[FM14] Stephen Smith: An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith: An Unexpected Journey

After having a bit of a nightmare in the past few weeks with FM saves, I think I've settled on my new career, and having played a couple of seasons, I'm confident enough to get started on posting. I toyed with the idea of restarting the tetradecagon, but I don't want to throw myself into such a structured career at this stage. Back in FM13, I started with a Tetradecagon, moved onto a regular journeyman, then attempted another tetradecagon afterwards. So, as you can probably guess, it's journeyman time.

This time though, I'm going to do things a little differently. I started ticking all the usual leagues, but none of them really jumped out at me as the places I'd really want to be in. In FM13, I went on a run of managing FC Bayern, Real Madrid and then Barcelona, all in the space of four or five years, and I hope to do similar later on in this one, but right now I'm loading all the leagues that I've never really experienced before. All South American leagues are loaded, except Argentina, and then I've added all the Scandinavian leagues, as despite a lot of people managing there on this board, I have never, ever done so myself. Switzerland and Belgium also make the cut - the former I've never been to, but the latter I have, and had great fun.

So my goals for this career...well, there aren't really any. I'll be travelling around, pretty much attempting to top the hall of fame and set down a marker for any future managers I add to the save. I won't be actively avoiding international management, so if the right role comes up, I'll give it a go. Not at the same time as a club job though, unless it's sensible. Other than that, I won't be doing much in the way of rules.

So on we go...

Targets

- Win a Libertadores Title with Penarol

- Win a World Cup with Scotland

- Win the Champions League with Partick Thistle

- Manage in every one of the nations I haven't managed in before (1/11)

- Win the top league title in every nation I haven't managed in before (0/11)

History

Stats

An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith

With a whole load of new and exciting leagues loaded, I set about getting started with my first job. Of course, not just any job would do, as I'm usually very picky about who I start with. Given I started as a Sunday league rep though (you know the story by now, poor Stephen Smith, boy from Maryhill, blah blah blah), there was a limit to who wanted to take me on. Some absolutely massive jobs were available, having started in February 2014 (Swedish league start), but of course they were far out of my reach.

Then in came AC Oulu.

Have to say, it's a very pleasant looking place, at least from the all-seeing eye of Google Maps. I've given a sense of scale just above, and it's fair to say we're in the "bloody cold" section of the World. It can get quite cosy in the summer, but that lasts for about an hour before turning back to snowy, cold winters and spring, with January averaging just 18 hours of sunshine in the entire month. They play cup games in January. They must really hate the cup.

An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith

AC Oulu - February 2014

The top line about the club is pretty much shown here. We have very little history, and currently lie in the second tier of Finnish football. We have decent enough training facilities, but let's just say I won't be relying on youths during my time here, without significant investment first.

Squad-wise, I'm actually pretty impressed. It could most certainly be worse, and we're lucky to have some players who are well suited to this level. But I've shown you our best player above - you may have noticed he's a little older than most. Forty-two to be exact. Mika Nurmela is also a director at the club, which is probably the strangest dual role I have seen in FM. He's well travelled, and I'll be relying on his box-to-box skills (yes...the forty-two year old is a box to box midfielder...) to bring us success.

Even though we're semi-professional, our finances are looking pretty good. Projected to make a considerable profit, this seems to be a well-run club. It helps that most players change hands for no fee in this country, and that most players are on very reasonable contracts, but that could all change.

An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith

AC Oulu - 2014 Season

Transfers

My thinking was well and truly "ATTACK" in my first transfer window, but that was to fill a few gaps in my preferred tactic. All four of these players will slot straight into the starting eleven.

Suomen cup (Finnish FA Cup)

We progressed through two rounds at the expense of lower league opposition, but that was where it ended as Premier League RoPS beat us in the last 22. Don't ask me why there's only 22 sides. It's an odd system. I assume it involves complicated byes. Anyway, we're out, but we've done alright for a kick-off. These matches happen before the league itself has even started, so with that out of the way, we can concentrate on what matters.

Ykkönen (Finnish First Division)

It was all going so well until we faced OPS at home. We crumbled from there, losing three in a row, and after that we struggled to build up any kind of form, slumping to a disappointing final day defeat to Jippo.

Still, for a side expected to be around the bottom of the league, we didn't do too badly, finishing fourth overall. We could have done better though, and conceivably finished second if we were more consistent. Annoyingly, the league is a one-up, one down system, so promotion is only going to come if we're champions. Could be a tough slog.

End of Season Stats

End of Season Awards

Good to see my own signing win the fans over and grab the player of the year award. Well-deserved too, as he spent the year making that AMC spot his own.

The best 11 shows the sort of formation I was playing this year. It's actually not representative, as I played with a sweeper instead of a second center back to allow us to play higher, but it's pretty close. The one sentence sum-up of our season from that screenshot alone would be "great going forward, pretty average at the back". If we can shore that up, we should be right up there next year.

The team of the season contained a good spine of Oulu players. Jaksic added the league player of the year to his fans title (as well as goal of the season, with "a header"...wow), and Melarti won the top goal-scorer award

Finances

Continuing to improve.

End of Season Confidence

The board are delighted, and so am I. Great to see the team step up in my first season, but we can't stop there. If we improve upon 4th next season, I'll be happy, but top spot and promotion is what we really want.

An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith

AC Oulu - 2014 Season

Pre-season

Just a little extra note to show you how long the off-season is. The board suggested a 20 week pre-season, which I thought was a little excessive, so extended this by 5 weeks. The players may come back several stone heavier, but 15 weeks is going to be time enough to put them through their paces.

A top-half finish is more than fair in my opinion. We managed it last year, and I'd be devastated if we regressed. The money we've been given is probably good enough too.

Transfers

As you can see, I put a lot more emphasis on defence this window, including bringing in the only available sweeper in the game it seems. It's a woefully under-represented position in the db, at least for available players at the current moment, so Kimmo Miettinen was the best I could do. We should be able to get at least a season out of him. The rest of the positions should fill out a squad which is starting to look pretty tasty.

Suomen cup (Finnish FA Cup)

Again it was the 6th round we reached, put out by the first Premier League opposition we faced. Would have been nice to have advanced, but I won't lose any sleep over it.

Ykkönen (Finnish First Division)

A much better performance this time around, but once again we let ourselves down. You could end up distilling our season down into three games, or more accurately, three losses. We lost to eventual Champions FC Haka late on, which handed them a big advantage, and then lost two crucial games late in the season to seal a title for our rivals. If we'd won the Haka game and one other, we would have been Champions. Fine margins.

Still though, I remain very happy with the side. That final day win against Ilves shot us above them in the table, and put an extra bit of shine on our performance. It doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it finished the season on a massive high, and now we know we just need to go one place better next year.

End of Season Review

Do you know why we lost the league though? I'll show you...

Here's a list of players on loan away from our club. See those star ratings? The top four players were absolute nailed on starters for us, and are now performing admirably in the league above us. What happened was I went on holiday between games, and in that week, the board decided to go a bit mental. They tied up loan deals for four first team stars, and had them packed away before I made it back, with no option to recall. I wondered if it was something that happened in real life in Finland, but on raising a bug, it seems not. I managed to stop some more from going by explicitly saying they weren't to be loaned, but I think it's fair to say that this cost us the league.

Anywho, I was still offered another contract, and I gladly accepted. I'll stick around until promotion, then see how we get on in the big leagues before I think about moving on. I also asked to find a parent club in my contract negotiations, and to my surprise they accepted. Of course, the response was predictable weeks later

Kimmo Mietennen also retired at the end of the season. Good luck to the guy, as he was pretty solid for us in his short time here. Well, he only managed a low 6s average rating, but damnit he's a sweeper, and that means something!

Melarti grabbed the fans player of the year award, and deserved it. Our collective average ratings on the best eleven now have more of an even spread, but flanks seem to be a problem, particularly at full-back. Still, we were just a couple of different results away from the title, so I'm not too bothered.

End of Season Confidence

Not quite as glowing as last time, but I'm pretty far from being in trouble job-wise.

An Unexpected Journey

Stephen Smith

AC Oulu - 2014 Season

Pre-season

The longest pre-season we've had, and a mostly good one. Only two defeats, and that was to higher rep clubs.

Transfers

This is it. These are the signings I've brought in to hopefully push us over that line and into the Premier League. Very happy again with the signings, and thanks to finding a workaround for the board sending players out on loan, we should be good for keeping the squad together.

Suomen cup (Finnish FA Cup)

Once again, we fall at the 6th round to higher division opposition. We may as well not enter the cup to be honest, such is our performance.

Ykkönen (Finnish First Division)

And that's how you do that. We kept our rivals at arms length throughout the season, just far enough away that when we dropped points, it didn't affect us too much. With two games still to go, we sealed the title, and party could begin. It probably should have been more comfortable if I'm honest - a few of those defeats and draws were head-scratchers, and should have been turned into three points. If we'd done that, we would have absolutely walked the league. Still, six points is quite a gap anyway, so I'm not too upset. We'll be in the Premier League next season. Yaldy.

End of Season Review

As the season ended, it was clear that the season, from our perspective, was all about one man. Tom Melarti pretty much clean-sweeped the awards, winning Fans Player of the Year, First Division Player of the Year, Most Assists and even set a record for highest average rating. Of course he couldn't have done it without the players behind him, but still, what a player. His stats may not make you gasp with excitement, but at this level he's deadly.

Once again I signed a new contract to give me one new year. My plans all depend on how things go next season. If we're really successful in our maiden season, I'll probably stick around. Similarly, if we go down pathetically, I probably will too. But the middle-ground, I'm not sure. I've got one more year at least, so I'll be giving it a good go.

I'm not sure how much money being in the top league will bring in, but we're in pretty good shape no matter what. Proud of managing to make some success financially, as it's not something I'm usually known for.

End of Season Stats