[FM23] Ballin' in the Baltics

[Rikulec]

[FM23] Ballin' in the Baltics

Hello FMCU and welcome to yet another thread that may or may not last more than a few months of in-game time, depending on my mood swings and how well I can do. I'll spare you the long introductions, most of you will probably already know who I am and what to expect from the save. Let's get straight to the point!

The Aim

This time I'm starting unemployed with the intention to find my first job in the third tier of Estonia. Given how difficult I've found FM23 so far, I think that reaching a reasonable level of professional football is going to be a success here.

The Manager

No backstory this time, just playing as myself with the UEFA B licence and no footballing experience. I'm somewhat following in the footsteps of Marek Zub and Przemysław Łagożny, both Polish managers who have worked in the Baltic countries.

The Save

As per usual, a variety of European leagues.

[Rikulec]

I got two interviews straight away, both from sides that expect to battle against relegation in the upcoming season. What's there not to love about fighting to stay up in the third tier in Estonia?

[Deisler26]

Oof, best of luck with this!

[Rikulec]

7 minutes ago, Deisler26 said:

Oof, best of luck with this!

Thanks mate! Good to have you on board.

[Rikulec]

One of those clubs offered me money, the other didn't. I negotiated my wage up to £130 p/w and here we go.

Jakub Słota's Management Career - New Club - JK Tabasalu

It doesn't get much lower than this, does it?

Club Name: Tabasalu Jalgpalliklubi
Nickname: -
Year Founded: 2013
Status: Semi-professional
Stadium: Tabasalu Arena (500 capacity)

As expected, we have an unbalanced squad with plenty of problems, the lack of proper quality defenders being the standout issue. We also don't have any staff, which means no star ratings for now. We do seem to have a few quality players in Martin Tšegodajev, Peeter Klein, and Edwin Stüf, but others are way below their standard. The lack of staff is going to be a problem in terms of finding potential signings, so I really hope we can get some new employees on board real soon.

We're in a 10-team league where the bottom two teams get relegated and the third one from bottom enters a relegation play-off. Therefore, we need to finish at least 7th in order to be safe. Piece of cake, right? Right...?

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Pre-Season - 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Friendlies

Two wins and two defeats against teams I've never heard of. Given the options we have in the squad, I've decided to go with a simple 4-4-2.

Transfers

I was only responsible for bringing in the latter three players, so I'm only going to show you them.

Jarmo Hallik - at just 15 he's already going to be our starting centre back, I wonder how much he can develop.

Imre Kangro - see above.

Arvo Käkk - we bring in one more striker to add some depth to the squad.

We also promoted Markus Vetto and Mikk Meresmaa from the youth team to help carry the equipment on away days and clean the older lads' shoes.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - March 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

The first three games went very well for us, but then we lost two in a row. My first impression is that we do lack quality in some important areas such as left back and central midfield, we have to rely on our front line to deliver when it matters.

Transfers

Jevgeni Baranov - we brought in a decent left back on a free, unfortunately we won't be able to register him until late June.

[Jogo Bonito]

Good luck with this! I've never managed in Estonia and there probably aren't many brave enough to try the 3rd tier! It's safe to say your 3rd tier is way worse than Austria's 4th tier. Best of luck 

[Rikulec]

58 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Good luck with this! I've never managed in Estonia and there probably aren't many brave enough to try the 3rd tier! It's safe to say your 3rd tier is way worse than Austria's 4th tier. Best of luck 

Yup, pretty sure it's much worse. The glorious randomness of this level provides an... interesting change of pace, to say the least!

[Rikulec]

Luts woke up in the morning and chose violence! To score five goals in one game is amazing on its own, but to do it with exactly five shots is just mental. He also had a sixth goal disallowed for offside!

[Jogo Bonito]

20 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

 

Luts woke up in the morning and chose violence! To score five goals in one game is amazing on its own, but to do it with exactly five shots is just mental. He also had a sixth goal disallowed for offside!

There's Luts to be happy about there then. Although looking at his profile pic, it seems he is not getting too excited 

[Rikulec]

7 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

There's Luts to be happy about there then. Although looking at his profile pic, it seems he is not getting too excited 

Nice one.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - April 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Luts channeled his inner Haaland and with a ridiculous 10 goals from 4 games fired us all the way up to 2nd. I can't see us holding onto this position for long though, there are teams below us that are clearly superior in terms of quality and you can only grind out results for so long. I'm happy to be far away from the relegation spots.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - May 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Ouch. Our quality deficits seem to have finally caught up to us. On the other hand, a couple of tactical tweaks resulted in a masterclass performance and a huge win against top of the league FC Tallinn. Still, what matters most to me is the healthy advantage we have over Tartu Kalev.

[Rikulec]

That's... not very good.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - June 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Win some, lose some. Should be good enough to stay up. Luts is already on 23 league goals, which is even more ridiculous considering that he didn't score in the first five league games and he's also missed three penalties already.

Transfers

Eric Pärn - a free transfer from Welco to add some much needed pace to our right wing.

Karel Saarkopli - a fantastic centre back for our level, also a free transfer from Läänemaa.

We also finally registered Baranov, who banged in an absolute screamer on his debut.

[Rikulec]

The amount of **** this year's game is throwing at me is through the roof. How about giving away a two-goal lead when playing against 10 men and losing to two injury time goals, the second of which was a ****ing overhead kick from the corner of the penalty box?

This also comes straight after dropping two points to an 88th minute equaliser.

I swear, it's the same story as the Austria Wien save. Things go relatively well in the beginning and then when I seem to be making progress and improving the team, the FM shithousery starts. Seriously, this game.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Rikulec

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - July 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

I certainly wouldn't bet any money on us not getting relegated this season.

Eesti Karikas

We put up a good fight against a strong Esiliiga side, but it wasn't enough.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - August 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

A much better month, we grabbed a crucial win over Tartu Kalev. What's worrying is that Luts hasn't scored from open play in the league for eight games now.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - September 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

With seven games left I'm willing to say we're going to finish somewhere above 7th, but below 5th. Good to see Luts firing again.

[Rikulec]

I got one more year on my deal and a £10 p/w raise.

[Rikulec]

Good news for the club, Levadia are one of the biggest clubs in Estonia.

[withnail316]

1 hour ago, Rikulec said:

I got one more year on my deal and a £10 p/w raise.

Big spenders, a whole ten quid? Don't spend it all at once. 😄

[Rikulec]

20 minutes ago, withnail316 said:

Big spenders, a whole ten quid? Don't spend it all at once. 😄

Don't worry, the inflation's gonna eat all of it (and then some) anyway.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - October 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

We seem to really have clicked, we've only lost once in our last nine games and the performances have also been encouraging. A huge gap between us and the relegation dogfight.

Youth Intake

Waste of time, money, and resources.

[SixPointer]

Good to see you back in the mix

[Rikulec]

1 hour ago, SixPointer said:

Good to see you back in the mix

Cheers mate, thanks for coming by.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - November 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

A win and a loss to wrap up a perfect mid-table season.

Transfers

Artjom Komlov - he should improve our midfield and add some much needed height next season.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Season Review - 2022 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Results (March-July) - Results (August-November)

Competition Performance: 6th

There were moments where we just sort of went along, beating teams that are worse than us and usually losing to the better ones. There was this July slump where I probably went overly dramatic, but when we recovered from that, it was pretty much smooth sailing all the way until the end of the season. Our goal was avoiding relegation and we did it by a whooping 27 points. Could I really ask for more?

Eesti Karikas

Competition Performance: Second Round

We got drawn against a decent team from the league above and gave them a proper run for their money.

Squad

The first thing you see when looking at this squad is the massive difference in quality between the best and the worst players. Thankfully this season we were lucky enough to avoid any major injury problems, but I'll definitely be looking to improve our depth. Kristel, Subka, Vetto, Nahk, Stüf, and Lõppe are all getting released.

Transfers - Finances

I think we did well in the market and managed to improve the general quality of the team. I'm especially pleased with the signings of Pärn and Saarkopli.

We're losing money and there's not much we can do about it. Thankfully the debt is not too big, it should probably be manageable, even if it means we won't be able to upgrade our facilities anytime soon.

Player of the Season

1st - Jaagup Luts - an obvious choice really, wasn't it? The young striker elevated himself to a ridiculous level, ending up with 37 goals in a 36-game season and adding one more in the cup for good measure. He has the perfect combination of pace, agility, finishing, and off the ball ability for those lower levels. Feed him and he'll deliver.

2nd - Peeter Klein - the Sturridge to our Suarez, although in this tandem it's Klein who's probably the more versatile, all-round player. Still, 20 goals in the league isn't too shabby for a player who's essentially a supporting striker. Eight assists to his name as well. Ability-wise he's probably our best player at the moment.

3rd - Martin Tšegodajev - the silent hero that I didn't speak much about and he didn't appear on the scoresheet too often. In fact, he waited until October to score his first goal of the season (but when he did, it was a sensational 25-yard volley that he seemed to catch high enough that the ball first went up before dropping right into the top corner; think Zidane vs. Leverkusen). His 13 assists speak for themselves though, this is also the most anyone got in the league. I had to fiddle with tactics a bit to get him in the right positions consistently, but when it clicked, he added so much value to the team.

Next Season

We're heavily reliant on keeping our best players. If we do, and if we bring in some reinforcements, we could be aiming for a top half finish.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Season Preview - 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Board Expectations:

Esiliiga B: Top half finish
Eesti Karikas: Be competitive

My Expectations:

Esiliiga B: I agree with the board, let's just pick up where we left off.
Eesti Karikas: Not important.

Budgets:

Transfer: £500
Wage: £2,130 (currently spending £809)
Balance: -£39,183

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Pre-Season - 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Friendlies

A perfect pre-season aside from the Levadia defeat. We beat two teams that got promoted from our league last season, which should be a good sign.

Transfers

We strengthened the squad and retained all the players we wanted to retain. Things are good, at least on paper.

Ats Klemmer - he had a very high average rating last season and I'm willing to make him our starting CB.

Hans Naano - our new starting goalkeeper.

Dmytro Barylo - initially I felt he was going to strengthen our midfield, but later I found a better option.

Silver Räämet - a backup player for Pärn, he just needs to learn to play on the right wing.

Igor Sokolov - another backup player.

Siimar Taits - the reason why Barylo won't be a starter. One of our best players at the moment.

Rihard Reimaa - another depth signing.

Artjom Jakovlev - our new, uh, third choice goalkeeper.

In addition, we promoted Mark Pulk from the youth team.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - March 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

With only three teams apart from us remaining after last season, it almost feels like a completely new league. We've made a good start, we're playing well and the new signings seem to have really improved the team.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - April 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

A fantastic month fires us up to the top spot! We're flying at the moment and our strike force is just formidable. We had three different strikers score hat-tricks in three games in a row, which is crazy.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - May 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

...oh. Must have pressed continue wrong or something.

[Rikulec]

Boo.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - June 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

And, just as suddenly, we recover and win four games on the bounce. This is the first perfect month of the save as well. Can we please carry on like this?

[Rikulec]

Raplamaa were promoted to the Esiliiga last season and they're struggling badly with just four points at almost halfway stage of the season. Thanks, but I'll pass.

[Jimbokav1971]

Finding FM23 tough?

Let's go and play somewhere we've never played before, at a really low level, where we've never heard of the teams never mind about the players.

Not hard enough? Ok, take over a team with a name you can't pronounce, (and definitely can't spell which will make posting the updates fun).

Still not hard enough? Ok, pick a Semi-Pro team. 

Need more of a challenge? Make sure that 1 of your main goal threats has a name that you can neither spell nor pronounce, (If the save is hard then the updates should be hard too).

Harder? Make sure the 1st Youth Intake is rubbish. 

Need some humour to relieve the frustration of not being able to spell or pronounce anything in the save? Have a striker with a silly name score a gazillion goals. 

Almost forgot about the FM shithousery for a minute. Need a big dose of that early on just to keep you on your toes. 

Still having success after all that. No problem, let's fix that. You know that bad Youth Intake from the 1st season, yeah, well make the 2nd one twice as bad. 

Anything else? Yeah, get offered a job you don't want. 

Have I missed anything? 

Good luck with this. 

 

 

[Rikulec]

17 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Finding FM23 tough?

Let's go and play somewhere we've never played before, at a really low level, where we've never heard of the teams never mind about the players.

Not hard enough? Ok, take over a team with a name you can't pronounce, (and definitely can't spell which will make posting the updates fun).

Still not hard enough? Ok, pick a Semi-Pro team. 

Need more of a challenge? Make sure that 1 of your main goal threats has a name that you can neither spell nor pronounce, (If the save is hard then the updates should be hard too).

Harder? Make sure the 1st Youth Intake is rubbish. 

Need some humour to relieve the frustration of not being able to spell or pronounce anything in the save? Have a striker with a silly name score a gazillion goals. 

Almost forgot about the FM shithousery for a minute. Need a big dose of that early on just to keep you on your toes. 

Still having success after all that. No problem, let's fix that. You know that bad Youth Intake from the 1st season, yeah, well make the 2nd one twice as bad. 

Anything else? Yeah, get offered a job you don't want. 

Have I missed anything? 

Good luck with this. 

 

 

What a brilliant summary. Although apparently being Polish makes it much easier to pronounce Estonian names (okay, well, at least spell them; all those Läänemaas and Sillamäes probably sound completely different in real life that what I'm imagining ). You know I'm a sucker for those lower league, obscure nation saves! And since Austria Wien didn't work out for me, I figured I'd at least give it a try.

Oh, and we've just lost our best player.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - July 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Despite a big win over Maardu, we couldn't hold onto the top spot. A huge game against Läänemaa coming up that can potentially define the rest of the season for us.

Transfers

That's four starters gone and there's no way we can replace them with players of similar quality.

Roland Luts - prepare for trouble, and make it double! If one Luts up front is too hot to handle for most defences, then how about two of them? Shame he's nowhere near as good as Klein.

Vadim Aksjonov - literally the best midfielder we could sign. I'm not sure if he's going to play a minute for us.

Kiur Mägiste - a similar story to Aksjonov, although we did find someone better in the end.

Reino Soosaar - we picked up a central defender on a free from a top division side. He's not bad for our level, hopefully he can replace Saarkopli.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - August 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Ever since we lost Klein it feels like we've lost so much firepower, instead of blowing team away like we used to we now have to work hard for every goal we score. That being said, we keep grinding out the results and thanks to other games ending favourably we have a nine point advantage over the play-off spot. Next month is absolutely massive, can we hold on?

Eesti Karikas

I forgot to include the cup game in the last update, apologies! We got an easier draw than last season and with some drama managed to progress to the third round. Kalju are way out of our reach at the moment though, they're one of the best teams in Estonia and we just focused on not getting beaten too badly. Mission accomplished, move on.

[Rikulec]

We lose another player as the only non-Estonian in our squad decides to return to his homeland Ukraine.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - September 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

Normally I'd be happy with an unbeaten month, but in that case that means four points dropped and our lead over the chasing pack is cut down to five points. Next two games? Sillamäe Kalev and Läänemaa.

[Rikulec]

Another yearly extension and another massive £10 p/w raise, although a promotion could take my wage all the way up to a whooping £170 p/w!

[Rikulec]

My avatar has learned Estonian at a good level, so it's time to start the UEFA A course.

[Jogo Bonito]

Tough seeing your squad being picked at and powerless to prevent it. Having an impressive season despite the obstacles put in your way. And at least your youth stars will make future years better, right? 

@Jimbokav1971 Great summary, nice one 

[Jimbokav1971]

22 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Although apparently being Polish makes it much easier to pronounce Estonian names (okay, well, at least spell them; all those Läänemaas and Sillamäes probably sound completely different in real life that what I'm imagining ).

Being serious just for a second, I think many European languages are "phonetic" in that the sound like they are spelt. It's the completely ridiculous English language and all it's stupid rules which isn't phonetic and so we have problems spelling everything. Everyone else just writes it as it sounds and reads it as it;s written (which is so much more sensible). 

[Rikulec]

5 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Tough seeing your squad being picked at and powerless to prevent it. Having an impressive season despite the obstacles put in your way. And at least your youth stars will make future years better, right? 

@Jimbokav1971 Great summary, nice one 

The joys of non-contracts! Sure, our youth are going to boost our quality, after all we invested all that money from player sales into the youth setup... oh wait.

7 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Being serious just for a second, I think many European languages are "phonetic" in that the sound like they are spelt. It's the completely ridiculous English language and all it's stupid rules which isn't phonetic and so we have problems spelling everything. Everyone else just writes it as it sounds and reads it as it;s written (which is so much more sensible). 

Both yes and no, I guess. For us Poles Slavic languages (which are probably what you were thinking about) are very intuitive and predictable in terms of pronounciation (Estonian isn't a Slavic language though), however some of them use the Cyrillic alphabet, which leads to minor transcription difficulties. There are also slight pronounciation differences when it comes to vowels, for example the letters i (pronounced like the English e) and y (as in gym) are written and spoken differently in Ukrainian and Russian. In general you're right though.

As for English, don't worry, it could be worse. Imagine speaking French!

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - October 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

We're getting closer! The game Sillamäe Kalev was incredibly dramatic as well. The first half was a disaster for us, we fell behind before the quarter hour mark and Luts wasted a penalty that would have brought us level. He redeemed himself after the break through with an equaliser and just as I was starting to settle for a draw, Eric Pärn emerged with an absolute banger of a goal, a rocket strike from just inside the box that went in off the crossbar. If we do end up getting promoted, this goal is surely going to become part of the Tabasalu folklore! And while Sokolov's third might seem like just the icing on the cake, it actually gives us a positive head-to-head record against Sillamäe Kalev, which could be crucial.

There are some problems as well, unfortunately. The biggest one? Jaagup Luts pulled his calf muscle in the opening minutes against Kalju and won't play for us until the last game of the season. Our strike force has been all but nullified. Three games left, four points will send us up no matter what. Let's do this!

Youth Intake

Still mostly dross, at least this time we got a player who could theoretically develop into something half decent (he probably won't).

Reiko Kriisa

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - November 2023 - JK Tabasalu

Esiliiga B

It wasn't pretty, we lost to the two worst teams in the league, but who cares? We're going up, baby!