[FM23] A career (more or less experimental) in the Nordic countries

[GreenTriangle]

November 8, when the full game will be available, there may be some changes. However, the beta version is stable, and a possible career started now can be as interesting as any other career.
*****
As the title of the topic says, the career will take place in the Nordic countries. For now I don't know yet which club I will lead as I intend to let the game decide that. To begin with, I selected a few leagues (more precisely, all available leagues from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland) and, in addition, a less Nordic but more "exotic" league, the first league from Latvia. I also added some of the most important leagues in Europe, not because I intend to manage any club from there, but only to stimulate international transfers.
I also created a manager. No experience, no badges. Just a "beginner". Then, immediately after this creative activity, I applied to all the northern clubs that did not have a manager at that time. I have to specify, the start date is December 2021, and this because I wanted to play the 2022 season. It's true, the competitions in Denmark were not playable (until July), but, after all, the other 4 available countries were enough to find a job .
After about 10 days (and 3 interviews), a club decided, totally surprisingly, to hire me :

So, Landvetter IS (Idrottssällskap), name which means "Landvetter Sports Association". Who are these people ? Landvetter is a small town neighboring Gothenburg (Göteborg). The club is old, but throughout its history its team played only in the (very) lower leagues. It was only in 2012 that the team promoted to the 5th league, and in 2021 it repeated the performance, promoting to the 4th league. This season, 2022, would therefore be, for them, the first season in the 4th Swedish league. By the way, "Swedish Second Division" suggests a higher league, but it's actually the 4th league.

Other details: the club is semi-professional. It has very limited facilities (poor / poor / basic / limited) and, in FM, it use a fairly large stadium. In real life, however, their stadium is much smaller.

***

The squads. We have three : seniors, reserves, U19. This does not mean that we have many players, but only 26. Probably if I had activated the option "add players to playable teams" we would probably have had more. But it doesn't matter, because the senior team is well balanced. For unclear reasons the game decided to bring no less than 10 new players a few days before my arrival. Interesting is that at least 5 of the 10 transfers are from the category "I wouldn't have done better either". It's true, the game didn't done perfectly because we're a bit exposed on the left flank, but it's clear that I can't ask the game to do all my job.

Some details regarding the players who will probably form the core of the team in the next months : goalkeeper and defenders, respectively midfielders and strikers.

***

There is, however, a strangeness. The players are very good (for the 4th league level), but their contracts are a little unusual. I hope that these bonuses and fees are paid at the end of month, and not after the end of each game. It would be quite difficult to pay one euro or two to each player.
In fact, this is a situation that also there is in FM22. Wages and bonuses in the lower Swedish leagues are lower than in Finland or Iceland and much lower than in Denmark (for the same player reputation)

***

The staff. We don't really have that staff we need. For example, we have no scouts, no physio and no HOYD. However, we have an assistant manager whom I don't trust (given his abilities) and a DoF who is supposed to recommend good players (he acts as a scout) even though he has a very low JCA/JPA. Moreover, he also deals with our youth intake. The future does not look good at all. I don't know if I'll be able to complete the staff as I would like because we don't have much money. Maybe I'll get lucky. By the way, our wage budget is huge, even gigantic: 1357 euros per month.

***

What will I do next? For now, I have to see how it works and how useful the various new features and improvements could be (squad planner, recruitment focus and others). Then I'll have to see to what extent the roles and instructions in FM23 are identical to those in FM22. I assume that they are not exactly identical, but I can only check by playing. After that... I'll see.

[GreenTriangle]

January - March 2022

From January until now I have been working hard trying to find a use for the two new features added in FM 23 (squad planner and recruitment focus). Conclusion : they can probably be useful in certain cases (bigger clubs having a lot of players ... and a lot of money) but they are not very useful in the case of a small club. Or maybe it's my fault, my limited abilities not being able to discover the usefulness of these features.

***

In any case, with or without new features, I didn't bring any new player. First of all, because we already had 26 players in the squad (by the way, we brought all the players from the reserve and U19 squads to the senior team). Secondly, because the club's finances are limited and all the players' contracts will expire at the end of the year. I don't want 3 quarters of my team to leave because I can't extend their contract. In addition, it's possible that in a few months I'll need some additional players. We only have a few flank players (both defenders and midfielders), and about 2-3 injuries would cause us big troubles.

As usual, I also use two other tables, the ones related to the players' personality, respectively to "playing time happiness". Sure, the squad planner contains something like that, but I prefer to see my whole team and not just positional sections.

By the way, I have an obvious problem : 24 of the 26 players have the right foot as preferred foot, and for 20 of the 24 the ability to use the left foot is low. However, I don't really feel like using the CA to improve their respective ability. I'll have to avoid those roles that would require a frequent use of their left leg.

***

Our media prediction odds have dropped from 33-1 to 50-1. The other teams in the group probably took advantage of the transfer window, not like us. The season objective remained the same (mid-table), although the fans want more (top half). The number of season ticket holders has increased from 18 to 40, which means that we have brave supporters (if I were them, I would not risk my money).

***

Friendlies. We got countless wins (10 out of 13 games), but 7 out of 13 opponents were small teams from lower leagues (plus our 2nd team). Actually, these results are not important because I tried to use (and check) all players we have (and probably our opponents did it too). Unfortunately, this approach had the effect of limiting the growth of team cohesion.

********************

April 2022

6 points out of 15. I expected us to lose the matches against Vastra and Astrio because, theoretically, media prediction considers these teams to be candidates for promotion. However, in the game with Vastra we played very well but, unfortunately, Vastra scored the winning goal in the 90-1 minute, from a penalty kick. In the last game Hittarps kind of humiliated us, which worried me because I thought we could beat them, at least on our stadium.

Games played in April

 

********************

May 2022

Wooow ! 12 points of 12 ! Compared to the games we played in April, now I used a different positional configuration but, honestly, I have no idea if this winning streak is due to the formation used or luck ... or both.

Games played in May

***

An interesting message. Mrs physio says that I should be happy, because the number of injuries has decreased this season. But if I look at the list of injuries, I don't have much reason to be so happy. We lost for many months two of the best right midfielders we have. Moreover, one of the two injured (Wallin, who was the team captain and one of the three best players in the squad) announced his retirement a few days after the injury. A realistic thing, because the guy is 32 years old, and at that age such a serious injury means in many cases the end of career.

***

Youth intake preview. Really ?!?

I've never seen anything like this before. I admit, I'm very curious. I would really like to see what a real "golden generation" looks like, even if it's just about a small club from the lower leagues. Being in Sweden, the new intake will take place in October, that is, a few (I don't know how many) weeks after the championship (and the season) will end. This means that our U19 team will return from vacation to play this friendly. It might be worth the effort.

********************

June 2022

I changed the formation again, just for fun. It wasn't a very smart idea, because we only got 4 points out of 12. It's true, we met two very strong teams, Eskilsminne and Husqvarna. I believe that by using a DM our defense will be more solid. In fact, it was, but we lost so many balls in attack that the poor DM could not cope with the countless attacks of our opponents. By the way, this seems to me a good enough reason to give up the 4-3-3 DM in the next games and try another positional configuration.

Games played in June

One thing's for sure : we have already avoided relegation. There are still 13 rounds to be played, but the difference between us and the 12th place is so big that I have no reason to worry. The team played quite well (players' stats). Unfortunately, we kind of depend on our only consistent striker, Andersson, and he categorically refuses to extend his contract. So, next year we might have problems.

********************

April - June 2022. The different tactical configurations used :

Edited October 25, 2022 by GreenTriangle

[GreenTriangle]

July 2022

10 points out of 12. It could have been even better, considering that we lost 3 points against a team (Hoganas) that is struggling at the bottom of the table. It's worse that we played like a 5th league team and the opponents played as if they were fighting for promotion.

Games played in July

***

The transfer window will end on August 7, but we have already finished this activity. Only one player left us (Musa, who was not an important player for us anyway) and, instead, we brought two midfielders (a ML/AML and a MR/AMR) that we really needed. I would have brought at least one more player, but the budget no longer allows me this :  we could only offer a maximum of 2 euro bonuses per game and a maximum of 24 euro p/m as salary (much too little to be able to attract another really good player). As a result, this will be our squad in the coming months.

********************

August 2022

This month was painful. Not only did we get only 3 points, not only we lost 4 points against pretty mediocre teams as Ullareds and Assyriska, but we played reasonably good in only one of the 4 games.

Games played in August

********************

July - August 2022. Tactical configurations used :

Edited October 25, 2022 by GreenTriangle

[GreenTriangle]

September 2022

Oh ... what a collapse at the end of the season ! However, the team did not play that badly. We could have scored a few goals, we could have conceded less, but everything happened because of the sharp drop in morale. Probably a lot of our guys would have needed a team meeting at the beginning of the month or, in the worst case, before the last two games.

Games played in September

We finished the competition in 8th place. The board is quite satisfied ... but our supporters almost want to see me kicked out. Maybe they are right, who knows ?
However, is this 8th place deserved ? Yes. We had a lot of luck in the first part of the season and it was normal to have some bad luck at the end of it. In fact, both in terms of attack and defense, we were almost always only a "mid-table team". As for the players' stats ... the only conclusion is that some players are strictly necessary for us and others seem to be completely useless.

Tactical configurations used in September :

***

A little earlier I referred to the team's morale. I wasn't surprised that it became lower and lower. A third of our players are very dissatisfied, mainly due to the fact that they cannot play as much as they would like. It's an older problem (since June, many of these players refused to sign for the extension of their contracts), and a series of poor results was enough for the whole team to become extremely dissatisfied. Of course, I have to admit, it's about bad management. But it's also about the fact that my attributes are low, which doesn't give me enough authority over my players.

***************

October - December 2022

Being a small club, both income and expenses are low. However, there are two aspects that I must take into account. First of all, part of the club's income comes from membership fees. And the supporters, currently, have a rather bad opinion about my management. Secondly, the president of the club is elected every two years. Fortunately, the former president was re-elected in October 2022, which probably saved my position as manager (my contract ends in November and was extended for another season after elections).

***

Our wage budget has increased, from 1350 euros p/m to 1650 p/m. Initially, I was excited about this increase. After that, the enthusiasm decreased, because some of the players who had initially refused to extend their contracts told me that they are, however, willing to negotiate (of course, they have no other offers). But they want more than double the current salaries ... or even more. By example, our best striker, Andersson, wants a salary more than three times higher than the current one.

***

I tried to convince the Board that I would need some additional skills (that is, a coaching course for the minimum licence, National C). It seems I wasn't convincing enough. Also, because some players complained about the low quality of our facilities, I tried to get an improvement of the training facilities. I wasn't convincing in this case either. I'm sorry guys, I can't offer you those facilities you would like.

***

Youth intake 2022

Well, what players were we going to get, according to the preview ?

And what players did we get ?

More concretely, this is the initial evaluation of those players we received : a good player (even very good) ... and 15 other useless players. I hurried to offer Thunberg a contract, and our assistant manager even suggested that I shouldn't leave him at U19 anymore, as he has the necessary qualities to be promoted to the first team. Then, for an entire month, I kept thinking if would be necessary to offer contracts to other players. In the end, I gave up. They will all leave. We don't have enough money for this kind of experiments.

[GreenTriangle]

January - March (and half of April) 2023

The beginning of the new season was quite stressful, because after the recent departures we ended up having only 17 players at the club, including Thunberg, the only player selected at the youth intake from the previous season. In fact, we have a reserve team for nothing, because both in the reserve squad and in the U19 squad all the players are "gray" (and ugly).

Obviously, the solution was to bring a few additional players. But no better player was interested in a transfer to us when we informed him that all we can offer him is 0 euro salary (wow !) and 1 euro bonus per appearance / unused substitute fee, per goal scored / assist and so on. In the end I realized that I have to strictly look for those players whose clubs are willing to loan them to us without asking for a penny. And, I admit, I had some work to do. Not because there weren't many players who could be loaned, but because most of them didn't want to come to our club. However, in the end, 5 brave people were found who agreed to be loaned to us. In fact, four out of the five are really good players, only the last one on the list (Del Monte) being a somewhat weaker player who we brought to us just to have an additional reserve player.

***

Some aspects that seemed to me to be a bit more interesting.
- First of all, about the newcomer Bjorndahl. Surprisingly, our supporters had a very negative reaction to his arrival. In their opinion, he's a very weak player. In my opinion, he's a good player, the only one we could bring from a club (Orgryte Goteborg) that plays in the 2nd league. Maybe for Orgryte he's not so good, but for us, a small club in the 4th league, he's good enough.

- Michel Hilon. An average level player in our team, but who has a characteristic that I have rarely seen at other players : he can play in any position, except for the goalkeeper. It's true, in 4 of the 13 positions the guy is "unconvincing", but even so it can be said that Hilon is an unusual player.

- Although we are a 4th league club, we're also a multinational team at the same time. No, we have only one "foreigner" in our squad, Holmgren (he is Finnish), all the other 21 players we have being of Swedish nationality. But many of them also have a second nationality. Among the newcomers, Jobe is also Gambian, Del Monte is Italian, Hilon is Syrian and Abuzayda is Palestinian. Among the players who played for us in the previous season as well: Randsalu (Estonia), Simonsen (Denmark), Bogdyuk (Ukraine), Husain (Iraq, but his 2nd nationality being Swedish).

***

The squad :

(As I said earlier, we also have reserves and U19 teams, but we don't have players for them).

I also use 3 other lists that may contain some useful information. I'll post them here, in case they are of some interest : contracts, players' personalities, playing time.

There is also a 4th list that I will need (and which cannot be recreated in FM, unfortunately). I'm talking about the list of players' positional abilities. In the previous season I trusted my assistant, although sometimes his positional recommendations seemed a bit strange to me. Now I'm not going to trust him anymore. I'll use the players strictly in those positions in which they are natural or accomplished. I'll also use a player even if he's only competent, but only in exceptional cases and not for more than one game. It's said that positional ability influences players' decisions, but I have no idea to what extent. And I don't want to risk it anymore. If I need to use a player in a certain position in the long term, I'll first train him specifically for that position.

***

Our team's reputation is, of course, very low, even for the 4th league. In fact, 82 teams (6 groups) play in the 4th Swedish league, and I don't think we are in the top 50. I don't even want to think about the higher leagues, probably the teams' reputation there is huge compared to ours. Surprisingly, even a team that has just been promoted from the 5th league, Hvetlanda GIF, has a greater reputation than us.
There would be something else here. Another "new" team in our group is Qviding. These guys just got relegated from the 3rd league, and at the end of last season I had a shock when I saw their odds in the media prediction: 1-91. Such odds means that they will win all the games with differences of at least 5 or 6 goals. Fortunately, after just a few months their odds dropped to... 3-1. This can be either a bug          ... or they lost practically almost all the players they had in their team.  

As for our odds, they improved significantly in the last year, that is, they changed from 33-1 to 13-1. We probably have better players now than we had at the beginning of last season. Besides, even the assistant's report seems to suggest that we have a slightly better team now.

***

Club vision. For unclear reasons, our fans don't really like me. (And I don't like them either, but this is a confidential information). The board is quite satisfied with my mediocre performances ... but that "C+" rating could easily turn into a dismissal in case of a series of bad results.

***

Finances. I spend more than the wage budget allows, and that means I won't be able to extend the players' contracts if our boys will want more money. That's the situation, I don't have anything to do. Whoever wants to leave us ... is free to leave. As for the club facilities ... I don't even care anymore. How could we improve the facilities if we can only spend 1650 euro p/m for wages ?

***

Friendlies

A series of quite impressive results, even if we met only 4 better teams (all from the 4th league : Varbergs, Oddevold, Kristianstad and Herrestads), the others being small or very small teams from the lower leagues. The positive aspect : the cohesion and atmosphere have improved significantly. The negative aspect : we lost the last game, although we played against an amateur team and we used no less than 8 important players, which could mean that the next games could be very difficult for us.

A small detail: what is the chance that, in 3 out of 12 games played, the opponent can score from every shot on target ? I thought it was a small chance, but in fact it turns out that it is very high. It's not something important, these were just friendly matches, but it's about the principle.

********************

A brief "tactical" mention. This season I will give up that templates that contain many visible instructions. So, without "gegenpress", "control possession" and the others. Of course, even the "clean slate" template contains many instructions, but they are not visible, being average levels. I'll therefore use this "clean slate" template and I'll strictly limit myself to the following changes: mentality, passing, tempo, time wasting (end of match only, if it's necessary), trigger press (as little as possible, if possible I'll keep the standard level), transition - possession lost and transition - possession won. I'll also use the roles recommended by the assistant, roles that are usually not very complex. After all, it's about a team from the 4th league. Most of my players have low or at most average attributes. I can't ask them to dribble or to shoot like Ronaldo.

********************

April 2023

Wow ! I honestly didn't expect this ! 9 points out of 12, no less than 12 goals scored, plus the fact that we "destroyed" a former 3rd league team (Qviding) ! Unfortunately, we were unlucky in that game against Ullareds ... but, after all, it doesn't matter anymore. The beginning of the season was far beyond expectations.

Games played in April

********************

May 2023

10 points out of 12. Surprisingly, the series of very good results continues. It's true, we didn't deserve even a point in the match against Astrio because the score was 3-2 for us, although the ratio of shots on target was 8-3 for them. However, we're also leaders in the xG table, which means that, until now, we didn't have much more luck than the other teams.

Games played in May

***

Club vision. What I said earlier is confirmed : our fans really like me a lot . The Board : "hey, man you're doing an unbelievable job". The fans : "eh, maybe you deserve a C+, we're quite pleased".

[GreenTriangle]

June 2023

Only 7 points out of 12. It's not very bad, but unfortunately we lost the most important match, the one we played against Savedalens, the 3rd placed team.

Games played in June

We're 6 points away from the 1st place but also only 2 points away from the 3rd place. However, according to xG table, Vastra Frolunda (the team in first place) has not played much better than us until now. So, we still have a chance to fight for the first place.

***

At the beginning of February, I requested the Board to allow me to improve my coaching qualification. I didn't expect them to accept, but they did it. So, now, in June, I got the "National C" licence and, as a result, a significant improvement in my abilities. In addition, as a result of the good results we got so far, the Board has already proposed me the extension of my contract (which was to end in November).

***

Youth intake preview. The next youth intake does not look good at all, but I prefer a realistic preview to an excessively optimistic one.

********************

End of season in the rest of Europe (that is, in the somewhat more southern regions than Sweden)

European Cups + World Cup 2022 / The most important domestic leagues / The most important domestic cups

********************

July 2023

Only 9 points out of 15. We played badly, really badly in the match against the leader, Vastra, and we deserved to lose. As for the game against Qviding... we conceded two goals in the first 6 minutes, and then, although we had several chances to score, we failed to recover the goal difference.

Games played in July

The table is not very encouraging. Not only we didn't manage to recover any of the 6 points difference from 1 st place, but we fell to 3rd place because Savedalens got more points than us in the last games. Moreover, Hittarps won everything (15 points out of 15) and equaled us on points. Worse than that, even in the xG table we're no longer in the top 3. It's clear, our chances of ranking in one of the first two places have dropped quite a bit.

[GreenTriangle]

August 2023*
(* actually, I forgot to take a screenshot at the end of the month, and when I remembered, we had already played a match from September)

The month started with a completely stupid match, a match in which we had no less than 12 scoring chances (4 of which were clear cut chances), but we lost to a team that only had 3 scoring chances in the whole match. In the next game, a win was mandatory, as we met a team (Hittarps IK) that had more points than us. We didn't win, we only got a draw, 0 - 0, although we played quite well. Two games followed which we won easily (3 - 0 in both), then a last game in which we led, 2 - 0, in the 80th minute, we had a goal disallowed in the 84th minute and, incredibly, we managed to only get a draw, 2 - 2.

Games played in August*

Considering the rather weak performance in the last games, it was already obvious that our chances of fighting for promotion had become very small. As a result, I decided to play casually, just for fun. That is, I decided to not change the tactical configuration (including roles or duties) during the match, but strictly before the game and, possibly, at halftime, if necessary. By the way, it has probably been noted that until now we have alternately used the 4-3-3 DM and 4-2-3-1 positional configurations. Now , however, I gave up 4-3-3 DM and started using 4-1-3-1-1 Wide because during the last games my number 1 striker (Andersson) was more and more isolated in attack and he really needed a player (AMC) to help him.

***

The transfer window closed in mid-August. Initially, I did not intend to bring new players, but I discovered that my scouts had found some new good players, including two full-backs (right and left). Since the clubs that had contracts with these players did not request the payment of their players' salaries , I decided to bring both of them, on loan, even just for a few games at the end of the season.

********************

September 2023

- September 9th. We played, away, against the team ranked 3rd, Savedalens. Result :

Our chances increased again, because Vastra Frolunda lost and Hittarps got only a draw.

***

- September 16th. I met a somewhat weaker opponent, Varbergs GIF. The game was not very easy, but in the end we got the 3 points we needed :

Vastra lost again, yay ! Hittarps won, Savedalens got a draw and, as a consequence, we climbed to 2nd place (so, a place that would allow us to qualify for the playoffs). In the next game we will meet an accessible opponent, Hvetlanda. We'll play away, but normally we should be able to win.

***

- September 23th. The game against Hvetlanda :

Sh** !

However, we still have a chance. In the last round, the 26th, we'll even meet Vastra Frolunda. On their stadium. They have two options, victory and draw. We have only one option, to win. It will be a tough game, but anything is possible.

***

- October 1st

Yes, I did it ! We qualified for playoffs !

It's interesting that, if we would have had a single point more (let's say if we had got a draw in that game against Hvetlanda), we would have been leaders and we would have been promoted to the 3rd league. Why ? Because in case of a tie of points, the sorting is done according to the goal difference. We have +22 (and we would have had +23), Hittarps only +18.

***

The playoff in Sweden is a bit more complicated. In the 4th Swedish league there are 6 groups, which means 6 qualified teams. These 6 teams are divided into two groups of 3 teams each. Each team will play only 2 games, one at home, one away. Initially I thought there was a group draw, but there is not. The playoff groups are formed automatically according to the groups of the 4th league. The winner of these playoff groups does not promote, but is qualified for a second playoff, this time against the team ranked 13th in one of the two groups of the 3rd league.
I said that there isn't a group draw, but there is an order of the games draw. Being only 3 teams in each group, one of the teams is slightly more favored, playing in matches 2 and 3, which allows it to evaluate its opponents after these play their first match and approach them according to their chances of qualification.

We, being qualified from the 5th group (Western Gotaland), are going to meet the qualified teams from the 4th (Northern Gotaland) and 6th (Southern Gotaland) groups. I don't know anything about these teams, but I suppose they are somewhere about our level. In any case, we were lucky, we are going to play in matches 2 and 3, which means that a possible draw in the match between the two opponents would give us an advantage.

***

- October 8th

Well, the first game has been played. Unfortunately, the team we'll meet on their stadium won this game. Moreover, it won with 2 - 0, which obliges us to either win the next game with 3 - 0, 3 - 1, 4 - 2 or more ... or, if we win it by a smaller difference, we'll have to win the last game, that is, the one played away against today's winner. Ranking in the group depends on the goal difference, and in case of a tie, on the higher number of goals scored.

***

- October 11th. We played against Osterlen FF and it was necessary to take a risk because we have to score as many goals as possible.

I risked too much. 3-1 was enough for us, but I wanted 4-1, to be sure. Unfortunately, at 3 - 2, we'll have to win the next game. It will be difficult...

***

- October 15th

Goodbye, promotion...

Games played in September and October

***

Well, that's it. Anyway, the team played very well, far beyond expectations. Several players managed an exceptional season (players' stats) and from the point of view of attack we were clearly the best team in the group. In terms of defense, we didn't play that well, but when the attack works very well the riskier game is inevitable.

***

Two of my players were awarded. Daniel Simonsen was designated the midfielder of the year in the 4th league and William Anderssen was in turn designated the forward of the year in the 4th league. Sure, I'm happy for these awards, but honestly, I would have preferred them to exist. Why ? Because the chances of keeping the two at the club have decreased a lot. Their contracts will expire in November and for now, for financial reasons, I cannot offer them more money. The chances of them leaving us for going to other clubs are very high. And, of course, we'll not win a penny as a result of their departure.

***

If anyone is interested : here is a playlist including 7 short videos (13-15 seconds), each of these videos containing a moment that caught my attention in each of the 7 months of this FM23 season. It's mainly about the most spectacular goals, but also about some mistakes.

Season 2023, goals, missed chances and mistakes.

[GreenTriangle]

October 2023 - January 2024

So, we failed to promote. Honestly, I would have liked us to succeed, but it's not a catastrophe if we didn't do it. Anyway, we were not favorites and the second place we got is very good for us.
In any case, there is an interesting aspect that, I think, deserves to be mentioned. I should probably remind : in the recently finished season, our best striker was William Andersson. The best midfielder was Daniel Simonsen and the best defender was Filip Landegren. And now let's see what problems these 3 players had between the end of September and the middle of October:

- Simonsen and Landegren were affected by the fact that I did not keep my promise to improve the training facilities. Of course, it is strange that a player on whom a promotion practically depends should remember this problem right before some decisive games. But it's normal, because the two didn't want to sign for the extension of their contracts unless I promise them to improve our facilities. And the term until which I could keep my promise was "end of September - beginning of October". However, the two played well in the last games, but later both Simonsen and Landegren decided that they did not want to extend their contracts for the next year.

- Andersson was also affected for the same reason, but in his case the reaction was more aggressive. He is probably more ambitious than the others and probably also has a high "controversy". That's his answer when I questioned him about the fact that the Board refused to accept the improvement of our facilities. Also, he played well in the last games, but a high level of ambition does not always affect the performance on the pitch.

Since these three players were important, and since there were other players who were unhappy for various other reasons, the atmosphere got worse and worse since August. However, the team played very well at the end of the season, which could mean that FM23 is a bit more realistic in terms of the effect of group / individual morale on the results. (It's true, for now it's about the beta version, maybe in the "full" version this morale will have a stronger effect)

***

Club vision. Now it's obvious, the reactions of board Board and fans depends a lot on the moment of the end of a competition. At the beginning of October, the Board was enthusiastic and the supporters only quite satisfied. After a few weeks (and the end of the season), both the board and our supporters declared themselves "very pleased". Probably the two reactions take into account different factors, but at the end of the season there is "something" that resets these reactions to an average level.

***

Youth intake 2023. The assistant says it's "a group of poor quality players". I agree with him. In fact, even the only player who is somewhat better is extremely unbalanced in terms of important attributes. I should have not offered any contract, but in the end I decided that I'll offer a contract to that guy, Hamza Al-Fhafaji, even if I still think he's useless for us.

No less than 7 of the 16 young players have also a second nationality, other than the Swedish one ! Surprising, as we are just a 4th league club. But, in fact, it's the same situation as in our senior squad : 11 players out of 24 have a second nationality, the 12th (Holmgren) being completely "foreigner".

(By the way, I find these recommendations as being hilarious. However, it's really possible that among so many stones a gem can also be found... just that I don't have the patience to look for it).

***

After the end of the season I shamelessly took advantage of the fact that the Board was very pleased, and I requested permission to start a new coaching course, this time for the National B licence. It worked. I wanted to continue with the shamelessness and ask for an improvement of our facilities, but in the end I gave up. I'll ask for this only after the budget for the new season becomes public.

***

Finances. Both last season and this season the club made a profit, and this year we somehow managed to achieve a very good performance even we significantly lowered our expenses. However, I will need a bigger wage budget and I think that in about 2-3 years we'll have enough money for some improvements of our facilities.

My main problem now is that I managed to extend the contracts only in the case of a few players. I don't have money for the others either. So 21 of the 24 players could leave us at any time.
By the way, the height of hilarity. Somehow Simonsen and Landegren were very unhappy? Did they somehow want to leave us ? Well, neither Simonsen nor Landegren are now angry anymore, they don't want to leave, they were even very, very willing to extend their contracts with the only condition of some small salary increases.

In the 4th league salaries are very low and, as a result, salary expenses are also low. However, even so, the financial resources that the club can allocate are annoyingly small. I have very good players on my scouting list that I can't approach because they ask for 3-400 euros p/m.

***

Surprisingly (and for unclear reasons), I had to wait no less than two months after the end of the season to find out the level of the new wage budget. Everything is fine now : we can spend 2000 p/m, and we also have a transfer budget, which means that I could extend the wage budget up to 2700 euros p/m (32500 euros per year). It's an impressive increase, compared to the maximum 20,000 per year we had last season.

***

Of course, after I found out the new budget, my first move was to offer new contracts to all my players. Some, being unhappy, refused, of course. The most important loss was our best striker, Andersson, who left us even though he had no offers from other clubs. However, I managed to bring Hilon to us permanently, a player who was loaned to us last year. Surprisingly, Hilon somehow managed to get into our best eleven for the last two years, so I guess this transfer was a good investment.

In any case, on January 1, we only had 15 players at the club. We have a reserve squad, but it doesn't do us any good, being full of gray guys. We also have an U19 squad, which also uses us very little, having only one player there (player who is also a bit useless). The situation is even more complicated, because in our squad(s) we haven't any left defender / left wing-back, we have only two central defenders and only one right defender. Therefore, some transfers are strictly necessary. (In fact, even the media prediction warns me that we have a "thin" squad : our odds have dropped now to 150-1)

**********

End of season in (most countries in) Northern Europe : Sweden (league 1 and 2), Norway, Finland, Iceland. Also, Denmark* and the Swedish Cup (which starts in autumn and ends in spring)
* (a country where the season takes place in the classic system, autumn - spring)

**********

February - (the first half of) April 2024

I got my "National B" coaching licence and already my attributes seem to be good enough to risk getting involved in team training.

Speaking of training, I tried twice (in January and March) to convince the Board of the need to improve the facilities. I didn't succeed ... and I'm already bored of this. I'm sorry, dear players, you'll have a serious reason to be unhappy at the end of your contracts.

***

Transfers

I was hoping to bring at least 8 players to us. I only brought 6, that is, Hilon (at the end of 2023) and another 5 players. This means, therefore, that we have 19 players at the club, plus a useless youngster (whom we didn't even move to the first team). We might have too few players. A series of serious injuries could cause me a lot of trouble. I hope I'll be lucky ...

Regarding the players' abilities ... the assistant's report is quite encouraging, except for the fact that the team's quickness is extremely low. In fact, it's not about the whole squad, but strictly about the midfielders who, by the way, also have big problems with stamina. Anyway, the media prediction increased our odds from 150-1 to 25-1, which means that the transfers we made, as few as they were, are good enough.

A list of 10 players having a more defensive profile. A list of the other 9 players, those having a more offensive profile. And, of course, the list of players' positional compatibility.

***

Club vision. The Board only asks me to "attempt to avoid relegation". I think it can be solved, boss. It will be difficult, but ... . As usual, the fans' opinion is worse than the Board's opinion, but now, after I understood the idea, this situation doesn't impress me anymore.

***

Finances. We're below the maximum limit of the wage budget. I tried not to spend too much right now because there will be a transfer window in the summer, plus I'd like to be able to offer contracts to a few more important players long before the end of the season.

***

Friendlies. We played a lot of friendlies, 12, which was probably a bad idea because the players will be tired after a few months. Anyway, we got a very good morale and a cohesion stronger than steel. I hope that both will be useful for us in the next games.

(Something that can be interesting .., I think. As can be seen in the list, we won a game by a huge margin, 10-0. Nothing special, the opponent was an amateur team from a very low league. It's interesting that one of our players scored 9 goals out of 10. I probably should have replaced him at halftime because we didn't need so much luck in a friendly game. We have to keep some luck for the (much more important) games we'll play in the league. But I was curious to see how many goals he could score until the end. Oh, and one more funny thing. What does the assistant think about this player? "He's not good enough !" ).

*****

Before the league games started, I had to decide how we would play. The problem is that the "full" version of FM23 will probably contain some differences regarding the match engine compared to the "beta" version. So there was no point in choosing very complicated configurations because I don't know how effective they will be in a few days. So, I 'll experiment, that is, I'll start with "clean slate" and try some combinations of simple instructions / roles / duties.

*****

April 2024

A pretty good start to the season, although we were extremely lucky in the match against Astrio. In any case, I don't think we have any chance to fight for one of the first 2 places. But, of course, anything is possible.

Games played in April

 

[GreenTriangle]

May 2024

5 points out of 12. Only 5 points. More than that, we only got a point in a game we should have won, the one against Stafsinge. Anyway, the team is playing badly. Unfortunately, I don't know if this is due to my managerial genius or if it's something more subtle. I say this because the team's morale dropped significantly in just a few days, but my assistant thinks that "there is no reason to call a team meeting now" (?!?).

Games played in May

***

From January 2022 until now, in June 2024, I received only two job interview offers, both from small clubs in the 4th league. Now the miracle happened : a slightly bigger club remembered that manager John X really exists. So, I received an offer from a club that plays in the 3rd league. I don't intend to leave Landvetter, but, in any case, it's comforting to know that I can add to my record something more than the title of "manager who is good enough for the smallest possible clubs only"

********************

June 2024

7 points out of 15. We beat Lindome (a team that just got relegated from the 3rd league) but, of course, we only got a draw in the game against the 13th place team (Höganäs). As for promotion, there is no problem : our chances to promote are exactly zero now. I hope, however, that we'll be able to stay in the first half of the table until the end of the season.

By the way : the team's morale was restored instantly and without any particular reason. At least, I didn't do anything to improve it. It doesn't matter anymore, the important thing is that now everyone is happy at the club.

Games played in June

Even our Board is happy. How do I know that ? Well, they proposed to extend my contract until the end of 2025. Of course, the offer was way too irresistible, so I hastened to accept it. And because the Board seemed to be very cooperative, I hastened to ask them also for a coaching course (National A license). They agreed. However, I refrained from asking about some money for our facilities because I knew that this subject could be much too painful.

***

The players' stats tell me that I have a problem. In fact, I have more problems. The flank midfielders are rarely in a position to shoot dangerously at the goal. The central midfielders don't even bother to try anymore. I had to use Skold as a midfielder on the right side to get him to approach the opposing goal. The defense works quite well, about the same as last year, but they can't do miracles either when the midfielders miss 5-meter passes. Regarding the attack, Hussein is agile and efficient, but he cannot compare with Andersson, the striker who left us at the beginning of the season. As for Gustaffson ... he scored 9 goals in a friendly game, then a hat-trick in the match against Hvetlanda. But in the rest of the time he played, he was mediocre. I assume that his consistency attribute is very low. Too bad, he could have been a very good player.

By the way, how is Anderson doing ? No doubt he plays at a big club, right ? No, he's doing very well and ... is not playing anywhere. His agent says he has no intention of returning to us. All right, but it's not clear why he doesn't play for other clubs. He's certainly a very good player for the 4th league.

***

Surprise : sometime, in the next months, we'll play in the Swedish Cup. In the last two seasons we didn't play in the Cup because only the best 32 teams (out of the 84 that play in the 3rd league) are allowed to participate. This means the first 5-6 ranked in each of the 6 groups. Our chances in the Cup ? We'll play at most two rounds, and that only if we're lucky.

***

Youth intake preview. What can I say ? It's interesting...

***

Spoiler

Some details regarding the tactical configurations I used. I have 21 positional configurations available (of which 6 use 2 strikers, 8 use a striker and MR/ML's and another 7 use a striker and AMR/AML's). I could also use the configurations having 3 strikers, but they seem too artificial to me. For now I used 4-3-3 DM Wide, 4-1-3-1-1, 4-2-3-1 Wide and 4-2-4 Wide. I intend to use at least 4 more configurations until the end of this season. Of course, in these conditions, tactical familiarity will be affected, but anyway I don't expect special performances this season.
Regarding the instructions, roles and duties... I limited myself to very simple configurations. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the season I only had a simple table, which only included a few instructions (April, May, June), but for the next games I'll use a more complex table.

[GreenTriangle]

Season 2023-2024

European Cups / The most important domestic leagues / The most important domestic cups

********************

July 2024

6 points out of 12. We played very well against Astrio ... but also very poorly in the match against Onsala. In total, 6 points is about what we would have deserved.

Games played in July

 

********************

August 2024

9 points out of 15 (which is not bad), plus a failure in the Swedish Cup (which was to be expected). FM has some realistic "ideas", but interprets them in an extreme way. For example, we beat Stafsinge,  5-1, a much exaggerated score because the match was quite balanced. Then, in the next two games we conceded 7 goals out of 10 shots on target (and only 1.6 xG). The team's morale was seriously affected by these defeats ... but it recovered instantly because we won the last game of the month. I think in FM23 the morale is slightly more variable than in the previous iterations... but at the same time it has slightly less negative effects.

Games played in August

The transfer window closed on August 12. We brought in only one new player (in fact, on loan for just a few months) because our number one goalkeeper decided to leave us. It surprised me, because the guy had announced his retirement at the end of this season anyway and and I don't really understand why he couldn't play for another 2 months. But it's probably an FM method to stimulate the search for new players.

Transfers. Squad

********************

September 2024

7 points, with two wins against the teams ranked 1st and 2nd places in the table. It could have been better, but .... Anyway, I expected to get reasonably good results in September because, according to xG table, until then we had a lot of bad luck. We don't have the necessary strength to fight for promotion, but still, we're playing better than teams like Torslanda, Vastra Frolunda or Halmia.

Games played in September

***

So, 6th place. A mediocre performance compared to the one the team achieved in the previous season (2nd place). But also a pretty good performance, considering the fact that the team's objective was to avoid relegation (Board's request) or a ranking in the first half of the table (supporters' opinion).

Speaking of supporters : after almost 3 years, we managed to convince about 50 more spectators (wooow !) to watch our matches at the stadium. At this rate, in about 20 years we might end up having even 500 people coming to the stadium for every match. In any case, the number of season tickets increased from 18 to 41, which means an impressive increase in income, more precisely, an increase of about 1650 euros per year.

***

Players' stats. It seems that I somehow managed to fix some of the problems that appeared in the first half of the season. My midfielders were somewhat more efficient. I also "repaired" the defense, that is, the defenders played worse in the last months. I admit, I criticized Hussein for nothing, because the guy played very well, although he doesn't have the skills of our former striker, Andersson. By the way, Andersson has not hired by other team until now (!). He probably wants to give up his football career ...

A strange thing. Gustav Hedlund is one of the two players who currently want to leave the team because they consider that they have not played as many games as they would have liked. But that player, who's an offensive midfielder (but can also play as a striker), has a strange track record : in the more than 50 games in which he played, he failed to provide even one assist. In my opinion, this is a serious bug. It's practically impossible for a player having Hedlund's characteristics not to be able to provide at least one assist in 50 games.

***

Teams' stats. The attack worked worse than in the previous season, but here the cause probably comes from the use of some tactical configurations with which the players were not sufficiently familiar. In addition, I also used some configurations that did not favor very a offensive play. The defence worked very well in the first half of the season and reasonably well in the second half.
Two other aspects that could be interesting.
The first : according to the number of goal chances created, we played very well. It is not like that. In fact, the number of chances has never been a good indicator of the effectiveness of the attack. xG is much more useful from this point of view.
Second: FM23 is the first iteration of FM in recent years (since I've been playing, at least) that takes into account the real ratio of shots on target. Up to FM22, inclusive, any FM team can get 40-45%, while in reality the percentage is 30-40%, and +40% is accessible only to those teams which have very good strikers.

***

Finances. The club made a profit, which means that in the next season there are very high chances for us of having a higher wage budget than the current one. A bigger budget would be necessary because, for now, we're the club that pays the lowest salaries in our 4th league group. Normally, salaries represent between 70% and 80% of the expenses included in the wage budget, the rest being various fees and bonuses. So, to reach the salary level of a club like Qviding, for example, we would need a wage budget of at least 40,000 per year, i.e. 3,500 per month.

Paradoxically, the club's profit was lower than last year, although the expenses were lower. Unfortunately, the income also decreased, and this because the Board invested less money this year.

***

I finally got the National A coaching licence. I didn't quite understand how I was "encouraged" by the other staff members. It's a problem that deserves to be investigated, because if somehow they did it, I didn't notice it. In any case, now I have some really good attributes, so I'm also waiting for some suitable job interview offers. I wouldn't refuse an offer from a slightly richer club.
Speaking of our staff : now I don't even have an assistant manager, because that guy preferred a higher salary at another club. For now, the staff has been reduced to only 7 people. But, of course, it can be worse.

***

Spoiler

Tactical configurations used : July / August / September