FM15 'Big' Euro Challenge

[rlipscombe]

Alemannia Aachen

German Third Division

So, my first foray into the Big Nation Challenge for FM15 will be with Alemannia Aachen, the team that saw me achieve my first ever ‘Season 1’ relegation in my history of playing this or any of the challenges..... I am not beaten that easily so I am back at ‘Neuer Tivoli’ ready to take this team to the top....

Manager profile

Manager Information

Club Information

Alemannia Aachen is a German football club from the western city of Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost city of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, 61 km (38 mi) west-southwest of Cologne.

A long term fixture of the country's second division, Alemannia enjoyed a three-year turn in the top flight in the late 1960s and, after a successful 2005–06 campaign, returned to first division play for a single season. The club has since slipped to third division play and in late 2012 entered into bankruptcy. They plan to finish their 2012–13 3. Ligaschedule before resuming play in the tier IV Regionalliga West in 2013–14.

Alemannia carries the strange nickname "the Potato Beetles" (Kartoffelkäfer) because of their striped yellow-black jerseys, which make them look like the particular insects.

Alemannia Aachen used to play at the Old Tivoli which had a capacity of 21,632 spectators (3,632 seats). One of Germany's better known stadiums, it was built in 1908 and was renovated several times. The club played its 2004 UEFA Cup matches, however, in Cologne's RheinEnergieStadion in order to meet the stadium capacity requirements in place for the competition.

In August 2009 Aachen opened a new stadium, the New Tivoli, which has a capacity of 32,960 spectators (11,681 in standing areas). The first match in the new stadium was against the Belgium team Lierse SK, but it was closed for the public. The first Bundesliga-match took place on 17 August 2009 against FC St. Pauli which Aachen lost 0–5, which was the highest home-defeat in Aachen's history

Those of you who have followed the thread for a few years may know I have criteria I usually follow when picking a team (see Como, Real Oviedo, Venezia, SVW Mannheim). This is (in no particular order):

· A ‘Fallen giant’ (in so much as have played top flight football in last 20 years or so)whom I am going to rescue – CHECK

· A nice sized stadium with an eye on the future – CHECK

· Based near some form of water – SEMI CHECK (whilst not by the sea they are a spa town)

As you can see they do meet my criteria and with a nickname like the ‘Potato Beetles’, how could I really say no??

[skinnybirds]

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with Gavorrano. I should have mentioned that I've never managed a team this far down the leagues with such a poor standard of football. The worst I've managed was around League 1 in England. I'm still enjoying the challenge of it all though.

We're 1/3 of the way through the season now and can't seem to find any form. I know we were expected to finish 18th but I'd still like to be in a healthier position than the one we're in. As you can see (Results) we've found our best performances have come away from home which to an extent is encouraging, we've only conceded 10 goals on the road with 5 of those coming in a dejecting performance at a relegation rival. So while the table doesn't look too good (League Table) and we're in for a long season, I'm still confident we can avoid relegation.

My best signing so far on paper has probably been Alessandro Frau due to some excellent technical stats but I've struggled to find his role in the team. He seems like a bit of a luxury player, not really up for a relegation scrap.

My best player though was already at the club when I joined, although he started with and injury leaving him out for the first few weeks of the season. Roberto Guitto has rarely let me down and has even chipped in with a few goals from a deep lying playmaker role. He's high up in a couple of important statistical catagories aswell. (Pass Completion) (Tackles per game)

Our next game is a massive one. A chance to get back to back wins for the first time this season against one of the few teams below us in the table and in front of our home fans. I just hope this is the start of a mid season resurgence.

[G-Wiz]

Brief progress report from myself...

After what seemed like the worst possible start to life in the National Championship, only winning 1 of our first 10 league matches, things have taken a tremendous turn for the better at AD Marco 09. Our poor start left us in 8th after the first stage of the league.

However, we are now flying, only losing 1 of our last 11 matches, and so sit in a healthy 3rd place in the relegation stage table. Thanks, largely to this man...Ricardo Ferreira, who has been a revelation up front, with 18 goals from 20 league starts. Hopefully this form can continue through to the end of the season

[PaulHartman71]

A very inconsistent February/March. A couple of decent wins but we lost far too many games, the first two games we should have at least drawn and those 2 points would have been invaluable in what is shaping up to be a very close relegation battle. With 6 games left we sit in 15th just in the relegation zone. 11th-16th accounts for a 4 point difference so if any team picks up a win they can climb the table by a lot of places. Our goal difference is quite good but unfortunately I forgot the French National does it based on results between teams, which in the case currently with Vendee Lucon means we would go down despite having a superior goal difference.

[rlipscombe]

G-Wiz - That was a seriously tough start to the season! Great to see you turn it around in the Relegation stage though - Ricardo Ferreira has been a beast for you

PaulHartman71 ​- looks like it's going to go down to the wire - fingers crossed for you

[PaulHartman71]

Squeaky bum time!!

[Quacky]

If there's no posterial perturbations then you aren't trying hard enough.

[PaulHartman71]

It went to the wire but we just about did enough to stay up!

[iacovone]

Crikey that's tight Paul! Well done

[PaulHartman71]

Pau FC - Season 1: 2015/16 French National

Just noticed I forgot to upload my last few fixtures of the season so i'll put that in now:

League table again for reference:

Obviously went out in the 8th round of the French Cup after losing 2-1 away to Toulouse.

Transfers:

As you can see the entire transfer activity around the club revolved around free transfers. Some of the players that left were actually pretty decent but just refused to sign another contract to stay at the club despite the promotion. The majority of the players I brought in were to add depth to a squad that I inherited of about 12 players. The actual core of the team I inherited was good enough to stay up but there was just absolute no depth to it at all, the players I did bring in were merely the best I could find among the free agents I gave trials to. I signed two players in January as you can see, both of whom to add more quality to the side, Bouscarrat up-front who I am sure you'll see more of next season, and Pierre Lees Melou in the midfield.

Squad pt 1, Squad pt 2.

The two stand out players for me this season were the two players who were at the heart of the majority of the goals we scored. 34 year old Sylvain Heckly was out top scorer, finishing up the season with 18 goals in 36 starts, providing 7 assists as well. Heckly is not really particularly amazing but despite his age he managed to be one of the top scorers in the entire league - i'm not sure if he will be able to continue this form next season as his technical's and physical's have been slowly dropping all season and will surely continue to do so, hopefully I can get someone in that will score more as well as seeing more goals from Bouscarrat in his first full season next year. I'm sure Heckly will still feature as a rotation option though. One player who wont feature for us next season is the other star of the season - Hicham M'Laab. My first choice CAM had had a decent return statistically with 10 goals and 5 assists from 28 starts, he also always seemed to be the player to assist the player that got the assist for a lot of goals. He wasn't the most consistent performer and I did rotate him a bit as you can see from his 8 sub appearances, ultimately he decided that he was too good for Pau FC and refused to even entertain the idea of renewing his contract. A big loss but there wasn't much I could do really.

I did get 3 players in my Youth intake who all have the potential to be good Ligue 2 players in the future, as well as the 2 Youth intake players that were already at the club when I joined from the previous season. I'll update on those players if any of them manage to break into the first team, most likely i'll look to loan the majority of them out next season and first team football in the lower leagues will improve their game. One of the players who is only 14 I would have actually loved to have been able to play as he was a LB and towards the end of the season we had a horrendous full-back crisis, especially at LB which lead to Flamini at LB-esque calamities, which made our survival from relegation all the more heroic.

Good news as I was offered a one year extension on my deal, I would have liked a bigger extension of course, but I took what they offered me with open arms, especially since they offered it to me a few games before I'd even secured survival.

The bad news is like most people will suffer when managing in the lower leagues, our finances are really not looking that good. I was hoping that away game in the cup to Toulouse would sort us out but as we only got about 100K for that it didn't really do us all that much of a favour in the end. As you can see I was given a 44K transfer budget, none of which I actually used, I saved this mainly because the players I could have signed for 1K-44K sort of value I couldn't scout enough to work out if they were even that great, so it made much more sense to just sign trial players on frees. I don't think I will aim to spend any of that 40K next season either as with the finances getting worse and worse i'm expecting the wage budget they give me to decrease and decrease, my logic at the moment is whilst I still have quite a lot of my wage budget unused (about 3 or 4K pw) I can negotiate the renewal of contracts for the good players I have at the club, bring in a few more on frees, and then blood in my promising youth prospects in the next few seasons, maybe even get a player or two in on loan, and at some point in the next 2 maybe 3 seasons we will be good enough to get promoted.

Career Overview

Season     League     Position   French Cup   Coupe de la Ligue   Europe    Other
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    National   14th       8th Round    N/A                 N/A       N/A

[Misterjokerboy]

Well done for avoiding relegation Paul

[G-Wiz]

2015-2016 - End of Season Review

AD Marco 09

Squad | Transfers | Finances

So, as previously stated, we endured a torrid start to the league campaign, which meant by the end of the first phase of the league we were well and truly in amongst the relegation battle. However, the switch to the relegation phase coincided with an upturn in fortunes, and ultimately we were comfortable enough in the division.

National Championship First Phase

National Championship Relegation Phase

Player-wise, there is a serious lack of real standout talent in the squad, with the majority of my signings this season made merely to fill positions, and try and add some depth to the squad i inherited. With that being said, the main man without question was Ricardo Ferreira, without whom we would undoubtedly have struggled. 25 goals in 32 league apps was a fantastic return. The only other notable player worth mentioning was Marcos Freitas, who contributed 9 goals and 8 assists from left wing.

Going forward, the recruitment drive is already well and truly under way; shifting the dead weight and trying to find some actual quality may prove difficult, considering our current financial state, but i am determined to put up more of a challenge this coming season. Fingers crossed!!

[G-Wiz]

congrats on avoiding relegation PaulHartman71, hopefully you can kick on this season

[iacovone]

AD Machico | Season 2015-16 |

Campeonato Nacional: 3a Divisao

| Fixtures 1 | Fixtures 2 | Squad Stats |

First Phase |Table[/url]

Heck of a start to life on the island of Madeira as our very simple 4-4-2 kept us competitive with even the strongest teams in our group. Only a late collapse of form saw us trickle out of the promotion phase picture, leaving us facing the relegation stage. That said, with our impressive points tally we were well set for that challenge (50% of your points in the first phase are counted to your starting points tally in the relegation phase...)

Relegation Phase | Table

So you'll see we comfortably avoided relegation, which in our first season is all we can really ask for. There was never any danger and although we drew a few of games late on (frustrating) we regularly bounced back and kept our heads well above water, ending very pleasingly with our biggest win of the season in front of the home fans

Squad

The general standard across the board is low, as you'd expect, but there are a few rays of light for sure. Ricardo Brandao was signed midway through the season and became our most important central midfielder, while Marcos Santos led by example throughout the entire campaign. Up front Kevin Da Silva played the advanced forward role with a whole host of different partners and I liked his effort throughout. Notable mention for Nuno Corte who is probably our most technical player.

Admin

As ever the Finances look terrible but that's to be expected and I suppose hearing that the Facilities were downgraded is another burden we have to live by this low down.

The board were pleased with me and I signed a new one-year contract.

As far as squad changes go, I'm going to release about 10 players and a couple of staff members as I look to shake it up further this summer. Pre-season update will explain all the comings and goings but I'm aiming to keep hold of our first-team regulars and hopefully just add a bit of quality around them to give us more depth.

That be all for now.

[Misterjokerboy]

Just thought I'd give a little update, I have started the season much better, I have been frustrated that a couple of those draws weren't wins, but still I'm delighted with the start. The team just feels like it's a lot stronger than last season. The above results mean I am currently sat in third in the table.

One of the two main stikers I brought into the club has performed outstandingly well.

Main concerns at the moment are the amount of goals from long range I seem to concede and my defending at set pieces is not very good either

[iacovone]

Well this isn't going to plan. I trimmed the squad in the summer but we're still such minnows no-one really wants to join us! So I'm frantically ducking and diving trying to fill the squad or else I'll be relying on the latest youth crop (which aren't great...)!

[Quacky]

I think they have really tightened up who will consider joining semi-pro teams. It got so much easier to manage once I turned pro.

[Romanista1994]

Batman PetrolSpor

The Club

General|Facilities|Finances

Transfer Budget: £9,620

Wage Budget: £11,333

Wage Expenditure: £3,368

Founded in 1960, Batman Petrol Spor Kulübü reached their peak in the late 1990s when they played in the Turkish second division for four consecutive years. They boast a Turkish 2. League White Group win in 1997 as well as being runners up in the same league the two years preceding their win. They are based in the eastern city of Batman, which is the 21st largest in Turkey.

I was actually hoping for an Ankara-based club to come up, but unfortunately this didn't happen. I also had a very short-lived save with Erzurum Spor Büyükşehir Belediyesi, but that was cut short by the team revolting over the sale of an already unhappy player. A few reloads later I decided to give up on my search for Ankara D.S. and found out that the B in B. Petrolspor actually stood for Batman.

The Stadium

Batman PetrolSpor plays its games at the Batman 16 Mayıs stadium, which has 6,350 seats.

Key Players

6. Gökhan Karali - Should be able to fulfil a number of roles in midfield.

7. Sebahattin Usta - Lovely player, attributes in all the right places to be a creative force.

9. Emre Aktaş - A great striker for this league. Also has some experience at the top level which could prove valuable.

The Manager

Profile - I tried this challenge a couple of years ago with Barakaldo, and they would have been my go-to club, but they got promoted a couple of years ago and aren't eligible anymore. In the last couple of versions I seem to barely make it through the first season in most saves, and I'm hoping to change that here by playing the games on only commentary.

Plans and Targets

The board only expects a brave fight against relegation, so the first season could be pretty tough. As soon as I get some staff in I'll start looking to flesh out the squad.

[PaulHartman71]

An inconsistent start to the season but it definitely seems to be looking like progress in comparison to last season, let's hope it isn't just early season good form and we can comfortably avoid relegation this time

[Romanista1994]

Batman PetrolSpor

First Transfer Window

Transfers

I think I'll be sticking to yearly updates from now on, but loads of signings were made in this first transfer window. With a vast amount of scout reports to sift through I decided to bring in anyone who got a decent report. At the same time I was looking to move on the deadwood, mostly successfully as the wage bill only went from £3,368 to £3,401. The trialists match also provided a great opportunity as the players were scouted, offered trials and in the case of Emre Koyuncu even signed. This left the squad looking like this.

Friendly Results

Friendlies

Played weak teams from the 'Nearby' list, but the draw against our parent club was the most pleasing result as they're a top division club. Speaking of parent clubs, what's the parent club etiquette in this thread atm? Do I cancel the link or keep it?

Current First Eleven

GK: Zeynel Anıl - New keeper, better than the three that were previously at the club.

RB: Furkan Özyurt - Rightback is probably our weakest position, but Özyurt should be solid enough.

CB: Can Velioğlu - Great young defender, unfortunately he was injured when I signed him. For some reason I can't screenshot his profile.

CB: Zafer Cansız - Cansız could form an excellent partnership with Velioğlu when the latter returns from injury.

LB: Onur Kintaş - Solid player whose efforts mostly went unnoticed in friendlies.

RM: Haluk Ulaşoğlu - Pretty much has everything I look for in my wide players at this level.

CM: Sebahattin Usta - I'm hoping he'll be the creative focal point of the side.

CM: Gökhan Karali - There to do the dirty work in midfield.

LM: Emin Yalın - Has some nice attributes, but his counterpart Yusuf Yağmur (another one I can't screenshot) did better in the friendlies.

ST: Cenker Pehlivan - Skills in all the right places to be a lethal goalscorer at this level.

ST: Emre Aktaş - His physicality will be vital to open up space and create chances for Pehlivan.

While that squad should be strong enough to survive, it may well be the depth that I have added to the squad that proves most important. Most positions have a similarly strong replacement waiting in the wing. The only position I don't really feel that confident about is centreback, as our third choice is not that suited to the high line we usually play.

[PaulHartman71]

A terrible run of form has seen us pick up 1 point in 7 games, the most disappointing part aside from shipping goals galore is that we didn't even score once in the 6 games we lost.

Things went from bad to worse as one of our best players has broken his foot and will miss at least 5 months, missing pretty much the rest of the entire season.

[rlipscombe]

Thats' a tough run of results Paul... ​hopefully you can stop that slide and turn it around soon.

[iacovone]

Yikes. Tough times Paul....at least you're flying in the cup though

[Mr_Demus]

I have started this as Viktoria Köln. Will post info later. Hopefully I will find some time to play the game

[Misterjokerboy]

Batman PetrolSpor

First Transfer Window

Transfers

I think I'll be sticking to yearly updates from now on, but loads of signings were made in this first transfer window. With a vast amount of scout reports to sift through I decided to bring in anyone who got a decent report. At the same time I was looking to move on the deadwood, mostly successfully as the wage bill only went from £3,368 to £3,401. The trialists match also provided a great opportunity as the players were scouted, offered trials and in the case of Emre Koyuncu even signed. This left the squad looking like this.

Friendly Results

Friendlies

Played weak teams from the 'Nearby' list, but the draw against our parent club was the most pleasing result as they're a top division club. Speaking of parent clubs, what's the parent club etiquette in this thread atm? Do I cancel the link or keep it?

Current First Eleven

GK: Zeynel Anıl - New keeper, better than the three that were previously at the club.

RB: Furkan Özyurt - Rightback is probably our weakest position, but Özyurt should be solid enough.

CB: Can Velioğlu - Great young defender, unfortunately he was injured when I signed him. For some reason I can't screenshot his profile.

CB: Zafer Cansız - Cansız could form an excellent partnership with Velioğlu when the latter returns from injury.

LB: Onur Kintaş - Solid player whose efforts mostly went unnoticed in friendlies.

RM: Haluk Ulaşoğlu - Pretty much has everything I look for in my wide players at this level.

CM: Sebahattin Usta - I'm hoping he'll be the creative focal point of the side.

CM: Gökhan Karali - There to do the dirty work in midfield.

LM: Emin Yalın - Has some nice attributes, but his counterpart Yusuf Yağmur (another one I can't screenshot) did better in the friendlies.

ST: Cenker Pehlivan - Skills in all the right places to be a lethal goalscorer at this level.

ST: Emre Aktaş - His physicality will be vital to open up space and create chances for Pehlivan.

While that squad should be strong enough to survive, it may well be the depth that I have added to the squad that proves most important. Most positions have a similarly strong replacement waiting in the wing. The only position I don't really feel that confident about is centreback, as our third choice is not that suited to the high line we usually play.

Damn, wish I had known it was possible to be a club called Batman

[Romanista1994]

Damn, wish I had known it was possible to be a club called Batman

Ha, yeah, I reloaded quite a lot before I checked their name and decided it was too cool to pass up on. They came up pretty often as well, so I could have saved myself a lot of reloading.

Another cool club name, albeit less flashy than Batman, is Van Bld. Could be an interesting save to experiment with an ultra-defensive tactic. Parking the Van, anyone?

[Lower Leagues Rule]

Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman, then be Batman

[PaulHartman71]

Another month of not particularly pleasing results. We continued our lucky draws in the cup getting lower division sides that we comfortably disposed off, I was hoping that by smashing lower sides in the cup it would give the players a morale boost big enough to increase our form in the league but on two occasions that didn't work. We actually didn't improve in the league until we went out of the cup to Ligue 2 side AC Arles Avignon, we actually only lost 1-0 away to them which isn't bad considering we've been **** against teams in our own league for ages now. We ended the month with 8 points from 7 games which considering our recent form is fantastic and is enough for us to just be out the relegation zone. I think we've got lucky in a sense that the standard of teams/squads at the bottom is a lot worse than last season, i'm hoping we get lucky and stay up more as a result of the other teams below us being really poor rather than us actually being good. I mean look at USBCO ffs Makes me feel terrible for only drawing with them in our game with them earlier in the season.

One slight positive is the Youth intake I have just been given. At least 7 players who could potentially one day gain a place in the squad, although it doesn't help that all 3 of the really promising ones are all DM's ffs I'm not particularly looking to make youth players/youth candidates a massive part of this save game, my main focus is to do as well as possible but i'm always willing to give young players a go and a chance. I'm not sure if anyone was keen eyed enough to spot but in the goalscorers in the fixture list you will see that Sami Denis*, a 16 year old from the academy has been given a run of games and actually scored a goal in our win against US Roan. I'll put a screenshot of him in at the end of the season, he's not particularly amazing at the moment and is only getting game time as a result of an injury crisis that has seen our first choice CAM break his foot (the aforementioned N'Gadi) and then the guy I use as my back-up CAM is also injured at the moment which has lead to Sami Denis* getting a run of games. I'd like to loan him out next season but i've found it really difficult to loan any of my promising youngsters out as nobody ever bids for them and the board wont let me have a feeder club to let me send them out on loan to.

[ArranoBeltza]

Probably my favorite result of this save thus far!

Casilla were sitting well ahead of us in 4th, while my Gernika team remained barely afloat in 14th. After the second goal, I was quite worried: my team has conceded lots of late goals and had never come back from a two goal defecit. I had serious doubts about their mental attributes. Still, some gritty play, well-placed pep talks (still not sure how effective these are in the new version), and quite a bit of luck helped us out immensely!:applause:

[ArranoBeltza]

2015/16 SEASON REVIEW

Manager Profile--Manager Info

Club Profile

Transfers: To be honest, not a lot to say about this. For one, I didn't pay much attention to the age requirements in the league rules and signed some guys that didn't even get registered. Secondly, my goal was expanding a very slim squad, so most of these transfers were haphazard and based on little else than improving the depth of my squad. (NOTE: I am not including a squad overview because I didn't take my screenshots until after contracts expired and such, but there is a screen of my 2015/16 squad in the same album as these links)

League Table: As you can see, we barely stayed up. We weren't able to find much consistency (for better or worse) at any point, really. To be honest, though, my only goal was staying up. There was never really a moment I truly believed we were doomed to relegation, but there's still clearly much work to be done.

Best Eleven: Two things to say about this.

1) Not all of these guys will be here for the coming season and, even if they are, they may not be regulars.

2) I would normally include a summary of my best players along with this. Unfortunately, nobody on my team really shined or was consistent. We have a few players to build around, but nobody who truly made a difference. I had signed Chikini with high expectations, and he didn't play badly. However, his poor natural fitness (which I had initially overlooked upon signing) made it so that he did not play as much as he could (should) have- his match fitness peaked at 52% regardless of his pitch time. Due to these fitness issues and his age, I am looking to offload Chikini.

Eduardo Rifaterra was a stop-gap signing I had made and also was far from spectacular. Despite that he actually improved(!) as a player through the season attributes-wise and contributed well, especially right at the end. Despite his advancing age and the restrictions on U-23 players at this level, I was ready to re-sign him after his second half performances...but he decided to retire next year and left the club refusing to sign a contract as anything other than a chief scout.

Newgens Update

Patxi Martin (CM): I'm really glad this kid came through. He doesn't look like he'll be capped for Spain, but he looks like he could become quite good at this level and maybe at least a squad player if we're promoted. Given Rifaterra's departure and my team's lack of depth in the central part of midfield, I really needed him.

Jose Felix Goni (MR): I gave this kid two starts on the right wing. He didn't do anything in those games, but I'm going to stick with him for now.

Adrian Zabalza (ST): Another kid who got some games for me. He didn't do much either- unless you count missing an open net. Still, he was just 15 years old when he debuted for Gernika. This kid will get some minutes thrown his way next season, especially if he continues to do well in training.

2016/17 Goals

- Improve the team: I had mentioned before that many of this season's signings were haphazard! I didn't pay enough attention to them as I should have. Going into my second year as manager, though, I have a much better idea of our strengths and weaknesses. I've already begun offloading some players and bringing in new ones. This will continue for a little while yet!

- Improve the midfield: Building off of the last point, really. Last season, we had two good central midfielders who played almost every game. To be honest, we were lucky they stayed injury-free. Rifaterra is retiring and left, but we do have a young CM (see above) who could do something for us. Still, we will need one or two more decent players at this position.

- DEFENSE!: Look at the league table posted above. We leaked goals. I could grab a top-of-the-line goalkeeper, but, honestly, I cannot fault the performance of our #1. He didn't have the best rating, but with how much we were out-shot, it's a miracle we weren't relegated. It should never get to that point. I signed some defenders on behalf of my scouts who did not come good at all and they may well be discarded. If we can find one star central defender and a solid fullback (who hopefully can play on either wing), we will have taken a step in the right direction.

-Strikers: I mentioned Chikini already and, while none of my strikers did poorly (we also did quite well in goals scored), none of them were particularly inspiring. After re-evaluating who I have and hopefully offloading Chikini, I wouldn't mind giving a try to a fresh face or two. Or perhaps I should throw Zabalza into the fray?

-Consolidate postion: The board gave me a much-boosted budget. Still, I plan on playing it safe for at least one more year. The only thing I hope from my guys is a bit more consistency and a more comfortable league position. If I tweak my tactics a bit and play more flexibly (I used the same 4-4-2 all last season without change), this should be easily attainable. I doubt we'll be playing our 2017/18 season a tier up, but I feel like we're off to the right start!

[Misterjokerboy]

PaulHartman71 - Nice intake of youth there, hopefully a few of them can progress nicely, hope you manage to stay up too!!

ArranoBeltza - Well done on staying up, that's always the main thing first season. Hope you can improve the squad nicely. I have the same consistency issues as well and have had for 2 seasons so you're certainly not alone there

[iacovone]

AD Machico | Pre-Season 2016-17 |

Campeonato Nacional: 3a Divisao

| Fixtures | Transfers |

So the signings:

Ricardo (GK)

Mario (ST)

Miguel Maia (DRC)

I expect Ricardo and Mario to take first-team positions but Maia is definitely a back-up centre-back. He has good potential though so I'll be keeping an eye on him.

I let a few more leave than came in this summer as frankly they're just not going to be good enough to push us on. If we hit an injury crisis I'll either dip into the market (where we're very slowly attracting a few more names) or use the youth academy where we have four players with 4 or 5 star potential (5th star is blacked out).

As you'll see in the link above, pre-season went well again (we played nearby teams, so anyone on the island of Madeira capable of cobbling together 11 players!) and we built some confidence ahead of our second season.

The board are still only interested in surviving relegation but I think we may have enough to push closer to the promotion phase.

[Quacky]

Wick Academy

2023/2024

Scottish Premiership | 3rd

Table | Squad | Finances | Transfers

The Earl of Caithness, the Finnish ambassador and the Prince of Wales would like to congratulate the Suomilainen-Cymraeg alliance of Wick Academy on their European qualification.

It seems the leagues get easier the higher you go in Scotland, there are just so many players available to me. As such although I lack in many areas I have phenomenal pace in the team and so even though my defence is questionable I score goals (Les Bell is a different class, top league goalscorer, 7 ahead of anyone else). The caveat being whenever I play against a religious side, I have a terrible record against St. Johnstone and St. Mirren, better against Celtic than those two even though as you can see from the table there is quite a long way to go actually win this league. I desperately need a new stadium too, 3200 capacity is almost always full in this league.

Top players: Les Bell | Jarmo Vasara | Haukur Ingi Sveinsson | Jaakko Savolainen | Scott Jones

Other stuff: I only beat Hearts on goals scored, and Jamie Smith tried his best to **** that up in the last game of the season too. Maybe it was just too hot for him, 38ºC in Wick is a full 12ºC hotter than the all time record.

Season | League | Position |   Cup   | Leag. Cup | Chal. Cup | Avg. Att.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
15/16 |  Two   |   8th    | 2nd Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    233
16/17 |  Two   |   9th    | 2nd Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    190
17/18 |  Two   |   3rd    | 3rd Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  2nd Rnd  |    263
18/19 |  Two   |   1st    | 2nd Rnd |  2nd Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    268
19/20 |  One   |   9th    | 3rd Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    434
20/21 |  One   |   5th    | 4th Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    439
21/22 |  One   |   3rd    | 4th Rnd |  1st Rnd  |  Winners  |    765
22/23 |  Champ |   3rd    | Qtrs    |  1st Rnd  |  1st Rnd  |    1317
23/24 |  Prem  |   3rd    | 5th Rnd |  2nd Rnd  |  N/A      |    3121

[PaulHartman71]

Another inconsistent run of games, 8 points from 7 games yet again. Worth mentioning one of those games was against USBCO who are ****ing woeful so we should be beating them if we want to stay up. A few more very disappointed losses against some of the bigger teams in the division who were just different class. We sit one point above US Roan with 6 games remaining, they do have a more difficult run than us so i'm confident we can just about do enough to stay up especially because we've beaten them once and drawn the other game, so if it goes to the same points we would stay up on the basis we have a better head to head record with them.

[Quacky]

I think it is pretty clear to see where you need to improve, your goal difference is terrifying. I can't see your goals scored/conceded to see which is worse but the fixtures look like you're out for a duck a lot. It also seems easier this fm to score than shut up shop so I'd suggest you buy the best attacking player you can find and twiddle to tactics to throw lots of balls at him in the box.

[Romanista1994]

Batman PetrolSpor 2015/16 Update

The Club

Manager Profile | Staff | Information | Facilities | Finances | Transfers

The club is making a profit on a monthly basis due to my very strict wage structure and the release of most of the deadwood previously at the club, which saw the wage bill drop from £3,368 to £2,962. For some reason we're making most of our money from grants. I also managed to get our junior coaching increased to a Basic level, which instantly paid off with the first youth intake bringing in a 3.5-4.5 star potential goalkeeper.

I was offered a new contract with a few games to go, which I tried to extend beyond the one-year deal offered. Didn't succeed, so I'm tied to the club until 2017.

Turkish 2. League White Group

Predicted finish: 16th

Actual Finish: 14th

League Table | Graph | Fixtures 1 | Fixtures 2

We started off well with a win and a draw, which led me to think we were going to stay up pretty comfortably. Then the losses came thick and fast which saw us drop to 17th twice. We only stopped getting into the relegation zone after the 21st matchday. A couple of decent runs after the turn of the year made it more comfortable that the league table shows, as confirmed our safety with one match to go. Our run in was brutal though, as we faced the then top three sides in three successive matches.

Still, we survived!

Cup

2nd Round

We were drawn up against a top league team in the first round we played, and duly exited the cup.

Squad

Squad Screen

Most Appearances: Zafer Cansız (28 starts, 5 sub)

Top Goalscorer: Mehmet Yılmaz (8)

Most Assists: Yusuf Yağmur (5) (Can't screenshot)

Highest Average Rating: Sebahattin Usta (7.15)

Usta was the standout player of the season and the only player to perform above a 7 average rating. Unsurprising, as I rate him as the best player at the club. Veteran striker Mehmet Yılmaz was the top goalscorer with 8 goals, which hints at why we struggled so much. However, most of the players did contribute positively to our season at one point or another, so I'm not too dissatisfied overall.

Career

| Season  |   League    |  Position  |      Cup      |   Avg. Att.   | Season Tickets |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 15/16   |  2L White   |    14th    |    2nd Rnd    |     1006      |      620       |

Next Season:

-Improve our league position.

-Maintain a very rigid wage structure. At the moment I'm on the fence as to whether to increase this from £150 to £200. (The players do get very nice bonuses offered, which I hope provides them with an extra incentive to perform.)

-Continue developing the club infrastructure.

I can't remember the last time I finished a season this quickly. Expect future updates to come much slower, as I won't have such an inordinate amount of free time.

Also, a question: does anyone know how to get around the problem of being unable to screenshot players whose name contain one of these? -->ğ<-- (the accent thingy, for example in Yusuf Yağmur). Neither Alt+F9, nor shift+prtsc work.

[Romanista1994]

ArranoBeltza - Group 2 in Segunda B can be really tough, especially for a newly promoted club, so you did well to stay up. Barakaldo relegated though

iacovone - I like the look of your signings, Miguel Maia in particular could be a great player with a bit of work on his mental attributes.

PaulHartman71 - Agree with Quacky here, need to either sort out the defence or compensate your defensive frailty with lots of goals.

Quacky - Fantastic progress! Congrats on getting into Europe so quickly. Have the board said anything about a new stadium?

[PaulHartman71]

yeah we're terrible at defending against the better teams, a lot of them have real quality up-front and on the wings, CS Sedan have Gael Kakuta for example who is essentially like Messi at this level, has a ridiculous goal/assist ratio. It is difficult for me to bring in new players as not a lot of players want to join us, I actually only tend to have around 300/400 players in the player search for players who'd realistically join us, then I have to whittle down the crap among them and who is available for nothing, leaving me with very limited options in the summer, I tend to have a choice of 2 or 3 okay-to-good players for each position. Injuries haven't helped and I have been changing tactics against the bigger side, my narrow 4-1-2-1-2 does the job against teams of a similar or worse standard to us, especially the crap sides in the cup - I just haven't figured out how to play against the better opposition.

[Quacky]

Quacky - Fantastic progress! Congrats on getting into Europe so quickly. Have the board said anything about a new stadium?

Thanks, computer said no. I half expect that at any point they will announce it if I ask again or not, I get about 95% attendance. The prize money in this league is massive compared to my expenditure and while Europa league money is rubbish compared to champions league it is going to fill out the bank quite quickly. Scotland is also so close to having two sides in champions league so if I could pick one of those up its easily a couple of million without even getting to the group stage.

[thomas_e]

Im sorry, this is a really stupid question, I'll use the fact that english is not my mother tongue as an excuse. I would love to join in on the challenge, but: What teams can I pick?

[Quacky]

There's more details in the first post but basically you pick one of the big European nations, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Russia or Turkey. Holiday for a year and any of the teams that were promoted to the lowest playable division are the teams you are allowed.

If you want to manage in different leagues there other challenges with the same, newly promoted club thing but for different nations.

[thomas_e]

Ahh, ok. I've downloaded the Germany-file, then I can pick Viktoria Koln, Wurzburg, Jena, since they were promoted? Good stuff.

[thomas_e]

But can someone answer if the downloadable savegames hva large databases? It only says custom in the game.

[ArranoBeltza]

2016/17 PRE-SEASON UPDATE

Our first match is about to start- a clean slate and hopefully my rennovations to the team will be adequate to help us consolidate our position. I also accidentally released a player and then immediately re-signed him, as well as releasing a few guys and later changing my mind. Oops! On the downside, I spent so much time fixing up the midfield that I neglected the fullback position. I also offloaded a number of my players 23 or older due to registration restrictions- only to find out that this season I can register up to 16 of them; up from just six. I hurredly signed some veterans. I think I have finished with most of my signings, but I could use a fullback or two and maybe a spare winger, so I'll see what's out there before the window shuts.

My favorite signings so far:

Patxi Mediavilla (ST)- Looks like a jack of all trades yet master of none to me. Also, at 22 he may still be able to develop further with enough pitch time and the right training. I do not expect him to lead my line right away, but I'm not displeased with his attributes.

Kiowa (AMC)- A durable player who looks like he's got the right attributes to succeed at this level of the game. Also only 22 so it's quite possible that he'll get better. I have high hopes for this one.

Juan Jose Alfaro (MC)- I signed lots of youngsters and promoted a few of my newgens, but I needed the consistency of a veteran. There are definitely better players out there, but this guy should be a solid stand-in for the now-retired Rifaterra.

Pre-season match results

First of all, I set my assistant to schedule and manage friendlies, as I like to spend my energy on scouting and signing players. I did, however, schedule the away match at Racing and my team pulled of a very satisfying draw. Overall, though, a pre-season to forget. Perhaps we'd have done better if I had fewer trialists and youngsters?

In other news, my club's president quit and we got taken over by a new chairman- a "local businessman". This really had no effect on our finances for better or worse. Meanwhile, there are rumors popping up in my news feed that Real Union could soon be bought out by a sugar daddy...

Financially we're not doing to well but aren't broke. Still not professional yet. Most frustrating thing is the lack of interest that the best free agents show, and I cannot find a loanee willing to join my side from anywhere. I'm crossing my fingers that the financial situation improves so that we're able to become a full-time club. We also still have problems with fitness throughout the team due to the part-time status of the team.

Anyway, on to Huesca and a new season!

[PaulHartman71]

Pau FC - Season 2: 2016/17 French National

Not the most triumphant of ends to the season but we have yet again just about managed to hold onto our status as a French National club. It went to the last day of the season as we faced GF38 at their place to decide whether we stayed up or night, to say I was ******** it is an understatement It was really annoying that we'd managed to take it to the final day of the season as we'd actually been 4-0 up against AS Beauvais and then somehow managed to blow a 4-0 lead in complete Arsenal style. This was a real travesty especially considering in the previous game against LEMANS FC we were actually 4-1 down at half-time and had managed to come back to draw 4-4, when Bouscarrat levelled it late on I went absolutely mental

I definitely feel like this season the league was a lot weaker than last season, 31 points last season would've seen us in 17th place. USBCO were Derby County style bad, so embarrassing that we dropped points to them early in the season. I'm hoping we get some weaker teams relegated from Ligue 2 and more weak teams promoted from the CFA but who knows what will happen. Some of the better teams this season were ridiculous though, Gael Kakuta of CS Serdan ended the season with 13 goals and 24 assists from 30 games ffs.

=61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=5"]Transfers

Not much to talk about here, the aforementioned departure of Hicham M'Laab was disappointing but he didn't want to stay despite me begging him to. Signed a player for £1 which was a bit random, the left back I spent almost £10K on actually turned out to be injury prone as ****, he literally could not stay injury free and when he did he just couldn't get to match fitness despite numerous games for the reserves, he only managed 3 sub appearances in the end, massive waste by the looks of it.

=61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=3"]

Squad pt 1, =61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=4"]Squad pt 2

The squad as a whole isn't amazing but I feel like it is at least slightly better than the relegation battle it has competed it in this season, we could at least get mid table with a decent run of games as we were showing early in the season. Obviously hoping to strengthen where I can in the summer but with finances getting worse and again, not that many people wanting to join us, it is easier said than done really. A couple of the stand out players would be =61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=6"]Farid Hazem at CM who featured in every one of our 34 league games, =61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=8"]Alexandre N'Gadi who did well at CAM early in the season before breaking his foot putting him out for much of the rest of the season, he kept rejecting my contract renewals like M'laab did last season which was worrying, he hadn't accepted at the time of that screenshot but a few weeks later and he has actually signed on becoming our highest paid player in the process. =61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=7"]Sylvain Heckly didn't have as great a time as he did last season but that was to be expected really with his age, he wasn't used as our main man anyway so to get the amount of goals he did for a cheap supporting striker isn't all that horrendous, but I am really hoping I can get someone better in for next season. =61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=9"]Sebastien Bouscarrat ended the season as our top scorer with 17 in 32 games, a decent tally but he could definitely have got more and he does go missing in a lot of games, especially against the bigger sides where we get smashed without even scoring a consolation goal.

=61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=4"]

=61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=11"]Finances really really not looking good.

Got a new contract sorted though, again quite frustrating to only get a 1 year extension but they wouldn't give me anything more than that so I just have to take what I can get really. Hoping we can kick on next season as these relegation battles are quite tedious, but the finances are terrible and it isn't easy for us to recruit better players and from what I saw this season a lot of the better teams in the league have real quality so its hard to see how we could get promoted any time soon really unless I get a lot of quality young talent coming through the ranks - more on that shortly.

Career Overview

Season     League     Position   French Cup   Coupe de la Ligue   Europe    Other
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    National   14th       8th Round    N/A                 N/A       N/A
2016/17    National   14th       9th Round    N/A                 N/A       N/A

[Quacky]

My european adventure didn't last very long...

I always get terrible draws in these things, probably because with these sort of clubs you don't have any seeding to speak of. There were matches between Armenians and Estonians, Hungarians and Kazakhs, Irish and Northern Irish, where I feel I could have beaten either team. Instead I drew Feyenoord, who are quite simply the best team in the entire 2nd qualifying round draw, and lost 2-1 on aggregate.

[PaulHartman71]

Pau FC - Youth Academy

My second season at Pau FC saw the first player from our youth academy get a run of games in the first team. I will add that his inclusion in the first team wasn't entirely based on merit, our first choice CAM broke his foot in the middle of the season, and then my 2nd choice also got injured which lead to a run of games for 16 year old Sami Denis, he did alright to be fair considering we're a relegation battling team in his 7 starts he got 1 assist and 2 goals. I'm not massively impressed by his mental stats aside from the flair and off the ball, he's okay technically aside from the horrendous finishing and defensive stats. Aside from his strength which I assume will at least slightly improve with age, his physical stats are are quite impressive especially his pace. I'd love to send him out on loan to a CFA side but none of them seem to ever want any of my young players however promising their potential might be, tried setting up a feeder club link but the board wont have it based on the fact we have no money, but i'm sure if we had a CFA club as a feeder for loans we wouldn't pay them anything anyway. If he can kick on a bit more in the U19 he could definitely end up being rotation/back up for CAM and CM, he's accomplished at CM with CAM his main position, training him to be a CM at the moment to make him more versatile. I play with a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 so his ability to play on the right wing is of no use to me at all, not that I would play him there anyway with his dreadful crossing.

Sami Denis, 16, MRC/AMRC

=61590018&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0"]End of Season 2 Profile

Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17   National       8           1       2        0
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Total                    8           1       2        0    

Summary: Broke through as a result of first team players being injured. Did better than I could have expected. Hoping will make it in some capacity at some point in the next few seasons as he has the potential to do so.

Just as a sort of FYI i'll only be posting players once they've actually somewhat broke into the first time, at least until i'm at a higher level in the game, as at the moment so many of the players I get through have very high potential but might not actually make it or end up being that good, so seems pointless taking so many screenshots of so many players for them not to make it eventually.

[ArranoBeltza]

I'm about to head off to bed and have only one match in November. My team is doing much better than even I had expected- update to come at mid-season. I also am guessing that one of my newgens listens to lots of Motörhead...

HAPPY MOVEMBER!

[danger_mouse]

Leça - 2016/17 SEASON REVIEW

Squad | Transfers | Finances

Competitions

Campeonato Nacional First Phase:

Fixtures - Table

Well I said I wanted to push for promotion, and we had a nightmare. Started the season off not too bad but the mid season slump saw us fighting the bottom 4 again. Were along way off challenging for promotion as it stands.

Campeonato Nacional Relegation Phase:

Fixtures - Table

Signed afew players in between phases and it seemed to have improved us, only losing 4 of the 14 fixtures. So we survived by a long shot but we need to improve yet again to get out of the bottom tier.

Taça de Portugal:

Fixtures

Well we beat last seasons performance, round 2.

Aims for next season.

• Improve finances.
  
• Push for Promotion Playoff.
  

Season |               League               | 1st Phase |  Rel Phas  |     Cup    |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
15/16 |  Campeonato Nacional de Seniores   |    7th    |    5th     |   1st Rnd  |
16/17 |  Campeonato Nacional de Seniores   |    8th    |    3rd     |   2nd Rnd  |

[iacovone]

Well done just about surviving again Paul! As for you Quacky - great progress in Scotland. Pity the European journey ended so abruptly but I'm sure you'll be back soon!

ArronoBeltza - there are some amazing taches in this game now. Superb one there!