I tried something new this game cycle and set out to become known for leading teams to promotion. My goal was 10 promotions, and I nailed it after 21 seasons. I won eight titles – two of them in EFL’s League One – and failed to get promoted with three teams. I won four Cups and managed in 11 countries. I was Coach of the Year four times.
The rules were very simple - once you get a team promoted, you have to leave and find a new team in a lower division. A few years in, I chose to apply for jobs rather than resigning but would have resigned if the new season had kicked off before I found a new job. I saw some comments in early interviews about resigning a lot so I stopped in order to keep that from being a hindrance to getting a job. It took a while, but I did see teams looking to interview me because I had experience getting teams promoted.
I did generally have a rule that I would not look to leave until three seasons and would definitely leave after 5, but I rarely stuck around long enough to have that come into play. I only considered staying for back-to-back promotions once or twice, but the point was to be a journeyman kind of save so I never really entertained the thought.
You can read my final blog post on the challenge at https://brianshea.org/2023/10/01/fm23-finnished-the-challenge/. There are other posts at https://brianshea.org/category/fm23/. I was doing YouTube content earlier, but that is all private now as I re-brand my YouTube channel.