[FM18] The very best of the second best. The almost nearly men.

[Makoto Nakamura]

The Europa League, the 2nd best club competition in Europe and one that is often mocked by English football fans, that is, until it offered a way into the Champions League. Inspired by @ManUtd1's Nearly Men thread with the Champions League I've decided to do the same, but with the Europa League, as well as the European Championship. 

60 clubs have reached the Europa League Final, and of these 60 clubs 32 have never won it and my aim is to win the Europa League with these 32 clubs as well as any more clubs that become eligible as the save develops and progresses. As well as the Europa League there are currently 2/4 nations that have made a European Championship Final and not won it, Belgium and Yugoslavia. For the purpose of this save Yugoslavia has become Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia since they're the only playable leagues out of the box.

Europa League Finalists:

Benfica (1983, 2013, 2014)

Athletic Bilbao (1977, 2012)

Espanyol (1988, 2007)

Borussia Dortmund (1993, 2002)

Olympique Marseille (1999, 2004)

Wolverhampton Wanderers (1972)

FC Twente (1975)

Club Brugge (1976)

Bastia (1978)

Red Star Belgrade/ Crvena Zvezda (1979)

AZ Alkmaar (1981)

Hamburger SV (1982)

Videoton (1985)

Köln (1986)

Dundee United (1987)

Stuttgart (1989)

Fiorentina (1990)

Roma (1991)

Torino (1992)

Casino Salzburg/ RB Salzburg (1994)

Girondins Bordeaux (1996)

Lazio (1998)

Arsenal (2000)

Alavés (2001)

Celtic (2003)

Sporting CP (2005)

Middlesbrough (2006)

Rangers (2008)

Werder Bremen (2009)

Fulham (2010)

Braga (2011)

Dnipro (2015)

 

European Championship Finalists:

Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia) (1960, 1968)

Belgium (1980)

 

Here's the leagues I've loaded, it should cover all the bases but I'll add and remove leagues if and when necessary.

 

[Makoto Nakamura]

Videoton in Hungary is my first stop, it's probably the hardest club over than 5th tier French side Bastia.

Here's the starting squad, it's quite old but we have a really good strike force!

[Slipky]

Following this closely.

[Makoto Nakamura]

25 minutes ago, Slipky said:

Following this closely.

Cheers Slipky!

[Makoto Nakamura]

Well we're not reaching the group stage! 

[Makoto Nakamura]

We won at home! 

And normal service is resumed.

[john1]

So close  

[Makoto Nakamura]

2017/18 1st half of the season

Amazing first half of the season, we made it all the way to the Europa League playoff before losing 4-0 in the 2nd leg to AC Milan (I'm going to blame that on the red card!)

In the league we're sitting pretty 13 points clear of Debrecen with 14 league games left to play and 3 easy wins in the cup sees us face Szeged 2011 who are sitting in 20th out of 20 in the Hungarian 2nd tier so it should be another easy win.

[oriole01]

Good save idea, originality notwithstanding. I do see a bit of a problem though. With each club you would need to aim to not win the league so that you can get into the Europa League instead. If you do win the league, you'd have to bank on getting eliminated from the CL before the knockout stages. For someone of your abilities, this may prove difficult .

[Kubson]

Damn you're going quickly :o Do you instant result league matches?

[Makoto Nakamura]

7 hours ago, john1 said:

So close  

It was Expected a 2nd leg defeat but I think the early red card skewed things.

7 hours ago, oriole01 said:

Good save idea, originality notwithstanding. I do see a bit of a problem though. With each club you would need to aim to not win the league so that you can get into the Europa League instead. If you do win the league, you'd have to bank on getting eliminated from the CL before the knockout stages. For someone of your abilities, this may prove difficult .

Cheers Oriole, it is/ will be a tricky situation hopefully I won't have to resort to any form of calciopoli! Although with some of the teams I'd expect there manager to be sacked for either not making Europe at all or for only making the Europa League so things may be trickier after the first couple of seasons.

11 minutes ago, Kubson said:

Damn you're going quickly :o Do you instant result league matches?

Indeed I do.  

[Minuy600]

Well, if you saw me on @ManUtd1's thread, you know that i've wanted to follow that from the start instead of so late on. Guess this'll do

[Makoto Nakamura]

35 minutes ago, Minuy600 said:

Well, if you saw me on @ManUtd1's thread, you know that i've wanted to follow that from the start instead of so late on. Guess this'll do

Thanks for following!  

[Makoto Nakamura]

2017/18 Winter Break

A lot of friendlies in a short time period but we did well only losing to Linz and Targu Mures.

And here's the transfers, both Anel and Jozsef were poached by China and then Vinicius became unhappy that they were sold, since he was a leader, and thus affecting the dressing room, he was sold as well. Adam was first choice goalkeeper and left for close to pittance but I think we'll make do with his short term replacement Laszlo.

[vossmaj]

Will be following but where did the FMT thread go? Did I dream that?

[Makoto Nakamura]

6 hours ago, vossmaj said:

Will be following but where did the FMT thread go? Did I dream that?

Thanks for following! And no you didn't dream it, I got rid of it.  

[Makoto Nakamura]

End of Season 1 - 2017/18 - Videoton

With arguably a weaker team we suffered just one defeat in the 2nd half of the season and we end up winning the league and cup double as well as finishing 21 points ahead of Ferencvaros! Hopefully now we end up with some tough draws in the Champions League so we can drop down into the Europa League.

2017/18 Best XI

Ádám Kovácsik

Roland Juhász - Vinícius - Stefan Nikolic

Loic Nego                                                                 Krisztián Tamás

Anel Hadzic - Szabolcs Huszti

 

Danko Lazovic - Stefan Scepovic - Marko Scepovic

 

 

Europa League Review

Olympique Lyonnais were to closest to becoming an eligible side but instead Arsenal thrash 9-man Chelsea 4-0 to become the first team crossed off the list.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2018/19 Pre-Season

A 16-0 aggregate win over Malta's Valletta sees us through in the Champions League to face Malmo, the winners of which will face either Poland's Legia Warsaw or Israel's Ironi Kiryat Shmona. For whatever reason we were also entered in the Friendly Cup and we came close, only losing 3-2 to Ajax.

Decent money coming in.

Win the league and cup and reach the third qualifying phase, as long as we end up in the Europa League I'm happy.

5 in and 4 out so far but we are trying to bring in some more players.

 

[Makoto Nakamura]

Summer Transfer Update

 

A busy transfer window with some more big sales, in total we spent £800K and brought in £1.7M on player sales.

 

Against all the odds we're in the Champions League Group Stage!

Hopefully we can get 3rd ahead of Besiktas, the money certainly helps us though!

[Makoto Nakamura]

We got a point!! 

[Makoto Nakamura]

2018/19 1st Half Season

It looks bad with us being in 2nd in the league and we had 6 competitive losses in a row but we;re only 3 points worse off than we were last season and we've even conceded 2 goals less, but Puskas Akademia are really pushing us this season.

With the Champions League money I've increased the Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment again and we're working on improving both the youth and training facilities as well!

And we have brexit.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2018/19 Winter Break

Almost perfect set of friendlies.  

 

A very quiet window for us with us just bringing in a backup DC.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2018/19 Youth Candidates

I'm not always going to do youth updates, last season I only got one person with 3* PA but if anyone worth showing comes through then I'll show them.

[Kubson]

That midfielder could be a major asset for the upcoming years

[Makoto Nakamura]

End of Season 2 - 2018/19 - Videoton

We left it very, very late. The win over Paksi on the final day handed us the title over Puskas Akademia!

2018/19 Best XI

Marek Stech

Attila Fiola - Roland Juhász - Marvin Baudry

Loic Nego                                                                 János Ferenczi

Máté Pátkai - Szabolcs Huszti

 

Soma Novothny - Stefan Scepovic - Marko Scepovic

 

 

Europa League Review

A new eligible team as Sevilla win their sixth Europa League title by beating Manchester City 2-1aet in the Final.

 

[Makoto Nakamura]

2019/20 Pre-Season

A massive 17-1 win over Cliftonville in the 1st Qualifying Round sees us drawn against Olympiacos in the 2nd Qualifier and the winner of that will face either Spartak Trnava or FC Midtjylland in the 3 Qualifying Round.

Expectations are down a little bit but we're still expected to win the league.

The 17 foreign player Brexit has kicked in.

Lots more money coming in!

And facility improvements, can I get these maxed out before winning the Europa League?

No big transfers so far, but we're bringing in more Hungarians.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Summer Transfer Update

 

3 more join us with us making a bit more money, we made a small profit in spending £375K and bringing in £400K.

 

Again we've made it to the group stage but we haven't got a hope in hell chance of even getting 3rd.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Argh! So close to our first 3 points in the Champions League!

[Fola]

This is a brilliant read. Love the layout. What skin do you need to do Instant Result? Does instant result mean no subs?

[vossmaj]

And what exactly brought you to stop the FMT journey? I guess not being able to let the DoF handle the transfers slows your play down a lot. I wonder why this is not possible in FMT. Or was it the layout?

Great read here as ever and it will be quite a while until you manage to bring them all to EL glory. Good luck!

[ManUtd1]

I'm incredibly jealous of the great sides you have available! Will be following, naturally 

[Makoto Nakamura]

6 hours ago, Fola said:

This is a brilliant read. Love the layout. What skin do you need to do Instant Result? Does instant result mean no subs?

Glad you're enjoying it Fola! In previous careers I've been using the CFM skin which is located here, but this time I wanted to use a lighter sking so I'm using Wannachup Light located here. Instant result has done subs for the last few FM's now which is great!

5 hours ago, vossmaj said:

And what exactly brought you to stop the FMT journey? I guess not being able to let the DoF handle the transfers slows your play down a lot. I wonder why this is not possible in FMT. Or was it the layout?

Great read here as ever and it will be quite a while until you manage to bring them all to EL glory. Good luck!

Too quick progress.  Carmarthen to Havant & Waterlooville was a suitable step up but then to Sligo was a bit big and then a jump to Anji was even less how I wanted it to go, basically I made poor choices that led to me wanting to bin it. Not having the DoF handle transfers was also a part of it, I'm glad I don't *have* to handle transfers now.  

29 minutes ago, ManUtd1 said:

I'm incredibly jealous of the great sides you have available! Will be following, naturally 

By time I get Videoton done (hoping on 10 seasons or less) there'll probably another 3 or 4 sides eligible and probably 3 or 4 more winning it and coming off the list, Lyon have made the Semi Finals for the last 2 seasons so they'll likely crack it soon. Thanks for following!  

[Makoto Nakamura]

We have our first 3 points!!!  

[Makoto Nakamura]

2019/20 1st Half of the season

A very good first half of the season, we're flying in the league and don't have Puskas Akademia pushing us this season so we're 14 points clear! In the Champions League we managed a win away to Napoli and a draw at home to Valencia, progress from last season but still finishing bottom of the group.

 

[Makoto Nakamura]

Youth Candidates

All the facilities have been upgraded at least once and the youth & training facilities are in development for being upgraded again next season, I've also signed a new HoYD with 16JPA, 15JPP and 13WWY whilst the old one had 10JPA & JPP with 7WWY so hopefully the youngsters coming through will be even better in the next couple of seasons.

 

[Makoto Nakamura]

2019/20 Winter Break

Good set of friendlies but as usual it's the transfers where the news is.

 

3 sales, Marek Stech was our first choice goalkeeper, our other senior goalkeeper is 35, but would someone want to stay in Hungary, or go to Spain? So he was off for potentially almost double what we paid for him last season, next up is star striker Soma Novothny who was brought in as a backup striker last season but had scored 35 goals in 36 appearances this season. He leaves for potentially close to a million after we bought him for £145K last season. Last to leave is Marvin Baudry, another first teamer, he was brought in on a free last season but has just turned 30 and now goes over to the Netherlands.

Hopefully Bence can fill the gap that Soma left and Dominic & Akos can fill in for Marvin.

[Makoto Nakamura]

End of Season 3 - 2019/20 - Videoton

92 goals scored, just the 2 league defeats and we finish 27 points clear, easy!

2019/20 Best XI

Marek Stech

Attila Fiola - Roland Juhász - Marvin Baudry

Loic Nego                                                                 Miroslav Bogosavac

Máté Pátkai - Filip Stojanovic

 

Soma Novothny - Anes Rusevic - Marko Scepovic

 

 

Europa League Review

Milan and Koln could have become eligible but Milan won it at the first attempt and Koln crashed out in the Semi-Finals.

[ryanlion28]

This is a really interesting concept and does seem possibly never ending but you never know!

I'm still checking weekly for the possibility of you ever going back to The Perfectionist III lol

[Makoto Nakamura]

2 minutes ago, ryanlion28 said:

This is a really interesting concept and does seem possibly never ending but you never know!

I'm still checking weekly for the possibility of you ever going back to The Perfectionist III lol

Hopefully it will last at least a century, although most of that century will be spent at Videoton! 

I've not deleted the save so never say never.  

[Makoto Nakamura]

2020/21 Pre-Season

Perfect pre-season with just the one goal conceded.

Expectations have risen again.

Slightly more money as well

Immanuel could be an overpaid failure, he better live up to the wage packet.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Summer Transfer Update

 

We're spending 7 digits on players now!

I thought the 5-2 home win against Celtic would do it, but it didn't. We were going through until the 93rd minute.

Porto, Krasnodar and PAOK, I'm not even sure that we can qualify from this group.

[Makoto Nakamura]

We win our 2nd game! We did have 2 men sent off though.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2020/21 1st half of the season

Over 200 games at Videoton already!

What a first half! We're unbeaten in the league and 8 points clear of Ujpest and we've managed to qualify for the 1st Knockout Round of the Europa League thanks to 2 massive wins over PAOK! 

Celta, not a great draw but at least it's not Chelsea, Tottenham, Inter or Juventus.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2020/21 Winter Break

Perfect set of friendlies and a great hat-trick from Kenan Kodro sees us qualify for the 2nd Knockout Round!

Juventus utterly destroyed Galatasaray.

We draw Braga who only beat Lazio on away goals, can we hold them off?

 

6 players in, including 2 promising regens on free transfers, we lose backup keeper Ivan Lucic, Dominic goes back to England and Miroslav was great for us but he's gone off to France, I don't blame him though!  

[Jimbokav1971]

Really enjoying this as usual. 

What will be your strategy when/if you win the Europa League with Videoton? Are you going to have to wait for one of the other jobs to become available or are you going to instigate a sacking?

[Makoto Nakamura]

7 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Really enjoying this as usual. 

What will be your strategy when/if you win the Europa League with Videoton? Are you going to have to wait for one of the other jobs to become available or are you going to instigate a sacking?

Glad you're enjoying it so far Jimbo! When I win the Europa League I'll resign and then just hit continue until I see a job at one of the other eligible clubs become available. 

[ryanlion28]

Ummm... PAOK being treated like San Marino in that group seems a bit harsh! Greek teams always quite solid in Europe

[oriole01]

Jesus Christ, I'm struggling to believe those results over PAOK are legit. What a beating.

[Makoto Nakamura]

On 09/03/2018 at 19:20, ryanlion28 said:

Ummm... PAOK being treated like San Marino in that group seems a bit harsh! Greek teams always quite solid in Europe

 

On 09/03/2018 at 23:09, oriole01 said:

Jesus Christ, I'm struggling to believe those results over PAOK are legit. What a beating.

I have no idea how it happened but here's the review:

[Makoto Nakamura]

End of Season 4 - 2020/21 - Videoton

An unbeaten league season and getting very close to 100 goals, we also did very well in the Europa League making it to the Quarter Finals before going out to Juventus who the went and got smashed by Tottenham 7-1 in the Semi Final.

2020/21 Best XI

Tobias Knoflach

Dominic Ball - Immanuel Höhn - Ákos Kecskés

Iván Balliu                                                                 Miroslav Bogosavac

Aleksandar Cvetkovic - Máté Pátkai

 

Kenan Kodro - Anes Rusevic - Lewis Enoh

 

 

Europa League Review

No sides becoming eligible this year as Tottenham beat PSV in the Final.