[FM21] The Travels and Travails of a Peripatetic Irish: A Journeyman Save

[The Malazan Empire]

Hello all

I have been following the career section for some time and whetting my appetite for documenting a career save.

Objective

1. This will be a journeyman save with a small twist. I will "loosely" follow the FM Ultimate Challenge and use this as a driving force for the save as a whole. Now I wont follow the rules of this challenge explicitly, and as a consequence I wont officially enter the challenge.
2. I will pick my first club with a decent reputation and then start my save from there
3. The "twist" is I must do this, as the title suggests, by working from clubs with an Irish link, no matter how imagined or tenuous this is (examples off the top of my head are; Celtic, O'Higgins, Velez Sarsfield etc. and of course teams in the Irish leagues.

Peripatetic: travelling from place to place, in particular working or based in various places for relatively short periods.

In the next post I'll go through where this journey commences.

Edited January 16, 2022 by The Malazan Empire

[The Malazan Empire]

My starting role will be in the Greek Super League. Hope you can guess which team it may be based on my OP with an Irish link.

Starting Manager Profile

David Kavos will begin his adventure here in the Apostolos Nikolaidis Stadion

Yes as you've probably guessed I have selected Panathinaikos to begin this journey. Now what links do they have to my beloved Ireland I hear you say?

• They wear the colour green 
• The club emblem is a shamrock 

David Kavos is the Manager, a Greek national with secret ties to Ireland. Starting with no caoching badges and with Sunday league experience at the tender age of 20. How well can he take on the reins of an Athens giant such as Panathinaikos.

Panathinaikos are a Greek club plying their trade in the Greek Super League Interwetten and are located in the capital Athens. They enjoy fierce rivalry with fellow Athenian competitors, Olympiakos and AEK Athens. The club was founded in February 3rd in 1908 by Georgos Kalafatis. Interestingly, the name Panathinaikos is derived from "Panathenaic" which means "of all Athens" as inspired by the ancient work of Isocrates Panathenaicus, where the orator praise the Athenians for their democratic education and their military superiority, which use it for benefit of all Greeks. The club adopted the trifolium (shamrock) in 1918 and don it to this day as a sign of harmony, unity, nature and good luck. Lets hope it works this year.

The club, although remaining competitive in the league, have not won the Greek Super League (GSL) since 2010, with most titles in this time period being won by Olympiakos, 1 x AEK and only 1 by a club outside of Athens (PAOK Thessaloniki). Panathinaikos play in a fairly small stadium, the Apostos Nikolaidis Stadion (above) which as a capacity of just over 16k. I can imagine a very intense atmosphere when our rivals play here and I hope to turn it into a fortress.

Edited January 16, 2022 by The Malazan Empire
Updated content structure

[The Malazan Empire]

Season 1 (2020/2021) Summary - Panathinaikos

I have completed season 1 and did so not knowing I wanted to have a career page so I will just summarize Season 1 quickly before adopting a more structure approach from Season 2 onwards (comprising at least 3 post per season for 1) Preseason, 2) Midseason Update, and 3) End of Season Summary)

Season 1 Expectations

• The board expected a top half finish in the Greek Super League. I take this to mean top 6 as the 14 team league splits into a Champions group (top 6) and relegation group (bottom 8) after 26 games. The Champions playoff league then comprises teams playing each other twice to decide the champions in a 36 game league overall
• The board expect us the reach the semi-final stage of the Greek Cup (Kypellos Ellados). We typically enter this in round 5 (need to win 3 games to reach semi finals).
• We are not entered into any European competitions
• The board finances are quite tights with a wage budget of ~ €190k p/w and a transfer budget of less than €2 million

Transfers

The squad was actually pretty good with plenty of depth and a certain Federico Macheda as the main striker. Plenty of good winger options and some excellent youth candidates that I promoted to 1st team training for mentoring and experience including Alexanderopoulos, Anasthapadopoulos and Chatzitheoreodus.

I didn't make any transfers at the start of the game as I wanted to give they players a chance and assess the squad properly.

I removed a few players in January, including Federico Macheda, who wasn't performing. In addition, Yassin Ayoub, Chatzigiovanis left on loan with future fees based on games played agreed. Both are good players but were not getting game time due to the abundance of good players in the club and I wanted to play some younger players too for development opportunities. This all helped to reduce the wage budget (even though we were comfortably under it) and to bring in some finances as we were in the red between €2-3 million euros throughout the 1st half of the season. All of the transfers incoming were arranged before my arrival.

I did manage to sign a striker to replace Macheda, with Raphael Dwamena on a free transfer, in January, however,  I then realized he was unavailable until July for medical reasons (good research on my behalf there 😉 ) so I guess we will see him next season 

Season Results

League Table after 26 games pre split

Final League Table

As you can see we outperformed expectations and where quite dominant in the league, only had a few hiccups in the last 4-5 games. As I said previously the squad was strong for this level with great depth and a few decent youth prospects so I expected us to be competitive. The team adopted to the tactics of high pressing vertical tiki-taka style I employed and turned in some dominating performances in the league. 

Top scores was a young Greek player Ionnidas who benefited from Macheda leaving, scoring 13 goals in total. Xavier, playing on left wing attack duty was our player of the season with double figure assists and goals. 

We were knocked out of the Greek Cup in the Quarter Final stage.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by The Malazan Empire

[The Malazan Empire]

SEASON 2 (2021/2022) - PRESEASON - PANATHINAIKOS

 

Welcome back to my Panathinaikos save in Fm21. Last season we outperformed expectations and won the title in commanding fashion were we achieved top spot in late September and never looked back. This season we look to build upon that success and add European football into the mix. 

Board Expectations

1. The board only expecting a top half finish again in the Greek Super League Interwetten which we should be easily able to achieve
2. Expect us to reach the playoff in the Champions League Qualification and reach the Semi-final of the Greek Cup (Kypello Ellados)

Transfers

In total 4 signings were made. We had a transfer budget just over 3 million euros. I had identified a strong CB and a RB was where the money should be invested as I was happy with the amount of attacking players we have.

Transfer history

1. Enzo Millot - 19 year old attacking midfielder with bags of potential and already a leading player in my team with these attributes. Have him in on loan from AS Monaco.
2. David Carmona - 24 year old RB replaces the ageing and releases Facundo Sanchez who was declining rapidly at end of last season with the intense level we play at. Signed on loan for the season from Real Betis with option to buy for €1M. A good deal all around.
3. Jason Kerr - 24 year old CB from St Johnstone in Scotland will add some additional grit to our defense in an area I identified as requiring some improvement
4. Jose Holebas - 37 year old LWB release by our arch rivals Olympiakos was snapped up with his great attributes and is an ideal mentor (Perfectionist) for my young LBs.

Total fees for incoming transfers only €1.6M wiht outgoings of €4.4M to keep the accountants happy.

In addition, I arranged 2 further transfers looking ahead to next year when a few of my key players come to end of contracts and/or are the wrong side of 30.

Teboho Mokoena - 24 year old dynamic midfielder will join from Supersport in South Africa for a marginal fee in July 2022.

Sodick Adejumo - 17 year old DMC with hopefully significant potential will be trained at the CB position as a BPD and will eventually replace the old guard in a few years or be sold for profit further down the line.

Preseason Fixtures and European Qualifiers

A reward for winning the Greek Super League was to enter the Champions League at the Qualifying stage 2. I managed to arrange a few preseason friendlies to try and build match fitness but in reality preseason was mostly Champions League qualifiers.

We were drawn against FC Basle from Switzerland which was one of the toughest draws we could get. A strong 1-1 draw in Basle in the 1st leg set us up perfectly for the home leg were we dominated and routed them 4-0, starting with a scorcher from new signing David Carmona from 30 yards.

We then came up against Astana from Kazakhstan which were surprisingly troublesome to dispatch with former Ajax academy graduate Narsingh running in behind from CF. Two tightly contested matches but we eventually overcame them 3-1 on aggregate after transitioning to a more possession orientated formation/tactic in the home leg.

As faith would have it, we were then pitted against a club with strong links to Ireland and a club I will hopefully manage at some point...Celtic. Again probably one of the toughest draws we could have for the final tie to determine Champions League Qualification. A really strong team performance in the home leg (2- 0), were we dominated possession and chances setup us up for a nervy 2nd tie. Celtic went 1-0 up on the stroke of half time, but we re-emerged in the 2nd half and controlled the game nicely to see out the match. 

Champions League here we come. This will be massive for our finances as we have very little money to work with before this. Some 15.75 million euros added to the balance brings us from 2 to 17 million. Time to reinvest this.

Our reward for a tough qualifying campaign is an incredibly tough group featuring Juventus, Atletico and Gladbach. This season is all about the experience and securing the clubs finances.

Edited January 16, 2022 by The Malazan Empire

[The Malazan Empire]

SEASON 2 (2021/2022) - AUGUST & SEPTEMBER UPDATE - PANATHINAIKOS

RESULTS

We had 1 league game in August which we won comfortably against Lamia, with Bart Schenkeveld starting where he left off last season in smashing a header home at the far post.

September was a very challenging month with us now having to balance the Champions League games midweek between a tough few opening fixtures. We lost 2 Athens derbies in a row, against AEK deservedly and then against Olympiakos who we blitzed in the 1st half in our most convincing 45 minutes to date but they somehow managed to defeat us with 2 well worked goals exploiting our weakness down the flanks when in transition.

Both Champions League games where close but we just didnt finish our chances and we lack a world class striker to finish the chances we create from out wide. Dwamena has been doing well in Champions League but at present is missing too many sitters from 1 v 1 chances, resulting in me picking Ionnidas for the big league games. Next up is back to back ties with Junventus which I don't expect anything from. Ill try squeeze results out of Gladbach and Atletico at home to give us a shot of getting into the Europa League.

LEAGUE TABLE

Currently sitting 5th after 5 games. Team is performing well, but we are missing our star player Xavier through injury which has affected our impact in the final third against the more challenging teams. I expected us to be worse off in the league if I'm honest after that poor start. We are starting to find the balance now with the extra Champions League games and I expect us to kick on and climb the league with a friendlier run of fixtures in the league.

Of the new signings, David Carmona, has been exceptional going in the right IWB position, and we have now the option to make this move permanent for just €223k which I will be acting on very soon.

NEWS

• My scouts identified a potential replacement for the aging AMC, Villanferez, in Ryan Gauld from Scotland who is plying his trade in Farense in Portugal. Having reviewed the scout reports and analyst reports I was impressed with his ability and at 25 years old is a bargain at €2.2M. He will be joining in January 2022 and will be competing immediately for that AMC role and will hopefully add the extra creativity required from AMC

Edited January 30, 2022 by The Malazan Empire