Gundo&#039;s FM14 European Adventure Challenge™

Top Scorer - Benediktsson

Fixtures 1 - Fixtures 2

Table

Managers Thoughts

I hoped for a top 4 challenge this season but this was beyond my wildest dreams. We started the season off really well and that set the tone for the whole year. Rosenborg took a big 9 point lead early on in the season and they maintained that right up until July when the Champions League qualifiers started and whilst they managed to get themselves in to the group stage their league form began to wobble as they struggled to juggle the 2. With only the league and the cup to concentrate on and Molde also managing the Europa Group our periods of rest seemed to make the world of difference as we went on a 21 game unbeaten run in all comps (19 of those games were wins).

Porisson was the catalyst for our success as he moved from the wing this season to center forward and he chipped in with 29 goals. The tightening of the defence was also a big factor in the season, Hagen and Daugaard were rocks at center back and Borger Thomas in goal was also superb. Swedish winger Niklas Hult was also signed and though he had a lot of injuries his 15 games played were very productive.

Obviously I am looking to maintain the standards of this season and improve the squad. Thankfully as champions we don't have to worry about Europe until mid September so hopefully we will avoid the problems Rosenborg and Molde faced with the 6 extra games each and be competitive at the top. Saeverid and Lindberg are already signed for next season to improve our quality on the wings but our finances aren't the best so i'll be hoping for some investment from the board or at least some better sponsorship deals in pre season to help fund a few more signings.

Season    League            Position  Norwegian Cup         Achievements            Europe
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014   Second Division (2)     6th      1st rd.           Top Half Finish             N/A      
2015   Second Division (2)     1st      1st rd.           Champions/Promoted          N/A
2016   Adeccoligaen            7th      Finalists         Top half Finish             N/A
2017   Adeccoligaen            3rd      Finalists         Top 3 Finish                N/A
2018   Adeccoligaen            1st      Winners           Promotion/Cup Winners       N/A
2019   Tippeligaen             6th      3rd rd.           Top Half Finish             E.L Group
2020   Tippeligaen             1st      Winners           The Double                  N/A

Gundo · January 11, 2014

Can you use FMC for this?

Not really would prefer to keep them separate, gets bit confusing otherwise. Feel free to create a thread in the FMC forum section though.

Gundo · January 11, 2014

Well done Dexter. Making great progress with Lillehammer each season.

sheeshy · January 11, 2014

Not really would prefer to keep them separate, gets bit confusing otherwise. Feel free to create a thread in the FMC forum section though.

Fair dos

smp20 · January 11, 2014

HK Season 2016 (2)

Colossal Centre Back - Jobe

Top Assister - Konradsson

Icelandic Young Player of the Year - G. Sigurdsson

An outstanding season for us! We managed the domestic treble again, this time beating fierce rivals Breidablik 7-0 in the cup final and blitzing the Premier League by 13 points and just one loss. But even more special is our cup run. We knocked out the likes of Dinamo Moscow and Tottenham to reach the group stages of the Europa League and we've scraped through to the Knockout stages where we will face AS Monaco. Another Icelandic club Valur managed to get through to the Europa League Group stages as well, beating IFK Goteborg and Club Brugge on the way. I'm delighted

kroblues · January 11, 2014

Congrats, smp20! Where did you get that regen pack from?

smp20 · January 11, 2014

Congrats, smp20! Where did you get that regen pack from?

Cheers, I got it from FM-Base, not sure if I am allowed to post up direct links but searching automatic face replacement and you will find it (I have direct link if I am allowed)

kroblues · January 11, 2014

Thanks, looks way better than the standard terrible regen face.

brettney1980 · January 11, 2014

Wrong Table link again Dexter!? Congrats on the double though, great work winning the Title in only your second season in the top tier.

Great work winning the treble smp20, sigurdsson is looking good. What a run in the Europa League, awesome work and so quickly, well done.

Dexter_Morgan · January 11, 2014

Cheers Gundo, it came a bit earlier than expected but i'm delighted we've managed it. I've unintentionally made a lot of changes in pre season this was down to me having to let Porisson go to Palermo (£1.9M) which I didn't really want to do but he had handed in a transfer request and was adamant he was going so that freed up funds for a younger striker from Lillestrom whom I had my eye on who is at the same level as him anyway and came in for £500k so hopefully that will turn out a good deal on our part.

The 2nd big exit was Ristola to Rosenborg for £2.3M. This would never have happened but he misses far too many games for my liking and again I had a player lined up who we could sign for under a million and doesn't have injury concerns and at a good age so this ended up a brilliant deal for us as our midfield was weak last year if we lost 1 of the main 3 so this deal made sense.

smp20 well done on the treble :thup:

Dexter_Morgan · January 11, 2014

brettney1980 i've just changed that table link. I don't know why it keeps doing that because in my career thread the embedded tables have shown up fine :confused:

O4epegb · January 11, 2014

Royal Olympic Club de Charleroi-Marchienne

SUCH DOGES MUCH CHALLENGE!

(My englando is very bad, i'm sorry, i'll do my best) Never did any challenges before, but did manage low league clubs a lot! It will be my first try, i decided to take belgium club, and when i saw emblem of this team i instantly understood - thats what i need!

Links:

Profile

Info

Squad

Honours and achievements

1946/1947 - 2nd Place Belgium Pro League (Ere Afdeling)

I'm not sure that i will post every season progression here, because i'm doing the same at russian forum and it is hard to switch languages every time you do screeshot, but we'll see.

VERY WOW MANY TITLES

Andrew Haines · January 12, 2014

FC Jazz - Season 2024 - Veikkausliiga - 2nd

Inconsistency cost me dear this season. It was somewhat of a transitionary season with quite a few young players bedding in. We managed to pull it back in the end but mid-season injuries to key players meant that we slipped into mid-table. A strong run in meant that we pulled it back for a second place finish. We ran Dutch side Heerenveen close in the Europa league but didn't have quite enough to progress past the second round.

I have a number of players aged 20-21 years old. They should develop in the next season or so to be the bedrock of a very good side. Players like Korhonen, Latosaari, Latikka and Pentilla along with the clubs talisman after eleven seasons Kolesnikov will form a core around which I can bring in and develop youngsters.

I have decided to do the challenge with Nordic only players to add character to the team. I brought in three young Icelandic players this season of whom the 16 year old Ragnar Gudnason could be a real star. I have always had a thing for Icelandic players, not sure why.

League Table

Europa League Fixtures

The Team

GK Jonas Latikka - 20 year old Finnish international keeper is probably the best player in the team. Got him on a new 5 year contract but it cost me...

RB Kujtim Stefansson - Promising fullback pushed into the team to plug a gap.

CB Kari Penttila - Finnish international centre-back at only 21 has six caps. Solid in the centre.

CB Hannu Vuorinen - Pacy Finnish u21 fullback. Am re-training as a centre-back where his physical attributes could be key. Reliant on my finding a replacement leftback though.

LB Olli Martikainen - The teams regular rightback and a Finnish international at 20 years old. Is filling in at leftback.

RW Einar Gylfason - Icelander Signed for the pace he offered, £40k from Keflavik. Has adapted well to a role on the wing that he has been re-training for.

AP Andrey Kolesnikov - Isn't the stand out player of the team these days but the 27 year old Finnish international is still a key player after 11 seasons.

DLP Ragnar Gudnason - The young Icelandic midfielder went straight into the team as a 15 year old having signed from Keflavik for £40k in January.

LW Konrad Sveinbjornsson - Pacy Icelandic winger signed from KR for £50k. Will probably lose his place to Joachim Nyman who is returning from a loan spell with Rosenborg.

AF Janne Korhonen - Speedy yound Finn hit 24 goals this season.

DLF Juuso Latosaari - The 20 year old Finnish striker has developed into a bit of a star of the side. Full of strength, plays in the deep forward position.

c4ught · January 12, 2014

League-Position Graph-Finances-Fixtures-Transfers

A season more successful than I could of even imagined. We kept hold of the same guys from the 1st season and added a little more depth and quality which showed from the off. Our only real wobble came at the end of the season when I was sure we were going to throw away top spot at the death.

Both my fullbacks averaged 7.49 and 7.42 for the season Right Back - Left Back Who I had to train to play left back!

Coco managed to perform much better in his 2nd season grabbing 10 goals for the season and probably just as many assists.

Our main striker was Schoonhijm who grabbed himself 12 goals for the season in only 25 games.

My players haven't improved over the season due to my lack of reasonable training facilities. We were sharing with a non league club so I had to wait to cancel that link before I could improve/build our own!!! Hopefully a few improvements to the facilities will see my players able to improve.

Given the good finances looking forward to a reasonable transfer and wage budget for the fight against relegation going to definitely need to sign some quality.

We can check out a good bit of Europe now with a scouting upgrade.

Season    League            Position       Achievements
2014/15   Jupiler League      16th
2015/16   Jupiler League      1st           Promotion
2016/17
2017/18

smp20 · January 12, 2014

HK Season 2017 (3)

Key Prospect - Einarsson

Another great season for us as we make great strides of progress. We won the league at a canter going unbeaten and retained the Upper League Cup. We managed to match our treble of last season, but this year we were knocked out of the Icelandic Cup by key challengers Valur. Our third trophy was the Champions Cup win, the Icelandic equivalent of the Super Cup. Experienced internationals Eidur Gudjohnsen and Greitar Steinsson joined the club as player coaches and will be fantastic tutors for our youngsters. We managed to reach the Champions League Group Stage which is a terrific achievement and gives us 7m+ income. Not only this, despite losing our first 4 games we won our last two to scrape through to the Europa League Knockouts. We will be entering the 2018 Season as a professional team Edit - I forgot to SS our youth intake, I was really annoyed at how poor it was compared to the last two seasons despite us spending 130k a month on our Youth Setup.

brettney1980 · January 12, 2014

Good luck O4epegb, welcome to the Challenge.

Unlucky against Heerenveen Andrew Haines, otherwise a good season.

Congrats on the promotion c4ught, good season. Finances look pretty solid.

HK the invincibles of Iceland, has a nice ring to it smp20. Great run in Europe did excellent to make 3rd place in the Champions league this early...

c4ught · January 13, 2014

League-Position Graph-Finances-Fixtures-Transfers-Squad

Season Summary 2016/17

So we set out on our quest to avoid relegation back to the Jupiler League. Given ~£55k in wage budget I looked to see who we could bring in on the cheap with the aim I will get them on 3 year contracts so if we do go down we can bounce straight back up. Lacking quality up front I quickly moved for two players who's contracts were coming to an end at their respective clubs Kelvin & Klos both of which were huge improvements on what we currently had and slotted in as two of our highest earners. Using some of the transfer budget I signed Vets, Belterman and Deelen who would all slot straight in to the starting 11. A few more free transfers and loan signings to add some depth we were set to scrap for our place in the top Division.

We started the season versus 4 mid table teams and remained unbeaten in those 4 games which I thought was a brilliant achievement and gave me the confidence that we could easily stay away from a relegation battle! 3 losses later and I certainly wasn't so sure :lol: but in truth I don't think we had played any of the weaker teams in the league yet with maybe the exception of one and to balance that we hadn't yet played any of the big boys.

We put together and mid season winning streak and come the middle of the season were flirting with the top 6 and the chance of European football in our 1st season! A few injuries to key players meant we then had a slump straight after the winning streak not managing a win in 9 games but still keeping ourselves out of the relegation fight although it was certainly creeping up on me.

The transfer window came around which enabled me to bring in two players Hyltoft & Phelipe with both going into the starting line up and players coming back from injury we won and lost a few games for the remainder of the season to finish in 12th place.

Cliff Notes: Great season where we never really looked like getting relegated once we got out a win after 9 games without one.

Miscellaneous Info

Stadium got a little boost but the club took out a loan to carry out the works! Which I wouldn't mind even though it doesn't say anything in the news report the loan has an interest rate of over 100% which can be seen in the finances above. Was considering giving this a post in the bugs forum, anyone any views?

The training facilities also got an upgrade which I hope will be a yearly thing for a good few seasons.

Season    League            Position       Achievements
2014/15   Jupiler League      16th
2015/16   Jupiler League      1st           Promotion
2016/17   Eredivisie         12th
2017/18

Fabian Jonsson · January 13, 2014

Jonsson takes Västra Frölunda hot seat (again)

Game setup

Database

2013 season summary

Club overview - for some reason it doesn't show that they were relegated in 2012, but I've verified that they were.

Manager profile

Hello everyone, I'm back. A couple of months ago I started playing this challange with Västra Frölunda in the Swedish 4th tier (2nd Division WG), but I was fired in the 4th season due to relegation from the 3rd tier. I decided I had to learn more about this years match engine, and come to grips with why I had severe slumps almost every season. Since then I've restarted this challange many times (often not finishing more than half a season) and tried different approaches and different tactics to learn more about reading the match engine and how to handle players under pressure. I'm still no where near a lower league pro, but I feel I've learnt enough to continue.

Anyways, since I've replayed the save so many times, I've not been very good at gathering screenshots lately, so this post will have to serve as a short summary of the career so far. I've played 4½ seasons already (the divisions in Sweden are small, so the seasons are very short), and results so far have been ok. We started out well, winning the 4th tier rather convincingly already in the first season. Full of confidence, I was gunning for back-to-back promotions, and an incredible start to the second season saw us sitting prettyon top of the table. A slight slump after summer (it's spring-autumn seasons in Sweden), however, saw us tumbling to a second place finish and playoffs. Unfortunately we didn't show up to the first leg, and eventhough we won the second leg we were still beaten 5-2 on aggregate. The 3rd year in charge was much the same, with us leading early on, only to loose out on promotion due to a poor finish. This time, we had hellish injury problems and had to rely on very young and inexperienced strikers, and payed the price. A third place finish meant we didn't even get a playoff spot. In my 4th season in charge it all came together. The team started out strong, and the form continued pretty much the entire season. We won the league with points to spare, and finally we're up to the 2nd tier (the Swedish Superettan).

Like I said above, I've played half a season there already, and after an amazing start, we've slid down to 4th place, 1 point behind the 3rd (which would mean playoff). I'm very happy with the performance so far though, and would be fine with a top half finnish and another transfer window to continue building the squad. Hopefully the club can turn professional soon too, as I feel the semi-professional status keep us from attracting really good youngsters (the only decent players we can attract are veterans that want to play a final season before retiring).

Will update more regularly from now on.

Season    League                             Position         Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014      Swedish 2nd Division WG            1st              Promotion
2015      Swedish First Division South       2nd              Lost playoff
2016      Swedish First Division South       3rd
2017      Swedish First Division South       1st              Promotion

kroblues · January 13, 2014

Season update 2018/2019

League at Winter Break

As you can see, we were right up with the title challengers as we came to the winter break, a title race that surprisingly included SV Ried, only one point behind us. Another surprise was how little the departure of Friesenbichler affected us, as with the loan signing of Giovanni Simeone (son of Diego) and the incredible goalscoring form of Pedro Goncalves, we were the highest scoring team in the league. With only a second place finish needed to qualify for the Champions League I felt optimistic of competing in Europe’s top competition next season even if we failed to capture our first Bundesliga title. Our three losses came very well spaced out, in game 2 at home to SK Sturm (1-0), in game 9 at home to Rapid Wien (3-2, Tadic, Goncalves) and in the final game before the break, at home to Austria Wien (2-1, OG).

After the winter break things continued in the same fashion, although there was a slight blip with 2 consecutive 2-0 losses to Rapid and Austria Wien. We took advantage of our nearest challengers slip-ups however to move clear as we reached the run in.

3 games to go

The other two Vienna teams were practically irrelevant at this point and Champions League Football was all but confirmed for our little Floridsdorfer AC. 7 points clear of Ried with the men from the Innkreis having a game in hand was a minor concern though, especially as they played us next and therefore had the chance to cut the gap to a single point if we lost.

AustrianPremierDivision_OverviewStages-4_zpsc8820a55.png

Full time: SV Ried 0-0 FAC, no worries at the Keine Sorgen Arena, the title coming closer.

2 games to go

A win for SV Ried in their game in hand meant the gap was at 4 points as we headed into the penultimate round of fixtures. A win for us meant the title, anything else coupled with a win for SV Ried meant the race went down to the final day.

Full Time: FAC 4-4 Kapfenberger SV 1919, a cracker, with goals from Ilsanker, Tadic, Kuen and Goncalves not quite being enough to secure a first title for Vienna’s little team.

1 game to go

Our draw, and Ried’s comfortable win, meant we had a last day battle on our hands. The gap: 2 points, the opponent: Red Bull Salzburg, in the Red Bull Arena. We had had some epic battles against the Bullen this season, twice coming back from large deficits (4-3, 4-2), so the stage was set for a good game. We just had to win and the title was ours.

AustrianPremierDivision_OverviewStages-3_zps300d2014.png

Full time: Red Bull Salzburg 3-7 (seven) FAC. Errrm, wow. What a way to win a title. Never mind the Agüero moment, this will be a game talked about for years in tiny computerised Floridsdorf, as the Blaulichter turned over the relative giants on their home turf. It was 5-0 at half time! You don’t see many better first halves than that.

FCRedBullSalzburgvFACTeamfuumlrWien_OverviewOverview_zpsfafb8807.png

League Final Standings

In the cup, it wasn’t quite so spectacular. We beat Vorwärts Steyr 5-1 in the first round, Kevin Friesenbichler’s last appearance for the club. And how appropriate he capped it in the 87th minute with the final goal of an amazing few years for the club. In the second round we dispatched Bundesliga club Wolfsberg 3-1 away from home, but then crashed out to Erste Liga Wiener Neustadt 1-0 in the third round as the reserves got a run out.

Europe went quite well, but could have gone so much better. We destroyed Qäbälä 7-1 on aggregate with a team made up largely of youngsters due to a lack of signings early in the window, but sadly AZ Alkmaar were a step too far. We lost 1-0 away, and despite taking a 2-0 lead back in Vienna, through loanee Zeljko Music’s brace, we couldn’t hold on and our 2-1 win wasn’t enough, Alkmaar getting through on away goals.

Transfers:

Friesenbichler was the main move out, joining Frankfurt for €1.5M, by far our record sale, and we replaced him very much on the cheap with two loan signings in Simeone and Music, who both chipped in with vital goals. The money in was very handy for facility and stadium expansion purposes however.

The first XI at the end of the season:

GK: Damir Kozic

DR: Kjetil Ullersmo (free transfer from Rosenborg in January)

DC: Brian Behrendt

DC: Dong Qiansho (free transfer, already a China international, the next big youth hope)

DL: Oliver Kragl (€20k from SV Ried)

MC: Kevin Maritschnegg ©

MC: Stefan Ilsanker (loan from Rapid Wien)

AMR: Pedro Goncalves

AMC: Dario Tadic (loan from HSV, joining on a free at the end of the season)

AML: Eldar Balalic

ST: Giovanni Simeone (loan from Benfica)

Top scorer: Pedro Goncalves. Undoubtedly the star of this season, our little Ronaldo. The Portuguese 21 year old managed to get 20 goals and another 14 assists from the right wing, which is a frankly insane amount for a winger in a tactic not particularly built around him. Hopefully we'll be able to cling onto him as bigger clubs will surely be looking at h

Best player: Brian Behrendt. Aside from Goncalves, Brian was again our best player, a rock at the back and one of the big reasons for our title win.

Youth prospects:

Pedro Goncalves, for comparison, here is Pedro Goncalves at 17. Not really a youth prospect anymore so this will be his last season in this section.

Damir Kozic. Another one that's not really a youth prospect anymore.

Eldar Balilic. Assured of his starting place now and is developing well, at 21 he's not really a youth player.

Finances: Looking a lot healthier, although we were losing close on €200k per month thanks to loan repayments. Should be way better next season purely from Champions League Group income.

Average attendance: 2974 (of 3000), and 15 sellouts. A stadium expansion to 5000 seats will be finished in December, but even that might not cover the demand we'll have next season.

Next season: Well it would be nice to win it again but that might be a little optimistic. Challenging for the title would have to be a minimum aim though.

 Season   | League   | Position  |  Cup          |  Europe  |      Top scorer        
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
2014/15  | Erste Liga|   5[size=1]th[/size]     | R2           |   N/A     |    Ingo Klemen (10)
2015/16  | Erste Liga |   1[size=1]st[/size]     | R3          |   N/A     |   Kevin Friesenbichler (25)
2016/17  | Bundesliga |   8[size=1]th[/size]     | R2         |   N/A     |   Kevin Friesenbichler (17)
2017/18  | Bundesliga |   3[size=1]rd[/size]     | SF         |   N/A     |   Kevin Friesenbichler (30)
2018/19  | Bundesliga |   1[size=1]st[/size]     | R3         |   EPL      |   Pedro Goncalves (20)

brettney1980 · January 13, 2014

Good first season in the Eredivisie c4ught. I think that is pretty much the norm on the stadium loan.

Good start/re-start Fabian Jonsson, good luck.

Awesome work winning the Title kroblues, even better that you got to beat the Franchise 7-3 to do so.

smp20 · January 13, 2014

HK Season 2018 (4)

Europa League Campaign

Youth Intake

Best Prospect - Bessi Gardarsson

Champions League 2018/19

Group Table and last 2 results

The progress we have made in just 4 full seasons has really surprised me and I'm really enjoying this save. For the fourth year running we achieved a domestic treble, winning the Upper League Cup, Icelandic Cup and the Premier League. Valur had something to say about our dominance this year, beating us in the Champions Cup final and the opening league game and giving us a run for our money in the league! They are now our nemesis team, if only FM could develop rivalries. We had an amazing run in the Europa League, knocking out Zenit, Ajax and Stuttgart on our way to the Semis. In the opening leg, Liverpool opted for a rotated squad but they didn't make the same mistake in the 2nd leg where we took them to extra-time. A 105 minute goal won them the tie, so close to a European final. We got to the Champions League Group stages with relative ease but were handed a very hard group. For some reason our home games were played at our regular stadium rather than the national stadium, which I think played into our own hands in terms of results - we have a terrible pitch, crazy cold temperatures and I'm sure we have a hostile crowd to boot. 2-2 draws at home to Milan and Man Utd are terrific achievements as well as a 3-0 thumping of Zenit. Away from home we certainly didn't embarrass ourselves either. For the second season running, we have found our way to the Europa League Knockout stages where we will face Greek heavyweights Olympiakos. This year I opted not to go crazy with signings, with just a few key players being introduced to our newly Professional Club.

smp20 · January 13, 2014

Good luck O4epegb, welcome to the Challenge.
Unlucky against Heerenveen Andrew Haines, otherwise a good season.

Congrats on the promotion c4ught, good season. Finances look pretty solid.

HK the invincibles of Iceland, has a nice ring to it smp20. Great run in Europe did excellent to make 3rd place in the Champions league this early...

Cheers I'm very happy with how this has panned out so far. Though we weren't invincibles again this year, mainly because of the improvements Valur have made (they went Pro too) and fixture pile-up during our CL games. My U19s played a fair few of my Premier League games!

brettney1980 · January 13, 2014

Wow, the progress you are making is just out of this world smp20. Not sure how you are doing it but i have played in Iceland before and it took me about 20 years just to get competitive in Europe never mind getting close to a Europa final in just a few... You'll be completing this in a couple of seasons at this rate

smp20 · January 13, 2014

Wow, the progress you are making is just out of this world smp20. Not sure how you are doing it but i have played in Iceland before and it took me about 20 years just to get competitive in Europe never mind getting close to a Europa final in just a few... You'll be completing this in a couple of seasons at this rate

I'd like to think its down to the tactics I've been using Been playing a 4-4-2 with two DMs, but pressing high. The lines are very difficult to penetrate and I've always used pretty quick defenders, so getting through us is a tough ask. When we have the ball, I get it into space down the wings and launch in crosses to my target man, who flicks on or scores himself. Not pretty football, but when Europe's Elite come to Iceland to play in -10 (often haha) on a terrible pitch in front of a hostile crowd, we can get the edge

Tactics Overview

Jambo98 · January 13, 2014

Partizan-MTZ Minsk

Season 4- 2017

Season Summary

Belarusian Highest League

League table -5th

Past Positions

We had a much improved season as we settled on a quite attacking 4231 tactic, and having brought in a new striker he delivered consistently. We spent the majority of the season just about hanging onto the coat tails of the top 4, whilst well clear of those below so making the top 6 at the split was always on the cards.

We had a couple of mini slumps, and a heavier fixture list than we expected cost us a little, a couple of key defeats in the top 6 group meant that 4th was out of our reach. The top 4 can get into europe, so bit of a shame to miss out via the league.

We had a couple of key lengthy injuries which didnt help as we were not great in depth, happy enough with my first choice 11 during the season but the squad players let me down a few times. We were a bit weak defensively, whilst being free scoring, which is somewhat a reflection on my tactical approach

Belarusian Cup

Fixtures

With the cup crossing the main season, we started this "season" having already made it to the quarters. We comfortably made it through the last 8 tie to set up a semi final against one of the top teams in the league in Torpedo. In an great match whcih was actually played before the first league game, we went behind with only 16mins to go, equalised with 6 to go before winning with a cracker in extra time.

This set us up for our first cup final, against Dinamo Brest. Although they were above us in the league, i fancied we have a chance against pretty much any time other than BATE. It was a close affair until our Icelandic star striker Ingason broke the deadlock with a poachers effort just after the hour. Our centre back Morozov managed to get sent off on 75mins to make holding on even more tricky, but with the last kick of the ball we broke away and Ingason slotted in to win us the cup! First trophy in only our 3rd season! Also means we qualified for the Europa League (which then kicks off midway through the Belarusian league year!)

In the "second" cup season, we failed spectacularly to defend the trophy, going out first round......

Europa League

Fixtures

Going into our first European adventure i had no expectations at all, hoped maybe we could get a real minow from Wales or something in the second qualifying round and maybe get an extra 2 games for income........Was a touch disapointed to draw Videoton of Hungary first up as they are probably in a slightly better league than me. Our first game in Europe was moved to the national stadium, as the one we share is too small. Boy did we rise to the occasion, thumping them 8 v 1!!!! Meant i played kids in the second leg and we were through to the third qualifying round. We were drawn against Luzern of Switzerland, and although they would be favourites i felt more confident now that we could compete. An excellent 3 v 1 win away in first leg set us on the way, and although we lost 2 v 1 in the second leg we had made it through the playoff round!

In the playoffs we drew Dynamo kyiv, which at least meant not too long a trip, but they are still a big team and had several £5million plus players in the squad. The first leg was at home and we battled for a 1 v 1 draw, meaning we would be massive underdogs going to kyiv as they have an away goal........Yet we produced more heroics as we somehow spanked them 4 v 1!! We were into the Europa League Group stages! Against all the odds, in our 3rd season and first european adventure.

In the group stages we drew Malaga, Dnipro and Pandurii of Romania. We managed another excellent away win in Dnipro, but lost the other 5 games as expected. We didnt disgrace ourselfs at all, indeed losing only 2 v 1 away to mighty Malaga.

Top PLayers

Halldor Freyr Ingason - A gem of a find by my scandavian scout. Pace to burn and my top earner and overall star. 12 goals in 12 games in Europe was incredible and my main man domestically. Hope to hold onto him for a few years, as my tactic really loves a fast striker

Alexey Rudenok - Another star of a former FM series (He scored 40 goals in a season for me in about FM12 at Newcastle!) who was brought in on a free an intended to be back up. Injuries gave him a chance early and he then couldnt be dropped as he was a great source of goals. Still has the great physical stats which made him a star in his younger days

Evigeniy Morozov - Our 22yr old Defensive lynchpin missed a few games through injury, but was solid if not spectatular.

Other News

At the end of the season we moved into our newly build 8000 all seater stadium which is a big step as we previously were selling out every match in our small rented one. An expensive loan was taken out to cover it, but we are jsut about managing to cover it and the europa cash was huge

We also got a Youth facilities upgrade with the europe cash, which we needed as we were "basic" on those.

Couple of decent prospects in the youth intake (sorry didnt take a screenie), and also almost all my foriegn recruits have been U21.

Belarusian football had a great season in Europe - Us, Torpedo, Dinamo Minsk and BATE all made the groups of the Europa! Torpedo even made it out the group stages and as i type, have won the first leg of there knock out against Malaga (Europe season and domestic cross over)

Next Season

1) Make the top 3 and get back into Europe (after being in "this" season, we are now out for a campaign given the league finish and we failed to retain the cup)

2) Try not to lose cash without the European income.

brettney1980 · January 13, 2014

Great first run in Europe Jambo98, the hammering of Videoton is very impressive. Nice work on winning your first Trophy also.

brettney1980 · January 14, 2014

SV Austria Salzburg, 2019/20;

This year was the complete opposite of what i have been used to at Austria Salzburg, it was the second half of the Season that let us down. After the winter break we only managed to win 5 out of 16 matches, this was lower half of the Table form and we were lucky we had already picked up plenty of points from the first half or we could of dropped waaay down. In the end though by winning our last 2 matches we finished 5th (a step back still..) and just managed to claim a Europa League spot, entering Europe in the 2nd Qual. round.

Final Table|Graph

Europa League games - We dropped into the Europa League playoff round after losing in the Champions League Qualifying to Dynamo Kiev, we went out of Europe completely then to Feyenoord losing to the Dutch side after Penalties.

FA Cup Run - Out first round

The Squad

Finances|Transfers

Players of Note;

Soufiane Bah - Signed permanent after being here on Loan last season.

Ervin Halilovic - Another top youngster with great potential thrown into the Squad, joint top scorer.

Jesper Adolfsson - His scoring run the second half of the season was our only bright spot.

Armin Kovacevic - Joint top scorer.

Claude Coulibaly - Player of the Season.

Best XI

Record Apps for the Club broken - Two of our current players are the top two with Ottl just a few matches behind Simic.

Youth Candidates;

Muhamed Basic YP2 - 15 apps, 1 goal while out on Loan.

Sebastian Gladrow YP1 - Stayed at Club, making 4 appearances.

Season    League            Position   Austrian Cup         Achievements      Europe
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014/15   First Division      5th       1st rd.           Top Half Finish      N/A      
2015/16   First Division      1st       3rd rd.           Champions/Promoted   N/A
2016/17     Bundesliga        3rd       Q-Final    Place above 'The Franchise' N/A
2017/18     Bundesliga        3rd      Finalists       Made Europa League / Europa Group
2018/19     Bundesliga        2nd     Semi Final     25 game unbeaten run / Europa 3rd Qual
2019/20     Bundesliga        5th       1st rd    Beat the Franchise once... Europa Playoff

smp20 · January 14, 2014

HK Season 2019 (5)

This season I've been able to bring in some real quality that will help us push on. With the exception of Eyjolfsson, they're all youngsters who are already stars but also have bags of potential. It's an exciting future for the club. Eyjolfsson is a great centre back and tutor who came through the clubs youth system before going to West Ham, it's great to get him back.

We've managed to win the domestic cup treble this season for the first time, very happy with that!

We were just one game away from a 100% record, FH being the only team to stop us from achieving it.

Europa League

Wow! Absolutely buzzing! We are the Europa League Champions! Knocking out teams such as Arsenal and Atletico when we are huge underdogs shows the potential here at the club. We were dead and buried in the final until a 119th minute corner goal and we went on to win 5-4 on pens despite having only one player with above 10 penalty taking.

European Super Cup

Champions League

Group Stage

Once more, the big boys dread coming to Iceland. 3 home wins against Barca, Milan and Feyenoord, a win away in Holland and a draw at the Nou Camp have seen us top an extremely tough group.

What a season, adding to our nine trophies in the first three seasons is a Quintuple! Premier League, Upper League Cup, Icelandic Cup, Europa League and European Super Cup. This team are notorious over-achievers and I can't put this save down!

Fabian Jonsson · January 14, 2014

Season Summary: 2019

As I promised earlier, I'd start updating more regularly from now on. I also discovered that I apparently played one more season in the First Division South than I remembered when I wrote the career summary above. We finished 9th our first year in that division, and it must've been a pretty bland season since I forgot all about it.

The 6th season in charge of Västra Frölunda saw us taking on the First Division Elite (IRL called Superettan, the Swedish 2nd tier), for the first time, and of course we were expected to finish dead last. Having looked at the team comparison, however, I was pretty confident that we would never be in any danger of relegation. We started out with some very strong results against the teams expected to fight for promotion, and after half the season was done we were a mere point off promotion playoffs. The second half of the season was tougher however, as all our strikers lost their form simultaneously. We produced excellent defensive displays, and had ample opportunities to score in most games, but the strikers simply wouldn't put the ball away. They hit the posts, passed the ball to the keeper, or dallied too long. All in all, an incredibly frustrating time to be a manager. The points still ticked in though, thanks to our strong defense, and a couple of lucky penalty/corner goals, so we ended up in a not too shabby 6th place. I've managed to snap up a couple of decent reinforcements in the early days of the transfer window, so I'm looking forward to a second season where we hopefully can stay in the promotion race a little longer. Will post a screen of the final table when I get home, if I remember...

Season    League                             Position         Achievements
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014      Swedish 2nd Division WG            1st              Promotion
2015      Swedish First Division South       9th
2016      Swedish First Division South       2nd              Lost playoff
2017      Swedish First Division South       3rd
2018      Swedish First Division South       1st              Promotion
2019      Swedish First Division Elite       6th

brettney1980 · January 14, 2014

Now you've earned the Invincibles tag smp20, what a season. Europa League, Champions League Group won, League won and even beating City in the Super Cup... Wow!

Least you didn't have to fight a relegation battle Fabian Jonsson, 6th is a very respectable first season in the division finish.

smp20 · January 14, 2014

HK Season 2020 (6)

Champions League Knockouts

Champions League 2020/21

Group Stage Table

Overall 11

We achieved the domestic quadruple, although this year FH managed to get the double over us in the League! Most significantly we managed to work our way to the Champions League Semi-Final through a favourable draw which saw us knock out CSKA Moscow and Marseille. Man Utd just about pipped us, but we were close to the final. United went on to win it, beating Barca in the final. The 2020/21 Champions League Campaign saw us get through the group stages unbeaten, although after the first 3 games we had just 3 points after all 1-1 draws. We needed to avoid defeat to guarantee a spot in the next stage but instead we beat Dortmund away from home. We will be facing Zenit in the knockout stage. I keep on forgetting to SS when I have my youth intake, but I've had some good prospects through the years. I'm thinking of doing a feature on them if that's something people would be interested in seeing? One last thing, we are building a new stadium. Look at the name, I've never had that before .

New Stadium

smp20 · January 14, 2014

Now you've earned the Invincibles tag smp20, what a season. Europa League, Champions League Group won, League won and even beating City in the Super Cup... Wow!
Least you didn't have to fight a relegation battle Fabian Jonsson, 6th is a very respectable first season in the division finish.

We weren't quite as prolific domestic wise this season, but still going very well in Europe

Dexter_Morgan · January 15, 2014

O4epegb good luck in Belgium

smp20 Superb progress already

Fabian Jonsson Great season in the elite division

Jambo98 Well done winning the cup :thup:

brettney1980 Seems like things didn't go your way this year, hopefully you can turn it around for next season

kroblues Great work winning the title :thup:

Andrew Haines Seems like you are getting a good young squad together there

c4ught · January 15, 2014

Great going smp20 any chance of a finance screenshot and a screenie of who you think is your most important player in the next update?

Do you think it helps you only having 22 games in your league season?

brettney1980 · January 15, 2014

We weren't quite as prolific domestic wise this season, but still going very well in Europe

Still a great season though. Plus very, very nice work getting a Stadium named after you i have never had that happen to me in any game before ..

Nope, not at all Dexter, not at all.

smp20 · January 15, 2014

Great going smp20 any chance of a finance screenshot and a screenie of who you think is your most important player in the next update?
Do you think it helps you only having 22 games in your league season?

Yeah will post up my finances after I have finished this season, got a bit carried away and the next update will be for two seasons It really does help having just 22 league games. I'm at a point now where the Upper League Cup is like an extended pre-season (can use 5 subs) and I play all domestic games (other than important ones) on commentary and zoom through them. Even with getting to European finals, the max amount of games I will have will be around 50 so its good for rotation. Even better, I will post up my best 11 in the next update

Still a great season though. Plus very, very nice work getting a Stadium named after you i have never had that happen to me in any game before ..
Nope, not at all Dexter, not at all.

Yes I've never had it before either - I can't wait to be playing in it!

smp20 · January 15, 2014

Season 2021 & 2022 (7/8)

As I'm updating two seasons at once its going to be more of 'a picture paints a thousand words' as I will just be posting up screen shots. Right, here goes

2021

2020/21 Champions League Knockouts

2021/22 Champions League Group Stages

2022

2021/22 Champions League Knockouts

2022/23 Champions League Group Stage