[FM10] Jumping on-board // Football Manager comes to Cyprus

Firstly, an preemptive apology incase anything here isn't as it should be, and another for any poor grammar/spelling that I shall blame on the time.

So, after struggling to get into a game for a few months, I decided to finally commit to a game in Cyprus, using the edit I have spent time creating, and that is presently posted in the editors forum. Yes, I'm that shameless.

I chose to be Omonoia Nicosia, one of the most successful, widely supported and prosperous clubs on the island; but one who have underachieved in recent years. My aim? To taste European success.

No funny challenges, no aims to use only youth players or to buy only from a particular nation; simply to take the club as far as I can, however I can. Within the (moral and actual) rules, of course.

Game: Football Manager 2010

Patch: 10.2

Leagues loaded: Cyprus (D division and above)

Database size: Large. Approx. 100k players loaded (all from Cyprus, national rep. from Europe and South America)

Career Summary (a bit boring! )

Season      League                       Position          Achievements
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[b]AC Omonoia Nicosia[/b]

2009/10     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners
2010/11     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners, LTV Super Cup winners
2011/12     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners, LTV Super Cup winners
2012/13     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners, LTV Super Cup winners
2013/14     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners, LTV Super Cup winners
2014/15     Marfin Laiki Championship        1st     [b]UEFA Champions League, [/b]League Champions, Coca-Cola Cup winners, LTV Super Cup winners

European Progress

Season      Tournament                          Progress
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[b]AC Omonoia Nicosia[/b]

2009/10     Europa League                    Lost in 3rd qualifying round to Roma (5-3).
2010/11     Champions League                 Bottom of group G.
2011/12     Champions League                 3rd in group G
 " "       Europa League                    Lost in 2nd knockout round to Arsenal (5-4)
2012/13     Champions League                 3rd in group E
 " "       Europa League                    Lost in 1st knockout round to Atletico (4-3)
2013/14     Champions League                 3rd in group C
 " "       Europa League                    Lost in FINAL(!!) to Chelsea (1-0)
[b]2014/15     Champions League                 Won! Final victory vs Arsenal (2-0)[/b]

Trophy Cabinet

[b]UEFA Champions League[/b] - 2014/15

[b]Marfin Laiki Championship[/b] - 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15

[b]Coca Cola Cup[/b] - 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15

[b]LTV Super Cup [/b] - 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15

The story so far.

Well I've only just decided to start this thread, but already we are in November 2010. Last season we won the league convincingly, as well as the Coca-Cola cup, thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win over rivals Anorthosis Famagusta.

As usual for me, I have been ambitious in my transfer targets and my spending, and riding on the back of significant sponsorship payments, have brought some quality players to the club.

While I shall keep this more thoroughly updated from now on, I'll do my best to summarise the past 15 months or so.

League Table 2009/10 season:

Transfers:

As the result of some smart deals (ie. bringing in frees and selling them on), we have increased our balance significantly, allowing me to be more extravagent with the wages and signing on fees I can offer. This has allowed me to attract such talent as Nelson Rivas and Cicero to the club, as well as being able to start to focus on youngsters and newgen players, opposed to the 'safe' free signings of the start.

First season summary:

Cups won: Marfin Laiki Championship, Coca-Cola Cup.

Europe: Lost in EC 3rd qualifying round, 5-3 vs Roma

Top scorer: Michalis Konstantinou - 31 goals, Maciej Zurawski - 25 goals

Most assists: Konstantinos Makridis - 16 assists

Highlight: 6-1 away win vs APOEL.

Lowlight: Penalty miss away at Roma that would have given us 3-1 lead; 3-1 league defeat vs Ermis.

Signing of the season: Paulinho (showing his quality at DC and LB despite his young age, and averaged over 7.3 in his 17 games), Donny Neyra (bargain and solid performer. Averaged 7.28 in 12 games)

I did have a nicely typed summary of the season so far all ready, but sadly firefox decided to implode and that is lost.

As I'm feeling a bit peeved now, I'll post my fixtures and summarise any where anyone is interested, as well as continue to keep updates in future at the detailed level I was preparing for the months July to October.

As you can see, we qualified for the CL group stage (despite facing tough opposition) and then drew the impossible group of Sevilla, OM and Man City. I'm very proud of how the team has performed against such opposition, except for Makridis' insane FIRST MINUTE red card at home to Man City.

Worth mentioning are a great 4-1 away win at B. Jerusalem, and a 7-0 away thrashing of newly-promoted Olympiakos, that left them running back towards B division with tears in their eyes and their pants around their ankles. I say away win, we actually ground-share.

End of November/December:

Omonoia 3-0 Alki (League)

Dominant and easy win. Three first half goals from Zurawski, Makridis and Mariano

Omonoia 1-4 OM (Champions League)

Harsh scoreline but some shocking defending in an otherwise even game. We created more than them, but they took their chances. Mariano seems to be our only striker capable of consistantly getting goals in Europe.

Omonoia 1-0 Anorthosis (League)

Seems to be our favourite score vs them. Makridis with a good goal to win it.

Ermis 0-3 Omonoia (League)

Two in two minutes for Aloneftis and one for Konstantinou

Sevilla 2-1 Omonoia (Champions League)

Didn't deserve to lose. Took the lead early on through Efrem and conceded two late on through shocking goalkeeping by Moretto, who found himself on the transfer list shortly after.

Omonoia 6-1 AEL (League)

Great performance. 6 different scorers, including 17 year old Paraskeva. Own goal by Mahieu (2nd GK) ended our run of league clean sheets.

Omonoia 7-0 Olympiakos (League)

Another 7-0 vs them. 6 scorers again, and an own goal this time in our favour. Paraskeva scored again, as well as the departing Aloneftis, who agreed a £5mil move to Ajax.

60 goals in just 17 league games.

I'm thinking maybe match-by-match summaries may be a bit much, especially for some predictable games. May just summarise months etc.

Bear with me while I get settled?

If we must

This team is too good for this league - that's a good sign. There are other worlds to conquer.

January saw fans favourite Aloneftis depart to Ajax, with the ambitious signing of the youngster Zezinho coming in to replace him. Donovan Ricketts joined from LA as another GK option, and Rivaldo (yes, that one) joined for.. not sure. I wanted to see if he could cut it I guess. Seems so far that he can't. The brilliantly named youngster Rob Pip joined too, having been inexplicably released by Club Brugge.

We conceded just one goal in January, at the very start away at AEK. Other than that we went 6 games without conceding, knocking Chalkanoras out of the cup and beating Achna, Doxa, ENP and Nea in the league, with three 2-0 wins and a 4-0.

I don't get teams sometimes. We beat ENP 2-0 at home in January in the league, then in February beat them 7-0 away in the cup. Zurawski is defying his years, scoring 17 goals so far despite nearing 35 years of age. Mariano is showing he that no defense has any idea how to cope with him, with the Brazilian (touted as the next Ronaldo) grabbing 23 in 30(1), as well as 13 assists. Considering he had a sluggish start, he's clearly absolutely on fire.

Already I'm having concerns that the domestic dominance may get boring, but fear not. I find myself endlessly captivated and motivated by bringing youngsters through the system and watching their progress closely, and this will be no different. Should I ever give up on my European dream, I may well find myself with the challenge of trying to break my own dominance domestically!

Sunday 22nd May 2011

The board have announced a stadium expansion, and investment in both our youth and training.

The expansion is set to add 6250 seats, at a startling cost of £7.5mil, and should bring our capacity up to around 29000. The GSP stadium is already the biggest on the island and by some distance, and is shared by Omonoia, APOEL and Olympiakos.

The investment meanwhile is a more modest £775k, and will presumably make our facilities the best on the island.

Our bank balance has now fallen considerably, and it looks like our position as a selling club is set to continue.

A pre-season update:

Good luck in Cyprus! In my Northern Irish save, in my first ever Champions League campaign with a team I had taken to the top level, we played Omonoia in the first Qualifying Round. Of course, they didn't have any of their players - just grey people, but we managed to record a fluky victory against the odds - I wonder how that would've been if they had their actual squad.

Keep up the updates mate, this has been presented nicely and it's looking good. Interested to see how you go in your career.

Been spending this summer in the knowledge that I now need the money that the CL group stage has to offer.

Team now looks a far cry from the team I took over just 2 years ago. Only Makridis remains a first-teamer, and only a few others remain in the squad. Still, the youth is compensating, and hopefully other teams will have similarly good newgens that I can perhaps pick up a few years down the line so as to keep a decent number of home grown players.

Artur Boruc has joined too, as our new #1 GK, and links up with Zurawski again.

European qualification:

CL 2nd qualifying round:

Omonoia 5-0 EB/Streymur

EB/Streymur 0-6 Omonoia

CL 3rd qualifying round:

Omonoia 2-0 Anderlecht

Anderlecht 2-1 Omonoia

CL qualifying playoff round:

Omonoia 2-1 M. Haifa

M. Haifa 1-2 Omonoia

-------------------------------------------

Champions League group:

FC Bayern

AC Milan

FC Kobenhavn

Omonoia

:o

Well done!!

November 1st - a summary of the season so far:

Not exactly been on fire, but we did get our first CL win.

We're also yet to concede in the league.

Chances are I'll put this save on hold once the new patch is out, but I'm sure that (as usual) I'll get into a save worth posting about! If I can manage anything like my 45 years at Wolves last year then it'll be something worth waiting for!

'Nuff said.

We finished 3rd in our CL group, ending with a 1-1 draw at Kobenhavn.

Incredibly we've drawn Anderlecht in the Europa League - a team we knocked out of the CL in qualifying. Winner of that faces Cagliari or Arsenal.

Anderlecht 1-2 Omonoia

Omonoia 5-3 Anderlecht (threw away a 5-1 lead)

Omonoia 1-1 Arsenal

Arsenal 3-2 Omonoia

I'm actually furious. We threw away a 2-0 lead at the Emirates due to stupid defensive mistakes, which not only cost players the match but also possibly their Omonoia careers.

Three of my defence are now on the transfer list.

In hindsight, I'm very proud of the team, although still very unhappy at the manner of our exit.

We won the league and cup again, and are close to entering the new pre-season.

A number of players have departed in recent months in an attempt to clear any squad unhappiness and offload those not in or around the first-team, with little hope of ever being. Amongst those to leave were Hugo Viana, Felipe Menezes, Christou Paraskevas, Carlos Eduardo, Jan Rajnoch and Matthew Briggs.

The board have decided to again improve our facilities, but also (bizarrely) install undersoil heating, taking a huge chunk out of our finances.

Enjoying this so far, could I see a screenshot of Mariano, the new Ronaldo? I imagine he's highly sought after after a 39 goal season? KUTGW

Funnily enough I was just about to post screenshots of a number of newgens, that I've previously posted in the all-nighter thread in GD. Mariano is in there.

Luckily our reputation (and thus his) is sufficiently low that he seems to only be getting attention from back in Brazil, although it seems Atalanta are taking an interest. He's got an incredible 15 goals in 10 games so far this season, 11 of which have been in the CL!

Sadly the rest of the team haven't been to good, and we threw away a 3-1 lead in our first group game to lose 5-3 (deservedly so).

We also faced Anderlecht (yet again) and let a 4-1 lead slip thanks to some utterly dreadful defending, but thankfully we won the away leg.

Paulinho (DLC)

Mitas (D/WBL) - From academy

Malioufas (AMC)

Carroll (AML)

Rios (DL/R)

Ouzounidis (MLC) - from academy

Mahieu (GK)

Dimosthenous (AMRC) - from academy

Paraskeva (ST) - from academy

Shopov (AM/FC)

Mariano (ST)

Ronald Marroquin (ST)

Manuel Beck (MC)

Manfred Pfister (GK)

Eugene Yavorksyi (DC)

Wow, some unbelievable regens you've got there! No wonder you're cleaning up in the league... If you can keep a few of them (hope for high loyalty), then you and Cyprus should start getting pretty big.

Nikolaou (AMR) - pinched from rivals APOEL with a great contract offer.

Slavisa Vulovic (DRLC)

Bojang Samateh (AM/FC) - What a name.

Fwiw, although I found the vast majority of the players myself (scouting, recommendations, the media, filters, searching etc), I found a few using FMRTE search. I try not to look at potential though, rather their attributes on searching. Even so, my apologies if this is regarded as cheating by anyone (although it isn't by me).

Also, the last few screenshots are recent, while the rest are from the end of last season.

I don't have any problem with that particularly, if it improves your enjoyment of a game then who cares? Why are there so many amazing Cypriot regens? Have they all got good youth facilities? And what did you do to creat this db? Sorry for all the questions...

Actually dont worry, I decided not to be lazy and I found it in Editor's Hideaway!

The thread regarding the DB/xml is here. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=159823

As for Cypriot regens, I guess it'll have something to do with it being the only active league, and the fact that such is the number of regens created there'll be the occasional gem, and obviously some times more than at others.

I did tweak the youth facilities slightly, mostly for the top clubs, so the best clubs (APOEL, Anorthosis, Omonoia) have facilities of around the 12-14 standard, while the rest have anywhere from 1 to 12, with most top flight clubs being between 6 and 12 for facilities. ENP also have a good academy, as reflected in the number of top Cypriot players to start their careers there.

The pretty good standard initially is pretty similar to the original DB with only a few minor tweaks (nothing I'd consider unrealistic), and to me reflects the fact that a lot of time and money has gone into improving youth football in Cyprus in recent years, with a number of young players impressing either against or while on trial at top European clubs. The Cypriot U19 and U21 teams are both improving considerably, and I believe both have a number of players playing in the UK. It's only a matter of time until the national team qualify for a tournament imo, as they've shown they can produce some great performances, but lack consistancy. The number of young players currently breaking into the squad is a promising sign.

I can also only assume too that due to the league being active, facilities are being improved as teams get the money to do so, so I'd imagine the top clubs are more around the 16/17 mark now, that would give the potential for the creation of excellent regens.

Omonoia 2-2 Man Utd

Twice came from behind. Proud.

Devastating loss against Madrid, they just knocked me out of the Champs League! How's it going domestically?

Devastating loss against Madrid, they just knocked me out of the Champs League! How's it going domestically?

My apologies, AOL seem to have screwed up and thus 'net died.

Ironically I have a save on hold as them (Atletico), which was going very nicely. We were 2-1 up away but gave away cheap fouls. Great Lopez FK to win though.

We're top, although we lost a few games including my first home league defeat. We're still in the cup, and in facing our main rivals early on are clear favourites. Cicero left in January, and was replaced by..

Meza (CM)

Gonzalez (DR)

Promising myself I'll spend less next year.

League and cup won again, and I'm now a club legend.

This should bring our capacity up to around 40k I think. Youth facilities, which were already very good, are being improved too.

Some bad news however:

Mariano and Makridis, two of my top players, are not getting along. I may let Makridis leave as we have a number of promising AMR options to replace him long term, but I won't let him go unless it's for a good fee.

With Karypidis likely to leave due to being severly restricted in first-team opportunities, we will most likely be left with an extremely young squad. Already our average age is just 20, and after Makridis (31) and Karypidis (30), the next oldest player in the squad is Botia, who is just 24.

You may have noticed I'm a fan of newgens and have a lot of faith in (as well as enjoy developing) young players.

The investing in youth facilities seems to have paid off..

This guy just came through:

Papadopoulos (ST)

Karypidis left too. Our average age is now just 19!

Squad:

I'll go into more details later, but I just lost 5-0 to Roma and I'm not happy.

9 players received fines or warnings.

I think it's great that you've got such a young team, but I also worry that they're not going to be doing much against Roma or anyone big in Europe for a few years...

I'm looking to build a team as a unit to compete over a number of years.

Omonoia 2-3 Arsenal

Great performance bar 3 shocking defensive errors, for which 3 players received fines. Deserved at least a draw.

Got distracted this evening by attempting a project remaking my previous Cypriot kits using a different template set.