Inspiring India

TheNayr · September 22, 2023

Because it was just the league to focus on, I've actually gone through and blasted through the entire season. It was definitely an up and down season as you'll see, but overall. A successful first season with Goa for me.

During the season I got the chairman to upgrade the youth coaching and recruitment twice! We didn't see the benefit of that this year trust me haha, as you'll soon see. But next year's intake should be something nice hopefully! Speaking of the chairman, he pumped in some of his own money to help with our losses at the end of the season, top guy. I like him.

I may as well get into the youth intake as we're on it, this year wasn't great, I only ended up signing 2 players Which were Parveen Singh and Nitin Negi. All the others wanted a large wage and i wasn't willing to give them one for the players they were/had a chance to grow into it.

Nitin doesn't look amazing, but there's room for growth and if anything will be a good reliable backup in the future.

Whilst Parveen looked good on the report, he won't be super amazing but he could end up a good squad player. At 5'9 though. I might look to train him as a DM, he's just a little too short to be a CB for me.

So I didn't know how this team was going to fare. I was hoping for playoffs but would've been happy with midtable and missing the playoffs as that what was what the board wanted. The start of the season didn't help. I won the first 3 then only had 1 win the next 5 games including 2 losses in a row at home. It was hard to know what would happen long term, but the good news is. We'll be playing Champions League football next year baby! We finished a brilliant 2nd! We lost in the playoff semis so we didn't have a chance to win the League but I will take finishing behind my old and far superior team Bengaluru, who actually lost the final again!

Speaking of Bengaluru, they had an AWFUL time in the Champions League without me. Only winning 1 of their 6 group games. PATHETIC. Due to a poor performance from them, we've lost 2 teams straight into the group stage. Kerala though had a fantastic season! Winning the league and getting through to the main final of the Confed Cup but losing meaning an Indian team has been in the Final 3 of the last 5 years but lost. Who's gonna win it first?!

As for India, I got what I wanted. Comfortably qualifying from the 2nd round into the 3rd. We beat East Timor and Tajikistan easily but lost to Japan in both ties against them to see us through to the same round we lost in last time. Can we do better and maybe get into the 4th round or better yet, finish top 2 and go straight to the World Cup? Somehow, I doubt it!

Until next tine.

TheNayr · September 25, 2023

I've just gotten the youth intake preview so I thought it was a good time to pop in and show you how the season is going and more importantly, how is the the next round of the World Cup qualifying has gone!

I'll start with the preview, and well, it's not good. Even with yet more improvements to the youth coaching and recruiting.

The next intake is only going to be average with no-one to look forward to apparently. We're not at Bengaluru's level of amazing intakes just yet!

Champions League with Goa. I expected to finish bottom of my group with 2 draws, I honestly thought it was going to be a bad time for us as we were probably one of the weakest teams in the entire group stage.

Couldn't be further from the truth! A truly great run. We weren't outclassed like I thought and we deservedly qualify for the next round where we face Al-Gharafa again. As the top seed we play at home 1st leg, but given the choice, I'd rather play the 2nd leg at home right? Bengaluru also finished top of their group which is great for them and Indian coefficient points. Kerala and Guwahati both lost in the qualifying rounds both winning in their 1st games but losing the 2nd.

We've had a good start to the league but it's all very close and will be a tough run in with multiple teams in with a shout of winning the league. As long as we finish top 4 so we get Champions League football again, that's all I care about.

I made 3 signings at the start of year and all Indian. I tried to get a foreign guy in to make us better, I tried multiple times to get a couple of loans but was unable to. 2 of the signings were from Bengaluru, we'll start with them. Franky Chatterjee was released by them and I snapped him up straight away, we needed a new right winger and he does the job very well.

This guy is on loan though, but he is an important member of the team Tomba Singh

I was very surprised to see this guy released. Not only was he a starter for Jamshedpur but also India, I guess they had to release him for wages or maybe he had no desire or signing a new ]contract? Either way, here's Motiur Rahman Hossain a pacy left winger who started immediately.

Right India. It's been absolutely awful. There.

I guess we're still too young? Which is true, the team still needs to develop in age and in skill. But if my best players are practically all under 22, what can I do? It's not been fun playing with India I can promise you that haha. I'm really hoping we don't get fired as that would be the end of the story. On that bombshell.

Until next time.

TheNayr · September 27, 2023

It is an ABSOLUTE MIRACLE that I'm still the Indian manager, I thought this journey was over. Let's have a look at the state of this shall we?!

Pathetic. We were outclassed in basically every game. It was very painful to watch and I hated every second of it. We scored 1 goal in them 10 games. I should've been fired. I honestly thought there was a chance to upset the odds and at least get into the playoffs, not a bloody chance. Anyway, still manager of India. Next time we'll be older and better, next time we can maybe push for the playoffs.

Onto some better news at club level at least...

We are the champions of India for the first time which is great! We performed much better in the league this year and finished off strong in the playoffs. We beat Bengaluru home and away in the playoff semis before defeating Kerala in the final. Without any human help Kerala have developed really nicely as an AI club and keep going strong. Next season 2nd would've been good enough to secure Champions League group stage action, however finishing 2nd this year means we have to go through a playoff (Due to a poor year lowering our co-efficient and losing 2 automatic group stage places) to get into the group stage against Al-Ittihad from Jeddah, I'm a little worried. If we lose this 1 legged tie for which we're away for, there's NO continental football this year which would be a disaster for our finances.

The season we've just played though, this is how our Champions League campaign turned out.

After a very nice win at home to Al-Gharafa the away leg was very tough, however a hat-trick from our Jordanian superstar made sure the goals from us were able to keep them just far enough away to secure passage to the next round, but as you can see, we were blown away. Dominated home and away by Al-Faisaly. Their squad fueled by oil money was far too much for us to overcome and proved I need to strengthen the team, especially at the back which is what I've done. 3 new foreign players have already agreed pre-contract agreements and all 3 are defenders which was our weakest point.

Youth intake day was quite disappointing.

Whilst it looks like it may have been pretty decent, I assure you it really wasn't haha. Whilst I signed a few from it, the only person of real note showing you is Rajib Singh.

Just a solid looking AMC with decent technicals, goodish mentals and alright physicals. He won't be super good as our below average training facilities will hold him back a bit, but we can get some improvement from him over the next couple of years.

I'm hoping next year's intake should be amazing though due to this.

We now have the highest possible for both much like Bengaluru so maybe can start actually getting through some great players here at Goa. I had to fight the chairman for both, including the youth coaching I actually tried and worked threatening to resign and IT ACTUALLY WORKED!

Until next time.

TheNayr · September 29, 2023

Annoyingly if you crash out of the Asian Champions League in the qualifying rounds you don't go into the Confederation Cup. Fortunately I'm not annoyed about that for us as of course we beat the Saudi team Al-Ittihad away because we're amazing. Not so good though, Bengaluru lost their match so there won't be 3 Indian teams in the Group Stage this year, hopefully next year though. But yeah, now Bengaluru won't have any continental competition going forward which is a really ****** way of doing things.

I don't know what to make of it, last year I thought we were going to struggle but ended up winning the group? Who knows. If I had to guess, we'll finish 2nd behind Al-Sadd and hopefully do enough to get into the next round.

I promised new signings and that's what I've done. 3 foreign players and 2 Indian, we'll start with the Indians.

Arjun Singh

He's an experienced international for us and well look at that. A natural across the entire backline which is perfect, I love the versatility and he's a good player too. Will be important for us in every game and I'm surprised Jamshedpur let him go, but much like the person underneath, he probably didn't want to sign a new contract.

Next up, he's my captain for India, he's captain for me now at Goa. It's the one and only Anirudh Saini. The 5'4 DM who started this journey with me as a regenerated player at Bengaluru when I first loaded the game, they released him on a free so I snapped him up immediately, I needed and wanted him here. The tiny aggressive man with solid mentals and physicals is here. Arjun and Anirudh were signed at the end of year, I had no idea they were becoming available!

Now let's move onto the 3 new foreign imports to help us. Starting with Loti Celina who can naturally play LB and RB along with wing back on both sides of the pitch. We do have a tactic with WB's so he's useful for that too. He's a solid all round guy who will play a lot of games this year.

Another full back is coming up, infact he was the first guy we approached. All of last year our starting RB was a 17 year old 1 star guy haha, so it wouldn't be hard to get better and that's what we've done with Iranian Amin Pilali. He's not amazing in any way, but he's a vast step up from what we had. He's good without being incredible but we'll look to do better than him next year. Due to signing Singh the Iranian might not see much time at all tbh, but a good backup.

The last guy is Irish Brandon Ly I thought he was going to be better, but he's turned out solid enough. A natural RB, DM and CM makes him very valuable to me whilst also being competent at RWB and AMR. He will see a lot of game time this year and I'm happy to have him. Being young makes him have possible sell on value too.

We have improved both for starters and backup, so I'm suspecting being league Champions again and hopefully we go well in the Champions League. This could be my last year at Goa, getting the youth coaching and recruiting up to max level will be a goal I'll try and get every Indian team to have in the top league and worry about training facilities when I can.

This will also be my last post for a while as I'm going on holiday today.

Until next time.

karanhsingh · October 2, 2023

Super cool save man, as an Indian you have me hooked even though I've never quite had the courage to attempt this in FM myself!

Great job with Bangalore and with the NT so far. You have had some nice new-gens as well come through and developed them. Selling a young striker to Porto is no mean feat!

Sunil Chhetri absolutely is a legend, you are right about that. His physicals would have looked a lot better a couple of years ago.

Also IRL for the SAFF Cup, they now invite a couple of other regional teams to make it more competitive. The last one had Kuwait and Lebanon, and India just about got over the line. Seems like that's not reflected in the game.

TheNayr · October 12, 2023

On 02/10/2023 at 08:37, karanhsingh said:

Super cool save man, as an Indian you have me hooked even though I've never quite had the courage to attempt this in FM myself!

Great job with Bangalore and with the NT so far. You have had some nice new-gens as well come through and developed them. Selling a young striker to Porto is no mean feat!

Sunil Chhetri absolutely is a legend, you are right about that. His physicals would have looked a lot better a couple of years ago.

Also IRL for the SAFF Cup, they now invite a couple of other regional teams to make it more competitive. The last one had Kuwait and Lebanon, and India just about got over the line. Seems like that's not reflected in the game.

Hey man! Thanks for your kind words! I am back from my holiday and ready to continue with this save! It's been quite fun, I'd suggest you give it a bash, especially as you're Indian, you might really enjoy it as it's not exactly been easy especially on the national team front! The SAFF Cup needed the other regional teams IRL, in game it's quite a drag as we just decimate the other teams!

We are back and things are largely going the way I expected both in the league and Champions League. Namely, 2nd in the league and knocked out of the Champs League.

The Champions League started off well with a home win and a draw but then a run of 3 defeats in a row ruined our chances of getting out of the group so our continental dreams are over for this year. As you can see the draws in the league have been quite annoying. We sit 2nd behind Bengaluru. They are currently 9 points clear with 2 games in hand. Annoyingly in the 1-1 draw with theat home they equalised in the 85th minute after we dominated the game, that would've helped us massively, a win there.

Next up the youth intake, doesn't look that promising, but hopefully the exceptional youth academy and youth coaching will bring through an absolute gem for us. Hopefully a CB who's taller than 5'10 as there are 5 coming through.

The final bito of this update, I signed a gem for a little amount from his club in Uzbekistan, though he is Senegalese. Malick Mane signed for £12.5k which is a bargain. I'm very happy to bring him in and hopefully he can be an important player for us for the 2nd half of the season.

Until next time.

bigmattb28 · October 13, 2023

11 hours ago, TheNayr said:

Hey man! Thanks for your kind words! I am back from my holiday and ready to continue with this save! It's been quite fun, I'd suggest you give it a bash, especially as you're Indian, you might really enjoy it as it's not exactly been easy especially on the national team front! The SAFF Cup needed the other regional teams IRL, in game it's quite a drag as we just decimate the other teams!

We are back and things are largely going the way I expected both in the league and Champions League. Namely, 2nd in the league and knocked out of the Champs League.

The Champions League started off well with a home win and a draw but then a run of 3 defeats in a row ruined our chances of getting out of the group so our continental dreams are over for this year. As you can see the draws in the league have been quite annoying. We sit 2nd behind Bengaluru. They are currently 9 points clear with 2 games in hand. Annoyingly in the 1-1 draw with theat home they equalised in the 85th minute after we dominated the game, that would've helped us massively, a win there.

Next up the youth intake, doesn't look that promising, but hopefully the exceptional youth academy and youth coaching will bring through an absolute gem for us. Hopefully a CB who's taller than 5'10 as there are 5 coming through.

The final bito of this update, I signed a gem for a little amount from his club in Uzbekistan, though he is Senegalese. Malick Mane signed for £12.5k which is a bargain. I'm very happy to bring him in and hopefully he can be an important player for us for the 2nd half of the season.

Until next time.

I think your intake had peaked with Rajib Singh last time

TheNayr · October 15, 2023

On 13/10/2023 at 09:01, bigmattb28 said:

I think your intake had peaked with Rajib Singh last time

Unfortunately I think you might be right because as you'll see very shortly, again this was a disappointing intake.

Well let's just rip the plaster off. As I've already stated, it wasn't a good intake AGAIN. I know I can't expect Messi's regen to come through every youth intake, but the fact we haven't had an elite prospect come through the last 2 intakes with max coaching and recruiting is a little annoying.

I signed all of the top talents but trust me, none are worth showing, obviously they're better than what would be coming through if I wasn't here and hadn't made the club better but it's still a little disheartening!

The rest of the year was a bit terrible fixtures wise.

We went through a really rough patch of not scoring many goals and the 4 draws in February killed our charge to finish 1st in the table and qualify automatically for the Champs League. We didn't even finish 2nd, which means coming in 3rd we had to go through qualifying rounds in the Champions League. As you can see at the bottom, we lost to Kerala at home to finish our chances of winning back to back titles. Just a really poor 2nd half of the season.

Due to our poor showing at the World Cup qualifiers our Summer was quiet as the World Cup took place. One day we'll be there...hopefully. It gave me plenty of time to look out for players and to try improve the team. We are at our limit for foreign players, I tried to move on from a couple of them to free up a space or 2 and that was a no go. No point in signing more foreign players and have a large wage not registered, so just Indian players. We signed 2.

First up was Lallianzuala Chhangte I'm glad I don't have to pronounce that, I wouldn't know where to start haha! He's just gonna be a bench warmer and coming on toward the end of the game. Old, but versatile.

We've gone back and signed yet another player from Bengaluru who released this guy. He's a starter immediately and I'm happy to have him on the team. Tomba Singh, he's someone I'd love to come through at Goa, maybe one day.

We were on our way to being nearly £2m in debt, but the wonderful chairman decided that wasn't going to do for his team, thanks boss.

However, we're gonna be in that situation again though because they'll be no Champions League football for us this season. It's a very poor system they have. Playoff matches are only 1 leg, so if you're away you're already at a disadvantage and if you lose you don't drop into the secondary competition, it's not good. All this happened to us.

I will be working hard to leave Goa this season.

Until next time.

TheNayr · October 15, 2023

So yeah, Goa doesn't seem the place to be to get through any talent. It might improve come intake day, but let's not hold our breaths!

It's been a pretty mixed bag to the first half of the season. Some bad performances example, the run of 1 goal in 4 games and then other games have been exceptional. We were somehow pre-season favourites to win the league which I never would've agreed with!

This means that we're 4th in the league with 4 points back. Plenty of work to do.

The main takeaway is we're not scoring anywhere near enough goals. We're squandering a lot of chances and need to be better in front of goal.

There has only been 1 job available (In the top league, I'm not dropping down.) which was Hyderabad. I didn't want to go there, there wasn't enough point as at that point they were rock bottom.

We are in Asian Nations Cup duty and the draw hasn't been too kind. I'll start a new post as I'll go more in depth of how the Indian national team is looking by showing every player in the squad I'm taking because the Indian team is the most important part of this save. It'll give you an idea of where we're at and the best Indian players in the world.

This is our group, the draw hasn't been kind. Qatar have won the ANC 2 of the last 3 times. I'm under no illusion it's going to be hard to get out of the group.

Qatar ranked 39th. Uzbekistan ranked 63rd and Lebanon 108th. We're ranked 103rd. Let's have a look at the squad in detail!

TheNayr · October 15, 2023

Starting off with the GKs.

It's pretty obvious who the standout Indian 1 is!

Himanshu Chatterjee is our player at Goa though he's leaving on a free transfer at the end of the year.

Jonathan Dev is a solid GK but as you're about to see, he's just 1 of 2 backups.

And here he is. Unless some wicked regen comes through in the next few years, Ayush CK will be Indian #1 for a long time. I'm happy to have someone like him between the sticks.

Next up, our backline which was thoroughly exposed during the previous World Cup qualifiers.

Arjun Singh another 1 of our many players in this squad who can play all 3 positions naturally which is vital in national team competitions where player condition is awful and broken.

Parveen Singh a Goa player too. Solid CB with good mentals. Heading leaves a bit to be desired and only 5'10 but he always does a good job. As he's 18 if we're lucky he might get to 5'11 but I think that's wishful thinking.

Mohammed Singh is the opposite to Parveen. Very good at heading and a lot taller at 6'2. We come to the first Indian player who doesn't player in India! He came through at Bengaluru but has played for Persepolis in Iran for the last 3 years.

Will Andiyapan will be our final starting defender at LB. He's an alright choice who again can play along the backline. At this point I don't know if he'll be starting at LB or not.

Kam Kandola is a solid backup CB to have. 6'4 and decent physically.

Next up with Ajith Singh who surprise surprise is a natural at more than one position haha but he's solid and very good mentally, someone who would be good for the team in general.

Sai Sachdev is the guy who starts the game at Sheffield and we lured over to Bengaluru. He's still an important player there and will be involved heavily with the Indian team in this tourney and the next few years.

Finally, the last defender we've taken to the ANC is Stanley Oraon again another fantastic mentals bloke who can also play football a bit. Him and Andiyapan will split LB duty.

Next up we have 2 DMs then I'll make a new post because I don't know how much more I can make in a post. So I'll do them then start another post of the midfield and attackers.

Starting with Sushil Saha who can play through the entire middle of the field, except striker. Dependable and a great option off the bench.

Oh Captain, my captain. The 5'4 psycho Anirudh Saini. One of the first names on the teamsheet.

TheNayr · October 15, 2023

Let's move on to midfielders and strikers. I realise I've done Basak twice as I had to do a bit of magic stuff due to the 2 DMs being listed.

Yash Ansari is a solid AMC who not only can take wicked free kicks but has fantastic flair to be able to do things a lot of players can't do in the final third.

Motiur Rahman Hossain is another Goan player, who is a very quick LW. Crossing could be a lot better but his speed will cause a lot of problems.

Prasanta Basak. Say it with me everyone. VERSATILITY. I suppose he's not that bad either!

Arjan Raikhy is the best CM we have for India. He's decent without being spectacular and we'll continue to lean on him a lot. His passing and killer balls trait will be very important.

Dipak Shaiza is alright, that's about it. There isn't much depth in the Indian national pool for AMR, probably our weakest area tbh.

Jason Singh is a lovely prospect that we have in the middle of the field. Very good physically and decent mentally with room to grow. He will be very important to us for years. He could get snapped up by a team in Europe.

Strikers are clearly our strongest position and it's easy to see why.

Noah Fernandes is currently wanted by Sunderland and hopefully leaves Bengaluru so he can grow with better training facilities, better players and a better environment to be in. He can grow into something pretty good.

Aniket Murty is currently leading the Super League goalscoring charts and it's not hard to see why. He's a very solid all round player.

Keegan Rawat now plays for Seoul in the South Korean league where he is only a squad player but makes enough appearances. He has developed nicely and is an important player for the Indian national team.

Finally. The best Indian player alive (In this universe) Naveen Wani who plays for Porto still but currently is on loan at West Brom in the Championship where he's scored 10 goals in 19 starts. He's still incredible.

All of this just to more than likely get knocked out in the group stage. But at least you lot are more clued up on the state of the national team players and where we're at development wise.

Until next time.

TheNayr · October 16, 2023

Let's kick off with how the ANC went shall we? To be honest, it went much better than expected!

An opening day victory over Uzbekistan got us off to the perfect start, before a humbling loss to Qatar which was very much expected and a final group victory over Lebanon ensured that we made our way out of the group stage where we were lucky and got an easy tie (In my eyes) against Palestine. With regards with what is going on in real life, I won't say much except #FreePalestine.

We were in control for the whole game. Not allowing a single shot on target made it easy for us and somehow, we found ourselves in the QF against South Korea, we couldn't pull off one of the greatest upsets of all time could we?!

No! Haha, it was very much domination nation for South Korea as soon as the match started. Getting to the quarters though was a great achievement and maybe we're finally seeing some growth and potential with this team. We scored 6 goals through 5 games and 4 of them were from Rawat. Unfortunately star man Wani didn't score a single goal despite starting 4 games. His 10 goals in 28 caps is a little bit underwhelming considering his ability. (I don't actually know his CA, I don't use in game editor so I've got no way of seeing his actual ability.)

Moving onto Goa now.

Champions baby, the bookies were right in their assumption of making us favourites as we beat Kerala who came 1st in the final with a thrilling 5-2 ET win. However, due to a couple of bad seasons in the Champions League, India's coefficient rating has fallen a bit, so even coming 2nd we have to go through a playoff. Just a quick word on this subject. Because over the years we did well with Bengaluru and climbed up the coefficient table with India, we lost our Confederation Cup places. So for the last 5 years or so, we've only had teams play in the Champions League. I know I've complained about it before, but here I am here. The continental football system in Asia is weird and I don't like it.

Youth intake day arrived a couple months back.

ELITE TALENTS! Finally after getting the highest possible coaching and recruitment we had 2 elite talents and I'll tell ya what, they ain't too shabby. I signed a few players from this intake, but the only 2 worth showing are the top 2, so we'll look at them now.

First guy being Shaji Fernandes a Pressing Forward, and we as a nation didn't need another one of them haha. But I guess having an abundance of good players as the same player type isn't the worst thing in the world. Some good physicals and a couple of standout mentals, he could be something good.

And not to be outdone is Vincent Dhar who is an out and out Wide Target Forward which isn't something you come across too often so that is a novelty in itself! I think he's the weaker of the 2, but it'll be interesting to see how he develops. The shockingly low determination and unambitious ruins him quite a bit though.

I want to leave Goa, but there's no point in being out of a job and letting some dope take over. I can actively help the club by bringing in better foreign talent (Of the 7 we're allowed to have, I'm losing 6 of them by not renewing their contracts.) which in turn helps league which helps India. So, unless something happens, we're staying at Goa unfortunately.

Until next time.

TheNayr · October 22, 2023

Right, let's rip the plaster off. We're out the Champions League AGAIN in the playoff stage. AGAIN I will state how terrible the continental football system is in Asia. At least a home leg we'd have a bit of a chance but no. I don't know why we're consistently drawn Away, probably something to do with coefficient points perhaps? All I know is, it sucks and every year puts us at a significant disadvantage of being able to qualify. Yes I'm salty.

Majority of their squad are on wages that exceed/far exceed our weekly wage budget as a whole. Speaking of wage budget we brought in 4 new foreign players to help us this year. Let's have a look at them. We have a new 'keeper, we'll start with him.

Milivoj Zitnjak isn't a world beater by any means but he's a good choice to be our new #1 as our previous GK left on a free, not wanting a new contract. Decent mentals and GK ability who is very good in 1 on 1s which is always nice. A 3 year contract and I don't see any reason soon as to why he'll be replaced as the #1 guy here in the next 3 years.

The only way he wanted to move here was to have a fellow Croat. I couldn't remove the promise so I had to scramble around to find another Croat who would be willing to join us and the best guy was Darijan Silic who actually filled a position in need of a new DM. However as you'll see, he can play through the spine of the team which is important. He's decent, could've been better, but could've been worse. He'll start a lot of games for us this year.

Next up we have 2 20 year old Nigerians from the same club. There were no promises made about bringing in a friend or whatever, they both came up on the scouting reports and I just so happened to want them both. Like the 2 Croats just featured, I paid no money in bringing them into the club. 1 is better than the other, so I'll show the 'Weaker' of the pair.

With the long term club servant Fares Arnaout leaving I needed a new CB and well Fuad Taiwo was the guy I saw first before seeing the other Nigerian. He's tall at 6'2 with okay mentals and physicals with room to grow. He might have some good sale potential as well.

Now onto what I'd consider the best signing of the Summer and that is Moses Ikechukwu who could be something a little special. I will be playing him as much as possible to help hos growth and maybe get a couple more green numbers in there.

All 4 signings are on 3 year deals (Which could be awful if they play bad as that limits our options of getting in better foreign imports) which offers good safety if they play well and could well command a decent fee for selling them.

As we've just got the league to focus on, I'll probably get through this year without an update except for the youth intake or hopefully a new job which I'm desperate for!

Until next time and I hope you're enjoying FM24 if you've got it. I'll be avoiding it personally as I'm happy keeping this save going.

TheNayr · October 25, 2023

Not much to report from this year, only 1 job was available for the whole year and again it was the rock bottom team. It seems that Indian clubs are more content to keep their managers when they have bad seasons. Some good news, we won't be going out in the Champions League playoffs next year! We came on top of the league securing first place which is bloody lovely. It was helped by having 23 goals from 23 starts by our new superstar Nigerian Moses Ikechukwu. By my standards though, it was a pretty poor season. Way too many dropped points for my liking. Same for every year though, we lead the league in possession and shots. As you can see, it was a very tight race and we got lucky as Kerala LOST their final game after we played, I had already given up hopes of coming first and securing that Champions League group place however, they lost so we get in for the first time in 3/4 years.

The youth intake was pants yet again. Clearly Goa is not a region for football, cricket is still clearly the sport to beat in this region! No elite talents. I only signed 3 of the 4 top talents, Panwar was a 5'8 CB, yeah not for me buddy see you later.

We're back into World Cup qualifying and we were poor. It looked like we were going to not make it to the next round but we performed when we needed to and made progress.

Now onto the tough part of the qualifying. We were f*cking dreadful last time at this stage, not scoring in like 8 games in a row.

I'll be honest, another dreadful performance here and it might be the end of the save. This is very tricky and if I don't see much improvement I might just call it. I'm fully aware this wasn't going to be easy and it hasn't been. There's only so much smashing my head against the wall I can do before having enough of it haha.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 13

Oh my God. What is this?! An update on Inspiring India?! I have returned from an extended hiatus on this save. The poor showing by the Indian national team really got me down and not looking forward to playing this save. Considering that was the main point of the save (Managing in the Indian league was always secondary) the fact I wasn't having fun meant I wanted to take a break but now I am back, ready to get India to a World Cup. I have also moved this game from FM23 to FM24.

Usually the India updates come 2nd in the posts I write, but seeing that's why I stopped in the 1st place. We made progress yes, we made some great players for India, yes. But we just always seemed to struggle in the World Cup qualifying and well, it tuned out again we're struggling.

There's still 6 games to go to determine whether we'll qualify for the next round as going through automatically seems to have gone to Thailand already. U.A.E look a little clear too so we're in a mini league with Japan and China. Spoiler alert, they're better than us. Not good!

It doesn't help that in our home games with them we've only taken 1 point from them 2 teams. We're probably not making the World Cup again, but I shall keep going. It'll help by producing better players and elevating other Indian teams. Speaking of which.

NEW JOB ALERT!

After5 years at Goa and getting their youth coaching and recruiting up to exceptional, I have moved on to my new team. Jamshedpur who are a mid table team. Already after a couple of months in charge, I've gotten 2 upgrades which will help us.

Compared to Goa it's a big step down in talent all over the pitch although we have started the season well being undefeated in 3 games.

2 GK's at the club, one being an expensive and old guy from New Zealand thankfully, his contract runs out at the end of the season. This guy is our #1...yeah, not great.

This is how our defenders look here at Jamshedpur. It's an okay selection of players, but you can see why they're a mid table team, no special players here, especially with Pankaj Deb rated by my assman as the best player at the club, I'll show you him first.

He has good physicals and mentals for this level and is around the national team set up but probably has fallen behind in terms of ability to be a regular for India. His contract was expiring at the end of the season, I've extended him for a year.

Our best CB is okay, that's just the best way to sum him up haha. He's 1 of 3 Africans using up our foreign player slots, the other 2 I won't be renewing their deals when they're up at the end of the season, but I would like to keep Wisdom Izuwa.

All of our midfielders and strikers are Indian. With us losing 3 of our foreign slots (Potentially 4 as Wisdom doesn't want to sign a new deal yet with his contract coming to an end) I would like to get a good foreign striker who can help bang in the goals, but as it goes, we have some solid Indian players in both of these units.

Sanjay Saini has had a really good start to the year and his star rating is a little too high in my opinion (My assman is a little terrible!) so ignore that but he's a decent option on the right wing.

The main man at Jamshedpur is without a doubt Parveen Ghosh someone who has played quite a few times for India and is our key player. Very good mentals and good physicals means he's a standout player for us and will hopefully help us in the fight for continental football this year, or at least get us close.

I'm back and ready to put all my effort into making India a top team...even though in 10 game seasons we've not done much haha.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 14

With the upgraded youth coaching and recruitment up to a 'Good' standard for us here at Jamshedpur we have our first intake preview at our new club and it might be a doozy here.

A supposed 'Golden Generation' yet the reports all indicate terrible players. Right, well we'll see what happens come March,

Form wise in the league has been a very mixed bag of results. A couple of impressive games, meh games and poor games. I wasn't expecting miracles being the first season, I'll happily end ttje season in the playoffs, just to show some kind of promise with this team.

Which leaves the table looking like this:

Bengaluru my first team, leading the way being absolutely perfect so far, they are the best team in India.

However, massive news on the India side of this career. We had 2 vital home games in the World Cup qualifying games and by jove, it was amazing.

2 MONSTER victories including a very unlikely 1 against the U.A.E. I would've gladly taken a draw with them, so to not only win but SMASH them was amazing. A follow up win against Chinese Taipei was always expected, so it was good to do that. Naveen Wani scored 5 of them 8 goals to take his tally up to 20 goals in 40 games for India, definitely the best footballer India has created.

It leaves the table very tight, and with away games left to Japan, China and U.A.E to go. I don't think we're going to the World Cup this time.

Until next time.

Mr Jabay · January 14

Great to see you back at this save! I enjoy it very much, and hopefully you'll get India to qualify for the world cup!

TheNayr · January 14

2 hours ago, Mr Jabay said:

Great to see you back at this save! I enjoy it very much, and hopefully you'll get India to qualify for the world cup!

I'm glad to hear that! After my break from the save I am fully back into it and will do my best to get this beautiful into the big leagues!

Are we finally starting to see some progress inside India? Is football becoming a little bit bigger? My answer can only be yes because....WE ARE GOING TO A WORLD CUP BABY!!!!!!!

Okay, calm down. It's not the senior side. HOWEVER. For the first time in our history, India U20s are going to the World Cup (Held in Costa Rica) due to an amazing performance at the Under 20's Asian Cup where they reached the final for the first time in 69 years! A wonderful achievement by our youth side.

The Australia match could've been so much easier. Winning 3-1 in the 88th minute. a 89th minute goal and 92nd minute penalty for them pushed for ET. Playing that extra 30 minutes could've been the reason we weren't able to hold on to victory against Iran!

I attended this final and we were unlucky to lose. Iran scored in the 81st minute to make it 2-2. We were very close to winning it, but it was still a remarkable showing by our young boys. Let's have a look at them!

All 3 GK's played at least 1 game throughout the tournament. Not much separates them between CA and PA as they're not spectacular but seemed to perform well enough.

Dinesh played the most games at the tourney, seeming as he has the highest CA, he won't be a future #1 though regrettably.

Our defenders played very well with 3 players all having over a 7 average rating for the tourney. (The 20 year old despite being 20 during the tourney was eligible to play I guess you're allowed a couple of over 19s which was good because he averaged 7.55 over 6 games!)

Lalchhuanmawai Kumar was very good for us, but I don't see a future in the senior side, he just won't be good enough. 2 goals at the tourney was very nice from him though.

The only LB taken Nikhil Patil was very solid. He averaged 7.27 through 6 games and had 2 assists.

The most exciting defender of the bunch though is 16 year old Deep Sengupta from Bengaluru who averaged 7.05 through 6 games and 1 goal. A CB who could be good....except he's 5'7

The midfielders and attackers played some real good football. The early results in the tourney weren't just wins, they were demolition jobs.

If I had to guess which club produced the player of the tournament for us, the answer would've obviously been from Bengaluru and I would've been correct! Vinay Basak pitched in with 6 goals and an assist in his 6 starts. What a guy.

The Pressing Forward Harish Kakkar was also a force to be reckoned with as he finished with 3 goals and 2 assists in only 3 starts but also 3 sub appearances so he played in every game. Though much like the guy above him, maybe not nailed on to start for the senior squad by any means.

The last guy I'll show is the guy with the highest potential of the forward guys, however. It's pretty ugly, don't get excited by Nikhil Dev.....

These guys massively over-performed and put in a great shift at the Asian Nations Cup. We have a World Cup to look forward to, despite it not being my achievement but it's still AMAZING news and I'm very happy. I showed a lot of emotion in the penalty shootout against Iran, getting very into it.

Locked back in to this save.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 14

That whole post was dedicated to the youth of India and speaking of which. Our first youth intake has arrived at Jamshedpur where we were told it was going to be a 'Golden Generation' and we kind of had it given to us with 9, yes 9 'Elite Talents' but not really haha. Here they are.

Looks outstanding right? Hmm, don't get excited. I've signed them up (Except Khondoker Ashraful Ali as he wants too much, hopefully I can get him cheaper before hiss trial ends) as I need the depth and to fill the youth team out. None of them are really amazing though. Let's have a look at the guy at the top of the list. Sultan Ibrahim is an extremely brave CB with very good tackling and work rate so he won't shy away from getting stuck in and putting his body on the line for his team. However, he's under 6ft which I HATE for CBs as will most of you. There's something here with him though.

His fellow CB Syed Das has perfect teamwork at 20! Much better determination at 17 and the same tackling at 14. So there's definitely something to work on here...5'9 though. Sigh. Maybe a career at LB is calling for him.

From our intake Mohammed John has the best CA, but pair that with 4 determination he won't ever reach a good standard so I won't bother showing him.

Ziaurahman Chowdhury is an intriguing prospect. His technicals are lacking, but he possesses decent mentals and alright physicals. It'll be interesting to see how he develops.

The last player I'll show from these guys is a Pressing Forward Shankur Muhammed he's nothing incredible but he could find himself playing first team football sooner rather than later due to the lack of striking options though I am looking to remedy that come the Summer transfer window.

The most exciting prospect though didn't even come from our intake. Of course he's from Bengaluru. His lower determination will hold him back a bit, but this guy could be very good, scrap that. He will be very good for our national team and could find himself with a move outside of India in a couple of years.

Gurpreet Singh Bisht

With only 1 game left to play in the league, we did make the playoffs so get the chance to play for the title and be crowned champions of India (Won't happen haha) but unfortunately won't be playing continental football next year which is a good thing as Bengaluru, Goa and Kerala are the best teams in India at the minute so they should be playing in the Asian Champions League to help out the league.

Also in a few days we commence our extremely important away games against Japan and China. May it not be an embarrassment, that's all I hope for haha. Getting ANYTHING from these games would massively help us continuing this World Cup qualifying journey with the China game being most important as they're equal points with us and Japan 4 points back.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 14

Let's start with what was the the wonderful achievement of the U20's getting into the U20 World Cup in Costa Rica. Like a proud father, I attended every game. We were given a difficult group though and it was going to be hard to get out of it.

We kicked off against Scotland, a game I thought we'd lose but would've been really happy with a draw.

Not to be, they were a lot better. At least we had a few shots on target to keep things a little interesting, but losing to Scotland was always on the cards. Next up was Vanuatu where I honestly expected a win. We needed a win to keep us involved with the group.

Disappointing. Very disappointing. This should've been a win, a lot of shots on target and a late goal chalked off against what should've been a very poor side. Hmmmm. This left us NEEDING to beat Nigeria. Not the position I wanted us to be in.

And this was why. In a game where we had the most possession, Nigeria were by far the better team. Which left the table looking like this after the group games.

At least we weren't bottom right? The kids also have experience of playing in the World Cup too which is awesome! It's hard to be too sad about the performances, had this been real life. I would've been proud. Well done boys. Onto the senior side now though.

My last update had us playing away to China and Japan in 2 massive games and this is how we performed.

China was the more important of the 2 and the game I wanted a point in, however to fly into Tokyo and taking a point from them was very very impressive. The loss to China was a killer, but they deserved it. Which leaves us with 2 games to try and get through to the next round, though with our current standings, it might be out of our grasp.

Our final 2 games are as follows:

U.A.E are away to China so we have to hope they lose to them AND we beat Thailand before we go away to U.A.E AND beat them. A tough tough ask. I'm about to play them matches.

TASK 1 IS DONE AND WE'RE STILL WITHIN A SHOUT!

U.A.E and China drew 1-1.

The equation is simple. Beat U.A.E away and we're through to the next round, where we have never been before. This is the best we've ever performed in World Cup qualifying (At least when I've been in charge.) I have to go attacking right? I don't want to sit back, invite pressure and go 1-0 down away. I'm gonna take it to them. 4-2-4 Gegenpressing. I know it's not inventive, but this is where I am at right now, don't judge me. Let's do this.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Okay, I'll calm down. It's NOT the World Cup yet. However. This is the furthest we've ever got and we have a great chance here.

When that 91st winner went in I actually shouted "COME ON!" and my girlfriend told me to shut up. The 'F' word may be missing from what I've typed haha! BOOOM!

Top 2 go through the World Cup and 3rd goes into a playoff, against the other 3rd team? I genuinely don't know and it doesn't say in the rules. So essentially, we have 2 bites of the cherry here. These matches don't get played for another few months. So we have time to prepare.

And secondary to all this. We didn't win the Indian League, we lost in the 1st round. Bengaluru didn't win either funnily enough, it was Kerala but I'm sorry, however right now I don't care about that haha. Still buzzing over all that. This IS progression. We've not been this far before and it's such a good feeling.

Speaking of not caring, we have the South Asian Football Federation Championships which we have won for the last 4 times, I'd imagine we'll win it again easily.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 15

Unfortunately we're back to Jamshedpur now at the minute haha, I've calmed down from last night and we're locked in to making Jamshedpur the best club team, and well something is going to help us out big time. What I'm about to show you is F'king mental. So, every month last season we were losing money and ended the season near a million in the red and with the idea of strengthening of the team, our financial situation was only going to be worse....until....

Nearly £9.5million in season ticket sales?????? As you can see the last few years this team has hardly been in the black but then this year, BOOM! Is it because of what I've done with the Indian national team? Is it because they're excited to see me? I hope the other teams have benefitted from this. You know what, I'm gonna check the other team's finances:

Aizawl FC: £396,593 Season ticket holders: 1,490 Profit this season: £577,982

Bengal: £2,267,585 Season ticket holders: 6,934 Profit this season: £2,000,017

Bengaluru: £7,697,160 Season ticket holders: 7,079 Profit this season: £8,526,722

Goa: £7,929,129 Season ticket holders: 6,963 Profit this season: £7,218,333

Guwahati: £2,017,667 Season ticket holders: 1,622 Profit this season: £1,267,903

Hyderabad: -£350,165 Season ticket holders: 4,413 Profit this season: £281,743 (Promoted into the Super League this season)

Kerala: £7,815,660 Season ticket holders: 15,381 Profit this season: £6,100,913

Kolkata: £1,536,718 Season ticket holders: 17,868 Profit this season: £1,748,859

MHDN FC: -£57,481 Season ticket holders: 1,310 Profit this season: £399,835

Mohun Bagan: £1,287,979 Season ticket holders: 7,367 Profit this season: £1,411,418

Mumbai: -£147,560 Season ticket holders: 3,465 Profit this season: £941,269

Odisha: £ 1,618,05 Season ticket holders: 3,790 Profit this season: £1,120,852

Here at Jamshedpur we've sold 9,044 season tickets which means a season ticket costs about £1000 here. There has been a football explosion here in India with all these teams in the top league not only selling a lot of season tickets, but able sell them for high prices AND they're being bought. This is hopefully the start of a footballing boom here in India and I'm taking full credit and responsibility. As you can see, a lot of the teams have been functioning in the red/barely above it. This means hopefully over the next few years, teams will continue to get this money in every pre-season which will mean so much to the league and the national team.

The money has gone straight into making this team a better place.

Until next time.

Edited January 15 by TheNayr

Mr Jabay · January 15

Woah, fantastic news. This are the events which make FM so rewarding:)

TheNayr · January 15

16 minutes ago, Mr Jabay said:

Woah, fantastic news. This are the events which make FM so rewarding:)

You're so right! This wasn't something I was expecting at all for the other Indian teams but this makes me so happy. More happy than it has any right to as it's just a game but it means what I'm doing is working and helping to Inspire India! What a delight!

I have been a bit busy in the transfer window and I have made us a much better team (At least in my eyes!) 8 ins and no money spent, 1 loan. I have gotten in 3 new foreign players who all are far superior to the foreign players we had last season. Let's have a look at them.

Tapiwa Dube

A very versatile guy from Zimbabwe who can play CB, DM and CM to a high level. He will play nearly every game and will be an important player for us.

Victor Onyango

A young Kenyan who knows where the goal is with some good technicals and solid physicals. Also potentially good sell on value too. Our number 1 striker going forward.

Fabian Castro

A Costa Rican who can play all over the back line and is a solid all round player. Going from last year where we only used 1 of 4 foreign players in the starting 11, we'll be using all 4, making us better and MAYBE challenging for the title. As long as we finish top 4 to get continental football, that's all I care about.

I have also signed some Indians to make us better including the current starting LB for India in Stanley Oraon with his fantastic mentals.

And a new 'keeper as our guy from last year conceded 35 in 25, I think we can do better so welcome in Karl Pischon who starts the game in Germany with Energie Cottbus as a German/Indian national. He's still not what I'd call 'Good' by any means. I might look to use a foreign squad place on a new 'keeper next year as our 4th spot at the minute is an okay CB who's I could move on pretty easily I think.

Next up though, is our important games with India where we're without our clear #1 and best GK in the country, not ideal. Round robin games, only play 2 games in an effort to get to the World Cup in straight qualification.

I'll tell you what, I'll play them now and report back.

It wasn't comfortable but we were holding out own until the red card from our AMR. That sealed our fate as the numbers game was far too strong. A MUST home game now against Iran. It's a home game at least so that might help us.

No excuses, both teams were better than us. We really missed or GK.

What we missed out on having:

What we had:

Quite a bit of a difference you can see. Also I don't know why but I didn't have any reports about Ayush CK despite having 46 caps, my national reports must've been out of date or something?

So we're out of World Cup qualifying at least that way...We now enter the World Cup playoff. I believe it'll be a team from South America, North America and Oceania joining us. So that will be a surprise when it's eventual drawn.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 16

It has been a great start to the new season here in India for us at Jamshedpur as we've started the season undefeated, at least in the league where it matters.

Somehow our top scorer is a guy with 5 finishing who has scored 6 goals in 6 games! By ability I would class him as the best player that we have at the club, so quality shines through!

Parveen Ghosh

The money has continued to flow in from ticket sales so I've 100% started a revolution of football in India and it's beautiful.

As long as money is flowing in, we can keep upgrading our facilities to start bringing through some absolute wonderkids! I'm going to assume this is happening for all the other teams, I can hope at least.

Onto India business and it's crunch time in the World Cup playoff.

Now you'd look at that and go "Well that's crap we have El Salvador who are ranked 72nd whilst Iraq get Vanuatu who are ranked 127th?!" I'll tell you why I'm not too fussed. If we beat them, we face Paraguay who are ranked 62nd in our final where winner goes through to the World Cup, whereas Iraq will face world ranked 13th Nigeria. We have the better draw haha! Winner takes all in the semis, no 2nd leg.

In the next post we shall have a look at the squad who will take us forward into the biggest match of this save so far.

Until next time.

Carambau · January 16

Good luck for the game against El Salvador! And hopefully the following against Paraguay!

TheNayr · January 16

4 hours ago, Carambau said:

Good luck for the game against El Salvador! And hopefully the following against Paraguay!

Thank you! I am very excited to get involved and get into the World Cup...hopefully!

Let's get into the squad as we haven't seen what the national team looks like for a while.

Goalkeepers

We are led by the ever dependable Ayush CK. There's no Indian GK that's close to him in CA and in the youth teams, there's no GK who has any good PA. We need a new GK come through soon so we know the future is in good hands, but we'll have Ayush for another 7/8 years hopefully!

Defenders

We have a couple of youngsters sprinkled in with experienced players. The most exciting prospect is the 18 year old RB Sukhjit Marbaniang although his determination is only 10, he's got a LOT to like about him.

He's better in nearly every way except a few mentals compared to our long serving RB Arjun Singh so the young boy will be our starting RB going forward. A way to help is mentals grow is to play important matches like these upcoming for us.

Our CB pairing has often changed as we have a clear top guy then a few guys who I've paired with him. First up we have Mohammed Singh who plays for Seoul and is India's best CB. An extremely solid player and one of our best.

Going forward, I will be using Parveen Singh who at 21 already has 20 caps, despite his young age, I think he's a good partner next to Mohammed Singh. He plays for Sanat Naft in Iran.

We signed the starting LB for India at Jamshedpur in Stanley Oraon a solid LB with very solid mentals. A new superstar LB coming through at any team soon though would be nice as we definitely can do better and is our weak link at the back.

Midfielders

Now according to my assman, this is a weak unit but I strongly disagree. Anirudh Saini is still my captain and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Really good mentals paired with solid technicals and good physicals. The super aggressive 5'4 maniac.

His midfield pairing for years was Arjan Raiky who starts the game at Aston Villa and I was able to get him over to the Indian league with Bengaluru very early in the save. Whilst he is part of my squad, he has been surpassed in favour and ability by Jason Singh who currently plays for Union Berlin! They purchased him recently from Dusseldorf who got him from Bengaluru. No good regen has spawned from a non-Indian side, so whenever a player isn't playing in India he's been sold from a team in our league. Anyway, here's Jason Singh the new starter in the middle of the field, very solid mentals and he's very quick!

Forwardsh

As you can see, there's no 'Natural' AML or AMR but every single one of the above players can play them positions to an accomplished level and that's good enough for me. Though the starting AML isn't actually in this section, he was in the Midfield section above in Motiur Rahman Hossain. He's actually without a club at the minute and I've tried to sign him to keep him fit and give him games but he has no desire to join me. He is wanted by Al-Wedha in Saudi Arabi. However, he's the best left footed crosser of the ball that we can offer, so here he is. The left side is 100% a weakness of this Indian side.

Our AMR is a tricky spot with multiple people being able to play there. However, I'm choosing to go with Noah Fernandes who can play AMR well with not a massive weakness to his game, just a solid all rounder who can perform well for us. He's currently wanted by Oostende from Belgium and Gwangju in Korea.

Now we move onto our 2 strikers, the 2 star boys of this Indian team who both play outside of India. Starting off with Keegan Rawat who plays for Seoul in Korea like our top CB Mohammed Singh. Keegan is a physical and mental animal with very good technicals in the only 2 categories that matter. He's brilliant and as soon as he came through the youth intake at Bengaluru I knew he'd be special and he's not proven me wrong.

And then here we go, the crown jewel of this team and his club team, Fulham in the Premiership, that's right. He's playing in the Prem and the Champions League, Naveen Wani the GREATEST football player to come from the wonderful land of India. If we didn't have him, this save wouldn't be going anywhere near as successful as it is. Here he is and he's beautiful. He makes me want to buy the editor so I can see what his CA ability is. At a guess, in the 170s? And considering he's still only 24, he can eek out some more improvement hopefully. He's a beast and I love him.

They're the main guys that start for us. It'll be funny if I've done all this and we lose in the first round right?! Even if that is the case, you lot have a better idea of how the national team is looking currently. Onwards to destiny and the biggest game of the save so far.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 16

So I was going to go with the meta 4-2-4 Gegenpressing, yet I decided to change my mind as I thought it would leave us vulnerable at the back against what is a better team than us, at least in my eyes. So I went with a tactic I'm enjoying a lot in 5-3-2 wing play, which provides a lot of cover at the back, but explosive attacking play. a substitute meant I pushed a guy from DM forward into CM.

And it worked. WE ARE 1 GAME AWAY FROM THE WORLD CUP! I usually prefer to dominate possession, that's my coaching philosophy in real life and I like to have it in FM, yet this wing play tactic rarely gives good possession, yet I am not complaining. Paraguay, here we come with nothing to lose. Also, it was played in front of a small crowd in Australia. I thought we'd maybe get a few more thousand watching this important game??

So. It went like this....

Yeah, they were far too good for us. The giving them too much of the ball was maybe a mistake, this is the match I should've gone with the 4-2-4 formation. The straight red to Wani didn't help us. The fact we got through to ET was a miracle. What an effort it was, to come so close as massive underdogs. We now have another 4 years to get better and make an effort at the next World Cup qualifying groups. I am proud of my achievement even if we didn't get there...YET!

Until next time.

Edited January 17 by TheNayr

Carambau · January 17

Damn! So close Next time you are going to finish the job!

TheNayr · January 17

I've pushed on in the season toward the youth intake which we will view shortly as it's just come in for me now.

The preview was looking decent as I was told it was going to be a 'Golden Generation' for us here at Jamshedpur. Which I now can't find for a picture, but here's the actual intake!

2 DMs and a GK who have the lovely 5 star potential which is very nice, and as for someone like me who uses at least 1 DM in every tactic, that makes me very happy haha! Let's have a look at the top 3 guys!

I've said a couple of times we need a GK coming through to help push Ayush CK the current #1 for India and not just from my club, any team! Whilst Dipendu Lepcha has the potential, I don't really see much room for growth here, at least to become the best GK in the country. I'd imagine in a few years he'll be a decent club GK, but that's about it.

Then we come onto the 2 DMs. They're alright. Do I see them becoming massive players for India? Not really, they'll play some time for the national team I believe, but they won't be serious players. I can't see that at least anyway.

First up we have Manu Vaz who has some amazing mentals already at his age which is fantastic. I would've loved for his determination to be a little higher, but there's something there that we can work with. He wants to be a BWM, so he needs to get in the gym and beef up a bit more.

As for the other 5 star DM guy. Sheikh Fernandes who also fancies himself as a BWM. He lacks the mentals compared to Manu but is physically better. With the same 12 determination, it's going to be interesting to see how they grow together seeing as they're different players but the same. You get what I mean haha!

I have also signed a few other players to help bolster team numbers and quality of our youth and reserve teams. The quality of the players coming through is slowly getting better, I am making an impact and the fact I can see it, makes me very happy.

There's a couple of players of note taken in by other teams in their youth intake. Namely Sachin Singh from our previous team Goa. A LWB who at 15 looks really promising and a future star for the national team.

And Pratik Singh also from our previous club Goa. Whilst he looks a bit rough around the edges, there's definitely a player there who could become very good.

We are doing much better in the league than last year which is what I expected and we're already confirmed to play continental football next year, whether that be in the Champions League or the Confederation Cup seeing as it's a 24 game season (before the playoffs) and it's top 4 teams play continental football. Guwahati can't catch us. Of course our last 2 matches happen to be against Kerala and Bengaluru!

The money situation continues to be good as we're making money every month due to gate receipts. Let's hope it continues and gets better going into next year. I'm looking forward to the over £9 million season ticket sales again!

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 17

56 minutes ago, Carambau said:

Damn! So close Next time you are going to finish the job!

It was so close but so far! The progress that I've made so far with India be it club wise getting 3 teams to the highest level of youth recruitment and coaching or with the actual national side. Next WC qualification I'm targeting to make it automatically, none of this playoff stuff as several players by then will be in their prime!

TheNayr · January 17

Well it has been a season of success for us here at Jamshedpur. After just scraping the playoffs last year, we finished firmly in it and have bagged continental football next year! This is how the table finished come the end of the season. Goa fell off from the last couple of years but Kerala having good showings every year, they're a strong strong side.

We were shot to 2nd and nearly winning the league thanks to the young Kenyan Victor Onyango who banged in 16 goals and 4 assists in 22 starts during the league. What a great free signing by me, even if I do say so myself! He hasn't really progressed at all to be honest, but even so. He's good.

With this save, I don't feel attached to any of these clubs teams I'm managing and that's just fine. The main thing is about the national team. I'm only with a team to increase their facilities and speaking of which.

So this is now 3/3 clubs I've managed to get exceptional youth coaching and recruiting. When both training facilities are completed here, I believe they will be at a good level and the best in the country. I will look to upgrade them a couple more times after that before moving on to the next club.

We again broke gate receipts in our home first leg playoff match against Bengaluru proving the interest in Indian football is here to stay.

That was 24,112 people in to watch us lose a game we had no right in losing, I'm not on to complain but this is a bit sick haha.

12 shots on target and no goals!? Fair enough. In the return leg just over 25k people watched at Bengaluru. Next year, finishing 1st in the table, getting into the Champions League AND winning the title is the aim, potentially with winning the Confederation Cup.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 18

Here we go into the 11th season of this Indian save, I think 11th, could be 10th. October 2034, should be 11th. At Jamshedpur I made a few signings, and 1 of them being very important.

Jonathan Dev the 2nd/3rd best GK in the whole of India. The guy we signed last year turned out to be a disappointment and I signed this guy from Aizawl FC who were actually relegated from the top league, but as you can see, he's such an upgrade nearly everywhere...shame he's 5'10 though...

So to refresh your mind incase you haven't binged through this save as I haven't spoken about this rule in detail for a while. So, in the top league. You can have a maximum of 4 foreign players in the starting 11 if you include an Asian player. If you don't, it's only 3 foreign players. The last 2 years here, I haven't taken advantage of that rule. This year, I am though. We needed a new RB here at Jamshedpur so I focused all my efforts on finding an Asian RB and found 1 in Abdullah Abbas from Damac In Saudi Arabia and I spent £525k on him! A stupid amount, that is by FAR!!! The most I have spent on a player during this save. He's not a world beater, but for us he's very good and he's played solidly enough.

I have raided my first team in Bengaluru for 2 backup players. A backup GK and a squad player striker so I won't waste my time or your time showing them.

The season tickets have kicked in again. This time we made a little bit more money at £9.5m what a beautiful amount to receive for teams like us, I can only assume that other Indian teams had it again like us last year.

We have the highest level of youth coaching and recruitment which is fantastic and I waited specifically until both my training facilities were sorted before this next update. So as soon as I can improve them, I will. But how is the rest of the league looking like facility wise?? Have they invested some of the money got from the season tickets footballing boom? Back in the 2025 (In this save obviously!) I posted about the other team's facilities and youth set ups, have they progressed in 9 years? Let's see. I'll keep the teams in same order (If they haven't been relegated)

Team name 2025 YC 2025 YR 2025 TF 2025 YF 2034 YC 2034 YR 2034 TF 2034 YF

Kerala Average Average Below average Below average Adequate Above average Adequate Adequate

Guwahati Average Average Below average Below average Adequate Average Below average Below average

Mumbai Excellent Average Below average Below average Exceptional Average Below average Below average

Goa (Managed) Average Average Below average Below average Exceptional Exceptional Below average Below average

Jamshedpur (Managing) Adequate Above average Below average Adequate Exceptional Exceptional Average Average

Odisha Average Basic Basic Basic Adequate Average Basic Basic

MHDN FC Fairly basic Fairly basic Basic Poor Fairly basic Fairly basic Basic Poor

Hyderabad Average Fairly basic Basic Basic Average Fairly basic Basic Basic

Chennai Average Average Below average Below average Average Average Below average Below average

Mohun Bagan Average Average Basic Basic Average Average Basic Basic

Bengal Fairly basic Average Below average Basic Average Average Below average Basic

Bengaluru (Managed) Excellent Excellent Average Average Exceptional Exceptional Adequate Average

Kolkata N/A N/A N/A N/A Adequate Average Below average Below average

So as you can see, in 9 years there hasn't been that much movement in things changing which is unfortunate but understandable due to lack of money that's been around for this league. Even when I was at Goa for 5 years there was never really enough money to upgrade the training facilities and the board kept turning me down hence no improvement there. But now with the massive money coming in through ticket sales I might revisit this in a few years and see the upgrades then, hopefully teams will have enough about them to upgrade these things. Whilst I'm on the subject of ticket sales, I saw this a couple of days ago and it stuck out to me.

Check out Kolkata vs Bengal! They share the same stadium in Kolkata the Salt Lake stadium which is an 85,000 all seater but only 66,687 used for normal matches. I hope in a few years this match will be a sell out to massively help both teams out financially. Then just to add onto it, MDHN FC also play in Kolkata but at the Mohammedan Sporting Ground however that only holds 15,000 which they rent. So 3 top league teams all playing in the same city, hence the massive attendances!

And finally, we have played 2 games in the Confederation Cup and it's been as easy as expected facing against teams from Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Maldives. Bengaluru also smashing it in their group. Kerala in their Champions League group have lost 2 out of 2.

Nothing on the horizon for India yet.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 19

Literally about 2 days in game time after my last post (Middle of October) the draw for the Asian Nations Cup sprung up out of nowhere and we were given a hard group starting with Lebanon which i wasn't worried about, however. Followed by Iran and Japan which wasn't that nice to be drawn against, but it is what it is. The Indian FA wanted me to get into the 2nd round at a minimum, I wasn't so sure about that. Now I am in January and the competition is upon me and we started with Japan. 1 quick thing, you're only allowed 3 subs in the game and with the games pretty quick after one another, managing fatigue is always an issue in international management. Before we get into it, I have changed the main tactic used for both India and Jamshedpur. So it's a 4-3-3 Gegenpress with a DM, I've said many times I love a DM. Offers good protection for the backline and can be a deadly guy bursting forward either the ball with loads in front of him or arriving late unmarked. Anyways. First match.

Japan who?! Absolute domination. I couldn't believe my eyes, what a brilliant attacking display, we blew them away and they had no answer for us. Even though they had more of the ball (Only by 2% but it's still more!) We only allowed them a measly total 5 shots compared to our 23. A fantastic opening match which couldn't have gone much better. Next up were Iran who now maybe I wasn't as scared of as I was expecting to be.

WOW. This game was much closer score wise than the Japan game, but this time the domination factor was more there. 65% possession compared to their 35%. More shots and more shots on target again. We deserved the win and the beautiful Wani stepped up and made sure we had the win, though Rawat was clearly the man of the match operating as an IF on the RW.

The last group game was against Lebanon which I now had absolutely 0 fear going into after these games.

And I was right to not be scared. 3 group games, 3 wins, 3 dominations. Have we crossed the hill into a very good Asian nation?! We are up to our highest ever rank in the world now, 74th! (Quick note, I guess I could've been running like a yearly table of our rankings, however because I don't play friendly matches, I don't see the point. We weren't moving that much other then a couple of spots down every year so I thought it was pointless to keep a tracker) In the 2nd round we play Indonesia. I've got to try and bring my expectations down, because I am very happy and excited right now. In my head I'm already picturing winning this tournament haha. Pump the brakes!

So the group ended up like this. Not what I was expecting at the start of the tournament, I am really not complaining though. I wouldn't have predicted to win all 3 games and certainly not finishing with a goal difference of 8!

It seems this team is really digging this 4-3-3 Gegenpressing tactic. Again, dominating possession, more shots, more shots on target. It seems to be getting the most out of these players. I was VERY annoyed with the late penalty miss, thinking we were going to ET where the players would be VERY fatigued for the next game, but a late winner had me very happy and fist pumping. COME ON! See you later Indonesia, up next is Saudi Arabia in the quarter finals where we got to 4 years ago in the last Asian Nations Cup. Up to 72nd now.

WE ARE MASSIVE! We lost the possession battle but we won the war. More shots, more shots on target. Do you see the pattern!? We are 1 very impressive attacking unit. 31 year old Arjan Raikhy set up both goals from that all important DM position. Captain Fantastic, 5'4 lunatic Saini opened the scoring and didn't look back from there. Up next U.A.E in the semi finals and up to 69th in the world...Nice...

Naveen Wani not scoring in 3 straight games is a bit of a worry though.

Sickening. We didn't deserve to lose this game, especially on penalties. DAMN! However, what a tournament. We've proven we're one of the best teams in Asia now and I am very, very happy. Bring on World Cup qualification because we're going to qualify.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 20

It's time to pop into Jamshedpur and see how the season is going yeah? Especially as the youth intake has just happened. So, what's been happening at the club team?

Bengaluru have taken back the mantle of 'Best team in India' whilst Kerala who had been enjoying that title for the last 3 years or so have had a tremendous fall off this season. What hasn't helped is selling their GK to Guwahati and probably the 3rd GK in all of India and replacing him with a much worse player. I am not complaining though, makes it a little easier for us to do well in the table. However, a shocking start to the season meant we've been trying to catch Bengaluru from the start.

From the early years in the save where we did really well in continental football, India lost it's places in the Confederation Cup and our teams went straight into the Champions League instead with 0 teams playing in the Confederation Cup which sounds a little weird, but it's understandable. When you get to a certain point in Asian football, you're just too good for a lot of nations and teams as we both proved.

6 wins out of 6 games for both of us and at least +20 goal difference. This meant that we played each other in the South Asian Zone final and I wasn't too optimistic, Bengaluru are the best team in the country and my record against them since leaving them is terrible!

However, a couple of good performances meant we were onto the next round. Not only did we get just shy of £400k for winning that final, we made a little over £1m in ticket sales as we share ticket revenue in this final and with 2 big attendances (We were a sell out) the money was good and we promptly put it to good use.

Moving onto the Interzone Playoff Semi Finals were the Champions of Turkmenistan Kopetdag Asgabat FK. Yeah I wasn't worried, so much so that both games I played my 2nd team.

And that decision was vindicated by 2 clean sheets and 2 professional jobs by my backups leaving us in the Confederation Cup final against Port FC from Thailand who will get more respect from me as I'll play my strongest side possible when playing them.

Now then, youth intake day is here and I was told it would be a 'Good' intake which is always nice and it delivered.

For once it looks actually very very good. The players in 'Top Talents' actually have some decent potential about them for once. It's just about the 'Elite talent' for which we have 1, the MR Sujit Singh who starts with good crossing ability good acceleration. I wouldn't say he's 'Elite' because he's still got plenty of work to go and with only 4 determination. So, not much there really. I'll sign him but won't expect much growth.

Rohit Rana has a couple of decent mentals to start with at DM but we have much better prospects in that position.

It doesn't matter how much potential Rakib Hossain has or what his stats look like, he's a 5'5 CB haha, he's going to be retrained into a DM as soon as he signs a contract. With a lot of these players, their future of solid league players is much clearer as their base starts are far superior to any starts I've had from ANY youth intake so far in this save. Which means the quality of players coming through is improving which is FANTASTIC news! Most of the players that I've seen coming through sign a youth contract and I never see them again until that contract is expiring and I never resign them, but with this lot, there's a future for them.

Mohammed Abdul Azad Karim whilst there's plenty of work needed to improve him, there is a good LB somewhere there.

I don't know the last time I had a solid looking prospect in the CAM position during this save, maybe I've never had 1, it's not a position you'd think of having a young player coming through at, but this might be the must show offy and expressive player in India's history! Meet Amar Khongsit. Now, there's plenty of work to be done, especially on his passing. But 18 flair! 18!

There's no-one else of massive note from our intake, but there's a lovely looking GK who's come through at Goa. Ravi Ahmed is someone to keep an eye out on in the next few years. Could we finally have a challenger to Ayush Ck's throne? Hopefully!

Until next time.

FAKEOUT. 4 STAR CURRENT ABILITY YOUTH INTAKE PLAYER ALERT! This is Chhangte Singh. Now, he has a 'Fickle' personality is sucks. But that's the only bad thing about him.

I NEED to get the right mentors for him, I might have to get in a couple of free agents with high determination and very good personalities to change this young man around but he could be SPECIAL. He could be the next Naveen Wani. He could be better than him. I am very excited. What a gem we could have on our hands. Straight in the first team with you and into my starting 11.

Until next time, for real this time.

TheNayr · January 21

As to be expected, we could not catch Bengaluru toward the end of the season, so the elusive top spot on the table at the end of the season still evades us at Jamshedpur. However, we still had the chance to win the Super League through the play offs at the end the year, which we were not able to do losing to Goa. Which meant the final was between my 2 previous teams, Bengaluru and Goa with the former coming out on top.

Part of the reason why we lost in the semis during the playoffs was because I was resting the full starting 11 including GK due to our Confederation Cup matches against Port which happened to be between the semi play off games and I'd rather win the Confed Cup over winning the league.

And that decision turned out to be totally justified as we were able to beat them and win in the Interzone Playoff Final! Get in there! However, it's been a few years since I've competed in the Confed Cup and I thought this was the main final....it was not. There was 1 more game to play and that was against Wehdat from Jordan. This was a 1 match game, no 2 matches here. We were massively helped by the Final taking place at home....yeah. No travelling for us.

We used it to great effect, winning the Confederation Cup, what a great end to the season! As you'll see, we were the far better team and were unlucky for it to get to ET. We should've won it in the 90 minutes. Instead of going into the Confed Cup again as we finished 2nd in the league, we go into the Champions League! We'll see how we do there!

A nice little boost to the finances, not that we need it as we're sitting very pretty in that department. It says on our facilities page that our stadium which can hold 40,000 but only 24,424 for normal matches which is fine, so I thought we'd get the full 40,000 as the Confed Cup Final isn't a normal match....but apparently it was as the 40,000 wasn't available to us. Such a shame. Then I got this email.

I didn't ask for this, thought about it, but no real need. The board decided to act by themselves and there will be a new stadium, I probably won't be around here for it though. Maybe. We'll see.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 21

A bit of a bard start to begin this post and it's a gripe that I've had many times in this save. Asian Champions League, the preliminary rounds. It's a 1 legged affair and every single time we've been drawn away like we were this time and we lost, like we have every time. But then when we lose, we don't stop into the Confederation Cup. So we're 1 and done for continental football this season. It's terrible.

Just a pretty lackluster performance from us. Oh well, there's always next year!

3 signings have been made this Summer transfer window (I did sign 2 free agents to mentor/tutor our future wonderkid, hopefully haha! No model citizens but hopefully they can improve him from 'Fickle') an emergency backup who I won't show and then 2 foreign players to help our defense,

£64k on a new starting CB in Sim Ji-Yong. A tall CB from South Korea with really good mentals, shame his heading wasn't better but then he'd probably be out of our range if that was the case, but hopefully should be an important player for us.

Next up I paid £51k for a young Czech RB from their 2nd division who has some potential about him and will be our starting RB. Has the chance to become a lot better and sell for a decent profit. This is Filip Alexa.

It leaves us looking like this.

Goalkeepers:

Defenders:

Midfielders:

Strikers:

The footballing boom in India is taking on an even more bigger role. Football is becoming a major sport in India and it's all down to me. Just look at this for the effect of how well we're doing with the national team.

Over 7,000 more season tickets than last season!!! Incredible numbers, and speaking of numbers. Nearly £15.5m from season tickets this year, about £6m more from last year's sales! This is insane numbers, I can't get over it. Our bank balance is looking incredible! I'm just waiting to upgrade our training facilities, they both stand at 'Good' currently, can't wait to improve them again.

With no continental football now, I'll probably get on through toward December where the youth intake preview is released to me.

Until next time.

Edited January 22 by TheNayr

BML · January 22

Good work making obvious improvements to the country, I love stories and saves like this!

In-game, Fickle isn't actually a terrible personality.

@Jimbokav1971 explains way far better than I could in his thread:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/580821-fm24-tulach-bòide-scotland-tier-13/?do=findComment&comment=14288990

"Ambition is guaranteed to be 16-20 and although Det is less than 17 and Pro is less than 18, you can sort of cut off the low levels of both of these ranges because they would fall into another category most of the time if they did.

Fickle is so close to being a "good" personality that in my book it actually is. The label or name or title or whatever it's been given is just a really poor choice. From a Youth Only point of view the Low Loyalty and High Amb is a problem in terms of keeping the player at the club, but from a Youth Development point of view if you can use the MH style to give an insight into his Pro levels, (and you already know the Det), then it;s really quite easy to see what might be a really good personality.

The word "Fickle" is bad.
The personality "Fickle" is good."

Edited January 22 by BML

TheNayr · January 22

2 hours ago, BML said:

Good work making obvious improvements to the country, I love stories and saves like this!

In-game, Fickle isn't actually a terrible personality.

@Jimbokav1971 explains way far better than I could in his thread:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/580821-fm24-tulach-bòide-scotland-tier-13/?do=findComment&comment=14288990

"Ambition is guaranteed to be 16-20 and although Det is less than 17 and Pro is less than 18, you can sort of cut off the low levels of both of these ranges because they would fall into another category most of the time if they did.

Fickle is so close to being a "good" personality that in my book it actually is. The label or name or title or whatever it's been given is just a really poor choice. From a Youth Only point of view the Low Loyalty and High Amb is a problem in terms of keeping the player at the club, but from a Youth Development point of view if you can use the MH style to give an insight into his Pro levels, (and you already know the Det), then it;s really quite easy to see what might be a really good personality.

The word "Fickle" is bad.
The personality "Fickle" is good."

I am loving this save as well, I want to play it all the time. With the progress I've made not only with the national team but seeing the improvements in the actual league as well is making this such an exciting and enjoyable save. I don't see myself stopping anytime in the near future.

Thank you for making that aware to me. He does it is up perfectly in I saw the personality 'Fickle' and immediately thought it was bad and would hinder his growth, but I can now see that hopefully won't be the case. His determination at 11 is a little on the low side, but at least it's double figures. Makes me more optimistic about him going forward though!

TheNayr · January 22

Well here we are on the 1st of January and to be honest, the 1st half of the year has gone near enough perfect as you'll quickly see.

With no continental football to go through, we have absolutely smashed the league so far going unbeaten and playing well. Playing well up to a certain point though as it could've been so much better. We have smashed in 38 goals in 13 league games which is extraordinary. However also conceded 13. I guess I'm being too harsh on the team with how well we're playing and I should lighten up haha!

Youth intake preview has arrived and it doesn't look too promising, but I guess we'll have to wait and actually see if it is ranked good which we've been told it will be.

I won't get too excited about this.

There hasn't been an option to improve the training facilities yet, I'm checking once a week as it's an important thing to upgrade and we have the money to cover it easily. Speaking of money, no news of the new ground yet. It's supposedly going to hold 24,822 which will be 398 more than our current stadium. Continuing to speak of money, the gate receipts are MASSIVELY down from last season. I think due to the large amount of season ticket holders, that's reducing our actual income. Last season we were getting in at least £400k a month profit and a lot of that was from ticket sales, now we're making a loss of around £400k-£500k a month.

We're on 16,358 season ticket holders and the last 3 home games have been: 17,341 (122 away) 17,061 (509 away) and 16,868 (143 away) so that's why we're making a loss each month again, everyone got a season ticket to leave not much room in buying tickets on an actual game day! Still though, the multi millions from season ticket sales in the pre-season will outweigh the losses on the year easily.

India action has been and gone and returning soon as we're back in the hunt for that first elusive World Cup appearance. In the 2nd round qualifying we drew: U.A.E, Oman and Macau (China PR). So far it's gone very easy with as you'd expect with the 2 opening games, 2 wins. If we don't qualify for the next round I'll resign haha.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 22

Youth intake day has been and gone, and it was alright. A couple of decent looking guys, shame 1 of them is a striker as we don't need any more good strikers for club and country for quite a few years as there is a lot of depth there. The quality was decent this time again, even some of the lesser guys look alright and can be squad players in the years to come.

The 2 best players of this intake are promising. We'll start with the striker Amit Das who like most of the top strikers for India is a Pressing Forward. Good mentals and a decent starting stage for his physicals means he'll be a solid player without being spectacular.

The RM Mario Meitei is a solid all round guy who will be knocking on the first team's door in a couple of years of that I have no doubt!

Between the last update and this 1 I was finally able upgrade the facilities yet again which I must've forgotten to take screenshots of, oh well. They're being built at the minute. I might go for 1 more upgrade after these current upgrades and move on to a different team.

This is how the table finished and yes, we slipped up. Luckily the title is chosen by the playoffs otherwise I would've been fuming haha!

We had an AWFUL 4 game stretch out of nowhere where there were 0 injuries or suspensions. We just got really unlucky which was enough for Goa to power on through and take the lead in the table and they never looked back. We actually played them in the final game of the league season where we were winning 1-0 until the 81st minute and we drew, ensuring they finished top of the table.

And we make it through the playoffs! CHAMPIONS! We deserved it as we were fantastic throughout the season other than them 4 games haha!

Utter domination.

Throwing this in because I'm childish.

Another 2 India games, both away.

Both 1-3 victories. Not even breaking a sweat or worried. We have 2 more games to play and we're already qualified into the 3rd round. Beautiful. We're having a great run with the country atm.

We also have our first Indian 'Wonderkid'. Produced at Bengaluru they sold him to Arminia Bielefeld in the Bundesliga for £275k. Sukhjit Marbaniang.

Look at him, he is amazing! The RB spot for the national team is sewn up for the next 11-12 years. I can imagine he'll be moving to a much bigger team in a year or 2 as well.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 24

We are into the next season and there has been a great update, After a year of looking for the new area for the stadium, the board has found one. Jamshedpur will have a new stadium in 2 years, I very much doubt I will be here to see it!

Really, really happy with the cost. ONLY £7.5 million for a brand new near 26k seater stadium?! Mental, though I am not complaining. I mean, we already offset that with season ticket sales haha!

We have a couple of new additions as we lost a couple of foreign players meaning we get to bring a couple more and 1 of them is an absolute star from Paraguay meet Edgar Gonzalez! To make him even better, he cost nothing to sign, beautiful. He was just sitting there attached to no club.

Okay, so he's no Ballon d'Or winner, but a player of his quality would not have joined this league at the start of the game (If he was a real person!) Decent mentals and a very good passer of the ball, I'm expecting big things from him in this league.

I only had 1 recognised, natural CB in the 1st team so that was a priority. Also being in this country, a lack of size is apparent, it's just the way it goes. So I wanted a bit of a monster at CB and I found a guy lurking in Syria. 6'6 with very good mentals and obviously very good jumping reach, this is Ayham Kurdaghli.

He hopefully should help us win at most set pieces, very happy to bring him in. He cost £5k and that's probably the best £5k spent on a player on any FM to be honest.

The last guy I got, who is another bargain if I do say so myself is Seidu Owusu from Bechem United in Ghana for £15,25k, extremely cheap for a player of his caliber. Young, with room to grow he could develop into a nifty little player.

Still not been able to upgrade the training facilities yet, they both remain on 'Great' which is obviously amazing and the best facilities in the entire country. Just 1 more upgrade and I'll look to move on.

Speaking of moving on, India. There's not much to say.

Oh, except a 10-0 drubbing of Oman at home, I couldn't believe my eyes haha! What an incredible result! 25 shots on target!!! It could've been so much worse for them!

And we wrapped up the 2nd round beating U.A.E again to go for 6/6. Truly incredible. What a time to be a fan of Indian football!

Now here's the real test. A very hard group to get out of. It's got to be playoff minimum here though I am aiming for straight qualification into the World Cup. Our 1st 2 games are against Thailand (H) and Australia (A) I am very excited and can't wait to get into them.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 24

The first half of the season has been NEARLY perfect. So very nearly haha.

Winning every single game bar 1, and even then. We dominated but didn't take all our chances, Goa did the blighters! Which leaves both tables looking like this.

Speaking of Goa it looks like it's going to be between us again, much like last year. In the Confederation Cup it's been utter demolition like you'd expect, even with our 2nd team playing every game.

Mumbai had a surprising loss, but come out of the group and we'll face them in the next round which I'd imagine we'll win the 2 legged tie.

So I was able to get in the next upgrade to our men's training facilities, but not the option for youth facilities which is annoying. But, can't do it if they don't let me!

The reason why I dropped in now was because the youth intake preview dropped, so here it is. Supposedly, meant to be 'Excellent' but we'll have to see!

We were in the 3rd round of World Cup qualifying with a tough looking group. I was confident, was I right to be confident?

You f****** bet your ass I was right to be confident. LOOK AT THAT! LOOK AT IT! I am so happy and proud. Whilst qualification isn't secure and we've got 4 games to go. It's looking very, very promising for us.

We could be on our way to South Africa for the 2038 World Cup.

And lastly, that impressive RB for India who was labelled a 'Wonderkid' in Sukhjit Marbaniang did get his move away from Arminia Bielefeld. He was wanted by about 20 teams as he had a £12.25m release clause in his contract. He chose Liverpool and is starting regularly for them, he joins Wani as being Indian and starting regularly in the Premiership, beautiful. Being the 2 best players for the national team, starting a lot in the best league in the World is brilliant.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 26

I'll start off with the youth intake which means it was either very good or not good at all......it was neither haha. It was just average, not a single 'Elite' talent but a couple of decent players.

Some solid players, but no-one worth showing you. Disappointing but oh well. Can't expect incredible players every year from the intake.

The rest of the season was a very close run thing as predicted between us and Goa. This is how the table finished.

Winning by just a point proving how close it was between us! However, we have made sure we're playing in the group stages of the Champions League next year, which means I will stick around for 1 more year as we've only competed in that competition on 1 occasion with Jamshedpur and we got knocked out in the crappy 1 legged tie away a couple of years ago. So now we're going to be in in it for real, I'd like to attempt that with this team I've assembled. A quick word on the Champions League. Except for when I've competed in it, every team from India has been knocked out in the group stages with only 1/2 wins. It's been a really poor showing from the AI and we have tumbled down the co-efficient table. So I want to compete in it again and do my best.

Now though, we need to get through the playoffs and defend our Crown!

And we got through the Semi against Mumbai and now face Goa in the Final to see who will be Champion of India! They are turning into a bit of a rival! Make that 2 Finals actually as after beating Mumbai we continued winning in the Confed Cup and are in the final against Navbahor of Uzbekistan. Unfortunately, they've been drawn as the home team, so the Final will be played at their ground, but I guess I can't complain as the Confed Cup that we won 2 years ago, we were at home for the final.

Let's get our hands on these 2 trophies again!

Or we could get humbled and lose in both Finals...hmmm. That wasn't meant to happen. I'd have thought at least 1 and actually more than likely to win both. Sad way to end the season...

We played another couple of games in the World Cup Qualys and they went like this:

Yes baby, come on!

We are SO SO SO SUPER close to getting to the World Cup. We have Japan (A) and Bahrain (H) left in that order. You'd like to think if we mess up the 1st game, the 2nd game at home to a team who have lost 8/8 is a game we should win. We basically have all but secured passage through to the sacred lands. We are 99% through to the World Cup. IT'S NEARLY DONE! As we continue to not lose and put up some good performances, we continue to rise up the rankings too.

Until next time.

TheNayr · January 26

The challenge of this save was to get India to the World Cup.

AND IT HAS HAPPENED! WE ARE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP. GET THE **** IN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Undefeated throughout all of qualifying. We are 1 of the best teams in Asia. I have changed this country from not caring about football into a good footballing nation. This is the best achievement I've ever had on ANY Football Manager game.

Now the aim of this save is to win the World Cup right?????????????

Until next time.

Carambau · January 26

YAY!!! Congratulations!! Can´t wait to see India there

TheNayr · January 26

32 minutes ago, Carambau said:

YAY!!! Congratulations!! Can´t wait to see India there

Thank you! It took some time, but it was worth it. Now I can't wait to get through the game and take part in the WC. What a time to be alive!

TheNayr · January 27

Here we go then into our final season here at Jamshedpur and we're kicking off with a bang, selling the most season tickets so far in our history, in the final season at our stadium.

Which leaves the finances in very, very good state.

And because I haven't actually shown it yet, here's the current stadium. Although it won't be for much longer, the last year using this.

Bloody running track, I hate running track stadiums! Also because I never did, here's Goa's from our time there.

Despite my assman thinking that they're of the same ability, I rate Jonathan Dev clearly in front of D'Silva and he will remain #1 for this season and even after I'm gone I'd imagine. Speaking of my assman, here he is. I hope to take him with me to my next club.

The defence of our team is probably the weakest unit but they are dependable and solid players led by the incredible Czech RB Filip Alexa who I've just got to agree to a new contract keeping him for 4 years here.

Our midfield is a good unit including new signing Sushil Saha who was a free agent from Kerala. He's solid and will see plenty of time on the pitch.

Then our attacking unit is very strong and has been the cornerstone of our performances in the last couple of years to become the best team in the nation. Another new signing in Balwinder Singh who was a free agent for nearly a year before I decided to bring him in, despite only playing a 1 striker formation. He was too good to be not playing football.

The star boy though is clearly Chhangte Singh. He's finally attracting some attention from much bigger clubs and RB Leipzig have put in about 5 bids for him throughout the Summer. Laughable, terrible bids. Since we're so healthy financial wise, I don't need to sell him and he still has just under 3 years left on his youth contract. In his 1st year he scored 24 goals and 32 games and last year he scored 42 in 37. This guy is destined to play in Europe.

And he has developed nicely. Still plenty of room for improvement though. Despite his young age, he's a star player for us at club and country.

Our excellent training facilities will help him improve. Still haven't had the option to improve the youth facilities though, I keep checking and they are still stuck on great, which isn't exactly poor by any means!

Until next time.

Carambau · January 29

Chhangte Singh what a player at 17!!! He is your key to India success

TheNayr · January 30

On 29/01/2024 at 07:52, Carambau said:

Chhangte Singh what a player at 17!!! He is your key to India success

If you got him at an intake at Arsenal for example you'd be happy. He could end up being even better than Wani which is stupid to think about. He doesn't want to sign a new deal which is understandable. As it's my last season with Jamshedpur I'm going to try and sell him. I know I could get a better deal from a big team than the AI could get.

I'd love to know what his PA is, might have to buy the editor and check.

TheNayr · January 30

It's been a pretty good 1st half of the year for us here at Jamshedpur and because it's just popped into my inbox, here's the youth intake preview.

It doesn't look too promising, but I can hope they'll be a little gem in there somewhere. Hopefully a GK but the report doesn't seem to think so!

Got another upgrade to the men's training facilities which is awesome!

Still nothing on the youth side, which is a shame. There's not even been an option to upgrade it.

We are playing in the Champions League for the 1st time proper with Jamshedpur and this was the group drawn to us.

All 3 of these teams have more money then us, the spend more on wages than us so it was always going to be difficult. That's why the AI controlling the Indian teams that played in the Champions League went out in the group stages EVERY year with only 1 win, 2 if they got lucky.

But I'm not the AI am I?

Look how tight that group was! I was very worried after the 1st 3 games considering how poor we played. Although in the opening game we were 3-0 up at home and ended up conceding a goal in the 83rd minute and 90th minute for a proper kick in the teeth! I didn't know what to expect but I am very happy to come out on top. We move on and secure ourself a 2nd round tie against Al-Faisaly from Saudi Arabia though it's not for another couple of months. The high crowds for all 3 games is great and have broken our gate receipts record in the back to back home games against Al-Gharafa and Al-Nassr.

The league has been an alright start, a lot of using a completely 2nd 11 to help with managing fitness around the Champs League matches.

Leaving the table like this.

However, the main reason I have dropped in is because of this:

I'm pretty sure this is my 1st EVER World Cup draw in any FM game.

Group A

South Africa Belgium

Group B

Argentina Czech Republic

Group C

Mexico Denmark

Group D

Holland Egypt

Group E

England Tunisia

Group F

Germany Jamaica

Group G

Cameroon Austria

Group H

France Ghana

Group I

Morocco Serbia

Group J

Portugal Colombia

Group K

Turkey Costa Rica

Group L

Senegal Canada

Group M

Spain Australia

Group N

U.S.A South Korea

Group O

Brazil Ireland

Group P

Italy Saudi Arabia

Well. There's a couple of groups to avoid there, namely B with Argentina and the Czech Republic (Who won the World Cup in 2026 in this universe) Group D with Holland and Egypt. I'd like to avoid Portugal and Colombia too in Group J. I personally think Group I with Morocco and Serbia might not be too bad. Let's get into it.

World Champions and World ranked #2 Brazil.....Well. 'To be the man, you've gotta beat the man'. Ireland and also ranked 23rd. I am not even mad about drawing Brazil, bring them on!!!!!

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