"You're not gonna believe this. He killed 16 Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator"

The Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The Iron Curtain was erected by the Soviet Union to block itself off and its dependent and central European allies from open contact with the west and non-communist areas. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances:

Member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Union as the leading country.

Member countries of the European Community and of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and associated countries with the United States as the leading country.

Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie which served as a symbol of the Curtain as a whole.

The events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland and continued in Hungary, German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Romania was the only country in Europe to violently overthrow its communist regime.

Whilst success has been fairly limited for clubs behind the Iron Curtain there have been a few standout teams. Most notably Red Star Beglrade who beat Marseille in the 1991 European cup in Bari, Italy and Steaua Bucharest's win against Barcelona in 1986. There have also been a few good international sides, Hungary in the 1950's led by one the games most notable names Ferenc Puskas. Then there was Czechoslovakia'S European championship win in 1976.

Unfortunately occasions like this are far and few between as Central Europe dominates both club and and international football. My aim during this save is to bring a shift of power to the East and have a club from behind the Iron Curtain become a major force in World football. Ideally I want to do this with a side made up of players from behind the iron curtain

I've excluded Finland as the amount of clubs I could manage was pretty limited anyway and I have no real desire to play there. Germany is loaded though obviously I can only take over a club from the East on. Because the German League has a very good rep I am only going to accept offers from a bottom division club if the opportunity arises just to get my reputation up a little, if I get promotion to the top flight with a German club then I shall leave immediately just to make sure it doesn't become too easy to get bigger clubs. The database is large with top division players from the Soviet and Eastern Bloc nations loaded as well.

I have subscribed to takeovers and facility upgrade information for every club eligible for the challenge, this is an experiment to see if any unusual takeovers occur (tycoon ect;) which could boost a nations coefficients, improve youth intakes and the like. I'll make a note of any such happenings in the post below.

I've started unemployed in June 2012 and am currently holidaying until I find a job that appeals to me, if I get to January without finding a club then i'll take the first one offered.

Győri ETO FC

Consortium takeover 11/10/12 - £3M pumped in on youth facilities.

good luck

At first look it seems like this is a club with a bit of potential, they were in the Ukrainian top flight in the 2010/11 season but were relegated the following year. Predicted 2nd they are currently in 5th place, 6 points away from 2nd spot and 20 games of the season to play.

There is only 1 full back at the club and the starting formation was 3-5-2. Straight away this is going to be a bit of a problem as I like to steady things before I go with 3 at the back but even though there's a budget to buy/bring in frees the finances are so poor i'd rather not touch them unless I really need to, so i'm going to try a 3-4-3 with attacking football and hope for the best

good luck

Cheers, think i'm going to need it.

Best of luck.

And the quote is from the Sopranos where Paulie and Christopher chase that Russian guy through the woods.

Best of luck.

And the quote is from the Sopranos where Paulie and Christopher chase that Russian guy through the woods.

Cheers

And you're right, watched a few last night and thought i'd nick a quote of there to use as my title

[video=youtube;zsxthFO-HWs]

good luck

Good luck behind the curtain. Seems very interesting to follow!

FC Sevastopol Winter Update

Transfers

Vincent Bikana

October/November

Table

Star Player

A decent enough start to life at Sevastopol and it could have been better if it wasn't for my 2 first choice keepers being injured for just over a month each and a couple of suspensions but overall i'm happy with the way we've played so far. Sergiy Kuznetsov has been getting amongst the goals and looks like a decent striker overall for this division.

I've not thought about my long term future at the club yet so i'm trying to make do with what I have so that the club doesn't end up in more financial trouble than necessary, also if I do take the club up and decide to stay on then that £100k could be invaluable as the club is predicted to be £2.7M in the red by the end of the season so there's going to be little room to move with as it is.

The first possible tycoon takeover could be happening in Poland with relegation threatened GKS Belchatow. This could be interesting if this goes through and they end up relegated as that message came up just after the winter window and talks are ongoing still, so no new players will be there until the summer. I'd certainly be interested in that job if the takeover happens.

Győri ETO FC A consortium took them over in October and invested £3M in the youth facilities. No ridiculous amounts of money pumped in for transfers however but if the board are focusing on youth then it could become an interesting club to look out for.

CSKA Sofia - Rumoured business tycoon takeover with the candidate looking to put £3M in to the club. As I understand it business tycoons are more about getting good sponsorship deals and the like rather than pump their own money in, without a title since 2008 a bit of financing could see them become the nations top club again.

Good luck with this.

FC Sevastopol End Of Season Update

Results

Show more

Table

Delighted to have gained promotion at the first attempt, what makes it this promotion stand out for me is i've struggled to get a good balance with 3 at the back on this FM and i've managed to nail it from pretty much day one with only 8 goals conceded.

I said earlier how I was unsure of what direction I will take at the end of the season. I have decided to leave, the club is in a bad financial situation and this would have been my budget for the year. Two key players contracts couldn't be renewed, one retired, my first choice keeper injured his cruciates in the final game of the season and is out until Febuary and two loanees returned to their clubs leaving me with an even thinner squad than I had and I feel that it would have been too much of a struggle. If this had been a promotion after two seasons i'd have been confident that i'd have had a squad capable of surviving but with only one player brought in during my time it was basically somebody else's scraps i'd have been working with and i'd rather jump than be pushed

The tycoon takeover didn't happen at GKS Belchatow, instead a local businessman took over. CSKA did get their takeover but i'm yet to see any evidence of him pumping money in so far.

Lokomotiv Moscow had a business tycoon takeover though and £8M has been put in to training facilities, again i'm yet to see any difference in transfer funds though.

Lots of other clubs have had either one or both of their set of training facilities upgraded and there's roughly 12 clubs who announced new stadiums or increased capacities, whilst things like this may not affect me directly i'm keeping an eye out because these things all go a slight way to building clubs up and after all my intention in this save is to see the East compete with the bigger nations.

Thanks for the comments so far, though my first job didn't last too long i'm hoping to make a long career out of this save.

Great first season Dexter , good luck finding a new club in the near future.

I've been hanging on for a while for the Bohemians 1905 job or any decent challenge in the Czech Republic but every time that job looked like it may become available they string a few unbeaten games together so I was prepared to take any job that wasn't an impossible situation (ie 10 points away from safety in a bottom division) then out of the blue this offer came in and obviously it was far too good to turn down, especially considering the club is pretty stable financially.

Show more

This is the situation i've got to try and overcome, not an impossible task by any means

Especially considering we have the top 2 at home in our remaining fixtures. I'm really looking forward to this challenge, i've got a good feeling about it because i'm pretty lucky to be offered it considering i've only had 8 months in management in nearly 2 seasons. I'm going to see how it goes but at the minute I can see myself staying here for a while unless i'm pushed.

Nice quick success.

Great start in the Ukraine and I think a good decision to leave the club. Now a big (biggest?) club from Hungary. Good luck with Videoton.

Nice quick success.

I've been luckier than Rafa Benitez with the 2 sides i've inherited so far Only difference is i've not ruined them long term

Videoton FC 2013/14 Review (Kind of)

It is hard to judge the team going by that short spell, the media prediction had us as 1st so there's obviously talent in the squad. I decided to stick with the same kind of philosophy as I had at Sevastopol in terms of not altering the formation the team was used to when I took over (normal 4-4-2 in this case) and I think that was a big key. I did however create 2 tactics straight away for the team to work on for this season so that they have plenty of time to get used to it as 4-4-2 isn't really my strong point, especially in Europe it never seems to work for me.

As I said when I took the job on 6 points with 9 games wasn't an impossible task considering we had to play the 2 main contenders at home, though both games were won with goals in the last 10 minutes. Those 2 games were the hardest we had on paper, Győri and Debreceni not only had to play each other (a 0-0 draw) they both had away games against teams in the top 5 which turned out to be where I took advantage and pulled away with 4 games left and the title won with a game left.

The cup was a decent achievement, we were 2-0 down from the cup quarter final home leg against Eger (game played before I took charge) so i'm going to take a bit of credit for that as it was a good comeback in the 2nd leg.

In terms of my rep that double would have done me the world of good but if i'm honest with myself half the job was done for me I just put the finishing touches to it, so this coming season I really want to make my own mark on the club and earn any achievements that come our way. That said, on paper my history so far is remarkable, i've barely spent a year between the 2 clubs and I have 2 titles and a cup win to show for it, not many people can say that.

A lot of my transfers are done (including 2 domestic talents) but i'll save that until the window is shut.

The first tycoon takeover appeared in 2014, given a £15M budget, becoming the richest club in Croatia overnight as well as overtaking Dinamo Zagreb could there be a swing in power away from the traditional big 2? Hadjuk Split have been struggling financially for years so there is certainly a good chance of challenging Dinamo for the title if they spend wisely. As well as the transfer kitty the new chairman put £5M for youth and training facilities so it certainly looks like they mean business. I'll keep an eye on them over the course of the season

Charmed life

Videoton FC July/August 2014/15 Review

Transfers

Szabo Salah Penska Luciano Jovanovic Furedi Diarrassouba

Results

Celtic Home - Celtic Away

After taking a big hit in the European rankings my CL run was much needed for the country not just myself. An easy 2 ties to start us off with was followed by Celtic (I always seem to get them in qualifiers). A good win at home and just about being able to hang on at Parkhead meant we made it through to the group. Not the kindest of draws obviously (City are champions of Europe) but there's a decent chance of making the Europa league after Christmas.

Pretty happy with my signings, non of them are world beaters yet but they all seem to have decent potential which is the only way I can go really because any half decent player doesn't want to join.

With £9.8M in the bank i'm pondering over whether I should invest in the facilities or not because i'm not sure if i'll stay after this season so the money would be good for any new manager, that being said a boost to facilities 2 wins in the group would help the club long term. I'll see if we can pick up 2 wins in the CL before I make that decision I think as that would cover the majority of any improvement.

Well done winning the league mate

It's a tough Champions league group but 3rd place is achievable for you.

Good read this, kutgw

Great start to your career. Oh, and a quality book too, since I started my career I bought it, and have absolutely raced through it.

Very good start to your career,hopefully you'll be able to get a result against København.

Videoton FC 2014/15 Mid Season Review

League Fixtures - League Table

Champions League Fixtures

Cup Fixtures

As you can tell it's been a very good first half of the season, through to the quarter finals of both domestic cups, through out of a tough Champions league group thanks to Kobenhavn pulling that extraordinary win off against Leverkusen and a last minute winner for us against City. What happened during that 90 minutes was unbelievable, we were only in a position to qualify from that group for a total of 4 minutes in the entire campaign. I can honestly say i've never had a situation like that happen on FM, I would have been happy with the win and a Europa spot but to get in to the knockout is amazing and even if we lose to Chelsea like expected in the next round we'd have still earnt more money than possible in the Europa as there's no way the side would have got through more than one knockout stage.

The amount of games we've played obviously means our league form has taken a bit of a hit but i've had tougher situations and got out of them so i'm not not worried at the minute.

Off the field and we've been subject of 2 failed takeover bids by a local businessman, nothing has happened in the past month so i'm assuming the takeover won't be by him now.

In Croatia RNK Split spent modestly in the summer, roughly £180K or so but they did bring a lot of freebies in before that so maybe league restrictions had a part, i'll keep an eye out at the end of Jan. They are 3rd in the league 5 points off top which isn't bad for them.

Thanks for the comments lads, really enjoying this now. I've been thinking as time progresses that i'd like to win every top playable division in the area, this includes loading Finland at some point and finish off in Germany. This isn't 100% set in stone but I feel if the laptop can handle it 15-20 years down the line (it should be ok if I remove the 2nd divisions of nations i'm not playing in) it can be done.

withnail316, i've enjoyed the book so far, it's a shame Czech Republic and Belarus doesn't look like getting a mention but it's been great. Would have been even better if he devoted a book to each nation.

Absolutely unbelievable result in the Champions league game vs. Chelsea, I was trailing 1-0 from the home leg and thought that was it it to be honest but wanted to keep the score reasonable in the 2nd leg, so set up with 3 CB's and WB's, in the pre match instructions tight marking > close down > hard tackling > show on to weaker foot on every player (also did this if they made substitutions) then when the game started clicked hassel opponents > get stuck in > get ball forward and we managed to do this to them

Each and every one of them worked themself to the ground but what a performance they put in. We were unlucky to be 1-0 down in the first leg if i'm honest, we had 60% of the ball and more shots on and off target (they scored one of their 2). I'm bloody chuffed

Fantastic result!

Videoton FC 2014/15 Review

League

Fixtures - Table - Graph

Cups

Champions League - Magyar Kupa - Final - Ligakupa - Final

Miscellaneous

Finances - Upgrades - Quadruple - Tomas Penksa - Walter - Sándor Torghelle - Nemzeti Bajnokság I - Videoton

An amazing season for us as we cleaned up domestically. It was far from easy to do it with 66 fixtures to play with a 21 man squad which meant at times I played very weakened teams in the league and certain cup matches but I knew once Europe was out of the way it could be done.

I'd invested in 2 Hungarian youth talents and 3 African talents (Africans are amongst quite a few exceptions in the no more than 5 EU ruling for the Nemzeti Bajnokság I) ready for the new season to add to the numbers in the squad and tied key players down to long term contracts with next season in mind and I have no doubt that these players can become key players for the club along with the 5 brought in last year, however that won't be under my reign.

I've looked at what i've achieved at the club in my season and a bit and already bar continental competitions I have nothing left to prove or achieve in the nation or with the club. In my short time at the club i've achieved

• 2 league titles
  
• 2 Magyar Kupas
  
• Ligakupa
  
• Szuperkupa
  
• Brought young players for the present and future of the club
  
• Improved the youth coaching twice to make it exceptional
  
• More than doubled the bank balance even after spending £7m on facilities and another £3m on players
  
• Brought the Nemzeti Bajnokság back to the level it was after a big drop last season
  
• Brought the club in to the top 100 in Europe
  

which is a a lot when you think of it and though we did have a good CL campaign i'd have been 10 better players short of winning it which could take up to 5 years depending if I could keep hold of people and considering i've won what I have domestically already and i'd brought new players in to improve that squad even more I don't feel this is the right time to be winning domestic competitions easily whilst waiting for the icing on the cake.

There's quite a few interesting jobs either available or close to being available

I've declared interest in the Hadjuk Split, Bratislava, Metalist, Jablonec, Cracovia and Rapid Bucharest jobs.

They spent just over £1M in the winter and finished 4th (would have been 4th but for head to head) It seems for now they are keeping faith with the manager, but with a proper summer to tie up dealings they should be one to watch this coming season.

By far the best offer on the table and the type of club I wanted to manage next. Cluj, Steaua and Rapid are probably quite away ahead of us at the minute and there isn't any pressure to compete for anything which means I can target kids and grow in to a side. The facilities will obviously help with that (though the best prospect was snatched by Bayern just before I took charge) and I saved a shortlist including a few Romanians from Videoton which i've gone straight in to.

Looking forward to a long spell here if i'm honest, the facilities are better than at Videoton and there always seems to be talents coming through which is what i'd rather try and aim for in terms of development and as I said there is no pressure at all with this job at least for this year so i'm free to try new tactics ect and not be overly result driven from day 1 like I had to be at the previous 2 clubs

Great start to your career already, also how do you sub to takeovers?

Thanks This job should take a bit longer to get some success but hopefully it'll happen

As for subs it's a bit of a pain at the minute as you have to do it manually for every single club. The quickest way i've found is to click on each division and on the league table right click any club you want to subscribe to and you'll get the option to subscribe. Once you've done every club you want to subscribe to you can go to your subscriptions > teams > select all > tick and untick the things you want or don't want like this

So how long do you hope to be with this club for? Thanks for that its always something that I like to try and keep an eye on.

Hoping to win the CL with Rapid, at the very least give it a good go. The facilities are in place to do it and i've just boosted the youth coaching up another notch so hopefully that'll bring a player or 2 in per year. I've brought a couple of Africans in that I nearly brought to Videoton already so hopefully they will turn out decent.

The subscription thing is a pain this year, in previous FM's you only needed to be subscribed to a league to get the takeover info but i'm sure i've read that it'll be going back to that way on the next patch.

I do like the training aspect this year its more to do but makes training players more in depth.

Some people don't like it but I think it's good. I never got the hang of training tbh so it was the one thing i'd have to download from elsewhere, now you can pretty much decide on the role you want a player to be and train him for it and i've found it to be superb, especially with regens the players seem to develop a bit quicker.

I've got a lot of deadwood in the squad (including the b and c teams) that needs to go but nobody will take the majority so i'm going to let contacts that are in the last year run down and then see what's left next year.

Cluj and Rapid have had bad starts to the season whereas ourselves and Steaua have been strong, not had any of the big clubs yet but early signs are good for us, the next game at Rapid should give us an idea of how good we are.

FC Dinamo București 2015/16 Mid Season Review

Transfers

Mabena - Mihaila - Mohammed

Results/Table

A better than expected first half of the season with Mabena taking to life in Romania like a duck to water. Matei's refusual to sign a new contract and then Kaparty meeting the release clause meant that we only had one natural winger left at the club so rather than go for a narrow diamond or 3CB'S and WB's which would be my usual default tactic for situations like that I decided to have a go at the Brazilian 4-2-2-2 and I must say on the whole it's been superb, bar the odd the odd game it's been tight whilst creating lots of chances and producing fast attacking football, in fact i'd say it is probably the most balanced tactic i've made since FM 09 and Mabena is thriving with the amount of through balls played to him and luckily the patch update doesn't seem to stifled it.

How we go in the second half of the season is going to be interesting, we've got a 6 point cushion but have to go to Cluj, Rapid and Steaua and as you can see from the table Steaua are scoring for fun, it's the defence that let them down at times (i've seen a few 2-2's two 4-3's a 5-4 and a few 3-2's)

Brought one more player in January to add to the midfield, Andy Lolo should be able to improve us significantly

Loving this, done so well with Videoton, shame you left in a way as they looked like they had a big future. Interesting to see your updates on tycoons too.

Thanks Leaving Videoton was a tough decision. I only made my mind up to do it at the very end and that was because of the way we were nowhere near full strength a lot of the time domestically we still cleared up, I felt I couldn't go through 2-3 years at least of that before becoming CL contenders. Maybe if the youth recruitment wasn't so tough to improve (or was already at a half decent level) then i'd have stuck at it so we'd have a good chance of producing home grown talent to keep my interest. At least at Dinamo everything is a lot better and i've been able to improve what was already good youth coaching to exceptional and the youth recruitment is pretty good so I can go down that path with this job.

If time allows I wouldn't mind another crack at Hungary with someone like Honved but we'll see how that pans out as I want to go to Poland and Czech Republic at least and i've never managed properly in either Slovakia or Russia and this is probably the best time to try and do that for a few seasons as i've never been a journeyman type before but this time i'm really in to it as I have a goal

The finance thing is interesting to me too, I feel the updates about that on this save play a big part of the story because I want all the countries to improve as time progresses not just where I manage (wouldn't it be great if I get to 2030-2040 and the East dominates Europe? ) and the signs of that so far are good because plenty of the smaller clubs in all the iron curtain nations are spending money on training/youth facilities and stadium upgrades.

FC Dinamo București 2015/16 Review

Cup Run - Cup Final

Miscellaneous

Finances - Mabena - Liga I Bergenbier Rankings Dinamo Rankings - Top Rated Divisions Behind The Iron Curtain - Top Rated Clubs Behind The Iron Curtain

We made hard work of it at the end but we managed to get over the finishing line to take the title. Unfortunately that stumble meant I had to play key players in the final game against Cluj with the cup final 3 days later. Typically we picked up 3 injuries and a suspension in that fixture and it cost us dearly in the final. I've been going through lots of scout reports over the summer to make sure our squad is stronger this season so we don't find ourselves in that situation again and also to help with the extra fixtures we'll have due to playing in Europe. Thankfully Romanian football has been steadily growing and we go straight in to the group stage which is a god send as it means we can get the first 8-9 league fixtures out of the way without having to rotate.

As i'm still scouting (spent nearly 3 hours reading reports/setting new assignments/negotiating deals so far) i'll do my transfers in my next post.

My youth intake brought up 2 prospects Balaban and Barsan. Balaban has already played in the first team and will get as much experience as possible this season.

Split finished 3rd in Croatia, 18 points behind 2nd place and spent just over £6M. They continue to improve facilities too.

FC Sevastopol - After finishing 7th and 10th in the Vyshcha Liha they finished rock bottom last season and return to the Persha Liha.

Videoton FC - They finished 3rd in the division and after being knocked out of the Champions League they made the Europa group stage picking up 5 points.

As you can see from the tables I posted above The Nations are slowly improving on their coefficients, Belarus and Slovenia in particular have been rising quickly as has Hungary who have rose roughly 35 places in the past 2 seasons. The result of this is i'm seeing a lot of clubs in these 3 nations improving facilities more than any other and the same goes with stadium expansions. I'm not sure if these nations are getting increased prize/tv money but the growth of the leagues have been remarkable.

All in though no club from the area has got past the quarter finals of the CL and Shaktar are the only ones to make a semi final appearance in European competition (Europa) since the game start. The signs of improvement in the future on this is good though.

Great season winning the title, shame on the cup final but the title was the main thing!

Cheers mate, the cup final was a bitter one but Gloria Bistrița have become a bit of a bogey team for us now. I couldn't be bothered to write out a mid season review, but hoping to get this season out of the way before the United match and have a report up after, it's been a bit of a strange season so far though.

Great work to win the league. Good to see the nations getting a little better too.

Another club, another title

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FC Dinamo București 2016/17 Review

Transfers

Belu - Feies - Kalabic - Koffi - Rosu - Savolainen - Siedchlag -

Table Heading In To Final Day

Champions League

Fixtures - Table

Cup Run

Europa League

Ajax Home - Ajax Away

Brugge Home - Brugge Away

Lyon Away - Lyon Home

Dortmund Home - Dortmund Away

Spurs Route To Final (Also Knocked Out Of CL Group Stage)

Miscellaneous

Mihaila - Top Scorer - Finances

We had a very strange season in all honesty, we started shockingly bad (how we lost 4-1 in the cup and 4-0 to Steaua I still can't answer) and couldn't get any consistency going. The sale of Mabena was a bit of a blow but we got a good price for him and with Koffi being targeted by me from my Videoton days I felt I got a good (potentially better) replacement for a good price and the freedom to spend the Mabena money in the winter to improve certain areas of the team. I ditched the box formation in favour of -4-2-3-1 and it turned our season round, though another big turning point in the season was Laurintinu Reghecampf leaving Steaua to take the Anji job because up until that point they were racing away with it.

The Europa run was unexpected considering how poor we were in the CL and lucky that Hannover were just as bad to even get to that stage. That said the new players and formation dug in. What made it more remarkable was that we had a crazy amount of injuries to important players over the last 6 weeks which meant the squad was run to the ground towards the end, though as you can see above the league win was lucky they stuck at it and got rewarded for their efforts

Only one talent from the youth team this year and that was Moraru

Split finished 4th in Croatia, 14 points off the top and spent just over £800k which is a big reduction on last year. Their points tally and the gap behind the leaders did improve on last season though so it's a bit difficult to tell where they stand at the minute, but despite finishing a place lower it does seem like they are slowly progressing.

FC Sevastopol - Their return to the Persha Liha seen them finish a disappointing .

Videoton FC - They finished top this season by 4 points, it's good to see that some of the signings I made for them have improved a lot this year

A bit of a mix, quite a few nations went down slightly but there were big jumps for Serbia and Slovakia (out of picture but a rise from 80th to 54th is quite a big jump)

Sloga Kraljevo Expansion - This is an odd one, if it was that much of an increase in a bigger nation i'd have understood it, but as soon as their promotion was secured they announced this, there's no signs of heavy funding in previous years and even the bigger teams in that nation don't often get over 30k, i'll be keeping an eye out over the years because all I can assume is that the board is ambitious.

Another club, another title

I've been lucky with the clubs i've got to be fair This season just gone I thought we'd end up second, Steaua did us a big favour winning 1-0 on the final day to help their city rivals while Cluj collapsed to stop their city rivals

I've spent big this summer to make sure we don't struggle like that again.

FC Dinamo București 2017/18 Mid Season Review

Transfers

Filipe - Matel - Barbu - Penksa - Stanicu

Champions League Fixtures

Champions League Group

Cups

Good start to the season in general for us. It took a few games to get going but since then we've played really well with Ovidiu Mihaila and Koffie both amongst the goals. I didn't want to make the same mistakes as last season so decided to spend quite heavily for this league in the summer, some of you may remember Penska after I previously bought him at Videoton, well he was unhappy and I nipped in and got him for a bargain. The 2 wingers are a big improvement for us in Europe mostly, though sometimes Koffie is out there and is just as effective.

We have Spurs next in the CL (just a few days off that game now) and i'll be giving it a real go as i've just realised that my contract is up at the end of the season (I thought it was another year) and I don't really want more than another year here, so unless I can get that then i'll be leaving in the summer. Obviously beating them in the Europa final gives us hope, especially as we've improved from last year. I also want to win the Romanian cup this year, bar the Romanian supercup it's the only domestic trophy i've been in that I haven't won and it'll be a black mark against me if I don't get it. Not bothered about supercups obviously

FC Minsk are on the verge of being taken over by a Chilean Tycoon with £45M to spend, to add to this i've been linked with that job for the past month and was considering taking it even before this

No sooner had I typed that and pressed continue it went through:eek:

Love the concept of this career, Dexter! Great success so far

Cheers mate

I may actually stick at this job for another year if I get offered a contract, been playing about with a 3-2-5 formation and it's unbelievable so far. I'll make the final decision at the end of the season though.