[FM23] Fortuna Sittard - Twilight of the Stars

[MarcxD]

Fortuna Sittard

Welcome to my (beta) save for FM23, where I'll be managing Fortuna Sittard, located in the south of the Netherlands. They are a small to middling club in the Eredivisie, but there seems to be much potential for growth.

After having had financial troubles years ago, since a few years they have been owned by Turkish investors - which has this last summer resulted in the bizarre transfer of Burak Yilmaz to Fortuna Sittard. Certainly as far as reputation is concerned, it seemed like an outlandish transfer. But even more crazy, he signed for 5 years. In real life, it is said he will play for two years and then go into a non-playing role. However, in FM he just has a 5-year contract - so until he turns 42!

Inspired by this transfer, I have decided to go for a different kind of approach in this save.

In FM, often a key aspect is finding young prospects and developing them - but often players overlook the value of older and experienced players. I certainly have done so in the past. So to do things differently, the point of this save will be to focus on signing experienced and high reputation players and use those to help the youngsters coming through our academy with perhaps a cheap youth signing here and there. If possible, I would also like to keep those high rep players around as some start their non-playing staff careers. 

I have loaded the big leagues, alongside neighbouring country Belgium and the Turkish leagues as well because of the Turkish owners.

Samen nao veure!

[MarcxD]

Getting started

This is the squad to begin with. There are a few more players in the reserves and u18s, but nothing too promising on first sight. The squad is also noticeably quite international. There is also already quite a nice mix of older and younger players.

Yilmaz is the big star, although he only has 2.5* world reputation. His wages are quite low, so that is good. There is not a lot of room for more spending, but one or two additions might be possible.

His physical attributes are still pretty great for his age, and with that off the ball and finishing he should be able to score for us in bulk..

[MarcxD]

Pre-season transfers

Two thirty somethings signed to bolster the first team, at least for this season.

Adriano, formerly amongst others Barca & Besiktas, is an improvement on both backs, although I am overpaying for his wages and his speed could very well become an issue. He certainly won't be staying longer than one season, I don't think.

Wagué should just be a very decent option in central defense, perhaps also scoring some headers through corners and free kicks. He does not quite have the CV of Adriano or Yilmaz, but has played for Udinese and Watford and still with some good international experience.

I also tried to sign Ben Arfa but he slipped through my fingers.

I got a little bit of money back to manage these wages by selling a 20 year old from the reserves.

[MarcxD]

Pre-season: tactics & friendlies

I started out adapting the tactic I used in my fm22 career, which was really successful in that game/ME. I paid a lot of attention to the pre-season friendlies - and after some minor changes (the roles mostly) I am cautiously optimistic.

The opposition was opposition we are supposed to beat, but the amount of goals, and especially the xG has looked very strong. The wingers and Yilmaz have done well together. The defense has definitely shown some signs of weakness though, so with the higher quality of opposition in the league it will be interesting to see if we'll be able to continue to create lots of chances.

[MarcxD]

August 2022

I have definitely not been able to shore up the defense but we are creating good chances and scoring goals! We are quite dependent on Yilmaz, which is fine as long as he can stay fit throughout the season..

It also has been interesting to see that often the xG has not aligned with the goals actually scored so far. This Twente game was a rough result compared to the actual game, however the Heerenveen game for instance we probably should have lost.

[MarcxD]

September-October 2022

We are definitely highly reliant on Yilmaz to score goals, and suffered some harsh defeats. Because of the world cup we are saved from what seems to be pretty poor form now, hopefully we can rebound when the league restarts. 

[mark b]

How are ferati and Cordoba doing for you?

Just out of interest, why are RKC doing so bad?

 

[tjt65]

With Yilmaz's physicals, he should be able to keep plugging away for another few years. 5 years? That'd be impressive!

Very Attacking, High Press, High Tempo - how are your players getting on? Especially later in games? Are they getting knackered?

[MarcxD]

23 hours ago, mark b said:

How are ferati and Cordoba doing for you?

Just out of interest, why are RKC doing so bad?

 

They're doing okay - Cordoba plays all games as he's (CA/attributes wise) clearly my strongest winger, and while some of his stats are pretty good he hasn't really contributed with goals or assists (1 both).

Ferati does not always play but he actually has done quite well when he played - 6.84 average.

I think RKC has mostly been unlucky, almost all of their games have been lost with 1 goal difference. 

[MarcxD]

5 hours ago, tjt65 said:

With Yilmaz's physicals, he should be able to keep plugging away for another few years. 5 years? That'd be impressive!

Very Attacking, High Press, High Tempo - how are your players getting on? Especially later in games? Are they getting knackered?

I agree on Yilmaz definitely. We'll see how he'll degrade over time and whether any youth products or incoming signings can take his place before he really gets too old.

So far tiredness hasn't really been too much of an issue, we aren't really doing worse late in the game. More so that we give away too much space. 

[MarcxD]

November - December 2022

Happy that we didn't go into the break with a long losing streak and the Groningen game wasn't really bad either tbh. I was hoping the friendlies would give us a little bit of a morale boost and not like this, though.

Still on 50% - with a very poor GD comparatively as when we lose we often lose big. I am probably going to be slightly more conservative going into the second half of the season. 

[MarcxD]

January 2023

Two new signings, two new experienced players, with Klavan being the higher-rep player.

Jean

Klavan

There were also a few departures, mostly unhappy players or B team players who left on a free.

While the friendlies in December weren't too promising, we came back strong when the league resumed. The two losses are against the better sides of the league (although AZ is not doing great this season) - and importantly the games that we won were on merit.

With ten games and 9 defeats really we're a good mid-table team, but because many of the other teams are quite evenly matched and often draw, we're quite high up on the table and almost within reach of the european spots.

It's also interesting to see us having the most goals conceded and the second most goals scored after Ajax who seem to be winning the title quite easily this year. It definitely fits within my favored style - high scoring risk-taking football. I have changed the tactical mentality to attacking instead of very attacking though - which seems to have worked out so far.

Edited October 27, 2022 by MarcxD

[MarcxD]

February 2023

Fantastic month - while on paper the opposition teams except for Feyenoord don't seem to be great, Sparta is actually in the European spots so far. Yilmaz still doing wonders!

I'm not getting ahead of myself, but somehow we are two points behind second place!

 

[MarcxD]

March 2023

Another really good month results wise, but we have been lucky with games coming our way.

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake 2023

Seems like a strong first intake.

[MarcxD]

April - May 2023

We kept on doing really well right until the end of the season, even keeping champions Ajax to a draw. Yilmaz with 5 goals in his last game to claim the league topscorer title as well.

A third place finish is really crazy - even more so when you realize we are only three points behind 2nd (and CL!). When we got into form and changed to attacking mentality in January we didn't really stop. We did still have the most goals conceded out of everyone in the league though!

Yilmaz had an incredible season - and there are clubs interested, so I just hope he'll not get too pissed when I reject any possible offers.

As far as my signings are concerned, Adriano definitely had a downturn in abilities this year, and he has signed for Cruz Azul for next year. Other experienced signings Wagué & Klavan in defense have mostly done well. Jean in midfield is more of a rotational player and will have one more season here. 

As we will play European football next year, I definitely need to sign some players in the summer, especially as multiple players will be leaving anyway - the loanees and a few more.

The squad screen above lacks Pinto, who had an 8-month injury and decided that would be the end of his career at 33...

[Dereka]

The fans are getting their money's worth with some of those scorelines! And you nearly averaged 2 goals a game

I like the philosophy of signing older players. Do you find you're able to get them on the cheap? Sometimes older players with high reputation expect high wages or two/three year deals

[vara]

this is great! those goal tallies are simply outrageous though, but as Dereka says, entertainment factor is high!

couple decent looking prospects in that intake, good to see

[MarcxD]

On 31/10/2022 at 09:13, Dereka said:

The fans are getting their money's worth with some of those scorelines! And you nearly averaged 2 goals a game

I like the philosophy of signing older players. Do you find you're able to get them on the cheap? Sometimes older players with high reputation expect high wages or two/three year deals

The wages are high (relatively speaking), and I am certainly missing out on some of the higher rep players who would be willing to come here but want more than 500K per year. It's offset with a lot of them being available for free, though.

On 31/10/2022 at 09:31, vara said:

this is great! those goal tallies are simply outrageous though, but as Dereka says, entertainment factor is high!

couple decent looking prospects in that intake, good to see

Thanks guys! Yeah I like me some high scoring games but it's been a bit insane  

 

[MarcxD]

Summer 2023

5 new signings, as there definitely needed to be some new blood with loanees leaving and some contracts ending. 

Piccini is a new RB, Busk a back-up GK; Fischer (former Ajax) a new AML. Índio and Klefisch are younger players, midfielders in rotation.

//

Outgoing players:

Edited November 2, 2022 by MarcxD

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season & August 2023

Certainly still scoring loads - and conceding in all but one game. Still, after one outlier loss we seem to be doing well going into the season.

Yilmaz got offers in and wanted go (back) to Galatasaray (no surprise there), but I refused all offers. Even an unhappy Yilmaz scores for fun!

More importantly, perhaps, is that we made it through to the Conference League group.

[MarcxD]

September 2023

As I still had quite a bit of wage budget available, I decided to sign some more relatively high rep players to increase rotational options since we are playing in Europe as well.

Speaking of Europe, what a debut for us in the main tournament against Juventus! The other two teams in the group are Slovan Bratislava and Tobyl (from Kazakhstan).

In the league we had really only one very convincing performance, but the points are coming in.

[Domoboy23]

Defence seeming like it's settled down a bit for you!

[Dereka]

The vets you've signed have good personalities, although their squad status doesn't suggest they're high in the team hierarchy. Are you doing any mentoring and if so, what are the effects?

Edited November 7, 2022 by Dereka

[MarcxD]

On 06/11/2022 at 14:41, Domoboy23 said:

Defence seeming like it's settled down a bit for you!

Yeah, it's a big difference so far with last season. We do sometimes still concede quite a bit of xG though.

 

On 07/11/2022 at 11:28, Dereka said:

The vets you've signed have good personalities, although their squad status doesn't suggest they're high in the team hierarchy. Are you doing any mentoring and if so, what are the effects?

Not really yet, the personalities are nice for squad dynamics though

[MarcxD]

October - December 2023

We have not been doing great, to be honest - although there have been quite a few hard games, the only real outlier was the game against Emmen which was just a total off day it seems.

Still though, with the losses we aren't doing too poor. The third place last season was of course not our actual place - the current top 4 should normally always finish above us, but I do want us to continue to contend for European football.

Fenerbahce should probably be a bit too strong for us, but who knows really!

Edited November 10, 2022 by MarcxD

[MarcxD]

January 2024

I didn't sign anyone as I simply did not see the right opportunity. There were a few departures, but nothing relevant around the first team.

If Twente doesn't stop their current run soon we'll probably be battling with Heerenveen for 6th place - we do at least have to make sure to finish in the top 7 or 8 (depending on the cup) to make the play-offs at the end of the season for the last european spot.

[MarcxD]

February - March 2024

Well, Fenerbahce was a bit too tough for us sadly, but that was expected. Scheduling PSV and Ajax back to back before that didn't really help either. Anyway, we had a really strong March including a surprise win over Feyenoord!

European play-offs should be save, maybe more is possible with a lot of luck. 

[MarcxD]

Intake 2024

Three star players, can't complain much about that.

If only he had a different personality.

 

[MarcxD]

April - May 2024

Play-offs it is. 6th might seem a little bit disappointing after finishing in third last season, but we actually got more points this season than last.