[FM18] The Dynamics of telling you to shove your transfer request up y- a journeyman career

[noikeee]

La Liga - round 36 of 38

 

3 rounds to go. Barça and Real play first on the Saturday, whilst we host Málaga on the Sunday.
 

First to play are Real....

Down to 10 men from early on, but still done it. Onto Barça later on the Saturday...

Nope, no mistakes. All the pressure on us as we temporarily drop to 3rd on the league table.

Onto Sunday and our match....



 

Minute 11: GOAL FOR VALENCIA! 1-0! The 2 forwards combine to give us the lead, Marcelo robs the ball from a sleeping defender and gives it to Raúl!

 

Minute 36: GOAL FOR VALENCIA! 2-0! An amazing run by Rodrigo Durán down the left makes it an easy tap-in for Raúl to get his 2nd.

 

Half-time: we're 2-0 up but hardly convincing, Málaga have been dangerous. They're giving us good space to counter, though.



 

Minute 58: GOAL FOR MÁLAGA! 2-1! Uh oh. A lightning quick counter ends with a goal for the away side, by Paco Ardura.

Minute 74: GOAL FOR VALENCIA! 3-1! It's centerback Ancor Melián in a corner! Better now!

Full-time: We did our part here. We remain top, but the final 2 rounds are away from home. We cannot afford one slip in neither.

[kidthekid]

Excellent!!!

[noikeee]

La Liga - round 37 of 38

It's a midweek round on Wednesday and Thursday. Exactly what we don't need, a cramped calendar at the end which doesn't suit my very non-rotated squad (something unusual for me as I usually rotate like crazy, but I've been doing it this season due to the few competitions we're in, and the somewhat clear standout best 11).

We're the first to play. Away to Villarreal, a very tricky tie.






 

Minute 45: GOAL FOR VALENCIA! 1-0! Both wingers combine with Rodrigo Durán crossing low for Nílson Cardoso to tap in! It's a very fortunate goal right before half-time, we've been utterly outplayed by Villarreal so far.

Half-time: 1-0 up, but we don't deserve it. I should change things but I'm at a bit of a loss at what to do. They're camping around our area, I'm playing attacking mentality ffs, how can that happen.













 

Minute 48: GOAL FOR VILLARREAL!! 1-1! Well they don't waste any time setting the result right. Sergi is the scorer.

 

Minute 81: PENALTY FOR VALENCIA!! Marcelo was clear on goal but was hacked down!!!

Raúl will take it... he's missed a few this season...

 

.... SAVED BY DAVID RUIZ!! Raúl misses again!!










 

Full time: It's a draw. I'm almost happy with it - Villarreal had so many more chances all match long, that salvaging a point feels like a good result. We did miss that late penalty. But crucially we know that if we beat Numancia the last match we are champions. We MUST beat them though.

 

But let's see what our opponents do first. Next to play are Real, with a tricky tie away to Sevilla.
 

Not so tricky - the goals arrive late but it's a clear 3-0 win. Onto Barça the next day on the Thursday - also in Seville, playing against Betis who are having a storming season.

It's a Betis win!! This means Barça are out of the title race. As it stands into the last round:

We're away to last placed, long relegated Numancia. Real also away to Málaga. If we match or better Real's result we're champions. If not, Real clinch their 5th title in a row.

[wynter]

DO IT! 

[noikeee]

La Liga - round 38 of 38

Welcome to the final day of the 2033/2034 season of La Liga. We will be following Numancia-Valencia, also with regular updates from Málaga-Real Madrid. As it stands Valencia are due to win our first title in 30 years (last was in 2004), but we need to beat Numancia to be sure of it. On paper our opponents are modest but I am afraid of complacency!

Minute 9: GOAL FOR VALENCIA! 1-0! We insist on a corner and Marcelo Hernández scores it after a pass by loanee Edson Fränkel!

 

... but that's not all the good news as we receive the notice that IT'S A GOAL FOR MÁLAGA! 1-0 in their match! Paco Ardura puts the home team ahead, further diminishing Real's title chances.

Minute 31: Injury to right-back Arán, I switch him for Dario Suarez. Suarez is on loan from Real Madrid - he's gonna party as champions either way it goes tonight.

Minute 38: More great news coming in!! GOAL FOR MÁLAGA! 2-0! Scored by Ignacio Portilla.

Half-time: We've not been exactly thrilling, but all seems set for our title. Numancia hasn't even attempted to shoot at goal. Málaga beating Real by 2 goals. Surely this will be ours?

Minute 54: More news on the radio, this time not as good. GOAL FOR REAL MADRID! 2-1! Weverton reduces for the side from the capital.

Minute 54: Yet on the same minute it's a GOAL FOR VALENCIA!! 2-0!! Winger-to-winger as it's a fine through ball played by Nilson Cardoso onto a run by Rodrigo Durán!!

Minute 58: Saúl Lara crosses from very deep and Raúl González's header HITS THE BAR!!

Full time: VALENCIA ARE SPANISH CHAMPIONS!!!

[noikeee]

50 minutes ago, kidthekid said:

Excellent!!!

Cheers mate!

7 minutes ago, wynter said:

DO IT! 

Did it! 

[noikeee]

May 2034

We did it. From the relegation zone in late October to champions by May, insane stuff. That was one of the oddest seasons I've ever had in FM.

Winning the league the first season with Valencia is great, one of the best achievements in this career so far, but it also adds to just how odd and crazy this feels, because this very much DOESN'T feel like my team yet. I've barely hit the transfer market and from the players I hired, the only to feature regularly in the starting 11 were young goalkeeper Filip Capek and midfielder Edson Fränkel, on loan from Derby. Neither were particularly outstanding stars. This is not a team I've put together, this is one that I inherited and then tried to make sense out of, by squeezing it into my tactics. I really am not quite sure how did we pull a league title with this lot.

I've got a lot of rebuilding to do. As the season ends, we're on a crazy 38M€ negative bank balance. Very little money comes in from winning the league, surprisingly. This side needs upgrades to make sure successes like this can come again in future seasons, but the money isn't here. I might have to sell players!

 

[Rikulec]

[MarcxD]

Congratulations, fantastic job to win the title from where you started!

[oriole01]

Great job!

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Great job! Brilliant turnaround throughout the season. 

[kidthekid]

The 4-4-2 delivers again.

[noikeee]

On 25/04/2018 at 08:04, Rikulec said:

 

23 hours ago, MarcxD said:

Congratulations, fantastic job to win the title from where you started!

 

20 hours ago, oriole01 said:

Great job!

 

17 hours ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Great job! Brilliant turnaround throughout the season. 

 

9 hours ago, kidthekid said:

The 4-4-2 delivers again.

On behalf of the entire Valencia team, sincerely,

 

[noikeee]

Valencia - 2033/2034 - Season review

I'm pretty happy with my first season at the club, as we win the first Spanish title in 30 years. We were one match away from the double, too, losing the cup final to Barcelona.

 

Statistics and best 11

 

 

Top 5 players of the season

5. Nílson Cardoso (MR, MC, ST) - The team's most talented player on paper has not really played like it often, but still got a decent 8 goals and 8 assists.

4. Nick Egermann (DC) - This young German CB was a nice overperforming surprise as he excelled with the highest ratings from our defence.

3. Rodrigo Durán (ML, AML) - A splendorous run at the end of the season showed the winger at the peak of his powers, as he finishes the season with the team's highest ratings. 6 goals and 13 assists.

2. Marcelo Hernández (ST) - One half of a great pair of strikers. He's a bit one-dimensional with lots of pace and not much else, but still got me 25 goals and 11 assists as the highest-up forward.

1. Raúl González (ST, AMR) - The other great striker, Marcelo got better ratings but I'm siding with Raúl here as player of the season, as he was involved in more goals: 28 of them plus 14 assists!

Major youth prospects

Dário (20, SPA) (M/AML, ST) - Knocking at the door of the first eleven and a quality 2nd option for left wing, the homegrown youngster broke into the first team under my command this year. 3 goals and 8 assists in 11(16) apps.

Juanma (17, SPA) (ST) - The most exciting player I had in the under 19s, he's certainly worth at least a promotion to Valencia Mestalla next season. Huge potential according to my staff.

Néstor YP34A (16, SPA) (ST) - This year's youth intake star is just as good though. They're pretty much identical players!

 

Career progress table

 

[noikeee]

Tactics update

I did a tactics update earlier in the season, but it's worth looking at what I actually used as there was a little development later on.

The 4-4-2 "Mashup" - Derby version

This was the basis of what I started this season with, the tactic used last year for Derby:

The last few years had led me to Control mentality as my Derby team seemed unable to sustain a whole season playing on Attacking mentality - particularly against stubbornly defensive sides.

The 4-4-2 "Mashup" - Valencia version

A bad start this season for Valencia led me to revert to older concepts though. This was what I'd dub the "Valencia version" of the tactic although in reality it's what I used with Derby in my earlier years in England:

The differences are subtle. The whole team mentality is upped from Control to Attacking, BUT the fullbacks are cagier on Support instead of Attack, a duty change I also applied to the CF upfront. I also dropped Look For Overlap. Essentially this setup is more suited for quicker attacks, rather than expecting the opposition to park deep and let us roll into their area. Which suits our club profile more at the moment, as we do not have the reputation nor the talent to force the AI to park the bus. I much prefer this situation by the way, it's easier!

 

The 4-3-3 with a wide Trequartista

And of the course this one still remains:

As ever, this setup is generally effective in the final minutes when the AI goes overly attacking.

[Minuy600]

Randomly walking in after not really following it at first, but excellent job at steering Valencia to unexpected glory. How many points did Numancia have? Shouldn't be many if they seriously had a single shot

[noikeee]

33 minutes ago, Minuy600 said:

Randomly walking in after not really following it at first, but excellent job at steering Valencia to unexpected glory. How many points did Numancia have? Shouldn't be many if they seriously had a single shot

They were not that bad, 22 points. They were 18 off safety though.  Most amazingly, Athletic went down with them! 

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Raid them for brilliant Basque regens!

[noikeee]

12 minutes ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Raid them for brilliant Basque regens!

I don't know what happened to them and their youth academy but they're ****! The only good players are aging...

Meanwhile, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know I've been linked with the Man Utd job...

.... only to give this answer  

[noikeee]

European football - 2032/2033

UEFA Champions League

 

Some seriously surprising stuff going on here with Marseille going all the way to the final, out of nowhere. Ultimately, a Dario Herrera extra-time goal gave the title to Juventus though. It's now been 6 years since an English side last won the CL... and that was my Derby. The weakness of the Spanish league is in full display back again despite last year's Real title win, as only Real and Barça make it to the round of 16, and both get knocked out there.

England

 

Chelsea retain the title, with a fairly clear lead over a trio of Man City - Derby (now managed by Zinedine Zidane) - Liverpool all on 78 points. Arsenal seem to be back and become best of the rest in 7th place, behind Spurs and Man Utd. No shocks in this league tbh. Maybe Everton going down.

Germany

 

It's a 5th title in a row, with a comfortable lead again, for all-conquering Schalke. By contrast their rivals Dortmund have a dismal season and finish 11th!!!

France

 

It's another fairly comfortable PSG title, but 2nd placed Marseille reaching the CL final means there might be some interesting movement going on here. Another interesting developing story are Montpellier - they come only 5th but have been taken over by a tycoon and are only getting stronger. I noticed this after they started getting linked to some world class players I had on my shortlist.
 

Italy

 

It's a slightly weird state of affairs as Milan get a 3rd title in a row, Juve tank to 4th yet Juve become European champions. Nothing else very exciting going on here. Sampdoria go down. My former Derby winger Diego Fratucello gets 17 assists for Lazio.
 

Spain

 

Covered in detail during this season, my Valencia side shock Spain by becoming the first side in 20 years to beat Barça and Real to the title (last had been Simeone's Atlético back in 2014). This is a fading league though. Athletic go down, as I mentioned before.
 

Portugal

 

3rd title in a row for Benfica. Guimarães beat Porto to 3rd place. Cova da Piedade remain a weird top half side. Académico de Viseu have a single fleeting season in the top flight and go back down.

[noikeee]

Win the Spanish League. Get a grand total of TWO players called up for the World Cup. 

[SmileFaceGamer]

On 25/04/2018 at 00:56, noikeee said:

 

We're away to last placed, long relegated Numancia. Real also away to Málaga. If we match or better Real's result we're champions. If not, Real clinch their 5th title in a row.

This is Set up so perfectly for a bottle job

[SmileFaceGamer]

6 hours ago, noikeee said:

Win the Spanish League. Get a grand total of TWO players called up for the World Cup. 

Oh well, nations loss. And now their not gonna get injured

skidaddle skidoodle, turn your players into noodles

[noikeee]

3 hours ago, SmileFaceGamer said:

This is Set up so perfectly for a bottle job

Yes, and I've done that plenty of times as a manager. Not this time though.  

[SmileFaceGamer]

11 hours ago, noikeee said:

Yes, and I've done that plenty of times as a manager. Not this time though.  

Good. I’m sure the Valencia fans would’ve been thrilled with bottling the title on the last day against a team 18 pts from safety though!

[Makoto Nakamura]

Gutted to see both Bilbao and Eibar go down  Congrats on the title though! 

[deltablue]

Well done on the title! 

[noikeee]

Good news for next season.

22 hours ago, Makoto Nakamura said:

Gutted to see both Bilbao and Eibar go down  Congrats on the title though! 

 

7 hours ago, deltablue said:

Well done on the title! 

Thanks!

[noikeee]

Something doesn't add up... financial status okay?

I've never had it this bad in any of the big 5 leagues, nevermind in a team that has just won the league! 

[noikeee]

... and I keep being linked to rubbish clubs.

[noikeee]

FIFA World Cup 2034 - Japan

Held in Japan, this year's World Cup is mostly notable by Russia's suprising run to a World Cup final for the first time - a superb performance that wasn't even achieved in the USSR days! At the end they were pretty easily slayed in the final by Germany though, and Germany become the first team to win 2 consecutive World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962.

 

Best player of the tournament is Leverkusen's Russian winger Yeliseev, who has been playing for the German club for a pretty bonkers 11 years now, and has developed into a superstar. Barcelona are interested, I hope they don't get him or I might have trouble handling him in the league.

 

Top scorer is Portuguese, after a nice run by Portugal to an equal all-time best performance of 3rd place. He also plays in the Bundesliga but for Gladbach. Good player but not quite the superstar Yeliseev is, I reckon this is one of those guys that just have a good Summer at the right time and gets into the history books thanks to it.

[pheelf]

15 hours ago, noikeee said:

Something doesn't add up... financial status okay?

I've never had it this bad in any of the big 5 leagues, nevermind in a team that has just won the league! 

Excellent work, quite an impressive first season to beat the big 2 to the title. What's happening with the finances? Are you at risk of failing the FFP?

[noikeee]

This is a very hard call... it would be a fitting door into international management, but I think with my game running a bit too slow again and a busier calendar with Valencia, it would be a chore to accumulate club+nation at the moment. Plus, Portugal currently has an aging squad with few prospects to replace them, which isn't a very fun situation. Rejected.

[noikeee]

On 29/04/2018 at 13:02, pheelf said:

Excellent work, quite an impressive first season to beat the big 2 to the title. What's happening with the finances? Are you at risk of failing the FFP?

No idea, it seems to have been fixed now, first the chairman injected 25M€ then we got a lot of little profits here and there from sponsors, TV revenue, even a few sales of players I did. It's now up to 53M€ positive bank balance and we're "rich".  

[SmileFaceGamer]

48 minutes ago, noikeee said:

No idea, it seems to have been fixed now, first the chairman injected 25M€ then we got a lot of little profits here and there from sponsors, TV revenue, even a few sales of players I did. It's now up to 53M€ positive bank balance and we're "rich".  

FM logic for you there

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2034/2035

 

A little busy here, although I'll note I ended up doing the job of the B team manager and hiring quite a few players for Valencia Mestalla, as they got promoted from tier 3 to tier 2 last year and needed upgrades - I won't be screenshotting those. I ended up splashing almost all of the 19,75M€ we spent on a single player; whilst we made a surprising amount of profit, mostly moving deadwood, for a total 53M€ in sales. Biggest sales were of midfielder Romar Singleton who was underwhelming last season but had arrived on a free - that's at least 22M€ of profit on him then... Another great sale was of winger Johnny Lemaire who I didn't rate and had loaned out last year. I even sold a few kids of Valencia Mestalla that I thought just didn't have much potential.

New first team players, I will not be screenshotting Dario Suarez who was here on loan from Real Madrid last year, and who we signed permanently; neither midfielder Edson Frankel who we managed to loan from Derby again:
 

Decent left-back on a free, my staff are raving about him, ehhhhh I dunno I think he's alright, we needed one though since Saul Lara is getting quite old and last year's signing Muringen proved rubbish - I sold him already.
 

Another nice free transfer, not quite top top class winger but not far from that, and probably capable of slotting into the first 11, he arrives straight from Barcelona.
 

Yet one free transfer more, I needed CMs as I thought I'd be unable to renew Frankel's loan, since Frankel after all came back this Italian lad probably won't be a starter, but still has a place as 1st backup, specially since I sold Singleton.
 

The big signing of this transfer window, I splashed the 15.5M€ of his release clause as I figured best way to splash a limited budget, is spend it all on a superb young striker (who is amazingly well rounded too, just needs a little more finishing). The coolest thing about him is I had an amazing Uruguayan striker called Daniel Fernández in my FM17 Nacional team, he was a Nacional youth product and pretty much won me a Libertadores. This year's version of Dani Fernández? Even better, these attributes are way higher. The only uncool thing is that he was generated at Peñarol not Nacional.
 

A prospect I paid 425K€ for, sounds like a decent shout, he's got a very long way to go and certainly isn't first team ready at all, but has 3.5 stars plus another black star of potential.
 

Another great free transfer, I wasn't really expecting to pick up another striker after Dani Fernández but he seemed too good to pass up. I think I'd want a little more pace to be my main leading forward, or a little more teamwork/passing/technique to be my false 9, but I'm sure I'll find a place for him in the squad, in a season we'll have lots more games to play than last year.
 

I rolled the dice a little here and invested 3.7M€ in the future, he was going to be only 3rd option for the CM/S role for now, so I loaned him to Betis to get some playing time and hopefully develop a little more.

Squad

 

 

I'm pretty happy, this is a better squad than I expected to end up with, when I saw that -50M€ bank balance and figured I had to sell players. That being said I still think we're a step below Barça/Real in talent, and I'm not that confident we can renew the title, specially now we have lots more matches to play, and the AI will rate us higher and defend more against us, too.
 

Fixtures

 

The routine pre-season. Supercopa against Barcelona will kick off the season, albeit the 2nd leg of that had to be delayed to September due to Barça's congested fixture calendar.

[rodesire]

Great signings, your freebies are actually world-class   Love the youngsters and Daniel Fernandez arch 

Good luck in the new season!

[noikeee]

10 hours ago, rodesire said:

Great signings, your freebies are actually world-class   Love the youngsters and Daniel Fernandez arch 

Good luck in the new season!

Yeah I guess it's a lot of talent to pick up on frees, I'm only unimpressed maybe because I was a bit spoiled at Derby.  By comparison this Valencia team simply isn't as good in any area.

Thanks.

 

[SmileFaceGamer]

That looks like a decent window, good luck with the title defence. Also who did you get and how far do you think you’ll go in the UCL

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, SmileFaceGamer said:

That looks like a decent window, good luck with the title defence. Also who did you get and how far do you think you’ll go in the UCL

I haven't gone that far yet (to know the CL group), I like to post as I play and am currently still right before the 1st match of the season. 

Currently my goal is just to make it out of the groups and into the last 16. Modest aims perhaps, but realistic for where we stand at the moment IMO - more than that I feel might be difficult. But let's see what teams we end up facing.

[deltablue]

That's bizarre about the finances. 

[noikeee]

This group could've been a lot worse. I think it'll be tight between us Monaco and Inter, but I'm okay with it.

[noikeee]

August 2034

 

(Transfers)

I hired a Brazilian kid (this transfer had been set for some time) and then loaned him out, together with a few other youngsters. But at the very last minute my HOYD picked up a very promising RB out of the blue. Thanks, HOYD.

The Brazilian kid. He's okay. It's a 300K gamble.

The kid the HOYD picked up. Bit more expensive, 850K. And totally worth it - great move man.

 

In the Camp Nou, it's a wonderful start to Dani Fernández's Valencia career as he scores within 7 minutes. It would be probably our most convincing performance so far against Barça/Real as we had plenty of chances on the counter, much more than the home side, so the 1-1 draw at the end feels almost disappointing, even if it's a great result to take home. 

Then the 1st league match against Atlético looks very similar on paper but felt much tougher - this time we seemed lucky to get the draw.

[noikeee]

How the mighty fall, even our kids cruise past them.

[noikeee]

September 2034

It's an okay month with a couple nice results but I could've done without the needless lost points against Cultural Leonesa (with a late goal!) and Villarreal. For now we're just 7th in the league but it's all tight together.

Earlier on we did great with a big 3-0 win over Barça though! Together with the 1-1 we had achieved at the Camp Nou, that got us a trophy, and it was with a rubbish team too as quite a few were away playing international fixtures so we had to use a B team keeper. We also started the Champions League group with an easy win over Austria Wien as expected.

Note: I'm gonna start using IR from now on to try to speed up things, will probably only play European matches and generally big games.
 

 

[noikeee]

October 2034

A defeat at home to Celta to kick off the month was highly disappointing, but since we've been recovering. It's been a very open few matches with lots of goals, but with 3 wins we climb to 3rd only behind Sevilla and Atlético, a somewhat surprising duo at the top at the moment.

In the CL, we got our first defeat in Italy only to smash Monaco 5-1 with a magnificent poker by Dani Fernández - the Uruguayan striker is definitely coming good for us and has been the star so far. As it stands we're level with Inter and Monaco on points, and my hope is that this big win over Monaco will give us the goals we could potentially need as a tie-breaker.

 

[noikeee]

Aaaand in crazy random news, the French national team manager is a former lower league journeyman striker who I immediately recognised because he once played for Porto B.

 

[noikeee]

And Man City aren't Oil City anymore.

[noikeee]

... have you ever seen players called up for every single level of the national team at the same time? Who schedules these matches all at once?

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Good start. Some annoying dropped points but you're well in the mix domestically. Champions League is going grand for you as well.