The Ultimate Football Manager Challenge

[libbyshuss]

15 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

Hows your save going? Found a new club after Dotmund yet?

managed to get the PSG job but they're not as good as they used to be. Might be a tougher season than i've been used to lately!

[Siepe1990]

So, my last update goes back to the 5th of December... Just couldn't find the time to write things up, but haven't been sitting still. So, here goes:

Season 8 (2027/2028), Season 9 (2028/2029) & Season 9 1/2 (2029)

My last update saw me at Napoli and Holland in the summer of 2027. I got two offers for a club change, one from Liverpool and one from Bayern Munchen. I picked Bayern, because who wouldn't want a Transfer Budget of 500 million? My Transfer Summer was pretty... insane:

That's north of 600 million worth of players... Never ever did this before, it's completely insane. Luckily, I managed to get them all to play together quite nicely, managing to win everything we challenged for (Competition, Cup and... Champions League!)

After leaving Bayern, I managed to land the job at Real Madrid. Real hadn't won anything under Zidane in the last 5 years or so, and the team was lacking, especially in defense. After bringing the team up to scratch, I managed to land the title on the final day, because Barcelona screwed up. If Barca had won, I would have finished 2nd with 100 points... I was already going crazy, because I never expected them to drop points... Lucky me

After losing the CL Final to Barcelona (some justice for them there), I wanted to quit Real - because I also won the Copa del Rey during the season - but I noticed they had place themselves for the Club World Championship in June / July, so I stayed to give it a shot. A straightforward group saw me qualify for the QF, where I faced... Bayern Munchen, my former team. Never thought I'd win that one, but I managed to beat them 3-0. In the semi's I finished off PSG 2-1 (with a late own goal from Andre Onana gifting me the win), only to face... Barcelona again, in the Final. Terrible, terrible game from both team, we managed to win it in the 86th minute with a goal from a 20-year old wonderkid from Brazil... I won the Club Worlds!

After this, I noticed an opening at Corinthians, who were 10th in the Serie A, but had a few games still in hand because they just played to Club Worlds and managed to finish 4th. I left Real, applied and was giving the job almost instantly. The team was okay-ish in my eyes, so I hoped to qualify for the Copa Libertadores and see what next year would bring. After drawing my first and losing my second match however, I won all my remaining games of the season... I've never in my life of FM had such a streak, winning 22 game straight... Because the other title candidates dropped more points along the way, I crowned myself Champions in my first (half) season yet again!

Even more to my surprise, upon joining I noticed we were in the 2nd Round of the Copa Libertadores. And I tell you: my winning streak didn't stop at the Serie A... Unbelievably, I managed to get to the final, annihilating River Plate 7-0 in the Semi's. The final pitted me against Botafogo - only the # 7 in the Serie A. No problem there of course, so after a surprisingly close final (2-1), I managed to add the Copa Libertadores to my list as well!

 

International

I managed to get Holland into the European Championship no problem. The campaign started with Serbia, Slovakia and France, where I just managed to top the group. The 2nd round pitted me against Romania - still pretty straight forward, I beat them 4-2 - and the QF gave me a nice derby against Belgium. I won 3-1, scoring in the 89th and the 90th minute... quite lucky there. The SF saw me face Denmark, where I needed penalties to get me into the Final, where Portugal awaited. After another tense match, I managed to win 1-0 due to a penalty from star player Frenkie de Jong... Holland were European Champions!

Never expected this, because I just didn't get the team running at all. No nice football, but somehow we managed to get the results in the end. I left in November 2028, and I joined Ivory Coast in February 2029 - no real challenges there so far, managed to qualify for the World Championship, which is obviously not my goal with them.

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Siepe1990

[JamLUFC]

2028/29

Despite having a mid-season interview with Estudiantes who were 5 points clear I opted to stay at Newells as I wasn't convinced of the strength of the league leaders to last. My theory was right, as they ended the season in seventh place whilst we finished a respectable 4th to qualify for the Copa Libertadores. We were, with 5 games to go, in the title race but a couple of bad results at the wrong time including to eventual winners River Plate saw us slip down to a fairer position.

Cup form was more of the same, and another year where I didn't even win a cup match.

As for what's next, the plan is to stay although with how the scheduling works we don't even enter the continental cup until January as it runs annually (whereas the season ends in May where we currently are). I don't think we're in a position we can win it so I do have one eye on jobs coming up, although I'm happy staying as I have a good idea of the areas which can be strengthened to push us on to challenge for the league title.

On the international front the only jobs which come up after Copa America and Euro 28 were nations which I felt didn't have a chance to challenge in the World Cup (Romania, Switzerland, Colombia) so I opted to steer clear. Gold Cup coming up in the summer so an eye on Mexico and USA so I can have an attempt at the 2031 competition.

 

 

 

[lukefox44]

10 hours ago, libbyshuss said:

managed to get the PSG job but they're not as good as they used to be. Might be a tougher season than i've been used to lately!

How well you've been doing recently I dont doubt for a second that you won't win it with PSG haha

[berrers]

 

Looking for something new so going to give this a go!

 

First Job see's me rock up in the Uruguayan Second Tier with Central Espanol with an expectation to make the Play offs.

Edited January 16, 2021 by berrers

[The Regista]

Welcome to @berrers and @timpy00 to the thread!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ladies and Gentlemen - I bring you news.

My time in Helsinki has been short, but fruitful. I've added the first top flight league title to my resume here in less than 6 months with the Finnish Premier League. During the off season I signed Marius Henriksen from Rosenborg along with a 34 year old Marcelo and 38 year old Jose Fonte to boost the rotation options for HJK whilst also signing some Scandinavian youngsters for the B and U20 sides. However, I can't help feeling that there's not much left for me here. Sure - I might win another Finnish Premier League and have arguably the best club to do so, but would that really be worth it? I not sure that it would be

I went searching for an international job during the off season. Despite World Cup 2022 taking place (France retaining their crown) and many international jobs becoming available no international team fancied giving me a shot. But my managerial profile is looking alright for 2 years in to the game, and with my shiny new Continental C licence I thought it would be good to try and look for pastures new.

Spoiler

I've been talking to a couple of clubs and have the following job offer on the table...

Spoiler

VfL Wolfsburg

I'm not gonna lie - there's a personal tinge to this as well.

Aside - Back in my uni days, my housemate and I used to play lots of another popular football video game. We'd potentially play this game all day and night in huge 64 team knockout tournaments. I played as Wolfsburg quite a bit, and this was during the days of them winning the Bundesliga with the holy trinity of Misimovic, Dzeko and the footballing GOD that is Grafite. I loved playing as them so much that I started following them, and the rest is history.

Anyway, nostalgia trip over - get back to talking about Football Manger. This job then - what's on the table?

As I normally can't be bothered with press conferences, one of the promises I've had to make is to improve my handling of the media. Whenever I do pressers the feedback I receive is that they normally go well, but this apparently isn't enough for some people. Working with the Director of Football is no problem, as is the club culture. The transfer budget is pleasing, far more money than I've had to spend in the short lifespan of this save so far, and as long as I can guide them to a mid table finish I'll be given the time to mould the team how I see fit.

Wolfsburg currently find themselves in 12th place, 6 positions below the media prediction of 6th. The club were also runners up in last year's Pokal (against Bayern) and finished 11th in the 2021/22 season. Not terrible, but not great. Unfortunately Wolfsburg were knocked out of the Pokal this season in the 2nd round by Augsburg, meaning that if I take the job on I'll just have to see through the remaining Bundesliga campaign.

It's a really interesting job offer. This would more of a stepping stone to a bigger job in the future, rather than a team that I can see myself definitely winning something with. Bayern are still far too strong, and whilst Dortmund don't have Sancho and Haaland anymore they still can boast the likes of Reus, Reyna, Zagadou, Eric Garcia and bizarrely Ruben Loftus-Cheek in their team. Leipzig also still have Konate and Upamecano and are vying with Dortmund for 2nd place. The rest of the pack being 4th to 15th are all within 9 points of each other, meaning that if we could put together a good run in the final 13 games we might just break away. We still have to play the big three though, so it would be important to get points on the board as soon as possible. European qualification is the target I've set myself if I take the job on. If, say, we ended up in the Euro Cup II, I reckon we'd be one of the favourites.

The club has very little to note in the transfer market. The most notable acquisitions are Sead Haksabanovic from Dortmund for < £2m last summer along with Michael Lang from Stuttgart for £6m. Reasonable signings yes, but nothing to write home about. The team still have stalwarts Max Arnold, John Brooks and Josh Guilavogui - the team will have to be built around these three. First choice keeper Koen Casteels was sold last summer annoyingly, and with only a few days before the transfer window shuts my first objective would be to sign a new goalkeeper. This is a rebuild project, one where I could be for a little bit, but the potential is huge.

Look at me - I'm talking about it as if I'm already there!

It's a no brainer...

Helsinki - you've been great, but this is too good to turn down.

Everyone, I'll see you at the end of the Bundesliga season.

Progress

 

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by The Regista

[lukefox44]

1 hour ago, The Regista said:

Welcome to @berrers and @timpy00 to the thread!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ladies and Gentlemen - I bring you news.

My time in Helsinki has been short, but fruitful. I've added the first top flight league title to my resume here in less than 6 months with the Finnish Premier League. During the off season I signed Marius Henriksen from Rosenborg along with a 34 year old Marcelo and 38 year old Jose Fonte to boost the rotation options for HJK whilst also signing some Scandinavian youngsters for the B and U20 sides. However, I can't help feeling that there's not much left for me here. Sure - I might win another Finnish Premier League and have arguably the best club to do so, but would that really be worth it? I not sure that it would be

I went searching for an international job during the off season. Despite World Cup 2022 taking place (France retaining their crown) and many international jobs becoming available no international team fancied giving me a shot. But my managerial profile is looking alright for 2 years in to the game, and with my shiny new Continental C licence I thought it would be good to try and look for pastures new.

  Reveal hidden contents

I've been talking to a couple of clubs and have the following job offer on the table...

  Reveal hidden contents

VfL Wolfsburg

I'm not gonna lie - there's a personal tinge to this as well.

Aside - Back in my uni days, my housemate and I used to play lots of another popular football video game. We'd potentially play this game all day and night in huge 64 team knockout tournaments. I played as Wolfsburg quite a bit, and this was during the days of them winning the Bundesliga with the holy trinity of Misimovic, Dzeko and the footballing GOD that is Grafite. I loved playing as them so much that I started following them, and the rest is history.

Anyway, nostalgia trip over - get back to talking about Football Manger. This job then - what's on the table?

As I normally can't be bothered with press conferences, one of the promises I've had to make is to improve my handling of the media. Whenever I do pressers the feedback I receive is that they normally go well, but this apparently isn't enough for some people. Working with the Director of Football is no problem, as is the club culture. The transfer budget is pleasing, far more money than I've had to spend in the short lifespan of this save so far, and as long as I can guide them to a mid table finish I'll be given the time to mould the team how I see fit.

Wolfsburg currently find themselves in 12th place, 6 positions below the media prediction of 6th. The club were also runners up in last year's Pokal (against Bayern) and finished 11th in the 2021/22 season. Not terrible, but not great. Unfortunately Wolfsburg were knocked out of the Pokal this season in the 2nd round by Augsburg, meaning that if I take the job on I'll just have to see through the remaining Bundesliga campaign.

It's a really interesting job offer. This would more of a stepping stone to a bigger job in the future, rather than a team that I can see myself definitely winning something with. Bayern are still far too strong, and whilst Dortmund don't have Sancho and Haaland anymore they still can boast the likes of Reus, Reyna, Zagadou, Eric Garcia and bizarrely Ruben Loftus-Cheek in their team. Leipzig also still have Konate and Upamecano and are vying with Dortmund for 2nd place. The rest of the pack being 4th to 15th are all within 9 points of each other, meaning that if we could put together a good run in the final 13 games we might just break away. We still have to play the big three though, so it would be important to get points on the board as soon as possible. European qualification is the target I've set myself if I take the job on. If, say, we ended up in the Euro Cup II, I reckon we'd be one of the favourites.

The club has very little to note in the transfer market. The most notable acquisitions are Sead Haksabanovic from Dortmund for < £2m last summer along with Michael Lang from Stuttgart for £6m. Reasonable signings yes, but nothing to write home about. The team still have stalwarts Max Arnold, John Brooks and Josh Guilavogui - the team will have to be built around these three. First choice keeper Koen Casteels was sold last summer annoyingly, and with only a few days before the transfer window shuts my first objective would be to sign a new goalkeeper. This is a rebuild project, one where I could be for a little bit, but the potential is huge.

Look at me - I'm talking about it as if I'm already there!

It's a no brainer...

Helsinki - you've been great, but this is too good to turn down.

Everyone, I'll see you at the end of the Bundesliga season.

Progress

 

 

Congrats on the first big league win and new job. Always nice to have a personal touch in a save as well.

I had the same with clubs asking me to improve my media handling after I got bored of going and started sending my assistant. I found just going to them and spam clicking on the second positive option works really well, nothing ever seems to go wrong, only positive reaction from everyone, players, media and board included.

[timpy00]

@The Regista Thankyou

Hopefully my English is good enough that you people could read through my season updates. If it's not, or you got any tips for me, just let me know.

Spoiler

 

Season 2020/2021

 

 

My career started in Augusts 2020, it took me a while to find a club to start my career at. After eleven games in the Welsh JD Crymru Premier, Caernarfon decided to sack there manager because of the bad results. And that is the time that my career started. When entering the club, they were positioned 11th in the league out of 12 teams. In the first 17 games of the season they accumulated 12 points. In Wales the competition is cut in half after 22 games and an additional 10 games wil be played between the six teams in the top half and the six teams in the bottom half, in the end there will be a champion, the bottom two teams will be relegated and numbers two and three will get tickets for the Euro Cup II. And to finish the season there will be a play off between teams that ended 4th till 7th for the last Euro Cup II ticket.

In the last 5 games before the competition was cut in half we were able to get 9 points, so the start was pretty good for a team that were prognosed 11th at the start of the season. Unfortunately we lost in the 4th round of the cup against a team that played on a level below us. In the last 10 games after the competition was split we started pretty well and in the first 6 games we won 3, tied 2 and lost 1 game. At that point we were positioned 8th in the league with the possibility to get the 7th spot and make the play offs for the Euro Cup II ticket. Unfortunately in the last 4 games things weren't gaining our way and lost 3 games and tied 1 game, with al games having better xGoals then the opponent. So we ended in the 9th spot in our first season. 

 

I was able to get my rist trainer badge during the season so that's positive as well. At the end of the season I was pretty hard looking for players to improve my team for next season. I saw some potential at the current squad for making the top half of the table next season. In the end of the season I saw that the contract of the manager from number three Bala ended. So I tried to show interest for that spot. I guess the people at Caernarfon weren't that pleased with that because I was sacked immediately. Fortunate for me Bala was interested in hiring me and after a couple days without a job I was signed to Bala for next season.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by timpy00

[vikeologist]

@timpy00 You should realise that your English is better than a lot of native English speakers.

There's an English proficiency test called IELTS which measures ability in the language, and native English speakers (albeit very narrowly) have a worse average score than Germans speakers. (I know you're not German).

Thankfully everybody here is marvelous at English.

Welcome to the challenge, and @berrersas well.

 

[Gregg88]

Season 2033 - 2034 update! - Napoli -

Board expectation was to finish in the Top Half.....easy enough with a team like Napoli, right?

 

Chapter 1 - Getting rid of the deadwood.

I had the whole of June/July/August to get rid of any players;

Over the age of 31.

Wouldn't fit my tactics.

Wanted a move to a bigger club.

Just not good enough.

 

This equalled to 29 players leaving, bringing in £103m to a financially struggling team. A few players that left weren't on the above breakdown, but I just couldn't refuse the offers as I had too many players in any position.

I then signed 9 players to bolster what I needed....

Norberto Fariello joined for £6.75 million from San Lorenzo and played in 40 games throughout the season, finishing with an average rating of 7.09! Winner!

 

Pietro Mastrangelo joined for Free from Inter and played in 33 games, finishing with an average rating of 7.11! Bargain!

 

Chapter 2 - Ensuring a solid Home Record.

This didn't go as planned. I lost 4 games at home. But....3 of those 4 came in the first 2 months of the season! Not so bad.

 

Chapter 3 - Trying not to get battered Away from home.

This went better than expected. Whatever I tweaked...I need to keep rolling with it!

 

Chapter 4 - Cup Success?

Could I tick off a cup? Could I F@&k. Knocked out in the first round to Fiorentina.

But......

Euro Cup II Winners! Means nothing for the challenge. But still.

 

Chapter 5 - Financial heartache.

It's the end of season. This is my current situation with no transfers already pre-arranged etc. Even with Champions League football now....

That transfer budget. Ouch.

 

Chapter 6 - Final League Standings

Somehow.....I managed to win the league!

 

I have no doubts that these 4 fixtures helped out massively. Even if in April, I lost 5-3 at Home to Inter.

 

Chapter 7 - What Next?

For some reason, I didn't have the Spanish League selected. Didn't realise until typing this up!   So I may be able to get a job there...

Or should I head to Germany and apply for the Leipzig job? They finished 9th, so no european football. The German league is so close currently....If I can keep players, surely a push at the title isn't so unrealistic within the first 2 seasons?

 

I have the World Cup with Portugal now. Should make it out of the group! Part of me would like to get the England job if this doesn't work out.

Chapter 8 - Challenge Progress

 

 

 

[vikeologist]

@Gregg88 You had me worried with a lot of your update. Getting rid of old players. Worrying about finances. In the words of a famous Football team owner.

Anyway, that's what you did. Although you are going to need to start thinking about those cups. 

Anyway welcome to the leader board. As you reached this station of the cross in Italy, here's your motivational quote from those shores.

 

[Gregg88]

2 hours ago, vikeologist said:

@Gregg88 You had me worried with a lot of your update. Getting rid of old players. Worrying about finances. In the words of a famous Football team owner.

Anyway, that's what you did. Although you are going to need to start thinking about those cups. 

Anyway welcome to the leader board. As you reached this station of the cross in Italy, here's your motivational quote from those shores.

 

Haha! Two big factors that I need to work on to get those wins! Need that money to buy players that'll play the way I want and those golden oldies are just hefty wages being wasted when they can't make that 2nd ball anymore.

I do need to get those cup wins. May have to dart to small countries to tick them off. Journeyman!

Appreciate it! What a guy.

 

[_JHTB_]

Sell your first choice goalkeeper in the mid season window, replace him with a better player for less money, get him registered, and then get presented with this when trying to select them....

 

Looking through the rules I can't see anything about this so I'm perplexed, guess it's time for my reserves goalkeeper to earn his money

[Siepe1990]

2 hours ago, _JHTB_ said:

Sell your first choice goalkeeper in the mid season window, replace him with a better player for less money, get him registered, and then get presented with this when trying to select them....

 

Looking through the rules I can't see anything about this so I'm perplexed, guess it's time for my reserves goalkeeper to earn his money

I had this in Brazil as well, flagged it in the forum as a bug. It's an existing rule, but it's not mentioned in FM anywhere (Rules screen, Transfer Offer, Contract Offer)...

[libbyshuss]

Season 2040/41

  

After leaving Dortmund I had no plan. I still had Italy and France to tick off so when the PSG job came up I was interested. They weren't the same force they once were though. Although they were reigning Ligue 1 champions Monaco had won it 4 out of the 5 before that and were much stronger. Lyon were also really really good. 

And PSG had problems. Their first team was amazing, but really old. Five of the first choice XI were over 33 and two were 35. And the squad was relatively thin, espeically in defence where they only had 5 in the whole squad. The dev centre was also empty and the transfer budget was only £150m, which just wasn't gonna cut it with a revuilding job this size

That first team were amazing though, the two centre midifelders were both 33 but each had over 100 caps for Brazil and France. The brazilian was one of my old players who me the World Cup too! So, I took a risk. Maybe this team could drag their tired knees to one more successful campaign, especially with a couple of re-inforcements

So I took the job...

League

I spent all my money on a striker and a left winger, despite only having 5 defenders in the whole squad. After 10 games, where we won 9 and drew 1, I was congratulating myself on my genius. I mean, look who I bought!

 

Orme was only 68m and Laporte 55m, and looking at their numbers and value now you'd sday they were an absolutel bargain. Troube is, they too often had to play in front of a defence comprising a packet of frazzles and a breadstick. Soon as one of my aging defence was injured or suspended I was in trouble, and we kept giving silly draws and defeats away as a result. But in February we went away to Monaco, who we sat 3 points behind, and won 2-0 to go top. A couple of silly draws later and Lyon were top. We went away to Lyon, got hamered 4-1 and were 6 points behind them with 8 games to play.

The injuries and suspensions caught up with me, my ridiculously defender shy squad suffered and we fell away to a disappointing 3rd.

Cup

Things were much better in the cup. We had nice draws all the way through until suddenly we were in the final against Le Havre. They'd knocked Lyon out in the QF, and I had no idea where Monaco were. I was feeling all smug when we got the final but fate slapped me upside the head and sent us into a penalty shootout where we got stupidly lucky to win 7-6

But I'd won a cup!

Champions League

So if I was unsure about how much work there was to do with this PSG side then the CL let me know. We limped through the group, losing twice to Spurs and drawing with Anderlecht before losing 6-0 on aggregate to Liverpool in the first round proper. We were poor.

 

 

International

Lots of Jobs available after Euro 2040, with France, Spain, Italy and England offering me jobs. I only need the Euros and the Asian equivalent so it's going to be a long 4 years but i plumped for England, mainly because I'm finding getting an international job isn't all that easy.

What next?

Well, I need the French League. PSG have only given me a 50m budget for this season and with so much rebuilding needing doing it won't be anywhere near enough. I might try another season, see if these old boys can hack it for another season or not. They are good, but it's like having Puskas and Di Stefano out there on their zimmer frames.

 

 

 

[The Regista]

VfL Wolfsburg End of Season 22/23 Update

A very brief update given that I took the Wolfsburg job in January 2023 after my short stint in Helsinki.

Following the Finnish Premier League win I now find myself in the Niedersachen, managing my beloved Wolfsburg. The club found themselves languishing in 12th position, sacking Peter Bosz after a string of poor results and failing in the early stages of the DFB Pokal. The league is now over, and here's how we did.

Some amazing results in here, along with some very disappointing results. After the defeat in my first game to Monchengladbach, we put together an undefeated streak spanning 3 months. In this time we beat Dortmund 4-3, going 2-0 up in 7 mins, conceding 3 in the rest of the 2nd half, and then rallying for a final flurry in the last 10 minutes! We also smashed RB Leipzig 6-2 - I normally play a vertical tiki taka but sprang a surprise in this one, opting to go for a 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress system instead (Weghorst was incredible here). We ran Koln close until the final day of the season, where we lost to Mainz (whom finished 16th) whilst Koln beat Werder Bremen. Very annoying, but signs of a good squad here that I can build upon.

We've got some deadwood in the club, but I think we're gonna get a sizeable big for star midfielder Xaver Schlager. Four clubs including Liverpool and Manchester United are interested in him, but he's got a release clause of £38.5m and wanted to leave for a bigger team before I arrived. Shame as he's been fantastic, but can't blame the lad for wanting to aim higher.

If we can sort some quality depth out, I reckon next season we can push for a Champions League spot. Bayern are so strong that the Bundesliga title seems very out of reach. However, Europa League football with a solid club and plenty of room to manoeuvre in the transfer market - perhaps we might be a cup side next year?

Can't complain about the finish though. 5th isn't bad for a few months work. That's where I finished in the first season with Dunfermline - will lightning strike twice?

Time to get the squad depth chart out...

[_JHTB_]

Santos 2030

 

 

Bit of a long write up this season, to go with a bit of a long season in Brazil.

Last season when I was getting an overview of the squad at my disposal I knew there wasn't much change needed to make us into a real force with a centre back or two the top of my shopping list. As I was relatively happy with the squad my preseason transfer window was very quiet by the standards I've usually set myself, two centre backs, a striker and a left winger were all that were signed before I was very happy with my squad for the season. The issue is, that it is incredibly hard to gauge how good your team is in Brazil initially with the state championships pitting you against teams from lower tiers but in general we were playing (probably expectedly) very well, though we did succumb to losses against Sao Paulo and Corinthians, neither were that worrying for me however, a draw against second tier Oeste did concern me a little, though none of those results were enough to stop us qualifying for the latter stages. Unfortunately though, we did end up only drawing our knockout tie against RB Bragantino who beat us on penalties which was disappointing.

The league proper, a month after the end of the sate championship however, did see us get off to a very good start with us winning 7 and drawing 1 of our opening 8 fixtures though, we did shortly after suffer a disappointing 3-0 loss which did bring us back down to earth, but our form on the whole was promising, which, overall wasn't incredibly surprising, but was a good indicator that my defensive reinforcements were working well. One issue I was facing in the league however, was my complete overlooking of the registration rules meaning we were only allowed 5 foreign players per match whereas what I would consider our best eleven included 6 so one player had to miss out frequently. This was an issue that somewhat solved itself when Wolves offered £26 million for our Argentine goalkeeper in the mid season window which I gladly accepted and used to replace him (though did have the issue with the new goalkeeper I posted previously).

The league in general was seeming very much a two horse race between us and Flamengo with both of us just getting frequently good results and if we did lose a game we weren't long in bouncing back, though unfortunately for us, when it came to our fixture with Flamengo in the league our previous two fixtures saw us draw and lose so we entered the game in 'poor form', we got off to a great start scoring after 2 minutes but they equalised in the second half before hitting us with a sucker punch in the 89th minute to enter the driving seat for the league. We did go back and forth result wise with Flamengo as the season continued, unfortunately, toward the end of the season we faltered somewhat, drawing a few games that we possibly should have won and that was enough to see Flamengo get an unassailable lead and claim the league title.

After our time in Mexico it was nice to be back in a cup competition this season though we did end up with a all top flight tie in our first match against one of the stronger teams in the league as well though we beat them easily 2-0 in the first leg before recording a commanding 5-0 victory in the second leg. The next round saw us face off against a Palmeiras side who in my two encounters with so far had resulted in a 11-1 scoreline to us and we maintained tat superiority with a 5-0 victory in the fisrt leg though the second leg was a wild affair as we drew 4-4 but went through nonetheless. The semi-final saw us against the RB Bragatino side that beat us in the state championship and it was a tight couple of games with us managing a 1-0 scoreline on each occasion to reach the Final. The final again was two pretty close matches again but we won it 3-0 on aggregate, incidentally, the two matches were the only two our new first choice goalkeeper played all season.

I did already post a little of my time in the Champions League, following a breeze through the qualification rounds we were in a group with Velez, Sao Paulo and an Ecuadorian side who in the first game of the group we smashed 6-0. The two results I posted previously followed, a 6-1 loss and a 3-1 loss with both games us outperforming our opponents on xG which was frustrating, though thankfully Sao Paulo only drew against the Ecuadorians which meant if we won all the remaining games we'd be through to the next round. That is what we did in the end, back to back 2-1 victories against the two sides who'd beat us previously before we comfortably dispatched the Ecuadorian side to get through to the next round. Whilst the second round and quarter final ties were not easy draws we managed to get past Boca and Internacional with relative ease to set up what was probably the toughest tie we could have expected; Flamengo.

At the time we played the first leg against Flamengo we were actually above them in the league and we put on a good performance to win the game 3-1 though I was a little disappointed to have conceded an away goal. By the time the second leg came around it was a month after the first leg and the defeat in the league I mentioned to Flamengo had occurred in that period to see us below them in the league at the time of the second leg, we were not phased though as we found ourselves 2-0 early in the second half, unfortunately, we did concede a couple of late goals to draw the tie, but I wasn't bothered as we'd made it through to the final. It was familiar foes RB Bragatino in the final but it was a match I was expecting us to win as I did feel we were a better team than them. The game itself was frustrating for large periods, they took the lead just before halftime and we weren't looking like creating much, thankfully one of our substitutes scored in the 78th minute to take the game to extra time. In extra time we remembered that we were actually a better team than them and we scored 4 times to win the match 5-1 in the end which was a relief as loss would have meant a guaranteed second year in Brazil and I am unsure if I want to commit to another 70 game season.

Best Player: Heitor

I wasn't planning on playing Heitor as my first choice this season as young fullback Igor Guilherme does look like he's going to be a good player and I wanted to use him. However, Heitor made himself the first choice full back by just playing well, and whilst his stats were probably boosted y the state championship and early Copa Libertadores matches he was consistently amongst our best performers.

What Next?

I am disappointed I didn't win the league as I do feel we have a squad capable of winning it however, I don't really feel like committing to another year in Brazil to chase the title especially as we managed to tick off a cup this season, so I will be looking to move on should a suitable job become available (I have thrown my hat in the ring for one job). However, I'm probably ok with staying on a little longer if a suitable job doesn't come up, though Brazil is an exhausting season to play so I'm a little unsure.     

Story so far

Challenge Progress

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by _JHTB_
Missed a couple screenshots

[_JHTB_]

Well, this makes me feel worse about my season for sure

 

[_JHTB_]

Guangzhou

I did mention I'd thrown my hat in to the ring for a job at the end of my last update and well, I was successful in getting the job, though I did have to persuade the Santos board to lower their compensation requirement which was a little odd considering I've been handed a transfer budget of over £200 million so you'd think they'd be able to spare a little for compensation. Last season they finished 3rd which prevent them winning 5 in a row so I'm pretty confident I should be able to get a league title this season. 3rd is enough to qualify for the Champions League so really, I'm hoping for another one year stay and to tick off the domestic side of the challenge in all but Europe. The squad I have is alright, but I will definitely be trying to improve it significantly so I'm getting prepared to overspend on Chinese players but I've plenty money to play with so I'm sure I can build up a team to dominate. This is actually my first step back at a team that I managed in my FM20 attempt so I'm hoping to go one better than my last stint with the club and win the Champions League that I failed to win with them last year.

[berrers]

 

CENTRAL ESPANOL

2021 SEASON REVIEW

 

                                             The board expectation was to gain promotion via the playoffs but we managed to go better and went up automatically as champs!

 

The squad was already pretty strong for the league but was topped up throughout the course of the season with a steady flow of trialists who were signed on contracts and we managed to get the job done and clinch the title with 2 games to spare having lead from the off. 

The Uruguayan second division maybe the only league I have seen which will permit you to play trialists in competitive league games (bug?). Also no domestic cup??

Left back Max Perreira & Inverted winger Mauricio Alonso were the pick of the performers

 

WHAT NEXT ?

I will be looking to move on at the next given opportunity as the clubs finances seem to be worsening despite me being well within wage budget which doesn't bode well for going up into the higher league.

I am also only on a rolling contract and a new one doesn't appear to be forthcoming.

Ideally I would like to continue in Uruguay and possibly land one of the bigger jobs like Penarol though this may be unlikely as despite winning the 2nd Div with Central my reputation has only been given a tiny boost. 

However if nothing comes about that I fancy I will continue with Central into the top tier,

National C license is in the bag and currently studying for the B.

 

Having declared an interest in the Bate Barisov job this seemed to annoy the Central board...... Thanks for the title but

 

Where to now??

Edited January 19, 2021 by berrers

[libbyshuss]

49 minutes ago, berrers said:

Having declared and interest in the Bate Barisov job this seemed to annoy the Central board...... Thanks for the title but

ha ha, that genuinely made me laugh! good luck with your next step!

[berrers]

...............And we're back. After 3 months of licking my wounds of a harsh sacking and applying here there and everywhere it took until the turn of the year (uruguay season finished mid sept) to finally get some interviews. 

I initially thought I would return to management in the south african second tier with Steenberg Utd who were placed around mid table a job which I would have taken so I could have progressed up to the win the ACL with either them or moving onto Kaizer Chiefs or Orlando Pirates in time.

The lure of unfinished business in Uruguay was too bigger pull though and we are in the top league with a decent club in Defensor Sporting who are also in the Copa Sudamericana this coming season.

 

Review to follow end of the season.

[lukefox44]

Luke Fox 

Racing Club

2031 / 2032

It had been around five or six months since I left Tigres and if I'm honest I was starting to get a bit impatient at not having a job until this popped up. They were in the Copa Libertadores and finished 3rd last year but had been pretty poor this year sitting in 13th but only 6 points away from the Libertadores qualifying spots.

 

After arriving and looking at the squad and finances I realised this was a bigger task than I had originally thought. I had a £1.3m transfer budget but what they didn't tell me is I would be about 15k over the wage budget on day one, so when I adjusted it I had almost nothing to spend. We did still have a decent looking squad even if it was a bit light. However we picked up a few injuries early on and I really struggled to find a tactic that worked and suited the players I had and our initial form struggled as a result of this. I did somewhat find a way to pick up some good results towards the end of the season, the league is ridiculously tight in terms of points and ability between teams, it felt like anyone could be anyone.

We won five straight games to end the season and sneak into the top 6, but I knew that this squad wasn't really good enough to challenge at the top of the league and the finances were just getting worse. We were losing money at an alarming rate, the balance was about £2.5m when I took over, I sold a player for £3m to help with that and by the end of the season we were minus £2m and the projection was it was going to get a lot worse with wage rises already agreed before I got there.

The Copa Libertadores runs annually and not inline with our season, so the group stages were during the season and then the knockouts at the start of the next season. This didn't really make much different to us as we were already out when I joined and I got us knocked out in the group stage.

This was a real eye opener to how far off it our squad really was, we did get drawn a very tough group with two very good Brazilian sides but if the objective is to try and win the Libertadores with Racing it would require a huge rebuild that we didn't have the cash for. I mean look at the results, we were miles off it and in some games pretty lucky to of only lost by 3.

What's next

I took the decision that the Racing job was too big of a rebuild and we didn't have even close the resources or players to improve enough to compete on the continental stage, so I decided to resign. The plan is to either move onto to a big team in Brazil or go to Europe until my reputation is high enough to get a top Brazil job because to be honest Brazil has so many games it looks like a massive slog to finish a season. So hopefully I can get in and out of Brazil with the Liberatores quick time. No movement on the international front yet either.  

 

Challenge Progress

Spoiler

 

 

[_JHTB_]

7 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

The plan is to either move onto to a big team in Brazil or go to Europe until my reputation is high enough to get a top Brazil job because to be honest Brazil has so many games it looks like a massive slog to finish a season. So hopefully I can get in and out of Brazil with the Liberatores quick time.

I quite like managing in Brazil, but it for sure is an almighty slog which is why I'd not be able to do a more long term stay there, hopefully you can manage to find a decent job for your next step anyway. In fairness, I do believe the top Argentinan sides can at least give a stab at the Libertadores but the Brazilian teams do tend to have the upper hand a lot of the time.

[lukefox44]

12 hours ago, _JHTB_ said:

I quite like managing in Brazil, but it for sure is an almighty slog which is why I'd not be able to do a more long term stay there, hopefully you can manage to find a decent job for your next step anyway. In fairness, I do believe the top Argentinan sides can at least give a stab at the Libertadores but the Brazilian teams do tend to have the upper hand a lot of the time.

I've managed to get the Palmeiras job in Brazil because they lost in the Quarter Final of the Libertadores and were in 8th in the league predicted to finish 3rd. I can see why they beat us so easily last year, the standard is noticeably better. Palmeiras have £30m in the bank too, so hopefully it wont take me too long to set up a a team to compete for the libertadores.

The top teams in Argentina probably do have a decent chance but at Racing we were miles off it.

Congrats on your Libertadores win with Santos, you got a new job yet?

Ah just seen you've got the Guangzhou Evergrande job and a hefty transfer budget. Some people here seemed to hate China but I really enjoyed it. The difference in quality between the foreign players and the chinese lads means lots of goals in almost every game.

Edited January 21, 2021 by lukefox44

[_JHTB_]

2 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

Ah just seen you've got the Guangzhou Evergrande job and a hefty transfer budget. Some people here seemed to hate China but I really enjoyed it. The difference in quality between the foreign players and the chinese lads means lots of goals in almost every game.

The rules have tweaked since last time I managed here so can't go as spend happy as I did previously. That, and they failed FFP last year so I could only sign 2 domestic over 21 players which I initially thought meant players based in China but actually means all Chinese players and Hong Kong, Taipei, et al. So I filled the quota less than a week after joining so have barely any players that are worth spending money on so have not really made much of a dent in the budget. 

The good thing about Brazil is even though Palmeiras aren't having a great season you won't be too far position wise of Libertadores qualification places this season.

[_JHTB_]

United States of America - Gold Cup 2031

The reason for me taking the USA job has arrived, the Gold Cup. I expect I'll have only one shot win the competition or face the sack but I'm confident enough that we will at least make the final.

Group Stages
 

Spoiler

 

Guyana, Panama and Cuba were our opponents in the groups and really we made light work including an 7-1 victory over Cuba. Questions would have had to be asked if I'd failed to qualify from the group so it was relieving to do so as connivingly as we had done.

 

Quarter Final

Spoiler

Topping the group drew us against El Salvador in the Quarter Final and on a chance creation standpoint this was probably our best performance managing to get an xG of over 5, though we contrived to only score the two goals, but 2 goals were enough to see us through as we didn't concede so into the semi-final we go.

Semi Final

Spoiler

Trinidad and Tobago our opponents here, another match that really we should win with no problems at all. The game itself didn't really play to that and we actually went behind in the first half to their first shot of the game and whilst we promptly equalised we struggled massively to get the all important second goal and I was getting annoyed at the frequency that our players were taking long shots, but in the end it was indeed a long shot that won us the match late on. An expected victory, but a victory that was much tougher than it aught to be.

Final

Spoiler

 

No prizes for guessing our opponents in the final, Mexico of course. We started the game pretty well limiting them to no shots at all before we got a disallowed goal in the 34th minute, directly from the freekick for the offside they went up the other end and scored. From that goal for a lot of the rest of the game we were the team to create nothing and after Mexico got a second I was fully expecting us to lose the game but did go Gung-ho in the last 10 minutes to great effect as we managed to pull the game back to 2-2 to take us to extra time. Extra time came and went with no real chances to leave us having to settle the game with the lottery of penalties. The first 3 penalties for each team weren't fantastic as we both missed two each, but all scored each of our goals until we missed our 7th to see Mexico win the Gold Cup. Gutting.

 

What Next?

Spoiler

USA didn't actually fire me for not winning the Gold Cup so I might stay on for another couple years and give it another go, but will probably depend if any more interesting international jobs come up and if I keep my job in the interim. 

 

[vikeologist]

 

Quote

 

What Next?

  Hide contents

USA didn't actually fire me for not winning the Gold Cup so I might stay on for another couple years and give it another go, but will probably depend if any more interesting international jobs come up and if I keep my job in the interim. 

 

Sometimes you only get 1 chance with a nation, so I really wouldn't quit if I were you.

2 years isn't long. 

[lukefox44]

2 hours ago, _JHTB_ said:

The rules have tweaked since last time I managed here so can't go as spend happy as I did previously. That, and they failed FFP last year so I could only sign 2 domestic over 21 players which I initially thought meant players based in China but actually means all Chinese players and Hong Kong, Taipei, et al. So I filled the quota less than a week after joining so have barely any players that are worth spending money on so have not really made much of a dent in the budget. 

The good thing about Brazil is even though Palmeiras aren't having a great season you won't be too far position wise of Libertadores qualification places this season.

Yeah I had a few seasons where I failed FFP in China, once you have a season were you can sign foreign players and you've got about 5 failing FFP isnt the end of the world.

That was my main aim when I joined Palmeiras was to just qualify for the Libertadores but with the start I've had I might be able to achieve a bit more.

Unlucky with USA as well mate, penalties is a horrible way to lose isnt it.

Edited January 21, 2021 by lukefox44

[lukefox44]

19 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Sometimes you only get 1 chance with a nation, so I really wouldn't quit if I were you.

2 years isn't long. 

I wish that was the case with me and Nigeria.

There's an AFCON starting in 2 months and they don't have a manager, again.

I know their ageing squad isnt good enough, but it's still taking all my willpower to not go back for a third stint.

[_JHTB_]

57 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Sometimes you only get 1 chance with a nation, so I really wouldn't quit if I were you.

2 years isn't long. 

You are right of course, just smarting after defeat. 

37 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

There's an AFCON starting in 2 months and they don't have a manager, again.

Honestly, if that were me I'd go for the job. If they give you it you don't really have much to lose, but have the potential to tick off the AFCON if you do well!

40 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

once you have a season were you can sign foreign players and you've got about 5 failing FFP isnt the end of the world.

I haven't signed a single foreign player since I arrived (well, technically I signed Hong Kong's best player, but only semi-foreign in the terms of the rules), the foreign players already at the club are pretty good anyway and fall in the positions I probably would want them in - Centre back, centre mid and a couple wingers. But really, I am hoping that I don't have to do more than one season here as I believe I have a strong enough side to clean up the required trophies here.

[lukefox44]

16 minutes ago, _JHTB_ said:

You are right of course, just smarting after defeat. 

Honestly, if that were me I'd go for the job. If they give you it you don't really have much to lose, but have the potential to tick off the AFCON if you do well!

I haven't signed a single foreign player since I arrived (well, technically I signed Hong Kong's best player, but only semi-foreign in the terms of the rules), the foreign players already at the club are pretty good anyway and fall in the positions I probably would want them in - Centre back, centre mid and a couple wingers. But really, I am hoping that I don't have to do more than one season here as I believe I have a strong enough side to clean up the required trophies here.

I'm very tempted but its basically the same squad I failed with two years ago but obviously now older. The main reason I dont take the free hit is my rep has gone up massively recently and I'm a bit cautious a failure could send it back down.

If you dont get a clean sweep in China this year once you can bring in your own foreigners it shouldn't take long at all, barring a few disappointing champions league exists like me haha.

[_JHTB_]

44 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

If you dont get a clean sweep in China this year once you can bring in your own foreigners it shouldn't take long at all, barring a few disappointing champions league exists like me haha.

On my FM20 attempt with Guangzhou I managed to win the league and cup, but failed in the Champions League so I know all too well how it can come crumbling down. To be honest, I think it's more so the restrictions on signing over 21 Chinese players that is more of a crux than signing foreign players, especially for the Champions League where you can use fewer foreign players I'd prefer to have the very best Chinese players available (though I do already probably have a lot of the better ones who were already at the club).

47 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

The main reason I dont take the free hit is my rep has gone up massively recently and I'm a bit cautious a failure could send it back down.

I may be wrong, but rep is generally more effected by the domestic side, so I don't see it taking a huge dip especially at a pretty high rep team in Palmeiras. Going from Santos to Guangzhou saw my reputation decrease for that reason but only by 5% or so - think it's at 75% presently. Early on if you didn't have good club jobs maybe it might be more risky but I don't think it would be too bad, that said, I've managed to be in a position where I've met expectations in all my international competitions so far so I can't really comment with 100% conviction on how reputation would be affected.

 

[lukefox44]

1 hour ago, _JHTB_ said:

On my FM20 attempt with Guangzhou I managed to win the league and cup, but failed in the Champions League so I know all too well how it can come crumbling down. To be honest, I think it's more so the restrictions on signing over 21 Chinese players that is more of a crux than signing foreign players, especially for the Champions League where you can use fewer foreign players I'd prefer to have the very best Chinese players available (though I do already probably have a lot of the better ones who were already at the club).

I may be wrong, but rep is generally more effected by the domestic side, so I don't see it taking a huge dip especially at a pretty high rep team in Palmeiras. Going from Santos to Guangzhou saw my reputation decrease for that reason but only by 5% or so - think it's at 75% presently. Early on if you didn't have good club jobs maybe it might be more risky but I don't think it would be too bad, that said, I've managed to be in a position where I've met expectations in all my international competitions so far so I can't really comment with 100% conviction on how reputation would be affected.

 

Yeah the Chinese players do start to get exposed in the Champions league, i found it tricky to get the right balance of which foreign players used. 

I'll be honest I think I so reluctant to take the Nigeria job because I dont think I can take failing with the same team three times haha.

[timpy00]

Season 2021/2022

 

Second season in my career. We started at Bala Town FC which became third in the season before. So hopefully a big step to winning our first prices in my career. To start the season we were pretty active on the transfer market and signed a lot of new players to improve the squad. It was going to be a though season where TNS and Bangor City were the big favorites according to the bookies.

We started the season superb and won quite a lot of matches. After 22 games when to competition got split, we were second with 6 points behind Bangor City. That was also the moment that our momentum was totally gone. In the play offs we won 3 games, draw 2 games and lost 5 games. Also we lost a cup final and got beaten by Bangor City in the Welsh Cup quarter finals by penalty kicks. The season ended not as good as it started so that was sad to see.

 

I've signed a new contract at Bala Town, but it's going to be hard to improve the squad because of the financial situation and the fact that the players from the big clubs, Bangor City, TNS and Barry aren't interested in signing with Bala because they think the squad isn't good enough. So we will give it a try but otherwise I will soon be looking for a new club in probably a new competition.

[JamLUFC]

2029/30

So before the season got underway there was a managerial merry-go-round in Argentina, as the national team job came up along with jobs at Boca Juniors and champions River Plate. Despite being heavily tipped and linked to both club roles I never even received an interview, and by the time the rejection came we were nearly at the start of a new season with a squad which hadn't been strengthened too much. Key lesson for me - focus on my job until a concrete offer comes in!

Although we had a quiet summer we started the season well, with 8 wins and 4 draws in our first 12 games but then the wheels came off and we went into the winter break on the back of 4 defeats in 5 games. 

During the winter break the job at DL Pro came up which I went for. They couldn't offer me an interview due to the compensation so I took the risk and resigned - and it paid off as I've been offered the job ahead of the new season with a £150m transfer budget. With a budget that high I'm quite surprised they were not prepared to pay off Newells for my services, but I guess it worked out for them in the end. I'm definitely disappointed to leave Newells, and in the future it's a long term game I'd consider as they seem to get some really good youth prospects. The issue in a challenge like this is that anyone who's any good gets poached, and you can't buy the quality to compete with the top two. The move to DL Pro gives me a realistic chance of ticking off three trophies in the next 12 months which I don't think I would have if I stayed.

[_JHTB_]

2 hours ago, JamLUFC said:

With a budget that high I'm quite surprised they were not prepared to pay off Newells for my service

Pretty much the same thing happened with me, so I'm assuming there is some financial restrictions on paying for staff in China (I didn't resign but persuaded a lower compensation fee of £85k) - good it worked out and you got the job regardless though.

[berrers]

Season 2 Review

-2022-

DEFENSOR SPORTING CLUB

 

My second season in Uruguay this time with Defensor after the first season promotion with central espanol and subsequent (harsh sacking) got off to a tough start.

Tough in the respect that 2 of my 3 best players Luciano Boggio & Facundo Milan demanded moves to bigger clubs.

Considering both players contracts were running down their wishes were granted and sales were negotiated with Atalanta for Boggio & Fiorentina for Facundo Milan for decent fee's comparative with the league and most importantly in the deals there was a clause included for both players to return to me on loan for the season.

The board however had other ideas and took all other bids that came in out of my hands!... welcome to the job

Boggio joined Monaco for £1.2m and Milan joined Newcastle for £1.5m without a loan back in sight!

Boggio subsequently joined league rivals Penarol shortly after on loan to compound the annoyance!

 

At least the income received from the transfers got the club out of the 600k red they were in and well back into the black! (which was one of the boards requirements)

However it was starting to feel as though I had been set up to fail before I'd even played a game.

Reinforcements were required following these 2 big departures.

Coccaro was tasked with filling the void left by Milan....and with a tash like Poirot, surely goals are a guarantee?

 

For those not familiar with the Uruguayan top league system (I wasn't) It is split into 3 parts...

Opening Stage, Intermedio (where there is 2 groups of 7 and the 2 group winners play in a cup final at the end of it... but despite it being a cup the points you earn in these groups go towards your overall league points (but the overall league points doesn't determine the league winner... still with me?) and finally the closing stage.

On conclusion of the closing stage the winners of the opening stage play the winners of Closing stage in a one off game for the league title! 

I would also like to add I may have made a hash of my explanation of how the league works.

 

    

The opening stage went well with Coccaro straight in the goals.

Our only defeat came in a 3-1 humbling at the hands of Centro Atletco Fenix who caught us on a bad day and a bit leggy straight after a copa sudamericana game.

Nacional easily have the strongest squad in the league and their and penarols wage bill's are both in around £3.8m p/a range with the next lowest (me) at £0.8m... so quite a disparity

The copa sudamericana campaign never really got going.

After walzing past fellow Uruguayans, Boston River comfortably in the qualifiers over the 2 legs to enter into the group stages we actually performed ok in 5 out of the 6 group games and should have had a lot more points than the 5 we managed to muster but a combination of conceding late goals and bad errors cost us.

Bragatino from Brazil worthy group winners

 

INTERMEDIO

This is where things started to really click into place

After a fortunate draw with the groups seeing us managing to avoid the 2 big hitters we comfortably took care of the rest. 

My first cup final of the challenge and a chance to get on the board with a domestic cup win! Due to performing better in the groups I get home advantage.

We took Nacional who were the favorites and holders of the cup for the past 2 years to the cleaners. A complete performance!!

Our superb form continued into the league closing stage and we were on a 19 game winning streak until a shock 1-0 home defeat to Danubio in the derby!

But that was the only blot on an otherwise faultless run

 

Overall league table

A superb campaign and one I certainly didn't see coming after the first few weeks in charge.... however the league title playoff game was still to come! 

With Nacional having won the opening stage and ourselves having topped the closing with more points we were to meet again in Defensor's back yard to see who would be crowned champs!

A one sided game where we could only manage the one goal but the title was Defensor's and their first since 2008 completing a great double

Caracco had a terrific season and finished top scorer in the league

 

We also made our first steps into International management with Albania!

Some old favourties joined the backroom staff in Roy Aitken & Bobby Mimms

A squad with a reasonably strong back 4 and keeper (Strakosha, Hysaj, Kumbulla, Djimsiti)  but not a great deal else further up the pitch

Having picked them up bottom of their UEFA B group the remit was a simple one - to make sure we didn't get relegated to C

7 points from 12 in the remaining group games was a good return and despite the limitations with the personnel in the forward positions we were looking good going forward.

Isak ran riot in the last game for the swedes netting 5  

Most importantly we managed to avoid relegation

 

WHAT NEXT ?

Firstly, hopefully shorter reviews moving fwd!

It's been a great season with a double in the bag and I am off the mark for the challenge + my first steps into international management with Albania.....

i've thoroughly enjoyed the Uruguayan top league and I wasn't quite aware of how many decent youngsters there is in the league as a whole.

Now having won the cup and league double in Uruguay there's nothing left for me to achieve with Defensor unless I want to stay and take on the copa libertadores with them next season which I would be happy to do. 

I am a little skeptical at how far I would get after a bad showing in the much weaker sudamericana this season and feel it could possibly be a wasted season.

However Nacional who I beat fairly comfortably 3 times last season made it to the knockout stage which gives me some hope. 

I don't want to depart south america now until I have the copa libertadores in the bag!

Flamengo have just sacked their manager after losing in the libatadores final and have qualified for it again next season through the league so it makes sense to apply for that which I have done.

-----------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress

Club
1/10 top domestic leagues (URU)
1/10 domestic cups (URU)
0/5 club continental championships ()
0/1 club world championship
International
0/5 continental tournaments ()
0/1 world tournaments ()

Total 
2/32

 

 

[timpy00]

Season 2022

 

After our 3th place in the season before, I really thought there was a good change of improving the team and hopefully aim for a higher position in the league this season. Unfortunately things went pretty sideways. After in my opinion improving the squad we had a terrible start and straight away we were losing a lot matches. Bangor City again looked like the team to beat this season because they won there 8 first games in a row. We kept on struggling and changes of winning any prices this season in Wales were very slim. So after 13 matches and having the idea I wasn't going to turn this around this season I decided to resign from the club.

Since resigning I replied on a lot of job applications and it took me a couple months to find a new club. But after my job interview a knew it for sure, Indonesia is the place to go. Madura United wanted to hire me and offered me a contract for the remaining of this season and the season after that. The season was on it's way sometimes because there seasons are similar to the calendar year. After some discussions with my girlfriend, who hated the idea of moving so far from home. But with the foresight that I was going to make a little bit over 7000 euros a month and she could live a vacation life, we were packing our bags to move to Indonesia.

 

When starting my job at the club, Madura United was positioned 8th in the league with only 9 more games to go. The first thing I noticed was how close the clubs were positioned to each other in the league table. For the remaining of the season the board wanted me to finish at least in the middle of the league, something that looked very possible assuming to achieve that we actually didn't need to improve. But for me personally I was very curious of the quality of the league and if I saw some potential at this club to go win some prices in the upcoming seasons. Only thing that could be a problem was the financial situation of the club, because every month the numbers were red.

I decided to implement my vision of football and my tactics right from the start so the players could get used to it for the upcoming season. But the players immediately reacted on the tactics and we went on a insane run of games.

We only draw ones and that was against Bali United, one of the top clubs of the country. Unfortunately we weren't crowned champions because of the mutual result between us and Persebaya. But the things the players were showing, made me very confident for the upcoming season. Because of this second place we also qualified ourselves for the AFC Cup, were Bali United made it to the final this season. So potentially another change at making a run to win my first trophy in my career. So I'm planning on staying in Indonesia for at least another season with hopefully a couple good runs at making some prices.

[_JHTB_]

Guangzhou 2031

 

I'm going to try and change up my reporting style as my last one with Santos was way too long, though as I'm just winging it when writing them I'm sure this will devolve into similar by the time I post it.

When I joined Guangzhou the first thing I looked at was working out what my best all Chinese XI would be so I could work out where to strengthen, and really, most areas were by Chinese standards, strong. That didn't stop me getting a few players in for the weaker areas with goalkeeper, both full back areas and striker being my main first team signings. All my signings did count as domestic signings as our foreign contingent of Quaresma, Ajer, Collado and a pre agreed transfer before my time of Michalski were more than strong enough for me to be happy with. My two best signings were Wai Kin Tse from Dortmund, a Hong Kong international who looks pretty good especially when you consider he counts as non-foreign in a lot of our games and Meng Linhui who just looks like a very good deep lying forward.

The league this season was, well, a walkover, there wasn't really a time that it looked as though we wouldn't with the title. For a long time it did actually look as though we might be able to do something I'm not sure I personally have managed on Football Manager, an unbeaten season. Alas, we lost with 9 games remaining to fierce rivals Shandong 4-3, I was more disappointed in the performance than us losing our unbeaten streak in honesty as they were value for the win even if the stats did suggest a close game. We cleaned up the league title with 3 games to go though I'm surprised it was as late as we only drew 2 and lost 1 all season, but the title was ours nonetheless.

The cup, as with the league was a relatively straightforward ordeal us progressing through the rounds with relative ease, though I was a little worried of our semi-final opponents Shandong as it was shortly after their victory over us in the league but I needn't have been as we comfortably beat them 2-0. It was the first leg of the final that was our first close game but only in scoreline as we drew 3-3, how we didn't win the game I don't know as we were dominant. Thankfully, we maintained that dominance in the second leg to comfortably dispatch a Wuhan side that we had managed to beat with only 9 men in the league early in the season so was a tie I was expecting to win and the league and cup double was complete.

 

As Guangzhou had only finished 3rd the season prior we weren't straight into the Champions League Group stage as we had to play a qualifier against Brisbane Roar who I thought would be a tougher opponent than they were as we beat them to get to the group stages. The Group stages didn't have any games to make us worry although, we did draw our home game against a side we smashed 8-0 in their own back yard which I wasn't expecting. I was unsure of our second round opponent given them being from Qatar but, despite it taking us a while to get the goals in the second leg following a first leg draw, we were deservedly through. If I hadn't already lost our unbeaten streak in the league I'd have ben even more annoyed by our loss in the first leg of the Champions League Quarter Final at the hands of Urwa Reds 1-0. We did overturn the result in the second leg and then eased past our semi-final opponents also from Qatar to give me the chance to get my 3rd Champions League in 4 years.

I was confident going into the game as they had only scraped past Central Coast Mariners, a side we put 8 goals past in the group stages. However, the first leg saw us have 4 players suspended and one injured so ended up a weaker than wanted team and initially it showed with us not creating anything but two set piece goals calmed the nerves as we went on to win 3-1. The second leg was much smoother with our full strength team available we again won the match 3-1 to make it the perfect season in China.

 

Best Player: Hao Xiaojian

 

I was contemplating brining in Lautaro Martinez in on a free transfer midway through the season, but Xiaojian would probably have lost his place in the team and given his form I felt that would be incredibly harsh. 54 goals in all competitions is very good and he broke the league goalscoring record which is even better from a non-foreign player. He does have weaknesses in his game but in terms of attributes for a Striker he looks very well rounded.

What Next?

Well, I achieved everything I set out to this season and there's nothing else here that needs to be won so I will be resigning and looking for a new job in Europe as I start that leg of my journey (or continue if counting Rotherham). I did have to stop playing one of my players this season due to the £8.5 million we'd have to pay if he played another game and I didn't want to fail FFP in case I did have to stay another season as I was handed the biggest transfer budget I've ever had on a save of £507 million but alas, the next manager can have some fun with that.

Story So Far

Challenge Progress

 

Onto the leaderboard I go 

Edited January 23, 2021 by _JHTB_

[The Regista]

I need to catch up with the thread as it's been a few days since I've read the updates!!

Gotten through my first full pre-season with Wolfsburg - pretty happy with the transfer business so far.

I've really tried to strengthen the centre of defence this summer. Leaving the club were Benjamin Huber (not good enough), Joshua Guilavogui (homesick) and Marin Pongrancic (wanted a move). Although we sadly lost Pongrancic to Bayern we replaced him (somewhat surprisingly) with a 29 year old John Stones. I'm adopting a vertical tiki-taka system and I feel that Stones fits right in to the backline. Malang Sarr was also listed by Chelsea, and at £8m thought he would make a good option to have along with the £17m signing of Diogo Leite from Porto.

Going forwards, we picked up Thiago on loan from Liverpool - his experience in the Bundesliga will be vital and will fit nicely in to the Regista role for most games. Johannesson from Juventus was another obvious buy for the money that they wanted. Daniel James may surprise you, but we needed some versatility out wide as towards the end of last season I felt we were a bit lacklustre with our contributions from wide position, and James will provide Brekalo with some stiff competition.

I've also got to mention two of the newgens - Huarana and Jakovljevic. Bolivian youngster Miguel Angel Huarana has BURST on to the German football scene, scoring 6 goals in 3 matches from the right wing. (including a hattrick on his cup debut against a non league team), At 18 being a full international already is really benefitting him, and my scouts did an excellent job in finding this guy. Took us a couple of weeks to get enough data on him, but at £350k it wasn't too much of a risk (his release clause I believe). Absolutely unreal.

Jakovljevic hasn't made his first team debut yet, but I'm very excited about his potential in the game too given where he currently is at 18 years old.

Spoiler

We're currently top after 3 matches, having beat Schalke, Nurnberg and Jahn Regensburg (whom finished 2nd in the 2. Bundesliga last year). Bayern are up next but we go to them on a good vein of form. Anything is possible.

Meanwhile - I've made my debut in the international scene. Marcel Desailly - eat your heart out

 

I join the Black Stars just after the AFCON 2023, where they were knocked out at the semi final stage by eventual winners Nigeria 4-1. Additionally they lost the 3rd Placed Playoff to Mali - so not a terrible tournament but definitely one they could have done better in. The World Cup qualifiers are about to get started and so I've got a clean slate in terms of where we stand in any competition. Both the Ghana and Ivory Coast jobs were available, but Ghana are currently ranked 19th in the world and had a much better AFCON performance than Ivory Coast (whom were knocked out in a group where The Gambia finished top). 

Not had much of a look round, but really looking forward to this! 

[dkouv]

2027 Asian Cup - Australia

Both Australia and Iran jobs became available after the World Cup, and I picked Australia because they actually managed to get to the WC knockouts and were ranked a reasonable 30th in the world. The squad wasn’t that great, quite a bit weaker than my Ivory Coast team and a polar opposite in terms of positional strength with two fantastic keepers and only one half decent striker. This meant that I had to try and figure out a 1 striker tactic before the tournament.

We got a tough draw for the group with hosts and 2019 winners Qatar, 2023 runners-up Thailand who for some reason actually have quite a few good players, and who knocked out my Uzbekistan team last time round. Tajikistan, the team where I took my first international job, complete the group.

Group Stage

Spoiler

Tajikistan 1 - 2 Australia. Here we go again. Not exactly what I was looking for but we manage a win thanks to a headed goal from a corner.

Australia 4 - 0 Qatar. A convincing win but the game was actually pretty close, they missed a penalty and we scored two late goals on the counter to put some gloss on the scoreline.

My best outfield player, Burnley left winger Arzani, got injured and will probably miss the rest of the tournament.

Australia 3 - 0 Thailand. Well, maybe this Thailand team aren’t what they once were. Our second string side beat them easily thanks to two headed goals from Charlton’s center back Cameron Burgess.

Lebanon, a bit of an unknown quantity, are next.

 

Second Round (if applicable)

Spoiler

Lebanon 0 - 1 Australia. Yes, I did it again, playing my second string side against an opponent who is weak on paper. But Australia have more depth than Uzbekistan so this time I got away with it. We were pretty dominant but struggled to create clear cut chances, a 60th minute header from our winger Awer Mabil securing the win.

 

Quarter Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

UAE 1 - 3 Australia (aet). I beat UAE 5-1 in a pre-tournament friendly but of course they had a game of their lifetime here, keeping us to a narrow 1-0 lead and equalising with a wondergoal in the 85th minute. Thankfully we did put them to the sword in extra time.

Another team who had a game of their lifetime were Syria, beating holders and by far the best team in the tournament South Korea on penalties, so thankfully we meet them rather than Korea in the semis.

 

Semi Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

Australia 0p - 0 Syria. A very tight game with few chances, where literally nothing happened from minute 20 onwards despite my attempted tactical machinations (so it was probably for the best). I was grateful for Australia’s superstar goalie though, as the first three Syria’s penalties were all either saved or missed, and we scored all of ours to win the least stressful penalty shootout ever and squeeze into the final. 

In yet another surprise, Jordan beat Iran in the other semi and will be our final opponents. I have quite a few players suspended but surely we should have enough about us to get past them.

 

Final / 3rd place playoff (if applicable)

Spoiler

Well, this was as stress-free international trophy final as I remember in all my attempts at this challenge. In the polar opposite of the Syria game, we were not only dominant but everything seemed to go in for us, with two goals by my winger Marko Smak and two by a reserve center back Louie McPherson.

In the end, it was a bit of a strange tournament - we didn’t have to play any of the usual heavyweights but still had some pretty tight games. I think I really appreciated having a good goalkeeper, seems to be key at this level and is the one thing we didn’t have at Ivory Coast.

 

After the tournament

Spoiler

Well, that was a very brief and rather successful 6-month spell in charge of Australia. I’ll resign and probably wait until after this summer’s Gold Cup or next winter’s Copa America to get a new international job. I managed to get a club job at Jeonbuk in South Korea, they qualified for the Champions League last season so I'm looking forward to giving the Asian club part of the challenge a go. They seem to be one of the better South Korean teams but not sure how we'll fare against all those Chinese clubs with their overpaid ageing superstars.

For now, here are the key players from the tournament. 

The standout by far is our regen keeper Wei Jianhua, guess I should be happy he’s playing for us and not China. Looks like an absolute star in the making, shame I can’t sign him for Jonbuk since we can’t sign any non South Korean keepers. Marko Smak was the key attacker, with most of our star attackers being either injured or out of form he stepped up to the plate with a number of key goals during the tournament. We also only conceded 2 goals during the whole cup, mostly thanks to the goalie but also thanks to experienced Charlton center back Cameron Burgess who ability-wise isn't the best but put in some great performances.

  

 

 

[_JHTB_]

16 minutes ago, dkouv said:

our regen keeper Wei Jianhua

I was thinking this name was familiar, and it was a little, the keeper I signed for Guangzhou was Wu Jianhua, though if we're talking quality mine lacked significantly compared to him.

17 minutes ago, dkouv said:

They seem to be one of the better South Korean teams but not sure how we'll fare against all those Chinese clubs with their overpaid ageing superstars.

In fairness, if you play it right you should be able to fare pretty well, in general South Korea tends to have better players on the whole to China and with a limit of 3 foreign players in the Champions League you should be able to get together a well rounded squad that can offset the foreign players Chinese teams attract.

 

39 minutes ago, The Regista said:

Jakovljevic hasn't made his first team debut yet, but I'm very excited about his potential in the game too given where he currently is at 18 years old.

I'd agree with you there, if he develops as much as your coaches suggest he can he'll be a very good player in the future, perhaps lacking a little physically, but his mental attributes for his age are really good.

[_JHTB_]

Athletic Bilbao

After resigning from Guangzhou I didn't have long to wait for a job as I applied for the Bilbao job got an interview and offered the job all within a week of my resignation. This will be a pretty tough job and I don't expect it to be one that will be a job that will allow me to win any of the remaining competitions in the challenge, but it does give me a good step into Europe at a high reputation team that should allow me to move on later on should I perform well. Bilbao of course can only sign Basque players so it will be a tough challenge actually finding players good enough to strengthen the team but, after a walkover with Guangzhou it will be nice to have a bit more of a challenge. 

I think the journalists need to make note that Bilbao can only sign Basque players though as they presented me with this question in the press conference after I took the job.

Edited January 23, 2021 by _JHTB_

[The Regista]

@_JHTB_Congrats on the new job in Bilbao. Tough ask to try and win La Liga but certainly a move in the right direction from Guangzhou. Looks like the Chinese Super League was a bit of a walkover?

@dkouvWell done on knocking off the Asian Cup on your trophies list!!

@timpy00 Hard luck on the run in with Madura. With a full season of those results under your belt the league should be there for the taking!

@berrers South American leagues always look confusing to me but I think I followed how you won the league. Congratulations!!

@lukefox44Any news on the new job?

 

[lukefox44]

13 hours ago, The Regista said:

@lukefox44Any news on the new job?

I took the Palmeiras job and it was instantly noticeable the step up in quality from Racing, even if they weren't having a good season when I arrived. Just finished the season and need to calm down a touch before I can do a full write up.

Hows it going with Wolfsburg? Looks like you've made some exciting signings. Also welcome to international management and the not at all frustrating AFCON.

@dkouv congrats with Australia mate, living my dream I've been waiting for that job to become available for about 7 seasons now haha.

@_JHTB_ looks like you made China look a lot easier than I did haha. I was the same in my last season one late loss from going unbeaten, gutting isnt it.

[_JHTB_]

14 hours ago, The Regista said:

@_JHTB_Congrats on the new job in Bilbao. Tough ask to try and win La Liga but certainly a move in the right direction from Guangzhou. Looks like the Chinese Super League was a bit of a walkover?

They probably are a step up, but I also probably should have waited for a better job to become available, it has become very obvious to me that after just one transfer window that my stay here will be just until another job comes available, my reputation did increase in taking the job but it's a tough job to do well in for definite. 

 

18 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

@_JHTB_ looks like you made China look a lot easier than I did haha. I was the same in my last season one late loss from going unbeaten, gutting isnt it.

Guangzhou had such a strong base squad for the league and had won like 7 of the 10 league titles since the start of the save so were really quite strong. I did mean to add screenshots of the foreign players I mentioned in the write up but completely forgot however, Quaresma in particular was still getting regular Portugal call ups and was still in his prime for a centre back at 29 so that helped a lot. Yeah, late loss from going unbeaten to a team we comfortably beat in the cup a couple weeks later, but, I was most wanting the Champions League, the league and cup were just a welcome bonus and means I'll have less to win down the line in Europe.

[vikeologist]

@_JHTB_ Congrats on reaching the leader board.

As is my new custom, a quote from the nation you reached it in, but China, who to choose? Confucius? Sun Tzu? Jackie Chan?

Edited January 24, 2021 by vikeologist

[vikeologist]

Not this challenge, but I've just had my first FM21 penalty shootout (in my 14th season). (I know this because it's quite different from FM20 etc).

Very different from this challenge where penalty shootouts are quite common. 

Can't say I've missed the stress. We did win, but it went all the way down to our 9th taker.

[_JHTB_]

Athletic Bilbao 2031/32

As I did discuss, it wasn't long after my arrival here at Bilbao that I realised that my stay would not be a long one, there are seemingly no good Basque midfielders or goalkeepers and with our goalkeeper at 34 and best midfielders in their 30s there is really very little improvement to the squad I can make which means we'd be on a hiding to nothing. Our tenure actually started well unbeaten in our opening 6 league games as we brought the club away from the relegation zone, but the run of fixtures was against favourable teams. As can be seen, our form fell off a cliff in February and well, I decided to already look at the job market for a new job and, was successful so am leaving Bilbao after just 17 games in all competitions, a very short stay indeed.

 

Tottenham Hotspur

So it's back to the premier league I go, this time a team that should be able to challenge towards the top end of the league. Tottenham are having a pretty poor season and currently are looking like they might not even qualify for the Europa Conference League, but I may be able to squeeze out qualification for that in the remainder of the season. But with Spurs I feel I have a team that I can at least build towards a league title even if it does take a few seasons to do so. This season will just be used to evaluate the squad to determine the squad needs for the summer.