The Ultimate Football Manager Challenge - Silver Age Archive

[Tecmo]

6 hours ago, TheMadMonk said:

I'll have a craic at this with the new release - albeit the Beta.

I think I'll start with either Eire,Wales, or Norn Ireland - and try and get a 'win' on the board early - with the hope that winning one of those leagues may give me enough reputation boost to try a decent asian/african team.

I've played Football Manager since the time it was the Original Football Manager and don't think I've ever ventured outside Europe for a full season, so should something different for me.

I'm tentatively trying this starting in Northern Ireland with Oxford United Stars. I get attached to my teams though, so we'll see if I can bring myself to leave.

[numero uno gunner]

@vikeologist - I am indeed carrying on with my save. I haven't had much time to play recently, but I think I'll do a mid-season report once I've got there, as I'll have finished my Champions League campaign by then (and that's a top priority for me this season). The board have told me I have to reach the final, but with the group I've drawn it might be a bit of a challenge!

I've been so engrossed in my challenge that I didn't even realise the demo / beta / whatever was out for the new game. Evidently, I have no intention of moving over until this challenge is complete!

[JoeLapira]

@vikeologist: I'm gonna be continuing my save on FM16, having won the Spanish League and Cup with Real Madrid i decided to move onto pastures new. Ive ended up with Borrusia Dortmund where i hope to secure at least another trophy or 2.

[dkouv]

Season 1 – 2016/17 – Volgar Astrakhan (RUS)

Manager Profile | Leagues Loaded

Well, I got a bit bored of my FM 2016 save and having read the rave reviews of the FM17 beta, couldn't resist a purchase.

I jumped back into the challenge, starting anew on FM17 of course, and this time going down the European lower league route as planned.

It didn't take too long to get a job this time, and halfway through October I ended up at Volgar in the Russian First Division, a club based in the South of the country, next door to the Caspian sea. They were rock bottom of the First Division when they sacked the previous manager, but by the time I took over they won 3 on the trot, and the squad actually looked quite decent. The first few months were about getting used to the team and the new version of the game, and in the January transfer window I proceeded to strengthen the fullback position, which was badly lacking in depth. It was clear that we were not going to get relegated; we hit a good patch and then a little winless run, but finished the season very strongly, beating 5th-placed Fakel at home to ensure that we pipped them to 5th place and clinched the final play-offs spot. (Spartak Moscow's reserves finished 2nd, so the 4th and 5th place, not places 3 and 4, qualified for the play-off).

In the play-off, we were drawn against the team that finished 13th in the Premier League, Amkar Perm. I suspected that they would be too strong for us, especially as my best striker and winger got injured just before, and right at the start of the first play-off game. In the end we ran them close, but an unlucky 2-0 away defeat and a 2-1 home win meant we lost 3-2 on aggregate. It was like most such play-off games that I've watched IRL, with the lower-tier side high on confidence and dominating but not putting away the chances, and the higher-tier's side quality shining through. Still, I'm very happy with that first season, and really enjoying all the little improvements in this new installment of FM.

I'd apply for a job at a rich First Division team, or a lower-table Premier League team but none came up, so looks like I'll be staying at Volgar next year and working on that promotion push. I'll focus on upgrading a few key areas in the summer - namely,  center forward and attacking center mid (only have one half-decent player for each of these positions at the moment). I have the same problem as @vikeologist in that I'm £3k above my wage budget, but still need to strengthen the squad; let's hope I can do it!

Season summary

League: 5th/20 (lost in play-off) (table)

Cup: out before I joined

Top scorer: Islam Mashukov (ST), 16 in 26(8) apps

Top assists: Dmitry Kabutov (AML/AMR), 7 in 34(4) apps

Top rating: Kevin Diaz (AML/AMR), 7.22 from 12(1) apps [one of my January signings]

Coaching badges: studying for National B license

Club Career:
 
Season     |    Country    |          Division          |  Position   |    Cup     |  Continental  |         Top scorer             |    Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17    |    Russia     |   First Division           |   5th/20    |    n/a     |     n/a       |      Islam Mashukov (16)       |   Took over in mid-October; lost in promotion play-off
 
 
International career:
 
no jobs
 
 
Challenge Progress:
 
Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues
 0/10 domestic cups
 0/5 club continental championships
 0/1 club world championship
 
International
 0/5 continental tournaments
 0/2 world tournaments

Edited October 23, 2016 by dkouv

[shankbone21]

started the challenge in fm17 Beta after learning about it too late in they year to want to start one with fm16, already in my 3rd season (first season was a half season, am coaching in China where season is only 30 games).  I started unemployed and am building my reputation in China, originally with first national side Zincheng (got them promoted after two years), than moved into the job opening of the reigning CSL champs Huaxia Xingfu and am well on my way to hopefully winning the asian version of the champions league and the CSL.

[Fadedaf]

for those who've managed in the African Champions League before, what is the standard like compared to the South African premier league?

I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and i'm trying to make a decision. The season has gone very well so far with Royal Eagles and we are sitting in 2nd place only 1 point back with 5 matches to go. The dilemma is that i've been offered the job at Mamelodi Sundowns who have better finances, reputation, historical success and probably a better squad but they are sitting in 5th so will definitely not be in the champions league next year. Royal Eagles however might be able to pip Kaiser Chiefs to the title and secure champions league football next season, although the club is in extreme debt so I would not be able to improve my squad at all. Maybe the prize money at the end of the season will make it up but I still don't know exactly where we'll finish, could be anywhere in the top 5! I've never managed in the African CL before so not really sure if my current Eagles squad will have what it takes.

so, any advice anyone?

[Darius1998]

On FM15, I found it difficult against the South African teams that I played against in the CL (especially Kaiser Chiefs) but the general quality of the others wasn't that much. I'd consider the strong North African teams to be at best on par with teams that finish around 4th-8th in the PSL.

[vikeologist]

 

6 minutes ago, Fadedaf said:

for those who've managed in the African Champions League before, what is the standard like compared to the South African premier league?

I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and i'm trying to make a decision. The season has gone very well so far with Royal Eagles and we are sitting in 2nd place only 1 point back with 5 matches to go. The dilemma is that i've been offered the job at Mamelodi Sundowns who have better finances, reputation, historical success and probably a better squad but they are sitting in 5th so will definitely not be in the champions league next year. Royal Eagles however might be able to pip Kaiser Chiefs to the title and secure champions league football next season, although the club is in extreme debt so I would not be able to improve my squad at all. Maybe the prize money at the end of the season will make it up but I still don't know exactly where we'll finish, could be anywhere in the top 5! I've never managed in the African CL before so not really sure if my current Eagles squad will have what it takes.

so, any advice anyone?

South African sides should be the favourites for the ACL, especially a few seasons down the line once that fact that it's the only loaded league kicks in, but probably from the start as well.

However, are you sure that Sundowns aren't in the ACL now? If you finish at the top of the league now, you won't start your ACL campaign until the start of next year, and probably have a year and a half until things get interesting there.

This does mean that if Sundowns aren't in the ACL, and don't qualify this season, your first chance to actually win it would be in two and a half years time.

Any South African side should qualify for the group stage (which is at the end of the competition) really easily, so if Sundowns qualified last season they should still be there. It's at the group stage that things should become interesting.

Of course the last time I played in SA was at the start of my FM15 save, so things may have changed, but I haven't seen any updates from other challengers to suggest it's become any more challenging with regard to sides from other nations.

 

@shankbone21 Welcome to the challenge and indeed the forums, unless this is just a new identity. Surprised that the Samba Kings have become champions so quickly. Are China Fortune, the owners, just throwing money at them? With all the money slushing around, managing in China must be interesting these days. I played with a Chinese side in FM16 but that was before the update that took into account that Chinese club owners have gone in-freaking-sane.

 

@dkouv Congrats on turning things around at Volgar. That division has about the same rep as my Icelandic top division (and England L1), but if/when you get promotion it could really come together for you.

@JoeLapira / n1g -Good to know that you're still on board.

[nikolast86]

@Fadedaf I have similar experience with @vikeologist The problem with the African Champions League is that it runs from January to November, while South African League runs from September to May. So if you manage to qualify now you have to spend at least a year and half more on the team to even have a chance. So if Sundowns are still on the ACL, I would suggest that you take the job. In general, Mamelodi Sundowns, Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs seem to be better options to secure the title more quickly (of course except if you have done a great job on your team there). My experience from the ACL is that very few strong teams exist. In my save, ES Tunis has won the title for four years in a row and not surprisingly I am facing them in this year's final. Despite not being loaded in the game, the team has an estimated value of about 23 million. The only other competitive teams I saw on the way were Mazembe from COD and a couple of other north-african teams. What I have found a bit strange is the South African teams are doing often quite poorly in the competition. For example, this year, only my team (Kaizer Chiefs) qualified for the group stage.

@vikeologist Kind of a late reply, but yes. I could register all my players for CHAN. No restrictions of any kind. In fact, I have played two CHANs and there was no problem in either of them.

Good luck @dkouv , @vikeologist @Fadedaf @JoeLapira and whoever else I might forget. Congrats to @Kaiserwatman for completing the challenge...!!!

[nikolast86]

On my side, things are got a bit crazy this year. After securing the title last year, I knew I had to spend at least a year and a half more to even have a chance to win the champions league. During the summer I lost my best winger, because of minimum fee release clause being triggered. But, Kaizer Chiefs is really wealthy, in fact more than is needed probably, so I manage to buy a bunch of good lads. The league started very well. Secured a lead of about 8 points in the first 12 half and then started a terrible streak of 6 matches in which we made only 2 points. In the end things came back in track and we managed to secure the title again. I didn't put any effort on the cups this year, putting always the substitutes on these matches. Yet we managed to secure the SA Cup.

Most interesting of all was the African Champions League, which was the first time I ever played. The first two rounds (Prelim and First) were kind of ridiculous, as we played with one amateur and one semi-professional team. Second round was a bit tougher, as we faced Mazembe that was one of the few wealthy teams in the championship. First leg, away, was tough, as we started losing and then turned it around. The most crazy part was the group phase, which was running through the summer. My team got exactly one week of vacation, then started the pre-season and played the first match in late June, with all my players have physical condition close to 70%. On top of that the match was against ES Tunis, which was the tougher contender. We ended up losing 2-1. I forgot to mention that this was happening in the year of the world cup. I don't know what kind of bug is this, but I ended up playing the same day on ACL with the club and the round of 16 of World Cup with Ghana. Pretty annoying . Anyway, after that things got better, and we ended up above them in the final table. Played against Zamalek in the semis, which was quite easy in the end and now are going to face them in the final. In the meantime the new season has started ok, we are a bit behind, but who really cares now?

In the international front, we won easily another version of CHAN and got prepared for the World Cup. There were not great expectation, but we started great by winning against Germany. Then drew against Poland and unfortunately lost from Jamaica. That was a terrible result as it sent us directly on Brazil in the round of 16. We lost 2-1 in a match that we received 11 yellow cards !!! and finished the match with 10 players. Anyway, I really need to win ACON next year because it is time to move to a new continent soon.

CLUB CAREER

Season        Club                League           Position        Cup 1      Cup 2       Cont.                 Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015    KOR Gyeongnam        K Challenge (2nd)         -                                             Took over after 13 games, sacked after 8 games
2015    KOR Anyang           K Challenge (2nd)        5th                                            Took over with 10 games left 7th, ended up 5th
2016    KOR Anyang           K Challenge (2nd)        1st          5th rou.                          Champions! Promotion to K Classic 
2017    KOR Anyang           K Classic (1st)          5th          Final                        
2018    KOR Anyang           K Classic (1st)          4th          Semis                             Champions League qualification playoff.
2019    KOR Anyang           K Classic (1st)          9th          5th rou.              Quarters    Left mid-season to join Ulsan.
2019    KOR Ulsan            K Classic (1st)          1st          Winners                Winners    Arrived with team in 4th, 1/8 ACL and Cup
2020/21 RSA Kaizer Chiefs    South African Premier    1st          Winners   Winners                 Champions, Cup winners.
2021/22 RSA Kaizer Chiefs    South African Premier    1st          Winners   Winners   ..ongoing..   Group stage of ACL ran through the summer
2022/23 RSA Kaizer Chiefs    South African Premier                                     ..ongoing..   Have reached the final of ACL

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

Season       Nation          Competition 1       Competition 2        Progress        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018/19      Japan          Asian Cup (Won)                           Won Asian Cup
2019/20      Ghana          CHAN (Won)                                Won CHAN, still in qualification for WC, qualified for ACON 2021.
2020/21      Ghana          ACON (Final)                              Lost in the final of ACON 2021, Still in qualification for WC.
2021/22      Ghana          CHAN (Won)           World Cup (R.16)     Won CHAN, Lost in R16 of WC, qualified for ACON 2023.

Challenge Progress

Club
2/10 top domestic leagues (Korea 2019 - Ulsan, South Africa 2020/21 - Kaizer Chiefs)
2/10 domestic cups (Korea 2019 - Ulsan, South Africa 2020/21 - Kaizer Chiefs)
1/5 club continental championships (Asian Champions League 2019 - Ulsan)
0/1 club world championship

International
1/5 continental tournaments (Asian Cup 2018/19 - Japan)
0/2 world tournaments 

 

[Shankly84]

Right so I have finally started. I have managed to get a job in the Chinese 2nd tier with Harbin Yiteng. I took over after 24 games in 13th position. I managed to win 4 out of the last 6 games to guarantee safety and finish in 9th position. Hopefully we can carry this on into the new season and gain promotion.

Starting Profile

harbin Yiteng Job

League Table At Time Off Taking Over

Final League Table

 

Season     Team             Country	League                   Pos	Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 9th	Took over after 24 games in 13th pos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress

Club

0/10 top domestic leagues -

0/10 Domestic Cups -

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

 

[shankbone21]

@vikeologist i am new to the challenge, not anew identity.  and to your question about China in game my owners are just throwing mounds of cash at me which is nice, my pre season transfer budget was 70 million and my wage budget at 110 million p/a.  china is quite interesting in terms of navigating the squad rules which are for those of you who don't know, 3 foreign players in first 11 + 1 asian foreign player, Chinese GK (because the chinese FA wants their national team to have a better goalie) and transfer rules which are 5 players over the age of like 21, and no more than seven (including the five) over the age of 17 in one season (between both transfer windows, does not reset for mid season window).  Chinese players overall arent particularly good but there are a few and since my board gave me an obscene amount of money in a league where there were only 7 players valued over 1 million to begin the year and none over 4 million I bought most of the best Chinese players from my closest rivals and am straight rolling.

Edited October 24, 2016 by shankbone21

[Siepe1990]

Stevenage

So, my first season in control of Stevenage started when the season was already half over. We were in 18th place when I took over, with already 26 of the 46 matches played. The gap however to mid-table was only a small one, so I knew I had a chance of at least achieving my goals.

Tactial decisions:

Spoiler

I decided to play a very defensive 4-1-3-2 narrow, with my focus on ball possession and giving away near to zero chances. I had a quite decent young striker on loan from Aston Villa - Keinan Davis - so I knew that if I could reach him often enough, goals would follow automatically. I had one young talented Target Man (Rowan Liburd), but knew I needed an experienced man up front to aid Davis. So I decided to sign Emile Heskey, 39 years of age and 20+ years of top class football experience. Speed-stats were somewhat like mine would be (if I would be honest), but mental was still top of the game, as was his Heading & Jumping, just what I needed. My midfield consisted of mainly defensive players, with Jack King - on loan from Scunthorpe - being the pivotal leader. With a strong defensive block (2 central defenders, 1 defensive midfielder and 2 defensive minded midfielders) I decided to make give my two full backs an offensive footprint. On the left back I had my highest valued & best rated player, Kgosi Ntlhe from South Africa. Having thus set out my game-plan, I wanted to stick to it throughout the season, with the only exception being the matches against the top 3/4, which were noticably better than the rest. I decided to maintain my formation, but option for a Counter-mentality, going 'route-one', trying to counter my way to my Target Man whilst being even more tight than usual at the back.

The season:
 

Spoiler

I started with some decent results straight away, propelling myself away from relegation danger to begin with. Davis turned out to be a gem for this level of play, climbing his way up the scoring charts in no-time. Heskey deliverd exactly what I wanted from him: alway available for a cross from either of my backs or a ball pumped up front from the back, creating space for Davis to move in to and create a scoring change. I found myself 7 points from the play-off position (7th) with 10 matches to go and a winning streak on my back, so I started hoping for a small miracle. On the last match of the season I needed a slip-up from either Crewe or Plymouth, whilst also winning my own match. We went up quite early in the game, so I started paying attention to Crewe & Plymouth. Plymouth took the lead early on as well, expanding througout the match, so I knew I needed Crewe to slip-up. Well, they did, losing 0-2 against a club already played out for the season, which meant I made it to the play-offs!

The Play-offs (if applicable):

Spoiler

I got handed a tie against the # 4, Portsmouth, whom I had beaten on my way to the play-offs using my Counter-tactic (as they were a top-3 seed at that time). However, they say 'never change a winning team', so that's why I decided to play my normal, control game and see what it brought me as things went along. First match saw us taking the lead in the 23nd minute, followed by another two goals in the 60th and 69th minute. Leading 3-0 comfortably, I figured it was time for some rest for my key players - how wrong was I. We condeded two in short notice and only barely managed to hang on untill full time, scraping it 3-2. We were ahead however, and were ready for the away match. Another first half lead for us, this time leading to a 0-2 half time score. This time, my key players remaind on the field and a brilliant performance from my central duo made sure we were into the Final!

Plymouth awaited there, one of the very few teams I hadn't played myself in the season. No idea what to expect, I decided to stick to my standard game once again. We got a early lead by a penalty in the 13th mintue, but conceded before half time, going for tea at 1-1. Second half saw my defender score an own goal in the 55th minute and Heskey going off injured a little later, bringing on the talented Liburd instead. In the 72nd minute another own goal - luckily theirs this time - leveled the score to 2-2, which was where I decided extra time would be a nice bonus and I switched to Counter-attacking. Not much happened, until the 92nd minute. Ntlhe steamed down the left flank and deliverd a great cross and at the end of it was... Liburd! The great talented Liburd did exactly what he was paid for: score! Almost immediately the final whistle sounded: we won promotion to League One!

Keys to the season:

Spoiler

 

Tactically, I would say switching playing styles was key. Before I took over, Stevenage played 4-4-2. They created 109 chances for and 124 (!) against in just 20 matches. My 4-1-3-2 narrow created 34 chances for and only 35 (!) chances against in 25 matches. The amount of space they were giving away was shocking, and the way they handled their own chances was even worse - I managed to improve both .

Player-wise, Ntlhe proved worth his money - he's a great left back for a League Two side. Heskey was amazing as well, but PotS for me was Keinan Davis. 20 goals in his first ever 41 matches (of which 16 in the last 20 when I was in charge) is an amazing feat for a 19-year old striker. I managed to extend his loan for another season by the way, very happy with that!

 

Progress UFMC:

Spoiler

Season		Team		Country		League		Pos	Comments
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'16/'17		Stevenage	England		League Two	7th	Won Promotion through the Play-offs!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2016 by Siepe1990

[Fadedaf]

Thanks everyone!

I've checked and Sundowns are not in the champions league at the moment (they were in the confederations cup but already got knocked out). So i think i'll stay at Royal Eagles and see if i can have a crack at the champions league with them!

although if a job comes up at a bigger club that is actually in the CL then i will definitely apply.

anyways expect an end of season update sometime soon.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2017 Season Report

We secured 3^rd the final match of the season, and thus nabbed the last European Qualifying spot, (as the winners of the Finnish Cup finished well down the table). We were in contention for the title most of the season, but lost our 3 best players during the season due to minimum release fees and the end of a loan spell.

I didn’t get much money for any of the players. It’s difficult to get players to agree to a minimum release fee of more than £80-100K, and most throw their dolly out of the pram if you refuse a bid of 40k. I’m just going to have to get used to it, and spend another long off-season trying to find more diamonds in the rough.

Qualifying for Europe is probably a pyrrhic victory. We’ll wait almost a year and then probably go out straight away in the Europa League 1^st Qualifying Round, but who knows? Maybe it will bring in some more money or enable us to buy better players. Hopefully my scouting knowledge is better than a year ago as well.

There’s what is apparently a bug in Finland that means that all 12 top division teams are put in the same 2 (of 5) qualifying groups for the Finnish Cup group stage, although I thought that it was quite nice that at least 3 lower division teams are guaranteed a quarter-final slot. Anyway, with 1 win, 1 loss and 3 draws from our group, we missed out on goal difference.

I did apply to one of the top Danish sides to see if I could get an interview, but I was laughed at, so I’ll have to stay at Lahti for the moment, but that’s fine.

 

Top Goalscorers – Ramón / Aristote Mboma – 20. Ramon was on loan, Mboma was a free transfer that was sold mid-season. Had they been available all season we probably would have won the league. All the other top goalscorers in the league are still with their teams.

Best Average Rating – Mboma 7.50. (Jussi Lansitalo our right winger is the best averager we’ve retained with 7.31)

 

Man of Match – Jussi Lansitalo (+Ramon & Mboma) – 3. It looks as though Lansitalo will agree to a new contract so he’ll be with us for another 2 seasons, but I doubt that he’s actually anywhere near our best player overall.

 

omestic
Season	Team					Position	Notes										Challenge Landmarks
16/17	FC Lahti				10th		Just 9 points from the remaining 10 matches
17/18	FC Lahti				3rd		Qualified for Europe

International
Year	Team					Achievements	



Challenge Progress

Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues 
 0/10 domestic cups 
 0/5 club continental championships 
 0/1 club world championship

International
 0/5 continental tournaments 
 0/2 world tournaments 

 

[Fadedaf]

Royal Eagles Season 2017/18

After just sneaking promotion to South Africa's top league, i strengthened the squad as much as i could, bringing in tons of players on free transfers and end of contract deals. The squad was getting pretty familiar with my tactics so i was cautiously optimistic for the season ahead and thought i'd try to target the cups in the hope of getting some silverware that counts for the challenge. I also wanted to try to do as well as possible in the league. I was confident we wouldn't be relegated and thought a top half finish would be a success.

South African KO Cup- My first chance to get a trophy that counts for the challenge so I devoted most of my attention to it. We narrowly beat fellow newly promoted side Jomo Cosmos 2-1 in the first round, then dispatched a weak Ajax CT team 5-1 in the quarters. The semi final was incredibly close against Wits and I thought we'd won it until they scored an equaliser to make it 2-2 in the 90th minute. We kept our heads up though and went through thanks to an extra time goal from Nyko Tshabangu. The final we played against Cape Town city and came up with one of our best performances of the season, winning 4-0. First trophy in the bag! I believe I am the first person to get a trophy towards the challenge on FM17 so very happy with my progress.

South African FA Cup- another good cup run here, as i saw another opportunity to add to the trophy cabinet. We beat Wits 5-0 in the first round, followed by a 6-4 victory over Steenberg United in the second round. The quarter final saw us beat Golden Arrows 3-1 then we scraped past Cape Town All Stars in the semis 2-1. The final unfortunately proved to be one of our poorer performances of the season and we lost 1-2 to Maritzburg Utd. Still a good effort from the team though and two cup finals in a year is a great effort! Anyways, i have a cup from this country towards the challenge already now so it wasn't too disappointing.

League- We started off pretty average with a few wins but also several losses to mid table teams and we ended up sitting in the upper mid table positions for most of the first half of the season. As other teams had slumps we really hit form and slowly started to work our way up the table until we sat in 3rd and we stayed in that position for 8 or 9 weeks. We kept winning game after game however and we just overtook Wits into 2nd place with a few weeks to go. We found ourselves only 1 point back from the leaders, Kaiser Chiefs with only 4 matches to go and importantly, we played them on the last day. This set up an interesting situation where if we kept within touch we could pull off an unlikely title win on the last day. we won the first 3 matches and Kaiser Chiefs won 2 and drew 1, meaning we were now top by 1 point going into our last game against each other. The lads pulled off a clutch performance however and put them away 3-1 (with our hero Ace Benghu bagging a cool goal and assist) to win the title! An incredible title win in our first season after promotion on the last day of the season! I will now refer to this team as the South African Leicester City (we even play in blue). Champions league qualification secured and the prize money even took us out of debt at least for a little while.

Transfers- too many to list as i almost completely overhauled the team. By the middle of the season only 1 of the starting 11 and only 3 of the usual 18 man squad were present when i took over the club. The best transfers must go to strikers Lucky Mathosi (17 goals 9 assists) and Jeef Kayembe (13 goals 9 assists) both signed on free transfers and Moroccan fullback Ayoub El-Khaliqi (3 goals 16 assists, avg rating: 7.68) also on a free transfer.

Best Players- all three players above plus our star Nigerian wide man Felix Obada who continued his great form with 16 goals and 13 assists.

Results

Overall an incredible season, way more than i could've possibly expected! 2 trophy wins and 1 runner up as well as CL qualification. My reputation is up to 15% and I have my National B License (studying for National A). Additionally, I've just taken charge of China Under 23s with our first game in a few months so i'll let you know how that goes in the next update! The plan now is just to strengthen the squad further if i can and wait around for the CL to start. If another team in the CL needs a manager I will still apply but for now i'm gonna give it a crack with Royal Eagles once it eventually comes around. Also, 2 trophies for the challenge already by the end of season 2! much better than my last attempt where my first trophy was at the end of season 4 with Lech!

Season       Team             Position         Notes and Achievements     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17      Royal Eagles     2nd              Promoted to South African Premier League
2017/18      Royal Eagles     1st              KO Cup winners, Manager of the Season, CL qualification



Challenge Progress

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa- Royal Eagles)
 1/10 domestic cups (South Africa KO Cup- Royal Eagles)
 0/5 club continental championships 
 0/1 club world championship

International
 0/5 continental tournaments 
 0/2 world tournaments 

 

[TheEarl]

The Earls Ultimate Quest (FM17)

So my attempting FM16 failed, I lost motivation there long time ago, since I felt the application process for International teams where bugged. I thought I would wait with FM17 until there final release, but I couldn't tempt myself to start this challenge already in the Beta-version.

I loaded a game with the manager at 20 years old, and my own birthdate (which is today actually) and my original nationalities Norwegian and Swedish. I loaded the leagues of Brazil (down to Serie B), England (down to League One), South Africa (Tier 2) and China (Tier 2). The aim was obviously to start outside Europe for the first time. I got a few interviews early on, but was not accepted. I had started the game with start date 01.07.16 but it was until November before I got a job in the Chinese League that had finished their season already. I spotted Dalian Yifang had sacked their manager. I was given the task to try to promote the team to the Super League.

I had a nice budget of some 180K per week, which I spent only around 80K and a bit over 1M transfer budget. I sold one of the foreign players as we where only allowed to have 3 of those, and signed a Brazilian striker named Gil for Free. The rest I spent on Chinese players that could up the standards of such.

We started great by winning the first 4 matches, and I thought it would all be easy. But then I was struck by players who wanted to move, strengthen the squad and all other things to bother our harmony. At the worst we had dropped to 7th in the league out of 16 teams, but we gradually found form again. And when players became more happy, we where once again the force that I had assumed us to be. We finished the season on a 17 games unbeaten run, only drawing 3 of those games.In the end we won the First Division on 67 points, 8 points ahead of Shanghai Shenxin.

In the cup, we played during that bad period at home to fellow First Division side Changchun Yatai and lost on penalties after 2-2 in the game.

We are promoted and next season will try to stay a live in Super League. Meanwhile I will slowly start to look around for other jobs.

Challenge progress

2016 - Unemployed

2017 - Dalian Yifang - 1st in Chinese First Division - 2nd round of Chinese FA Cup - Promoted and won the league

 

Club landmarks

0/10 Domestic Top Leagues

0/10 Domestic Cups

0/5 Continental Championships

0/1 Club World Cup

International landmarks

0/5 Continental Tournaments

0/2 World Tournaments

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by TheEarl

[JoeLapira]

@Fadedaf: Congrats on the league and cup double. The South African KO Cup was my first Challenge Trophy aswell but i was in my 5th season when i won it. Best of luck in the Champions League, quick question though, how's your reputation looking after winning those 2 trophies?

@TheEarl: Best of luck in China. And good luck to all those continuing saves and starting new ones.

Part of me was tempted to start a new save on the Beta for 17 but i felt ive put too much time and effort into this one to move on.

[Fadedaf]

@JoeLapira reputation is at 15% so not that huge of an increase really.

 

[numero uno gunner]

Where has my post gone? I've just spent bloody ages doing my update and its disappeared.

Edited October 26, 2016 by numero uno gunner

[numero uno gunner]

                

FS Stars and USA

Mid-Season Review 2034

Ok, so let's try this again. As a caveat, this isn't going to be anywhere near as detailed as my original one, as it took me bloody ages to type and then deleted itself. Ugh.

Internationally, we've been a proper 'Jekyll and Hyde' side. We've beaten Qatar 4-0, Colombia 5-2 and Mali 3-0, but also been held by Egypt 1-1, and beaten by Paraguay 1-0 and smashed by the world footballing powerhouse that is Algeria 4-0. With the Gold Cup coming up in the summer, we've really got to get our act together. At the moment, one of two things is likely to happen. Either we'll dazzle everyone and waltz our way to the title, or we'll flatter to deceive, struggle to score and crash out in the group stages. Right now, I have no idea which side will turn up in the summer.

In the league, we're sat in 4th, 8 points behind leaders Sundowns, but with two games in hand. We've played well, and only lost one game so far, with Orlando Pirates grabbing a 2-1 win with a late goal as we pushed forward trying to grab a winner. We've dominated games, and have scored 24 goals in our first 9 games. I spent a lot of time in the summer scouting players to improve the depth of the squad, and other than our goalkeeper (I'm currently willing to carry out ceremonial sacrifices to keep our number one fit and healthy) I feel this squad is ready to challenge on multiple fronts. The new signings were obviously cup-tied for the Champions League, but that's meant that they've had a fair bit of game time domestically.

We were knocked out of the Super 8 cup in our first game, losing 2-1 to SuperSport Utd after extra time. To be honest, we played our reserves, as our new signings hadn't joined us yet, and it came in the middle of our Champions League run. They were the better side, and we did well to take the tie into extra time. In the Knock Out Cup, we beat Wits 2-0, and Bloem Celtic 2-1, setting up a last 4 tie with Chippa Utd.

And to the Champions League...

A tough group saw us grouped with Al-Merreikh, Club Africain and Raja Casablanca. The fact the games were scheduled to be played during pre-season was annoying to say the least. Our opening fixture, at Club Africain, saw me having to field my star striker, Oscar Hlazo, out on the right wing, due to injuries. They absolutely battered us, but our defence stood firm, and Godfrey Mchunu, with our first shot on target, put us ahead in the 77th minute. We held out, and claimed our first three points of the group stage. A 5-0 win over Al-Merreikh, with 5 different goalscorers, sent us into our game against Raja Casablanca in good spirits. A 2-0 win ensued, and we'd somehow taken 9 points from 9. Club Africain brought us back down to earth with a 3-2 victory at our place, but another 5-0 thrashing of Al-Merreikh and a 4-0 drubbing of Raja Casablanca was enough to see us top the group, and face fellow South Africans Sundowns in the last four. A comfortable 2-0 win, with Thulani Gumede and Helman Radebe scoring, before an edgy 0-0 draw in the return leg took us into the final. Our opponents, ES Tunis, had lifted the trophy twice in the last decade, so I knew it was going to be tough. However, this squad knows no bounds, and we smashed them 3-0 at home in the first leg. To be perfectly honest, the score didn't reflect the game. Had we been 6 or 7 up at full time, I don't think they could have had any complaints. Oscar Hlazo nicked a goal at the start of the second leg, and that settled any nerves we had. Despite them grabbing a goal just before the hour, we never looked anything but comfortable, and we played out the rest of the tie, winning 4-1 on aggregate, and lifting the trophy for the first time!

More importantly, it was my fifth Champions League win, and another medal in my cabinet. With the quality I've got in this squad, I'm optimistic that we can push for the title and a domestic cup this season. Bring it on!

Club
Season        Team             Position      Notes and Achievements
2015/16      Dungannon     10th          Won Northern Irish FA Cup and kept Dungannon up after taking over with 3 games to go
2016/17      Dungannon     8th            A solid but unspectacular season
2017/18      Yiteng            8th            A settling season in China
2019           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and FA Cup, as well as claiming MOTY.
2020           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and Asian Champions League
2020/21      Aberdeen       9th            Won Scottish League Cup
2021/22      Monterrey      5th/5th      Won Opening Stage, knocked out in semis of closing stage. Won NACL.
2021/22      Salzburg        1st             Won league and cup double
2022           Corinthians    1st             Won league
2023           Corinthians    8th             Won Copa Libertadores
2024/25      Juventus        1st             Won Serie A and Italian Cup
2025/26      Juventus        2nd            Won Italian Cup
2026/27      Real Madrid    1st             Won La Liga and Spanish Cup
2027/28      Real Madrid    1st             Won La Liga and Spanish Cup

2028/29     Everton             10th          Knocked out of both cups and Europa League. Left them in 10th with 10 games to go.

2028/29     Chelsea             4th            Took over with 10 games to go and club in 8th. Won FA Cup and Champions League!

2029/30     Chelsea             1st           Won the title on the last day of the season!

2030/31    Unemployed

2031/32    Marseille          1st          Won Ligue Un and Coupe de la Ligue

2032/33   Schalke             1st           Won Bundesliga and German Cup

2033/34   FS Stars            7th          A solid if unspectacular season after joining with 12 games to go and the team in 12th.

2034        FS Stars            N/A         Champions League winners!

Season        Team              Notes and Achievements
2016/17      Congo              Resigned without playing a game
2016/17      Cameroon       One win away from WC qualification
2017/18      Cameroon       2nd round of 2018 World Cup
2019           Cameroon        African Cup of Nations winner!
2021           Poland              An abject failure!
2022           Ireland              4 wins, 2 draws and promotion to European International League Division B
2023           Ireland              2 wins, 2 defeats from 4 qualifiers before taking Colombia job
2024/25      Colombia        Currently top of WC qualifying and ranked 4th in the world
2026           Colombia         World Cup winners!
2027           Colombia         Copa America winners!
2028           Italy                  European Championship winners!

2029           Italy                  Confederations Cup winners!

2030          Italy                   Knocked out of World Cup in group stage!

2031         South Korea     Asian Cup winners! 

2032         Mexico              World Cup qualification is going well

2033         Mexico              World Cup qualification is still going well, and I'm gearing up for the Gold Cup. Incredibly, I was sacked midway through the Gold Cup!

2034        USA                   Knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages and we've been all over the place since.

 

Challenge Progress

Club

9/10 top domestic leagues - China (Jiangsu), Mexico (Monterrey), Austria (Salzburg), Brazil (Corinthians), Italy (Juventus), Spain (Real Madrid), England (Chelsea), France (Marseille), Germany (Schalke)

9/10 domestic cups - Northern Ireland (Dungannon), China (Jiangsu), Scotland (Aberdeen), Austria (Salzburg), Italy (Juventus x 2), Spain (Real Madrid), England (Chelsea), France (Marseille), Germany (Schalke)

5/5 club continental championships - ACL (Jiangsu), NACL (Monterrey), Copa Libertadores (Corinthians), Uefa Champions League (Chelsea), African Champions League (FS Stars)

1/1 club world championship - Chelsea 2029

International

4/5 continental tournaments - ACON (Cameroon 2019), Copa America (Colombia 2027), European Championships (Italy 2028), Asian Nations Cup (South Korea 2031)

2/2 world tournaments - World Cup (Colombia 2026), Confederations Cup (Italy 2029)

[Kaiserwatman]

@numero_uno_gunner so so close now

[JoeLapira]

Congrats on the African Champions League @numero uno gunner, hopefully ye can drive on and secure those final 2 club trophies. 

What kind of level of players do you have at your disposal for the US? Surely ye must be favourites for the Gold Cup?

[JoeLapira]

22 hours ago, Fadedaf said:

@JoeLapira reputation is at 15% so not that huge of an increase really.

 

Your playing on FM17 though right? I wonder will there be much of a difference compared to 16 when it comes to securing new jobs and how much of a role does reputation actually play.

[Fadedaf]

@JoeLapira yeah i'm playing FM17 and it is up to 20% now although i haven't won anything since then. Maybe it is based more on time spent at a club than trophies won or something? not really sure

[JoeLapira]

Reputation and job hunting is still a slight mystery to me. In my own save, i had just won the Italian League and Cup double with Roma, when Jose Mourinho retired from football leaving a vacancy at Man City. I applied for the job only to be laughed at, but then i applied for the newly vacant Real Madrid job and got that. I'd love to have a clearer idea of how the whole thing works.

[numero uno gunner]

Thanks for the congratulations guys. Edging ever so slowly closer...

@JoeLapira - My squad with USA is ok, but not a patch on the Mexico squad unfortunately. I'm hoping we're kept apart and that someone else knocks them out!

[TheEarl]

The Earls Ultimate Quest (FM17)

Dalian Yifang 2018 season - Chinese Super League

At the start of the 2018 season my reputation was up to 15% already. I tried early on to apply for the jobs as international manager of Uzbekistan, but was turned down. However I was very pleased with my Chinese player signings and also got a few decent foreigners. So I was happy to play a season to keep Yifang up and away from relegation. Board suggested Mid-Table finish, I proposed Top-Half finish. I also was well underway with my coaching badges, and was studying for National A-License at the start of the season.

The first two games was really good and we won both, before we had to play Guanghzou away. That was deemed for a loss, and I feared we would slip up after that. But we never did, and stayed around 2-4 place for most of the season. We had a nice run in the cup for a while also. During the summer part of the season we ran into trouble, with a lot of injuries. I signed a new foreigner so that I had too many, but altered them due to those injuries. Because of that we lost in the Quarter Final of the cup, with too many of the decent Chinese players out. But in the league we went from strength to strength. Lost both matches to Guangzhou and Jiangsu but other than that we rarely lost. I was overjoyed to secure a 2nd place, 6 points behind Guangzhou and a place in next seasons Champions League. My board status was 90% secure so they where very pleased also. Without winning anything my reputation rose to 25%. And at the end of the season I hold a Continental B-License and studying for A-License.

Am I all happy with the season? No, the reason for that was midway through I spotted Orlando Pirates sacking their manager. They where still in African Champions League and a Domestic Cup, but out of chance for winning the league. I applied for the job, got an interview. My club even offered me more transfer money if I turned down the application. But I wanted the chance of winning a continental tournament so soon. Only to discover they gave the job to someone else. What a bugger!!!

Next season I will start with Yifang again and see how I can perform in Asian Champions League, but really my team is not good enough, so I hope to move somewhere else.

Challenge progress

2016 - Unemployed

2017 - Dalian Yifang - 1st in Chinese First Division - 2nd round of Chinese FA Cup - Promoted and won the league

2018 - Dalian Yifang - 2nd in Chinese Super League - Quarter Final of Chinese FA Cup - Qualified for Champions League

 

Club landmarks

0/10 Domestic Top Leagues

0/10 Domestic Cups

0/5 Continental Championships

0/1 Club World Cup

International landmarks

0/5 Continental Tournaments

0/2 World Tournaments

[SavoNFFC]

         

I started out with no reputation to speak of and zero qualifications, after about 3 months of sitting on the dole I finally got a gig in South Korea. I just missed out on promotion to the top flight and the board sacked me when I went for a few other jobs. Finally got another job in South Africa at Vasco CT who were pulling in crowds of 200. Now we've built a decent side are currently top of the pile after 17 games.

I also really enjoyed the Mali job which I was surprised to get having done nothing in the game except a promotion in South Africa. We went 18 games unbeaten which included a comfortable run to the African Cup of Nations and a run all the way to the final. We then beat Algeria 4-2 in the final. I've now resigned as I don't really see Mali as the team that will achieve me the World Cup or Confederations Cup

Here's my career so far...

Season       Team             Position         Notes and Achievements     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015         Goyang HI FC     5th
2015/16      Vasco CT         14th             South African Divison 1
2016/17      Vasco CT         1st              Promoted to South African Premier League
2017/18      Vasco CT         7th             
2018/19      Vasco CT         TBC

International Management
2017 - Mali
2018 - Mali
2019 - Mali                                    African Cup of Nations winners


Challenge Progress

Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues 
 0/10 domestic cups 
 0/5 club continental championships 
 0/1 club world championship

International
 1/5 continental tournaments (Mali AFCON 2019)
 0/2 world tournaments 

Just trying to get my head round the lack of sentiment in this save. I normally stay at a club for years building something using youth etc. This time it's Mourinho-like quick in and out and win as much as possible before moving on. I think by the end of this I'll have really enjoyed it and have been successful yet will probably not remember any of the players that have played for me.

Edited October 28, 2016 by SavoNFFC

[TheMadMonk]

Irish League 2016 - 2019

 

(Playing on the FM17 Beta)

Started in the early 2016-17 season of the Irish League, Scottish, Northern Irish and English Leagues loaded to from June onwards. I managed not to get a job the first season ! - So lowered my  expectations and took control of Finn Harps in Irish 1st Division pre 2017-2018 season - they'd been relegated from the Premier League and expectations where for a Play-Off place in the coming season.

I obliged by finishing 3rd but lost in the Play-Offs - so another season in Division 1 with the same expectation of a Play Off place - I again finished 3rd but this time won the 2 Play Off matches and promotion to the Premier League.

Quickly realising the lack of potential for Finn Harps in the Premier League I applied for 3 vacant positions with more established Premier League Full-Time outfits that had manager vacancies - I was eventually successful with Shamrock Rovers, who had finished 3rd the previous season. I took over for the pre-season with expectations of challenging for Top Positions. I'd inherited a good squad and managed to avoid offers for the stars that wished to leave, I didn't need to strengthen much (just as well as I was given a Transfer Budget of £500 !!) - and in fact loaned out 3 high earners to bring my Wage budget in line.

But playing a traditional 4-4-2 we started off well and got better .... losing just one league game from June to November we won the league with 4 games to go and topped it off by coming from behind to beat Galway 2-1 in the Senior Cup Final. Yet we only managed one player(Gary McCabe MR) in the Team of the Year !!

I'll be resigning and heading East for the next Stage (hopefully I can pick up a Job in a top division) and have loaded Australia and Sth Korea in preparation. I may also look to pick up and International team on my travels.

 

Challenge Progress

Domestic

1/10 Top Domestic League (Ireland)

1/10 Domestic Cups (Ireland)

0/5 Club Continental Championships

0/1 World Club Championship

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments

0/2 World Tournaments

 

Edited October 28, 2016 by TheMadMonk

[numero uno gunner]

The African Cup of Nations is slap bang in the middle of the season in South Africa. Really? My squad has just lost 8 of my starting 11, including my goalkeeper and whole of my first choice defence. Excellent. Its going to take some of my reserves stepping up their game massively if I'm going to win the title now. How frustrating!

Edit - I've only lost them for two games as then the seasons stops until after the tournament. Thank god for that! In those two games I picked up 1 point, so I'm relieved that the next league game isn't for a month.

Edited October 28, 2016 by numero uno gunner

[vikeologist]

@TheMadMonk Congratulations on your first silverware of the challenge. It will be interesting to see what kind of job you can get.

Others have alluded to it, but I might as well mention it here. None of us seem to know how the obtaining jobs thing works, but it's pretty clear (at least in FM16) that it's not based on reputation alone. I've only applied for a couple of other jobs, because the amount that you bounce around (or attempt to) certainly has an effect, or maybe it doesn't. I really don't know.

If we knew how the game codes these things, would it be cheating or a spoiler? Obviously national teams have a tendency to appoint foreign managers (or not) and I believe that in my FM15 save I turned down a job at Man City, and after that they wouldn't even give me an interview.

@SavoNFFC Nice progress. I want to remember the players who've been important for me, and that's why each season I'm mentioning the top goal scorer, ave rating and man of match. I plan to have a team of the challenge and update my challenge XI as I go through. I mean, I'm on my first club, so I haven't 'put' anyone into it yet. I only really remember one player from my completed challenge, and that was an international player called Brian Hok-a-Hin. I desperately wanted to manage him at club level as well, with Paris StGermain, but couldn't get the job. It was fun having him on my Holland team. I really don't think any of my current players will stick in my memory very long.

 

But it can be tough when you have a really great team, and have to leave them at their peak. The best team I managed was a Barcelona team about half way through the challenge, and it was slowly downhill from there. No other team were as beautiful as that Barca one.

 

@TheEarl Ah Dalian where I used to live. It's supposed to be China's football city.

 

@numero uno gunner Good luck with the Gold Cup and picking up the final league and cup.

[TheEarl]

@vikeologist hope I can make you proud with my performance at Dalian then. I remember back in the days failing with Carmarthen Town...

[Shankly84]

First full season completed. After a terrible start (no wins in first 6) we managed to get a few good runs together and climb up to 5th. The terrible start meant we had no chance of promotion though. We fell at the first hurdle in the cup but overall a good season that we can hopefully build on next season.

League Table

Season Review

Star Players

Wang Dalong

Li Jiahi

Rodrigo Paulista

Gao Di

Season     Team             Country	League                   Pos	Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 9th	Took over after 24 games in 13th pos.
2017       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 5th
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress

Club

0/10 top domestic leagues -

0/10 Domestic Cups -

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2016 by Shankly84

[Shankly84]

HARBIN YITENG

2018 - SEASON 3

CHINESE JIA LEAGUE

 

Had 2 seasons to update so sorry for taking over the thread. I want to try and keep on top this year with my updates.

 

So season 3 was the year we managed to make it to the Chinese Super league. After another poor start, results picked up. It didn't look likely but towards the end of the season we went on a 10 game unbeaten run, winning 9. This got us over the line (just) to scrape 2nd place and achieve promotion. Gao Di had another impressive season and it was his goals that fired us to 2nd place. In the cup we managed to reach the 3rd round this year before crashing out to lower league opposition. Overall though a brilliant season. Next year needs to be all about staying up before hopefully pushing on. My overall aim with Harbin Yiteng is to win the Chinese League and then on to win the Asian Champions League before moving on to another stage of the challenge.

League Table

My Current Profile

Star Players

Xu Ke - Goalkeeper promoted from the youth academy.

Sam Carroll - Australian midfielder signed on a free. After a poor first season, converted to a right back and kicked on.

Claudio Roberto - Brazilain midfielder who also kicked on after a poor first season.

Gao Di - Another great season for the front man. Scoring 27 goals in 33 games.

 

Season     Team             Country	League                   Pos	Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 9th	Took over after 24 games in 13th pos.
2017       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 5th
2018       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 2nd	Gained promotion to Super League
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress

Club

0/10 top domestic leagues -

0/10 Domestic Cups -

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

[SavoNFFC]

Currently 3 games in to the group stage of the African Champions League. Finally met some resistance in the 3rd game vs ES Tunis (2-2) as every single game I'd played prior to that in all 3 rounds had been easy wins.

Struggling to get my head around the squad registration rules though in this competition. I chose a 30 man squad way back in January before the preliminary round and we're now deep into the competition in mid-August and my squad is quite different but the ACL squad has not been allowed to change at all. I have 5 good players who have signed for me since I submitted the squad and none are eligible for the competition. 

Also, the competition starts becoming interesting right as the South African sides are on their end of season break. And as a result I had to start pre-season 3 weeks early, sure that made me popular with the squad. Now I have my star striker away for August on Olympic duty too. It all seems to be set against me at the moment.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2018 Season Report

We won the title. Honestly I’m delighted. In FM16 I didn’t win a single domestic title. Ok, that’s because I didn’t start on ’16 until about February when I finished this challenge on ’15, and I spent most of the time since on the youth challenge and sticking with Southend on this challenge as I knew I would be starting anew on ’17. Still I worried that I just wasn’t very good at FM, and I’m a bit emotional about this first trophy.

We did quite well in the Europa League reaching the 3^rd qualifying round, and that meant that once we were finally eliminated, although things looked good for us in the league, we were only top on goal difference, albeit with 3 games in hand. I thought we would win it at that point, but 4 points from 4 games later, having used up our 3 game advantage, we were just 1 point ahead of HJK.

However we won our remaining last 6 matches and were champions all but mathematically with 2 games to spare.

I’m not going to quit, because I think it makes it harder to get a new job, but I’m also not going to put much effort into managing Lahti because I’m looking for a new club. Honestly I didn’t really have a plan after Finland. Maybe I can get a top job in the already loaded Sweden, Norway or Denmark leagues. I’m also going to load up S Korea, China, USA which will appear soon. I’m also provisionally loading S Africa, but I really hope I’ll have a new job by then and be able to cancel that.

This is the tricky part. Finland is a very low rep league, and I could really mess up my challenge by only applying for jobs I can’t get. It's worth pointing out that my reputation is still only at 15%, unchanged by the title. It went up to 15% when I got my 2nd coaching badge.

The only job in the MLS (USA) I’ll even apply for is Minnesota, as I think they’re now playable. Apart from that I’m definitely more interested in a big club in a little league rather than the other way round.

 

Top Goalscorer – Tidjani Diawara – 26. Tidjani was on loan from IFK Norrköping for the second straight season. Last season he hadn’t played much until the end because he was the third string until I lost my main 2. This season though he was a starter throughout.

Best Average Rating – Mika Ojala 7.50

Man of Match – Mika Ojala 8. I brought Mika in this season and he didn’t disappoint.

 

Tidjani and Mika are provisionally in my challenge XI, but I think they’ll probably soon be replaced and forgotten. It was a team achievement to be honest with goals and high ratings throughout.

Loved my time with Lahti, but looking forward to my next adventure.

 

Domestic
Season	Team					Position	Notes										Challenge Landmarks
2016	FC Lahti				10th		Just 9 points from the 10 matches remaining after I took over
2017	FC Lahti				3rd		Qualified for Europe
2018	FC Lahti				1st		First domestic title


International
Year	Team					Achievements	



Challenge Progress

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues 	(Finland)
 0/10 domestic cups 
 0/5 club continental championships 
 0/1 club world championship

International
 0/5 continental tournaments 
 0/2 world tournaments 

@SavoNFFC You know, I remember South Africa being a bit of a nightmare, but I couldn't remember why in detail. Thanks for reminding me. Still, we'll all have to take our medicine eventually.

@Shankly84 Good luck in the CSL. Who knows. I may be joining you and Earl (and others) soon.

Edited October 30, 2016 by vikeologist

[SavoNFFC]

Season       Team             Position         Notes and Achievements     
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015         Goyang HI FC     5th
2015/16      Vasco CT         14th             South African Divison 1
2016/17      Vasco CT         1st              Promoted to South African Premier League
2017/18      Vasco CT         7th             
2018/19      Vasco CT         1st              South African FA Cup
2019/20      Vasco CT         1st              African Champions League/South Africa Super 8 winners

International Management
2017 - Mali
2018 - Mali
2019 - Mali                                    African Cup of Nations winners


Challenge Progress

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa 2019)
 1/10 domestic cups (South Africa FA Cup 2019)
 1/5 club continental championships (African Champions League 2020)
 0/1 club world championship

International
 1/5 continental tournaments (Mali AFCON 2019)
 0/2 world tournaments 

We ended up winning the league and cup double in 2019 and then qualified for the African Champions League and whilst starting up our 2020 Champions League campaign won the title once again such is the nature of the African football calender. I had already resigned from the Mali position after winning the ACON to concentrate purely on club matters. Domestically we were completely dominant and had finally started to fill our 6000 capacity ground. Our star striker was youngster Kenneth Mvalo who came through our system and scored around 40 goals across 2 seasons. We also signed Adlene Guedioura whom I regarded as quite a coup but even with this our budget paled in comparison to Sundowns' and particular Kaizer Chiefs'. 

We went through the Champions League all the way to the semis with relative ease, losing only once in the group to ES Tunis. We then faced our old foes Kaizer Chiefs in the semis and beat them 3-1 on aggregate including a 1-0 win away at the FNB Stadium in Soweto in front of 87,000. As a side note, I had no idea this many people went to watch club football in Africa as we played AS Vita Club from the DRC in front of 78,000 in Kinshasa! A far cry from the couple of hundred we used to get in the South African second tier when I first arrived.

In the final the side who beat us in the group - ES Tunis. This time however it was more comfortable and we beat them 1-0 on aggregate. We were African Champions!

Following the celebrations I then dropped the bombshell that I was resigning to seek challenges elsewhere. Four backroom staff members followed me out of the door and whilst I appreciate their loyalty I have no intention of taking them to my next position which more than likely will be 7000+ miles away. I felt sad to leave as I had built up a good young squad, but also a club that was really on the up.

I'm now unemployed and waiting for the next opportunity that takes my fancy...most likely in Asia.

[TheEarl]

I made such a huge mistake, am not sure if I even have the willpower to write my season update(s) now...

Such a fool, not sure how I will motivate me to continue with this save.

[Fadedaf]

@vikeologist congrats on the title! are you going to try to win the cup (i'm assuming there's a Finnish cup?) next season while looking for jobs or just try to get out of Lahti asap? Also i'm the same with an eventual challenge best XI, don't think any of my Royal Eagles side will make the cut. The sheer amount of transfers i've gone through so far however mean i might have a few for a worst overall XI if i do one!

@Shankly84 good progress so far, are you applying to any other Chinese/Asian clubs as you go to possibly get to the top faster?

@SavoNFFC great work domestically and internationally!

@TheEarl what happened??

 

[TheEarl]

@Fadedaf I will try to write a season update tomorrow, but the season looked to be as close to perfect before I made a huge mistake, and now am not sure if the game will be playable at all....

 

[JoeLapira]

I see people mentioning a Challenge XI in other posts and I think its a cool idea, I sincerely doubt any players of mine pre-Roma will make it but it's an interesting way of reviewing your progress. I'm going to include an XI in my end of season reports from now on and update it every season.  Also I think i might do 2, one for club level and one for International. Looks like lots of ye have secured trophies over the last couple of days, congrats to ye all. Halfway through my season with Dortmund; 8 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga, through to the Quarter Finals of the German Cup and into the first Knockout Round of the Champions League, all going to plan so far.

 

[SavoNFFC]

I think the career XI is a great idea and shouldn't necessarily be the best 11 players you've managed. Otherwise your team that wins the UEFA Champions League would just fill it. Mine will be complete with players that have had the greatest impact relatively-speaking to the club and situation you're in.

[Shankly84]

HARBIN YITENG

2019 - SEASON 4

CHINESE SUPER LEAGUE

 

So we have just finished our first season in the Chinese Super League and it was a very up and down season. Overall though it was a good season and we managed to finish in a respectable 9th position. Once again the cup was disappointing as we went out in the 4th round. I think the winners qualify for the Asian Champions League so it would be nice to kick on and get a little further next season.

In terms of my progression, after letting me get my national B license, the club aren't keen on letting me go any further at the moment. Profile. 

We had a lot of ups and downs and these two matches probably summed the season up. If you think 5-4 is a mad score, how about 7-6!! with their 6-6 equaliser and our 7-6 winner both coming in injury time!!

So overall a decent season. Could of been better but also could of been a lot worse. Hopefully we can kick on next season.

STAR PLAYERS

Kim Hak-Young - 20 year old right back who signed on a free transfer after being let go by FC Seoul. Signed half way through the season and done really well. Should kick on next year.

Zheng Hui - 18 year old Chinese international. Signed for quite a big fee in the summer (£1.5m). Thought it was a gamble, but I'm trying to build a young Chinese spine due to registration restrictions. Gamble has seemed to pay off, although the bigger Chinese clubs are now sniffing around.

Ni Hao - 19 year old who falls into the same category Zheng Hui. Signed for an even bigger fee at £2.2m. But he did really well in his first season and I'm expecting even more next season. These 2 could become a big part of our spine as we progress.

Cristhian Flores - Signed on a free transfer and had a superb season finishing the season with a 7.32 average rating. Could be difficult to keep hold of him.

Arsene Traore - The first of the two big striker signings. Once again a free transfer. Initially couldn't get into starting 11 but formed a brilliant partnership with Martinez after we changed to 2 up top. Again could be difficult to keep hold of as Marseille are now interested. Although if they match his release clause (£11.25m) I can carry on building.

Marcelo Martinez - The signing of the season. Another free transfer. Scored 18 in 22 and it was his goals at the start of the season that kept us away from a relegation battle. Despite all the positives he frequently misses training sessions, due to being in nightclubs the night before. He missed 4 or 5 matches due to being absent. Obviously has attitude problems, so if a big bid was to come in I would snap their hand off. Fingers crossed!!!

 

Next season I would like to get into the top 3 for continental qualification. If not getting in then at least challenging. Not interesting in moving on yet as I want to complete the Asian part of the challenge with Harbin Titeng.

Season     Team             Country	League                   Pos	Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 9th	Took over after 24 games in 13th pos.
2017       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 5th
2018       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Jia League	 2nd	Gained promotion to Super League
2019       Harbin Yiteng    China	Chinese Super League	 9th
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress

Club

0/10 top domestic leagues -

0/10 Domestic Cups -

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

[dkouv]

Season 2 – 2017/18 – Volgar Astrakhan (RUS) / Russia U19s

Well, this thread is going on strongly – best of luck to everyone involved and I’m really enjoying reading the updates! Looks like some very solid starts out there; I’ll try to keep up with my Russian-journeyman update…

Club

Transfers

You might remember that I complained about being over wage budget in my previous post. Well, that was a bit premature – as it turned out, my club raked in £3.6m in sponsorship, with the board promptly upgrading my wage budget to £30k/week (11k over my actual spending), and giving me a £1m transfer budget to play around with! I made another £1.3m when my board sold my top youth prospect to Spartak Moscow. The only problem was, despite all that cash no good players really wanted to join me, and it felt wrong to blow my budget on one overpriced Russian player, given the prices quoted. Plus the mysterious wage cap (specified nowhere, but ever-present in contract negotiations) ensured that I could only offer £800/week max per player, making the £30k wage budget a bit pointless.

Anyhow, I proceeded to strengthen the squad with a few frees and low-cost top-team rejects during the summer, mainly Russian players due to the foreigner limits. But after I got the Russia U19s job in October I spotted a few nice talents there and bought two highly-rated youngsters in the January transfer window; so far one’s turning out well and the other one not so much. I also expanded scouting to anywhere in the world and have focussed on Africa and South America, with the African scouting yielding a few potentially good foreign players.

League

I played well through the early-mid stages of the season and was always in the mix at the top of the table – August was the only really bad month, with just one win and 3 defeats in 5 games. But towards the end of the season my team gelled, players stopped complaining and I settled on a tactic, so we blew away the competition, finishing champions with 81 points after 38 games, 13 points ahead of our nearest rivals. Nothing to write home about in the cup; got eliminated by eventual winners Dinamo Moscow in my second game (5^th round).

There was one clear star player this season, a 25-year old Ukranian I signed on a free who topped my goal and assist charts (I added a new “highest-impact player” category to code to remember my fav players from the various clubs).

Top scorer & assists; highest-impact player: Eugene Morozenko (AMR/C), 14 in 32(1) apps

Top rating: Felix Chenkam (ST), 7.69 from 11 apps

League Table (1st/20)

International

Took over Russia U19s in October. Wasn’t 100% sure whether it’s worth the time – often you can only select 18 players, and then you have to replace the ones that get called up to U21s, and play matches with 1-day gaps with players on 70% condition. But I managed to qualify for the U19 Euro champs, knocking out Holland U19s in the group stage, and found some pretty good prospects that I’ve signed or am trying to sign, so it’s been quite a nice experience overall. On to the U19 Euros in July next…

What’s next?

I’m going to try and strengthen a few key positions in the summer, mainly the wings and central defense. Then the plan is to stay at Volgar but apply for jobs if a big club underperforms and sacks their manager. Not sure if I’ll stay in Russia or jump ship to one of the bigger leagues’ second divisions for that, for now I’m enjoying the Russian league with its high transfer budgets and generous foreigner rules, so maybe I’ll stay here for a bit.

Reputation: up to 1 star (don’t know where to see the %?)

Coaching badges: Studying for Continental B

Club Career:
 
Season     |    Country    |          Division          |  Position   |    Cup           |  Continental  |         Top scorer             |    Highest-impact player                |    Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016/17    |    Russia     |   First Division           |   5th/20    |    n/a           |     n/a       |      Islam Mashukov (16)       |    Kevin Diaz (AML/AMR)   (7.22)        |    Took over in mid-October; lost in promotion play-off
2017/18    |    Russia     |   First Division           |   1st/20    |    5th round     |     n/a       |      Eugene Morozenko (14)     |    Eugene Morozenko (AMR/C)   (7.32)    |    Promoted; reputation boost
 
International career:
 
Season     |    Country      |       Competitions         |           Position            |    Highest-impact player                |    Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2017/18    |    Russia U19   |   Euro U19 2018 quals      |   Qualified for tournament    |    n/a                                  |    Qualified for U19 Euro champs; knocked out Holland U19s
 
 
Challenge Progress:
 
Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues
 0/10 domestic cups
 0/5 club continental championships
 0/1 club world championship
 
International
 0/5 continental tournaments
 0/2 world tournaments

Edited October 31, 2016 by dkouv

[AFH]

what counts as the domestic cup in Northern Ireland?

[vikeologist]

@AFH Are there any cups that all the top division teams from Northern Ireland enter? The game suggests that there are 2 cups in NI; the Northern Irish Cup and the Northern Irish League Cup. If all the top division teams enter, then either of these count, although note that to complete the challenge you need 10 cups from 10 different nations.

@dkouvOn 'My Profile', if you hover the mouse over reputation you can see the percentage. Anyway congrats on promotion.

@Shankly84 Is Ni Hao a real player or a regen? It means 'hello' in Chinese, although of course it would depend what the actual pictograms are. I just imagine you having a player like 'Hodor' from GoT who can only say 1 word. He's concerned about your decision making. Maybe it's not his real name and he's concerned that when he's trying to get on with his game you keep wildly running up and down the touchline shouting, 'Hello, Hello, Helllll-Looooo' at him. He thinks you're a nutjob. I'm concerned about your manager's decision making because I'm concerned about anyone who chooses to live in the arctic hell-hole that is Harbin.

@SavoNFFC My Challenge XI definitely won't be my eleven best players, but the eleven who have been most important to me. I expect during the challenge I will have players follow me when I move club, or I will manage them at both club and national level, or will blossom under my management after having had a mediocre career before I salvaged it messiah-like. It is difficult to become attached to players though, because once we start winning things and can cherry-p[ick the best jobs, we'll often only be at clubs 2 or 3 seasons before moving on.

@TheEarl Awaiting with fear and dread details of what went wrong.

@Fadedaf I have indeed stayed around to try to win the cup, because only 1 suitable job came up in the 4 or 5 months after winning the title. There is a Finnish Cup, but because of (presumably) a bug in the game, all the top division teams are in the same initial groups. For my first 2 seasons I narrowly missed out on progression (on goal difference and goals scored respectively). However this season we had no problems progressing. I'm about to find out whether staying was worth it with a crucial semi-final. (Probably because of the bug the winners will play a lower league side in the final).

Edited October 31, 2016 by vikeologist

[Kaiserwatman]

@AFH  Yeah as @vikeologist says there is a NI League Cup and FA Cup . Their is also a County Antrim Shield competition which has quite a few of the bigger sides in it but this does not count

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2019 Season Report

No point burying the lead. We won the league / cup double.

It took an extra season, but on the plus side, it only took me 2 days IRL because I instant-resulted my way through it.

I would recommend the instant result skin to help zoom your way through friendlies, and indeed seasons when you don’t care about most of the competitions you’re in. However, I’d be careful. My experience is that your results will not be as good, although I guess this may depend on the ability of your assistant manager.

As mentioned above, my plan was to leave Lahti as soon as a suitable job was available, but in the off-season the only tasty job to come up was Jeonbuk in South Korea, and I didn’t get it. Remember, I’m a top-notch writer, so when I include another team in an early paragraph, there’s usually going to be a payoff later in the report.

So the season started. We won our 5 group cup matches, which meant we were in the quarter-finals, and our first 5 or 6 league games. I decided to stay to see if we could win the cup. As we take part in more leagues than cups, logic would suggest that we’ll complete the cup side of things first, but it rarely seems to work that way. Good to get the first one now.

I hadn’t done anything with Lahti in the off-season; no new players, nothing, so I signed a few players quickly with very little scouting. Luckily they turned out ok for the most part.

Actually things were better without all the extensive micro-managing, and this will definitely have an effect on how quickly I play the game in future. The team was quite different because the previous season a lot of my best players have been on loan at the club. I instant resulted most matches. I appointed a DoF to deal with contracts, and he didn’t seem to give anybody a silly contract. Basically the less I did, the better we were. From this point I’ll be more comfortable with delegating.

Finnish Cup

The quarterfinal was against a lower league club. Given our form I thought we’d win by about 10 goals. In fact we won on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes.

Then the semi-final against the only other top division club left in the competition. We had a player sent off, were given a dodgy penalty, which we missed. Another 120 minutes without a goal. Another win on penalties.

For the final I was distressed to find that we were missing 6 players on international duty, and they weren’t friendlies, so I couldn’t withdraw them. Fortunately I spotted this in time and withdrew the 2 or 3 players I could. Just as fortunately, we were playing fallen giants FC Haka who had half their team missing through injuries. It was a nice easy match which we won 2-0. I don’t think they had a shot on goal.

So my staying for another season paid off. It’s lucky I’m only 23 in the game, because after the 2 penalty wins I feel about 123 in real life.

Europe

We reached the Champions Playoff which was big because at that point the money really rains down, and Lahti are now about 300 times richer than any other club in Finland, and that’s before the Europa League group stage which we qualified for after losing the playoff to Celtic. At the end of the season we’re still in the middle of the group stage with 5 points from our first 4 matches. In 2^nd place and with a good chance of making it to the knockout rounds.

With the money the club now has, I can pretty much buy Finland. I’m pretty certain I would win the league for the next 50 or so years.

 

League

We were lucky to win the league this season though. We were dominant early on and built up a lead that clubs never really managed to make up. (A club went a point ahead of us when we had 4 games in hand). We were terrible in the second half of the season and amassed a points total that would barely have seen us qualify for Europe most seasons. 60 points from 33 matches, but we still won by 4 points.

Of course I didn’t care about the league and was instant resulting my way through. It was a nice cherry on top of the cup, but that’s all.

 

Another benefit of staying an extra season, apart from the cup, was that I was able to amass more coaching qualifications. I’m currently studying for the Continental A. There were times when the board wouldn’t fund these qualifications, but that changed once we qualified for Europe.

Top Goalscorer – Moses Ogbu – 23. Last season’s top scorer in the league, had a great first half of the season. The he decided he wanted to leave Lahti and started phoning it in. Me as well.

Best Average Rating – Mika Ojala 7.24

Man of Match – Victorien Angban – 5 Ogbu’s strike partner for most of the season, due to the original picking up a long-term injury and then, as soon as he’d recovered,  picking up an even more long-term injury with the (Afghan) national team.

 

What’s Next

You remember how I applied for Jeonbuk before the start of the season, but they turned me down. I’ve just been offered the job. Since turning me down they’ve had 3 different managers; or 4 if you count the two spells that the caretaker manager had. Their permanent managers lasted 103 and 104 days respectively. Hopefully they’re gradually learning patience and I’ll last 105 days, but the girlfriend's staying in Finland. Probably for the best since she's married to one of the players. I'm only 23 remember. I needed something to do during those cold Finnish nights when my Assistant Manager and Director of Football were doing all the actual managing. One can be a lot less worried about the husband surprising you when you've picked him for the first team. In retrospect it's a pity that he was a crap player, but he did have the sexist wife. It's a hidden attribute you know.

 

Domestic
Season	Team					Position	Notes										Challenge Landmarks
2016	FC Lahti				10th		Just 9 points from the 10 matches remaining after I took over
2017	FC Lahti				3rd		Qualified for Europe
2018	FC Lahti				1st		First domestic title
2019	FC Lahti				1st		The double. First domestic cup


International
Year	Team					Achievements	



Challenge Progress

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues 	(Finland)
 1/10 domestic cups 		(Finland)
 0/5 club continental championships 
 0/1 club world championship

International
 0/5 continental tournaments 
 0/2 world tournaments 

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by vikeologist

[Fadedaf]

does anyone understand how building up regional knowledge works for a manager? when I look at my profile it seems that I have somehow got 80% knowledge of China despite playing only a single tournament with the U23s (which was in Indonesia) which is considerably more than I have of South Africa despite managing here for over 2 years...

I don't think my manager in-game has ever even been to China! this is ridiculous