The Ultimate Football Manager Challenge

[Basschaapje.2]

55 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

Good effort that mate.

Just a quick question, how much does having a national job effect your manager reputation ? Struggling to decide if I need to be getting a national team job yet or not.

Cheers.

So i got Georgia to the QF and my rep didn't change at all, still at a half star. And clubs in mexico wouldn't even look at me. I friend of mine however won the euro's with Portugal and received 5 invitations from countries like England and Holland the day after. So there must be something going on there but for me so for it did not do anything.

PS my abilities did grow quite a bit, got some 3,4's and even a 5. 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Basschaapje.2

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2052 Italy Euros Report

 

Just 5 trophies left, but if I fail to win this tournament, especially if I’m sacked, there’s a strong possibility that I’ll just leave the challenge here. After a while, travelling from job to job just becomes boring, especially now it’s got to the point where I’m just chasing cups, so 95% of a league season is fairly meaningless.

As they say about betting in The UK; when the fun stops, stop.

But if I do win, I will probably continue with the challenge.

France are supposed to be the best in the world, but Italy have won every match since I took over bar a draw against France in my very debut, (and we won the return fixture).

However, my squad has been badly hit by injuries for this tournament, including my left winger who is a stallion backed up by donkeys.

16 years since my last Euros, with France. I quit voluntarily after losing in the semi finals, which in retrospect was a bug mistake. I thought they were in decline. They won the next 2 World Cups, and they won the latest one in 2050  as well.

Being in the same group as France, (they’re #1, we’re #3 in the world) is obviously tough, but then again, hopefully that means that we won’t meet again until the final.

There’s another old flame in the group, Switzerland, a team I’ve never seen have a good match, and I was the manager for a year.

 

Group Stage

Spoiler

 

Italy    2-3    France

Our first defeat. We started badly and were soon 2-0 down but fought back to 2-2. Then one of our subs picked up a straight red.

Italy    1-1     Denmark

A draw against by far the weakest side on the group. I’m beginning to think the universe is telling me to abandon this challenge.

Italy    2-2     Switzerland

We dominated and were 2-1 up when they had a man sent off, but yet another terrible under-performance left us praying for a lucky best 3^rd place slot to qualify for the next round.

And unbelievably we are through, on goals scored since we were level on goal difference with the 5^th best 3^rd finisher.

If we win it after this start, it will be a hell of a story, won’t it?

I think I might change my goalkeeper, a 35 year old with 130 caps.

Our new goalie, who to be fair is supposed to be as good, is a 20 year old with just 2 caps, the 2 pre-tournament friendlies where he didn’t even play the whole match. Just hope he likes big matches.

Obviously we have a tough match in the next round, but it doesn’t come much tougher than 4^th ranked Portugal.

 

 

 

2^nd Round (if applicable)

Spoiler

 

Italy    1-0     Portugal

Not exactly comfortable, but a win’s a win, and if by any chance I get sacked but do want to continue on with the challenge, the Portugal job should be available.

 

 

Quarter Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

 

Italy    1-0     England

We scored our winner in the last minute of normal time. A very tight match.

Our bad luck in the group stage seems to have swung the other way.

 

 

Semi Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

 

Italy    2-0     Belgium

If anything, we were even luckier this time. The referee ignored what seemed like 2 fairly flagrant penalties by our defenders and the ball seemed fairly clearly over the line at one point.

So, in the final, against my old nemesis in this competition, Germany. They’ve had their wobbles along the way too, needing penalties to get past Poland.

 

Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

 

Italy    2-0     Germany

If you can’t be good, be lucky.

Frankly the final was the only match that we did actually look good in. I think Germany had one shot on goal all match.

 

After The Tournament

Spoiler

 

It’s taken me a while to win the Euros. Not just in this save. In my previous attempt at the challenge I lost in the final twice.

I thought that I might not even be able to complete the challenge, because I was running out of nations in Europe.

And, to repeat, we made it out of the group stage purely on goals having finished in 3^rd place level on goal difference with someone else.

So, I continue on. I might even be changing club job, as I’ve had an interview with PSG.

Most Valuable Player– Blaz Ribic

As mentioned after the group stage (where we conceded 6 goals in 3 matches, I dropped the Italian goalkeeping legend that is Emanuele Longo for Ribic, a 20 year old wonderkid who’d never played in a competitive international fixture, and we then conceded 0 goals in the remaining 4 matches.

Was this due to Ribic? Probably more due to the failures of a referee, goal line technology and opposition strikers, but Ribic is a huge mountain of a young man, and even if he didn’t have to make many saves, established complete control of the airspace around our goal.

And yes we were lucky, but we were unlucky with the injuries that robbed of of some of our top players for the tournament.

The end is near now.

Domestic
Season	Team		Division		Position	MVP				Notes										
20/21	Folkestone	England VNL South	4th		Alfie Matthews 	(SC) 		Lost in playoff S/F
21/22	Folkestone	England VNL South	1st		Jobi McAnuff	(MR)		FA Cup R4, won league by a country mile.
22/23	Folkestone	England VNL Conference	1st		Dion Rankine	(MR)		FA Cup R4 again, back to back promotions to the Football League
23/24	Folkestone	England League 2	4th and lost in playoff final without me 	Left after 21 matches with Folkestone in 2nd and on course for 3rd promotion in a row.
23/24	Everton		Premier League		11th		Alexander Nübel	(GK)		Took over after 16 matches. Won Carabao Cup.
24/25	Everton		Premier League		7th		Christopher McKay (MR)		Won Carabao Cup (again) and Europa League, thus qualifying for Champions League.
25/26	Everton		Premier League		3rd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Carabao Cup Threepeat, Lost in CL Final.
26/27	Everton		Premier League		1st		Moise Kean (SC)			League / FA Cup Double.	
27/28	Everton		Premier League		2nd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup Treble	
28/29	Everton		Premier League		1st		Christopher McKay (MR)		League, FA Cup, Champions League, Club World Championship	
30/31	Dortmund	Bundesliga		2nd		Juan Manuel Jiménez (MR)	Won Europa League. Whoopy Do.
31/32	Dortmund	Bundesliga		1st		Aarón Fernández (SC)		League / Cup double
32/33	Valencia	Primera Liga		6th		Sergio Goñi (SC)		Took over after 16 matches. Qualified for Euro II.
33/34	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Carlos Gimeno (ML)		Won Euro Cup II
34/35	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Once again, a distant second best to Real Madrid.
35/36	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Spanish Cup and Champions League
36/37	Valencia	Primara Liga		1st		Nathan (SC)			League, Champions League
2037	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Leandro Mederos (MC)		Took over after 17 matches in 8th. Won league. CL S/F
2038	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Ley (DC)			League, Libertadores and the pursuit of happiness. Sorry, I mean the Brazilian Cup.
39/40	OM		French 1st		1st		Batata (SC)			League. Knocked out of Frech Cup on penalties. 
40/41	Juventus	Serie A			1st		Dustin Abeßer (SC)		League / Cup double.
2043	SIPG		Chinese SL		2nd		Anderson Omar (MC)		Took over after 13 matches. ACL S/F
2044	SIPG		Chinese SL		1st		Ninja (SC)			League, cup, Champions League triple, Unbeaten league season.
2045	America		Mexican Opening		13th						Took over after 14 matches in 17th place (of 20). Won all 5 remaining matches
2046	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Miguel Macías (MC)		League winners
2046	America		Mexican Opening		1st						League and Leagues Cup winners
2047	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Misael Hernández (SC)		League and NACL winners
46/47	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	3rd						Took over in 3rd with 3 games to go. 
47/48	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Tshidiso Zimu (ML/C)		League, Super 8, K/O Cup, SA Cup, Confederations Cup. Everything basically.
48/49	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Siphamandla Mlungwana (AMC)	Won everything (apart from the CWC) again, this time including the Champions League.
50/51	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		5th						Took over with 8 matches remaining in 6th. Won the Euro League II Playoff.
51/52	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		1st		Matías Bessone (SC)		Fantastic all seson apart from a disasterous S/F 1st leg saw us crash out.

International
Year	Team				Achievements
23	Indonesia U23			Topped U23 Asian Nations Cup Qualifying. Quit shortly afterwards.
24-26	Uruguay				World Cup S/F
26-28	France				Knocked out in Euros Q/F
28-32	Argentina			World Cup		Matías Gayoso (GK)
					Copa America		Matías Gayoso (GK)
32-34	Spain				European League		Ansu Fati (SC)
					Knocked out in '34 WC R3 by eventual winners Germany
34-36	France (Again)			Nations League		Manuel Jourdan (SC)
					Lost Euro '36 S/F to eventual winners Germany
36-39	Mexico				Lost in Gold Cup final.
					World Cup Quarterfinalists
					Won Gold Cup 		Juan Pablo Diaz (MC)
40-42	Holland				Nations League		Stefan van Roon (SC)
					World Cup 3rd Round
42-43	South Korea			Asian Cup		Wookie (ML)
46-47	Switzerland
47-49	Ivory Coast			Knocked out in ACON R2
49-50	Ghana				Knocked out in WC R2
50-52	Italy				3rd Nations League	Gianfranco Tammaro (SC)
					Euros			Blaz Ribic



Challenge Progress 28/32

Club
 10/10 top domestic leagues 		(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, China, Mexico, South Africa, Slovakia)			
 7/10 domestic cups 			(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy, China, South Africa)						
 5/5 club continental championships	(Europe, S America, Asia, N America, Africa)	 	
 1/1 club world championship

International
 4/5 continental tournaments 		(S America, N America, Asia, Europe)		
 1/1 World Cup		

 

 

[vikeologist]

21 minutes ago, Basschaapje.2 said:

So i got Georgia to the QF and my rep didn't change at all, still at a half star. And clubs in mexico wouldn't even look at me. I friend of mine however won the euro's with Portugal and received 5 invitations from countries like England and Holland the day after. So there must be something going on there but for me so for it did not do anything.

PS my abilities did grow quite a bit, got some 3,4's and even a 5. 

Like you say, there's something going on, and yes, winning international things definitely improves your rep. Taking and leaving international jobs (whether voluntary or enforced) presumably also affects things, but not always in a simple way.

 

Anyway, I ended up not getting the PSG job, but having put so much effort into my Slovan side over the summer, I'm not crushed. A time saver really given how much time it takes when I take over a club.

I did a little experiment to see what effect quitting or not quitting the France job would have on my rep and on getting the PSG job (although I was always going to go back to the save before the experiment. I'm trying very hard to make this entire save 'clean') and it had no apparent effect on either rep or the PSG outcome.

Edited November 19, 2020 by vikeologist

[Basschaapje.2]

14 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

Like you say, there's something going on, and yes, winning international things definitely improves your rep. Taking and leaving international jobs (whether voluntary or enforced) presumably also affects things, but not always in a simple way.

 

Anyway, I ended up not getting the PSG job, but having put so much effort into my Slovan side over the summer, I'm not crushed. A time saver really given how much time it takes when I take over a club.

I did a little experiment to see what effect quitting or not quitting the France job would have on my rep and on getting the PSG job (although I was always going to go back to the save before the experiment. I'm trying very hard to make this entire save 'clean') and it had no apparent effect on either rep or the PSG outcome.

Do you have like a short overview of your save?  With some of your best players for example, A little bit more detailed than the schedule a upload?

[lukefox44]

Thanks guys, just interested in the effect of the national job.

 

55 minutes ago, Basschaapje.2 said:

So i got Georgia to the QF and my rep didn't change at all, still at a half star. And clubs in Mexico wouldn't even look at me. 

Little bit disappointed that doing so well with Georgia didn't have at least some positive impact on your rep. If a random 20 year old kid did that well in a major tournament with an unfancied side it would do wonders for them. However suppose it would make it a little bit too easy to get top job early on.

[Basschaapje.2]

12 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

Thanks guys, just interested in the effect of the national job.

 

Little bit disappointed that doing so well with Georgia didn't have at least some positive impact on your rep. If a random 20 year old kid did that well in a major tournament with an unfancied side it would do wonders for them. However suppose it would make it a little bit too easy to get top job early on.

True but i would have expected a little rep. Maybe gain a half star of reputation or something.

[lukefox44]

25 minutes ago, Basschaapje.2 said:

True but i would have expected a little rep. Maybe gain a half star of reputation or something.

Yeah that's exactly what I would of assumed.

Performing well on a big stage should have at least some impact.

But like you said, it did improve your attributes, so it's not a complete waste.

[MShing]

2 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Vikeologist's 2052 Italy Euros Report

 

Just 5 trophies left, but if I fail to win this tournament, especially if I’m sacked, there’s a strong possibility that I’ll just leave the challenge here. After a while, travelling from job to job just becomes boring, especially now it’s got to the point where I’m just chasing cups, so 95% of a league season is fairly meaningless.

As they say about betting in The UK; when the fun stops, stop.

But if I do win, I will probably continue with the challenge.

France are supposed to be the best in the world, but Italy have won every match since I took over bar a draw against France in my very debut, (and we won the return fixture).

However, my squad has been badly hit by injuries for this tournament, including my left winger who is a stallion backed up by donkeys.

16 years since my last Euros, with France. I quit voluntarily after losing in the semi finals, which in retrospect was a bug mistake. I thought they were in decline. They won the next 2 World Cups, and they won the latest one in 2050  as well.

Being in the same group as France, (they’re #1, we’re #3 in the world) is obviously tough, but then again, hopefully that means that we won’t meet again until the final.

There’s another old flame in the group, Switzerland, a team I’ve never seen have a good match, and I was the manager for a year.

 

Group Stage

  Hide contents

 

Italy    2-3    France

Our first defeat. We started badly and were soon 2-0 down but fought back to 2-2. Then one of our subs picked up a straight red.

Italy    1-1     Denmark

A draw against by far the weakest side on the group. I’m beginning to think the universe is telling me to abandon this challenge.

Italy    2-2     Switzerland

We dominated and were 2-1 up when they had a man sent off, but yet another terrible under-performance left us praying for a lucky best 3^rd place slot to qualify for the next round.

And unbelievably we are through, on goals scored since we were level on goal difference with the 5^th best 3^rd finisher.

If we win it after this start, it will be a hell of a story, won’t it?

I think I might change my goalkeeper, a 35 year old with 130 caps.

Our new goalie, who to be fair is supposed to be as good, is a 20 year old with just 2 caps, the 2 pre-tournament friendlies where he didn’t even play the whole match. Just hope he likes big matches.

Obviously we have a tough match in the next round, but it doesn’t come much tougher than 4^th ranked Portugal.

 

 

 

2^nd Round (if applicable)

  Hide contents

 

Italy    1-0     Portugal

Not exactly comfortable, but a win’s a win, and if by any chance I get sacked but do want to continue on with the challenge, the Portugal job should be available.

 

 

Quarter Final (if applicable)

  Hide contents

 

Italy    1-0     England

We scored our winner in the last minute of normal time. A very tight match.

Our bad luck in the group stage seems to have swung the other way.

 

 

Semi Final (if applicable)

  Hide contents

 

Italy    2-0     Belgium

If anything, we were even luckier this time. The referee ignored what seemed like 2 fairly flagrant penalties by our defenders and the ball seemed fairly clearly over the line at one point.

So, in the final, against my old nemesis in this competition, Germany. They’ve had their wobbles along the way too, needing penalties to get past Poland.

 

Final (if applicable)

  Hide contents

 

Italy    2-0     Germany

If you can’t be good, be lucky.

Frankly the final was the only match that we did actually look good in. I think Germany had one shot on goal all match.

 

After The Tournament

  Hide contents

 

It’s taken me a while to win the Euros. Not just in this save. In my previous attempt at the challenge I lost in the final twice.

I thought that I might not even be able to complete the challenge, because I was running out of nations in Europe.

And, to repeat, we made it out of the group stage purely on goals having finished in 3^rd place level on goal difference with someone else.

So, I continue on. I might even be changing club job, as I’ve had an interview with PSG.

Most Valuable Player– Blaz Ribic

As mentioned after the group stage (where we conceded 6 goals in 3 matches, I dropped the Italian goalkeeping legend that is Emanuele Longo for Ribic, a 20 year old wonderkid who’d never played in a competitive international fixture, and we then conceded 0 goals in the remaining 4 matches.

Was this due to Ribic? Probably more due to the failures of a referee, goal line technology and opposition strikers, but Ribic is a huge mountain of a young man, and even if he didn’t have to make many saves, established complete control of the airspace around our goal.

And yes we were lucky, but we were unlucky with the injuries that robbed of of some of our top players for the tournament.

The end is near now.

Domestic
Season	Team		Division		Position	MVP				Notes										
20/21	Folkestone	England VNL South	4th		Alfie Matthews 	(SC) 		Lost in playoff S/F
21/22	Folkestone	England VNL South	1st		Jobi McAnuff	(MR)		FA Cup R4, won league by a country mile.
22/23	Folkestone	England VNL Conference	1st		Dion Rankine	(MR)		FA Cup R4 again, back to back promotions to the Football League
23/24	Folkestone	England League 2	4th and lost in playoff final without me 	Left after 21 matches with Folkestone in 2nd and on course for 3rd promotion in a row.
23/24	Everton		Premier League		11th		Alexander Nübel	(GK)		Took over after 16 matches. Won Carabao Cup.
24/25	Everton		Premier League		7th		Christopher McKay (MR)		Won Carabao Cup (again) and Europa League, thus qualifying for Champions League.
25/26	Everton		Premier League		3rd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Carabao Cup Threepeat, Lost in CL Final.
26/27	Everton		Premier League		1st		Moise Kean (SC)			League / FA Cup Double.	
27/28	Everton		Premier League		2nd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup Treble	
28/29	Everton		Premier League		1st		Christopher McKay (MR)		League, FA Cup, Champions League, Club World Championship	
30/31	Dortmund	Bundesliga		2nd		Juan Manuel Jiménez (MR)	Won Europa League. Whoopy Do.
31/32	Dortmund	Bundesliga		1st		Aarón Fernández (SC)		League / Cup double
32/33	Valencia	Primera Liga		6th		Sergio Goñi (SC)		Took over after 16 matches. Qualified for Euro II.
33/34	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Carlos Gimeno (ML)		Won Euro Cup II
34/35	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Once again, a distant second best to Real Madrid.
35/36	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Spanish Cup and Champions League
36/37	Valencia	Primara Liga		1st		Nathan (SC)			League, Champions League
2037	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Leandro Mederos (MC)		Took over after 17 matches in 8th. Won league. CL S/F
2038	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Ley (DC)			League, Libertadores and the pursuit of happiness. Sorry, I mean the Brazilian Cup.
39/40	OM		French 1st		1st		Batata (SC)			League. Knocked out of Frech Cup on penalties. 
40/41	Juventus	Serie A			1st		Dustin Abeßer (SC)		League / Cup double.
2043	SIPG		Chinese SL		2nd		Anderson Omar (MC)		Took over after 13 matches. ACL S/F
2044	SIPG		Chinese SL		1st		Ninja (SC)			League, cup, Champions League triple, Unbeaten league season.
2045	America		Mexican Opening		13th						Took over after 14 matches in 17th place (of 20). Won all 5 remaining matches
2046	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Miguel Macías (MC)		League winners
2046	America		Mexican Opening		1st						League and Leagues Cup winners
2047	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Misael Hernández (SC)		League and NACL winners
46/47	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	3rd						Took over in 3rd with 3 games to go. 
47/48	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Tshidiso Zimu (ML/C)		League, Super 8, K/O Cup, SA Cup, Confederations Cup. Everything basically.
48/49	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Siphamandla Mlungwana (AMC)	Won everything (apart from the CWC) again, this time including the Champions League.
50/51	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		5th						Took over with 8 matches remaining in 6th. Won the Euro League II Playoff.
51/52	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		1st		Matías Bessone (SC)		Fantastic all seson apart from a disasterous S/F 1st leg saw us crash out.

International
Year	Team				Achievements
23	Indonesia U23			Topped U23 Asian Nations Cup Qualifying. Quit shortly afterwards.
24-26	Uruguay				World Cup S/F
26-28	France				Knocked out in Euros Q/F
28-32	Argentina			World Cup		Matías Gayoso (GK)
					Copa America		Matías Gayoso (GK)
32-34	Spain				European League		Ansu Fati (SC)
					Knocked out in '34 WC R3 by eventual winners Germany
34-36	France (Again)			Nations League		Manuel Jourdan (SC)
					Lost Euro '36 S/F to eventual winners Germany
36-39	Mexico				Lost in Gold Cup final.
					World Cup Quarterfinalists
					Won Gold Cup 		Juan Pablo Diaz (MC)
40-42	Holland				Nations League		Stefan van Roon (SC)
					World Cup 3rd Round
42-43	South Korea			Asian Cup		Wookie (ML)
46-47	Switzerland
47-49	Ivory Coast			Knocked out in ACON R2
49-50	Ghana				Knocked out in WC R2
50-52	Italy				3rd Nations League	Gianfranco Tammaro (SC)
					Euros			Blaz Ribic



Challenge Progress 28/32

Club
 10/10 top domestic leagues 		(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, China, Mexico, South Africa, Slovakia)			
 7/10 domestic cups 			(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy, China, South Africa)						
 5/5 club continental championships	(Europe, S America, Asia, N America, Africa)	 	
 1/1 club world championship

International
 4/5 continental tournaments 		(S America, N America, Asia, Europe)		
 1/1 World Cup		

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations on winning the Euro's, this was the one I failed to win on my last attempt on 20. I suppose as you scraped through your group you were always going to win it 😊

Will you be resigning from Italy and going after an african team next?

[vikeologist]

1 hour ago, MShing said:

Congratulations on winning the Euro's, this was the one I failed to win on my last attempt on 20. I suppose as you scraped through your group you were always going to win it 😊

Will you be resigning from Italy and going after an african team next?

Yes. No point staying with France. 

I'll have to wait for the sackings after the next ACON, but that will be next year I imagine.

3 hours ago, Basschaapje.2 said:

Do you have like a short overview of your save?  With some of your best players for example, A little bit more detailed than the schedule a upload?

I don't know what you mean by the schedule a upload, but are you saying that you think my updates are too short and lacking in detail?!?

I have this at the bottom of nearly every report.

Domestic
Season	Team		Division		Position	MVP				Notes										
20/21	Folkestone	England VNL South	4th		Alfie Matthews 	(SC) 		Lost in playoff S/F
21/22	Folkestone	England VNL South	1st		Jobi McAnuff	(MR)		FA Cup R4, won league by a country mile.
22/23	Folkestone	England VNL Conference	1st		Dion Rankine	(MR)		FA Cup R4 again, back to back promotions to the Football League
23/24	Folkestone	England League 2	4th and lost in playoff final without me 	Left after 21 matches with Folkestone in 2nd and on course for 3rd promotion in a row.
23/24	Everton		Premier League		11th		Alexander Nübel	(GK)		Took over after 16 matches. Won Carabao Cup.
24/25	Everton		Premier League		7th		Christopher McKay (MR)		Won Carabao Cup (again) and Europa League, thus qualifying for Champions League.
25/26	Everton		Premier League		3rd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Carabao Cup Threepeat, Lost in CL Final.
26/27	Everton		Premier League		1st		Moise Kean (SC)			League / FA Cup Double.	
27/28	Everton		Premier League		2nd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup Treble	
28/29	Everton		Premier League		1st		Christopher McKay (MR)		League, FA Cup, Champions League, Club World Championship	
30/31	Dortmund	Bundesliga		2nd		Juan Manuel Jiménez (MR)	Won Europa League. Whoopy Do.
31/32	Dortmund	Bundesliga		1st		Aarón Fernández (SC)		League / Cup double
32/33	Valencia	Primera Liga		6th		Sergio Goñi (SC)		Took over after 16 matches. Qualified for Euro II.
33/34	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Carlos Gimeno (ML)		Won Euro Cup II
34/35	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Once again, a distant second best to Real Madrid.
35/36	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Spanish Cup and Champions League
36/37	Valencia	Primara Liga		1st		Nathan (SC)			League, Champions League
2037	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Leandro Mederos (MC)		Took over after 17 matches in 8th. Won league. CL S/F
2038	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Ley (DC)			League, Libertadores and the pursuit of happiness. Sorry, I mean the Brazilian Cup.
39/40	OM		French 1st		1st		Batata (SC)			League. Knocked out of Frech Cup on penalties. 
40/41	Juventus	Serie A			1st		Dustin Abeßer (SC)		League / Cup double.
2043	SIPG		Chinese SL		2nd		Anderson Omar (MC)		Took over after 13 matches. ACL S/F
2044	SIPG		Chinese SL		1st		Ninja (SC)			League, cup, Champions League triple, Unbeaten league season.
2045	America		Mexican Opening		13th						Took over after 14 matches in 17th place (of 20). Won all 5 remaining matches
2046	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Miguel Macías (MC)		League winners
2046	America		Mexican Opening		1st						League and Leagues Cup winners
2047	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Misael Hernández (SC)		League and NACL winners
46/47	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	3rd						Took over in 3rd with 3 games to go. 
47/48	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Tshidiso Zimu (ML/C)		League, Super 8, K/O Cup, SA Cup, Confederations Cup. Everything basically.
48/49	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Siphamandla Mlungwana (AMC)	Won everything (apart from the CWC) again, this time including the Champions League.
50/51	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		5th						Took over with 8 matches remaining in 6th. Won the Euro League II Playoff.
51/52	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		1st		Matías Bessone (SC)		Fantastic all seson apart from a disasterous S/F 1st leg saw us crash out.

International
Year	Team				Achievements
23	Indonesia U23			Topped U23 Asian Nations Cup Qualifying. Quit shortly afterwards.
24-26	Uruguay				World Cup S/F
26-28	France				Knocked out in Euros Q/F
28-32	Argentina			World Cup		Matías Gayoso (GK)
					Copa America		Matías Gayoso (GK)
32-34	Spain				European League		Ansu Fati (SC)
					Knocked out in '34 WC R3 by eventual winners Germany
34-36	France (Again)			Nations League		Manuel Jourdan (SC)
					Lost Euro '36 S/F to eventual winners Germany
36-39	Mexico				Lost in Gold Cup final.
					World Cup Quarterfinalists
					Won Gold Cup 		Juan Pablo Diaz (MC)
40-42	Holland				Nations League		Stefan van Roon (SC)
					World Cup 3rd Round
42-43	South Korea			Asian Cup		Wookie (ML)
46-47	Switzerland
47-49	Ivory Coast			Knocked out in ACON R2
49-50	Ghana				Knocked out in WC R2
50-52	Italy				3rd Nations League	Gianfranco Tammaro (SC)
					Euros			Blaz Ribic (GK)



Challenge Progress 28/32

Club
 10/10 top domestic leagues 		(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, China, Mexico, South Africa, Slovakia)			
 7/10 domestic cups 			(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy, China, South Africa)						
 5/5 club continental championships	(Europe, S America, Asia, N America, Africa)	 	
 1/1 club world championship

International
 4/5 continental tournaments 		(S America, N America, Asia, Europe)		
 1/1 World Cup		

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by vikeologist

[fromcoystocottbus]

Quick question as someone interested in pursuing this challenge for the first time for those who have started already/done this in the past.

How many countries/leagues do you typically load into the database as playable at the start of the save? Trying to get a sense of that to make sure I go about it the right way from the beginning.

[libbyshuss]

11 minutes ago, fromcoystocottbus said:

How many countries/leagues do you typically load into the database as playable at the start of the save? Trying to get a sense of that to make sure I go about it the right way from the beginning.

it's quite a tricky balance. The more leagues you load, the more likely you are to get a job offer but the more it slows the game right down. I think this time around I had around 25-30 at the start.

I end up using the add/remove leagues a lot during these sort of saves but that first season is always the slowest

 

[MShing]

37 minutes ago, fromcoystocottbus said:

Quick question as someone interested in pursuing this challenge for the first time for those who have started already/done this in the past.

How many countries/leagues do you typically load into the database as playable at the start of the save? Trying to get a sense of that to make sure I go about it the right way from the beginning.

It depends how many leagues your computer can handle I suppose. I usually have 4 or 5 leagues running at a time, to give plenty of options should I need to move jobs. 

It may be useful to have a plan of what sort of direction you want your journey to take. I have started in south africa so I can get that continent knocked off the list to start, I also have Australia, china, Malaysia and South Korea loaded as I think I will go for asia after I am done in SA. Once I am close to completing asia, I might load a couple of central or south america leagues, then finish in Europe.

One good thing about fm21 is that it seems loads faster than 20 so easier to run with more leagues

Edited November 19, 2020 by MShing

[vikeologist]

46 minutes ago, fromcoystocottbus said:

Quick question as someone interested in pursuing this challenge for the first time for those who have started already/done this in the past.

How many countries/leagues do you typically load into the database as playable at the start of the save? Trying to get a sense of that to make sure I go about it the right way from the beginning.

It can be quite a long wait for the first job, although as discussed a lot, it is much easier in FM21, so the more nations, the less long you'll have to wait. And maybe you have no idea what kind of job you'll be able to get, and I try not to give too much away in that regard.

But it's a good idea to have a plan for how you'll go about the challenge. Big nation first and work your way up to the top league? Win a low rep league first? Something in between?

The challenge takes a long time with a plan. Flap around the world randomly and it will take twice as long, and it's very advantageous to do the challenge strategically. Not that there's a best way.

To actually answer your question, I'd recommend at least 3 nations to start off with.

 

[_JHTB_]

1 hour ago, fromcoystocottbus said:

Quick question as someone interested in pursuing this challenge for the first time for those who have started already/done this in the past.

How many countries/leagues do you typically load into the database as playable at the start of the save? Trying to get a sense of that to make sure I go about it the right way from the beginning.

I tend to go with as many leagues as my computer will allow without it taking an age to progress so for me it would be dependent on your own PC. When I first tried this challenge in FM20 I did have to restart on my first attempt because I loaded too many so it took me forever to get through 1 month without a club. 

That said I will echo what others have said in have a rough idea of where you want your initial journey to go and remember that not adding a league isn't the end of the road as you can easily add/remove leagues as you go along. Even if you don't have specific leagues in mind, you can easily load by continent, this time round I loaded pretty much all non European leagues with a few countries in Europe loaded, but will add/remove leagues based on where my reputation is and what sort of job I'd settle for as a future option.

[_JHTB_]

@vikeologist Congrats on the Euros! The bonus with the AFCON is that it's every 2 years rather than the 4 with most other international competition so both not too long of a wait to get a job and then again not too long between tournaments. All going well, you could finish in not too long from now (hopefully I don't jinx it )

[_JHTB_]

You get a young prospect to sign a new deal on deadline day

He agrees to leave on at the end of the season just 6 hours and 14 minutes later...

 

One year contracts are really frustrating me, this guy became first choice this January because our original first choice also was signed for the end of his contract (before the board decided a sell now of £3.2k was a fantastic deal). Also lost a very good looking youth prospect on deadline day as well in spite him also getting a new contract recently. 

[fromcoystocottbus]

1 hour ago, _JHTB_ said:

I tend to go with as many leagues as my computer will allow without it taking an age to progress so for me it would be dependent on your own PC. When I first tried this challenge in FM20 I did have to restart on my first attempt because I loaded too many so it took me forever to get through 1 month without a club. 

That said I will echo what others have said in have a rough idea of where you want your initial journey to go and remember that not adding a league isn't the end of the road as you can easily add/remove leagues as you go along. Even if you don't have specific leagues in mind, you can easily load by continent, this time round I loaded pretty much all non European leagues with a few countries in Europe loaded, but will add/remove leagues based on where my reputation is and what sort of job I'd settle for as a future option.

Thanks for the great advice, everyone. Have been running a game over the past week just to get a feel for the new game with about 10 countries and it has run fine, so perhaps I'll stick around that threshold.

[MShing]

Supersport United FC 2020/21 Season Review

For my first season I loaded South Africa, China, Australia and South Korea. I restarted my first save after I forgot to remove the fake names for Juventus and the Brazilian clubs, that would have killed my save if I had left it. In my first save I managed to land the Kaiser Chiefs job, which now turns might be a bug, so after feeling a little dirty I decided to restart again. This time I got the Supersport United job, probably still a team with too a high rep that I should be able to get but this should still be more of a challenge than taking the Kaiser Chiefs job.

I had a transfer budget of a couple hundred thousand and after selling some dead wood, that boosted my transfer kitty to around 400k. Which was more than enough to bring in the players we needed, one good thing about the South African league is that a lot of the top players can be signed quite cheaply. With a club vision to finish top half and to challenge for the title in a few years, I felt this would be possible with a few key signings.

League

We started off ok, lost our first game won a few and drew one. I opted for a 4-3-3 but kept switching to 4-2-3-1 and could not decide on my best tactic. After reading a bit of the tactics forum I decided to come up with this below. 4-2-2-1-1

This formation worked out well for us and we went on a 16 match winning run which quickly shot us up to the top of the table. We went 6 points clear of Kaiser Chiefs in second and remained that way until the last few weeks of the season where we started to feel the pressure, we lost a game and drew a couple of games we should have easily won. But in the end we held on and won the League on the last day of the season.

Nice touch by SI for the end of season reviews, a nice change.

Some of our stand out performers

Our player of the season in no doubt is this guy. 35 goals in 33 game, he had an outstanding season since I signed him in the summer from Orlando Pirates.

Knockout Cup

We made it to the final without much fuss. Our closest scare was a penalties win in the semi final against Orlando Pirates.

Knockout cup final
34' 2-0 down. By 40 mins it was time for a change. I Changed formation from our usual 442  to 4231 made 2 subs and a few mins later Rayners who I just bought on scored on 45+2. Super striker Ramagalela equalised on 55'.
Now to extra time, all of our subs had been used and players fitness was dropping dropping, it was that man again Ramagalela who scored on 105' his 20th goal in 15 matches. His measly 64k transfer fee in the summer may turn out to be out signing of the season.

Next Season

Now we have secured the League and Cup in our first season the pressure is off and we can concentrate on the Champions League, hopefully we can continue our form onto next season and win it at the first attempt and I can say goodbye to South Africa for pastures new hopefully. We have already made a few signings for next season which will hopefully improve us further.

(sorry for all the pictures, I have not figured out how to put them in a link yet )

Season   Team   		Position  	Notes and Achievements
20/21	 Supersport United	1st		Won Telekom Knockout Cup

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa)

1/10 domestic cups (South Africa)

0/5 club continental championships ()

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments ()

0/1 world tournaments ()

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by MShing
Forgot cup win details

[fromcoystocottbus]

Alright, here we go. Decided that I'd randomize my playable countries to start the game to make this a little more ... random. After failing in interviews for some jobs in Norway, I was offered two gigs in the Belarusian First League.

Club One: Sputnik Rechitsa

Start date: Aug. 29, 2020

The team is only 13th in the Belarusian First League, but was picked to finish third - so hopefully that means there's some upside.

Edited November 20, 2020 by fromcoystocottbus

[Danny_H22]

9 hours ago, MShing said:

Supersport United FC 2020/21 Season Review

For my first season I loaded South Africa, China, Australia and South Korea. I restarted my first save after I forgot to remove the fake names for Juventus and the Brazilian clubs, that would have killed my save if I had left it. In my first save I managed to land the Kaiser Chiefs job, which now turns might be a bug, so after feeling a little dirty I decided to restart again. This time I got the Supersport United job, probably still a team with too a high rep that I should be able to get but this should still be more of a challenge than taking the Kaiser Chiefs job.

I had a transfer budget of a couple hundred thousand and after selling some dead wood, that boosted my transfer kitty to around 400k. Which was more than enough to bring in the players we needed, one good thing about the South African league is that a lot of the top players can be signed quite cheaply. With a club vision to finish top half and to challenge for the title in a few years, I felt this would be possible with a few key signings.

League

We started off ok, lost our first game won a few and drew one. I opted for a 4-3-3 but kept switching to 4-2-3-1 and could not decide on my best tactic. After reading a bit of the tactics forum I decided to come up with this below. 4-2-2-1-1

This formation worked out well for us and we went on a 16 match winning run which quickly shot us up to the top of the table. We went 6 points clear of Kaiser Chiefs in second and remained that way until the last few weeks of the season where we started to feel the pressure, we lost a game and drew a couple of games we should have easily won. But in the end we held on and won the League on the last day of the season.

Nice touch by SI for the end of season reviews, a nice change.

Some of our stand out performers

Our player of the season in no doubt is this guy. 35 goals in 33 game, he had an outstanding season since I signed him in the summer from Orlando Pirates.

Knockout Cup

We made it to the final without much fuss. Our closest scare was a penalties win in the semi final against Orlando Pirates.

Knockout cup final
34' 2-0 down. By 40 mins it was time for a change. I Changed formation from our usual 442  to 4231 made 2 subs and a few mins later Rayners who I just bought on scored on 45+2. Super striker Ramagalela equalised on 55'.
Now to extra time, all of our subs had been used and players fitness was dropping dropping, it was that man again Ramagalela who scored on 105' his 20th goal in 15 matches. His measly 64k transfer fee in the summer may turn out to be out signing of the season.

Next Season

Now we have secured the League and Cup in our first season the pressure is off and we can concentrate on the Champions League, hopefully we can continue our form onto next season and win it at the first attempt and I can say goodbye to South Africa for pastures new hopefully. We have already made a few signings for next season which will hopefully improve us further.

(sorry for all the pictures, I have not figured out how to put them in a link yet )

Season   Team   		Position  	Notes and Achievements
20/21	 Supersport United	1st		Won Telekom Knockout Cup

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa)

1/10 domestic cups (South Africa)

0/5 club continental championships ()

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments ()

0/1 world tournaments ()

 

Good first season! I've managed in SA before and it's pretty good fun. 

To link images, upload them to something like imgbb.com and then in your post, click the link button towards the top, paste the image link from imgbb and give the image whatever title you want and that will become the link 

[lukefox44]

16 hours ago, _JHTB_ said:

One year contracts are really frustrating me.

I'm in the same division now with about 8 games left and I can already tell it's going to be stressful trying to get a squad together for next season .

It seems like such a strange rule to have in place as well.

Did you find you can pick up good players on free transfers or do clubs extend the contracts pretty well?

[kkfootball]

Finished the rest of the 2022/23 season with Hull. Picked up the job with them in 21st and ended up in 17th after a really nice run of form in the second half of the season. Not liking the Hull job. Players are vigorously demanding wages that seem absurd to me, but I imagine the ship will steady for the second season. Here's the table:

Spoiler

I applied for three MLS jobs on 2.5 star reputation and got rejected by all three after attending the interviews. I am now in the running for the Genoa (in the Serie B right now) and the Braga jobs although I don't know how realistic getting either of those will be for me as I see them as more of a long shot than the MLS jobs.

Anyway, I did what I said I would and have brought the big lad Arthur Okonkwo with me to Hull to be our backup keeper, but he got more than his share of games because the first-choice was on a 6.4 rating that season and his performances didn't shape up much. Okonkwo continued his penalty heroics in the league saving a few if memory serves.

Spoiler

Oscar Thorn, our wonder striker, wouldn't sign with us in January but has agreed to come into the club for the next season. Although he doesn't have the attributes to succeed at the level we're asking him to play at, he deserves a chance after having the most impressive campaign I've seen for a striker, winning the golden boot in League Two after only scoring for half a season (he only bagged one goal after I left). 

Additionally, this summer, Rhys Bennett, our center back starlet at Dartford, and an elderly goalkeeper I'm making into a coach, are arriving. Bennett will be waiting to pounce on the weaker of the center back pair here at Hull, an aging center back with unexceptional speed, which I'm not comfortable with given the high line we're playing. I have too many bad memories of being beat over the top in the National League.

This is all contingent on us not getting the two aforementioned jobs I've applied for. Could very well be a waste writing this. Anyway, forwards!

 

Club Career

Hall of Fame Rank: 	N/A
Clubs Managed: 		2
Nations Managed: 	1 (Not including Ireland u-19s)
Trophies Won: 		1
Runner Up Medals: 	1
Manager of the Year: 	1
Number of Sackings: 	0

Career Earnings: $500,000
---------------------------------------------------

Club Career
																	
Season	NAT	Club		Division	Pos	Cup 1	Cup 2	Cont	CWC	Things to Note					
2020/21	Eng	Dartford	Vanarama South  1st	N/A	N/A	-	-	Won League
2021/22 Eng     Dartford        Vanarama Nat.   2nd     Second  Fourth  -       -       Promoted through playoffs, Won Manager of the Year
2022/23 Eng     Hull            Championship    17th    N/A     N/A     -       -       Survived Relegation
----------------------------------------------------

International Career

Season	Nation		Rank	Continental	World Cup	Things to Note
2021	Haiti   	79th	-		-		-
2022    Haiti           82nd    -               -               - 
-----------------------------------------------------
Challenge Progress
0/10 Leagues 		
0/10 Cups		
0/5  Continental	
0/1  Worlds

0/5 Continental 	
0/1 Worlds

  

[_JHTB_]

Royal Eagles 2022/23

Firstly, the obvious, the season has yet to finish and yet I'm posting an update. That is because I have called time on my stint at Royal Eagles. In the off season we made a lot of signings, maybe not so much of players of much higher quality than we already possessed but adding ourselves a lot of strength in depth. (A few of the loans we did sign found themselves recalled because of not enough action due to our strength in depth). My main issue is even if I have squad depth I often find myself using a fairly settled starting XI, though our summer signings did mean that we had 4 new regular starters but all other players retained there spot in the team.

The season was going really well before I decided to leave, we were sat 6 points clear at the top of the table. We got off to a very strong start with us being good value for wins without giving or opponents much chance and for a large proportion of the first half we were comfortably challenging towards the top of the league. Towards the end of my stint whilst we were still winning a lot of our games there was a noticeable drop off in terms of our performances in those wins a lot more I'd consider lucky wins rather than deserved wins. We were also still in the South African FA Cup defeating top flight side Stellenbosch of penalties in an earlier round.

Best Player - Rebone Ntsoane

Again our best player, Ntsoane put in some very impressive performances for us this season, he has 7 goals and 8 assists for us in the league from the right wing.

What next?

Honestly, I was happy with Royal Eagles, until January where we were losing players on pre-contracts to other teams which given we were looking at being promoted, I didn't really want to have to rebuild a large proportion of our team at a higher tier should we have closed out promotion. Due to that I did start casting my eyes on the job centre focusing predominantly on South African Premier Soccer League teams and eventually securing myself a job with Golden Arrows who are mid table this season so I'll be hoping to just maintain that position.

In other news, I have also taken my first foray into international management with me taking charge of U.A.E who should at least have an outside shot of performing ok in the Asian Nations Cup even if they're not amongst the frontrunners.

Story so far

Challenge Progress

 

[_JHTB_]

3 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

Did you find you can pick up good players on free transfers or do clubs extend the contracts pretty well?

Define: Good 

There was absolutely a decent number of players who we could have signed on frees aside from them not being interested, think in general the sooner you start identifying players the more chance you'll have of signing them. 2 of the 4 new first XI players for me were players I agreed to sign ages before they joined in the summer (technically winter) with the other two being loanees. So really, you could say in the off season it was reasonably difficult to sign free transfers who improved the team, but reasonable in terms of improving squad depth. But I'd suggest you probably would have more potential players due to the club being professional as I had that side of things to contend with as well.

Edited November 20, 2020 by _JHTB_

[MShing]

8 hours ago, Danny_H22 said:

Good first season! I've managed in SA before and it's pretty good fun. 

To link images, upload them to something like imgbb.com and then in your post, click the link button towards the top, paste the image link from imgbb and give the image whatever title you want and that will become the link 

Thanks for the info, sounds like a hassle lol. Think I'll just hide the picture sounds easier 😂

[_JHTB_]

12 minutes ago, MShing said:

Thanks for the info, sounds like a hassle lol. Think I'll just hide the picture sounds easier 😂

 It's the first icon after strikethrough - the last one on this screenshot. You don't have to title the image in the link you can instead highlight already written words before clicking the button and paste in your image link and that will be converted to a link.

[Danny_H22]

32 minutes ago, _JHTB_ said:

 

 It's the first icon after strikethrough - the last one on this screenshot. You don't have to title the image in the link you can instead highlight already written words before clicking the button and paste in your image link and that will be converted to a link.

Yeah this is how I do it. Write it up first and then add images to things I think could use them. Easy 

[lukefox44]

1 hour ago, _JHTB_ said:

Define: Good 

There was absolutely a decent number of players who we could have signed on frees aside from them not being interested, think in general the sooner you start identifying players the more chance you'll have of signing them. 2 of the 4 new first XI players for me were players I agreed to sign ages before they joined in the summer (technically winter) with the other two being loanees. So really, you could say in the off season it was reasonably difficult to sign free transfers who improved the team, but reasonable in terms of improving squad depth. But I'd suggest you probably would have more potential players due to the club being professional as I had that side of things to contend with as well.

Yeah after seeing your updates as soon as I was in the job I was scouting end of contract players. 

Looking at the rebuild you managed and while only being semi pro you've put the pressure on me to make next season a success haha.

[lukefox44]

Luke Fox

Steenberg United

2020/2021 

 

Just a quick update at the end of the season with Steenberg. When I took the job I said I wanted to try and sneak into the playoffs (top 3), we did not manage to achieve this but we came close.

 

 

The league was very tight, in the end we finished 6th but only 2 points away from the playoffs. We played very well and one poor result cost us.

 

Our first game was the JDR Stars 1-1 draw, this was only two days after I took the job so wasn't a bad result considering i was still learning the squad and what style of play we should go for. In our 14 games in charge we only lost 3 games and drew a further 3. One of the loses was Cape Town City in the quarter finals of the cup, they ended up runners up in the top division and we held them 0-0 until late on, but ultimately they overpowered us and scored twice late on. The game that really cost us was the Mbombela game that was the penultimate fixture. They were sat in 13th place and in horrific form, however 10 minutes in and they were 1-0 up. We pushed men forward and tried anything we could but no luck. If we would of found a winner in this game we would of made the playoffs on goal difference. That result was really hard to take, especially as the game before we beat the run away champions 6-2. Disappointing end to a good start to out Steenberg United journey. With the league rules of max one year contracts I'm sure ill be busy in the build up to next season. 

 

On a personal note, the finances here have allowed me to get some more coaching courses started and I'm currently studying my Continental  C licence. I did have to convince the board to let me do it because they were worried I might get offered a better job. So if we do not achieve success (Promotion) next year could be my last at Steenberg. If that is the case I would like to stay in South Africa and hopefully in the top division.

[_JHTB_]

45 minutes ago, lukefox44 said:

Looking at the rebuild you managed and while only being semi pro you've put the pressure on me to make next season a success haha.

I'll be honest I didn't expect us to be doing as well as we were, I pretty much just used the tactic I was using at Edmonton and tweaked it slightly and it seemed to work. I find momentum (or more likely morale) is very key on getting good results. I think based on your form in this half of the season, what, 22 points in 11 games, with no transfers, you should be at least challenging at the right end of the table with no real issues. Especially as you did have some pretty big victories against sides that finished above you. It's interesting that your board is a little similar to mine at Royal Eagles in them not wanting you to improve so you'll not leave them. (don't they know that'll just make you more likely to want to leave)

[lukefox44]

18 minutes ago, _JHTB_ said:

I'll be honest I didn't expect us to be doing as well as we were, I pretty much just used the tactic I was using at Edmonton and tweaked it slightly and it seemed to work. I find momentum (or more likely morale) is very key on getting good results. I think based on your form in this half of the season, what, 22 points in 11 games, with no transfers, you should be at least challenging at the right end of the table with no real issues. Especially as you did have some pretty big victories against sides that finished above you. It's interesting that your board is a little similar to mine at Royal Eagles in them not wanting you to improve so you'll not leave them. (don't they know that'll just make you more likely to want to leave)

It's going to be an interested transfer window, a few of my key players dont seem interested in resigning but seems to be a fair few good options for replacements. Not sure if the massive overhaul will be a positive or negative yet.

 

That 6-2 victory against the runaway league winners was nice, especially after they went 2-0 up inside 5 minutes.

 

Yeah I dont really understand the reluctance from the board. I'm at 1.5 stars rep  but the club is at 2 stars. I'm not sure there's many better rep teams out there that would even consider me, even with the new coaching badge. Guessing it was the same for you at Royal Eagles.

 

How are things going with the Golden arrows so far? Also UAE is a nice job to land, they always seem to be pretty decent in FM terms.

Edited November 20, 2020 by lukefox44

[NoNonsenseFM]

Decided to give this a proper crack this year! 

 

and I have my first job. It's now Mid-January 2021 and after a few months of holidaying/applying I've been approached by a Chinese club.

They are predicted to end bottom of the Chinese Jia Division (2nd tier), James NoNonsense is off to...

In real life they are called Tianshan Leopard, on FM they are called Xinjian Sport Lottery FC. Very strange.

Edited November 20, 2020 by NoNonsenseFM

[dkouv]

Season 1 (2020/21) - TS Sporting (RSA) / Turkenistan

When I did this challenge in FM17 it started off being very enjoyable and ended up being a terrible obsession with rather more drama than I would have liked. So this year I’m planning to keep it enjoyable and take it easy, but of course I know that if I stick with it long enough there will be a time when I throw my laptop out of the window after my amazing Spanish side lose to an extra time VAR penalty in the World Cup final, or something like that.

I planned to start my journey in South America which of course meant that I got a job in Africa. TS Sporting were the only club willing to take a punt on me, and since according to Wikipedia and Google maps they are basically located in the middle of a massive national reserve , this seemed like the perfect virtual job for the Covid world.

We did well enough the first season, as I almost made the first division playoffs but - in a gentle reminder of what this challenge is all about - after a long winning streak, our team drew the last two games and finished three points off the playoff spot.

I might actually try to move to South America next to get back to the original plan, or stick it out here for another year or three.

On the international side, a vague and distant memory of a family holiday near Ashgabat when I was 5 years old spurred me to take the Turkmenistan job but I don’t think it will actually lead anywhere. 

Screenshots of the league and my best player, who has agreed a free transfer to Sundowns.

@vikeologist Congrats on the euros - good to see you persevering with this, and the goals scored to trophy stuff if something that only seems to happen in this challenge, I swear... )) Getting close now!

 

                                                                CLUB CAREER
                                                                -----------

 Season    Club               Division     League     Cups                          Notes
                                                      1st  2nd    Cont    CWC
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21    TS Sporting        RSA Div. 1    5                                     Took over in 9th, finished 5th                                                   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                           INTERNATIONAL CAREER
                                                           --------------------

 Season Nation         Cups                                                         Notes
                       World Cup   Euro's   AFC   ACON   Gold Cup   Copa America

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21 Turkmenistan                                          
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Challenge Progress:
  
Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues: 
 0/10 domestic cups: 
 0/5 club continental championships: 
 0/1 club world championship: 
 
International
 0/5 continental tournaments:
 0/1 world tournaments:

 

Edited November 21, 2020 by dkouv

[dkouv]

Everyone - is there still a way to do the text summary at the end with the [code] command like you used to? Doesn't seem to work for me...

[vikeologist]

10 hours ago, dkouv said:

Everyone - is there still a way to do the text summary at the end with the [code] command like you used to? Doesn't seem to work for me...

Yes. Everything seems like it used to.

 

[_JHTB_]

12 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

Yeah I dont really understand the reluctance from the board. I'm at 1.5 stars rep  but the club is at 2 stars. I'm not sure there's many better rep teams out there that would even consider me, even with the new coaching badge. Guessing it was the same for you at Royal Eagles.

In fairness, coaching badges do tend to be one of the main factors (from what I've seen anyway) for improving your reputation, so I can see why some would be reluctant. The Royal Eagles board actually fully declined me asking for a coaching badge, even after pleading, the first time so had to wait a few more months before they agreed and their fears were realised as I jumped ship.

12 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

How are things going with the Golden arrows so far?

The quality of players is noticeably higher for most the teams in the top league (except the one currently bottom on 1 point after 24 games). My team already seem a little fragile as we've already lost 2 games after being ahead going into the last 15 minutes and were pegged back from 3-0 to go to extra time 3-3 in the cup (we did end up winning that game but was still worrying), though I'm confident enough that I'll at least avoid relegation which was what the board asked of me and be able to build them up with a novel phenomena of being able to offer contracts lasting longer than one year. All in all I'm glad I did jump as a couple of the better players I had at Royal Eagles were on loan from Golden Arrows and would only be back up players at best here.

[lukefox44]

2 hours ago, _JHTB_ said:

I'm confident enough that I'll at least avoid relegation which was what the board asked of me and be able to build them up with a novel phenomena of being able to offer contracts lasting longer than one year. All in all I'm glad I did jump as a couple of the better players I had at Royal Eagles were on loan from Golden Arrows and would only be back up players at best here.

I hate managing those teams when you feel like no lead is safe, makes it so stressful.

 

Yeah I'm already dreaming of the day I can offer proper contracts again. I cant imagine staying in a league long where every single year the whole squad need new deals. My best performers all wanted to leave for top division teams, so frustrating.

 

I worry if I go up I might be that team on 1 point haha. Do the big boys at the top run away with most games or is it relatively competitive?

Edited November 21, 2020 by lukefox44

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2052/3 Slovan Bratislava Report

I thought that winning the cup if I stayed another season in Slovakia would be easy.

It probably would have been had I not decided to holiday through the periods between cup fixtures.

Not only did we barely stay on top of the league table, but the board sold my 2 best players while I was on my hols.

One of them was last year’s MVP, my striker Bessone. I bought replacements for both my lost players, but the replacement striker wasn't as  effective.

My players were dispirited, out of shape and out of form.

We almost went out on away goals in the semi final (by which time I’d returned full time to try to steady the ship) and in the final we didn’t score our winning goal until the closing minutes.

However, we did win with that goal, and my holiday experiment had steered clear narrowly of disaster.

We also retained the league.

I recently mentioned someone who won nearly all his matches until he had won the competition he needed. I can now see how that could happen. I don’t think the holiday win rate was over 50%.

I don’t normally holiday during a season. This is my first time ever, but the challenge has become a bit boring, especially with a new version of the game in existence.

Top Goalscorer - Matías Bessone - 14

Even though he left halfway through the season, he still scored 4 more than anybody else.

Highest Average Rating (minimum 10 matches played) – Edvárd Berki – 7.31

A striker that I dropped when I took back over.

 

Man of The Match – Ladislav Masulovic – 5

A  left winger.

Most Valuable Player– My best 2 players left half way through. My current supposedly best 2 players then joined, so basically I didn’t have an MVP.

 

 

 

I’m now going to have 8 leagues loaded; the nations that have 2 domestic cups to double my chances. That’s probably undermined by the fact that it will take my computer 4 times as long to churn through the season.

Other than Scotland (I am after all Scottish) I’m not sure I’ve ever managed a team in any of the other nations in the 20 odd years I’ve been playing. I managed in the 2 Irelands when I partly did the British Steel Challenge, but did not win very many of the top trophies.

I don’t plan to be in any of these nations for 2+ seasons. Heck, I don’t plan to spend even 1 complete season in any of them.

 

My other objective for the year was to get a national African job, but after the ACON the only available job was South Africa, and I didn’t get it.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get something after the World Cup next year.

Domestic
Season	Team		Division		Position	MVP				Notes										
20/21	Folkestone	England VNL South	4th		Alfie Matthews 	(SC) 		Lost in playoff S/F
21/22	Folkestone	England VNL South	1st		Jobi McAnuff	(MR)		FA Cup R4, won league by a country mile.
22/23	Folkestone	England VNL Conference	1st		Dion Rankine	(MR)		FA Cup R4 again, back to back promotions to the Football League
23/24	Folkestone	England League 2	4th and lost in playoff final without me 	Left after 21 matches with Folkestone in 2nd and on course for 3rd promotion in a row.
23/24	Everton		Premier League		11th		Alexander Nübel	(GK)		Took over after 16 matches. Won Carabao Cup.
24/25	Everton		Premier League		7th		Christopher McKay (MR)		Won Carabao Cup (again) and Europa League, thus qualifying for Champions League.
25/26	Everton		Premier League		3rd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Carabao Cup Threepeat, Lost in CL Final.
26/27	Everton		Premier League		1st		Moise Kean (SC)			League / FA Cup Double.	
27/28	Everton		Premier League		2nd		Christopher McKay (MR)		Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup Treble	
28/29	Everton		Premier League		1st		Christopher McKay (MR)		League, FA Cup, Champions League, Club World Championship	
30/31	Dortmund	Bundesliga		2nd		Juan Manuel Jiménez (MR)	Won Europa League. Whoopy Do.
31/32	Dortmund	Bundesliga		1st		Aarón Fernández (SC)		League / Cup double
32/33	Valencia	Primera Liga		6th		Sergio Goñi (SC)		Took over after 16 matches. Qualified for Euro II.
33/34	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Carlos Gimeno (ML)		Won Euro Cup II
34/35	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Once again, a distant second best to Real Madrid.
35/36	Valencia	Primera Liga		2nd		Nathan (SC)			Spanish Cup and Champions League
36/37	Valencia	Primara Liga		1st		Nathan (SC)			League, Champions League
2037	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Leandro Mederos (MC)		Took over after 17 matches in 8th. Won league. CL S/F
2038	Atl Mineiro	Brazilian 1st		1st		Ley (DC)			League, Libertadores and the pursuit of happiness. Sorry, I mean the Brazilian Cup.
39/40	OM		French 1st		1st		Batata (SC)			League. Knocked out of Frech Cup on penalties. 
40/41	Juventus	Serie A			1st		Dustin Abeßer (SC)		League / Cup double.
2043	SIPG		Chinese SL		2nd		Anderson Omar (MC)		Took over after 13 matches. ACL S/F
2044	SIPG		Chinese SL		1st		Ninja (SC)			League, cup, Champions League triple, Unbeaten league season.
2045	America		Mexican Opening		13th						Took over after 14 matches in 17th place (of 20). Won all 5 remaining matches
2046	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Miguel Macías (MC)		League winners
2046	America		Mexican Opening		1st						League and Leagues Cup winners
2047	America		Mexican Closing		1st		Misael Hernández (SC)		League and NACL winners
46/47	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	3rd						Took over in 3rd with 3 games to go. 
47/48	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Tshidiso Zimu (ML/C)		League, Super 8, K/O Cup, SA Cup, Confederations Cup. Everything basically.
48/49	Kaizer Chiefs	S African Premier	1st		Siphamandla Mlungwana (AMC)	Won everything (apart from the CWC) again, this time including the Champions League.
50/51	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		5th						Took over with 8 matches remaining in 6th. Won the Euro League II Playoff.
51/52	Slovan 		Slovak 1st		1st		Matías Bessone (SC)		Fantastic all seson apart from a disasterous S/F 1st leg saw us crash out.
52/53	Slovan		Slovak 1st		1st						League / Cup double.

International
Year	Team				Achievements
23	Indonesia U23			Topped U23 Asian Nations Cup Qualifying. Quit shortly afterwards.
24-26	Uruguay				World Cup S/F
26-28	France				Knocked out in Euros Q/F
28-32	Argentina			World Cup		Matías Gayoso (GK)
					Copa America		Matías Gayoso (GK)
32-34	Spain				European League		Ansu Fati (SC)
					Knocked out in '34 WC R3 by eventual winners Germany
34-36	France (Again)			Nations League		Manuel Jourdan (SC)
					Lost Euro '36 S/F to eventual winners Germany
36-39	Mexico				Lost in Gold Cup final.
					World Cup Quarterfinalists
					Won Gold Cup 		Juan Pablo Diaz (MC)
40-42	Holland				Nations League		Stefan van Roon (SC)
					World Cup 3rd Round
42-43	South Korea			Asian Cup		Wookie (ML)
46-47	Switzerland
47-49	Ivory Coast			Knocked out in ACON R2
49-50	Ghana				Knocked out in WC R2
50-52	Italy				3rd Nations League	Gianfranco Tammaro (SC)
					Euros			Blaz Ribic (GK)



Challenge Progress 29/32

Club
 10/10 top domestic leagues 		(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, France, Italy, China, Mexico, South Africa, Slovakia)			
 8/10 domestic cups 			(England, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Italy, China, South Africa, Slovakia)						
 5/5 club continental championships	(Europe, S America, Asia, N America, Africa)	 	
 1/1 club world championship

International
 4/5 continental tournaments 		(S America, N America, Asia, Europe)		
 1/1 World Cup		

 

[_JHTB_]

2 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

I worry if I go up I might be that team on 1 point haha. Do the big boys at the top run away with most games or is it relatively competitive?

I've only a small sample size so can't really say either way, this season Sundowns are running away with the league, but there's a lot of teams that are very evenly matched with 7 points between 15th and 7th at the moment. Incidentally my one draw so far was against Sundowns and it wasn't a lucky draw it was the correct outcome. 

The team on one point is both semi-professional (the only one in the league) and has only 1 star reputation compared to everyone else's at least 2.5 so I can see why they're struggling - and will probably go back to back on relegations so it's unlikely you'd follow their path.

 

@vikeologist Edging closer. Can't say I blame you for holidaying, especially with only cups to go, good luck!

[lukefox44]

5 minutes ago, _JHTB_ said:

The team on one point is both semi-professional (the only one in the league) and has only 1 star reputation compared to everyone else's at least 2.5 so I can see why they're struggling - and will probably go back to back on relegations so it's unlikely you'd follow their path.

I'd like to take Steenberg up and give it a go. But it will be a while yet, this one year max contract means this transfer window is taking me ages.

@vikeologist only 3 to go now mate. You going to take it on again in 21 once you've done this or going to give it a break? I'd imagine I would need a little gap in between haha.

 

[dkouv]

9 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Yes. Everything seems like it used to.

 

Hmm, do you just put [code] .... [/code] in to get this? Does not work for me for some reason (see post above), but maybe it's the browser

[vikeologist]

11 minutes ago, dkouv said:

Hmm, do you just put [code] .... [/code] in to get this? Does not work for me for some reason (see post above), but maybe it's the browser

Are you using a PC or doing it on your mobile? 

 

If on PC just use the <> thing in the menu above.

[vikeologist]

2 hours ago, lukefox44 said:

 

@vikeologist only 3 to go now mate. You going to take it on again in 21 once you've done this or going to give it a break? I'd imagine I would need a little gap in between haha.

 

Even though I've only completed the challenge once, I've done it too many times, so I certainly don't plan to ever do it again.

I suppose if the game has become so amazingly easy it would be tempting to see if I could break the record, but once that became impossible, I'd give up.

I mean, I win the league every single year. That's 13 straight league titles (when I'm in charge from the start of the year), so it's not as though I'm not exploiting the match engine, and yet the only record I'm in danger of breaking is the one for longest save.

The frustrating thing is that I'm going to be every close to topping the game's hall of fame. I'm 631 points adrift, but I doubt that the remaining 2 cups, an ACON and whatever leagues I pick up will get me there.

Not least because I'll probably be in some really low rep leagues.

Edited November 21, 2020 by vikeologist

[dkouv]

1 hour ago, vikeologist said:

If on PC just use the <> thing in the menu above.

Great, thanks - it worked!

[vikeologist]

In earlier attempts as the challenge I often did what at the time I referred to as 'doing a vike', namely taking over clubs shortly before a cup final.

My original 'vike' actually involved taking charge on the actual day of the second leg of a cup final, which admittedly we lost, but I think when I won the Copa Libertadores with Corinthians it was only my second match in charge.

Unfortunately chances for such cheekiness have been hard to find on recent saves, but finally I have the chance to do a vike. (I'm not sure if doing a vike was meant to be actually winning the trophy or just getting the chance).

Anyway, I have taken over Hibs (my boyhood team) and they are in the final of the Betfred Cup, and it's against Aberdeen so we stand a chance.

If I lose, will I continue on. Hopefully the decision will be made for me with a glorious victory.

[lukefox44]

2 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Even though I've only completed the challenge once, I've done it too many times, so I certainly don't plan to ever do it again.

I suppose if the game has become so amazingly easy it would be tempting to see if I could break the record, but once that became impossible, I'd give up.

Yeah I can see how doing this more than once takes its toll to be fair. 

Even completing it once is a massive achievement.

[MShing]

@vikeologist just a few more trophies to go. Hope you keep with it and get it completed. I would find it hard too with the new game being out.

Any ideas what challenge/save you would do after you are done with your current one?

[MShing]

Check this lad out i signed in the summer. Look at those stats for 15 years old! He cost me 500k, he locked in  a 800k release clause in his contract  I'm going to keep tabs on him and try to sign him for as many of my future teams I can. He scored a beauty of a goal in his first start of the season too. I hope I can keep him until we win the Champions League and not lose him before then 

[vikeologist]

13 minutes ago, MShing said:

@vikeologist just a few more trophies to go. Hope you keep with it and get it completed. I would find it hard too with the new game being out.

Any ideas what challenge/save you would do after you are done with your current one?

I'd like to think I would take on the challenge of sorting my life out. Finish my novel. Learn to code. Start my novel.

[_JHTB_]

Golden Arrows 2022/23

 

I took over at Golden Arrows with 11 games remaining of the season in what could have been described as a 9 team relegation battle (or relegation playoff battle). My stint started promisingly I felt, us creating a lot of chances at least in terms of xG, however, we were quite open at the back at the same time with 3 of our opening 6 games seeing us conceding 3 goals. As the season continued we did start creating less and thus scoring less, but we were better defensively which made for some pretty dull games. We did slip towards the relegation playoff spot as the season reached the end but with 3 games remaining we beat second bottom side Black Leopards to secure our top flight status.

In the cup we required two victories after regulation time, a 4-3 extra time victory and a penalties victory over Kaizer Chiefs who were the toughest tie that we had in the entire tournament. I also got a quick reunion with Royal Eagles as we faced them in one of our games - a routine 4-0 victory in that one. The final saw us against a Black Leopards side that we had just beaten to secure our league status and my, what a poor final it was. They took the lead early doors but we were drawing at half time before a injury time winner saw us claim the South African FA Cup. I wasn't anxious at all during the game really, as even if we had lost, my time in South Africa is still only at it's dawn and there is going to be at least 2 more seasons here so feel we'd have probably challenged for at least one of the two cups in that time.

Best Player - Knox Mutizwa

12 goals in the league since I took over to take his overall total to 17. He scored some vital goals for us that won us points, though it is worth adding that he was our penalty taker so his goals will have been padded a little there.

What next?

I'm going to have a busy summer I feel, the run in did highlight key areas we do need more depth and quality in and hopefully I can secure that. Next season I have no particular aims, other than to try and finish higher than this season. The cup run at the end of the year added a whole load of fixture congestion so that's something I need to be wary of as I look to build up the squad.

For U.A.E I haven't actually had a competitive fixture, though we'll have World Cup Qualifying before too long before Asian Nations League qualifiers at some point in the future (I can't remember if it's every 2 years or 4)

Story So Far

 

Challenge Progress