Really, are FM15 clubs nuts?

[Sankalan]

I want to know if anyone else has had this sort of experience before:

Had past experience with big European clubs like Liverpool, Bayern, Real Madrid etc.

Then went of to manage lesser teams in Asia.

Unemployed for an year and loaded up Belgium till third tier for some llm

Applied for a couple of clubs that were just promoted. Both LAUGHED off interest. I thought that no recent experience in these parts of the world must have screwed up things.

BUT...

Anderchelt, currently the best side in Belgium sacked their manager, I applied and Got the job!

Now either third tier of Belgium is stronger than the first tire, or the game has something wrong. Either way, i would like to know if this is a one off case or others have hd similar experiences?

[Guest]

The lower league team probably felt that you would either never join them or leave them as soon as a better club showed any interest, perfectly realistic behaviour.

[BanOly]

The lower league team probably felt that you would either never join them or leave them as soon as a better club showed any interest, perfectly realistic behaviour.

That. Or:

- You didn't have the best of experiences at the "top european clubs" and Anderlecht are just stupid

- The philosophies you did well at matching and didn't do so well at matching at those clubs didn't match the ones required of the recently promoted clubs

for example, you may have stretched the budgets at one of the "top euro clubs" and the recently promoted teams might be looking for someone who can manage finances well

- You didn't stay at any of these clubs for long, showing a lack of commitment that recently promoted clubs tend to be looking for in a new manager

Anyway, good luck in Anderlecht! Great team.

[Sankalan]

Okay, I have a bad name for leaving clubs early, never staying for more than 1 season in any club in Europe. But laugh off interest! Not the exact words, I would expect.

Anyway, I won all the big 5 leagues, and the Champions league, so underperforming is not an issue(completed the Ultimate Football Manager challenge, actually)

Now, with llm out, I am training my U19 keeper to take penalties and freekicks!

[Sunstrikuuu]

When they say "laugh off" I'm assuming the situation is that:

You apply

They say something like "you aren't actually interested are you you just won the champions league with real madrid"

You say "no no im totally interested promise"

And they don't believe you.

They don't believe that you're interested in coming in the first place, that you have any willingness to stay (and consequently that there's value in appointing you in the first place) or that they can pay you.

[RBKalle]

Still, wording should be different...

Should, say, Mourinho, decide to apply for a job at FC Santa Claus, they'd probably not "laugh off" his interest... They'd be worried about not being able to pay him or about his actual level of commitment, but still, even having him there for a half a season (or for a month) would be an immense boost in terms of visibility.

FM has always been too rigid about players and staff moving down the ladder while still at the top (or at a higher level anyway). Be it about reputation or money, some offers are too good to be turned down. Or a player/manager may have other motives that greed or status.

[Marathon Dress Week]

How about the games let the players decide what they they mean, rather than telling us what we mean?

No lower league club in real life would laugh off an approach from a top manager without even offering an interview. If this happened the chairman in question would get lynched by the fans!

[Lawlore]

It's funny you should mention this, as I've just stumbled across quite an odd one in my current FM15 save.

We come to the manager with ID number 1123. I have fake names on, so in-game, he's known as Daniel Martinez. A Spanish manager with 62 international caps, who begins the game as newly-appointed manager of Barcelona. He is, of course, Luis Enrique, one of the great hopes for the future of management.

Where is this titan by the year 2032, 18 years later? Gillingham. Middle of League One, no sugar daddy takeovers or wild success- they've not been above League One since the game started- and there he is with his 20 Man Management, 18 Level of Discipline and 15+ stats in pretty much everything else, buying and selling players for the £20k-30k range, with he himself on a contract of £1,900/wk. As much of a Gills fan as I am, I dread to think what he must've done to wind up so far down the pecking order to not only consider, but take a job at Priestfield.

And his career prior to that is also quite odd:

[Neil Brock]

Not quite the same as it's mainly South American based, but stuff like this always makes me think of the real life managerial career of Ramon Diaz and his short stint at Oxford United - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_D%C3%ADaz

[mrw072]

I want to know if anyone else has had this sort of experience before:

Had past experience with big European clubs like Liverpool, Bayern, Real Madrid etc.

Then went of to manage lesser teams in Asia.

Unemployed for an year and loaded up Belgium till third tier for some llm

Applied for a couple of clubs that were just promoted. Both LAUGHED off interest. I thought that no recent experience in these parts of the world must have screwed up things.

BUT...

Anderchelt, currently the best side in Belgium sacked their manager, I applied and Got the job!

Now either third tier of Belgium is stronger than the first tire, or the game has something wrong. Either way, i would like to know if this is a one off case or others have hd similar experiences?

I had quite an unusual experience in FM 15 too! I decided to start off as unemployed with a number of different leagues and divisions from around Europe loaded. I think I would have had quite a basic past experience at the time, I can't really remember now though. But the vast majority of teams were ignoring me when I applied and the ones who showed interest I wasn't too interested in. I was hoping for a team above the bottom division. Teams were laughing off any interest for me too! Anyway, I was about to give up and all of a sudden Sunderland offered me an interview. They were bottom of the PL, so I thought I had no chance. Then about a week after the interview they offered me the job. So from being a completely unemployed manager with minimal past experience I landed a PL job. I thought that was quite unusual that they were interested in me. The only thing I could think of was that the town I was born in has a very large Sunderland following. So maybe my birthplace swung things? It was the only thing I could think of really!

[forameuss]

Still, wording should be different...

This is it in a nutshell. "Laughing off" is one of those phrases that should really be looked at, as it often gives the wrong impression. It's a curious choice in the first place, as surely something like "Will not consider your application", or something similarly sterile, would have done the job. If you want to keep that laughing off one, then use it exclusively for players applying for jobs way above their station, like the text would suggest.

It's funny you should mention this, as I've just stumbled across quite an odd one in my current FM15 save.

We come to the manager with ID number 1123. I have fake names on, so in-game, he's known as Daniel Martinez. A Spanish manager with 62 international caps, who begins the game as newly-appointed manager of Barcelona. He is, of course, Luis Enrique, one of the great hopes for the future of management.

Where is this titan by the year 2032, 18 years later? Gillingham. Middle of League One, no sugar daddy takeovers or wild success- they've not been above League One since the game started- and there he is with his 20 Man Management, 18 Level of Discipline and 15+ stats in pretty much everything else, buying and selling players for the £20k-30k range, with he himself on a contract of £1,900/wk. As much of a Gills fan as I am, I dread to think what he must've done to wind up so far down the pecking order to not only consider, but take a job at Priestfield.

And his career prior to that is also quite odd:

It's probably easy to build a narrative that led to it when given just that information though. You're playing FM15, so he hasn't achieved the side that is currently playing in real life. In Luis' world, Real Madrid easily won the league, and he was sacked. He went to Lille, and spent two OK years there, but couldn't do much in Europe, and got pummeled by PSG league-wise. He returns to Spain to struggling Sevilla and manages to save them from relegation, and maybe he does have that magic tou...oh no wait, another meh season next time, and he's off to Portugal. He doesn't pull up too many trees, so it's back across the border. He finds a bit of a home in Bilbao, but again doesn't stay too long, staying unemployed for ten months before dropping down a rung to manage in Portugal again. Poor spells at NAC, Vollendam and Villarreal see him sacked three times, and after more than two years unemployed, he's handed a chance at Gillingham, who are looking to raise their profile.

Obviously that could be wildly away from what actually happened, but looking at the dates, I'd say he only left of his own accord from Gil Vicente (moved to Athletic) and Ferreira. A lot of the dates scream sackings, and only a couple might be him leaving at the end of his contract. Whose to say it's not just a manager who does well at a club he knows well who, you know, have the best team in the World probably, but struggles to do anything elsewhere? Who is to say someone like him won't end up in a lower league job within fifteen years? There's no real frame of reference in reality.

[Sankalan]

Ya, the wording should show more respect...

[Lawlore]

It's probably easy to build a narrative that led to it when given just that information though. You're playing FM15, so he hasn't achieved the side that is currently playing in real life. In Luis' world, Real Madrid easily won the league, and he was sacked. He went to Lille, and spent two OK years there, but couldn't do much in Europe, and got pummeled by PSG league-wise. He returns to Spain to struggling Sevilla and manages to save them from relegation, and maybe he does have that magic tou...oh no wait, another meh season next time, and he's off to Portugal. He doesn't pull up too many trees, so it's back across the border. He finds a bit of a home in Bilbao, but again doesn't stay too long, staying unemployed for ten months before dropping down a rung to manage in Portugal again. Poor spells at NAC, Vollendam and Villarreal see him sacked three times, and after more than two years unemployed, he's handed a chance at Gillingham, who are looking to raise their profile.

Obviously that could be wildly away from what actually happened, but looking at the dates, I'd say he only left of his own accord from Gil Vicente (moved to Athletic) and Ferreira. A lot of the dates scream sackings, and only a couple might be him leaving at the end of his contract. Whose to say it's not just a manager who does well at a club he knows well who, you know, have the best team in the World probably, but struggles to do anything elsewhere? Who is to say someone like him won't end up in a lower league job within fifteen years? There's no real frame of reference in reality.

Oh, I know, and I'm very pleased that this sort of thing is possible in the game- I just found it a curious trajectory. It's easy to forget that Sven at Notts County happened, despite the circumstances being rather different, so I'm certainly not suggesting it's unrealistic. If you're interested, I figured I'd have a look at it a bit more in-depth, and what you say is pretty much true- he's generally been sacked at any club with any kind of expectations, but been able to stick around a bit longer at clubs who don't. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on back at Sevilla, having been so consistently poor at clubs with greater reputations:

14/15 - Sacked by Barcelona after finishing 3rd in La Liga, knocked out of Champions League by Real.

15/16 - Unemployed

16/17 - Joined Lille mid-season, finished 12th in Ligue One. Before joining, they'd been in a relegation scrap.

17/18 - Sacked by Lille at the end of February- midtable, out of both cups. Joins Sevilla in mid-March, finishes first season 7th.

18/19 - One defeat in first 15 league games, but sacked at the end of the season by Sevilla after finishing 7th again, with no wins in his last 7 games.

19/20 - Unemployed 

20/21 - Joins Portuguese PL side Gil Vicente for an unremarkable season, finishing 13th.

21/22 - Leaves Gil Vicente when appointed by La Liga side Athletic Bilbao. First season sees them finish 9th- a return to where they expect to be after two previously disappointing seasons.

22/23 - Sacked in February 2023 after just 4 points from 24 since turn of the New Year. Their next manager would pull them away from relegation battle.

23/24 - Joins Portuguese PL side P. Ferreira on New Year's Eve, with the club on 12 points from 13 games. Goes on to take just 18 more points from remaining 21 games. Club are relegated on Goal Difference, but manager keeps his job.

24/25 - P. Ferreira flying high in Portuguese Second League when manager leaves to join Dutch top flight (Eredivisie) side NAC Breda at the end of March. NAC take one point from their last five games (admittedly, a tough run-in including PSV, Feyenoord and Ajax), and end up in the Relegation playoff. They beat Volendam on away goals and then sneak a 1-0 win over two legs against VVV-Venlo to stay up.

25/26 - Sacked by NAC after relegation is finally confirmed, having sat rock bottom most of the season. Joins underperforming Dutch Tier 2 (Jupiler League) side FC Volendam, who have just finished 13th, once the season is over.

26/27 - Sacked by Volendam mid-November after a very average start to the season. Picked up by Villareal in December, who have established themselves as a consistent 3rd/4th-placed La Liga side over the previous seasons- quite the jump up for the manager. Finishes 5th in first season, reaching Spanish Cup Semi-Finals.

27/28 - Sacked by Villareal after indifferent EURO Cup campaign and three straight La Liga defeats. New manager goes unbeaten in next 15 games across all competitions.

28/29 - Unemployed.

29/30 - Unemployed.

30/31 - Appointed by League One Gillingham in December, the club having settled into a mid-table League One role after flirting with promotion for a few seasons. On appointment, club has just 11 points from their first 16 league games. Turns fortunes around to finish 18th.

31/32 - Leaves Gillingham in February 2032 after a mid-table season, to return to Sevilla. Gillingham only take one point from next six games, while Sevilla take 8 points from his first 5 games back at the club. They are currently sitting 9th.