FM12 Big Euro Nation: Small Club to Big Club Challenge

[Britrock]

I almost started as them, so yes they are playable

Excellente! Thanks for the quick reply. Will try and reach an end on my Newcastle fm11 save and then I'll look into fm12 and this challenge.

[PRDH]

Nothing like being told your first game of the season is a massive game in the fight against relegation to boost hopes for the season!

[Charlesbeams]

Things are going well for me this time around, it's nice to actually win some games I'm taking a bit more time too with match preparation and the opposition scout reports.

Still hoping to see some flares, none yet.

[siLKEAPE]

Congrats on promotion Ohanzee and Amethyst. Good work staying up PRDH, exciting season!

Good luck to the rest aswell, I will probably finish my first season tonight.

[Ohanzee]

global1 - Good job with such a tiny squad.

Almondo - That's a good first season. Looks like you got a good core in defense. Couple of strikers that score goals and you're set.

Twellman24 - Good luck in your next adventure.

PRDH - Tough season, but good job staying up. I actually had Daniel at the back myself, but I stopped using him after he kept passing the ball straight to the opposition, or getting caught in possession, handing them a goal a game the few he played. I had the same issue with wages towards the end of my season and ended up mutually terminating 4-5 players 2-3 weeks before their contracts ran out just to get below the wage budget and be able to offer extensions to some of my better players.

I think LLR said a lot about first season strategy, but I'll add my few cents. For me 4 things are important.

1. Get players with high determination. First thing I do after signing key staff is filter my search result by 12+ determination and scout every single free transfer that fit that bill. If players don't have determination they will give up when you're losing. It's always been my favorite attribute. That's not to say I don't sign players with low determination, but the majority of my squad will always have a decent value. I know filtering with attribute masking on means losing out on possible stars, but this is usually a good start for me. And scouts will find the ones I miss eventually through their trips anyways.

2. Morale is everything. If I lose a couple of games in a row, I tell my players the pressure is off, no matter how big a favorite we are. If it's not an option for the full team-talk, I usually say something like "for the fans", and use what ever version of "no pressure" is available for each individual team talk instead. I also ditch every friendly that the game has set up for me, and make 6-8 home game friendlies against the worst teams available. That is the ones in the "very low reputation" category. This usually nets me easy wins giving the players good morale going into the season.

3. Stick to my tactics. I have 3 tactics I use that are all basically the same, but with 1 player moved from MC > AMC > SC between them. I put my match preparation to very high on "teamwork" until the last friendly is done, then put it down to average untill all 3 tactics are at full blend. Then I turn it down to very low with no special focus. Sometimes I forget to change it as the season starts and every time I start badly. It seems to have enormous effect. I also never change things around in my tactics. If I'm losing I make substitutions, nothing else.

4. This is kind of tied to #3 and #4, but when looking for an assistant manager there is one thing I look for and it's "motivation". If possible I also want "tactical knowledge", but it's almost impossible to find one with both at this level. I want 15+ motivation and I don't care if he's horrible in every other way. He handles the media for me, I never talk to them, never respond to comments from other managers, nothing. He doesn't do team-talks though, I do those myself. As for tactical knowledge, I use that for "opposition instructions". I honestly have no idea if it's actually working, but I do seem to have much better success the higher attribute for this the person doing these for me have. Now that you can actually pick coaches to do them for you as well, instead of the assistant, I have tried to sign at least one coach with a high value here to do them. I ask this person to do the "opposition instructions" at the start of the match, at half time, and after about 60-70 minutes when I make my first 1-2 (unforced) subs.

(5) Scouting. I've gone through my strategy there in huge detail in earlier threads so I'll leave it. This is getting long already and I doubt many will read this far.

Anyways. I'm just about done with my pre-season. Painted myself into a bit of a corner as I've got no natural left-back in my first team. Have to rely on a reserve team player who's really not good enough while I retrain the position of at least one of my (to many) center backs.

Been a bad start to the season as we've played 3 league cup matches (group stage) and got 1 point from them, meaning we're already out of that competition. We were hammered 4-0 at home to P. Ferreira, who are now in the same division as us, so that's not a good sign. We also lost at home to Freamunde and drew away to Sp. Covilha who are also both in our division. Hoping for a better start to the league, but it looks like we might be in for a tough season.

[Veriloquent]

My surprise best player so far this season, Cengiz Dilaver, only 16 when he was forced into the first team due to injuries, his performances since made it impossible for anyone else to get onto the left wing for me, his attributes look nothing special but when he plays we are a far better team, he even managed a hat-trick against Istanbulspor in the first round of the cup.

Into February now so should not be long before the season is done so I can post a season review.

[Charlesbeams]

Things going well this time around, 10 games into the season and i'm currently sitting in 2nd place with 5 won, 3 drawn and just 2 losses. 22 more games to go.

[DodgeeD]

After suffering through 90 minutes of the Manchester derby, I loaded up FM for some light relief and promptly got stuffed 4-1 at Konyaspor... To be fair they were relegated from the 1. Lig last season and the only reason we were given a chance by the media was our 9 game unbeaten start to the season. I just hope it's a blip rather than the bubble bursting (excuse my pundit-speak )

[Charlesbeams]

Surprised to see this in my inbox, hadn't had any notices about it before Highest attendance has only been 2,199, doubt the new 15,197 all seater stadium will be getting filled any time soon.

It's named Yeni Afyon Sehir, maybe it was already planned from the start of the game.

[DodgeeD]

I noticed that when I looked at Afyon in my game - it is scheduled in. Like you, I'm not sure a team of that size can fill a 15,000 capacity ground but I think it may be owned by the local council rather than the club (that's quite common here).

[Twellman24]

Ohanzee--I appreciate the advice. I think I am just used to cruising through seasons fast just to get going--this time it caught up with me. I think I am going to sacrifice watching matches and just do commentary to spend some more time in prep and squad analysis.

PS - Could you link me to your scouting post? I enjoyed your other points and I'd like to see what you have to say about scouting.

Pre-season report - 2013/14

Peter Donnoban takes charge of Zamora, who just got promoted from the Third Division. Zamora was reegated two years ago, but they bounced back--and here is where we come in.

The squad was rather unbalanced, but we managed some transfers that make it more competitive. The club's finances are solid, so we got some decent players in. Here are the key ones:

Matias Alonso - Uruguayan striker with experience in the first division of his country as well as Liga Adelante--he was already here but he will be a big part of our success--or failure.

Rheda Djellai - This RM from Belgium I had in Haro last year, and was amongst the best. I signed him from E300k--I could have SWORN that the offer I made was of 30k (bug?), but ended up paying 300k. I don't think he's worth that much, but we'll see.

Miguel Erice - We are signing him because of his talent with the ball-he could potentially break the league apart with his skill. Might be too irregular, though. We'll see.

Vicente Flor - Ex-Villarrean ald Lugo keeper, should be the man on goal all season long. We hope he'll pull through for us.

The squad is balanced, and we have more class than Haro last year. Now I just have to make sure we show it. I feel more confident this year to avoid relegation. We'll just see!

T24

[Ohanzee]

We're not doing amazing in the league, 3-3-3 is our current win-draw-loss record. That's on route to avoid relegation with good margin though, so I'm pleased. However in the Cup we just had a shocking 2-0 win over Sporting! Bit lucky maybe looking at the ccc, and they rested 7-8 first team players, but still and amazing win!

Twellman24

I think it was this post in the 2010 thread I thought about. Think we may have had a minor discussion last year to though, but couldn't find anything in a quick search.

I also had someone ask me for some advice in a PM last year, and here's the scouting part of what I replied to him :

As for scouting players here's how I do it:

1. Get scouts with as high Judge Potential/Ability as possible. 3rd stat I look for is Determination, cause I think it makes them scout faster.

2. 1st of July (contracts of many have expired), I go to "Player Search" and ask my Assistant to filter out unrealistic targets. I also add a attribute of 12+ determination to the filter, and also "contract status = unattached". Then I just scout every one of those players manually. You can click 1 player (not to go into his profile, just to mark him in the list), then hold down SHIFT (on windows) and then click another player further down the list to select many players at once. Then right-click -> Scout -> Report Card (I think it's called that, not got the game open atm).

3. Every 1st June I go to the Nation list, and sort them by rating. I then go into each of the big Nations squads and check the U23, U21, U20, etc for people out of contract or cheap enough for me to afford. I then do the same as in player search. Choose all that's interesting and "get report card".

4. For both 2 and 3, you're gonna get ALOT of scout reports in your news. The great thing is that you can see the scouts star-ratings right away without going into the actual report. So I just click fast through them all (using my SPACE BAR), and if I see someone with 4+ stars for potential I stop and check them out. Also once you are done, make sure you go to your shortlist, and remove anyone below 4 stars (or what ever limit you want), or you'll game will slow down from all the players on there.

5. Lastly I use the normal scouting system as well. I send each scout to 4-5 nations (queue them up) each year. I also send some scouts to the major Regions of the world. And I make sure to add all competitions as well, especially the U20s. You can get really lucky if you scout the World Cup for instance, or the U20 World Cups.

6. I also use Player Search with filter set to "Transfer Status = Transfer Listed". And scout anyone that I can afford. It's amazing how many gems you can find transfer listed especially regens from Spain after a few seasons. The clubs there just throw them away.

7. In January I always use Player Search with filter set to "Contract Status = Expire in 6 months". And then scout the most valuable ones. If you can get some 4+ star players for free at the end of the season this way it's very much worth the effort. If there's way to many players to scout I also filter by wages, limiting it to those I think I could possibly attract.

I think that's about it. It takes a lot of time. But I enjoy the Scouting part more than the Tactics. I usually spend hours in transfer windows, and go through seasons in "commentator view" during matches.

I think that's about the same as I do now, but I'll let you know if I think of something new. *edit* Obviously some of this is only possible at the highest level, #5 in particular, when more nations are open for scouting.

[StellaF1]

Good to see so many people taking on this challenge this year.

A quick update on Seregno, this is the Serie C2/A table at the halfway stage.

It's all a bit tight and could go any way at this stage.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Amethyst - Nice first season there, congrats on the league and the move up as well. I really like the look of Silva, young and has his attributes in the right places as well.

Charles - Good luck with the Afys, I had a season with them last year. A nice team.

DodgeeD - Another Turkish team, nice to see the reasons why teams are picked, good luck with Keciorengucu, hopefully you can build a strength in Ankara. Nice start through 5 games as well.

Flashman - Crazy that the season starts only ten days after the opening of the window, wonder if that will change as the seasons progress and the Russian season moves slightly? Welkinho looks good, just needs a bit of composure in front of the net really.

Danger_mouse - Also ran into Castilla on my save, that game was not nice to say they least for us we lost 3-0.

Almondo - That's the same scouting range I have, found a few gems in Portugal, had to wait til some players would leave first though as my wage budget is a bit tight even with 13k (p/w). Excellent first season there, good to see a solid finish in Spain, and staying up has to be the number 1 aim in the first season.

Global1 - Nice looking 2nd season there, a solid finish away from relegation, as for the finances we all seem to lose money early on (except Germany), so I wouldn't let that worry you. As for lowering wage budget your best chance may be to actually sell anyone earning too much just to try and make a profit and then get in as many frees as you can cheaply to pull away and expect a slight drop in performance.

PRDH - That was a bit close to call on the relegation front for you, hopefully you can attract some better players to fly out for life on the islands. Your squad currently looks solid if unspectacular. OUCH to the wages at 35 p/w

Ohanzee - Some more excellent advice there, it is another thing I like about this thread everyone is willing to offer some advice and give a hand.

Veriloquent - A nice surprise to have a player performing like that.

Twellman - Good Luck with Zamora.

As for me well feeling a bit under the weather on this Holiday Monday as the All Blacks finally ended 24 years without a World Cup Trophy, so very happy, and my daughter decided I needed to be up at 5:15pm (I hate scheduling of World Cup matches for the British TV public - 9pm here finishes well after 11pm )

Hoping to be back to Parla a bit later today.

[Mafino]

Setting up the game in Portugal my home country!

I will take this opportunity to offer my services: If there are any names or places in Portuguese and you'd like to know how they are pronounced, I'm your man!

[Biscotti]

Setting up the game in Portugal my home country!

I will take this opportunity to offer my services: If there are any names or places in Portuguese and you'd like to know how they are pronounced, I'm your man!

Well seeing as you're offering: I had a Brazilian in my FM11 save named Buíu that I could never get my mouth around in a way that sounded right

[Mafino]

That is quite a tough one but the accent on the I means that you stress the I, so you should pronounce it as so:

Boo-EEE-oo

[danger_mouse]

Danger_mouse - Also ran into Castilla on my save, that game was not nice to say they least for us we lost 3-0.

I was shocked at how well we played, considering they had not lost until we beat them.

[Romanista1994]

Should be getting the game between the 29th of October and the 9th of November. Lower Leagues Rule if you'd upload the Barakaldo save I'd be really grateful.

Good luck to everybody already taking part in the challenge and congrats to those who already finished a season and stayed up/got promoted.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Should be getting the game between the 29th of October and the 9th of November. Lower Leagues Rule if you'd upload the Barakaldo save I'd be really grateful.

Will definitely do that later today

[Mafino]

Okay, just loaded it up and got the team I wanted in my first go, so let's go...

Associação Desportiva de Machico

Portugal

Yes, it is arguably Madeira's 4th biggest team, after Maritimo, Nacional (the one Cristiano Ronaldo started at) and Uniao de Madeira. Seeing as I am from Madeira myself I know this club a little better than I should!

[DodgeeD]

January 2013 Update

Reached the winter break in my first season now and all is going well. Our 5 game unbeaten start eventually stretched to 9 games (won 6, drawn 3) before we came unstuck at Konyaspor. A dodgy patch then followed as we drew our next two and lost again to Adana D.S. (and we were also eliminated from the cup at this time). We got back on track though with 4 straight wins to take us into the break on a high. The main worry at the moment is the defence. In our opening run, we only conceded 3 goals in 9 games. We have since conceded 16 times in 8 matches. We'll need to tighten up at the back if we are to stay in the promotion hunt. Still, I'm very happy with our position at the moment as I was expecting to be battling it out in the lower half of the table before the season began.

Current Table

[Charlesbeams]

Really like the new youth/regen thing, shame most of the players in the game i had weren't that good.

Still going well with Afyon, but quite a few games where i should have won easily. In 5th (last play-off place) with 8 more games to go, still have to play the 3 of the 4 teams above me too.

In the cup i reached the 3rd round, getting knocked out by Kayseri Ericyesspor, only just though.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Right a quick update on the first page saves for everyone, I have the normal saves for Russia, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Turkey & Spain as well as the below list in Scotland & France where it is decided by the save dates (Teams in Brackets) - There is also a Spanish save uploaded where there were a few seemingly rare teams all come up at once, and also because Romanista wanted Barakaldo. At this point only three teams in Scotland as they are only ones to finish bottom through 25+ holidays (Clyde 13x, Queens Park 11x, Elgin once).

France - 18th June - Save (Veendee, Raon-I'Etape, Cannes & Romorantin)

France - 18th June - Save (Plabennecois)

France - 18th June - Save (Dunkerque, Amneville)

France - 18th June - Save (Jura-Sud, Alfortville)

France - 18th June - Save (Carquefou)

Scotland - 1st June - Save (Queens Park)

Scotland - 1st June - Save (Clyde)

Scotland - 1st June - Save (Elgin)

Spain - 9th July - Save (Barakaldo, Caudal, Diter Zafra, Lanzarote, Algeciras)

[danger_mouse]

Jan 2013 Update:

Ok so were doing better than expected, were currently sitting 5th but 9 pts behind the leaders. I dont think were strong enough to break into the playoff's this season due to the fact we've lost to all the top 4 teams.

The other bit of news is our finances, as you can see by January were nearly £1m in debt, i haven't spent a penny so far and im £10k under my wage budget aswell, i dont have the players to sell to make the money back up either. Not to sure what my future is with Alicante at the moment, we really need a promotion soon and possibly a stadium upgrade of some sort.

[Gilbster]

Some great scouting advice Ohanzee that I will definitely be looking to follow as and when I get hold of my game. Its about the only reason I want to come home at the moment!

[Ohanzee]

StellaF1 - Just 10 points from playoffs, with a good run of form you could do it. Good luck!

Mafino - Good luck in Portugal!

DodgeeD - Looking good! Hope you can tidy up that defense and stay up there, maybe even nick that 1st place and avoid playoffs.

Charlesbeams - Glad to hear things are going so well! Good luck in the run in!

danger_mouse - Good luck in the hunt for that playoff spot! I know what you mean about finances. I was a few pounds above our wage budget last season and still ended up well into red numbers.

No one noticed that I beat Sporting in the cup? *sadface* That is the Sporting that's won the Primeira Liga 18 times, been runner up 21 times, and 3rd placed 26 times btw.

* Gilbster - Are you coming back in here or going somewhere else? I remember your very long Scotland career, great stuff. Would love to see more of that

[Trevanator]

Zenit-Izhevsk Izhevsk - 2012/13 Mid-season Update

I've just reached the winter break in Russia, so no league game for 4 months and a good time for a mid-season update.

Transfer History

Team Report

I decided to spend to my entire transfer budget on Nikita Zhdankin, mainly because of his versatility. All six players I signed have been heavily involved and I feel I strengthened the areas I really needed to but the team is still relatively weak compared to a lot of the teams in the First Division. I had trouble offloading players, there's still a number of players in the reserves i'm looking to get rid of. My best player is probably Armen Ambartsumyan who was already at the club when I joined.

The Russian First Division campaign kicked off on 11th August with a 2-0 defeat to one of our relegation rivals Metallurg-Kuzbass and we lost our first five league games before finally picking up a point at home to high-flying Yenisey. Since then, the team's form has been patchy but gradually improving and has included a memorable 2-1 win against the then table-topping Tom Tomsk. With the team currently sitting just outside the relegation places, I don't have too many concerns about being sacked at the moment.

League Table

Board Confidence

These first few months have been difficult and the games come thick and fast, between 11th August and 14th November we've played 23 league games, so I often have to make a number of changes before each game due to the players' condition. The only plus side in the Russian First Division is 4 subs allowed per game!

[danger_mouse]

Ohanzee - Yeah mate its pants, only time will tell. And yeah i did notice but didn't realise it was the same team, Congrats thats a very good win, bet it will be financially beneficial for your team aswell.

[Mafino]

Yeah thanks for that advice Ohanzee I think I'll use it!

[Gilbster]

* Gilbster - Are you coming back in here or going somewhere else? I remember your very long Scotland career, great stuff. Would love to see more of that

Completely undecided yet, will be going into the version completely blind as this netbook wont run FM so havent been able to play demo even. My current thoughts are start in Dafuges challenge for a couple of attempts, my first few usually end up with sackings or relegation within 3 seasons (and I tend to play quite fast), and then move into either here or Gundos. Definitely want to try and get another good long save going somewhere this year, as my FM11 attempts were really bitty, so havent had a decent save since Elgin I think, or Eastwood town the previous year in Dafuge.

[Ohanzee]

Ohanzee - Yeah mate its pants, only time will tell. And yeah i did notice but didn't realise it was the same team, Congrats thats a very good win, bet it will be financially beneficial for your team aswell.

Not really. We filled our stadium for the first time. 5,000 people gave us £26k gate receipts but we still lost about £60k that month. Looking at our finances closely now I see that Staff Wages is actually our biggest expense. I honestly never though much about those. Will have to think hard about who to keep and not next summer when all their contracts run out.

[Mafino]

Anyone got tips of letting players go? I want to wipe my team but I can't afford those compensation deals? And no one is going to buy them?

[Flashman\'s School Days]

Trevanator good first half of the season there, you seem to have been doing better than I am finding it at the moment. I just can't find a tactic that works on a consistant basis and seem to concede bucket loads against much better teams. I also had Armen Ambartsumyan already at the club when I took over which is a strange coincidence.

Ohanzee thanks for that, it might make me get better players in so that I don't waste time with the rubbish I bring in at times.

[global1]

Couldnt get anywhere with Rotor squad was so small and nobody i could sell so in addition to the board being unwilling to budge on anything......

Round 3

My new team is Dinamo Barnaul.

With a bank balance of over 1.3m this club has a solid foundation and a hefty transfer budget of 280,000 (which minimum will be spent) and wage budget ot just over 14k a week.

Also noticed the club recived a grant of 1.3m but more on that later.

Put in 14 hour over night session playing first season and went to work with my eye balls falling out:D. Signed a lot of young player hoping to make a profit in the first year as well as some how stay up over the season.

Finished a very satisfactory 12th in the league a massive 19 point clear of relegation which never looked likely as my experience of previous seasons with Rotor helped.

Star players

None really we signed so many players and many didnt get a run in the team for long.

Sergey Shumilin

Was probably the star of the team with 10 goals a generaly put in good performancys

Soumiala Diarra

Unspectacular on the field but the free transfer sold at the start of the season for a whopping £975,000 as we looked to break even for the year.

Finances

Over the season we lost around a 1m with net transfer profit of £110,000 thousand allowing us to break even when the sale of Diarra went through.

But........ couldn't believe it when our grant of 1.3m came through again :applause:

Leaving us with a 2.2m in the bank.

This season

With transfer budget of 300k there is money to spend and a spare 6k in the wage budget. Finding it tough to get decent Russians they all seem average or way to good and with scouting limited, agent offers from Africa seem to be the way forward as they are often young and can be sold on at a profit. The board are helpful finding a parent club and agreeing to fund a physio which is more than can be said for the previous lot. Will look to consolidate mid table this season and break even again before a big promotion push next season.

[global1]

can some one please tell me how you do something like this...

Code:

CLUB HISTORY

SEASON LEAGUE POS. T-CUP Europe NOTES

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

12/13 2DC 1st 4th round - Promoted

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

Code:

TROPHY CABINET

Portuguese Second Division (Central) - 12/13

thanks

[Gilbster]

Global you need to put it within [ code] [/code] tags. I tend to have it all lined up with spaces (not tabs) in a notepad document and copy and paste it into my end of season reports. The tags obviously dont have the space between the "[" and "c"

[minisav]

I'm back! I'm also returning to be RB Leipzig!

So here we go:

Profile

Club Overview

Club Information

Sqaud

[danger_mouse]

I'm back! I'm also returning to be RB Leipzig!

So here we go:

Profile

Club Overview

Club Information

Sqaud

I was going to start with RB Leipzig but i wanted abit more of a challenge

[minisav]

Well I completed it with them last version and although I made it look easy it wasn't!

[danger_mouse]

They just look like they've got alot of things already in place and i had that on FM11 with Mantova.

[rlipscombe]

welcome back minisav - looking forward to your latest RB Leipzig game.

[Amethyst21]

Quick update

Despite the fact we are newly promoted to the Second League - we have taken the league by storm and sit atop the table comfortably a third of the way through the season.

This is actually quite unexpected to me, there are clearly some players that can play at this level, but to be undefeated is actually quite shocking. And to be completely honest, I didn't want a promotion this year, I would prefer to stay in the Second League and build for an eventual push to the top flight. But with our current form I might not get much say in the matter! I'm also usually not this good at FM, so maybe Portugal agrees with me? Or after posting this I'll go on a terrible run and just avoid relegation .

I'd also like to figure out what I'm doing so well! FM never fails to amaze

</humblebrag>

[Britrock]

Football Club Unione Venezia

Club history (from Wikipedia)

Founded by a merger in 1907, Venezia have spent a large part of their history bouncing between the top-two tiers of Italian football.

Venezia's home stadium, the Pierluigi Penzo, is the only ground in Italy's top flights that must be reached by boat.

The club was founded as Venezia Football Club on 14 December 1907,[1] by members of two local sports clubs coming together; Palestra Marziale and Costantino Reyer. It was originally based at Campo San Bartolomeo in the city of Venice; fifteen men including the first president Davide Fano were involved in the club's founding;[1]

The most notable trophy success in the history of Venezia was winning the Coppa Italia during the 1940–41 season. The early 1940s was the pinnacle of the club's footballing prominence so far, as they also recorded their highest ever Serie A league finishing during that period with a 3rd place in 1941–42.

Venezia won the Coppa Italia in 1941. That team contained some of the players who went on to form part of the Torino F.C. side of the 1940s who died in the Superga air disaster in 1949, such as Ezio Loik and Valentino Mazzola.

In its history, Venezia has spent a large part of recent years bouncing between Italy's two top divisions (they were last relegated from Serie A in 2002). It was this last season in Serie A which signalled the beginning of the end for the old club. Frustrated with the team and the inability to agree plans for a larger stadium with the council, then President, Maurizio Zamparini, decided to purchase U.S. Città di Palermo, and took with him a large portion of the squad.

Notable recent former players include Álvaro Recoba, Filippo Maniero and Christian Vieri.

The original club, going under the name Associazione Calcio Venezia 1907, was declared insolvent because of bankruptcy and relegated from Serie B in 2005. At the end of the 2008–09 Lega Pro Prima Divisione season, the club declared bankruptcy again and was refounded, changing its name to Foot Ball Club Unione Venezia, and starting in Serie D – the top level non-professional league in Italian football.

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

The club has chosen yours truly to guide them on their journey back to the promised land of Serie A and hopefully by the end of the journey that boat trip to the ground will be made on a nice super yacht and not the dingy that I imagine we're all using at the moment...

Here's me: http://imgur.com/rYwPs

Here's the club: http://imgur.com/eoDEw

A nice safe mid-table finish is all that's required from me this year, and looking at the team there's a lot of holes to be filled, mainly right back, centre midfield and up front. http://imgur.com/EsdJW

After my success with 4-3-1-2 in FM11 the aim is to build a team capable of playing that way but that might have to stay on the backburner for a while whilst I have no CMs.

Oh yeah, that stadium:

[Mafino]

Okay, I managed to lost £40k in pre-season alone with Machico... I've just realised that being on island will cost the club a lot of travel expenses :/ Tried to set up a friendly against someone in my league and the board refused!

[vikeologist]

Question. If I manage in Scotland, am I allowed to take over the bottom team as soon as they have finished their league campaign, i.e. about 6 May?

I was just about to start with Queens Park, who finished way bottom of the Scottish Third, when I noticed that their capacity and value is far bigger than all the others, so i'm going to Holiday Man again. I feel that maybe it would be less of a challenge later in the game, though given how dire they were that first season, I'm sure it would have been quite the challenge early on. I know there's saves for other teams, but I may as well try to have my own 'universe'.

I holiday manned a Spain save, and there's a tiny little club, with a capacity of 1,000, that became playable. They're calling out to the massochist in me, so maybe if Queens Park finish bottom again, I'll dive in there. I was quite tempted by Barakaldo, because I like their pink away strip, but since someone else is going to manage them I'll look elsewhere.

[duccio]

I was just about to start with Queens Park, who finished way bottom of the Scottish Third, when I noticed that their capacity and value is far bigger than all the others, so i'm going to Holiday Man again. I feel that maybe it would be less of a challenge later in the game, though given how dire they were that first season, I'm sure it would have been quite the challenge early on.

Wether Queen's Park would be less of a challenge later on, or the biggest challenge of them all depends on wether the club will go professional on this game. IRL they will never become professional, but what about on FM12? Does anyone know? On some game versions they have turned pro and on others they have not.

I might fancy a save as Queen's Park, but only if they eventually can become professional. I once took them all the way to Scottish Premier League, but they remained amateur and the game was basically over as I could not hope to improve their fortunes anymore.

[Ohanzee]

global1 - Good first season! Looks like you've found yourself a good club.

minisav - Good luck in Germany!

Amethyst21 - Looking good, that's an amazing run! I had a below average start to my own season, but now we're on a 13 game unbeaten run and in the fight for 2nd place. I'm sure all my players will combust into flames now that I said that on here though.

Britrock - Good luck with Venezia! I had good fun with them last year.

[vikeologist]

Wether Queen's Park would be less of a challenge later on, or the biggest challenge of them all depends on wether the club will go professional on this game. IRL they will never become professional, but what about on FM12? Does anyone know? On some game versions they have turned pro and on others they have not.

I might fancy a save as Queen's Park, but only if they eventually can become professional. I once took them all the way to Scottish Premier League, but they remained amateur and the game was basically over as I could not hope to improve their fortunes anymore.

After my message I spotted that they were amateur, but the inability (I presume) to dabble at all in the tranfer market, plus possibly never becoming professional means that I'm going to go with East Stirlingshire, who finished bottom on my second Holiday man spell. I'll post screenines once I've fully come to terms with my situation, but I dd dio the screenshots before doing anything.

Queens Park may have just been frustrating and futile rather than a challenge, but like you, I'll be intrigued if anyone else takes them on to see what happens.

[Long Islander]

Clyde

After a 5-3 friendly record in preseason and being eliminated in the first round of both the Challenge Cup and League Cup, Clyde has now gone 3 wins and no defeats in its first 3 matches. Goals are 8-1. Team is really gelling. Beat East Stirlingshire 2-0 (where Sir Alex Ferguson is a legend) and beat Queens Park 4-0.)

Prediction for Clyde was dead last (10th), but things are looking up.

Good Luck vikeologist with your Queens Park save.