The Scandinavian Shankly Vol II: breaking the stranglehold on the Iberian Peninsula

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EDIT: This didn't work out when I tried it earlier on this year, simply because my Norwegian game had more life in it than I thought at the time. I'm now absolutely certain that I've wrung every last trace of life out of that save, so I'm going to give this another go...

Evening all

After my last thread The Scandinavian Shankly: From paupers to kings came to a natural conclusion, I've been contemplating where I go from here. In the end I couldn't bring myself to leave the club I had built and watch the AI destroy it, so I decided instead it was time to start afresh.

So what's the plan then? Well, last time I wanted to make a lower-league Scandinavian club the biggest side in Europe, which of course meant overthrowing the big clubs in the region first. This time I'd like to do something similar in southwest Europe, although as the big clubs are so much bigger that should be even more of a challenge. I'll be starting as a tiny semi-pro club and my primary destination will be Portugal, although I'd expect the save to evolve over time, so I'm not necessarily committing to one club in one nation.

Did you know?

The first ever season of the Primeira Liga was in 1934-35

78 out of 80 league titles have been won by Benfica (33) Porto (27) and Sporting (18)

Belenenses (45-46) and Boavista (2000-01) are the only other winners

The details

FM13.3 - no edits

Leagues loaded: Portugal (Second Division and above) Spain (Second Division B and above) Italy (Serie C2 and above - just because I love FM in Italy!) Denmark on view only (Second Division and above - simply as it is the homeland of the manager I will be using)

Medium database, 24,000 players.

Johan Andersen is again in the hotseat, only this time his second nationality is Portuguese and not Norwegian.

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FC Vizela

(with thanks to wiki)

Futebol Clube de Vizela is a Portuguese football club based in the Vizela Municipality, Braga District. Founded in 1939, it currently plays in the third division, holding home games at the all-seater Estádio do Futebol Clube de Vizela, which has a capacity of 6,565.

Vizela joined the Braga Football Association on 1 August 1940. Twenty-six years later, the first trophy came, with the conquest of the Taça de Campeão Nacional after defeating Tramagal Sport União (5–3). The club spent many years of it's history in the third division, although in 1984 it was promoted to the top flight for the first - and only - time in their history. They were relegated after just one season.

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(From FM)

The club is expected to finish in the top half of the Segunda Divisão Portuguesa Norte, with the media predicting a 5th placed finish. The club is valued at £625,000, with 400 season ticket holders, adequate training facilities and basic youth facilities.

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FC Vizela

I've signed a one year deal at the club on £575p/w, with a brief of achieving a top-half finish. The league set-up suggests that promotion will be a tough ask even if we have a great season, but I'll learn to walk before I can run. The Segunda Divisão Portuguesa is split into three different leagues (although this has changed for 2013-14 in real life) which are the North, Central and South, with each division consisting of 16 teams. The sides which finish top of each respective league meet in a three-way play off, with two of them getting promoted, while the other stays down.

Inevitably for a club at this level I don't have any transfer budget at all, and our wage budget is £2,600p/with about £100p/w of unused wages. The bank is pretty empty, with just £17,000 in the coffers so it goes without saying that finances are going to be tight. Luckily the club at least owns the stadium, and I'm pretty sure we won't have to spend any money on it for a good while (despite how it looks in the picture above!)

My first job will be to add some members of the backroom team who I can trust, but I'm not convinced we can afford to fire anybody at this stage. FWIW, I'll be playing this in an LLM style, so I'll be relying on the job centre for all my staff. My Youth Team Manager, who seems to have the best judgement of all of those at the club at the moment but is still woeful, has provided this report of what we have at the club on my first day:

Although I'm taking this report with a pinch of salt, we do have some strength up front, with 4 strikers who could all do a job at this level. I hope I'm not forced into allowing a couple of them to leave to free up some funds, but the four of them earn £700pw between them, which is a little over a quarter of our total budget.

Right then, on we go.

It looks very interesting! Good luck!

Good luck dude. Sadly I can't manage my beloved Leiria, so I'll be rooting for you!

Good luck, it's going to be a tough division to get out of

Looking forward to following

Best of luck with FC Vizela

This is what I get for reading bottom to top not the other way round. Welcome to Portugal!

It looks very interesting! Good luck!

Good luck dude. Sadly I can't manage my beloved Leiria, so I'll be rooting for you!

Good luck, it's going to be a tough division to get out of

Looking forward to following

Best of luck with FC Vizela

This is what I get for reading bottom to top not the other way round. Welcome to Portugal!

Cheers, all. Hope to get my first update in tonight.

What everyone else says - will be watching on with interest after your work at Bodo/Glimt

Good luck here. I am looking forward to seeing your progress! Think it could be pretty sharp to start with but then the mammoth task of dethroning the three big clubs could take a while.

I know you have the patience and talent to do it though.

P.S. Sent you a quick PM....if you get time to reply that would be great!

Good to see this.

Good luck with this.

Good luck here. I am looking forward to seeing your progress! Think it could be pretty sharp to start with but then the mammoth task of dethroning the three big clubs could take a while.

I know you have the patience and talent to do it though.

P.S. Sent you a quick PM....if you get time to reply that would be great!

Cheers, man. I think this save could take a fair bit of time to achieve anything really, but that's exactly what I was looking for.

I've responded to your PM too fella.

Good to see this.

Good luck with this.

Looking forward to getting stuck into it, although I'd expect it to be a slow-burner to start with.

Good luck man, if you manage to do anywhere near as well as you did in Norway this will turn out good for the folk of Vizela!

Good luck man, if you manage to do anywhere near as well as you did in Norway this will turn out good for the folk of Vizela!

Cheers, fella.

Good luck with this. Slow and steady progress may be the order of the day here

Cheers, man. I think this save could take a fair bit of time to achieve anything really, but that's exactly what I was looking for.

I've responded to your PM too fella.

Thanks for that, I appreciated the response. I have started a save on here on FM13, in Russia of all places. Tough going to start with though as I'm using the TC instead of sliders.

So this thread is alive and kicking seven months after it started. I've started again at the same club as I still like the idea, and now I'm ready to give it a real crack with Bodø/Glimt well and truly out of my system!

Excellent!

Really looking forward to following this thread, one country in over 20 years of playing FM / CM I have never managed is Portugal , might even be tempted to start on myself on FM14!!

Should be a bigger challenge for you here, the money is rubbish in lower leagues in Portugal plus you have the big 3 plus a few other sides that can turn out decent after a few years to contend with

Cheers for the support, lads. Long pre season as I took over in June, but will be updating later.

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FC Vizela

Season preview 2012/13

Segunda Divisão Portuguesa Norte

Board expectations: top half finish

Media prediction: 5th

Transfer budget: £0

Wage budget: £2,690p/w (£35p/w under budget)

Transfers

A busy summer, although when you're bargaining with three cans of silly string and a pot of badger grooming gel, it can be something of a hard sell. Of course I have no idea how good the other sides are going to be this year at this level, but we're definitely stronger than when I took over. Gomes and Vilela were allowed to leave as they were both pretty average although their wages didn't reflect that. I don't really have a stand out new arrival, but I'm happy we should be OK defensively and up front now, but the less said about midfield the better!

Well that's not gone well at all. We started off strongly, with a good performance in the cup and our first league game was a good display too. We were lacking teeth in our first home game, although we didn't play especially badly. Next up though was the big shock, defeat in the second round of the cup against a side a division lower, albeit on penalties. We finished the game with 9 men after a red card and an injury, but we still should have been good enough to progress. Boavista was a real kick in the teeth as we fell apart in the second half. From 2-0 up and cruising, they just got on top of our midfielders and ran us ragged. As for the final game of the month - one of my worst displays on FM ever.

Oh, and the board are already having doubts...

Links are not working, otherwise looks promising.

Oh snap, a really poor start, mate. Your next action?

Links are not working, otherwise looks promising.

Not sure what I've done there, but thanks for letting me know.

Oh snap, a really poor start, mate. Your next action?

I'm no quitter, mate. Hopefully things improve next month...

Shame about the bad start, hopefully you can turn it around as it's important to get out of this division as quickly as possible with the lack of money

A much better month sees us climb safely up into midtable. It's amazing the difference a team meeting, a tactical tweak and a couple of fines for poor performance can make! We got a little lucky with the first game of the month, and a poor pass back in stoppage time allowed us to grab a winner, although we did deserve it. Next up came an excellent 1-0 win, and I'd like to take a few more of those between now and the end of the season. The third game of the month should have been 6 or 7 nil, but the way the season is going I can't complain at all, but the final game was something of a disappointment.

This month has appeased the board somewhat, and the main lesson I've learned is that we have a solid first XI, but our squad players are generally terrible. Hopefully I can do something about that in the next transfer window. The form of Mamadu Camara has to be mentioned here too: 8 goals in 10 games is outstanding, so I think it's only a matter of time before bigger clubs are sniffing around him.

Shame about the bad start, hopefully you can turn it around as it's important to get out of this division as quickly as possible with the lack of money

Yeah, money is very tight, but there's no way we're going up this year with this squad. The problem is a lack of wiggle room with wages, and nobody wants to take some of our poor players. I've identified about £700 a week in wages I can allocate to new players, but until I can move the duff players on I'm stuck.

The good form continues into November, with the aftermath of that 4-0 hammering in September being 7 wins in 8 games. We're looking strong across the park, although a short injury list is the reason for that. The board have agreed to up our wage budget by £300p/w too, so my terrible scouts are looking to find me a bargain or two. Midfield needs strengthening, so hopefully I can find somebody there who will improve us - although the less said about the financial side of the club, the better.

Mamadou Camara and Vitor Hugo have been the stars for us this last couple of months, and they now have 18 goals between them for the season. Not bad at all at this stage.

Can I ask if the slight change in format from the last thread works OK for those of you reading? It's not as much detail as before, but it's helping me get through the season a little quicker (as does only having three nations loaded!)

Yeah mate, now the table looks great! Keep it going!

Two wins and two draws is a decent return out of December. We're slipping a little defensively at the moment which is why we've conceded so many goals, but I'm happy enough with where we are in the table. While we are only one point off top spot, I still think promotion is beyond us, especially as a couple of injuries leaves us short of any quality at all. Still had no joy selling any of our low quality players, although I do have three new arrivals in January.

Yeah mate, now the table looks great! Keep it going!

Certainly looks a lot better than it did in the first few weeks of the season!

A mixed month for us sees us drop off the pace a little. The victory against Vilaverdense briefly put us on top of the league before dropping points again against Joane. That defeat was particularly hard to take as we'd played really well, yet a 93rd minute goal robbed us off a deserved point. It didn't help that I was serving a touchline ban, mind. The second defeat of the month was to be expected, although we did concede four in the last 17 minutes, which was rough to take. Still, I'd have taken 3rd after 21 games at the start of the season.

Two points out of 9 sees us fall well adrift of the promotion race, and our worrying habit of conceding poor goals is really hurting us. The Varzim defeat was tough, but it'll take a better goalkeeper and central defenders to really cut that out. The two draws were frustrating, although we looked dead and buried at 3-1 down in the first one, so I can't fault the character of the squad. I'm trying to identify a few new talents for next year, but I'm expecting a smaller budget to work with - and of course, that also depends on the board extending my contract.

The finances are really on the decline now, we're £190,000 in the red and there's very little I can do about it. Hopefully the chairman has deep pockets...

Not a lot to shout about in the youth intake. I still don't trust my assistant, and using my own judgement I can see even the better players in here are pretty rubbish. Oh well, it's to be expected.

Three very different games this month, but four points out of 9 officially rules us out of the promotion race. We were simply woeful in the first game, but a team meeting led to an improvement in the next two. We were desperately unlucky not to win at Amarante, but a first win in 6 moves us back into fourth place in the league.

I'm not sure if I've done enough to earn a new contract at this stage, however. I've asked the board twice for a new deal and been given short shrift on both occasions. If I am sacked it will be pretty harsh I think, but I've seen worse!

We finish the season then with a decent undefeated run, and I was really pleased with our performance on the final day. Camara and Hugo finally found their shooting boots again, and finish the season with 38 goals between them. We should probably have won all three games in April, but a little experimentation on my part probably went against us, especially in the draw with Chaves. Still, a really decent month all in all.

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FC Vizela

Season summary 2012-13

League (Segunda Divisão Portuguesa Norte)

Media prediction: 5th (of 16)

Finished: 4th

Cups

Taça de Portugal: 2nd round

Top scorers

Mamadu Camara: 32 appearances (32 starts): 20 goals (19 in the league)

Vitor Hugo: 31 appearances (31 starts): 18 goals (17 in the league)

Positives

A reasonable first year, then. Considering how we started, there was a time where I thought I'd not see the end of the campaign at Vizela, but a slight tweak of the system brought a big improvement. We're not playing the attractive football I wanted us to, but the direct approach fits the players we have. We have the nucleus of a good squad here too, so if I can ship out six or seven this summer and add to the squad, we should be a little closer to top spot next year. I'm delighted that our front two were able to score so many, but I do need to find a back up for each of them. Both strikers went through dry patches, but our lack of options meant both had to play despite their poor form. That can't continue if we are to get promoted soon, especially with only one promotion spot.

Concerns

Other than a few squad issues, my biggest concern is over money. We finish April with a debt of nearly quarter of a million pounds, and with no obvious way of making money, I fear our tiny budget will be reduced again next year. Unfortunately, the only players at the club worth any money at all are our loan players, so I can't even raise anything through player sales. Of course, my other concern is the lack of a contract offer coming my way, so we'll have to see if I get to build on my plans.

Ambitions

If I'm here next year, I'd like to see us a little closer to top spot. I think it will take 60 points to get promoted next year, and although that is perhaps a step too far, I do think we can cut that 12 point gap.

Surprise of the season

Crashing out of the cup against lower league minnows.

Player of the season

TBC

Attendances

Lowest attendance: 492 v Alcanense in the Taça de Portugal

Highest attendance: 779 v Tirsense in the Segunda Divisão Portuguesa Norte

Average attendance: 658

Finances

£242,380

Good season in the end, shame you can't do much about the finances It could be one of those situations where you will have to wait until you get a takeover and hope the new board wipe the debt out before you push on

Oh snap, the finances look screwed but then again it's always the case in Portugal and Italy. Any chance of having money-spinning friendlies (Reserve sides of major clubs can bring decent profit) during league gaps?

Hope you can push on despite the dire finances.

Good season in the end, shame you can't do much about the finances It could be one of those situations where you will have to wait until you get a takeover and hope the new board wipe the debt out before you push on

Oh snap, the finances look screwed but then again it's always the case in Portugal and Italy. Any chance of having money-spinning friendlies (Reserve sides of major clubs can bring decent profit) during league gaps?

Hope you can push on despite the dire finances.

Might just have to be one of those rare saves where I just act like a football manager and leave the financial side to the board, I think. Usually I like to stay right on top of the financial situation, but it would seem that my hands are tied here. Still, if I can get rid of some of the dead wood, a small budget isn't the end of the world.

As for the friendlies with reserve sides, that'll be difficult as most big clubs have B teams who are involved in the pyramid. I'll try and organise a cup competition pre-season though, and if that gets picked up by TV stations it may help us a little.