[FM17] Taking Vizela to Glory

TheGreat10ne1 · October 30, 2016

Hello everybody, thought I'd try logging down a save for the first time ever. I've been playing manager games since Premier Manager 98 and this is the first time I'm trying out the Portuguese League.

I wanted to choose a second-division team in Europe to build them up into European Champions League heavyweights. However, I wanted to do it outside of the main leagues, hence why I went with the Portuguese League. I picked out Vizela, as a team predicted to finish 21st out of 22 teams. Wanted a bit of a challenge (the team predicted 22nd was a B team, hence why I didn't go for them), but didn't want to go to the third Division, as I didn't want to start with part-time contracts.

I didn't have a huge amount of cash to spend, but spent about £50k on players (£44k of which on a star striker), though most were frees. I released a few as well, also selling a player for £14k.

My first season didn't exactly go to plan. For those who don't know, in the Portuguese Second Division, the bottom 4 teams get relegated, whilst 17th/18th go into a play-off to survive. I had a terrible start to the season, but a tactical change from defensive to attacking worked quite well for a short period, including a 5-game winning streak, however my defensive frailties meant that I slowly got dragged back towards the bottom, and ended up just finishing in an automatic relegation place.

A strange thing about my first season is that, for the first time since playing manager games, almost 20 years now, my team both scored and conceded the most goals in a season (has this ever happened to anybody else?) by some distance on both counts. I scored 80 goals (the next highest being 69) and conceded 97 (the next highest being 85). Apparently the record for goals conceded was 89 for the division, so I broke an unwanted record there, but also ALMOST made a positive record, as the record for goals scored was 84, but I didn't quite manage it. How many teams in league football history around the world have been relegated despite scoring the most goals?

The tactics I'm currently using is a 4-2-4, where the 2 are both DMs, and the wingers are inside-forwards who play through the middle most of the time, allowing my full-backs to get up to support a lot. Whilst I expected to score and concede many goals, I really did not expect so many, as outlined above. Fans must have been entertained though!

So, that sums up my first season, looking to take a team to European glory, but despite scoring the most goals in the season, I ended up getting relegated instead. I didn't get sacked (in fact, my contract was extended to 2020) so am going to try and get promoted at the first time of asking...I'll post a half-season update in my next post (the third division is strange, where you play a league in the first half, and then another league in the 2nd - I'll explain more next post), which will be very soon as I'm only a couple games from finishing.

The below screenshots were taken on 21st Jan 2018 (in-game), about 6 months after the end of my first season.

Screenshot 1 = League table

Screenshot 2 = First season fixtures (part 1)

Screenshot 3 = First season fixtures (part 2)

Screenshot 4 = First season transfers

Screenshot 5 = Star signing/player attributes

Screenshot 6 = Star signing/player career history

Screenshot 7 = First season best XI

Screenshot 8 = Tactical instructions for 4-2-4 formation

TheGreat10ne1 · October 30, 2016

Ok, so now I'm into my second season with Vizela, plying my trade in Portugal's third tier of league football, called Portugal Championship.

There are 80 teams in this tier, split over 8 groups of 10. The top two teams of each group goes into one of two Promotion Playoff Leagues, whereas the other 8 of each group goes into one of eight Relegation Playoff Leagues.

My main struggle going into this new season was the fact that a lot of my players contracts ran out, as I'm only ever allowed to sign a player on a 1-year deal. Unfortunately, a lot of my players did not wish to play in a lower division, and thus left on a free. I did manage to tie up some contracts just before the end of the season, and did manage to tie down a few key players, including my star striker Leonardo.

I signed a lot of new players who, despite my relegation to a lower league, actually were an improvement on the players that left; I upgraded on both CBs and GK, due to my miserable defensive failings last season.

Football-wise, I started off incredibly well, comfortably winning five of my first six games. However, just when I thought things were so easy it's boring, I suddenly go on a run of five defeats in seven games! I dropped down to fourth, five points behind both second and third place (top two go to the Promotion League) with five games to go.

After a very successful team meeting, my team suddenly returns back to their free-scoring ways, winning our next four games with ease. At the last game of the season, I'm two points behind Fafe, who're in second. We have a better goal difference, but we were both playing the bottom two teams in the league at home. I won my game very comfortably, as expected, but resigned myself to checking the league table at the end to see us finish in third and plunder on into the Relegation Playoffs...

But no! Fafe drew at home to a team called Joane and I scrape into the Promotion Playoffs on goal difference! Brilliant!

Promotion is back on the cards! I'll be back to let you all know how my bid for Promotion back into the Second Division goes!

Screenshot 1 = Second Season Portuguese Championship League table

Screenshot 2 = Second season first half schedule

Screenshot 3 = Second season transfers

Screenshot 4 = Filipe Andrade's attributes. Leonardo's still my best player in all respects (despite my club profile showing a player I signed on loan, who did ok), so thought I show you who has my second-highest average rating, who just so happens to be Leonardo's strike partner, who I also signed the summer of my first season. Unfortunately, it looks as though I won't be able to keep him for another year, as he refuses to sign a new deal until we secure promotion, but there are a lot of clubs already offering contracts to him.

Screenshot 5 = Club Profile

TheGreat10ne1 · November 2, 2016

Time for my end-of-second-season update!

So, I've just finished in the top two of my Portuguese Championship group in January, meaning I now enter one of two Promotion groups, each containing 8 teams. The winners of each group get promoted (also playing each other to determine the undisputed Championship champions). The teams finishing in second play each other over two legs, though only one gets promoted.

Just like in the initial Championship group during the first half of the season, I started off the Promotion Stage fairly well, though go through a slump of 2 wins and 4 defeats in six games, putting my promotion hopes at serious risk. However, another successful team meeting turns my fortunes around, and comfortably win my next three games. Going into the last game of the season, the top three teams all had 23 points, though I was 3rd despite having easily the best goal difference, but unfortunately the tie-breakers are determined by results between the respective teams.

For the last game of the season, I was away to the team in second, and absolutely trounced them 0-8, despite going down to 10 men at 0-4. However, the team at the top managed a late away win, meaning they finished top, due to their 93rd minute winner against us earlier in the season, giving them a slightly better aggregate score over us.

In the 2nd-placed playoff, I drew my first game at home 3-3, but snuck a 1-2 win away, meaning I got promoted at the first time of asking!

League Table:

Second half season schedule:

Over the whole season since September, we Vizela have generally been much better than the rest of the teams, though occasionally went through a couple of sticky patches where the goals dried up. As you will see from the below squad overview, ordered by average rating, the best four players were my frot four, and I've screenshotted all of their attributes screens beneath.

Ceching You Out · November 3, 2016

Congrats on making it back to the 2nd division so quickly!

TheGreat10ne1 · November 5, 2016

Now for my end-of-3rd-season update!

Having made my way back into the second division within a season, I was looking to first solidify my status in the league for a year or two before making a push for promotion.

Unfortunately, my plans for this were already in turmoil as most of my first team players refused to sign contracts with Vizela, and decided to move onto bigger and better clubs on higher wages. Not just my players, but my BEST players too. The below screenshot shows my last season best XI. However, of the below team, the only 7 players I was able to keep were Diego Silva, Jeferson Bahia, Ze Pedro, Homero Calderon, Nuninho, Joao Rocha and Kukula. Everybody else left, meaning I needed to almost rebuild my entire team.

I still didn't have a huge transfer budget, but managed to convince the board to give me a bigger wage budget, so most of my signings were free transfers, pre-arranged bosman signings or cheap gems picked up by my scouts, not really able to sign any star players, though I did pick up a kid striker on loan from Crystal Palace, who had 5* current ability. Unfortunately, due to my high transfer activity over the summer, I'm not able to fit all transfers into one screenshot:

As you can imagine, with such a high turnover of players, there was a lot to do to try and fit everyone in together, get everyone gelling. I ensured I had two players for every position, and all were generally decent, meaning it was difficult picking my starting XI.

From the pre-season odds, I was predicted to finish 7th in my first season after getting promoted! The board's minimum expectation was also to finish mid-table, so I was under pressure to do more than just survive, despite my "just promoted" status. Although I hadn't spent nearly as much as the rest of the league in transfer fees, my wages were the 6th-highest in the league, which is what most likely raised those expectations.

My season did not start off well at all. I lost my first four games and panic started to kick in. I decided to change my team around, and some players who I initially figured would be back-up players for the season, really stepped up and became absolute mainstays of the team after a few games. The goals started to flow in like it ha done for my entire time at Vizela so far, and my two main CBs, who I managed to keep from last season, were also playing really well, keeping me less fragile at the back. I change my entire team for the cup games and get knocked out 1st round in both, but my general league form continues, pushing me up to as high as 5th in the league at the start of December. However, I do head into Christmas without a win in three games.

The crazy thing about this division is that the best teams in the division are some "B" teams who are not allowed to get promoted to be in the same league as their parent team. This means that, despite only two teams getting promoted, you only need to be in the top 5 to go up! Back-to-back promotions is on and definitely in my sights!

In total, I go five games without a win over Christmas, meaning at the mid-point of the season, I'm settled at mid-table, with an outside chance for promotion. I don't sign any first-team players in January, though bring in a few youngsters.

I did have a few injuries to deal with during the first half of the season, and three key players returned at the same time, leading to an immediate impact in my team's performances and results. After those disappointing five games, I then win eight of my next eleven, only losing once, pushing me up to 6th in the league, just one point behind AC. Viseu in 5th with five games to go. However, I lose to Sporting Lisbon B quite comfortably, as they're easily the best team in the league, but the crunch game was the match after, away to AC. Viseu themselves. This game was really big, and was my only televised match of the season. I needed my team to win this one, as a defeat would put them seven points clear with three games to go. Alas, I do lose 4-2, and in total, I only win one of my last five games, meaning I end the season just outside a promotion place, but still in a very respectable 6th position.

League Table:

Second half schedule:

Seasonal Best XI:

Squad Overview:

Squad Statistics:

Serginho - signed him on a bosman at the start of the season, though the contract was concluded months before. He was one of the players I had on the bench at the start of the season, but after my early poor form, he came into the team and only injury forced him out of it. Named fans' player of the season:

Jéferson Bahia - signed him at the start of my second season after I got relegated. Has been really solid for me and came second in Vizela's fans' player of the season:

Caleb Gomina - Definitely intended to be used as an impact player from the bench, but after my supposed start striker just wasn't performing, I decided to stick Gomina in, and he started banging in the goals, as well as creating assists. Came 3rd in fans' player of the season:

Gregory Braithwaite - thought I'd include a huge disappointment of the season. Signed on loan from Crystal Palace, had stats that screamed goals to me, and had 5* current ability, so supposedly my star player for the season. However, after 1 goal and a 6.80(ish) rating after 10 games, I dropped him for Gomina, and the rest is history. Braithwaite did play more games throughout the season, filling in for injuries, and he did well in some games, but was an overall disappointment:

Heading into my fourth season in the game! For once, I do not anticipate huge changes in personnel. I do have some decent players in my U19s team who I'm going to promote, and there are a few 1st team players who want to move to a bigger club, so I'll do what I'll need to do, but I think I just need to keep my team as close to it as possible, so I can push on for promotion next season...

TheGreat10ne1 · November 10, 2016

Time for my end-of-fourth season update - my charge for promotion!

I said during my last update that I'd try to keep transfers to a minimum. Yeah, that didn't happen. I did manage to tie up a lot of contracts for another season, and have gotten into the habit of including an optional 1-year extension clause within every contract, to get around the 1-year limitation. I only lost one player on a bosman, but offers came in their droves for a lot of my first team regulars, and due to the mini financial crisis at Vizela, the board force-accepted many transfers, to my absolute frustration. Sometimes the game would skip forward by two hours from a Continue click, in which time a bid is made, force-accepted by the board, agreed player contract terms and confirmation of the finalisation of the transfer, without me even able to protest the transfer or anything.

However, an 18 year-old Greek player in my U19s squad, who I had just promoted to the first team to be a bench player, was signed by Olympiakos for £625k (rising to £1.2m), which is HUGE money for me right now! Unfortunately, I only had a 10% contribution of that towards transfers in of my own.

I signed a young centre-back for my first team in Gonçalo Loureiro for £200k+, a reserve striker called Zé Turbo from Inter Milan for £46k and a winger for £105k, who I sold a few months later for £35k, were my only big-money signings. Most of my other first-team signings were free transfers, and I used a lot of the rest of my budget on youngsters, as I was making a lot of money by signing young players on cheap or free and later selling them on for a profit.

The board didn't place too high expectations upon me, with the minimum to finish in the top half. The media predicted me to finish 6th again, like last season.

From day 1, my league form was brilliant, beating Porto B (who finished 4th last season) 1-3 away from home, then winning five of my first six league games of the season. Despite another huge turnover of players in the summer, both the new and existing players seemed to gel immediately, and I was already scoring plenty of goals early on, whilst my new young £200k centre back stepped up to the plate and helped deal with the problems I've had at the back since the day I first joined the club.

Like Gonçalo Loureiro's season, Vizela's season as a whole went brilliantly. Remembering that B teams don't get promoted, I only really needed to finish in the top four to be one of the two promoted teams. I got into 3rd by the 4th week, and from then on, I never fell out of the top four for the rest of the season.

In the end, the promotion charge was much more comfortable than I'd anticipated, as by week 10, Vizela were in the top 2, with Benfica's B team top, and it turned into 2-horse race for Second Division Champions. Indeed, from week 10, neither Benfica B nor Vizela fell out of the top two for the rest of the season. Whilst we were always comfortable for promotion, the title didn't often appear to be too close, as Benfica B were often 7-10 points ahead of us for many weeks. However, a run of good form for Vizela, coupled with poor Benfica form, meant that Vizela eventually caught up, and spent the last 10 weeks of the season exchanging places....until Vizela finished champions!!!!!!!

Again, our attacking style worked to perfection, scoring 96 league goals for the season. However, although we conceded more goals than most champions would, at 40 goals conceded, it still recorded a huge improvement from last season's 56. Our goal difference last season was +22 and that vastly increased to +56. Our points tally went up from 59 last season to 80 this. After losing so many key players at the start of the season, only replacing them mostly with free transfers, I have to say I'm rather pleased with how this season has gone.

Squad custom general overview, ordered by Value.

Squad custom season statistics overview, ordered by average rating. Statistics are for all competitions.

Serginho - for the second season in a row, he has won our fans' player of the season award. Not surprising as he's been consistently brilliant since joining, though his star rating isn't always quite as high as the others. Scores and assists in bundles. Not sure how he'll fare in the Premier division, especially as I've already arranged a marquee bosman signing who also plays AM(R) as his main position.

Ezequiel Olivera - He was initially signed as a 4th/5th choice striker with promise for the future. During the early stages of the season, both Oliver Sarkic and Zé Turbo were both on fire, meaning Olivera wouldn't get a look in. However, a long-term injury to Sarkic (who was the division's top scorer after 10 games at the time) and a minor injury to my first-choice back up striker meant that Olivera had a couple starts, in which he scored four goals. I couldn't drop him after that, and he just kept scoring goals for me, ending up as the division's second-top scorer, despite barely playing the first 10 games of the season! He and Zé Turbo were sensational as a partnership, with Olivera playing the Defensive Forward Role to perfection.

Zé Turbo - for someone with such a cool name, I really wanted this to work out well, and it sure did! The only disappointing thing about signing this guy is the fact his name isn't Zé Turbo during the match, as it's some generic Portuguese name instead. He was my 3rd most expensive signing of the season, coming from Inter Milan. Nonetheless, due to signing so many good strikers at the same time, I found it difficult to decide who'd be my starting two, and had initially decided that Zé Turbo start on the bench. However, an injury to one of the starters before the season started meant Zé Turbo had a chance to show me what he's got, and started with six goals in four games. Great partnership with Sarkic, and then Olivera throughout the season. Hopefully he does well in the Premier Division.

Diogo Cunha - Signed him on a free transfer when he was 17/18. He spent last season out on loan, and due to many midfielders leaving during the summer, I decided to promote him and a few others to the first team from my youth squad. His back-up was initially supposed to be Apostolos, but he was actually signed for £625k-£1.2m...Cunha would go for much more than that, I can assure everybody about that. He was only competent at DM(C) at the start of the season, but he's now accomplished there, and got a 7.21 average rating from playing as either a deep-lying or roaming playmaker from DM.

Now, it's time to refresh my squad for the Premier Division, hoping to try and survive!

TheGreat10ne1 · November 12, 2016

Time for a half-season update! I should do more of these...

So, the first season in the Premier League for Vizela ever. In the end, we romped to the Second Division title, but we still needed to add one or two strong signings to keep our survival hopes intact. The thing is, the club is constantly losing money, meaning funds were at a minimum. I was hoping to buy some £200k+ signings in, but both the transfer and wage budgets were so low, and no matter how much I scouted, I just couldn't find any cheap potential stars for my team, instead bringing a few free transfers, to bolster my squad if nothing else. Only Francisco Matos, a 19 year-old RB, managed to break into my first team and, as I speak, Olympiakos have come in with a January bid for £750k + £235k (for 10 league apps) + 40% sell-on-profit fee, which I've accepted. I was thinking about selling a few players to try and bring in some transfer money, but I'd only get 10% of that, so didn't sell any of my first team players. I did loan out a lot of my U19 team, to try and save a year's worth of wages on some of them.

As mentioned, the club are going through some financial difficulties, and we are constantly losing money. The board have even cut the wage budge dramatically, meaning I'm currently spending £17k p/w over the budget of now £50k p/w. Overall the club are losing approximately £500k per month, with no signs of slowing down. I'm about to sell a hot prospect RB who has been a 1st team regular since joining in the summer for £750 plus add-ons to try and ease the money loss, but in reality it only just covers a month's worth of losses.

So, crippling finances, and no real top signings...how did I get on in the league? Well, to start with, I was predicted to finish 17th (out of 18) with 1000-1 odds of winning the league by the media, whilst the board advised they didn't expect us to survive and just wanted us to battle bravely. No pressure there, thank goodness.

Thank goodness indeed, because the step-up in quality from the Second Division to Premier League really hit us hard, losing our first four games, and very easily too. We scored three and conceded fifteen in those first four games, leading me to really panic about the strength of the squad, and maybe we will struggle to even win a game, let alone survive. Unfortunately I still wasn't able to sign anyone before the window shut, and any worthwhile loans cost money, which I didn't have. I actually had a massive squad, due to the free signings we brought in and not selling anybody, meaning I had a lot of room to shuffle the team around to find the right formula.

However, after repeatedly changing the team around, we slowly started to pick up a few points and wins. We also managed a little cup run, which involves a lot a games (two different cup competitions, one is in league format), for which i played a lot of my fringe players to keep them happy and match-fit. I eventually got knocked out of both cups, but my league form kept improving, and both my strikers are already double for the season in the league. Luiz Magno, a 20 year-old Brazilian striker I signed a year prior, a player who I've already almost sold on deadline day TWICE and considered my 4th/5th choice striker, kept having a go at me at the start of the season for not playing him. Once I stuck him in, just to try something different after my terrible start, he started banging them in, and Olivera, who was sensational last season but had started poorly this, have struck up a brilliant partnership so far. Luiz Magno currently has 13 goals, 7 assists in 12 (3) appearances. Ezequiel Olivera has 11 goals and 2 assists in 19 appearances.

Despite my strikers banging them in, my wingers have been much less consistent. I actually have seven wingers in my first-team squad, and I have rotated them a lot, without much success at all. Serginho, my player of the year for the last 2 seasons, just hasn't made the adequate step-up in level to this league. A couple new signings have failed to impress, and young players who were out on loan last season aren't doing much either.

I'm getting a lot of assists from my full-backs, who get forward a lot. However, they seem to get skinned too much defensively, and thus I've conceded, so far, the most amount of goals this season. In contrast, I've scored the third most.

My attacking play is paying dividends and, despite a few frustrating games where I've drawn/lost from winning positions, my attack is pulling me up more than my defence is bringing me down, and despite having probably the worst finances in the league by far AND a shocking start, we're currently sat nicely in the top half of the table. I no longer fear for relegation, as we'd probably still survive even if we lose the rest of our games. On the other hand, Europe is not too far out of sight...

With survival already all but secured, what can be achieved this season?

TheGreat10ne1 · November 13, 2016

End of the fifth season in the game, first in the Premier League!

Having made 25 points in the first half of the season, sitting just inside the top half of the table, I had already pretty much secured survival, and had even thought about getting into Europe in the first season.

However, the second half of the season didn't go according to plan. For a few games, I got into the habit of turning a win into a defeat in the last ten minutes of games. Soon, confidence started to dwindle and the goals started to dry up, with Ezequiel Olivera especially going through a poor second half. We did pick up a few victories though, and whilst we didn't need to actually pick up ANY points in the second half of the season, we picked up enough to finish in a comfortable 13th (out of 18), fifteen points away from relegation.

So, whilst the season ended rather anti-climatically, the season as a whole was superb for Vizela. Having opened with four humiliating defeats, there were real fears early on, but some very good mid-season form secured us a decent finish for our first season back in the Premier League.

I'm a little bit worried about our general performances towards the end of the season where we really did start struggling to score. However, I am very pleased with my squad, and am confident they would be able to keep us up again next season, though I'm not sure about pushing on higher up the table.

Seeing as only two players in my squad finished with above a 7.00 average rating for the season, I was hoping for some sort of transfer budget to help improve the quality within the squad. Our club finances haven't much improved, but thankfully the board have managed to find some transfer/wage funds for me to try and add some better players.

I originally had just under £600k, but have already spent some of it on a new star striker, who will be arriving in a few weeks time:

He will likely be replacing Ezequiel Olivera. Olivera has done well for me, but struggled a little at times last season, and he also wants to join a bigger club. Clubs are interested in him, and a private chat with him ended up with me agreeing to sell him for his sell-on fee, which is £2.5m. If we can get £2.5m for Olivera, whilst bringing in a younger, better striker for £165k to replace him, that would be rather handy. I feel Custodio Damião Mosehlenyane will turn into a very good player for us, and although he will certainly move on, I hope we can get a few million £ for him.

I'm hoping to bring in some more quality, to hopefully try to finish inside the top half of the table next season. Let's see how it goes!

CityAndColour · November 13, 2016

This is brilliant - love to see a small club employing a gung-ho style.

TheGreat10ne1 · November 13, 2016

1 hour ago, CityAndColour said:

This is brilliant - love to see a small club employing a gung-ho style.

Thanks man!

I initially wanted to start off with a very defensive formation, but decided to go attacking when my early tactics didn't work, and the gung-ho style worked! The fans are more than entertained; more goals in our matches than anywhere else in Portugal1

TheGreat10ne1 · November 22, 2016

Ok, so it's been just over a week since my last update; there's a reason for that, which I'll explain in a bit.

So, my sixth season into the game, and Vizela's second season in the Premier League, after finishing a comfortable 13th, 15 points clear of the relegation zone in our first season in the top Portuguese division. My target for the season is to again survive in the league, trying to finish higher than 13th, if possible, for the sake of progress.

The club are still struggling a bit with the finances, starting the summer with around £4 million in debt. Despite this, the board did manage to help me out with £400k transfer funds for me to try and improve the squad.

Before the end of the previous season, I tied up 3 bosman signings, a goalkeeper and two wingers, all who would improve my first XI. I also tied up a £200k deal (not all up-front) for a 19 year-old South African striker, who has amazing striker attributes for our our level. I went on to make three £40k-£86k signings for my first team squad, as well as smashing our club's transfer record at £375k (not all up-front) for a Sporting B defensive midfielder Pedro Ferreira. Once I signed all my required first team players, I added a few youngsters for my U19s.

I had a bit of a clear-out of fringe players, trying to get the best price for all of them, whilst replacing them with slightly cheaper, but better versions. As I mentioned in the last post, I started getting offers for Ezequiel Olivera, one of my star strikers; I had already replaced him, but wanted to try and get as much money as possible for him. I wanted to hold out for £2.5m, but the board force-accepted a £1.6m bid. Overall, I ended up massively improving my squad, upgrading a lot of first team players, whilst making a bit of money through sales. I only get 10% of transfer sales towards my own budget, but the club were very close to breaking even before the summer, with both players sales and league/TV money coming in.

In my five seasons with Vizela so far, I've had two good starts, with three atrocious starts. Now into the sixth season, it's four atrocious starts.

Our tactical familiarity for all formations are at a high level, so it's already close to max by the time the season starts. I brought in a few players, whilst selling a few, so I did expect some time for the new signings to bed in, but seeing as they were an improvement of players I had last season, I thought it wouldn't be too bad. I was wrong:

The other four defeats, whilst not completely dismal by scoreline, all actually flattered us, as our performances were so bad. The draw we got, against an average side, with their player sent off in the 4th minute, and even then we had to scrape an 88th minute equaliser, which was also totally undeserved. None of my strikers were scoring, and then they all got injured at the same time. Despite getting my finances close to £0 in the summer, we were already back down £1m in the red, we were bottom of the league, and injuries galore.

After spending solid time with this save for about 10 days, I was a bit demoralised at how the season started, and so decided to take a break from this save and start a Create-a-Club save with Real Madrid's budget, just so I could enjoy winning games for a bit. However, after about a week, I started to miss Vizela, so decided to return to the save to try and turn things around and get things going again, as I had been enjoying this save quite a lot until this season.

In my first game back after the break, I managed to get an away draw to a mid-table team, meaning I now had two points from my first seven games. The two cup competitions started to kick in, but instead of resting my players for these games, I decided to play my full strength teams. For the first couple cup games, there were 7 days until the next league game, so no need to rest players. The main motivation was to get my team's morale up by playing weaker opposition and winning games. We only played one lower-league team, but we did win our cup games, and the morale from the cup games actually helped our league form dramatically.

After drawing two and losing five of our opening seven league games before the first cup game, since the first cup game, we've won six, drawn one, and lost just three of our next ten league games. We got quite far in both cups, but did get knocked out of one, and am currently in the semi finals of the other. Of the three league games we lost after the cup games started, all were to the big three (Sporting, Porto & Benfica), and all were absolute annihilations.

The more recent form, leading up to and following Christmas, has been nothing short of extraordinary, and has taken us from bottom of the table after seven games, to the top half of the table after seventeen games.

So, having started off the season hoping for a 10th-13th place finish, that quickly changed to "survive at any cost!" after six/seven games. However, now that we're sat in the top half of the table, should I re-assess my targets? There is a little bit of a gap to get to the group of teams ahead of me, whereas a lot of teams are right on my shoulder behind me. Since starting this save with Vizela, we're known to also not do brilliantly in the second half of seasons, so I'll keep my targets as they are, though a top half finish is realistic.

Our finances are still crippling; we're currently at almost £5m in the red. However, as I'm writing this during the January transfer window, Bayern Munich have come in with a £3.4m + fees for a CB in my U19s, who the academy produced, but has not yet had a single game for us after three seasons. He is someone that was imminent to getting into my team, and had planned on using him as a starter for next season. However, as we need the finances I've decided to accept (initial bid was much lower, but we negotiated it up to that amount). It will be a shame, as he was from the actual Vizela academy, but we need to sell sometimes, which is what we're doing here.

TheGreat10ne1 · November 22, 2016

Also, for those wondering about my tactics, I use one primary formation, a 4-2-4 DM, which I've used most games since halfway through my first season. For those who've checked, we generally are both amongst the division's top scorers as well conceding, making us the league's entertainers in every season so far.

They haven't changed much since I posted them in the first post, but here is my 4-2-4 DM below:

TheGreat10ne1 · November 23, 2016

End of the sixth season of this save, and have just completed Vizela's second season in the Portuguese Premier Division!

So, despite a shocking first six games to the season (see previous post), we found ourselves sitting in the top half of the table at the mid-way point of the season (17 games). We had also been on two decent cup runs, reaching the semi finals of one. Needless to say, things were looking up.

So, just after my last post, I did get a few batterings, including a heavy exit in the semis, losing 1-5 to Benfica. However, we had a very good run in February, meaning we were in 7th place by mid-March, and about 10 points clear of 10th, meaning a top half finish this season was very much on the cards.

At this point, with nine games to go, I gave myself a target of getting a minimum of nine points to be sure to finish in the top half of the table. As it transpired, the final nine games were very difficult, and we started losing again. It went right down to the last day, but luckily we were playing the bottom team at home, whereas the team in 10th were playing against a top three side, and despite falling short of the target, only getting eight points from our last nine games, we still finished in 8th position, five points clear of tenth, sitting pretty in the top half of the table.

In terms of comparing to last season:

Position: +5

Points: +7

Goals scored: +7

Goals conceded: +2

Goal difference: +5

The only thing we didn't quite improve on was in conceding goals, shipping two more than last season. Overall, considering how the start of the season went, worrying that second-season syndrome might hit us, I am delighted that we actually improved quite significantly. I needed a break from this save, took one for about a week, and turned things around to complete the greatest season in Vizela's footballing history to-date!

Now to give some credit to the players for how they've performed this season! First, take a look at the squad overview (ordered by value) and squad statistics for the season (ordered by average rating):

Luiz Magno - For the second season running, my current vice captain (at the young age of 21/22) won fans' player of the year, though was only joint-top goalscorer this season, compared with outright top goalscorer at Vizela last season. In total, he has scored 40 goals in 54 Premier League games for Vizela since we got promoted. It's crazy to think he was my 4th choice striker back at the start of our first season in the Premier League. He is absolute fire.

Azarías Molina - Having last season sold Ezequiel Olivera, I replaced him a teenage South African star, who I assumed would be the one to get me most of my goals this season. However, I also brought in Molina on a free transfer as my 3rd choice striker. He did start off very slowly; I remember he was almost on 10 games before he scored a single goal. However, injuries to our main strikers gave Molina a run in the team, and suddenly he couldn't stop scoring. In the end, he finished as my joint-top goalscorer.

Custodio Damião Mosehlenyane - My star signing of last summer (£205k signing). I brought him in to specifically replace Olivera when he left. I really looked forward to using him, but he started my first six games, and didn't get any goals or assists. He then kept getting injured, and by the time he was properly fit, Magno and Molina were already on fire and I couldn't drop them. To be fair, he did improve his performances, and if it weren't for the form of the other strikers, he would have played more and gotten more goals, but still had a great effect from the bench when called upon. Not sure if I'll be starting with him or Molina next season.

Pedro Ferreira - Even though he wasn't my star signing of the summer, Ferreira was definitely the most expensive transfer for Vizela of all time, costing us £375k. I didn't really need a midfielder when I brought him in, but I just made a big sale, and was looking to step up the quality of my team in any position, as I didn't have any major weaknesses, and this guy seemed like a very good prospect at improving the overall quality of my team. Like everybody else he started off poorly, but did improve as the season went on. I look forward to having him in my team for a while, if not sell him on for big money.

Leandro Tipote - Signed him on a Bosman from Sporting B as a back-up winger. He benefited from injuries to other players, meaning he played most of my games, but started off REALLY bad, and then got REALLY good. In total he got 9 goals and 10 assists from 29 games, and pretty much all those goals/assists were in the second half of the season.

So, where now? After we got relegated in our first season from the Second Division to the Championship, we have improved and progressed every single season since. I guess we really did need to take a step back to go three steps forward, and we keep on moving. Our financial state is still not great, so I might have to sell one or two major stars for some income. I already have a few decent bosman signings lined up, mainly to try and improve on my very leaky defence. I don't know the budget yet, but hopefully I can bring in at least one player to massively improve the quality of my team.

My target next season is to repeat the same as this - finish top half of the table! Ideally also get at least 45 points or more. If I'm lucky, maybe even a push for the Europa League? The problem is that I can't seem to ever get close to beating Porto/Sporting/Benfica, and I always have a terrible start, so unless I improve on those two things, my overall scope for improvement might be rather minimal.

Wish me luck!

TheGreat10ne1 · November 28, 2016

So I've just gone through an entire season, my seventh, so no half-season update this time.

So, finances were still bad in the summer, so not too many funds were available. I did bring in three key players on bosmans, two centre backs and a goalkeeper, who would all feature as first team regulars. I also brought in a few youngsters for my U19s squad. A couple of long-serving back-up players were let go at the end of their contracts, including Bahia and Zé Turbo, due to their high wages, and diminishing quality against my ever-improving squad. I sold one youngster for £240k, but no other major out-goings.

just like our summer transfer window, the season as a whole for us was rather unspectacular. Whilst We didn't have the usual disastrous start as We often do, it got mus to mid-table fairly quickly, and our consistently inconsistent results throughout most of the season kept mus in mid-table for the entire season. Our defence did improve a lot, but another injury crisis to our strikers really hurt our goal-scoring capabilities, often either playing kids or converted wingers up front.

We neither had a good nor bad patch of form until six games to go, where we had practically sealed a top-half finish again, and had a good chance to get top six; improving in both position and points total on last season seemed an inevitability. However, we only picked up one point from our last six games. We still finished in the top half, but one position and one point worse off than last year.

My inconsistent form was predominantly due to my players' in and out of the team constantly due to injury, with my star striker of the past two seasons, Luiz Magno, out for most of the season. Due to this, as you will see from the squad lists below, none of my players really excelled this season.

Squad Overview, ordered by value:

Squad Statistics, ordered by average rating:

Leandro Tipote - There were no outstanding performers of the season, but Tipote comes closest, who was performing really well until a few bad performances at the end of the season dragged his average rating well down, Still, he managed to win our club's fans player of the season, and he also made it into the Premier League Team of the Season. He's good, but not indispensable, so with a lot of clubs currently interested, I will probably cash in on him.

Custodio Damião Mosehlenyane - Supposedly my star striker and best player, but didn't live up to the hype in his first season, though admittedly did struggle with injuries, and was behind two other performing strikers. This season, he was less injured than the other strikers, and at times looked really good, like the player I hoped I had signed. However, every time he had a good few games, he'd get a small injury, and it disrupted his rhythm. He did ok, but I do hope to see more from him.

Pedro Ferreira - Made him our club captain this season. He did ok; like the rest of the team he was decent, but nothing special. Still hoping he does get better though.

TheGreat10ne1 · February 1, 2017

After a break from my Vizela save, instead messing around with the Create-a-Club and Fantasy Draft modes for a bit, I decided to return to my beloved Vizela save, though played a few seasons without any updates on here as I just wanted to enjoy the game and continue building Vizela into a European powerhouse.

I have now completed my 10th Season, narrowly missing out on the Europa League on the last day of the season. Instead of going into too much detail, I'll screenshot the final League Table for each of the ten seasons I've been manager of Vizela, to show the progress of the club.