Lyn Fotball - The true meaning of Loyalty.

Introduction

For my first career thread ever over here, I've chosen to follow Gundo's European Adventure Challenge's guidelines and take charge of a previously unplayable club to guide them to domestic glory and Champions League success. And because I really enjoyed it the last time I played that way, I will also rely only on players coming through the youth academy. For this career thread, I'll do three main updates per season. Finally, on a personal note, I have to say that english is not my native language so I'm looking forward to post updates here, that will allow me to practice a bit. Feel free to become grammar nazis if I say something completely wrong.

Lyn Fotball

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Club Profile

Year Founded: 1896

Nation: Norway

Rivals: Vålerenga, Stabæk

Club Status: Semi-Professional

Reputation: National

Finances: Okay[/TD]

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Facilities

Stadium Name: Frogner Stadion, Oslo (owned by Frogner, 10% of gate receipts as rent)

Capacity: 1500 (500 seated)

Training Facilities: Adequate training facilities

Youth Facilities: Basic youth facilities

Junior Coaching: Adequate junior coaching

Youth Recruitment: fairly basic youth recruitment[/TD]

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History

Lyn Fotball is a Norwegian football club based in Oslo. Until 2010, SFK Lyn had two football departments, one professional section and one amateur section. After the professional football department FK Lyn was bankrupted in 2010, the fans decided to support the amateur department, Lyn Fotball, instead. With the help of some of the old FK Lyn players, Lyn Fotball have won two consecutive promotions, and is playing in the Third Division. The team plays its home matches at Frogner Stadion, and the head coach is Finn Bredo Olsen.

Lyn was founded in 1896 and is one of the oldest football clubs in Norway, and they were founding members of the Football Association of Norway in 1902. The club won the league in 1964 and 1968 and have won the cup eight times. Lyn was also the initiator of the construction of Ullevaal Stadion, which has served as Norway's national stadium since 1927 and was Lyn's home ground from 1926 to 2010. Lyn has traditionally been perceived as representing the upper and middle classes, whereas the eastside club Vålerenga was seen as belonging to the workers.

The club enjoyed some success during the first half of the 20th century, securing many Cup titles, and despite failing to win the league title, had a certain stature in Norwegian football. The club's most recent period of success was during the 1960s, when they won four trophies and reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup.

That's what wikipedia said.

And now you can understand what I meant in the title by "true meaning of loyalty". There is in the squad a few players that have (at least IG) the level to play at the highest level in Norway but they've chosen to stay or come back at Lyn to help. I find that absolutely incredible and that's the reason - with also the fact that this is a previously prestigious club - why I've chosen this club over an other.

Setup

Game Version: FM12

League Loaded: Norway (to Second Division - 3rd tier)

Database: Small + All players based in Norway and all players from top european clubs loaded

One last thing. For the layout of this thread, I've been inspired by LondonCity's career thread. I hope he won't mind.

Reserved for future use.

Lyn Fotball - 2013 Season Preview

Board's expectations - Confidence

Norwegian Second Division: Achieve a respectable position. (media prediction: 4th)

Norwegian Cup: Reach the Second Round.

Transfer Budget: £20'003

Wage Budget: £33'930 per month (currently spending £0 per month)

My expectations: We'll try to get promoted. I don't want to spend too much time in the 3rd tier because, from previous experiences, I know that this division can become a nightmare financially so to be able to make the club grow, I have to secure promotion as soon as possible. In the Cup, since we enter it in the first round, it won't be too difficult to reach the board's expectations but it's not my main concern even though the financial prize can help us.

The budgets set are quite good at this level, of course I won't use the transfer budget since this is a youth only save. The club is currently spending nothing wage wise because the club was amateur last year so no one has any contract at the moment (that will change).

Squad - Players

Since I had to wait one season before taking control of a previously unplayable club, there was the risk that the most talented players in the squad left. Fortunately, only three players have left, the most notable being Mads Dahm who joined Tippeligaen club Viking.

Jonas Rygg is the best player in the squad. As long as he's here, I have high hopes for this club.

Endre Knudsen is an icon at the club. He is very important in my plans to make the club great again.

Edwin Kjeldner is a key player. His versatility will be very useful if we have a busy schedule.

Tom Sadeh is the most promising player I have at my disposal and he's already the best central midfielder I have.

Rune Hansen is one of the four players (Nadj, Milicevic and Eike) that have been brought in by the previous manager last season. He might be slow, but has really interesting technical and mental attributes that make him my best central defender and an important part of Lyn's future successes.

Note that the first 4 players I've mentioned above are heavily scouted by Tippeligaen clubs so I hope I can hold on to them. Finally, the good thing about a club that was previously under amateur status is that there's a lot of players in the squads - 33 at Lyn - so I have plenty of solutions in case of injuries.

Others - Finances

A few words about the finances. We start the season with a very good balance and I hope we can keep it that way.

If someone has some sort of advice about defending long throws, I would be very grateful. Mo, a very weak side, destroyed us by scoring 5 times with long, very long throws. We're out of the Cup, but on the bright side we did better than expected by the board and got £81K as prize money.