Guest Darius Basu Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 As the title specifies, this will be my 2nd journeyman career that will be documented here in FMCU. The first one was a relative success (My Journey into Wilderness - A Tetradecagon Career) but a slight loss of interest, a reluctance to leave Pumas and the chance of doing a somewhat similar journeyman career on FM14 finally became a bit too much to resist. Unlike that one though, this save will have nothing whatsoever to do with a tetradecagon challenge. There's a managerial change this time around as well with Connor O'Halloran being replaced by Andy Murphy. Career aims:- 1. Start a career in Eastern Europe or Israel 2. Win a 2nd division title 3. Manage a club in Serbia - preferably Partizan Belgrade 4. Win at least 3 league titles in Eastern Europe 5. Manage Liverpool (My favourite club) 6. Get Liverpool back on their perch 7. Win the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund. More career aims may be added later but that's all for now. Added aims to be in italics and completed aims in green. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcidBurn Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Israel would be very interesting, it's a place I've thought of managing in several times but never got round to it for some reason. Good luck! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Israel would be very interesting, it's a place I've thought of managing in several times but never got round to it for some reason. Good luck! Same with me. For some reason though, Israeli clubs may not have a particular fondness for managers who played Sunday League Football in England. Three teams offered interviews, attended all but someone else always got chosen. There were two Liga Leumit (2nd tier) clubs and S.C. Ashdod of the Ligat Winner (top tier-at that time in the relegation group). ROW Rybnik of the Polish I Liga also offered an interview and so did Luton but in the end it was a Polish club that gave me the chance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcidBurn Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Damn those Israeli clubs Poland should still be a good place to start your career, it's a country I've never managed in on FM. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Eastern Europe it is GKS Katowice So, the first club to make a formal approach is GKS Katowice, the team predicted for 10th in the Polish I Liga. The team had performed brilliantly in the league and sat 2nd in the table when I took over. 26 games out of the 34 had been played and the vacancy became available after the previous manager left for Widzew Lodz in the Ekstraklasa. The board had no expectations for the remainder of the season and for me, promotion was necessary with a title win an added bonus considering that the top 3 was separated by 3 points. It was a real nervy run of fixtures as we battled through it, losing the 2nd leg of the Puchar Polski (3-2 on agg.). The 3rd consecutive draw of that spell, at home to Beltachow, dropped us to 3rd but the final two games were against the top two. The team being extremely weak at left-back, I brought in Serge Branco on a free transfer. We went 1-0 up before Branco's volley after his free kick hit the wall gave us a 2-0 lead in the 14th minute. 2 second half goals from Miedz meant that the game ended a draw but to make matters worse, Dolcan Zabki came from 3-1 down to make it 3-3 in their game. The last game saw us travelling to the league leaders and this time the 2 goal lead did not slip. Miedz twice came back from a goal down but failed to beat Okocimski at home with the game finishing 2-2. In the end, GKS Katowice were crowned Polish I Liga champions. Meanwhile, the next day:- A necessary upgrade, that's for sure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Two career aims ticked off then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Damn those Israeli clubs Poland should still be a good place to start your career, it's a country I've never managed in on FM. So far, so good. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 GKS Katowice 2013/14 season So, there's the team's league history. Pretty up and down with high Ekstraklasa finishes coupled with relegations and before this season, it was a team well established in the I Liga. Promotion is surprising but the team now have to get on with the task on hand and ensure it's not a one-year off. Here come the taxmen. We had a parent club arranged for and despite both the teams playing in the same division, the alliance will stay active. Doesn't really sound like a lot of money, does it? At least, we have some transfer budget and a wage budget that any relegation threatened club in the Polish top tier has. (£8900 of that budget was being spent in the 2nd division) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 GKS Katowice 2014/15 season preview That's my bonus. Doesn't look big at all. £400 contract and £2,200 bonus although I have a wage rise of 10%p.a. Good to be at a profit-making club. I think there is no doubt as to what the expectations are. Promotion was a surprise and staying up would be beyond the club's wildest dreams. I have been doing my best to attract players but I really doubt that there is enough to ensure that we survive. The good thing about the league? It splits in Championship and Relegation groups and that would be really necessary late in the season. No one would want to face Lech Poznan, Legia, Zaglebie Lubin or even Slask Wroclaw and Wisla Krakow, especially if you are 3-4 points from safety. Legia Warszawa remain the best club in Poland. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 4, 2014 Share Posted October 4, 2014 GKS Katowice 2014/15 August update The money was there but there was no one suitable enough to spend it on. As a result, I went on building a team of free transfers and players available on pre-contract. Even then, most of them are either good enough for the I Liga or just about decent for the Ekstraklasa. There was the sale of Rafal Pietrzak to parent club Zaglebie Lubin. He does have a good potential but at 23, there's every chance that he may not fulfill it. He and Azikiewicz came on loan to provide back up and competition for places while my DoF got Bartosz Rymaniak and Armin Hodzic in on loan. If anything, these two players will be vital to our chances of staying up. Squad report The star ratings might be a bit misleading there. These players are good enough for our club but 3* means 'leading I Liga player' so maybe they are not really good enough for the Ekstraklasa. Fixtures Pre-season saw only three friendlies for some reason as we made a tour of Austria. The team have so far been competitive in the league, it must be said. We got a well-deserved draw at Widzew and probably should have won it but Serge Branco's late free-kick came back of the bar. We then threw away a lead at home to Korona Kielce to lose 1-2. Believe it or not, I think the game against Wisla Krakow was our best performance of the season. We struck the woodwork twice and had two goals ruled out for offside. On another day, with luck on our side and some better defending, I am sure we would have given Wisla a real hiding. Lechia Gdansk was close but agan we seemed to run out of luck at crucial moments as we conceded a late winner. This was followed by a really good performance at home to Legia and then our worst performance of the season as we were thumped by Jagiellonia. We went in at half-time 4-0 down and only spectacular strikes from Mihelic and Duda gave us a 3-goal losing margin. At home to Zawisza, we finally found proper form in front of goal. They took the lead but Ales Poplatnik's hattrick ran them to the ground. He scored two, missed a penalty and put in the rebound when it came off the goalie. It really doesn't need an expert to find out where our problems are at the moment as we have conceded 17 in 7. I'm hopeful we'll get better after the international break when the squad starts to gel and in September, we play our fellow strugglers- Ruch Chorzow, Miedz, Cracovia and Pogon. 8-9 points out of 12 would be really helpful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 4, 2014 Share Posted October 4, 2014 GKS Katowice 2014/15 September There are limits to everyone's patience. Losing 3 goal leads to draw 3-3, getting thumped by fellow relegation candidates, thrice leading a match only to lose 4-3. Thank you, I have had enough of Poland. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 4, 2014 Share Posted October 4, 2014 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Barnsley Barnsley's job offer was delayed for a week as I waited to see if I had a chance of getting the Red Star Belgrade job. It turns out that they just ignored me and when Barnsley came back, I couldn't really say no to them. League table January update Fixtures A good start to my reign meant that the club moved away from the relegation places (we were 22nd when I joined) but a loss of form Boxing Day onwards meant that we were actually just 4 points from safety before two wins from three at the end of January meant we finished the month in 16th place. Quite a collapse considering that at one stage we were just 6 points from a play-off spot. Our parent club for some reason are not going to pay us though. And this sums up why we need that money. The target is to establish them in this division before pushing in for the play-offs. The board have asked for a top-half finish and I am confident I will be able to achieve it despite that downturn in form. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Barnsley 2014/15 End of season update Form-wise, it was better than the first part of my time here. The inconsistency though has probably increased as you can see from the results. It felt as if whenever we got close to the play-off positions, we would lose or draw a vital game and again fall off down the table. We spent much of this part of the season in the top half of the table but a poor finish dumped us into 14th place. February was undoubtebly the most eventful month. Doncaster are one of our rivals and before the match, me and Paul Dickov were intent on criticizing each other. The fight was such that I piled on the pressure on his job and told the media he would face the sack if he lost. My words seemed to have backfired but as they twice took the lead and looked set to head for the win. However, Tom Kennedy equalised in the 93rd minute and substitute Alex Nimely snatched the winner in the 95th. This happened even though the signal was for 4 minutes of stoppage time. At home to Walsall, our finishing blew them away as Nimely got a hattrick and on-loan winger Connor McAleny scored twice despite s having 40% possession. First one of my career. Transfers in Billy Murray and Robert Welch have been real steals from the Irish leagues. Murray is tipped to become a leading PL attacking midfielder while Welch is tipped to be a leading PL central defender. Connor McAleny was brought back after his original spell was ended by injury. Andrew Halliday had a month-long loan after Jack Robinson returned to Liverpool. Bradley Wright-Phillips was signed by the board (I allowed one of the directors to sign players although I would have to confirm it) and Marc Albrighton is a steal on a free transfer, especially given that Jim O'Brien wants to join a bigger club. Transfers out Players who wanted first-team football or were earning too much or had a fight with me(refusing pay-cuts, for example) all had their contracts mutually terminated. This is a big worry and we need to get promoted soon. Youth Candidates Team The intake was fairly good and and my Head of Youth Development signed all of them up just to make up the numbers if anything. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darius Basu Posted November 4, 2014 Share Posted November 4, 2014 Shame you left Poland, I've had a couple of saves managing Lechia and found it an interesting and challenging league to manage in. Although can understand you leaving, you had an uphill battle keeping them up. Good luck at Barnsley. Shame there isn't more stories from Eastern European/smaller leagues out there. I nearly had forgotten about this thread. As for leaving Poland, it was very much an uphill task as you say although it ended well for everyone. Katowice eventually stayed up in relegation group despite being 15th before the league split. You might be interested to know that I soon left Barnsley and travelled back to the far east of Europe (or Asia if you like). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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