[FM18] AFC, A Chainsaw Massacre (2019-2036) // Basque Bonanza (2037-2040)

[Deisler26]

600! Woo!

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Squad & Friendlies

Some more AFC additions. I also picked Justin Juan over Sam Vos.

As I've done the last few tournaments here are the (planned) first XI:

Pretty decent.

This AFC wonderkid became a first-choice starter for me last season and has developed very well, he's now also the best DR which is excellent since the great defenders I've been using since pretty much I took over the Dutch national team in 2027 are now all in their thirties (or retired).

GK & Defenders:

No replacing this guy though.

Or him.

My left-back is another AFC player, he is similar to the other DL but I obviously have a preference for AFC players.

Midfielders:

Best player at AFC, and one of the best at the Dutch team as well. 

The even better Van Dijk. 25 years old and 94 caps, before the tournament. Not too bad.

I don't see me changing up the 2 MC's very soon!

This guy is super talented though. I plan on using him as an AMC even though he's not perfect for the role, it would just be a shame to bench him.

Wingers & Striker:

Pretty good, I have a young AFC kid (Stijn de Wijs, 18 years old) as a back-up.

I do actually have an AFC kid as AML, so the left side of the pitch will be completely AFC.

And the striker...

Overall a pretty good side, with more and more AFC players who are pretty much all only just getting in their prime or not even there.

I just accept friendly proposals from other countries so this one came up, not the one I would've picked myself probably but a good win against a tough nation. They're not 2017's France anymore (no Mbappe!) but still, it's France.

Another decent win against a decent side followed that and we're going into the tournament with some decent form and morale I would say.

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Groups

Fantastic start to the tournament with a 5-0 demolishment of Sweden.

Disappointing to be kept to a draw by Romania though, we really should've won. Also the Ref was bribed.

Decent enough win over Iceland although we should've scored more. 

Very safely qualified as first in the group, elsewhere not much surprises here perhaps except France qualifying as third from their group and Ukraine doing well for themselves.

The nations that made it to the second round here are as you would expect as well I guess, although it is remarkable to see Cyprus at the tournament at all. That's because of the nations league path though, we might very well see some weird nations IRL at the Euro's because of that.

And up next....

Germany! We really play Belgium or Germany very often in the last tournaments. We usually win so not too mad at that.

 

 

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Second Round

Not super convincing and tense for a while but a deserved win over Germany.

Hosts Portugal are out, as are France.

Up next, England... I also feel like we play them at every tournament. Like the final four years ago!

 

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Quarter Final

Great victory, although 3-0 is a bit much. 

Surprised to play Ukraine in the semi's and normally you would say a Dutch-Italian final would make the most sense. But Ukraine and Serbia have made it to here, so you never know.

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Semi Final

Well, another 3-0 and this time we were really dominant so definitely deserved this.

Italy beat Serbia so indeed it will be an Dutch-Italian final. It could be the third international trophy in 3 years... (after the Confed and World Cup)

Really remarkable record this, he's only 24 years old! The 8 or 9 goals he scored against Liechtenstein a while ago certainly helped.

[MarcxD]

Euro 2036 - Final

Wow, shocked that we didn't win during the match itself and then the penalties.. Italians missing 3 out of 4 seems unlikely (as is Meijers missing) but we won! 

Another trophy  Only the Nations League missing now for all the major international trophies.

Dutch dominance in the Dream Team of the tournament, bit weird that Meijers isn't even a sub as topscorer but oh well... also no Ukrainians who got to the semi's but a lot of Swiss players. These things are always weird to me in FM.

[MarcxD]

AFC Watch, Summer 2036

I plan on updating on how AFC is doing a couple of times per season, looking at the transfers and competition progress.

Obviously the club had a lot of money in the bank and perhaps too many players for my replacement so I had expected quite a busy transfer window, and it indeed it was.

First let's take a look at the outgoings.

Using the affiliates I set up to loan out quite a few players, but then we got to the sales. Oh dear. Selling Karaoglan to Man Utd, okay, but for 27.5M?!?! What are you doing? 

Another big sale in Van der Steen to Barcelona and a lot of the subs/rotation players I used have been sold for well... not great sums. 105M in total... Can't say I'm impressed with this so far.

Incoming then:

Just the 159M... and most transfers have sizeable future fees as well. Huge squad replacement here with quite a few South Americans, which was to be expected when you hire a Brazilian manager I guess!

So far it hasn't quite worked out.. although the new players need time to get some chemistry together I guess.

Hopefully some better news next time. 

[Fola]

Absolutely fantastic read mate. What a great achievement.

What tactic have you been using? Have you used the same tactic all along and fitted the players to it or tinkered about here and there?

[MarcxD]

10 minutes ago, Fola said:

Absolutely fantastic read mate. What a great achievement.

What tactic have you been using? Have you used the same tactic all along and fitted the players to it or tinkered about here and there?

Thank you, appreciate it.

I have mostly used three tactics. I started off with a possession-based 4-1-2-3, in the first seasons I mostly used it in a counter mentality and later on in control (perhaps with other slight changes but I honestly don't remember) - I was very succesful last year with a similar tactic in my FC Andorra save.

After I sold Van Dijk and started using Torres, I changed the tactic slightly, removed the DM and got in an AMC. I also really only used control/attacking mentality now.

A few seasons ago I changed the tactic again, the same positions but I wanted to be more direct and it worked, we started scoring way more goals.

 

I only used a few player instructions.

So nothing too special, just a lot of talent, great dynamics (since all the players play together for years on end) and a bit of luck (getting good talents and Ajax for instance dropping off, removing a big rival) is the "secret" I guess.

[MarcxD]

Rest of 2036 

These offers came after the Euro's, I rejected them. At some point I might think about taking a different international job but not before the next world cup.

All pleasing performances, really! 

Will have another shot at the nations league next summer then.

Same issue as last confed cup with an African nation being there without any reason really, but that does mean with New Zealand as well that the group couldn't have been easier.

I have loaded the Spanish league and will add the PL and Bundesliga for next year, and there have been club offers...

One of these was very appealing and they allowed me not to take over immediately so I accepted! Not too long without a club then, and no longer a one club save. I'm impulsive...

 

[ManUtd1]

Everyone I see the news reports with X, I think back to this...

[MarcxD]

20 minutes ago, ManUtd1 said:

Everyone I see the news reports with X, I think back to this...

[BoxToBox]

28 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

 

One of these was very appealing and they allowed me not to take over immediately so I accepted! Not too long without a club then, and no longer a one club save. I'm impulsive...

[Rikulec]

We all know where you're going.

[MarcxD]

1 minute ago, Rikulec said:

We all know where you're going.

Do you? 

...

You probably do 

 

[BoxToBox]

Spain, clearly.

[MarcxD]

6 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Spain, clearly.

Quite right. Basque country, to be more specific.

[old-school-styla]

Can‘t wait. This is the best read ever. Thanks marcx. 

[noikeee]

Think you're about to manage a team that rhymes with Carabao. Bit weird to see you take over anyone other than AFC though! 

Congrats on the Euros title.

[MarcxD]

15 hours ago, old-school-styla said:

Can‘t wait. This is the best read ever. Thanks marcx. 

Thank you ... and you're welcome

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

Think you're about to manage a team that rhymes with Carabao. Bit weird to see you take over anyone other than AFC though! 

Congrats on the Euros title.

Perhaps..... I know, It wasn't really in the plans but oh well.

Thank you.

Just a little note,

I will be getting a new computer soon so probably not much updating before that and when it arrives I will likely play some other games as well. But I will certainly go on with this, also quite curious to see how much faster the game will be

[SmileFaceGamer]

On 10/01/2018 at 17:18, MarcxD said:

Rest of 2036 

These offers came after the Euro's, I rejected them. At some point I might think about taking a different international job but not before the next world cup.

All pleasing performances, really! 

Will have another shot at the nations league next summer then.

Same issue as last confed cup with an African nation being there without any reason really, but that does mean with New Zealand as well that the group couldn't have been easier.

I have loaded the Spanish league and will add the PL and Bundesliga for next year, and there have been club offers...

One of these was very appealing and they allowed me not to take over immediately so I accepted! Not too long without a club then, and no longer a one club save. I'm impulsive...

 

Take the job at Bilbao, you’ve proven good at youth dev all ready so might be a nice challange to topple Barca and Madrid

[SmileFaceGamer]

6 hours ago, noikeee said:

Think you're about to manage a team that rhymes with Carabao. Bit weird to see you take over anyone other than AFC though! 

Congrats on the Euros title.

ATHLETIC BILBAO, CARABAO

ATHLETIC BILBAO, CARABAO

The new chant is made

[Sheriff7]

Amazing save mate gongrats!!So only World cup left for you and next i want from you to take control of a smaller nation,Curacao could be great for you because they have many players who grow and play football in Netherlands..

[noikeee]

14 minutes ago, Sheriff7 said:

Amazing save mate gongrats!!So only World cup left for you and next i want from you to take control of a smaller nation,Curacao could be great for you because they have many players who grow and play football in Netherlands..

Curacao also fits with Bilbao so that's a great idea.

[MarcxD]

19 hours ago, Sheriff7 said:

Amazing save mate gongrats!!So only World cup left for you and next i want from you to take control of a smaller nation,Curacao could be great for you because they have many players who grow and play football in Netherlands..

That's actually a surprisingly good idea! Perhaps, no promises though

[MarcxD]

March 2037

Not too bad a way to start off the world cup qualifiers.

 

[MarcxD]

April 2037

I thought I had agreed with my new club that I was going to start after the Confederations Cup, I guess a case of lost in translation. Those pesky Basques.

Okay, okay, you guys guessed right...

Obviously in a youth-focused save an Athletic challenge is always fantastic, besides La Liga is my favorite league in the world so it really was impossible for me to say no.

6th to start out with, most important is just getting European football and finishing ahead of our Basque rivals Real Sociedad San Sebastian.

This should do!

6th place in the pocket, more seems to be unlikely.

Not a bad start!

[Rikulec]

Good luck at the new club!

[MarcxD]

33 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Good luck at the new club!

Cheers!

[MarcxD]

May 2037

It's almost going too well, first 8 games in charge 8 wins and most are very comfortable wins at that!

Even managed to qualify for the Champions League in the end! Sevilla's poor end of the season meant the end of their manager.

My first ever manager of the month award since that wasn't awarded in the Netherlands.

 

[MarcxD]

AFC Watch - Season 2036-2037

After a lacklustre start the team started to play better with all the new players the new manager had brought in.

First the bad news though, after two successive CL finals under me the new manager didn't even manage to qualify for the KO-rounds. Very hard group though, but still.

In January there were some more outgoings and another relatively big buy.

AFC fared much better in the EL, only just losing out in the semi's to later winners Juventus.

They also won the league, pretty comfortably actually.

From the youth intake they also had another really remarkable striker coming through. Yet again! I have marked him in a different style, I will do this with various AFC players if they are noticeable enough. He was the only one from this first year.

I forgot that you don't just get the scouting reports in your inbox anymore so after I asked for reports on the new AFC players I almost forgot about it....

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2036-2037

Of course I only managed the team in April & May, but there are some noteworthy screenshots I want to show.

Remarkably two of my players did very well in the topscorer awards, the one only with Spanish players was won.

This is the squad, obviously all Spanish-Basque, quite a few players are pretty old actually. Will look what's there to find in the reserve & youth teams this summer, I want to keep this youth only so no buys even if there were Basque players available.

During the transfer summer though there's still a Confederations Cup to be played.

[BoxToBox]

4 hours ago, MarcxD said:

April 2037

I thought I had agreed with my new club that I was going to start after the Confederations Cup, I guess a case of lost in translation. Those pesky Basques.

Okay, okay, you guys guessed right...

Obviously in a youth-focused save an Athletic challenge is always fantastic, besides La Liga is my favorite league in the world so it really was impossible for me to say no.

[kidthekid]

What an amazing start. Possibly the best start I have ever witnessed.

[MarcxD]

2 hours ago, kidthekid said:

What an amazing start. Possibly the best start I have ever witnessed.

Thank you, it was really remarkable.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I only just made the league playable, the squads might not be very good but mine shouldn't be either I guess.

 

[MarcxD]

Nations League, Friendly & Confed Cup squad

For the first time ever, I think, we have made the final of the Nations League, after a repeat of the Euro final.. this time we didn't need penalties!

We did in the final though, where for most of the game we were without our best player van Dijk.

Nations League in the bag as well, that means all international trophies won by the senior side of the Netherlands now.

 

Not the most convincing of wins in the only friendly scheduled between the Nations League and the Confederations cup, but it'll do.

Not a lot of new faces, so I have spared myself the trouble of screenshotting them 

[MarcxD]

Confederations Cup Group

Dominated Benin as you would have suspected, a bigger score would've been nice though.

Actually did not do that bad, but a decent Mexico side kept us to a draw.

Another easy win to finish off the group, and we safely go through. Of course that was always going to happen, but still feels good when it does.

Actually Mexico had larger win margins than we did, so they play the USA in a contentious semi-final, and we face Spain, my new base nation. Although I have the idea that not all Basques might be all that mad with me if I do beat Spain.

 

[Dexter_Morgan]

You did superbly with the Netherlands but kind of glad you're back in club football as Bilbao is a good challenge  

[MarcxD]

7 minutes ago, Dexter_Morgan said:

You did superbly with the Netherlands but kind of glad you're back in club football as Bilbao is a good challenge  

Cheers, I agree with you! 

[MarcxD]

Confed Cup 2037 Semi-Final

And through to the final after a crazy extra time hattrick by Stijn de Wijs! I definitely did not see this coming after going 2-0 down.

We'll play Mexico again.

[MarcxD]

Confederations Cup 2037 Final

Great start to the final, Martinez who became eligible after playing for Vitesse for many years delivered and they were never able to get back into it.

(This actually happened after the nations league win so the second Confed Cup is missing). Finally got into the top 20 worldwide hall of fame. Some interesting stuff here, like Peter Bosz in 6th, my former rival Herrera being higher up than me and my replacement at AFC, Carille, in 20th.

The top 5 might actually be even more remarkable, with Ferguson being in fourth. Guardiola had success at Man City, joined Atletico and dominated in Spain, joined PSG and won everything in France for six years, returned to Man City and has now joined Sevilla when that job opened up. Simeone has been at Man City for most of the non-Pep years, excluding a few with Jardim. The newest Man City manager is Conte. Simeone rejoined Atletico some years ago but has now joined Arsenal. His replacement at Atletico is actually Carille, so AFC had to search for a new manager again, they went for Said Boutahar, who had been Feyenoord's manager for 10 years. 

This manager carousel has been bigger this summer since I loaded a few more leagues.

[adamdfry]

We could potentially see an Andorran-Spanish-Basque regen come through at Bilbao! Keep up the good work!

[MarcxD]

22 hours ago, adamdfry said:

We could potentially see an Andorran-Spanish-Basque regen come through at Bilbao! Keep up the good work!

That would be magnificent. Thanks!

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2037-2038 

My first pre-season with Athletic Bilbao and I have obviously stuck with the youth only approach. I have taken a look at the B,C teams and the u19 teams, and there are actually a decent amount of talents although perhaps no world beaters yet. Financially we're pretty stable, definitely helped by the much bigger tv money in Spain (70M or so).

As far as clubs taking an interest in my players, it wasn't that bad. Some offers from Jiangsu, but none that were fantastic enough for me to agree to them.

Expected to qualify for EL, so top 6 or 7 or so. I want to qualify for the CL again obviously. I think the top 3 will be a bit hard to compete against, and Sevilla who are a CL winner in their own right in this career will probably not be pushovers either. Let's see what Pep can do with them.

The 4.2M sale to PSG was agreed before I took charge, so under my watch very little happened. Really the only thing I did was shifting players between the 4 available Bilbao teams.

Three testimonials, because why not I guess. Very decent results, especially against Juventus and Monaco. 

We are expected to finish 5th, which is fair enough really. I think our odds of 7 are actually kind to us.

 

 

 

[MarcxD]

AFC Watch - Summer 2037

I was interested to see what Said Boutahar would do, since he inherited a squad built a little by me and mostly by my successor. Would he start buying a new team as well?

He didn't buy a gigantic number of players but did spend 80M, quite a lot imo. Certainly paying 32M, up to 44, is kinda hilarious to see at AFC.

There were two more 30M+ sales, although one was a player that was only bought six months ago for 20M. Rightback van der Horst will accompany me in La Liga, he will play for Frank de Boer who has been manager of Real Madrid for many years now.

[MarcxD]

August & September 2037

Not too bad, although I was disappointed with the start. A loss to Valencia meant I lost my 100% record in La Liga, and we were poor. The same applies to the next two games, matches we really should've won way more comfortably. Got into more of a run after that though, and only lost points one more time. In another match we should win but away games in La Liga are mostly hard so I'm not too upset at that. Two wins in the CL as well.

In fifth, with the same record as Sevilla and Valencia, while Atletico has already lost twice. Only De Boer's Real Madrid still perfect.

There were also some international games:

Two good qualifier wins with some nice goalscoring performances from Meijers.

 

[andychar]

Looking forward to the first time you come up against AFC. It will be emotional!

[MarcxD]

2 hours ago, andychar said:

Looking forward to the first time you come up against AFC. It will be emotional!

In the final, hopefully!

[MarcxD]

October 2037

First let's get to the injury wave happening right now, with a lot of 4 month-ish injuries (the Lopez and Casado injuries were of that length as well)

So far it hasn't actually lead to bad results, another good month although we lost to Pep's Sevilla. We did manage to beat both Atletico Madrid and Barcelona though!!

A fantastic third place for now.

Two more decent enough qualifying wins including another Meijers hattrick (and yet another van Dijk red card...)