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[FM22] Hull City - The Tiger Kings


Matty Aqua
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Welcome to Vitória Sport Clube, a team in Portugal's top-flight football league Liga Portugal Bwin who have consistently finished mid-range behind Portugal's top three premier clubs, Benfica, Porto, and Sporting CP.

 

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The aim of this thread is to develop players and sell them for profit while maintaining a tactical philosophy and insight into the development of youth and the progress of the first team.

Disclaimer: This save will be carried over to future Football Manager games

 

OVERVIEW & HISTORY

 

Vitória SC was founded on the 22nd of September 1922, making the 2022/23 season its "centenário". The Vitória SC emblem depicts D. Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal, a symbol that inspires a Club of conquerors, of fearless men who fight bravely for their goals. That's why Vitória Sport Clube's athletes are constantly nicknamed Conquerors. The Club's colors are black and white, which symbolize the openness of Vitória Sport Clube to welcome everyone, without discrimination based on race or social status. Vitória SC plays at the Estádio D. Afonso Henriques which holds a capacity just above 30,000 and has excellent training facilities as well as great youth facilities. Since the club's inception in 1922, they have only won the Taça de Portugal Placard once in 2012/13 as the league has been dominated by 3 clubs Benfica, Porto, and Sporting CP. Over the past few decades, Portugal has earned a strong reputation for nurturing some of the world's best footballers. Legendary names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Luís Figo, and Rui Costa, as well as more recent stars like Rúben Dias, Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo, Bruno Fernandes, and João Félix have all emerged from Portugal and become some of the greatest players in the world.

Vitória's furthest progress in a European tournament was in the 1986/87 Europa League, in which they were defeated 5–2 on aggregate in the quarter-finals by Borussia Mönchengladbach. In the early 2000s, Vitória struggled for some years to retain its status in the top Portuguese division, then named the Superliga. Those years were marked by the decline of the leadership of Pimenta Machado, former club president, who was accused on charges of embezzlement. In February 2008 he was sentenced to four years and three months of prison on a suspended sentence, though a year later he was cleared of this charge and instead ordered to pay a €4,000 fine for falsifying a document.

(In February 2023, Vitória made an announcement about an agreement to sell 46% of the club's shares to billionaires Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens for €5m. This is not yet added in the game as the deal happened post-release, but it could indicate that the club is likely to be sold. I can try to persuade the board to find an agreement to have Aston Villa as a senior affiliate club.)

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 Vitória SC football club consists of 3 teams, competing in various competitions.

  • First Team
    • Liga Portugal Bwin
    • UEFA Europa Conference League
    • Taça de Portugal Placard
  • B Team
    • Liga III
  • Under 19 Team
    • Portugal U19's First Division

FIRST TEAM SQUAD

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  • Vitória have a large 28-man squad Vitória have experienced leaders such as Bruno Varela, Tiago Silva and André André.
  • Ibrahima Bamba and André Amaro are likely to attract the attention of bigger European clubs due to their impressive potential.
  • Young players Maxwell Woledzi and Mamadou Tounkara will be given first-team minutes and a chance to develop.

 

B TEAM SQUAD

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  • Vitória has some talented prospects such as Rodrigo Figueiredo and Gonçalo Pinto who could be promoted to the first team.
  • Kirill Zinovich, who stands at 6'4", has the potential to be retrained as a Centre-Back, and João Pedro a 6'4" striker with 16 Jumping reach will be trained as a Target Man.
  • Gonçalo Nogueira could become a quality first-team player.

 

UNDER 19's SQUAD

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  • Majority of players are 16 to 18 years old.
  • Training plans will be implemented to ensure players have the best chance to reach their potential ability.
  • Diogo Lobão has the most impressive potential ability in the academy.

BACKROOM STAFF

 

Luckily, I have a small but decent backroom staff to get me started, it feels like a necessary place to introduce some key backroom staff members who will be helping me for the upcoming season. Experienced João Aroso is my assistant manager and will be my right-hand man throughout the season. The backroom team is an area I will look to expand when the finances are in better shape, I know some FM players brutally wield the axe and immediately terminate members of the backroom team, but I do not!.

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The first thing I want to do is gain the support of the playing group and supporters and firing staff can lead to upset and disgruntled players before I have even played the first match! Also, amortization! there's a financial aspect most people don't consider, and that's amortization, mutual termination fees are very costly, and replacing them with new staff on potentially higher wages, means you are paying both old and new staff members to do the same job, so amortization is something to consider especially if you're managing a club with debt!. I personally let contracts expire if the staff member isn't someone I deem useful for the long-term plans, as most likely there will be a changing of squad players after the first few seasons anyway, so why pay more to train players who might not be here in the future?

I want to focus on helping veteran players transition into life after football by becoming part of the club as a backroom staff. There's nothing more satisfying than having a player join the backroom team and then go on to forge his own managerial career in your universe. Just as players have current ability and potential ability so do your coaching staff and often you will receive an inbox message notifying you that a member of staff is studying for a coaching course, this will increase their attributes as a staff member. Occasionally a player will make a start on gaining his coaching badges while he is still active as a player. André André is the perfect candidate for a future staff role, and you can even have the conversation gauging a player's interest in a role for the future. I don't have any evidence as to what makes a coach's attributes improve over time, a combination of coaching courses and potentially allowing the coach to manage academy matches is all the knowledge I have, but I figure it's a great place to document the backroom staff development as the save progresses.

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TRAINING

One of the first things I do when taking the position of a club is create training schedules based on the style of play I am trying to play, there is a lot written in other threads about training but this is just the way I approach it, some prefer to simply leave it to the assistant manager. I don't think there is a wrong way to train players, but I do believe you can get the maximum potential out of your players with specific training schedules and balancing rest, training, matches, and recovery, again I emphasize that you can train your players how you wish and there is no right or wrong way.

As detailed above we're playing a 3-5-2 system with a heavy emphasis on defensive shape and structure, I'm looking to be leading the league in tackles, blocks, and aerial duels so training should be designed for players to reflect the style of play.

But first let's focus on pre-season where I focus on fitness, tactical familiarity, and team cohesion, these are the three most important aspects to focus on when taking a new job in my opinion, Starting the season off on the right foot is crucial for molding a successful season.

FOCUS

  • Fitness
    • Pre-season is all about getting those kilometers in the legs, from my experience unfit players don't hit the season in good form and tend to become a bit fatigued and jaded in the February/March months. You don't want your promotion push to be hampered by players being too tired to play, do you?
  • Tactical Familiarity
    • Getting players to 100% tactical familiarity as soon as possible is crucial, I focus on one tactic and one mentality for the first few weeks to make sure that the base of what we are trying to achieve on the pitch is understood, then create the same tactic with a different mentality and train that as a secondary with some tweaks and adjustments (ex: width, tempo, passing, defensive lines) to make sure players have familiarity with alternative instructions, should I need to make in-game changes.
  • Team Cohesion 
    • I put so much importance on team cohesion when joining a new club and there are multiple reasons as to why. Team Cohesion can influence how your team gel together on the pitch, without team cohesion you will see players give away free kicks, penalties, set-piece goals, missed passes, and goal-scoring opportunities which can result in bad morale and players losing support in the manager quickly. There's also a chance you're managing in a country where you don't have language fluency, and potentially neither do some players, this has an effect on the pitch as players will often have neutral or bad body language and not feel comfortable on the pitch, so it's important to have a culture where players are all on the same page and have support the manager.

Pre Season (Light)

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  • The lighter pre-season schedule has two days of moderate intensity and two days of higher intensity, I use this during the first week and second week of pre-season camp as I want to push the players a bit but not overload them and risk injuries. Also, there is three sessions dedicated to tactical training to balance the load, Building fitness levels and tactical knowledge is key here.

Pre Season (Heavy)

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  • The Heavier pre-season schedule is focused more on pushing the players physically. This is the bulk of the pre-season where players build fitness levels with sessions focused on Endurance and strength, and one session dedicated to quickness. Here I also focus more on match prep sessions and teamwork to help the team gel together. At the end of a heavy week, there are two dedicated sessions for recovery and a much-needed team bonding session.

Pre Season (2 Matches)

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  • The two-match schedule is not ideal but created to gain a little bit of physical output and more sessions dedicated to recovery and match prep. I follow a similar pre-season structure to Dan Gear who recently has written an article for View from the Touchline detailing how he goes about setting up his pre-season. I prefer to keep my players on the pitch as much as possible during pre-season which is why I prefer to only one match per week instead of spending pre-season sessions in recovery and match review sessions as you can see from the schedule above how much training players are missing in a two-match scheduled week.

---

I generally like to push the physical boundaries of my players by switching to Double Intensity for players that have no fatigue and are at 100% conditioning, but of course, everything should be monitored by Injury Risk which you can monitor via the medical center.

- FIRST TEAM INTENSITY

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*tip! Youth players generally have lighter match schedules and therefore spend more time training and developing attributes. (It's widely known that players from the ages of 15 to 18 benefit more from focusing on training). I like to sort the contenders and pretenders out early by setting Double Intensity to players 75% and above to push them a bit more. I would only do this if you have Physio and Sports Scientists at your club as the workload is demanding.

- YOUTH INTENSITY

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I generally focus my first few matches on weaker opponents just to build some fitness and sharpness among the squad, rotating heavily and usually playing a side of similar quality every 3 games to get an understanding of the tactic, focusing more on movement, shape, and weakness. I can make adjustments to the tactic as I see fit which is why I try to play a team of significance every 3 matches.

OBJECTIVES

Below I've listed some objectives I'll be hoping to tick off the list as I continue on with the save, but there are some other personal objectives that I might be able to tick off also, I may even be tempted to take the Australian National team job for a run at a World Cup if the opportunity arises but for now the focus is on achieving success with Vitória SC.

🔍 Develop Youth Academy prospects and improve Youth Recruitment

 Establish as a consistent team in European competition.

🤴 Have an academy player from Vitória SC capped for the Portuguese national team.

🏆 Win the Taça de Portugal Placard, Liga Portugal Bwin and Champions League trophies.

If you've managed to read down this far I appreciate the feedback and support as a lot of time and research went into putting this all together!, so feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to respond as quickly as possible!. If you are interested in keeping up to date with this save feel free to leave a like and follow along, alternatively you can find me on the View from the Touchline Discord channel or on Twitter where I’m happy to chat all things Football Manager!. 

Edited by Matty Aqua
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QPRLogo.thumb.png.08bd18d8792268d3b3dfe7ccb33ce826.png

 

QPR - Another 4 Year Plan

 

I think most Football Manager players get the itch for a side save from time to time, I certainly do at this point of the year. I also seem to be drawn year after year to managing a team struggling in the Championship, maybe it’s the lure of turning things around and attempting to get them into the Premier League within a 5 season save, but the Championship is a tough league to get out of so putting all my trust in the Director of Football to bring in the players I need adds a challenge and an element of pressure.

 

In previous blogs Dan Gear has written extensively on scouting for the Byline, and continues to use the Director of Football and his scouts to shape his teams, I figured QPR was a great place to use the DOF approach as they are looking for a manager in real life as well as the starting point of this save as I progressed the save until an interesting managerial job came up which happened to be Queens Park Rangers. I will also be posting the save on the View from the Touchline website if you would like to keep up. ‘Are you with me?’. 

 

 

THE DOF

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For this save I will be focusing on recruitment using the articles written by Dan Gear on the View from the Touchline website, setting up recruitment focus and using the scouting tools available.

The current Director of Football is former QPR striker Les Ferdinand, Since returning to QPR Ferdinand has had a lot of things to deal with including slashing wage bills, dealing with a £40m FFP fines, and more recently a lack of managerial stability as Mick Beale left to take the Rangers job after only a few months and the sacking of Neil Critchley after a poor run of results. 

 

I will pick this save roughly up from mid Feb, with the only objective to get Queens Park Rangers back into the Premier League within four seasons.

The immediate focus is on staying in the league.

Let’s look a little at what has actually gone right and wrong for QPR this season.

 

Mick Beale’s QPR

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I went back and analyzed QPR’s games this season as there were such contrasting results between the two managers. Mick Beale used variations of the 4-3-3 tactics and against more dominant sides, occasionally a 4-2-3-1, Mick Beale’s QPR relied on quick ball movement, and taking chances as soon as they were presented, they generally operated as a counter attacking team and created most of the chances from the left side. Ilias Chair was a huge threat in the half space on the left hand side, often driving forward with pace at opponents or shooting from range at a disorganized defense due to QPR’s quick counter attacks. Defensively they were able to maintain shape, as soon as the ball was won the attackers would rush up the field looking to be part of the transition. QPR were not really focused on possession of the ball but clinical with shorter, sharper passes.

 

Neil Critchley’s QPR

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Neil Critchley used variations of a 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2, perhaps injuries and the mid season change of manager stunned QPR’s momentum, but things just didn’t click from the games I watched largely due to a change in play style more so than formation. The most glaringly obvious stat was Critchley’s QPR maintained 60% possession in most games and executed far less passes on average with a focus being more central play as opposed to attacking down the left flank under Beale’s QPR instructions. 

Ilias Chair was placed in a more central attacking role, which minimized his strengths as a ball carrier as he was receiving the ball closer to goal and having to try and dance around defenders and pick a pass or get a shot off. The change in playing a slightly slower tempo impacted the defense greatly as they were often caught out of position as they tended to creep up the pitch more and get involved in the attacking phases.

 

Edited by Matty Aqua
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Nice one Matty, going to be quite the challenge in the first season.

I know, irl, the club just got a takeover by the guys who appointed Arveladze so hopefully you'll get something like that in game.

And you've got quite the player Keane Lewis-Potter. I've looked him a number of times and he's really handy. 

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ClubLogo.png.dfe3beeed266daa1140cda0e5e644c8e.png

Welcome to Sport Clube Lusitânia a Portuguese club based on the small island of Terceira which is one of nine major Azorean islands. 

The Azores (Açores in Portuguese) is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal and an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean. In 1922, SC Lusitânia was formed after a group of enthusiasts founded a club that named the aircraft “Lusitânia” in honour of the transatlantic crossing of pilots Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral. Thus, one of the most emblematic Azorean clubs was born. Lusitânia (also known as Lusitânia dos Açores), is on the small island of Terceira which is one of nine major Azorean islands, Flores and Corvo, to the west, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and the Formigas islets to the east, Ponta Delgada, the capital of the Azores and is shown as a red square on the image below. Lusitânia plays its home games at the Campo de Jogos de São Mateus da Calheta and has a capacity for 1000 seats, the Azorean Population is composed mainly of Portuguese immigrants from southern Portugal and Madeira as well as smaller groups of Jews, Africans, Spaniards, Bretons and Moors and have a population of about 250,000 and probably just as many cows! as the islands are well-known as farming regions.

Over the past few decades, Portugal has earned a strong reputation for nurturing some of the world's best footballers, legendary names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Luís Figo, and Rui Costa, as well as more recent stars like Rúben Dias, Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo, Bruno Fernandes, and João Félix have all emerged from Portugal and become some of the greatest players in the world. The idea of the save is to manage a team from the Azores through the tiers of Portuguese football, revitalising football on the island by building a bigger stadium and developing top-class Portuguese players.

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Naturally, teams from The Azores are non-professional yet have to take a flight to play away games, 

Edited by Matty Aqua
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Saint-Étienne's history runs very deep, Saint-Étienne were once serial winners in French football, it may be hard to believe now considering Ligue 1 has been dominated by PSG the last decade, winning 9 titles since 2012/13 which takes them to 11 in total, Saint-Étienne now sits behind them holding the second most amount of league titles with 10, their last title league title was won over 40 years ago in 1980/81 captained by iconic Michel Platini. Not so long ago Saint-Étienne was recruiting and developing some high-profile players - Kurt Zouma, Wesley Fofana, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Dimitri Payet, Blaise Matuidi do those names ring any bells? - I'm sure they do! and recently Saint-Étienne were a team that was consistently competing for European places in Ligue 1 until 2017, since then Saint-Étienne has been in a steady decline, unable to recapture the spark they had under manager Christophe Galtier.

Edited by Matty Aqua
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PROLOGUE

Since I started playing Football Manager I have never had any interest in playing journeyman saves, I’ve always been a one-club manager, and time has been a factor in my decision not to pursue a journeyman save in the past as I was never confident I could play years into the future before the arrival of the new game but with the ability to carry the save over to future editions, I feel it's a great opportunity to try a journeyman save. Writing/blogging journeyman saves are probably the toughest types of save to write about as the focus is more on the progression of the manager rather than the club so I will also be posting about interesting things happening within my save Universe such as transfers, cup competitions, awards and in general try to answer any questions about certain teams and players as things evolve within the save. Still, there will be some detailed write-ups as the save progresses.

Even though this is a journeyman I do have some goals I would like to achieve and also a few guidelines to keep things as close to realistic, I try not to limit myself too much as the game still needs to be enjoyable, but for this journeyman save, I will only sign players my scouts have identified, been on trial or recommended to me by scouts or potentially agents, also the Director of Football or Technical Director will be in charge of contracts which also adds another element about managerial positions I will consider in the future. As for achievements, the obvious goal is to get to a big club and manage in the Champions League but I would like to manage in the A-League at some point, as it seems like a league where managers are boosting their reputation and springboarding their careers into better opportunities abroad with recent examples of previous Melbourne City manager Patrick Kisnorbo now managing Troyes in Ligue 2, former Melbourne Victory manager Kevin Muscat now managing in Japan and already tipped for bigger jobs and of course, Big Ange Postecoglou who also managed Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory and has gone on to manage Yokohama Marinos in Japan and massive clubs in Europe like Celtic and Spurs.

Edited by Matty Aqua
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Moncur is pretty effective with his key pass per 90 metric, I would have expected him to have registered an assist though, given the amount of CCC.

Have you looked in any detail at where these key passes are occurring and more importantly the shot xG value which sits behind them? 

I could well be that they aren't in quality areas, therefore a cheeky tweak of a few PIs could change all that.

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Re the key passes for Moncur, with those sorts of numbers I'm guessing that he's on set piece duty? It's really frustrating but there's no way to automatically separate corners etc out of that metric so it very much gets skewed. I've started using chances per 90 more often but, as you say that doesn't account for the "assist of the assist" 

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On 27/02/2022 at 10:51, Matty Aqua said:

Yes he is on Set Pieces, overall his attributes aren't amazing but I think he is more than capable of playing at this level.

1835985044_Moncurstats.thumb.png.2ea8adc990b3d17179a6861e5f706352.png

@Shrewnaldolooking at his Key passes per 90 they're not to bad, I think it's trying to find a balance of getting him the ball in a more dangerous position as @MattyLewis11 mentioned.

any suggestions on what to look at is appreciated!.

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0.85 chances per 90 is really big. Some of that might come from set pieces but my general threshold for creative players was around 0.45 chances per game was "good". Bätzner was the absolute standout player for me across any season and got 0.97, so that gives you an idea of how good 0.85 is. And the fact that it doesn't align with his assists per 90 would most likely be down to the players on the other end of the pass not finishing properly. 0.93 dribbles per 90 is also good for a central player like that. Looks like he's doing a stirling job, to me.

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