages I was paying for the player's average performance.

League



It was not the weather as it was dry and the pitches were in good condition, but our February/March form was utterly appalling as we failed to win a single game, usually through frustrating late equalisers - a sign of the team lacking fitness, perhaps?

Despite so many lost points we were only down to 9th, because the pack remained very tight, no team able to find consistency. But everything changed for us in a crazy game at the Barreiros against Marítimo as we won 3-1 despite reduced to 9 men. A bizarre 4-0 away thrashing of Estoril followed, then two frustrating games against tougher opponents, Braga and Sporting - we were beating Braga 2-0 at half-time only to concede a draw, then we resisted and pressured Sporting all match long only for Omar Santana to score a mental lob from way out on the 95th minute... the League Cup game against them had already been exactly like this, 88th minute winner.

With 3 games to go we could in theory grab 5th and go to Europe, but Braga and Leiria were tied with us, Académica on 4th were some 5 points ahead, and we had two tough fixtures, against Guimarães, then away at Académica. It wasn't looking good. But we won all 3 matches, Académica had to play Sporting at the final fixture and predictably lost, hence we not only qualified, but also just about pulled a wildly unlikely 4th place, on only 44 points. Compare that to the points tally for the 4th place over the last few seasons, and it's REALLY low: 57, 54, 52, 59, 57... Indeed, we finished further away from 3rd placed Sporting, than ahead of dead last Setúbal.



(League positions graph)

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. José Freitas (DMC) - Lost of assists as usual, typical being our corner taker, not sure if that's what gave him a high average rating but he's surprised me, his attributes don't look great in theory, yet I'm still playing him regularly at this level, didn't expect that.

4. António Fernandes (DL) - In pre-season I was raving about my other young full-back, the bolivian Luis Sanchez, but it was the portuguese who arrived from Braga who impressed me. Stellar season and improved his skills immensely.

3. Zé Lopes (DMC) - 7.10 average rating is astonishing for a defensive player who ends the season with 1 goal and 2 assists. Another great signing who quickly became our midfield general.

2. Sebastian Schreier (AMR) - Low profile signing, as he seemed a guy with pace and nothing else, but bloody hell it works on the pitch. By the 2nd half of the season, definitely relegated the previously untouchable Fabio Silva to the bench.

1. Juninho (ST) - 18 goals. Next top scorer? 6 goals. I'm so screwed when his loan ends. Definitely don't think I can sign him permanently, we can't afford him and he's too good to want to sign for us.

Finances

950K€ in the red. This right after the league prize money of 1M€ has been put into the club's account. We're nowhere near stable yet.

Conclusions and future expectations

What a great season, I didn't expect to finish anywhere near this high. The next step is going to be way way harder though. The gap to the big 3 is ridiculously large and I'd be glad to repeat 4th next year. I want to make a few signings but far less than this year, get some continental experience into our players, and make further steps into sorting the finances.

Evidently I signed a new 1-year contract, don't want to repeat the Praiense/Venezia mistakes of jumping too early. When I get an offer from another club, then I'll think about it. I did apply for the Braga job mid-season though - they picked ex-german international Markus Babbel instead.

By the way, I got the Manager of the Year award. Quite proud about that heh!

Career overview

Season   Club (nation)     League (tier)                             Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st               Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd            Resigned mid-season
         Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th     Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th      Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd      Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st      Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)     Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 13th                         Resigned mid-season
         Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                   Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 Qualified for Europa League

[B.W.G]

Congrats on a successful season and best of luck in the Europa League in the new season

[brFM2011]

Closer to relegation ^^ love it, 4th is great though
Gl, hopefully Europe will help them finances

[SnakeXe]

Great job qualifying for Europe! Good luck replacing Juninho.

[AK22]

Well done on finishing 4th, but I'm pretty shocked by the 28 point gap! I know Portugal is well known for being a three-club league, but I would have thought this have evened out slightly over 12 FM seasons.

Still, excellent first season in the top flight. Will be very interesting to see if/when you can crack the top three

[noikeee]

Thanks for the comments as usual.

Portugal Under 19s - 2022 season review

Fixtures



A relatively difficult group got harder after we only managed a draw away versus Slovenia, leaving us with the obligation of beating Italy in the final match - only the group winners would go through. And they seemed vastly superior to us. Sensationally, we pulled a total shock and beat them 5-1, booking our place in the finals.

Then an even tougher group ensued, as we were paired with Spain, Germany and the punchbag Israel. We nearly held on the spanish to a 0-0 draw but they scored in aggregate time, then we were destroyed by the germans. A nice 4-0 win over Israel was nothing more than a consolation prize as we were mathematically out before the game anyway.

Then I resigned. International management sounds nice in theory but really slows down game progress, as the one thing I hate is forgetting to pick a player so I thoroughly check every single call-up before every match. And that gets tedious quick. Besides, this group of players was largely unexciting.

Players

(Full squad for the Euro final stages)

Luis Pinto (MR, ML) - Easily our better player, I had to accommodate my tactic a little bit to fit him in but it was more than worth it.

Filipe Lopes (DR, DL) - Handy defender, unsurprisingly picked up by Arsenal already.

Nelson Silva (GK) - Not one of our top guys in terms of theoretical ability, but kept bad results away from becoming even worse results.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - season preview

Transfers

(Transfers)

15 signings seems very few after the insane past two summers. Here's the relevant new faces from that bunch:

Libor Machala (AMC) - I got rid of all of my AMCs, so I needed new options. This czech 22 year old looks decent enough.

Conte Diallo (DMC, DC) - Signing of the season. Well I actually signed him over a year ago, but he's only turned 18 now so only now could move out from Guinea. 4.5 stars potential, great stats already, and the salary of a slave.

Szymon Misztal (ST) - He's back! After two seasons on loan from Porto on our Liga Orangina days, I now finally got him to sign for us. The past tells me he's not a goal machine, but can be handy sometimes.

Paulo Regula (AMC) - Veteran who's better than Machala for now, but is losing pace rapidly. Gambled on him becoming club captain straight away.

Daniel Carriço (DC) - Legendary centre-back for Portugal who still gets called up regularly at the age of 34, and still can do it at this level. I'm amazed I could sign him, he's got released from AC Milan this summer.

Iuri Medeiros (ST) - Probably no match for Juninho, but has been first choice for striker so far, as he's scored 3 on 3 games. Was pretty good for his previous club Guimarães and seems like he'll be even better for us.

Ahmed Abd Rabo (DMC) - I swear I didn't sign him for the funny name ("arse" in portuguese). Has potential, unforunately just got a very serious injury which hurt his already dodgy pace.

Mohamed Saad (DMC) - Virtually indistinguishable from the other egyptian guy, except for the lack of a funny name and the lack of injury.

Players left too, and for money! I gathered a total of 1.8M€ with the sales of players like Celso Borges, Luka Hadzic, Diogo Salomão, Martín Suarez. And then most of the money came from players I didn't play at all like Karim Raofat (170K€), Gabriel Román (850K€), Bruno Bordad (475K€). Think I've done well in the market here.

Meanwhile, long time key player and fan favourite Milan Gajic retired. Thanks for that, I was paying him 8K€/month for nothing.

Full Squad

Here's my squad! I'd gather them for a team photo, but in FM this is the best I can do:



I think I can't get it any more balanced than this. Experience, youth with potential, a decent amount of signings without getting the team gelling way out of control, and enough options for each position without going over the top.

Start of the season



Great start actually. We got a bit of a scare in Sweden as we unexpectedly got ourselves losing 2-0 and with the round tied at half-time, but then we reversed it thanks to an inspired team-talk, and an uninspired tackle from some swede which gave him a red card. We're into the Group Stage of the Europa League which made us earn 1M€!

With that money, and the transfers money, that means we're in the green! An historical moment in my long career as a wild money waster! The club account's balance is at 1.4M€! I'm so proud of it!

Goals for the season

• Do better than last year in the league. And by that, I mean, repeat 4th place with more points. What, like I was going to promise closing down a 28 points gap and get 3rd? Are you nuts?
  
  
• Continue improving the club in the transfer market without destabilizing the squad.
  
  
• Don't get totally embarrassed in the Group Stage of the Europa League. We've had the awesome luck of being drawn against a spanish side, an english side and an italian side (Espanyol, Tottenham and Reggina), so can't really expect anything there.

[noikeee]

A slightly difficult decision to make, as Marítimo are a club I've supported all my life, they were going to pay me a higher salary, and the club could offer a far higher wage budget. However they were 10 places below Belenenses in the standings and have a bank loan that is almost twice as large. It would've been a step behind.

I've also been recently linked to a job in Ukraine, to manage Illichivets Mariupol. I've been often linked to jobs in Portugal for years, but it's the first time my name pops up in rumors abroad. Nice to see as it means my reputation is growing and I definitely want to look at managing abroad again.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update likely tonight as I've finished the January transfer window yesterday but didn't have the time to do the write-up and screenies. Just have to post to say I'm proud to have been linked to the Dynamo Kyiv job. I'd definitely take that, unfortunately my experience is that as I'm 3rd favourite for the job, am unlikely to get it - and the manager hasn't been sacked yet.

I definitely want to manage in either Ukraine or Russia at some point, but am completely baffled as to why I'm getting linked to ukranian jobs all of a sudden.

In regards to FM12, I'm sticking to this career for quite a little longer, have lots of unfinished business here, and never trust a new version of FM before the final patch.

[SnakeXe]

Glad you're sticking with this, definitely still plenty of interest left

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - mid-season update

Transfers

Erm, pretty much nothing happened. Bolivian youngster Boris Molina was sold for 95K€, egyptian midfielder Ahmed Abd Rabo for 120K€, and Toulouse sent us a goalie on loan again, this time the italian Massimo Lettieri. He conceded 10 goals in his first 2 appearances so it's unlikely he'll get any more playing time the rest of his loan.

League





Goals. Lots and lots of them. We've conceded goals in every single match, and scored in pretty much all of them too. Our games have an average of 4.5 goals/game. No idea on what's causing this as my current tactical setup is rather cagey and counter-attacking.

We did flirt with the lead of the championship for a while but then the likes of Porto and Sporting brought us down to earth, with an odd thrashing in Guimarães in-between. And just as we were picking up the pace again, complete, total humiliation at the Luz with a 7-1 defeat to Benfica. In my defence, this is the sort of players they have (okay, it's their one and only major superstar), and this is the player Porto have just bought. How on earth are supposed to compete with that? The gap to the big 3 is enormous.

So, we're pretty much where we were last year at this stage, but with some extra experience. 5th and with a decent chance of getting 4th, which is our goal of course. Best of the rest.

Cups



I was worried about the Europa League group, but that was nonsense as we hardly were embarrassed. First four games gave us 2 points and 2 narrow defeats, which was alright given the opposition, but qualification seemed impossible. Then suddenly we go to Barcelona and beat Espanyol at their home 3-1 - bumping ourselves into 2nd place in the group. A win over Tottenham would qualify us, maybe even a draw were Reggina and Espanyol to cancel each other out. Didn't happen, albeit we led Tottenham 3 times in a crazy crazy match. I'm proud of my team's efforts anyway.

In the cup, we breezed past the first few rounds, with the curiosity of having me visit the stadium where I started my career - last time I was there was 10 years ago. Praiense were no match for us, obviously. Then came up Porto and I was so close to beating them when they equalised in the 92nd minute, and killed the game in extra-time.

The lesser of the competitions we participate in is the League Cup aka "Bwin Cup". We were seeded thanks to finishing 4th last season in the league, and had no issues in topping our group and qualifying for the semis - although the final match against Rio Ave was funny, we hit the woodwork 6 times, they hit it once, and it finished 0-0.

Key players

I've had my share of wildly free-scoring wingers in this career, but did not expect Ruud Nijholt to suddenly develop into one. He was crap last season. This season, and we're in February, he has 16 goals (6 of them in Europe) and is one of the league's highest average rating players.

Meanwhile, defensive midfielder Zé Lopes has been as solid as ever, while Sebastien Schreier and Fabio Silva continue their entertaining, and impossible to call, battle for first choice right winger.

Rest of the season

Get that 4th place and get lucky in the League Cup. We can play either Benfica, Sporting or Naval in the semis - guess who I'd prefer. As for the future, I'm delaying an extension of my contract for as long as I can, to see if I'll be offered a better job, but if nothing comes up I'll renew it late in the season.

[jt_northender]

Impressive stuff noikeee, the fans are getting value for money!! Unlucky in the Europa League, that was a tough group.

[noikeee]

Impressive stuff noikeee, the fans are getting value for money!! Unlucky in the Europa League, that was a tough group.

Thanks.

Last night I played a little longer, got lucky with the Bwin Cup draw as we faced Naval in the semis and promptly dispatched them 5-0. Now we're facing Sporting in the final, right after playing them in the league. Long time since I've last won any competition, looking forward to that chance.

And in the league, to my amazement, Porto are in very poor form, we beat them 2-0 and overtook them in the league. Not sure we can hold on to that 3rd place with 7 games remaining, but quite pleased about that at the moment. I noticed after posting those screenies that both that Benfica player and that Porto player are being paid more than my entire wage budget of 200K€/month. My board won't let me offer wages above 17K€/month.

Oh, and I was linked to the Veléz Sarsfield job, applied for it, and got rejected.

[Manager]

this is some cool stuff

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - season review

League



A great second half of the season. We started it finally managing to finish a game without conceding goals, against Académica, then had a slight wobble losing to Aves at home, but a great green streak of victories ensued. The most memorable were against Porto (2-0) and Braga (3-0 away!!), particularly since both were direct opponents of ours - yes because while Braga fought for best of the rest, 4th place, with us, Porto was directly ahead in 3rd. And by April we found ourselves surprisingly ahead of Porto!

And indeed we had a good chance to finish 3rd, all the way into the final two fixtures of the season. Unfortunately we lost those very two games, at Choupana against Nacional, and an impossibly difficult home fixture against the all-conquering champions Benfica. That left us in 4th, 3 points behind Porto, but very comfortably within european qualification places.



(League positions graph)

Cups



We were out of the Europa League and the Portuguese Cup, as previously shown. But we were still in the League Cup and thankfully things went incredibly well. Not only we drawn the only easy opponent in the semis, Naval, we beat them 5-0. And then in the final we pulled a superb victory over the remaining member of the big 3, Sporting. We lifted the cup for the first time in Belenenses' history (well, the cup only started in 2008 anyway), which was the first trophy in the club's cabinet for 10 years - and that was the second tier championship. Last top level trophy was 34 years ago, the 1989 Portuguese Cup...

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Iuri Medeiros (ST) - Lost his place in the team mid-season after a poor patch of form, but recovered sensationally with a superb late season streak of 8 goals in 5 games.

4. Zé Lopes (DMC) - Crazily high average rating for such a subtle defensive player. As reliable as it gets - and has started to provide assists too.

3. Libor Machala (AMC) - Had to give him a leave of absence early in the season due to homesickness, but he truly came back from Czech Republic as new. A great signing. Scored a wonderful 35 metres freekick in the League Cup final.

2. Fabio Silva (AMR) - No longer the wild goalscorer as in the Liga Orangina days, but has become a fantastic provider of assists, 20 this season. Together with José Freitas, the only remaining player from the team I inherited when I first arrived at the club.

1. Ruud Nijholt (AML) - A serious injury stopped him from playing from April onwards, but what a great season - 18 goals. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on to him for long, with a 1.5M€ release clause...

Finances

Prize money from both league and league cup helped us greatly. Now 1.1M€ in the green.

Conclusions and future expectations

I'm amazed to have challenged Porto for 3rd and expect to build on this to now start threatening to split the big 3. We're nowhere near good enough to beat Benfica yet (seriously, that Rogerinho guy alone got 32 league goals in 28 appearances, it's like playing against Messi), but believe we can slowly improve. Hopefully the board will allow me a higher wage budget next season, as we're not competitive enough financially to even offer wages as good as some other mid-table clubs.

The Bwin Cup trophy and then a 2nd consecutive Manager of the Year award should've given me another nice boost in reputation. I want to jump ship, but unfortunately no offer arrived, so I signed another 1-year contract, so that I don't get stuck in a scenario like after Praiense and after Venezia. To challenge the big 3 with this club is a nice challenge anyway, but I'm eager to get some short-term rewards - by now I should be able to pull a job in a far wealthier club.

Career overview

Season   Club (nation)     League (tier)                             Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st               Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd            Resigned mid-season
         Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th     Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th      Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd      Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st      Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)     Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 13th                         Resigned mid-season
         Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                   Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 
22/23    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 League Cup winners

[B.W.G]

Congrats on the League Cup victory

You finished quite close to Porto,maybe next season you can overtake them

[noikeee]

Tks.

Meanwhile, I was linked to a job and applied. This is the answer:



Will decide tomorrow, but think I'll take it. May be a minor step back in competitive terms as Sovetov are (surprisingly) battling against relegation mid-season in Russia, but they're far far wealthier than Belenenses. And have one or two awesome players.

[Manager]

nice

btw why did you stop doing the old club watch?

[SnakeXe]

Fantastic season, so close to breaking the top 3 and amazing to win a trophy!

[noikeee]

Cheers. I stopped the club watch because I was writing too much, putting too much effort, and wanted to trim down on something to hurry up. Last time I checked Praiense and Dresden were having normal mid-table seasons as usual, Kettering was battling against relegation back to the BSP, and Venezia fighting for promotion to Serie B.

I did find out recently that my former Dresden promising defender David Simecek signed for Man City. The rest of that batch of mega youngsters have done nothing (Marco Troiano is at Saint-Etienne I think, the others wandering around mediocre german clubs) but quite pleased to see at least one of them made it to the very top level.

I need to do a write-up on the world of football too again, saving that for after Euro 2024. World Cup 2022 had a total shock winner.

[noikeee]

Samara - 26th of May, 2023

I arrive to the Metallurg Stadium in Samara, a large city located in the southeastern part of European Russia, with a population of a little over 1 million. FC Krylia Sovetov Samara is the largest local club, and they have just hired me.



I'm going to give some background on the club's history but frankly there's not much interesting stuff to talk about. They were founded in 1942, and quickly reached the top flight of soviet football, but never really made a huge impact in it. 4th place in the 1951 Soviet league was their best finishing position (they did also reach two soviet cup finals - and lost them), and they'd later fade into a yo-yo club constantly jumping between the 1st and 2nd tier. Then the 1980s were a particularly bad decade as they dropped to the 3rd tier a few times.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the first Russian league in 1992, they've become far more stable, never having got relegated from the top flight since. 3rd in the 2004 season was a particularly high point, and that came together with yet another cup final presence, and defeat (they'd repeat that in 2019). And ever since I started my career they've been as consistent as it gets: they've always, and I mean always, finished between 7th and 12th. The only exception was last season where they overperformed to finish 5th. Things are not going quite that well this season:



Finances

No loans, 1.6M€ in the green, a transfer budget of 2.6M€, wage budget of 850K€/month. Awesome, right? Until I realise the club's been losing around 800K€ per month lately. Where on earth does the money for the transfers/wages come from? TV? Prize money? Mafia? The financial graph does show a huge peak at the end of each season so I'm going to trust the money's going to come from somewhere.

Squad



Would've been quite a good squad if it wasn't for the fact we have to have 5 russian nationals in the field at all times, and all my russians are crap. And russian nationality takes 6 years to obtain.

My best player, by far, is the egyptian Ahmed Omar. Very talented with godlike pace, however can only play MC and I don't use MCs in my tactic. Will need to adjust, while I retrain him. Meanwhile I quite fancy the look of right-back Juninho, and my portuguese attacking stars Luís Graça and Daniel Neves.

Goals for this season

The club's more than good enough to overcome the battle against relegation. I'd do poorly not to improve in the standings. Europe's a bit far tho, a mid-table position may be more realistic. I'm aiming at something like 8th/9th/10th.

The transfer window only opens in August, I've got over 2 months of fixtures before that, so may struggle a little until I bring in some new players.

[jt_northender]

Good assessment of the squad make up. Hope the financial peak wasn't because the previous manager sold all the good Russians last summer!! Good luck in Russia, will be interesting!

[AK22]

Just catching up on this noikeee...

Had another solid season with Belenenses. I'm surprise how dominant Benfica were over Sporting and Porto, scoring 90 goals in a 30 game season is quite a record!

Good luck with your new Russian team. I really enjoyed managing there in FM11, but I agree that the 5 Russian player rule is a bit of a nuisance. You'll find that there's very little affordable Russian talent, and when someone does become available, it turns into a bit of a bun-fight with everyone fighting for their signature. Hopefully, you'll turn this around, as I'd imagine you should be a mid-table side at worse. Should be a good challenge for you, especially as you've gone to a club who's not up to their eyes in debt too!

[B.W.G]

You seem to have inherited quite a solid squad,good luck in Russia

[noikeee]

Krylia Sovetov 2023 - mid-season update

Transfers

(Transfers)

Spent a bit, mostly on russian squad players, to give me more options as we were dangerously short of russians and were almost forced to field youngsters/reserves sometimes. I've also spent a little on a few foreigners who I've identified as very good, and 2 or 3 promising russians for the future. Here's the few most important of the new guys:

Ladji N'Guessan (GK) - A beast of a keeper, currently only 3* of CA but 4.5* of potential, I expect very big things of this ivorian young man.

Rodrigo (AM RLC) - A foreigner squad rotation player, but for a few positions where I only use foreigners anyway. Should be handy.

Pavel Soldatov (DC) - May have been a little expensive considering I think he'll be 3rd or 4th option for centre-back but again, more options for us.

Kirill Goryunov (DMC) - Not ready to play in the Prem'er Liga yet, but pretty good for a 16 year old and one of russian football's brightest prospects - 4* of potential.

Evgeny Derkach (DMC) - Proper defensive midfielder, a great deal to get him for 45K€. He's not as good as my other russian DMC Mikhail Ivanov, but Ivanov's on loan from Zenit and doesn't want to sign permanently for us.

Bernard Agu (M/AM RC) - A cheap alternative for AMR who might just be first choice for the moment.

Mohamed Mohsen (AM RL) - Another very good alternative for the winger positions, however to my great frustration he arrived one day after the squad registration window was over, so won't play at all this season.

We extended the wage and transfer budget beyond reasonable extremes to pull these deals, and that after selling a few faces for decent money. César Faletti went for 1.3M€, André Luiz for 525K€, Michael Comitis for 210K€. Didn't matter - we're suddenly 2.9M€ in the red. Wow.

League





Looking good, we're already in 9th which was about my goal for this season. However we've been playing mostly against the smallest clubs, and have a very tough run of fixtures about to come - Dinamo then Lokomotiv then Rubin then Spartak. I have the feeling we're not on par with these top sides yet, looking at the ability of their squads. We've just been thrashed 3-0 at home to Amkar too which wasn't nice neither, but I was saving my best players for the Europa League fixture.

On the bright side, beating Alania 5-0 away was a great result. Was proud of my players that day.

Cups



We had qualified for Europa League thanks to last season's 5th place under previous manager Andrey Gordeev, and we started the campaign amazingly well, beating some macedonians away 7-0 and killing the tie right there. Next opponents were far far tougher tho - turkish top team Fenerbahçe. Thankfully the first leg couldn't have gone any better and we won 2-0 with some luck and efficiency. I thought I had it in the bag again, but the turks equaled our home result in the 2nd leg and the game ended up in penalty spot kicks. There we lost, partly through a bad error of judgment by myself - I sent Bernard Agu to take the 2nd kick despite the fact we had been "playing nervously" all game, and he was the only who missed.

In the russian cup, we've just started with a decent away win with my 2nd string players facing a lower league team, and we've got relegation candidates Spartak Nalchik as the next opponents.

Rest of the season

Now that Europe is gone, it's time to focus 100% in the league - specially since I don't believe we can pull a cup shock win just yet, with the likes of CSKA and Zenit right next in our side of the tree draw, if we go past Nalchik. The next set of tough fixtures will prove just how good (or how bad) we are, I don't expect much from those matches, but at the end of the season I expect to end in a better position than our current 9th place. European qualification is 3 places and 6 points away, it's still entirely possible but I'm a little skeptic.

I am seriously scared about the finances though, didn't imagine they'd go this low so quickly. At this rate we're going to finish the season with some 5M€ in the red, before the income comes from somewhere, not sure if something bad may come from that (administration? forced to sell players?)

[noikeee]

Applied, they offered me the job, and I'm going to take it. I'm not doing badly in Russia in terms of results but have seriously misjudged the club's finances and in panic trying to solve that, I've agreed the sale of our superstar player Ahmed Omar - with that loss, I think we're not going forward next season. The russian limit of foreigners is a serious pain in the ass too, and gives me a big disadvantage over the clubs that actually produce talent like CSKA and Spartak, while rules over foreigners are much more relaxed in Spain.

Celta is in the second tier, and in a poor 11th position, but merely 5 points behind a promotion playoff spot and with tons of money to spend. Don't want to be too cocky, but I'm entirely confident I'll get them promoted this season already.

[B.W.G]

You did well with what you had available to you in Russia but good luck with Celta,hope you get the promotion you desire with

[noikeee]

Krylia Sovetov 2023 - season review (with 3 games to go)

Transfers

5th choice, veteran striker Alexandr Yerkin was sold to Chernomorets for 35K€. No other news.

League



I am delighted to have not lost a game since the last update, particularly having to face the likes of Lokomotiv, Rubin (3-1 win!) and Spartak, but we're tieing too many games too. It was disappointing to fail to beat Terek or Volga in the last two matches, and that has cost us a chance at grabbing 6th place away from Lokomotiv - indeed, after this match we are now down to 8th again behind Tom.

With Zenit and CSKA as the next two opponents, I'm afraid there's little I could've done to still steal 6th from Lokomotiv. Anyway, I think the team has done well in the league under my command, we've gone from 14th to 8th, and my maths tells me we got 31 points from 18 matches since I arrived, hence multiplying the points average to 27 fixtures, we would've had enough points to be 5th right now if I had started the season. Job done I think.



(League positions graph)

Cups



We beat Nalchik 3-0 away despite the fact Daniel Neves was sent off in the 7th minute. We're facing Spartak Moscow in the quarters, but the game is only played next season in April.

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Sergey Chudakov (D LC, DM) - The giant (20 jumping) was probably my best russian as he always put in good performances, mostly as centre-back but would sometimes fill in as left-back too. Is still only 20 y.o. and my assman thinks he can still improve a full star (from 2.5* to 3.5*).

4. Ladji N'Guessan (GK) - 6.91 average rating doesn't look like much but from my experience it's astonishing for a keeper, I always felt way more secure when he was playing. He's going to be world class and will be top of my shortlist when I arrive to my new club.

3. Luís Graça (AML) - Some astonishing performances when I first arrived at the club, great average rating, but I always felt he missed too many one-on-ones chances. In fact the whole team did, but he was one of the worst.

2. Daniel Neves (AMC, ST) - Top scorer (13 goals) and a serious danger every other game, able to totally dominate a game. Would go missing sometimes too, but on his day, was unstoppable.

1. Ahmed Omar (MC) - A truly astonishing player, there was an aura of class around every single of his movements and decisions on the pitch. I'm gutted to have panicked and sold him for a mere 6.25M€ but the club's finances are catastrophic at the moment. He even finally managed to retrain himself to AMC.

Finances

Sinked to an unbelievable 5.2M€ in the red. I'm amazed at how quick this has happened, surely I had a big hand in this as I used all of my wage and transfer budgets, but never imagined things could get this bad. It's going to get better now as the end-of-season income is about to arrive, and so will the cash injection from the sell of Omar in January, but I'll keep in mind for my next few jobs that the budgets offered by the board are often far from realistic...

Conclusions and future expectations

If it wasn't for the financial status and the foreigners limit, I would've stuck to this, it's been a fun stint here and I'm a little sad to leave the club after only 6 months. I've had far worse experiences in this career and the club deserved a little more determination from me. Better things await me though, and I don't rule out a return to Eastern Europe in the future - I have the ukranian league loaded too and would love to manage Shakhtar to european success, if the chance to do so ever shows up.

Career overview

Season   Club (nation)         League (tier)                          Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)        2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)        2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st            Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)       Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)       Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd         Resigned mid-season
         Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th  Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th   Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd   Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st   Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)         Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)         3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)         3.Liga (3) - 13th                      Resigned mid-season
         Belenenses (POR)      Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 
22/23    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th              League Cup winners
2023     Krylya Sovetov (RUS)  Prem'er Liga (1) - 8th                 Left late in the season

[noikeee]

You did well with what you had available to you in Russia but good luck with Celta,hope you get the promotion you desire with

Thanks, it's a sideways step again (after the move from Portugal to Russia) but I think it's a golden chance to finally get a breakthrough to one of the world's top leagues.

[noikeee]

Wait a minute...



17 of December. I guess I'm finishing the season in Russia then. No idea on why the move isn't immediate.

[SnakeXe]

Good luck with Celta, and on finishing the season in Russia!