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The Save. I don't want to spend so much time on this part as to not bore the reader. However, I have to detail the main aspects of this save. This save is heavily inspired by the careers of one of my favorite managers in football, Jose Mourinho. I have always enjoyed him both because of the teams he managed, the way he managed, and just the attitude he brought to the game of football. It was mesmerizing to me when I was first getting into the history of football. His Champions League run with Porto especially is one I will always adore. This save has also been inspired by a few of the amazing careers on this website I have enjoyed reading, especially for a more tactical/data/deeper dive into what Football Manager can offer in terms of playing it. Specifically, @Shrewnaldo, @_Ben_, and @MattyLewis11 have been huge inspirations thanks to their awesome saves. Lastly, I would like to thank @GIMN for both his amazing FM Oneshot youtube series (which have been absolute joys to watch) and for the incredible Mustermann skin that I will be using for the duration of the save and which you can find here: The main goal of the save is simple. Start our career in Portugal/Brazil and work our way up the ranks until we hit a top job opportunity in the world of football. Then, we try to win titles and the Champions League. I plan on doing a few posts per season going over how we are doing in the league campaign as well as recruiting philosophy and trying to work around problems I face in the save. If that sounds good, please consider sticking around with this blog! The Job. It's weird. You don't usually expect to get a high-tier job immediately. 34-year-old Celso Villalobos was a man completely new to the managing world. He had played around the lower divisions of Portuguese football and retired at 30, focusing on working his football badges and using the funds he obtained from his career to work up to a UEFA Pro License. He did this not because of the money but because he loved football and idolized the iconic manager Jose Mourinho. But as soon as the new season emerged, he entered the job market. And that same manager is me. F/Z. The writer. From now on, I'll be talking in first person as if I am Celso Villalobos, to make it easier for all of us. June through October were cold months. Clubs in Portugal didn't have many openings and in Brazil, where my Portuguese would be fluent enough for the players to understand, no club was willing to bite. During this time, when discussing the thought of potentially joining first-tier side Moreirense in an interview should they sack their manager, I was laughed at. November was looking to be another bad month. It wasn't until the 28th of November that CD Feirense offered me an interview. And, this was a realistic job for where I was standing. The club was down in the relegation places in the 2nd division and it would be a good starting point to manage. And after the interview, I was preparing myself to join Feirense. Ever since I put in an offer for the side, I was confident that he could lead the struggling side to survival and that's where my feet would land... ...but fate had other plans. Ok. Why are we talking about Famalicao? Didn't you just say that Moreirense laughed at you for even suggesting you wanted to manage them? They're a side that just got promoted! Well yes. Moreirense are a newly promoted side and the fans also laughed at me when I even suggested the possibility of joining their club. But there is one main difference between Moreirense and Famalicao. One is a club that knows they are fighting off relegation. One that can prepare and have trust in the manager who has been manning the ship to steer them into survival (which they are currently doing, just avoiding the playoffs). The other is Famalicao. They are a team who are very comfortable in those mid/top half places of the league. Despite being very new to the system (joining in 19/20), the club has enjoyed comfortable 6th to 9th places each year. That was until this season. By the time that I was interviewed, they were in 15th. But that wasn't the only thing wrong. The club was more than £2m in debt and had a transfer budget in red. I had been proposed a big fat £0 p/w in wages. Lovely. I knew they had fairly rich owners, but should I take the job it would be rude to ask for a lifeline immediately. So I had two choices. I could go to Feirense. I'd have a pretty lax career path with the only goal being to survive relegation. It would start me off with a good league to learn how the Portuguese leagues work and I could improve my resume over a few years and move to a slightly bigger club in the top leagues. The only problem was I'd have to wait a few years to get that big opportunity should I not be able to promote Feirense. I'd have a decent budget to make moves around January time and could start the club culture I would want to build early. And then there's Famalicao. A team with virtually no budget and very high expectations for a club fighting off the other teams who would come for the throat and any chance of survival. A club that would put my first job as one in the top tier. From a player who had rarely played in that type of league in his career. Straight to managing his squad to play against the best sides Portugal has to offer. And I had no wiggle room to make signings if I didn't want to fire-sell some of my players off. And a part of me felt it wasn't realistic. Did I deserve this as my first job? If Feirense was like a safe investment at a bank that would slightly grow over the next few years, Famalicao was like betting every last pound you had saved on yourself going up against an insanely tough challenge and saying that you'd just win. But, sometimes, you just have to take your chances and run with them. Say that you'd win and win. So ultimately, the choice was obvious. Welcome to Famalicão.

just read the last post and. wow. stuff like this makes me want to open up FM24 and get completely immersed in all the statistical possibilities of the game.

Building a Nation save with Honved? Hungary is probably one of my favorite leagues in FM and Honved in particular has always been good. Surprised they got relegated, Will follow this!

The save got corrupted and I didn't have a backup. Negatives: I went semi-far enough to where restarting doesn't feel right. I had to can the Season 1 write-up I was in the process of Feel a bit cheated doing the design work only for it to go nowhere Positives: The experience taught me how to write on this website and what I want my style to be like. I feel more comfortable. Lots of people I follow and enjoy are doing Building a Nation saves (non-top 7 league saves) and I have been jealous/anxious to do a save like them. The idea has always excited me (especially because I love watching Second Yellow Card). I have also been excited to start a more stat's driven save and philosophy when playing which I don't think I could properly execute at Huesca This allows me to do YouTube Yearly Recap videos in a comedic manner whilst still blogging about the strategical parts here. I'm really excited for the YouTube part and it should bring me a bit of money I think the positives outweigh the negatives on this one. Expect a true F/Z story soon (as in today or tomorrow) with YouTube involvement. This was like the test-run, let's make magic happen now. I'm sorry to the few people who followed this but at the same I time I think the Simeone tactic write-up was still fun, even if this wasn't the right part of the forum for it. NEW SAVE AND THREAD COMING SOON!!

Decided to just get rid of the unneeded introduction altogether and add a table of contents and record book at the start instead! If you like stories in blogs this might not be the blog for you. If you like tactical and statistical analysis, then you should join me on this trip! The next update is today or tomorrow!

Introduction to Tactical Overview Alright, let's talk a bit about what I want this team to look like. When starting this save, I was inspired by Diego Simeone and how his system works at Atletico Madrid. The problem is, I was never really good at creating tactics. Usually, I would download my tactics or let FM do the work for me. This save would be different. I was finally going to study a bit about tactics and try to replicate my findings on Football Manager. Thankfully, my job was made a bit easier because of a great write-up by @GCVS00 on Simone Inzaghi's 3-5-2 at Inter which shares many similarities to Simeone's 3-5-2 at Atletico Madrid. The Heart of the System Our forwards are like the brain. Roles can be easily changed depending on what type of player I have in my squad and can be messed around without causing chaos. On the other hand, our midfielders and defenders are like the skeleton. With one change every part of our team may be jeopardized. The starting formation has two wing-backs covering 3 defenders while our midfield trio is stationed right above them. This part of the formation aims to provide a sturdy wall against our opponents' attack. But what about when the supporting wing back pushes upward? Well, that's when the shape changes! The other winger will look to stay back with their defensive counterparts while the wide center-back slots in for the lost wingback. The mezzala will gain space on the right as almost a pseudo-winger creating a 4-4-2. The Instructions As for the instructions, I wanted to keep it fairly simple. The most obvious instruction is the mid-block, a fundamental piece of Simeone's 3-5-2. I should note that a low-block is also used commonly in real life and I might test it out during a few games to see if it makes any noticeable changes to my gameplan. Other than that, I made sure my team was playing at a high intensity, running at the defense and being on the counter whether possession had been won or lost. I also want our play to start through the defense, as that is the part of the pitch I am prioritizing with this system. Speaking of the defense, I'm aiming for lower-scoring games with fewer goals conceded. While a system like the gengenpress is beautiful attacking-wise, it does not have nearly as much defense structure. In short, I am looking for low-scoring high intestity wins, not goals galore.

Made some errors when typing this out because I was super tired, should be fixed now! I'm also not the best at storytelling at times, so my writing might seem a bit weird with that element as I wasn't sure what to put at that part. I'll be mostly talking in the first person now, the narrator style doesn't fit the type of blogging I want to do except for story instances. Anyway, I'm going through the squad and I'll post a write up later today about it. Stay tuned!

Record Book Career Accomplishments To be determined... End-of-Season Placement To be determined... Player of the Year To be determined... Top Signings To be determined... _______________________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents Season One Tactical Overview