Alpha to Omega II

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Foreword

Hello all, welcome to “Alpha to Omega II”.  In FM19, I created a thread here for “Alpha to Omega”, a save where I attempted to find success in every country with a domestic team, by winning every League and Cup that the nation had to offer.

Last time out we managed to conquer Afghanistan, Albania (where we reached the Europa League Group Stage), Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra (where we reached the Europa League 1^st KO Round), Angola and Anguilla. Although we did not manage to make a huge amount of progress through the save, it lasted for 21 seasons, making it my second longest FM save to date, and one of the highlights of the last 14 years of playing Football Manager.

The premise for Part II is very similar, as is the title.  Before, however, we followed the more metric system of alphabet order of nations, this time I will be mixing things up.  I plan to use the most up to date (at the time of posting) FIFA World Rankings in order to progress through this save.  Using this system, we should have some more natural career progression without the oddities of winning the African Continental Cup with an Algerian side in back-to-back seasons, then moving to American Samoa…

So now onto the setup.

Following the national rankings, there is already a rather interesting conflict of ideas, but one which I think will make the first 20 or so years of this save rather interesting. 

Unranked nations.

With a list of 14 playable (16, but I do not have Micronesia or the Wallis & Futuna Islands leagues) nations without official FIFA governance we will work our way through each of these nations before putting a foot on the first step of the ladder in San Marino.  Some of these nations have incredibly interesting 1-tier formats; Kiribati, for example, has 4 groups in their top division to start out with, meanwhile Saint Pierre & Miquelon have only 3 top-flight teams. 

I think that this will result in some highly unique career progression within these 14 nations and hopefully a lot of fun along the way.

For the start of this save, I have loaded up all 14 nations’ league systems so that we can start unemployed and begin this somewhat daunting journey in a more realistic manner. 

With all this in mind, I hope that this save can reignite some FM passion I have lacked since losing the last save, and hopefully develop into a perfect progression for the former.  With all that said and done, let us continue to the premiere season in what I hope to be a long and successful career…

 

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Career History

Edited June 21, 2021 by FiftyBeforeThirty

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Season One

Preface:

After deciding that I wanted to start in a country with 2 leagues to start off with, we settled on Tuvalu, where we joined B-League outfit Niukita FC.  However, my joy was short-lived as I realised that we (for whatever reason) cannot be promoted to the top tier, so would have to wait for a top tier team to sack a manager to progress after winning this title.  Easier said than done though.  

In our division we have just 5 teams, which play one another once, the A-League has 8 teams...that play each other once.  So the opportunity for sackings in the top tier is slim-to-none it would seem.  There are, however, 3 different cup competitions between teams in the top and bottom flights.  Again, there's a "but" coming...but, A-Division and B-Division teams don't meet until the "Grand Final".

A less than impressive start, and one which I'm still not sure that I've wrapped my head around, but here's how Season 1 of the save has panned out.

 

Results:

 

League Table:

 

Final Comments:

Due to what I'm calling "the unique circumstances" of the league, we had sealed the deal before the final game.  We didn't manage to go unbeaten, losing our final game, and struggled to really sink our teeth into the cups, going out thrice in Semi-Finals.  All of the Cups have their own "Group" system, and since no other team in our league are first teams (all being B-Teams for top-flight clubs) we had to face teams without a league.  Not managing to reach the Grand Final (it's after the "Final") of any tournament was very irritating, although I probably need to schedule friendlies a lot more often.  Our situation was not helped by the fact we had players away on international duty on multiple occasions too...

Next year we are hoping to see a sacking in the A-Division; so far I've been able to declare interest in 2 jobs but that is all.  It's a unique start, and one which may well be afar from reality, but that's part of the interest and mind-bending longevity of this save concept I suppose. 

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

We've completed the League for the season and working our way through the Cups.  One of our stars of the last year or so has been attracting attention from A-Division teams and then this happens...Glad he wants to stay!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Season Two (Calendar Year 2021)

Results:

League Table:

Job offer:

Comments:

Fiji were unbeaten for a good while when I took charge, I then realised that they were also in the Semi-Final for the OCE World Cup, with New Caledonia to face.  Unfortunately for us, it wasn't to be and we were beaten away from home after holding them to a 0-0 in the first game.  I will probably be leaving the post relatively soon, as it doesn't serve a tremendous amount of purpose to hold the position.

Some fantastic results for us at Niukita though, with an (albeit tight) League & Cup double, with the opportunity for the club to claim a treble. 

For me, on the other hand...

 

A team in the A-Division finally sacked their manager.  Upon finding out that this team doesn't play in the NBT Cup, however, I decided to go with the other job offer that I received at the same time...

 

We are off to the 3-team league of St Pierre & Miquelon, to the team that finished bottom of the league.

 

That's right.  After the B-Division drew to a close I decided to look further into some teams and jobs that were available.  Since then we have won ourselves some more silverware and it was only a matter of time before a team like Nauti A2 came knocking.

ASIA is said to be a downgrade for us, they were quite clear on this matter during the interview process, but it feels like the right step to take, and will hopefully be a 2-3 year excursion at most.  

 

Onto pastures new, and grasses (hopefully) greener!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Mini-Update (Season 2-3)

Farewell Fiji

I opted to end my stint as Fiji manager within 2 games of it starting.  For the sake of being able to focus on ASIA as well as the "realism" factor of the travel from the Caribbean to Oceania seeming a little out of reach.

 

Salut St. Pierre & Miquelon

A few take-aways from this image that might interest you, and some other knowledge I've since been made aware of. 

1) Each team plays the other 2 8 times per season. 

2) Fortunately there's no Cup, Super Cup or continental football to distract us (or make us play each other even more...

3) Instead of the traditional 3-1-0 point system of most nations, St Pierre & Miquelon (along with many others I currently have loaded, I have noticed), follow a 4-2-1 point system, meaning that things get even more hectic and maths gets more complex when trying to work out what results you need.

We are hoping to overcome this, the board want me to avoid finishing bottom and then to push on and win the league for the next 4 years.  Fortunately for us though, we may only be here a year if we are successful in the first season, with no other Cups/competitions to focus on before hopping to our next job.

The team seems reasonable, and with a couple of acquisitions already lined up, we are ready for the season to start...in 6 months time.  Perhaps I should have tried to win the Christmas Cup after all?

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Season 3 (Calendar Year 2022)

Results:

League Table:

Final Game Drama:

Comments:

Well if that final day wasn't thrilling, tell that to my nerves!  We came in needing a draw at worst and after going down to 10 men (the second yellow was for a sneeze), we pulled through and managed to hit them with a penalty from a corner and a counter-attack from their own corner.  I can't say enough how glad I am to be gone of here though.  The team wanted me out within 2 months of joining; or a week of training because "my reputation didn't match theirs".   That'll show 'em!

Whilst I intended at the start to look towards winning the 14 non-ranked leagues, I have now loaded the San Marino league and am intending to progress the save to there.  The lack of continental football is drab and the leagues are...unique, albeit a little claustrophobic at times.  I will leave the ones yet to win (all minus Saint Pierre & Miquelon) as a reminder that I should come back to them.

I also feel that this is the best move in regards to my manager's reputation.

4 pieces of silverware in 3 seasons, and (hopefully) onto San Marino, the first nation on this list, next...

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

So long, Saint Pierre (& Miquelon)

First time I have ever had anything like this, not sure when it was implemented but I like it.  The options were a little...disappointing...

I went for the middle option, thought it might be humorous if they offered to build something named after me and I resigned again tomorrow.  

But 'twas not to be.  Instead we move onwards and upwards, hopefully.  We will see if any jobs in San Marino appear before the start of 2023, if not then I may look toward one of the other ungoverned nations once more.

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

Landing on your feet

What is supposed to be the best club in San Marino (it seems they finished top last IRL season at least...) was applied to and, well, we're here!  A transfer budget worth 3 times the amount of our last 2 teams combined, although not a lot I can do for 2 and a half months.

For such a strong team they have underperformed quite drastically, one might say.  They lost in the Super Cup on penalties, went out of the Conference League to Tulevik of Estonia and have a Cup double-header against...you guessed it; Tre Flori.  The first leg of that will be our second game as manager, we kick of against Juvenes/Dogona.  

We will be looking to turn around the form, though unfortunately there are 0 registered all-out strikers.  We will likely be playing the formation I took to Tuvalu & St Pierre and Miquelon, hoping for similar results, though I'm not sure quite how I expect it to go just yet.  We will wait and see how it all unfolds, the club are currently without a win since the opening day, and have only scored 3 times since then.