Jogo Bonito

19th June, 2023 - Welcome to Geneva Geneva, Switzerland is home of the world famous Lake Geneva and offers various mountain views in the distance The city is also European HQ of the United Nations, HQ of the Red Cross (formed in Geneva) and the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed It is also the home of Servette FC, formed in 1890 (although the football section was created in January 1900) Servette has won the Swiss top flight 17 times, but the last of those came in 1999 The 2023/24 season will be the 25th anniversary of that triumph, and in the period since that success they have suffered many troubling times The club was relegated to the third division in 2004/05 due to a bankruptcy, and then bounced between the top two leagues from 2006 to 2019 After several seasons back in the top tier, they finished 2nd in the Swiss Super League in 2002/23 - their best performance of this millennium Swiss Super League 2023/24 The 2023/24 season sees the club predicted to finish 2nd again in the Credit Suisse Super League They will also be competing in the UEFA Champions League (starting at the 2nd Qualifying Round stage in late July) Club Facilities

Wow, that is a great run of form. It gives you a chance to catch Barca, but they look to be very strong too. Best of luck in the challenge ahead.

Good luck with The Magpies. I managed them for a few months on the first full release version of FM24 and McGoldrick & Langstaff were scoring a ratio of 1:1. But on that version the opposition were scoring with ease too, and despite great results it affected my enjoyment to see such high scores every week. Starting there a few years later after your time with Oldham gives a fresh approach, and hopefully after surviving your relegation battle, you can enjoy better times starting from this new season.

Tough reading, but with a cool head you must remember that this season was all about trying to survive. Results are obviously a bit depressing, but you're not under-performing. I'd be very impressed if you stick it out, especially given the lack of pay and financial difficulties of the club. But a more defensive formation might work, slowly and steadily. I've had great success on FM23 and FM24 with a 5122 formation, a flat back five, defensive midfielder, two central midfielders, and two strikers. It's main purpose was to be solid defensively, but has also been quite fruitful in attack.

Great progress here mate, hard to see anybody catching you already. Good transfer business by the look of it, too.

Season 2023/24 - Part 2 After the mid-season break, the challenge set was to see if Heidenheim could maintain their positive form and stable league position After losing the first game back in January, two solid victories saw out the month in positive fashion February was tougher, with only one win from four league games, and an exit from the DFB-Pokal March again saw the struggles continue, and only one win - although it achieved 'the double' over relegation zone occupants VfB Stuttgart The inability to win at home stretched to seven matches by the end of April, but a draw at bottom side Darmstadt did secure Bundesliga status At the start of the season, this was the only mission objective, so to do it with three matches to spare was a satisfying accomplishment But the form in 2024 had been mediocre at best, so with safety assured it was time to try something different in May Switching to 442 with two orthodox wingers looked like a eureka moment when comfortably beating FSV Mainz (their 3rd was a 93rd minute penalty) This formation was toned down to 451 for the trip to Freiburg, where a good point was earned And for the final fixture, the 451 was maintained and good enough to edge past mid-table FC Koln The final league table is as below, and thanks to a final day swing the team had pushed from 10th to 8th The season-high ranking was 7th, and after the early results keeping us 17th-18th, most of the season had been spent around 10th or 11th So whilst 8th did slightly flatter us, it had been an impressive season and we passed our test with a degree of comfort Bayern held off Dortmund and RB Leipzig to claim the title, long-time leaders Mainz came 4th, and Stuttgart recovered late to survive Augsburg overcame Hamburg in the relegation/promotion play-off to preserve their top-flight status The club was around 15 million Euros in debt by the end of season, but the below competition money erased that and boosted the bank balance nicely The performance graph below shows two main phases, the early season struggles and then from the end of year onward, mid-table stability The financial graph dipped on a monthly basis until that cash boost in May The key player stats and team stats also give an overview of the performance Here are the player stats across all competitions Tim Kleindienst was always leading scorer, but after 10 goals in his first 20 games he might have hoped for more than 14 in 36 by the close The other 'star' player Jan-Niklas Beste flourished when moving to left midfield instead of wing-back, so his returns were probably kept low by the main role he was given The board set the budgets for next season, which is considerably better than 2 million Euros in 2023/24 The club reputation will probably still limit the recruitment to loans and low-key cheap signings (like Elijah Krahn, who joined in January for 125,000 Euros) But the answer to the topic title can now be addressed, best summed up by the banner the club could continue using in 2024/25 Yes, FC Heidenheim can survive in the Bundesliga! And the man that deserves to continue smiling about this outcome is not Thomas Schmidt, it's this man... This was a one-season challenge to see if this could be achieved, and to see if my FM24 experience could be enjoyed The answer to both questions is, Yes! With no evidence of the goal-crazy curse of the early access and first full release, this played beautifully in terms of the match engine With my faith restored, I am now looking to a more long-term destination, either in England or Europe Thanks to anyone who read or commented, see you all again soon...

Good form there, well positioned to challenge (most of) the top clubs. Enjoy your days at sea!

I cannot believe you dropped a point already Great start - strong defensively and plenty of goals (especially from Vipotnik). I've just ordered you a crate of vintage Bordeaux wine and champagne for delivery in May...virtually ordered only, unfortunately

Nice write up! Not a bad season there really, and I think you'll be right up there this year. Strong competition from the top two will probably remain, but with tactical nous you can definitely bridge the gap or surpass them.

Thanks mate. I had no intention of using the successful 5122 but results weren't encouraging and it was the 3rd or 4th derivative I tried. It seemed to work, at least then... Thanks mate. End of season summary to follow soon. Thanks very much. That's interesting on the staff. I try to keep it realistic, look at the previous clubs they worked for, check they hadn't been out of a job for like 10 years etc. Thanks for the kind words. Well it worked better than when I tried to soak up pressure and counter-attack at the start. The idea was that two strikers could press high, the midfield would start fairly deep but be able to fill some gaps ahead of them, and then the back six would keep a zone that would make it harder for the opposition to slice through. With most of the attacking support coming from the full-back positions, I hoped the 'cross early' might mean they could put the ball in the box when they got in to a half-decent position and see what the strikers could finish. I tend to use low crosses in most versions so just kept my preference for that. Was not noticing a big issue with large gaps, although would in no way pretend that this wasn't happening! We are a very limited team in terms of ability so whatever we went with was going to throw up some problems - it was just a case of trying to find a formula where the lack of quality could be overcome on occasions. Will add some more comments on the shape when doing the end-of-season summary.

A decent start to the season, and I'm loving your new veteran Chilean scout!

A good solid start to the new season, enough to suggest you'll be 'in contention' near the top end again.

Season 2023/24 - Friendlies The first tactical shape was a 4141 as the club would face stronger opponents every week in the Bundesliga and needed to be prepared for this The set of results below were better than expected, and gave confidence ahead of the new campaign Season 2023/24 - Part 1 That confidence was buoyed by a comfortable DFB-Pokal First Round win and an away draw with VfL Wolfsburg where the hosts had to come back from behind But after that, things didn't go well and by the end of September a 3rd or 4th formation 5122 was being trialled to remedy matters The new and current tactic which has been used since near the end of September The new formation wasn't always smooth at the start, but soon began to gel with the players In fact, the only losses in recent times were 1-0 at Bayern Munich (a heartbreaking 87th minute penalty by Harry Kane) and a narrow 2-1 loss at then-leaders FSV Mainz Amazingly, the club is also still in the DFB-Pokal, although this really doesn't come high on the list of priorities for Thomas this year The winter break came now and after 16 of 34 league matches, here is the status of the club As you can see, the early parts of the season were worrying - hovering in 17th and 18th for quite a number of weeks and wondering where a win may come from To be 10th of 18 clubs at this point now is incredible, and whilst this does not mean relegation will be avoided, it gives Thomas every hope that he can achieve his goal With the financial position not looking great, a few very low-key (and cost) signings have been made for January - more on those will follow when the window closes Significant improvements have also been made on the staff front during the season, with good quality added as shown below The staff moved out were loyal servants and in real life did not deserve to be culled, but sadly their attributes did not meet the new club or league standards

FC Heidenheim squad - 2023/24 Below is the squad assembled for the first part of the season - there were just two new signings made here by Thomas The most important of these was central midfielder Tsiy-William Ndenge (500,000 Euros from Grasshoppers in Switzerland) who arrived on 24th July And versatile full-back Nicolas Oliveira was added (season-long loan from Hamburg SV) on 1st August just for extra cover as 3rd choice for both roles The only departure under Thomas was midfielder Dennis Thomalla who was allowed to join Fortuna Dusseldorf for 550,000 Euros on 25th July The two star men are striker Tim Kleindienst (25 league goals from 32 league appearances last season) and Jan-Niklas Beste (12 goals and 12 assists last year) The club expectations are outlined below - there is just one aim: attempt to avoid relegation

This is my first FM save that I have made any progress on after trying with Southampton in the early release version and Notts County in the original full release (let us call that the goal-crazy full release version) both only got as far as October 2023. I made my kits for both and tried really hard (results were good, enjoyment was not). The plan in Germany was and is to manage VfB Stuttgart again as they were great fun in FM23 and they are a joy to watch in the current Bundesliga season. And also there are several EFL teams (or levels below) that I would like to give time to in the near future. And quite a few clubs in other countries (mainly Europe). Actually I tried AIK in Sweden too, but again it didn't get too far. But I digress.... First, I needed a challenge - possibly just one season - to get in to this version and see if my early experiences of FM24 can be forgotten with the game being significantly improved now. On that front, so far so good.

FC Heidenheim - 'Die Heiden' Last season 1. Fussball Club Heidenheim 1846 secured their first ever promotion to the German top flight Despite the full name, this incarnation of the club began in 2007 The original 1846 reference doesn't actually even belong to their first football club, which first appeared in 1910 The below link tells a great story of their history & rise through the pyramid - done without corporate cash backing unlike some others https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/who-are-heidenheim-promotion-frank-schmidt-11872 And here is the club history summary from in-game - the upward trajectory is really impressive and the significant trophies are all recent The Set-Up The man at the helm since 2007 is Heidenheim-born manager Frank Schmidt, a club legend in every sense of the word Frank obviously does not deserve to be sacked, not now and probably never The pre-game editor was used to put Frank in as Assistant Manager (contract also extended until 2029 on the same pay) In this virtual world, we are going to say that Frank had achieved the unthinkable and wanted slightly less pressure on his shoulders And he seems happy enough about it The club already had two Assistant Managers in FM24, so one (Dieter Jarosch) will now put his sadly poor attributes to use with the U19 squad The Stadium The Voith Arena capacity is small at 15,000 (6,000 seated) and even this season there are only 9,000 Season Ticket Holders The New Manager & Club Profile Enter Thomas Schmidt, no relation to Frank and a native of Stuttgart A new season also means new kits, as shown in the welcome above and in the club profile below Thomas himself has gone for a more casual look, in keeping with the style of modern German managers who don't like suits

Nice pre-season review and good to see you kept hold off both Duro and Barco. I never got a new stadium when managing Valencia, although it's been in the pipeline for what seems like 100 years. Hopefully that will inspire your boys to even better levels of performance. Good luck!

Haha, well I like the addition of 'the agent' to your story. Let us see if she can play a positive role in your future.

Good luck for the new season. The friendlies aren't always a true sign of what lays ahead - but they went well, and I'm expecting you to have another excellent campaign here!

Shaping up well for the new season. I honestly don't think they're going to offer you a salary. Maybe if you stay up, or maybe if you get promoted again?

A big sum for Wahi, well done indeed. Hopefully the redistribution of proceeds across the squad will make you a stronger force.

Going very well, I like how your squad is looking here too.

Nice squad review, although somewhat lacking in the DM area of course I'm sure you'll find somebody suitable. There are lots of talents already there in France, and always plenty of African players willing to head to Europe. Vipotnik should score goals, and you have decent support for him in attack too, which is promising. The board seem to be expecting plenty, but you're the king of first season success

Thanks @Stuniverse I really appreciate your thoughts. I was also beginning to think that setting it as a repayable loan might be the best way to make club fight the debt in the way they deserve. I think you are probably right that this would be better than just having it as a Supporters Trust debt that just sits there for ever. I also ticked the box to prevent outside takeovers, so that should stop the club ever being bought by a rich investor that just 'magically' clears the debt. I won't be there for a 20-year career, but at least that way it won't change unrealistically during my reign with The Royals!

Indeed. My own club has probably the worst current owner around, and the only likely sale is going to be to such a group. Out of the frying pan and in to the fire springs to mind, but if you're such a shambles you have to just hope to survive even if you know the new owners have no love for the club in question. Looking forward to seeing what you can do in the vineyards of Bordeaux!