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

[MarcxD]

November 2037

Beat Arsenal but lost to Benfica in the Champions League. Add three convincing wins in the league though, and it was a very good month.

Still in third, with a bigger lead on Barca now and on equal points with Sevilla. Real Madrid only conceded 3 goals so far, so this might just be their season....

Finished the world cup qualifiers with 2 more good wins and a perfect record in the end. 

The good news is flowing since the Athletic board approved two facilities upgrades. 

[MarcxD]

December 2037

The draws were a bit disappointing but otherwise another good month with the 4-3 rivalry win against Sociedad/San Sebastian being the most entertaining perhaps. 

Through in the Cup, next up is Real Madrid...

In second now, with Pep's Sevilla losing three times in a row. Barcelona down in sixth...

Which lead to this. I am now linked with the job. Also interesting to see my AFC ass man van Aalst being made caretaker manager, I honestly didn't even know he ended up at Barcelona.

Interesting!

Since Arsenal beat Benfica in the last game of the groups they made it to the knock-out rounds.

We have been given a hard draw against Manchester United. Elsewhere it is great to see that all 4 Dutch clubs qualified for the knockout rounds.

The draw for the World Cup next year has also taken place this month.

Cameroon, Serbia and Australia then. Would be embarrassing if I won't finish first in that group.

[MarcxD]

January 2038

Playing Real Madrid thrice in 11 days, and we lost twice. Did manage to beat them in the league though! Disappointing to lose to Valencia for the second time this season but some good wins elsewhere.

Only 5 points separate us from Madrid since they lost two more games after losing their first league game of the season to us! 

I sold one player this month. While García was a first team player, he was an aging midfielder in his thirties and it was a decent amount of money for a player of his age. There are quite a few young midfielders at the club anyway.

Going back to the Barca job rumours, I didn't get offered it, and I didn't apply either.

They went for the PSG manager, 70 year old Allegri.

PSG went for the Man City manager, Conte...

Which lead me to being linked with that job.

But to make the manager carousel going full circle, Barcelona's sacked manager Jardim ended up being the new Man City manager...

[Timetxu]

I always get this song in my head when I see manager transfers like those.

[MarcxD]

February 2038

A good month and a crazy game against Man Utd in the CL, it's not looking likely that we'll progress but another goalscoring game at home and you never know. 

Only 1 point from the top!!! 

Only the first manager of the month win this season.

[MarcxD]

March 2038 + Youth Intake

Wow, we did it against Manchester United, what a second half. Fantastic win against Barcelona followed that. It was disappointing to lose to Sevilla, but it's still going really well.

Still only 1 point from the top, 8 games remaining. 

PSG next... oh dear. 3 Dutch clubs still in the QF's and at least one in the SF's. 

Second Manager of the month award in a row.

Not really great, certainly not compared to what I was used to at AFC. Not really sure why either, perhaps just bad luck. There are some players to follow though, and of course you just never know if one of those players could just be severely underrated.

The highest rated of the bunch, and I mostly really like him, although there are some lacking attributes like his dribbling, off the ball, vision. 

This is the only other player with 1* CA, and he looks awesome! But very limited room to grow according to the coaches, hopefully he will prove them very wrong.

[MarcxD]

4 hours ago, MarcxD said:

In the final, hopefully!

 

I was nearly right...

 

[MarcxD]

Playing Real Madrid on the second to last matchday!!!

[MarcxD]

April 2038

Great stuff again, especially a fantastic performance at home to PSG, and we won the first ever match against AFC under my watch in Amsterdam, so it seems this is not going to be a difficult semi-final tie although I would've actually liked AFC to put up more of a fight! The loss against (Celta de) Vigo was disappointing in the title race though.

Real Madrid back on top again, that pesky 1 point the difference... one more month!

[MarcxD]

Of course, Manchester City again the opponent in the final, just like the last two CL finals with AFC. They beat PSV 7-0 over two legs (6-0 at home) so this is not going to be easy. It shouldn't be!

[MarcxD]

May 2038

Did a fantastic job in the league and we were clearly the better side against Boutahar's AFC!

Real Madrid lost the first two games of the month, and really it was for us to grab the title. Their last chance was the game against us but it was never really going to happen with our last game being at home to Espanyol.

Finally managed a 100 goal season but of course the 4 extra matches in La Liga helped.

Absolutely ridiculous winning the La Liga title in the first full season at Bilbao.

Didn't get to do the full victory lap though, since once again Man City beat me in a CL final! 

Played 4 CL finals now, lost 3. Not the best record.

Fantastic season nonetheless!

[Sheriff7]

Amazing things mate..Bravo!!

[kidthekid]

Bravo Bravo

[MarcxD]

11 hours ago, Sheriff7 said:

Amazing things mate..Bravo!!

 

3 hours ago, kidthekid said:

Bravo Bravo

Thanks guys! 

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2037-2038

At the start of the season we were doing well but I was only aiming for a CL spot, which seemed daunting enough against the 4 five star reputation clubs there were: Real Madrid, Atlético, Barcelona and Sevilla. Only Real Madrid seemed up to the task though, for a long time. About halfway the season we delivered their first loss, but after that they dropped more and more points and we kept on being stable. Much more stable and much more goals than I thought was possible before the season. An unexpected title followed... and a great run in the Champions League as well, beating AFC in the semi-finals.

He had to play most of the games in 2037 since the main AML, Casado, got injured for a long time. He did very well, and had a good development, so he kept getting game time in 2038.

He also got a third place in the player of the year award, which was dominated by my players.

I didn't have a goalscoring monster for once, with multiple players scoring quite a few goals. Goñi still got second in the Spanish goalscorer of the year though.

I won the manager of the year award! Funny to see Kean as a manager as well.

My players really dominated the team of the year, which is interesting. I would've perhaps expected some more Real Madrid players but only 4 in total (including the bench) against 9 of Bilbao.

The team of the year and squad for the full picture, I've used a small squad (about 2 per position, kept the players behind that in the B team) but rotated a bit more than I did in my time at AFC to keep everyone fit and give the youngsters time to develop.

Talking about the B-team, they had quite a good season themselves!

For most of the season it seemed like they would go unbeaten but still a 100+ points season and champions in their Segunda B division. The b teams absolutely dominated and most of the Segunda B play-off teams were B-teams. You can see that Sociedad got themselves promoted to the second tier, but sadly my B-team couldn't get through the play-offs so another season for them in the Segunda B. A little higher level would be good for the development I guess, so perhaps better luck next time.

[MarcxD]

AFC watch, 2037-2038

A disappointing season for AFC, because Boutahar did not manage to lead them to another title for the first time in 10 years or so I think. Feyenoord won it in the end since AFC screwed up in the final games.

There were a few talents in their youth intake to watch out for, but I forgot take screenshots..

I also noticed this, which I found interesting:

 

The first generation of players that came through my AFC intakes is retiring. Of course these players were really poor and if they are still in the game they played for amateur sides.

ARC play in the Eerste Klasse (inactive league, 6th tier).

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2038 Squad + Friendlies

I have decided that this is going to be my last tournament with the Dutch national team, of course I hope that there will be another trophy at the end of it. 

Some new names, some players getting a bit old. Here's the planned first XI:

GK:

Has been first-choice for a while now, pretty decent and is not terrible at the ball (for a GK anyway)

Defenders:

Two backs from the AFC intakes, and the same two central defenders in their thirties that I've used for a while, luckily there's another good central defender on the bench.

The midfielders:

The same MC-pairing as always, both fantastically talented players and could both reach the 200 international matches mark if my successor keeps playing them!

I will use him as an AMC, but he can also fill in at the wings or striker position, since the AMC role I'm using is a shadow striker he can do quite well. 

Front 3:

All from the AFC intakes. Meijers has some very good competition for the striker spot but his incredible record for the national team gives him the spot for now.

I arranged two friendlies against non-European opposition, just for the change of scenery if nothing else

A decent enough win over Nigeria to start out with.

And a fantastic 5-0 win over Iraq (who also play at the World Cup) with a stunning 4 goals from Frank Janssen in his first ever international match.

He isn't far from Meijers' level and what a record... best average goals to international games ever?

 

 

[Dexter_Morgan]

Fantastic work, I didn't expect the league so soon 

[MarcxD]

21 hours ago, Dexter_Morgan said:

Fantastic work, I didn't expect the league so soon 

Thank you. Me neither to be honest!

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2038 - Groups

A decent win to start the World Cup, although two injuries were very disappointing.

20 shots to 1. 0-0. 

Fantastic to reach this milestone, I don't often get this far.

A very good win to finish the group.

First on goal difference in the group. Some remarkable stuff here though: Iraq, Morocco and South Africa proceeding to the Second Round.

More results you would expect here, at least in 2038 because Ukraine has been strong for a while now.

I certainly did not expect to play Iraq again in the Second round, should be an easy win if I go by that friendly! I hope South Africa and Morocco can do well, always cool to see some non-European/South American nations doing well. 

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2038 - Second Round

Another great milestone reached! Hopefully it will be a little more than 150 in the end.

At least one more, as we once again beat Iraq with a goal difference of 5. Bit more exciting this time though!

South Africa beat England on Penalties and Morocco did the same against Spain!! So next we'll be playing South Africa.

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2038 - Quarter Finals

Well, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. 1-1 for most of the match and we weren't great in attack or creating chances. Did manage to win in the end though, so on to the semi finals.

Morocco sadly got defeated by Brazil.

A Netherlands-Germany final is possible, but so is a Brazilian-Argentinian one. Semi-finals against Argentina at a World Cup are kind of traumatic for me after 2014's World Cup, but oh well, perhaps time for revenge. (Then the other semi-final was Brazil-Germany as well, and you might remember how that turned out)

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2038

Nope No revenge, no second consecutive World Cup, no trophy to finish my time at the Dutch national team. We were doing okay, but after the red card they had chance after chance and we just couldn't keep them out.

Brazil won as well, so the South American rivalry match in the final then, and the Dutch-German rivalry match in the match nobody wants to play for third place.

Terrible. We should've been behind much earlier but losing 4-3 when you're 3-1 up with a little more than 20 minutes to play...

Brazil won the World Cup, for full context.

Only 2 players in the dream team including subs bench....

As I said before the tournament, this was always going to be the last one. Too bad it didn't end with the trophy but the period with the Dutch national team has been phenomenal with all possible trophies won at least once.

Faithful Rutjes once again leaving when I resign, luckily he's still with me at Bilbao @Timetxu

 

[Timetxu]

1 hour ago, MarcxD said:

 

Faithful Rutjes once again leaving when I resign, luckily he's still with me at Bilbao @Timetxu

 

Such an awesome guy :D. But only a 7 rating for motivating is true blasphemy! 

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2038

Decent budgets, which would get increased thanks to one sale in particular...

I'm rebuilding the squad with youth players and letting go some of the 30+ year olds, Sánchez is a tremendous GK but 96M is just a fantastic offer for a 30 year old.

He is just among the biggest transfers in this save so far.

Some of that money has gone to good causes. Pretty expensive stadium expansion, I don't think that's even 6K seats extra.

Big wins against poor opposition in the friendlies, but just lost in the Supercopa, on away goals. That's not Pep managing Sevilla by the way, he got sacked at the end of last season.

We're expected to finish 5th again, but our odds increased from 7 to 6. I would like to win the title again but I'm only aiming for top 4, the competition for the title should be harder here than in the Eredivisie over the years, hopefully.

Not the easiest of draws, but hopefully we can progress together with Man Utd (or Napoli)

One more thing, I was wondering who would follow me as manager of the Dutch national team.... 

Memphis!

He's had a rapid rise in his managerial career, 3 short-term jobs in Holland before taking over at Spurs. 

I was actually linked with the Spurs job when he left, but who did they sign?

Of course. 

[MarcxD]

August & September 2038

Wow! Look at those wins in the CL! In the league we did great as well, although we weren't at the best of our form against Barca and Tenerife. Lost in the Bernabeu but that can happen.. 

In first... both Barca and Real Madrid lost twice already.

[MarcxD]

October 2038

Fantastic month, perfect domestically and no goals conceded! I was shocked to lose to Legia though, especially after beating Napoli and Man Utd so convincingly last month.

Obviously still in first but Atlético is keeping up.

I decided to renew my contract, it was ending after this season. I hadn't done it before because it went so easily last year that I thought maybe it would be a good idea to hop around the leagues in Europe and try to get all the major league titles... that is still possible of course but I'm having fun now, looking at the reserve squads and youth players coming up and their development. I did include the 50% compensation clause just so that it will be easy to switch if I want to.

[MarcxD]

November 2038

Not hugely convincing throughout the month but did get the wins. Still though, I was wary to play Atletico, and they deserved the win.

They keep winning so we're now in second place with a 5 point lead on Sevilla.

[BoxToBox]

On 15/01/2018 at 15:09, MarcxD said:

This is the only other player with 1* CA, and he looks awesome! But very limited room to grow according to the coaches, hopefully he will prove them very wrong.

Any update on this boy? I really want him to be good.

Even if he doesn't have massive PA, I have a feeling he'll play "above his level" as it were.

[MarcxD]

9 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Any update on this boy? I really want him to be good.

Even if he doesn't have massive PA, I have a feeling he'll play "above his level" as it were.

He has developed very well so far! 10 games for the C team last year, 10 games for the B team so far this season.

The coaches now think he can be a good player as well.

[MarcxD]

December 2038

A really strange month, tons and tons of goals, both scored and conceded really. Two 5-3 away wins... but got smashed by Man Utd in the last match of the CL group.

That means they just had the better results between the two of us so they finished first in the group.

Next up: Feyenoord! Once again all 4 Dutch teams qualified for the knock-out rounds. I can honestly imagine them all getting beaten though.

Atletico Madrid lost to Sevilla this month, so we got 1 point closer... 

Liverpool needed a new manager and I got approached!

When I realized their chairman is a mad man though, I decided it would be a better idea to stay put in Bilbao. 17th is doing as you're expected???

I won the first manager of the month this season.

This is one of those weird things, honestly every time a player of mine gets the golden boy award I disagree with it!

They've conflated his stats for the B team and the first team, yeah then it looks awesome...

 

 

[BoxToBox]

31 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

He has developed very well so far! 10 games for the C team last year, 10 games for the B team so far this season.

The coaches now think he can be a good player as well.

Solid progress and a much higher potential rating, excellent! Cheers!

[MarcxD]

January 2039

Scored a lot less goals and disappointing to just get knocked out of the cup in the 5th round again and to lose to Barca straight after. 

We got back to first place and a bit of a lead as well since Atletico is dropping points here and there. Barca doing well right now though, perhaps the team to keep an eye out on. There's always at least one in La Liga.

[BillHoudini24]

Oooooh I would really want you to go to Liverpool! Amazing career all around! 

[MarcxD]

2 minutes ago, BillHoudini24 said:

Oooooh I would really want you to go to Liverpool! Amazing career all around! 

Not happening (for now) I'm afraid! 

Getting into the Bilbao/Spanish mood more and more, feel like staying put here for a while.

[MarcxD]

February 2039

Great month, with a win over Real Madrid and beating our rivals. Also a decent home win in the CL, just a bit disappointing to drop some unnecessary points in the last game of the month.

Well, I guess Atletico is the team to watch out for then, since they kept up with us and Barca dropped away again.

Real Madrid is doing so poorly that they fired poor Frank de Boer...

I have not had an offer yet, nor would I take it if I was offered.

Getting the club up to the best they can be...

Got a second manager of the month award this season....

And I got the first milestone at Bilbao.

[Rikulec]

Wow, 100 games already. That really flew by.

[MarcxD]

21 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Wow, 100 games already. That really flew by.

Yeah, I had that feeling too. A bit more games per season now. Let's keep it at that

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake 2039

Seems a lot better than last year, with at least 5 players to keep an eye out on. I also tried adding some foreign affiliations to see if you can even get any foreign youth players in at Bilbao, but I don't think so!

Not seeing it so far, but perhaps he can show he's worth that 5* soon.

This guy looks much better. More of a target man kinda striker with him being 2 meter, jumping reach of 14 and heading 14, which isn't really suited to the way I play, more on the ground stuff. But I think he can adapt.

Another good AMC after Ros from last year! He really looks good but his size, inability to jump and extreme physical weakness is worrying.

Not using DM's, but he should be able to adapt to being a MC. Not bad.

Interesting mentals, but a lot of work to do on his physicals and technicals.

[MarcxD]

March 2039

Fantastic month with some convincing wins, 7-1 being the best so far at Bilbao I think, and a draw to qualify for the quarter-finals in the CL.

Atletico also won their matches, so with 8 games to go all's still to play for. Classic top 3 behind me now, I guess Real Madrid is happy that they fired De Boer! They've not hired a permanent replacement yet.

PSG again, played them last year in the quarter-finals as well. Actually two Dutch teams made it to the QF's, both Amsterdam sides! They could very well do it. Another semi against AFC in the cards?

PSG will be tough enough first.

Edit: won the manager of the month again.

[karremansje]

9 hours ago, MarcxD said:

World Cup 2038

Nope No revenge, no second consecutive World Cup, no trophy to finish my time at the Dutch national team. We were doing okay, but after the red card they had chance after chance and we just couldn't keep them out.

Brazil won as well, so the South American rivalry match in the final then, and the Dutch-German rivalry match in the match nobody wants to play for third place.

Terrible. We should've been behind much earlier but losing 4-3 when you're 3-1 up with a little more than 20 minutes to play...

Brazil won the World Cup, for full context.

Only 2 players in the dream team including subs bench....

As I said before the tournament, this was always going to be the last one. Too bad it didn't end with the trophy but the period with the Dutch national team has been phenomenal with all possible trophies won at least once.

Faithful Rutjes once again leaving when I resign, luckily he's still with me at Bilbao @Timetxu

 

Does he still have the same haircut at the age of 54 ???? LOL

[MarcxD]

14 hours ago, karremansje said:

Does he still have the same haircut at the age of 54 ???? LOL

Honestly I can see that being the case..

[MarcxD]

April 2039

Not the best of months.... had too much trouble with then 20th placed Malaga, but we did keep Atletico to a draw, they could've gotten to 1 point but were still 4 points behind us after that match. A very good win from a rotated side against Granada but PSG was just too strong for us. No CL glory quite yet.. very disappointing to lose a game to finish the month off with...

Also one of the best young talents, AML Ugarte got heavily injured in the second match against PSG....

Atletico dropped more points though, so we have a lead of 5 points with 3 matches remaining. Should be enough, but you never know! It's gonna be tight whether Real Madrid or Sevilla qualify for CL (although Sevilla are in the EL semi-finals so they could also qualify that way)

 

[MarcxD]

May 2039

Not the best way to finish the season, but it was just enough.

Since Sevilla actually kept Atletico to a draw as well the difference in the end was 3 points. We finished just on 1 point less than last year, and about 20 fewer goals.

Finally entered the top 20 of the European Hall of Fame.

13th in the Worldwide Hall of Fame but it's going to take a while to move much further ahead, look at those points the top 10 has....

[raz4la]

Iker Jauregi, the Basque Jesus Navas!

[Minuy600]

Whoops, i'm 22 seasons late into asking what Tim Riksman's career looks/looked like.

If he has since retired and removed from the game, too bad, but it's always interesting to see someone that has something to do with you in something like this. So i'm wondering if he did anything noteworthy.

[MarcxD]

13 hours ago, Minuy600 said:

Whoops, i'm 22 seasons late into asking what Tim Riksman's career looks/looked like.

If he has since retired and removed from the game, too bad, but it's always interesting to see someone that has something to do with you in something like this. So i'm wondering if he did anything noteworthy.

Can't help you, he's gone from the game now. I can see he's left Groningen on a free transfer in 2020

22 hours ago, raz4la said:

Iker Jauregi, the Basque Jesus Navas!

I hope so?

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2038-2039

We were in front for most of the season, with only Atletico being able to keep up. Couldn't quite do it in the CL against PSG though. 19 Players used you'll see, I've used a small squad again with the players all getting a lot of game time, the players below it played in the B team.

About PSG, they won the CL after they beat Man City in the final. The last 4 CL's have now been won twice by Man City and twice by PSG. Hopefully some change soon...

Almost all players having played over 2000 minutes, good amount of rotation.

Let's get to the awards, there are quite a few in Spain but my players mostly just missed out on them by finishing in second or third place.

At first glance when you look at the shirts I thought almost the entire team was made up of my players, but then I realized that Gijon and Atletico have very similar shirts...

My B-team did very well in their Segunda B Division again:

Actually an unbeaten season! But once again they weren't able to get promoted via the play-offs.

This guy scored 54 goals in the league.... perhaps he has outgrown the Segunda B a little bit... next year I will loan him out together with some of the other players in the B team if they aren't ready for the first team yet, at least Segunda Division or preferably La Liga or a foreign league should be good for them.

Spain did very well and got to the first place in the league rankings/coefficients, could very well revert back next season of course. The Netherlands keeping stable on that third place. 

One final thing, after I got a small stadium expansion approved this season, the board decided to go for another one!

Going towards the full capacity I think, and quite costy but we have about 275M in the bank so no issue there. 

[MarcxD]

AFC Watch, 2038-2039

No huge transfer spending this year, quite a few players were let go but mostly players that were bought in previous seasons. There are still a few good youth players at the club, most importantly perhaps Iñaki Torres, the Andorran.

They got to the same point as we did, the quarter-finals of the CL where they were narrowly defeated by Bayern. Ajax actually made it to the semi-finals where they lost to PSG. Beating Pep's Spurs 4-1 in London, not too bad a result

They won the cup...

...and the league in a very tightly contested title race! 

 

 

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2039

Very big budgets thanks to the 96M sale last season, obviously will not be using them. No huge expectations, still top 4 and no expectations at all in the CL.

Actually the odds decreased after winning our second consecutive title?! Odds of 8 now and predicted to finish sixth... my team has only gotten stronger because of the development of the players so perhaps the other teams have gotten some improvements in.

I didn't do any huge sales, as I said I would loan out the best players from the B team that I didn't think were quite ready for the first team yet, a couple of millions made that way thanks to the loan fees. 

I was not pleased with how we did in a little American pre-season tour, only scoring 1 goal a game and drawing twice, but we did well in the Supercopa and beat Sevilla unlike last year.

The CL group actually seems really kind, although now you have to realize PSV is a very good team in the 3rd best league of Europe. Should still probably really finish as first in this group though.

Odds of 21 to win the CL, which seems not too bad if Man Utd, Atletico and AFC (awesome!) get 19. 

Apart from all of this there were a lot of press items linking me with a variety of manager jobs. I didn't actually get approached for any of them, but I also didn't apply and mostly refused to comment on them. 

Of course I would never take this but I was really shocked they fired Carille. They only finished on 3 points behind me in the league and also made it to the cup final and won the Europa League last season. Harsh.....