[FM11] From North, to South, then back to the Motherland

[JEinchy]

From North, to South, then back to the Motherland

JEinchy's journyman save around the Americas and Europe

Game Setup

Game: Football Manager 2011

Version: 11.1.1

USA: MLS

Argentina: Prmier Division

Brazil: First Division

England: Premer League, npower Championship, npower League 1, npower League 2, Blue Square Conference, Blue Square North/South

Germany: First Division, Second Division, Third Division

Italy: Serie A, Serie B, Serie C1, Serie C2

Spain: Primera Division, Segunda Division, Second Divison B

Large Database

Introduction

Ever since I created and maintained a career update thread last year I've had this desire to make an even bigger and better one with Football Manager 2011. So here I am. With this save, I intend to manage in each country that I've loaded starting in the USA, then going down to South America to manage in both Argentina and Brazil, then managing in Euope in Italy, Germany and Spain before finally returning to manage in the homeland, England. Hence the title; I'm going from north, to south to back where I was conceived.

It may not be the most impressive of careers out there, but I'm not blessed with a great computer and the above amount of leagues is just about as much as my machine can handle. Furthermore, I can only go so low as far as quality of player goes. Blue Square North/South is as low as I go. For this reason, I find it difficult to manage it a lot of the weaker leagues in the world. Maybe its something I can psyche myself up to do once I'm finsihed with all my major saves this year. Who knows.

Update Schedule

I plan on making updates during specific intervals in my Football Manager game. There will be a pre-season update, followed by updates after every in-game month with a mid-season update in between before finishing with an end-of season review.

[JEinchy]

Seattle Sounders FC

My first job in this miniature adventure of mine resides in the United States of America with a club only recently accepted into Major League Soccer. Seattle Sounders became a MLS club as recently as 2009 and are a club very much on the up. They plan in the unique Qwest Field stadium which has a healthy 35,700 capacity.

Managing in the USA is a completely new experience for me. In particular, the draft system is something that I'm unfamiliar with and will be something that will be interesting to work with.

My Primary Objectives

• Win the MLS Cup.
  
• Win the US Cup.
  
• Win the CONCACAF Champions League.
  

My Secondary Objectives

• Win the MLS Cup the most times.
  

[GioGio85]

Sounds intresting; I will follow with interest.

[La Furia Roja]

yer sounds good, ill try keep along too, depends how much info you put into monthly updates though, i have a short attention span when reading long posts, i think i will skip to your end of season ones as i dont want to lose interest

Good Luck!!

[rancer890]

Good luck mate. Seattle aren't a bad team to start off with. They have good players, like Fredy Montero, and have two DPs with Nkufo and Alvaro Fernandez. You still have another DP slot since they traded Ljungberg.

I can't read long posts on a computer either, but I'll be following.

[JEinchy]

Pre-Season

Transfers

After having a look at the squad I decided that for now I did not need to make any changes other than strengthen in an area or two. My main concern was actually trimming the squad down in accordance with the 24-man squad rules. Also, I had to bare in mind that I'm working with a squad salary cap of £29,900 or something like that which makes squad building a hell of a lot more interesting endeavour.

INS

Radek Mynar - £65,000 from Polonia Warszawa.

Ryan Johnson - From the Waiver Draft*.

Not many of you will know about Radek Mynar and truthully I only discovered his existance about an hour ago. He's a 35 year old Czech Republican right back who is solid in all areas with high attributes for Determination and Influence especially. He's better than what I have at right back and should provide some much needed grit to the team.

Ryan Johnson is a Jamaican striker who can also play on the left. A typical pacey player that I brought in for depth, really.

* Now I'm sure most of you know won't know what this is, so I'll explain. The Waiver Draft is where every MLS team has two picks out of the players who were not registered by their teams. Any player who is not picked ultimately ends up a free agent. Hence why my list of outgoing transfers is full of people leaving on a free.

OUTS

Mike Seamon - Free (Unregistered)

Graham Taylor - Free (Unregistered)

Pat Noonan - Free (Unregistered)

Roger Levesque - Free (Unregistered)

Michael Fucito - Free (Unregistered)

Nathan Sturgis - 1 Draft Pick to Houston.

Yes, you read right. I sold one of my players for a draft pick. Just another part of the rather unique transfer system in the USA. I have no clue when I'll get to use this draft pick, but the guy I sold wasn't particular great anyway so it doesn't matter too much. The rest of the outs were pretty average players, which would explain why I did not register them (obviously).

Squad

So the squad looks like this:

Goalkeepers

Kasey Keller

Terry Boss

Central Defenders

Jeff Parke

Tyrone Marshall

Jhon Hurtado*

Patrick Ianni

Tyson Wahl

Full Backs

Radek Mynar

James Riley

Zack Scott

Leonardo Gonzalez

Central Midfielders

Pete Vegenas

Osvaldo Alonso

Brad Evans

Alvaro Fernandez

Wingers

Sanna Nyassi

David Estrada

Steve Zakuani

Miguel Montano

Strikers

Blaise NKfuo

Fredy Montero

Nate Jaqua

Ryan Johnson

* Hurtado is out for 14-15 months. Lives up to his name then...

Fredy Montero is the undoubted star of the team and should bang in a lot of goals for me. Hopefully I can keep hold of him for a while since there's about 15 (!) clubs with some form of interest in him. Alvaro Fernandez is probably my second most important player as he is the main creative outlet in the team.

Friendlies

Vancouver Whitecaps 0 - 1 Seattle Sounders (Fredy Montero)

Real Maryland Monarchs 1 - 2 Seattle Sounders (Sean Rush; Migual Montano, Fredy Montero)

Portland Timbers 1 - 2 Seattle Sounders (Takayuki Sazuki; Sanna Nyassi, Fredy Montero)

We played just the three friendlies against some lower league, if I can call them that, sides. Each game turned out to be much tighter than I expected but I'm pleased with three wins and three goals from Montero.

Next Update

Now it times to start the season with a home game against Philadelphia Union. I'll post the next update when I finish off March and then April.

Thanks for reading.

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

Good luck mate. Seattle aren't a bad team to start off with. They have good players, like Fredy Montero, and have two DPs with Nkufo and Alvaro Fernandez. You still have another DP slot since they traded Ljungberg.

I can't read long posts on a computer either, but I'll be following.

Montero looks beastly for this level, I have to say. I'm looking forward to working with him. As for the designated players, I'm still trying to work out how that works in game. I know how it works in real life but I'm a little loss with it in game at the moment.

Oh, and just so you know I haven't abandoned your challenge. I've made the mistake of having a lot of different save games and its a bit low on the priority list, I'm afraid.

yer sounds good, ill try keep along too, depends how much info you put into monthly updates though, i have a short attention span when reading long posts, i think i will skip to your end of season ones as i dont want to lose interest

Good Luck!!

Sounds intresting; I will follow with interest.

Thank you both for your interest. Don't worry, I won't make the posts too long.

[JEinchy]

March/April

MLS

Seattle Sounders 3 - 0 Philadelphia Union (Fredy Montero x2, Blaise Nkufo)

Not bad at all for our first game of the season. From start to finish we totally dominatted Philadelphia, racking up 22 shots and 58% of posession while they could only manage 1 measey shot. It took just two minutes to score. Nyassi cut inside from the right and played a nice little through ball to Montero to pass into the corner of the goal. Just after the half hour mark, Osvalso Alonso won the ball back in midfield and then drove with it down the right before fizzing the ball across goal. Nkufo was there to nod home at the near post for a debut goal. The scoring was completed in the first half when Nyassi again cut inside from the right and drove at the Uniion defence. The Gambian's pass found the excellently timed run of Montero and the Columbian slotted home with ease.

Seattle Sounders 0 - 0 New York Redbulls

I was actually quite scared going into this game due to the fire power in New York's team. Thierry Henry and Juan Pablo Angel are two exceptional strikers for this standard and I was worried my defence would struggle to cope. Fortunately, they did and in a game with 13 shots a side neither side really deserved to win. Despite the quality up front on both teams, the game ended goalless.

Real Salt Lake 0 - 0 Seattle Sounders

Our first away game saw us visist the current holders of the MLS crown. It was a pretty even game throughout but I think we just shaded it in the end and should have won it. But not a bad point by any means.

Seattle Sounders 2 - 1 Kansas City Wizards (Blaise Nkufo, Neildon OG; Keller OG)

Another game where we dominated from start to finish. Blaise Nkufo got us off to a flyer after just two minutes, latching on to a Fernandez through pass and blasting it home. We added a second close to half time when a shot from Fernandez smashed against the bar, onto the back of the Kansas City goalkeeper and into the goal. Kansas pulled one back in the second in uncaanily similar fashion but did little to trouble us.

FC Dallas 3 - 3 Seattle Sounders (Milton Rodriguez x2, Bruno Guarda; Osvaldo Alonso x2, Fredy Montero)

A high scoring game with some excellent goals. Milton Rodriguez put Dallas 1-0 up in just a minute when he captilised on some poor defending to score a point blank header.

.

. Seriously, we pulled those two goals out of our backsides. Unfortunately, Milton Rodriguez equalised for Dallas just before half time in the exact same way he scored his first.

As if the goals could not get any better,

. Even I had to admit that was a special goal. Despite that, Alonso popped up again with a clever run and smashed it in the roof of the net to earn us a point.

Toronto FC 1 - 2 Seattle Sounders (Dwayne De Rosario; Blaise Nkufo, Fredy Montero)

Our first away win and we really had to work for it. Toronto were very stern opposition with some quality players, like De Rosario who put them ahead with an easy tap in. Nkufo equalised with his own tap-in. Montero grabbed the winner after robbing the ball from the goalkeeper and sticking it in an open goal.

League Table

MLS Tables after April

So we're sitting nice and pretty on top of the Western Conference but we have played more games than anyone else so we probably won't stay there for long. If we keep up our form though I don't see why we cannot finish in the top two.

US Cup

Qualifying Round 1: Seattle Sounders 2 - 1 New England Revolution (Ryan Jonhson, Pete Vegenas; Jase Griffthis)

Not an easy win but then I did change the team around completely for this game. This win sets us up with the Colorado Rapids in the seoncd qualifying round. The winner of that game will play either D.C. United or FC Dallas in the third and final qualifying round. Its a home game as well. We're the holders of this trophy and I think we have a pretty good chance of retaining it.

[JEinchy]

May

MLS

Seattle Sounders 4 - 1 Columbus Crew (Alvaro Fernandez, Steve Zakuani, Blaise Nkufo x2; Jason Grey)

An excellent way to begin the month. Columbus had made a good start to the season and were just behind top spot in the Eastern Conference by a couple of points so to completely decimate them like we did was really impressive. Fernandez was the reason behind the win. He got things going with a long range drive in the opening stages of the game and later set up two goals. Very nice to see Nkufo in amongst the goals as well as it is a well needed boost of his confidence.

Seattle Sounders 2 - 1 Los Angeles Galaxy (Steve Zakuani, Blaise Nkufo; Edson Buddle)

A really good performance against one of the better sides of the MLS. We were comfortable from start to finsih, even when Buddle made it 2-1 at the start of the second half. Fernandez again running the game. Nkufo again on the scoresheet.

New York Red Bulls 0 - 1 Seattle Sounders (Tim Ream OG)

We had to really work hard for this result. New York are a quality side and were dominant for the large majority of the game. Thankfully a combination of resolute defending from us and some wayward finishing from Angel and Henry kept us in the game and we snatched a goal when Nyassi used his impressive pace to burst past a defender, drive to the byline and then fizz it across goal. The ball cannoned off Tim Ream into the back of the net. A good win for us and now we do not have to play New York until the playoffs at least.

Seattle Sounders 5 - 2 San Jose Earthquakes (Fredy Montero x3, Sanna Nyassi, Brandon McDonald OG; Eduardo, Brandon McDonald)

It was a derby match and boy did we give the fans something to brag about. This game will be remembered for Fredy Montero's outstanding hat-trick. Nyassi opened the scoring just after thirteen minutes which set the tone for the rest of the game. Montero got his first after eighteen minutes, latching onto Fernandez's slide-rule pass and finishing neatly across goal with a left-footed finish. His second goal showed what he could do with the ball with his feet. He received the ball on the left, cut inside, ghosting past one defender in the process, then sharply knocked it past the last defender before driving it into the bottom corner from 20 yards. Finally, his hat-trick goal just oozed class. Picking up the ball on the edge of the area, he turned and struck a beautiful curling shot into the top corner. Classy stuff from the Columbian.

Colorado Rapids 1 - 1 Seattle Sounders (Conor Casey; Nate Jaqua)

This proved to be a very frustrating game. We were all over Colorado but went 1-0 down to Casey's 30-yard free-kick. A fine header from Nate Jaqua, his first goal of the season, equalised just before half time. Despite going down to ten men, Colorado managed to hang on to a point.

League Table

MLS Tables after May

Approaching the halfway point of the season and we're going along really well in the Western Conference, still unbeaten after eleven games. If we can keep up this consistancy and improve our away form a bit then we're good for a top two finish.

US Cup

Colorado Rapids 1 - 0 Seattle Sounders (Andre Akpan)

Our defence of this trophy came to an end after a disappointing display away to the Rapids. I, again, completely changed the side in order to give some of the other guys some game time and unfortunately it didn't quite work out this time.

[crouchaldinho]

Thank you both for your interest. Don't worry, I won't make the posts too long.

The longer, the better for me!

Will be following.