noikeee's FM16 Euro/LatinAmerican Journeyman

[Dexter_Morgan]

Got to carry on the job in Vienna for a bit longer yet, looks like you are close to the title so having that on your list before a move would be good to see.

[dan_simmonds]

I've got linked to the Tottenham job... who've just gotten promoted back to the Premiership after a single season in the Championship. I'm not particularly interested in managing in England for now, and am not looking for a new club neither, but it's an interesting story that shows I'm suddenly in much more demand.

This seems to all have been sparked just because I won the Austrian Cup, which I find an annoying, unrealistic thing in FM (it's ALL about the trophies regardless of how big these trophies are), but it is what it is.

I never knew that. I mean, I guessed my reputation would increase, but that explains the job offers I'm now getting. Congrats on the Champions League and the cup. Will you be staying in Austria for long? Or planning to move onto one of the bigger clubs?

[noikeee]

I never knew that. I mean, I guessed my reputation would increase, but that explains the job offers I'm now getting. Congrats on the Champions League and the cup. Will you be staying in Austria for long? Or planning to move onto one of the bigger clubs?

Got to carry on the job in Vienna for a bit longer yet, looks like you are close to the title so having that on your list before a move would be good to see.

Exactly, at the moment my idea is to move at the end of my current contract which is in 2 years time, but that's assuming I beat Rapid to a league title in that timeframe, if not I would stay for longer.

But plans change.

[noikeee]

2028/2029 - Pre-season update - Austria Wien

Transfers

(Transfers)

Hey guys... I've bought a new team.

Where do I even start? Goalkeepers perhaps? I got rid of both my main keepers Olivier Geuens and Simon Mathiesen, so I could purchase Marquinhos from Braga in our most expensive deal at 2.1M€. I'm pretty confident it was worth it, he looks a big upgrade.

We hit the Mexican market big time, and brought in 3 defenders just from there - left-back Christian Angulo, and centre-backs Manuel Campuzano and Sergio Gutiérrez. Meanwhile the highly promising Slovenian teenager Mirko Delic, who plays mostly as right-back, also joined. As you can see I'm giving lots of priority to hiring very quick defenders! To make way for them, I sold Dino Karic (our best sale, 2M€) and Carlos Mendes (1.1M€).

But the midfield was also given a huge boost. I've had the transfers of Danish playmaker Lars Espensen and Nigerian box-to-box Charles Gambo lined up for a long time, but the real exciting guy is English youngster Colin Price on loan from West Ham. To fund this, Matija Dreven was sold by 1.4M€, Patrick Amoebi loaned out to save on wages (I wanted to sell him, nobody picked him up...), and Raphael Holzhauser, who was on the highest wages of my whole squad, retired.

But wait, there's more! I also needed better inside forwards. So here comes the 4th Mexican, Jonathan Ayala, and a duo of experienced guys for the right-wing, Brazilian Patrick Lopes and Croatian Robert Muric. I'm not all that convinced by these last 2 guys, what happened is that I got a silly good offer for Gino Dekker (1.8M€) who was getting old too anyway, so why not cash in and get similar players for nothing. The other winger we had on his thirties, Guy Aviv, was also sold.

Squad

(Squad)

So here's the completely revamped squad, there's also a few other new names as some highly promising kids were loaned out and I promoted them to the first team, like goalkeeper Bertrande Fernandes and defender Johann Waich. This is getting much more to my liking, it finally feels like my own squad now.

ÖFB-Cup

I usually post the fixtures all packed together in the pre-season update as there's few matches to talk about, however this year we've already played 12 official fixtures by the end of August (!!!), so I'm going to split this by competition and not bother to talk about the friendlies (I never post about the winter break friendlies anyway).

So let's start with the least important competition, and that's the Austrian Cup that we're the reigning champions of. We beat lower league SV Hall with an absurdly dominant 5-0 including an extreme 39 shots attempted, and booked our place in the next round vs FC Höchst, also of lower league.

UEFA Champions League

But this is the real big thing we've been waiting for, isn't it. I finally got my first chance to play in the Champions League this career. And wow, what a ride it's been. I couldn't believe it in the first match vs Ajax in the 3rd qualifying round, we scored 3 with pretty much our first 3 chances, and went on to dominate the match, even adding a 4th in the 2nd half - all goals scored by new signings. An amazing 4-0 win that put us in a very comfortable position for the 2nd leg, and we'd need it as Ajax performed much better and scored twice. A massive comeback could still be on the cards, but Mexican CB Manuel Campuzano scored one for us in a corner and there were no further goals then.

Next we were up vs CSKA Moscow in a somewhat lucky draw. We did really well in the 1st leg at home and got a deserved 1-0 win with a Morsley goal. This turned the return leg into a really open contest as CSKA tried to turn the tie around, and this suited us perfectly. We "won" the clear-cut chances battle by 6-0! Morsley scored first, Colin Price added another in the 2nd half, CSKA still reduced, but Morsley took another goal as we were completely battering them on the counter to make 3-1, all of our goals scored by English kids, and we are in the Group Stage!

... and that's probably as far as we'll go, as Man City (won 3 CLs in the last 7 years), Valencia (won a Spanish league a couple of years ago), and PSV don't look like nice opponents. Still, the financial benefits are immense. Our bank balance has absolutely skyrocketed. Which will come in handy as we're upgrading the training facilities and expanding our stadium!

tipico-Bundesliga

Now this makes for happy reading so far, but there's a catch. We've been crap in the league so far. With me focusing on the Champions League, I've been fielding a few heavily rotated sides here and there in the league and it's really been backfiring.

We started off with the Wien derby, and it didn't go well. I had my best players on the pitch that day, but they were still gelling and Rapid deservedly beat us 1-0, even if we held on to a goalless draw for 77 minutes. The next match in Innsbruck, another defeat, was completely my fault for rotating players, but still this time we were quite unlucky and definitely deserved far more than to be beaten with a 85th minute goal. And I watched very nervously as we tried in vain to break down Grödig's defence for the entire match, until finally we scored twice in injury time. At last, a win.

This seemed to start our climb up the table - a really easy 5-1 win at Ried, 4-1 at half-time, made me very optimistic again. Altach were a lot tougher to beat but we did it with 2 second half goals. But then we got jammed in lower gears again. We couldn't get anything more but a goalless draw at Wolfsberger, and then Red Bull Salzburg surprised us by beating us at our home 1-0 in a tight match. It's really early but we've dropped to... 7th.

Summary

Mixed feelings in here. In one hand, the Champions League run has just been glorious, and a massive financial boost for the club. On the other hand, our league start has been really disappointing. However, things are still very close in there with an extremely tight early table, and it's been my fault really for rotating players, at least the Innsbruck and Salzburg disasters were due to that. So I'll try to focus more on the league now and I think there's the potential to overturn that quickly.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Tbh I think we've all had the same problem when having to qualify for the CL in terms of getting to the group stage ends up being the main priority and you rotate because the money is too much not to try and go for it at the mid/lower rank nations Of course that can mean league form staggers like yours so what I tend to do is get in to the group at any cost and if the first XI has no chance then play reserves in the CL and go back to concentrating on the league unless there's a side there you think you can beat and play the first XI for those games. That's just me though

[noikeee]

It's not just you, that's exactly how I'm playing it.

[noikeee]

2028/2029 - Mid-season update - Austria Wien

Transfers

Not much happened in this, we loaned two kids.

ÖFB-Cup

We continued in the cup vs lower league Höchst, and despite a stat of 27 shots attempted to 0, could only score one - which is enough to progress, so I won't complain. What I will complain about is the draw for the following round, an away match vs Rapid was the hardest fixture we could possibly get. We were not very inspired on the day and despite somehow scoring earlier, Rapid rather deservedly turned the game around in the 2nd half with 3 goals, impeding us from challenging for a 3rd consecutive Austrian Cup trophy.

tipico-Bundesliga

After a poor start to the league, it was time to start focusing on it instead of Europe, and try to recover. To my delight, we got results from this strategy almost immediately. It started with two action packed 3-2 away wins over rivals Sturm Graz and Rapid Wien, and after a considerably easier win at Linz, thanks to a really tight league with all the clubs close together and everyone losing points to each other, we were already up to 1st. A 1-0 win over Wacker Innsbruck followed, a 4th consecutive win by just 1 goal margin, which didn't really translate what was happening in the pitch as we were much superior.

However there was a slight blip next. Despite vastly outplaying Grödig and Ried again, they both frustrated us and we could only get draws. Remarkably, this still wasn't enough for us to drop from 1st place. We were soon winning again, a 77th minute winner by Adnan Dzafic finally giving us fruits from another dominant performance, and vs Wolfsberger a 3-0 win was much more comfortable. By now we were on a very long undefeated run, but we were rather lucky that Red Bull Salzburg didn't end it. They had load of chances to beat us, but we got the equalizer in the 2nd half and extended our run.

And this is a run that further continues. Linz were hardly a problem, Sturm Graz were tougher but Mitchell Morsley got the one goal of the day, and then we had to face Rapid Wien again. We've been inconsistent vs them lately, but not this time - a crystal clear 3-0 win was our best performance vs Rapid yet, as we got revenge from the cup defeat, helped tank them to 4th place, and opened up a 8 point lead for ourselves over Red Bull Salzburg at the top.

UEFA Champions League

My debut on the Champions League group stage was a harsh wake up call. Valencia totally dominated us and beat us 3-0, which didn't bode well for the remaining fixtures. However, the next game vs PSV went much better - 3-0 win in a match that looked more even than that, but our good finishing would prove absolutely crucial. That and the following 0-0 draw at home vs Man City, with our goalkeeper Marquinhos saving absolutely everything. This gave us 4 points, and whilst I was under no illusions we had any chance fighting Man City and Valencia for going through, PSV were still on 0 points and we were looking good for 3rd place.

We didn't need to do anything more. City were unbeatable in Manchester, we got a goal but a 4-1 defeat was heavy. But PSV lost to Valencia. Then we repeated the same 1-4 defeat to Valencia... whilst PSV lost to City too. This meant we were already qualified for the Europa League, and the final match vs PSV meant little. I rested some players there, although I was still disappointed to lose again and finish our Champions League participation on a run of 3 defeats. But we continue on the Europa League, and I'm very happy to be facing Kobenhavn in there who should be beatable.

Summary

I'm quite happy. Not only have we recovered in the league, we've opened up a big lead there and are looking very good for ending 11 years of Rapid Wien dominance. There was little we could do in the Champions League, but City and Valencia are from another galaxy at the moment, so to continue in Europe with a 3rd place is still a positive result. The only bad news is the cup really, but I'd rather have it like this than the other way around like last season.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Much better form now. Shame you couldn't have picked up a few more points in the CL if even just for the extra couple of quid but at least you have a go at the Europa now

[deltablue]

Pity, after the PSV win and Man City draw you might have hoped for more in the CL.

[noikeee]

Much better form now. Shame you couldn't have picked up a few more points in the CL if even just for the extra couple of quid but at least you have a go at the Europa now

I'm afraid Europa's not going to be much of a story to tell...

Pity, after the PSV win and Man City draw you might have hoped for more in the CL.

Well yeah, but City and Valencia are crazy good I knew there was no way I'd go through, I was very happy to be in the groups in the first place.

[noikeee]

2028/2029 - Late-in-the-season update - Austria Wien

Transfers

(Transfers)

It was a relatively active month for transfers in January, as the board gave me some of the Champions League money to spend. First, Brazilian attacking left-back Fabiano arrived from Düsseldorf. Then we hired a promising 20 year old inside forward from Serbia, Milan Medakovic. And finally I picked up the delightfully named Deyvison Denílson from Brazil for central midfield.

If 3 arrived, 3 had to leave to keep up squad balance - all 3 who had been Summer signings earlier this season, without having made much impact at the club. Veteran forward Robert Muric was sold for peanuts to Burnley, Mexican left-back Christian Angulo left for Nantes, and midfielder Charles Gambo was loaned out to Bordeaux to clear up a non-EU spot as nobody was interested in signing him permanently for an acceptable fee.

UEFA Europa League

Kobenhavn didn't prove quite as easy as I expected. We had the biggest share of possession for the 1st leg match, but let an away goal go in, and only a brilliant Colin Price freekick gave us a meagre win.

In the return leg in Denmark, a crazy beginning to the match saw the hosts score twice and ourselves score once in-between, which effectively tied everything after 20 minutes. Then the match died down, despite the fact we were playing better and any further away goals would now give us a large advantage. However nothing happened as it went all the way into extra time, when then our centre-back Manuel Campuzano saw his second yellow card. We still looked capable of taking the match into penalties, only for a final 10 minutes collapse to result in 3 conceded goals, and an extremely harsh 5-1 defeat scoreline that in no way translates what happened on the pitch.

tipico-Bundesliga

The return to the league season begun with us pretty comfortable sitting on a 8 point lead, and things only got even more comfortable with a 4-1 drubbing of Grödig, with an unlikely poker by backup striker Ivo Pereira who has always been anything but prolific. I didn't have the slightest idea of what would follow. I thought I was just unlucky when Ried beat us with a single 85th minute goal, and then Wacker Innsbruck killed us with a burst of 3 goals on a match we otherwise were better. These 2 defeats seemed like just a random blip of poor luck, and it was back to normal with another 2 wins next - although both very difficult ones against opposition that shouldn't have given us that much trouble. I should've noticed something was up.

This because we further collapsed after it. We were still in a great position when we hosted 2nd placed Red Bull Salzburg, and we would open up another massive lead if we won, but instead couldn't help but be beaten in a close match. Only a player of the match performance from goalkeeper Marquinhos saved us from another defeat at Sturm Graz, and we had to rely on a 93rd minute winner from Morsley to beat LASK Linz. And then in a dreadful finish to the month of April, we lost the derby to Rapid 1-0 having been one man down all match after Olivier Boscagli got sent off in the 8th minute; and followed that up in another defeat vs Grödig where I just felt tactically lost for the first time in ages, and probably took counter-productive measures.

Summary

These were a pretty crap 3 months. Europa League was gone at the first round, and then on the league we lost a huge lead that was of 10 points at some stage, diminished to just 2. It certainly looks like the league pack is catching up, but we do have an advantage that of the 7 remaining fixtures, 5 are at home - contrasting with the harsh run of 4 consecutive away fixtures we just had to endure. Can we hold on to the championship this time, or will we collapse further?

[Jason the Yank]

Think you'll go on to win. No European or cup commitments forcing you to rotate. Can just run your strongest XI out every game.

[noikeee]

Think you'll go on to win. No European or cup commitments forcing you to rotate. Can just run your strongest XI out every game.

Decent shout, if only my strongest XI weren't playing like apathic drunks. Will report soon on what happened.

[noikeee]

2028/2029 - End of season update - Austria Wien

tipico-Bundesliga

7 matches to go, 5 of them at home. Surely it was ours to lose? We didn't even have to play Rapid Wien anymore. What could possibly go wrong?

April started with a pretty big warning - we were comfortably beating Innsbruck 2-0 at home - even after missing a penalty - when suddenly they woke up and put 2 past us, in minutes 68 and 73. Uh-oh. Thankfully our superstar Mitchell Morsley was there to save us with the winner, but we couldn't count on that often, as Mitchell ended the season on crap form. And sure enough I engaged panic mode after the next match - 1-0 loss at home to tiny SV Ried, looking utterly uninspired for the whole game. A big pack of Rapid, Red Bull Salzburg and Sturm Graz was closing in.

For once we suddenly looked back to our old happy selves when we beat Altach 2-0 away. It could (and should) have been more than 2. But I then truly thought we were done after the next one - 2-0 loss at home to Wolfsberger, again looking incredibly devoid of creativity vs a theoretically easy side, again losing, and we were incredibly fortunate to somehow still hold on to the lead, as various other teams kept on losing points, if still closer and closer. Rapid, Red Bull and Sturm Graz were all within 2 points of us now!

Problem is, not only they were closer, I was playing 2 of those contenders right next - we travelled to Salzburg, then hosted Sturm Graz. If we couldn't even score vs crap teams like Ried and Wolfsberger at home, how on earth would we perform vs better sides? Turns out, these sides give us more space to play in. A successful team meeting (for once!) cheered up our players ahead of the first of these big deciders. However, despite the general feeling we were looking good on the pitch, Red Bull scored the first right before the break. But in a display of unforeseen bouncebackability, we showed up in the 2nd half. Dzafic scored twice and Colin Price added another - a 3-1 victory.

By the time we hosted Sturm Graz for the next big decider, I knew Rapid had lost points, and so did Red Bull (again after losing to us). This combination of results meant that if we could get a draw vs Sturm Graz, all we needed to do was to beat Linz at home in the final match. And this was the only objective in my mind (to get a draw) ahead of the match, and throughout the 1st half in which we were lucky not to concede. But then it dawned on me - hey, if we win it we're actually champions already. And this was on, once Mitchell Morsley came out of crap-form-goal-drought to head home a cross. Jonathan Ayala added another with just 2 minutes to go, practically confirming us as champions, even if Sturm Graz still reduced in the next minute and gave us a slight scare. But it was too late for them. With a rather big chunk of luck, AUSTRIA WIEN ARE THE NEW CHAMPIONS OF AUSTRIA!!! 12 years since our last title, after having endured 11 consecutive seasons of Rapid Wien domination, our fiercest rivals no less. We partied on the pitch vs Linz in the final match, with a meagre 2-1 win ultimately meaningless but adding to the festive occasion.

Summary

We did all we could to throw the title away, but thanks to nobody else wanting to pick it up anyway, we decided to show up in the final key matches and claim it as ours. I cannot help but feel I was extremely fortunate, but we did it - finally ended a 12 year drought, as I lift my first domestic title of my career.

Now, is this all I had set out to do in Austria? I think it is... I've won the league, I've won the cup (if not in the same season which would've been nice), I've made it to the Champions League groups. My plan was to stay for another year and finish my contract, but I'm not so sure I'm feeling like it now.

[noikeee]

2028/2029 - Season review - Austria Wien

Squad and tactics

(Full squad statistics)

Tactics have been stable for a while. The only news here is I've got a 4-2-3-1ish as a new plan C, but I didn't use it that often.

Finances

(Finances)

The Champions League participation was hugely profittable for the club. Things only got better with a new board that was appointed a few months ago, and who invested another 2.something millions. The club now provides a rather magnificent 9.3M€ transfer budget.

Youth watch

Another good batch, Austria Wien have a quality youth setup so we keep on churning out interesting players every year. The keeper in particular looks like he's going to be immense:

Gökhan Akin (GK)

Damir Djeric (ML, AMLC)

Philipp Fischer (ST)

As for the guys that are now part of the first team, I was really happy with the performances in training of defender Johann Waich in particular, I had to fend off aggressive interest from Juventus who made a few bids in the winter window. I also feel our current 2nd choice keeper Bertrande Fernandes will become a very good player.

Top 5 players of the season

5. Adnan Dzafic (AMR, ST, AML) - Took me pretty much 2 full seasons to finally adapt him to inside forward from the right wing, but it was worth it. As Morsley went missing the final months of the season, it was very handy that he showed up to score a few occasional goals taking his place. His ratings weren't amazing but he finishes the season on a very satisfactory tally of 13 goals and 8 assists.

4. Marquinhos (GK) - Keepers just don't get good ratings in this game do they? Taking that into account, I think underlying his 7.00 rating is a handful of spectacular performances and simply clearly one of our better players. I'm not forgetting the day he saved everything vs Man City and effectively handed us 3rd place in the Champions League group.

3. Nicolás Hidalgo (MC) - Started the season as backup of Lars Espensen, and indeed played less than his Danish colleague, with virtually indistinguishable ratings between the two of them. However a few wonderful performances in the later part of the season made me nominate the Chilean youngster on loan from Juventus here, 4 player of the match awards weren't given to him randomly.

2. Colin Price (MC, AMC, MR, AML) - Started off the season as my latest English loanee, ended the season with 4 caps for Wales. These caps were entirely deserved as Colin was a key part of our team most of the year, specially on the box-to-box role, which he interpreted as a highly technical player capable of striking home the odd freekick and penalty kick as well. 8 goals, 6 assists.

PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Mitchell Morsley (ST)

When I brought him in first on loan, in the middle of last season, he was worth less than 1 M€ if I recall correctly. He's now worth 20.5M€ - Chelsea have got a hell of a lot to thanks us for. This year Mitchell scored 25 for us and assisted another 14, it was only a bit of a shame how he seemed to have gone missing the last few months of the season, because otherwise he was our clearly better player.

[b]Season  League                            Cups                                        International                      Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Berwick Rangers (Scotland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
15/16   League 2 - 5th                    Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd      ---                                Resigned at end of the season
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
16/17   Championship 1 - 10th             IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners    ---                                Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
17/18   Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th        ---                                         ---
18/19   Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) ---                                         ---                                Apertura finalists
19/20   Ascenso - 5th / 4th (fin.)        Copa de Costa Rica 1st Rnd                  ---                                Clausura finalists
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dolny Kubin (Slovakia)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
20/21   DOXXbet Liga - 8th / 1st (RlgSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---
21/22   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 9th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---
22/23   DOXXbet Liga - 5th / 2nd (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 2nd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
23/24   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 6th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup semi-finals                    ---
24/25   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 4th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---                                East Group winners
25/26   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 1st (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup finalists                      ---                                Champions, promoted, cup finalists
26/27   Fortuna Liga - 2nd                Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Austria Wien (Austria)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
27/28   tipico-Bundesliga - 2nd           ÖFB-Cup winners                             Europa League 2nd Qual. Rnd.       Runners-up, cup winners
28/29   tipico-Bundesliga - 1st           ÖFB-Cup 3rd Rnd                             ChLg GroupStg, EurLg 1st KO Rnd    Champions

[noikeee]

If you've read the "summary" part of my end of season update, this should be no surprise. I'm feeling a little burnt out in Austria, the manner in which we won the title didn't help. Also quite frustrated with how the regens and transfer market is working in FM16, I can't find the players I need for my tactics, they just don't get generated! Good luck finding inside forwards... For my new job I think I'm going to ditch the tactics, and start from zero with brand new tactics that fit the regens available.

I'm looking at a specific job right now that might come as quite a surprise if I land it, because the team in question isn't any bigger than Austria Wien. Alternatively, if no other interesting job comes up, I might wait a few months for a vacancy to show up back in the Americas, as I feel it's not much of a "Euro/LatinAmerican Journeyman" if I spend all my time in Europe! And it would be a refreshing change of scenery.

[noikeee]

Okay so I did get hired by the team I wanted. So let's play a little game here, first guy who guesses it right gets a cookie (if anyone bothers, otherwise I get to keep the cookie ). Some extra hints beyond what I had said (that they're not bigger than Austria Wien):

- I've managed not too far away before in this career

- Their shirts are known for being of a slightly unusual color

- They've got history in continental competitions

[Nobby_McDonald]

Deportivo Wanka?

[Makoto Nakamura]

I'll hazard a guess with VfL Bochum?

[noikeee]

Deportivo Wanka?

Sadly the Peruvian leagues are not loaded up.

I'll hazard a guess with VfL Bochum?

I just looked them up and their shirts are blue. Think fruit-colored shirts.

[noikeee]

Final clue : check out other active career threads in this forum to refresh your memory!

[deltablue]

Dundee United!

[noikeee]

Dundee United!

[noikeee]

Chapter 6 - Getting The Tangerines to Play Like Clockwork

Thursday, 14th of June 2029, Dundee, Scotland

I was a highly requested manager after my departure from Wien. I had job interviews with Marseille, Saint-Étienne, Roma, Braga. I was offered the job at Wolfsburg and a rather magnificent wage budget, 9 times higher than what I had in Austria. I was even linked in the media to the vacant Man Utd job, quite unbelievably. So what on earth am I doing in Dundee? There's a few explanations for it:

- I remain regretful that in my many threads in FMCU history, I have *never* had a fulfilling, successful stint in any team from the UK (except for that one time I won the Premiership with Spurs and even then I needed a tycoon). My earlier attempts at the beginning of this career, with Berwick and Loughgall, which both ended in disaster, only increases the feeling I've got to break this mojo.

- I want new tactics that don't involve searching for non-existant inside forwards. Managing in a nation that worships 4-4-flipping-2 might fit.

- Returning to a nation I've managed a few years before is a move I haven't done very often in my careers. Although technically Berwick was in England.

- Dundee United is a club I've always wanted to manage anyway. They are my favourite Scottish club, for the dumb reason they've got funky bright shirts, and have got that nostalgia touch due to the fact they reached the 1986-1987 UEFA Cup final.

Dundee United are actually in a pretty good shape at the moment. With 2 consecutive 2nd place finishes in 2027 and 2028, they've just finished 3rd this year (it's not on the graph yet because the season hasn't technically finished), behind the eternal winners Celtic, and plucky Patrick Thistle. They've won the Cup in 2020 and 2021, and the League Cup in 2016. But the club's greatest successes remain from the 1980s - the previously mentioned 1987 UEFA Cup final presence, and their one and only Scottish title in 1983.

Financially this is a decent club, I feel like I have done a sideways step from Austria Wien. Transfer budget is about half at 4.2M€ (was 9M€ in Austria), otherwise the bank balance is at 6.7M€ and the wage budget at 1062K€/month, which are pretty much slightly lower but comparable to what I had. The stadium is equally small with a capacity of 13370 (its proximity to the stadium of rivals Dundee FC is legendary as they were built next to each other), and the facilities are pretty awesome - "impressive" training facilities, "great" youth facilities, "excellent" junior coaching, "extensive" youth recruitment...

Squad

Despite a frustrating amount of players in their mid-thirties, with predictably large wages, who I cannot get rid of because they're all retiring at the end of next season, we have a few highly interesting talents, which explains why have Dundee United been doing so well the last few seasons:

James Slater (ST / AMC) - This English forward spawned by Ipswich's academy looks like he could be tearing the league apart. 28 goals in 68 starts for Dundee Utd is decent, but I'm bullish in thinking he can do even better under my command.

Warren Seaforth (AMC / MLC, AML, ST) - This Bolton-born versatile forward, appears to be Guyana's greatest footballing star (which isn't all that hard, to be honest). I'm just not too sure what to do with him. Isn't a great finisher, so I was thinking false nine maybe, but has "gets forward whenever possible" which goes against it, gah.

Josh Broadhurst (DM, MC / DC) - Another Englishman. Can tackle. Inverness wants him. Why would I sell him to Inverness, of all clubs? Can Inverness afford him? What's going on here?

Mike O'Brien (D/WBL) - A Dundee Utd youth product, who annoyingly despite being pretty good, is everything I *don't* want in a fullback. Can't attack, can't jump, "stays back at all times". Might be one of our better players and by far our best youth academy graduate, but I might well still try to get rid of him.

Goals

I'm going to reset the tactics back to square one and try a 4-4-2. Last time I tried a 4-4-2 I was all but sacked at Berwick, so this has the potential to backfire spectacularly. Ideally, once (if) I get that working, the plan is to eventually finish Celtic's run of 18(!!) consecutive championships. If I've done it to Rapid, I can do it to Celtic. No I don't have anything in particular against teams in green-and-white. Except Sporting Lisbon (this is on purpose - their fans don't like being called "Sporting Lisbon" which is a crap translation).

[noikeee]

2029/2030 - Pre-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

(Transfers)

There was a lot to be done here. For a start I needed new centre-backs as the ones I had were all slow. So I hired three of them - Ibrahim Altin on loan, Fadil Krpic on a free, and my most expensive signing, English U21 international Jake Dixon from Celtic at a fee of 2.2M€. Left-back Ross Leggett also came on loan from Reading.

Midfield also badly needed players, as to get a 4-4-2 to work I need an exceptional duo that can dominate the pitch by themselves against trios in many matches. So I bought a very interesting player named Colin Park, who was getting called up for the Scottish national team whilst playing for Scunthorpe (who finished bottom in the Championship). Giorgos Christofileas from Greece is our other new midfielder. For the wings, I picked up the enormously promising Nolan Thibault on loan from Monaco, and bought Wayne Brook from Tottenham. I also hired a Portuguese striker on loan from Watford named Mário Botelho, and finally my last signing was a backup goalkeeper named Gavin Houston.

I managed to do a comprehensive clearout of players I didn't want, and largely avoided the squad spiralling into an enormous size. Our better sales were of wingers Fresnel Mbala (3M€ for a 29 year old was nice) and Bradley Ward (1.8M€). We made about twice as much in sales as we spent on new players so that was nice.

... and that was just until the transfer deadline day, when several big teams came in for my promising youngster Jack McWalter, and I negotiated with Chelsea until they made a massive bid of 4.5M€ + 650K€ of installments over 12 months + 40% profit next sale. A fantastic deal for a player that has loads of potential but also had a lot to develop and I was skeptical I'd be using him any time soon.

(Full squad for the 2029/2030 season)

Pre-season friendlies

I think this time it's worth talking briefly about the friendlies because this was a hugely exciting period for me. I debutted my brand new flat 4-4-2 in the first friendly, and was shocked/delighted to find out it all worked exactly like I imagined, and didn't really need many tweaks. It was dodgy defensively as we conceded goals in almost every match, but we were just spectacular going forward and the risks seemed to be worth it. Best result was probably the 3-1 over Fenerbahçe, and I went into the season hugely optimistic.

UEFA Europa League

My first competitive match was a Europa League qualifying round in Bulgaria vs Dunav, and this looked like an easy draw. The 1st leg didn't feel easy but we did win, with teenage striker Nicky Thompson coming off the bench for his debut and scoring the winner! (I'm a bit puzzled why the previous managers never used him before). However if we had the share of luck in the 1st leg, it disappeared in the return match which ended on an absolutely disastrous 3-0 defeat, which was a bit harsh for what had happened on the pitch, but still knocked us out of Europe very early against a crap side.

Scottish Premiership

The calendar was kind for me, giving me a home fixture vs Stenhousemuir to kick off the season - easy 3-1 win with teenage Nicky Thomson scoring another 2. I was starting to find that the tactics weren't performing as amazing as they had in the friendlies, and we had to sweat hard to beat Hearts away next, with a very late goal. However we were puzzlingly on easy mode again when we hosted big bad Celtic - 3-1 win in a crazy open match that could've gone either way.

That was an excellent start of 3 wins in 3, but then, continuing a trend of a bit of inconsistency, we lost our first league match at Inverness, after being punished a little harshly for a poor first half. We were much better vs Falkirk despite only converting one of our 31 shots into a goal, finishing off August with another win.

Summary

I was briefly hugely excited as I watched our team play like madmen on steroids the last few friendlies, however the official matches have been a bit more sane. When we're inspired this new tactic is spectacular to watch, but it's also very on/off, there appears to be a hint of inconsistency to our early performances. It's a shame we already paid the price for that in Europe, but this still feels like an exciting time in my career and I cannot wait to see what will happen in all the Scottish competitions this season.

[withnail316]

Unlucky in Europe, but a positive start in the league. Great win against Celtic.

[noikeee]

Unlucky in Europe, but a positive start in the league. Great win against Celtic.

I'm not sure the win over Celtic was that great - Celtic have decided to suddenly be crap! I'm now 13 fixtures into the season and they're 8th!

Meanwhile, we've won the lottery:

I think this can classify as a bug and I kinda feel bad of having accepted it. Because there's no way on earth Terry Barnes is worth that much. In the distant future, maybe. Either way this spices up the January market as we'll now have a big chunk of cash to spend.

[noikeee]

Hey, what about another one of these.

We're totally BFFs with Chelsea at the moment.

[noikeee]

2029/2030 - Mid-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

I still hired another player after the transfer window was shut - Croatian striker Bozo Buljat on a free. He's been... crap. 1 goal and 2 assists in 12 appearances.

But of course the really big news were the enormous fees we got for selling clauses on Chelsea players Terry Barnes and Jack McWalter. My transfer budget was all but spent and now it has shot up to over 10M€!!

Scottish League Cup

We started the League Cup well. We had already hammered Stenhousemuir at home in the league and repeated it here, despite fielding largely a backups 11. However we couldn't pull off the same trick in the next round vs Rangers. Despite absolutely dominating the match, surprise surprise we lose 1-0. Not an unusual sight for us, as you're about to read.

Scottish Premiership

We continued a good start with a very convincing win in my first Dundee derby. It was a happy time, but I'd soon realize that we really do have a very big inconsistency problem. For most of September, October, November, one thing became very clear - we were comfortably, effortlessly constant winners at home, but lost almost every match away. The most frustrating thing was that most of the matches we lost, we were actually the better side. The Kilmarnock defeat away - beat them in shots, shots on target, possession, clear cut chances 4 to 1. The defeat at Falkirk - 21 shots vs 4, and we only conceded an owngoal. But the match that really took the p*ss was Rangers at home in December. We missed two penalty kicks, hit the woodwork twice, had a goal disallowed, and conceded once from a speculative shot out of a total 5 Rangers shots. One of those occasions you just feel like throwing the laptop away.

It's only gotten worse in recent weeks, despite some measures I've taken, like, I've started to play something very similar to my old Slovakian/Austrian flat 4-5-1 in the away matches. What hasn't helped was an injury crisis to strikers, as both James Slater and Nicky Thomson got injured, and those two are the only ones out of my otherwise utterly useless bunch of strikers that actually score any. However a recent 3-0 win over Kilmarnock has been very handy, as it cut a bit off their massive lead, and kept us in a rather unbelievably good 2nd place for how inconsistent we've been.

Summary

I feel a bit lost. Thankfully, so does the rest of the league that isn't Kilmarnock. The league has just got batshit insane and from ourselves in 2nd to Falkirk in 10th there's just a 5 points difference. That's just besides the point that why on earth is it Kilmarnock up there and not Celtic who have won the last 18 years. Who knows. What I do know is that I need to either figure out something big tactics-wise, or take proper use of my brand new massive, millionaire transfer budget, to either shoot up to the fight for the title or at least hold on to 2nd place.

[noikeee]

2029/2030 - Late-in-the-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

(Transfers)

What should a club that is in debt, and suddenly gets a massive influx of over 13M€ for selling two forgotten clauses on players, do with the money? Spend it all on new players in the winter transfer window and get into even more debt, obviously!

Screw caution, screw financial stability, I splashed all the cash on 4 guys and then brought in another 3 on loan. For the back, 2.6M€ were spent on left-back Patrick Conne and 1.6M€ on right-back Rowan Baxter, both players I rate highly for their attacking abilities, with Pedro José Ventosa from Newcastle on a short term loan as a backup 4th centre-back. For the midfield, the hard-working fine tackler Kostas Xanthopoulos came on loan from Olympiakos. For the left-wing, our biggest purchase, as I splashed 3.6M€ on Dean Morsley who was shining for Hibernian (and he was well worth the money as he's shining for us too!). And finally, upfront came Paul Polworth from Celtic on a 1.4M€ deal, and Johann Cloarec on loan from Man Utd.

The two strikers were absolutely necessary as I wasted no time getting rid of terrible flops Bozo Buljat and Mário Botelho, who combined had played 34 matches for us and scored just 2 goals. Amazingly I got a massive profit on Buljat, who had been signed on a free and now sold by 3.5M€ (!!!) after just 4 months of playing like crap; whilst Botelho's loan was simply terminated. Left-back Ross Leggett's loan was also terminated, veteran centre-back Zak Jules was sold for pennies, whilst 3rd choice right-back Kenny Holmes and teenage striker Sandy McIntosh were loaned out.

Scottish Cup

After being knocked out of the League Cup, we had yet to enter the Cup and did so next. It was an equally short-lived adventure. We were beating Hibs and playing pretty well, when they equalized on the 69th and then completely shocked us with a 89th minute winner. It just wasn't our season for cup runs.

Scottish Premiership

I must moan more about inconsistency like I did in the previous update, because moaning worked to spook my players into order. Well it was either that, or the fact I hired 7 new really good players. Everything just suddenly clicked. We did still start January with a crappy 1-1 home draw vs Stenhousemuir, but vs Hearts I said to hell with caution and fielded the attacking 4-4-2 away, as my idea of playing a more cautious 4-5-1 away wasn't working anyway. It resulted in a massive win and I never looked back. We went on a 10 match unbeaten run, peaking with 3 consecutive wins and yet another derby win vs poor Dundee FC who are getting relegated. Just kidding about the "poor" part, I ain't gonna pity them.

The really nice thing about that derby win, is that with Kilmarnock suddenly entering Benny Hill mode and getting defeat after defeat, they had already squandered their 10 points lead, and on that day we took over the league table lead!! This was exciting, and lasted for a while as we won a couple more matches, but as we entered April we also squandered a chance of further increasing our lead over Kilmarnock as we only got a 1-1 draw, and then surprisingly lost to Partick Thistle to end our run, and make things quite tight as we head into the league split and the 5 match finale.

Summary

Woah, what a turnaround. Money does buy success, eh? Whether you see grabbing that money and using it as fair or not, we're still on the verge of shocking Scottish football and finishing Celtic's 18 year run by grabbing Dundee Utd's second ever title. However, Celtic are doing their own turnaround after replacing their manager and are climbing the table rather quickly. It's going to be extremely tight and we still play all against each other - stay tuned for a epic 5-match finale.

[noikeee]

Are we being a little overdramatic here? Come on Warren, yes it's the 6th time you've had shin splints in your career, but you've played 25 matches this season mate. You've been playing 30+ matches per year every season for the past 4 years. At least let me sell you, you're worth 3.5M€.

[Jason the Yank]

Spend, spend, spend!

[withnail316]

Best of luck for the run in. All looking exceptionally tight up there - hope you can get over the line!

[noikeee]

Spend, spend, spend!

Hey I didn't spend anything the board didn't allow me to, there's still a 1M€ of transfer budget unused (despite the fact the bank balance is now negative by several millions). It's their fault.

Best of luck for the run in. All looking exceptionally tight up there - hope you can get over the line!

I think it's going to come down to the final match which is against Celtic. This is effectively the same thing that happened to me 3 years ago in Slovakia - when Zilina beat us 4-1 in the final match to overtake us and take the title. I'm just hoping the same doesn't happen here...

[noikeee]

2029/2030 - End of season update - Dundee United

Scottish Premiership - Championship Group

We started the Championship Group well. For once luck went our way with a slightly inflated 3-1 win over Rangers. However karma quickly adjusted things with us. Celtic dropped points at Falkirk so we had a golden opportunity to extend our advantage at Partick Thistle, instead we lost despite outplaying them (a familiar pattern). So instead of extending our advantage over Celtic, it was cut short to 2 points.

Then it was a huge match vs Kilmarnock... where yet again we played better but couldn't win. In a crazy match, Kilmarnock needed only 3 half-chances to score 3, largely thanks to their superb striker Juan Manuel Antón who only ever needs a sniff to score, and got a brace - the last of which an equalizer after I thought we had already turned the match around. It ended a 3-3 draw, whereas Celtic won the Old Firm derby the same day, this meant they were now tied on points with us.

Next was Falkirk. Bear in mind at this point Falkirk still had an outside shot at the title, along with Kilmarnock, both 4 points below us. A Paul Polworth brace for us killed their dream, whilst Celtic did the same to Kilmarnock. Dundee Utd and Celtic tied on 64 points heading into the final decider - with the advantage our way, on better goal difference. We only needed a draw, however, Celtic played at home... The dismal 4-1 loss at Zilina 3 years ago, replayed over and over in my mind - it had been the exact same scenario, me managing a plucky outsider, facing the big bad league dominators at the final league match away, needing only a draw!

On that day in Slovakia my then Dolny Kubin side timidly succumbed to a much superior side. This was NOT what happened here at Celtic Park this time. We went to dominate the match and largely did so in a first half where we should've scored, although to be fair Celtic also had their chances. 0-0 at half time. I thought a goal was inevitably gonna happen sooner or later at either end, but literally nothing happened most of the 2nd half. The final few minutes Celtic switched to a more attacking setup, but it also gave us more space to counter-attack and the match largely remained the same.

Then it happened. 91st minute, we were already preparing to celebrate. A quick through ball is played for Spanish striker Jordi Luis to run into, and he's alone facing our keeper. Numan Bostan saves the first shot, but the rebound falls back to Luis. He doesn't miss the second time. 1-0. The game is over shortly afterwards. Celtic are champions for the 19th consecutive year.

Summary

I am quickly becoming known as the manager who manages teams that choke in the final day. But I'm actually not that worried this time. It was a hugely entertaining season that made all Dundee Utd fans dream until injury time of the very last match, as we then lost with dignity.

Most importantly, this season has reignited my interest in the game which has wandered in the Slovakian and Austrian days. My latest attacking, forceful tactic might not make my style (I'm more of a fan of a controlled, patient approach), but it is very fun to watch, and works without making the game too easy (a "problem" I had in FM15). I'm also playing the game now on Extensive instead of Comprehensive highlights and this has allowed me to breeze through the season. I'm enjoying the return to Scotland a lot, and might be here for a while...

[noikeee]

2029/2030 - Season review - Dundee United

Squad and tactics

(Full squad statistics)

So here's my new 4-4-2! There's not much to say, it's a pretty standard high-risk-taking flat 4-4-2. Here are my customized extra player instructions:

GK - Distribute to Full Backs, Roll It Out, Distribute Quickly

DL - Cross More Often, Stay Wider

DR - Cross More Often, Stay Wider, Cross Aim Far Post

MCL (BBM) - Get Further Forward

MCR (DLP) - Tackle Harder

ML - Dribble More, Roam From Position, Cross More Often, Run Wide With Ball

MR - Cross Aim Far Post

Finances

(Finances)

Considering this screenie was taken AFTER we took the league prize money, this isn't good. The reason why we're in debt and quickly leaking money, is because the stadium was just expanded (to a capacity of 16994), something I forgot to mention earlier.

Despite the negative bank balance, the wage budget has just DOUBLED for next season, presumably thanks to the fact we've just qualified for the Champions League early playoffs. It's either that or my board has gone insane.

Youth watch

Lots of potential stars in the new players from this year's youth intake, though I'm not hugely excited by the initial skills of any of them. Apparently Nathan McCallum is going to be a really good winger, he "only" needs to learn how to cross and dribble and do pretty much everything now:

Nathan McCallum (M/AMR)

Tom Deasley (DC)

Frank Linn (DL)

Marc McCann (ST)

Mark Peat (MRC, AMC / AMR)

We do have a couple of guys in the first team squad that were trained by Dundee Utd, my arrival to the club was particularly good news for striker Nicky Thomson, who scored 9 goals, 1 of which in his club debut I gave him in the Europa League, and another 2 in his first league match the next week.

Top 5 players of the season

5. Nolan Thibault (MR, ML) - I was quite undecided here between a lot of players, it could've been right-back Rowan Baxter who was a great winter signing, or my other right-winger Wayne Brook who settled in Scotland quite well having arrived from Tottenham, as he made the most assists out of the whole squad (10). But I'm picking this extremely promising Frenchman on loan from Monaco who contributed with 5 goals, 8 assists, and some enormous class on the pitch.

4. Ibrahim Altin (DC) - Another loanee that I'm crossing my fingers in hope I can retain him for another year. This Danish kid on loan from Everton rightly picked up his first international cap recently, as he formed an excellent centre-back pairing with Jake Dixon.

3. Dean Morsley (ML) - Sublime ratings from this winger we poached from Hibs in January as the most expensive signing yet of my career (3,6M€). 4 goals and 4 assists don't look like much but he was very influential.

2. Paul Polworth (ST) - One of the main reasons why we nearly took the title from Celtic, was this striker we bought from them in January. Allowed me to move James Slater into the F9 role as Paul excelled as poacher, with 7 goals and 4 assists in the 10 matches he played for us - could've been more but he was injured for a while.

PLAYER OF THE SEASON - James Slater (ST)

When I took over the club, I wrote that I was confident I could take a lot more from him and make him tear the league apart. This is exactly what happened, as he excelled the first half of the season as the poacher, and then I moved him into the other striker spot as false nine, and he continued to score unlike all the other players I tried there. This resulted in his most prolific season for the club yet - 21 league goals as opposed to the 14 he had got the 2 previous seasons.

[b]Season  League                            Cups                                        International                      Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Berwick Rangers (Scotland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
15/16   League 2 - 5th                    Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd      ---                                Resigned at end of the season
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
16/17   Championship 1 - 10th             IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners    ---                                Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
17/18   Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th        ---                                         ---
18/19   Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) ---                                         ---                                Apertura finalists
19/20   Ascenso - 5th / 4th (fin.)        Copa de Costa Rica 1st Rnd                  ---                                Clausura finalists
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dolny Kubin (Slovakia)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
20/21   DOXXbet Liga - 8th / 1st (RlgSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---
21/22   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 9th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---
22/23   DOXXbet Liga - 5th / 2nd (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 2nd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
23/24   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 6th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup semi-finals                    ---
24/25   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 4th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---                                East Group winners
25/26   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 1st (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup finalists                      ---                                Champions, promoted, cup finalists
26/27   Fortuna Liga - 2nd                Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Austria Wien (Austria)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
27/28   tipico-Bundesliga - 2nd           ÖFB-Cup winners                             Europa League 2nd Qual. Rnd.       Runners-up, cup winners
28/29   tipico-Bundesliga - 1st           ÖFB-Cup 3rd Rnd                             ChLg GroupStg, EurLg 1st KO Rnd    Champions
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dundee United (Scotland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
29/30   Scottish Premiership - 2nd        Scottish Cup 4th Rnd, League Cup 1/4 final  Europa League 3rd Qual. Rnd        Runners-up

[noikeee]

Good news, I'm happy in particular for Paul, he has a single cap from 8 years ago (!!!), and on that match he scored 4 goals (it was against Liechtenstein). Only in FM would a 19 year old that scores 4 goals in his first cap, never be called up for his international team again for 8 years...

[noikeee]

Paul didn't even get to play. Only Mike played in a match. Scotland was knocked out in the Group Stage as did Portugal.

Meanwhile, in more unlikely news:

Is this some sort of Euro 2004 revival?

Japan was fired to the semi-finals by this insane striker who scored 9 goals.

[withnail316]

So close to the title. Unlucky, hope you can go one better next year!

[noikeee]

So close to the title. Unlucky, hope you can go one better next year!

We haven't started very well on that quest.

To finish off the little World Cup sidestory, Argentina beat Greece in the final on penalties after a result of 3-3(!!).

[noikeee]

2030/2031 - Pre-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

(Transfers)

After the spending spree in the last transfer window, I decided it was time to play things a bit more cautiously and sign players almost exclusively on frees or loans. This resulted in not much of an upgrade to the squad. Polish goalkeeper Adam Kalinowski is one of the few signings that's expected to become a first team starter, along with probably our most exciting new attacker, right-winger Luís Rainho. He comes from Monaco and replaces the kid we had on loan from Monaco for the same position, Nolan Thibault, who I decided not to renew his loan as it was going to cost me too much on wages - he went to Celtic instead to my dismay. It's worth mentioning I did renew the loans of centre-back Ibrahim Altin (of Everton) and midfielder Kostas Xanthopoulos (of Olympiacos).

Going back to speak of Monaco again, this time they loaned me right-back Claude Rossi instead. On the other side, our new left-back is Georgian Merab Kvilitaia who somehow got a work permit after an appeal. Meanwhile, we picked up two identical English players that can do either centre midfield or play upfront, Ben Wright and Phil Drennan. Drennan has got 7 PPMs(!!) which is confusing, and I've got no idea how/if I'm going to use him. We also hired two youngster centre midfielders in Ernie Parsons and Tiziano Antonini, both unlikely to play much; and finally on the very last day of the transfer window I decided I needed a quality centre-back no matter what, and made the only transfer in which I paid money - for Chelsea's Joshua Watts a 1.6M€ fee was still a bargain.

As for outgoing transfers, the biggest news was we lost three players that played a lot for us last season. Two of them were my decision - winger/midfielder/forward Warren Seaforth was having a recurrent injury and was 29 years old already, so I cashed in on him; whereas I also didn't want goalkeeper Numan Bostan anymore. But I was caught by surprise by Bolton paying the release clause of our starting left-back, Dundee Utd youth graduate Mike O'Brien - not a particularly great deal neither, at 4M€. Meanwhile, veterans Robbie Muirhead, Saidy Janko, Cameron McGeehan, Arber Zeneli all retired, freeing up wage budget as I didn't really use any of them.

(Full squad for the 2030/2031 season)

Pre-season friendlies

Again I want to show off the friendlies, purely for the 1-0 win over reigning European champions Liverpool!!! I also decided to do a mini-tour of the USA to see if we got some extra merchandise income, but I didn't notice anything. It was overall a pretty encouraging pre-season.

UEFA Champions League

But the biggest event this couple of months, was our presence in the Champions League playoffs. Zenit was not a great draw to start off with, and our trip to Russia started horribly conceding a goal in the very first minute. A 2-0 defeat was harsh and gave us very little hope for the 2nd leg. However, back in Scotland, our right-back Rowan Baxter decided to have the game of his life, by scoring a wonderful freekick, then crossing the ball for Paul Polworth to tie everything, and then another cross of him rebounded into the path of James Slater, who made it 3-0 and the most fantastic of comebacks. We were through.

Next up were Bordeaux and in a tense 1st match we somehow got the winner late on, the only goal of the match. I expected trouble back in France, instead to my delight it was a strangely easy win, Paulworth scored early and we just built and built on it to make it a fantastic 3-0. We've made it to the Group Stage!! Unfortunately that's probably as far as we'll go, as we got drawn a ridiculously difficult group with Liverpool, Schalke and Napoli...

Scottish Premiership

Distracted by our presence in the Champions League, domestic form suffered. We did start really well with a 3-1 win away at Kilmarnock which is never an easy place to play in, but then we crashed at home vs Falkirk in one of the most absurd matches of my career. We could've scored 5 in the first half, but only did so once, then in the 2nd half our young defender David O'Rourke, who was having his debut, had 3 brainfarts that resulted in 3 Falkirk goals. To make things worse, Celtic hammered us next. An extremely late single goal by centre-back Fadil Krpic saved us from embarassment vs Aberdeen, but we still needed more points badly and failed to get them at Hibs, dropping to an alarming 8th place, even if it's very, very early in the season.

Summary

It feels like this career is going in circles - if last season's finale was the exact copy of what had happened in my final season in Slovakia, this time it's a repeat of what happened in my 2nd season in Austria: an unexpected brilliant run in the Champions League got us into the group stage (and gave us millions of euros in profit), but at the expense of results in the league. That year I eventually managed to recover and win the title, but I think I'm going to have a much tougher time to pull that off here, with Celtic back to form.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Last season seems like it was your best chance of toppling Celtic but it is still early in the season yet so wouldn't worry too much about your form

[noikeee]

Last season seems like it was your best chance of toppling Celtic but it is still early in the season yet so wouldn't worry too much about your form

My fear is the board expectations are quite high as we're the club behind Celtic with the most reputation in Scotland. So if we don't recover quickly up to 2nd/3rd place then problems can stack up on each other with the board unhappy, low morale, players "feeling the club is underachieving" etc. This while having very tough Champions League matches in-between.

But if we win the next 2 or 3 matches we should be absolutely fine.

[noikeee]

2030/2031 - Mid-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

(Transfers)

This is a slightly unusual time to be making high profile signings but we found two quality players sitting out without a club. First I went for Senegalese striker Mamadou Sall, who despite already being 30 and having demanded the club's highest wages, is pretty handy in getting us goals as he has already scored 7. The other reason I hired him is because now when I need a goal and he's on the bench, I can say I'd "better call Sall". And giggle whilst staring at the laptop.

The other new player is French right-back Florent Clavel formerly of Juventus, who also seems very highly talented and still has some untapped potential at the age of 24.

Scottish League Cup

We got an easy draw vs Hamilton to start off the League Cup and didn't have much trouble with them. Vs Falkirk next, it looked as if things were going pretty smoothly again as we reached half-time winning 2-0. However my team got caught up by a surprising Falkirk comeback that ended 3-2 after extratime. This was much to my disappointment as I haven't done much in the cups here in Scotland here, and was hoping for a run here even if this is the least important trophy.

UEFA Champions League

In the Champions League I wasn't expecting much given the extremely tough group we had, and I wasn't surprised that we were completely outclassed the first two matches. However, we got a pretty great win over Napoli next with a unlikely brace by youngster Nicky Thomson who was having a crap season to that point, not having scored a goal before (he'd repeat the brace a couple days later in the League Cup).

This opened up possibilities slightly, although we were nowhere near as good in the return match in Italy. But in the trip to Germany, we looked reinvigorated and opened up a lead twice, only for Schalke to equalize in the final minute, and that goal knocked us out of the competition. There was still an outside chance we could get into the Europa League if we'd beat current European champions Liverpool at home (not as hard as it sounds - we had already done it in pre-season), and if Schalke would beat Napoli in Italy. Schalke did their part, and we put a great effort in our match as we were unfazed by Liverpool scoring first and still managed to equalize, but we couldn't add a second goal, and this meant our European adventure ended for the season.

Scottish Premiership

Looking back at that comment I made earlier that we were in trouble in the league and needed to win a few matches quickly, is pretty funny because we had no problem at all doing it and we were soon up to a very clear 2nd place. It was a fantastic run from September to early November as we won 7 consecutive matches. Only problem was that Celtic was doing the exact same, and if we wanted to open up a title challenge, it'd do us a lot of good if we could beat them directly on the pitch. But they shown some exceptionally clinical finishing and we lost 3-0 to them again...

We were however unfazed by it and again went on a winning run, of 4 matches, whilst Celtic uncharacteristically messed up a few times in this period and their advantage had diminished from 8 to 3 points. But ultimately an extremely congested fixture list in December would get the better out of us too. First we avoided a scare at St. Johnstone by managing to still salvage a draw after they had opened up a 2-0 lead with their first 2 shots; then we were uninspired at Stenhousemuir and let a lead slip away; and finally ended the calendar year with a pretty terrible 1-0 loss at home to Inverness in the first match in ages (which is a good thing) that our team was just plain poor on the pitch. This let Celtic extend their lead to 8 points again.

Summary

I'm actually quite happy with my team. We are playing much better than last year, and have got many more points than we had at this same stage. The only problem is Celtic have improved even more than we did, and have gone back to a dominating level that for some reason they had abandoned for last season. We also did quite well in Europe given the very hard opposition, and my main disappointment is probably the League Cup as it was one of our better chances for a trophy.

For the rest of the season we're going to try to do our best catching up Celtic, even if I don't think we can do it just yet; unfortunately Scotland have lost points in the coefficients and 2nd place won't qualify us for the Champions League again. Meanwhile, the Scottish Cup is also starting soon and we have an uncomfortable draw to begin with: Motherwell away.

[noikeee]

2030/2031 - Late-in-the-season update - Dundee United

Transfers

(Transfers)

With the players we had signed earlier, the squad was now far beyond a normal size, and the wage bill is becoming really unsustainable. So this transfer window I focused on selling some players I didn't really need: midfielders Giorgos Christofileas and Wayne Lawrence, centre-back Fadil Krpic and left-winger Mason Murrall were all sold, although all of them were probably given away a bit too much on the cheap. I also terminated the loan of right-back Claude Rossi.

But I didn't give up on trying to improve the squad, so that was the reasoning behind picking up left-winger Jakub Hrabina on loan from Sevilla - and his first few appearances for us were so impressive, I immediately signed him permanentely on a Bosman for next season. Our other signing was centre-back Matthew Lancaster on loan from Crystal Palace to make up the numbers as a backup now that Krpic was gone.

Scottish Premiership

After a slight wobble in December, we returned to form with an open 3-2 away win at Motherwell (a crazy match with all goals scored in the 2nd half), and a 2-0 beating of Falkirk. This was ahead of a trip to Celtic where hopefully we could take the opportunity to cut their lead at the top, and reignite the title battle. Unfortunately, like it had happened at other points of this season, they had their finishing absolutely spot on and that helped them to a heavy 4-1 win.

It felt as if the championship was lost right there, nevertheless we are doing absolutely everything we can to catch up. Just like our other 2 previous defeats to Celtic in the league, it didn't seem to affect us at all, as we went on a sequence of 6 wins, and only conceded goals in one of them. Indeed it was only briefly interrupted with a 0-0 draw vs Stenhousemuir, and we picked up again with another 2 wins to finish off the regular season before the split, making it an incredible record of 8 wins, 1 draw, and just 2 goals conceded in the past 9 matches. Unfortunately none of that seems to matter as Celtic have been just as impressive and still retain a 7 points advantage.

Scottish Cup

However, It's been a different story in the cup. Motherwell surprised us pushing us to a replay, as we were well on course to beat them in the first match when they scored a late equalizer, but we had no problem beating them in the replay. We were drawn with Celtic in the next round, never a pleasant draw, but for once this season it didn't end in a heavy defeat, but in a tight 1-0 win after I had decided to tighten up my tactics specifically for this match.

With Celtic beaten, this turned us into the favourites for the trophy. Stenhousemuir proved no problem at all, and we are now in the semi-final vs Partick Thistle, in a neutral venue (Hampden Park). If we go through, we will face in the final either our rivals Dundee, or Hamilton, both teams that are playing a level below us in the Championship.

Summary

We are playing immensely better football and winning far more matches than last season, yet the title looks much harder. If we're to win it, we need Celtic to lose 5 points in the next 4 fixtures, and then we still need to beat them in the final match of the season. I don't think this is very likely.

However, things are looking much more favourable in the cup - on paper we're the favourites, and provided we don't get complacent or bad luck surprises us, we could be two matches away from my first trophy in Scotland.

[noikeee]

I swear this game can be absolutely cruel sometimes. Un-freaking-believable. It's all the most infuriating because their comeback all started in the 85th minute when I decided to take off Jakub Hrabina because he had a damaged foot and my assman had adviced me to.

[noikeee]

In more positive news, our U20s had a sensational run all the way until the UEFA Youth League final, only losing on penalties. I believe there's a pretty good prospect in here, and a few other players seem to be developing at a good rate, I will write more about this just as soon as I finish the last few matches of the season, in the season review.

[noikeee]

2030/2031 - End of season update - Dundee United

Scottish Cup

Despite our favouritism, and a pretty happy first half and start to the 2nd half in which we opened up a seemingly safe 3 goal lead, it turned out to be one of the most shocking defeats of my career. Partick Thistle had already scored one when our winger Jakub Hrabina, who was having an excellent game having scored a brace, picked up an injury, when we had already done all of our substitutions. Under advice of my assistant manager and with just a few minutes remaining, I decided to take him off the pitch. But our opposition saw in there an opportunity to attack with everything they had, and scored 2 goals in quick succession at the very end of the match, taking it to extra time. In extra time they scored another, finishing an incredible comeback and killing our cup hopes.

Scottish Premiership - Championship Group

Just a few days after Partick Thistle had shocked us in the cup, we had to face them again in the league. With their morale high, and ours low by comparison, we suffered another defeat in an uncharacteristic poor performance. This pretty much sealed the title for Celtic even though they also lost that day, but it was only confirmed mathematically by the next round, in which we beat Falkirk 2-0. We were still wobbling a bit and suffered another defeat to Hibernian, but then finished the season on a much better note: first hammering Motherwell 4-1 including an hat-trick by youngsyer Nicky Thomson as I rotated the squad a bit; then a happy 1-0 win over our league rivals Celtic, the only time we pulled a win over them in the league this year.

Summary

It was a disappointing end to the season as we missed out the chance to win the cup in dramatic fashion; and accumulated another 2 unexpected defeats in the league. However, none of that erases what had been a really good year - looking back we accumulated an impressive extra 20 points in the league compared to last season, had a few surprising results in the Champions League, and eventually figured out how to beat Celtic in the matches against them in both the cup and the league.

Next season might be a case of "step behind, 2 steps forward". Scotland has lost the 2nd team in the Champions League so we have only qualified for the Europa League this time; also we have leaked an insane amount of money the last few months due to high wages, so I believe I will have to sell players and reduce the wage bill. However, I am still commited to continuing the job in this club, despite the large interest across Europe in my services. Even if I have to lose key players I think we are becoming overall a much stronger side, and will be there for whenever Celtic slips.

[noikeee]

2030/2031 - Season review - Dundee United

Squad and tactics

(Full squad statistics)

My 4-4-2 (now a 4-4-1-1) continued to evolve, as I made three changes this season that I feel improved our system considerably:

- The return of the "be more expressive" shout. This adds some flair to what was previously a boxy, robotic system.

- The box-to-box midfielder (tweaked with "gets further forward") was changed into a standard roaming playmaker. This greatly improved our build-up play as we used to make a lot of very early long passes out to the wings, now with the extra ball magnet in the middle we no longer make so many risky long passes and also vary our game a lot more - we still cross the ball a lot, but now use the middle of the pitch as well. This had the side-effect of completely revitalizing two signings who were proving awful flops in either as 2nd striker or 2nd midifelder, and suddenly became perfect fits for roaming playmaker: Phil Drennan and Ben Wright.

- Finally the 3rd change is the most noticeable as it changed our formation, the false nine was pulled back to the AM position to become a AM/A. This was for a slightly counterintuitive reason, basically the false nine was running too far forward when it was time to cross, he was in line with the poacher and I didn't want that, I wanted him to reach the box a bit later. Yet this change also had 2 extra benefits: it further helps our early build-up play with the AM becoming more involved than the F9; and it also helps our defending as the F9 stayed too far forward. And I don't feel the poacher became too isolated as this was my biggest fear of such a change. It just works immensely better all around.

Overall I feel this has now become my best system so far in this career and FM16, it works in the vast majority matches without tweaking, produces some great football, and hasn't lost the DNA of an attacking 4-4-2 that I wanted to implement when I moved to Scotland.

Finances

(Finances)

I have a pretty big problem. All looks okay because I have just got the prize money for the league, but before this my board made me two gifts of 1.2M€ and then 5.5M€ to avoid the club's bank account spiralling deep into the red. Which is insane given that earlier this season we had made some massive profits from the Champions League, all that money has now disappeared. The wage bill has become totally unsustainable this season - despite the fact I'm giving it a large buffer to the maximum the board allows me to use - and I now really have to get rid of a few well paid players.

Youth watch

It was a pretty disappointing intake, some players attributes look okay I guess, but the staff's low appraisal of potential for them isn't very encouraging:

Stuart McCluskey (ST)

Ryan Petrie (ST)

Jim Forbes (MC)

Brian Davidson (DL)

However the guys from previous seasons are developing very nicely. In the first team squad Nicky Thomson is not news as he had already had his breakthrough last season, he continues to show up occasionally with a few goals. This year I decided to also give a lot of playing time to our other young forward Sandy McIntosh, who has been playing as the main backup to James Slater in the AMC position; but the truly exciting news is the immense development of 18 year old left-winger David Montgomery whom I gave his first few appearances, I don't think he's quite ready yet but in a couple of years he could be a real candidate for our starting 11.

Top 5 players of the season

5. Mamadou Sall (ST) - Signing this experienced Senegalese forward proved a good idea on the short term, as he was a reliable source of goals, scoring 15 in total, as many as Polworth but in fewer appearances, as he joined the team pretty late in September, and then was out for the African Cup of Nations as well. However I gave this guy the highest wages in the squad and this means he is top candidate to be sold ahead of next season.

4. Dean Morsley (ML) - Finishes the season with his place in the starting 11 under threat from new signing Jakub Hrabina who ended up with a slightly better average rating, however Dean had been a very important player for the team previously throughout this season, having managed a total of 7 goals and 10 assists.

3. Luís Raínho (MR) - Even better was the guy in the other wing. I had first noticed him when managing in Austria and he was loaned out to SV Ried, but only managed to pick him up this season and it was a great signing, as he made the most assists in the team, 15 (a new club record), on top of 6 goals. Is now the highest valued player in the squad at 8M€, but might be leaving soon as he has a 9.5M€ release clause and Newcastle are interested.

2. James Slater (AMC, ST) - It was another great season from James, I wasn't really getting the same level of performance from him in the false nine role, however when I pulled him back to AMC it revitalized him greatly and he had an incredible period of form around March or April or so. This new role gives him loads of assists - 14 - and also loads of goals: 19, as he was our top scorer again.

PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Phil Drennan (MC, ST, AMC, MR)

I considered James as player of the season, however there was one guy whose performances were so incredible I really had to pick him, and it is a huge surprise as it's a player I didn't rate when I hired him at the start of the season, and didn't even really play him much up until midseason. Together with Ben Wright both were playing like absolute crap either at false nine or box-to-box midfielder, but when I turned him into roaming playmaker he suddenly started getting some incredible ratings. I thought this was a bias from the match engine as this role gets him loads of passes, but he also started getting a lot of assists on top of it, and has been playing much better than the alternative Ben Wright on this position. Ends with a 7.76 average rating which is just insane and the highest I've seen in my whole career from any of my players.

[b]Season  League                            Cups                                        International                      Notes
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Berwick Rangers (Scotland)
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15/16   League 2 - 5th                    Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd      ---                                Resigned at end of the season
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
16/17   Championship 1 - 10th             IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners    ---                                Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica)
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17/18   Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th        ---                                         ---
18/19   Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) ---                                         ---                                Apertura finalists
19/20   Ascenso - 5th / 4th (fin.)        Copa de Costa Rica 1st Rnd                  ---                                Clausura finalists
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dolny Kubin (Slovakia)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
20/21   DOXXbet Liga - 8th / 1st (RlgSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---
21/22   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 9th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---
22/23   DOXXbet Liga - 5th / 2nd (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 2nd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
23/24   DOXXbet Liga - 3rd / 6th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup semi-finals                    ---
24/25   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 4th (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd                        ---                                East Group winners
25/26   DOXXbet Liga - 1st / 1st (PrmSt)  Slovnaft Cup finalists                      ---                                Champions, promoted, cup finalists
26/27   Fortuna Liga - 2nd                Slovnaft Cup 3rd Rnd                        ---                                Runners-up
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Austria Wien (Austria)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
27/28   tipico-Bundesliga - 2nd           ÖFB-Cup winners                             Europa League 2nd Qual. Rnd.       Runners-up, cup winners
28/29   tipico-Bundesliga - 1st           ÖFB-Cup 3rd Rnd                             ChLg GroupStg, EurLg 1st KO Rnd    Champions
[b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dundee United (Scotland)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]
29/30   Scottish Premiership - 2nd        Scottish Cup 4th Rnd, League Cup 1/4 final  Europa League 3rd Qual. Rnd        Runners-up
30/31   Scottish Premiership - 2nd        Scott. Cup 1/2 final, League Cup 1/4 final  Champions League group stage       Runners-up

[noikeee]

This is just pointless to report because I'm not in any kind of rush to reach the top of world of football, and am committed to staying in Dundee Utd for quite a bit longer, but it's nice to be wanted by one of the clubs I always wanted to manage and never had the opportunity to. Maybe in a few seasons...