Stick To Your Principles - FM20

[wynter]

"I went into the job wanting to make a change," he begins.

"When I was appointed, Australia had just been beaten 6-0 twice [by Brazil and France], it was at the lowest ebb. So I thought 'here is an opportunity to really change things'.

"So for me the Holy Grail was changing Australian football in the way we play, the way we think about ourselves, the way we develop our players. That was the exciting thing and I took that job thinking: 'What a great opportunity'.

"Our best ever generation of players is retiring and a new generation is coming in. To me it was like a four- to eight-year journey in changing the game.

"But when it got tight in qualifying I got the sense everyone in the organisation [FFA] forgot what the initial brief was. We just have to qualify for the World Cup. Nothing else matters. It doesn't matter how we play or what comes next. "I said 'No, no, that's not why I took this job'. In the end we delivered anyway, got qualification. And I went off into the sunset because I didn't get what I wanted. I wanted something different.

"People are still critical of you because you walked out on something. Well, I felt like I had to walk away if that was all they were interested in."

In Ange Postecoglou, the Socceroos had a visionary, a manager who wanted to steer Australian football from a conservative/balanced gameplan to attacking the opponent, constantly pressing them onto the back foot and to score goals with the swagger of a Championship winning side. While we came away from a World Cup 2014 group with 0 points, we employed this brand of football turning 6-0 losses to France and Brazil into enthralling contests with Chile and Holland creating one of the matches of the tournament all based of a system where we were the aggressors. The Asian Cup victory on Home Soil over the course of his tenure was another wonderful example this style and I am a person who plays FM solely thinking about attacking, so for me Postecoglou was everything I've ever wanted in a manager.

Today we will bring about his vision of turning Australia from an also-ran to a Major Force on the World Stage.

Squad

With an eye to 2022 we've begun the process of blending Youth Prospects and removing old guards, creating a side entering the prime of their career come the World Cup.

Our biggest strength is our midfield, with our key players sure to be Arzani, Mooy, Rogic and Italiano, creating a strong midfield backed by Adam Taggart up top.

Meanwhile Clark will be the heir apparent to Mooy's throne and a vital rotation option.

Arzani

Mooy

Rogic

Italiano

Taggart

Clark

 

Tactics

In order to abide by Ange's philosophy, the majority of our tactics will have an attacking bent, control at the minimum, characterised by a hard pressing side, with quick transitions, also capable of playing out from the back.

Our primary tactic, with another more Ange inspired system under works. My immediate focus for now is Qualifiers, unlocking the 2022 WC following these philosophies and from there slowly nurturing the next generation of Aussie footballers.

Edited November 11, 2019 by wynter

[wynter]

First stage of Qualification was a breeze... Asian Cup Qualification was also secured as we moved straight into the Final Stage of the Asian World Cup Qualifiers

Teams we face jump a lot higher in difficulty. South Korea is the obvious threat/co-competitor with Saudi Arabia likely to come 3rd.

[wynter]

Middle of March an interesting Job Offer Came Up.

Under-Performing horrifically they had no chance of promotion to the Bundesliga. Germany with no foreign player limits is also a great place to grow Australian talent. I agreed to take the job at the end of the season. Australia has also recently had an influx of foreign imports to Germany (Leckie, Borrello, Halloran, Maclaren, Kruse, Italiano) so moving them there is entirely within the frame of possibility.

Especially important once Arzani played no games for Celtic and I didn't want to risk him getting lost in the Man City shuffle.

With these aspects in mind we created a Bundesliga 2 Side ready for a promotion tilt with a core of three Australian players. Taggart, Arzani working on their partnership in the middle and Clark getting guaranteed football in a better league than the A-League (Liverpool and Tottenham were weirdly circling).

Meanwhile Nacho, Larsen, and Milla are quality FT players and Larsen especially is going to dominate the right wing.

Edited November 11, 2019 by wynter

[wynter]

September

Strong start to life in the Bundesliga 2. A nice win against Nurnburg alongside Bielefied and Duisberg who have also started well puts us in a good position, just behind Dusseldorf on goal difference. Minor negatives yet one massive benefit to our tactical set up.

Highest scorer has 3 goals, but in 8 competitive matches we've had 12 different scorers so the whole team has scoring potential.

 

Australia

First Loss in charge of the side against our first real test. It was a ridiculously fun match though...

 

Our defence... Diabolical, going forward though there was some lovely play inspired by quick transitions and rapid counter. We dominated the last 30 hitting the post several times. Hopefully the rematch later down the line gives us a shot at redemption.

Edited November 12, 2019 by wynter

[wynter]

We need to talk about this...

I like to consider myself to be fairly smart, but sometimes I do incredibly dumb things.

So this is me at the squad selection screen for the Australia World Cup qualifier screen and the Australia B Copa America screen picking our best players to finish Qualifiers we'd already qualified from and sending a bunch of untested 18-23 year olds to the Copa America.

"It's Australia B, surely it won't matter?"

We went from 29th to 56th and in my ignorance, we also lost a chance at competing for the Copa America - Why is this a big deal? Well if we'd won it wed have the Oceania Cup, the Asian Cup and with the Copa America all we'd need to do is join the EU and win the European Championship, shamefully, World Domination is now a long-lost memory...

[Kingofcm03]

Fellow Aussie checking in

Have a look at Anthony Kalik who is playing with Hajduk Split as well, hes a decent option and really young

[wynter]

46 minutes ago, Kingofcm03 said:

Fellow Aussie checking in

Have a look at Anthony Kalik who is playing with Hajduk Split as well, hes a decent option and really young

Yeah he's moved over to Bordeaux in the save right now. Also following Lachlan Brooks who just got signed to Sheffield Utd (in game haha)

[ManUtd1]

2 hours ago, wynter said:

World Domination is now a long-lost memory...

[wynter]

October

The run continues, unbeaten in the league. Flip-Flopping between my Australia formation so Arzani/Clark/Taggart are extremely comfortable with it on NT duty and my personal favorite tactic.

Raumpress

4-1-4-1 Assymetric AML

Making Raumpress so wildly fantastic this year is the RWB slot. I had a save earlier this Beta with Levante where our RWB went on to lead assists in the La Liga and in this save as well our RWB is dominant (Will admit, I noticed this in the Levante save so wanted to see if it carried over. Purposefully bought a RWB with high crossing to see if it was a one-off). 

12 Games played 9 assists, 6 of which have come in the last five as he's torn the Bundesliga 2. to shreds. Added helping of course is that he's rated as a good Bundesliga player so he's a class above and shows it everytime he's on the pitch. 8.44 over the last 5 is wondrous.

Australia

In good news we pummelled Uzbekistan and Bahrain were a fun hit-out.

Taggart and Arzani link up well, with Braces for both vs Bahrain. Also a moment of greater synergy where both players have 12 goals from 19 games.

[wynter]

November

We're doing good, tougher fixtures this time around in SAudi Arabia and we under-performed vs Thailand but we did what was needed.

Everything in the league is going to plan. Unbeaten so far with a team that really shouldn't be in the division. Not overperforming at all, the real test will be the Bundesliga next season and for this year... A deep cup run would be wonderful.

Sandhausen will be our first Bundesliga competition.

[noikeee]

Ha, nothing ever really does change in this forum, now here's you and your super attacking asymetrical formations.  

Cmon HSV, beware for Mexican forwards. Tricky group in the WC qualification there but decent enough so far.

[wynter]

March

Bit of a timeskip, but our primary focus is the Australian Side, the domestic just gives it a bit of flavor/something to do than sim for 30 minutes.

Big Month ahead with an opportunity to rope in South Korea.

Domestically we suffered our first loss to Wiesbaden of all teams, random defeat out of no where. Also good though, because I hate long unbeaten runs and complacency and this gives us enough time to re-focus our attention and ensure it remains little more than a blip. Our first three games after are positive.

Transfers

Just One move in January

Matias Arezo

Monstrous Prospect.

German Cup

Meanwhile in the Cup we played Sandhausen, 18th in the Bundesliga and struggling, hosting them at home while we were riding a wave of momentum.

Absolutely ran away with it. Which makes me wonder how many transfers I actually need to make next year. 

We then beat Hertha Berlin, a bigger challenge in Extra Time and statswise we dominated the match.

Two Bundesliga CLubs up, Two down and into the Semi-Finals we go.

[wynter]

3-3 Draw to South Korea...

Would be happy except...

3-1 and then we **** the bed with some woeful defending.

Beat Uzbekistan in June and we've practically sealed Qualification.

[wynter]

German Cup Semi-Final

The Battle of the Burgs

Wolfsburg vs Hamburg

We came in off the closest thing you could call a blip to our season, but we had seemed to recover winning the last two matches before we went away to face a side 5th in the League above us.

The key to this battle was going to be the midfield  where we were going to have a 3 man vs 2 advantage while sacrificing security out wide.

A moment of pure brilliance by Arzani sealed the match and we booked a spot in the Final

https://i.gyazo.com/cd890538b661d284f7656bcb992ece53.gif

Schalke in the final.