Timetxu

May the gods have mercy on your soul..

Please don't tell me you intend to stay managing in this league. Is there really no team in the Primera División who wants you after all those championships?

Oh Argentina and your ridiculous league structures.

It's actually not an FM bug or something like that. I believe UEFA have an official policy that new members have to go through a provisional phase in which they only have 2 spots. After a couple of years, they can get more. I reckon that in one or two years, UEFA will increase the amount of spots for Kosovo. But as they haven't in real life, FM hasn't increased the spots either.

Yassss, Argentina is crawling closer! So curious how that adventure will play out Btw, I'm still amazed by the amount of rubbish teams you have to take over, given that you've already won 7 leagues. I mean, a second tier Antiguan team? That's harsh.

16. SEPTEMBER 2018 "He just told us he had faith in us. I think he saw we played pretty well up until half time and he managed to make us believe we were dominating the game until then. You saw that in the second half." The kid, tall and slim and with a pronounced hispanic accent answered to the cameras following UTEP's win over Colorado. Josue Molano, UTEP's central defender came off another decent game. Nothing flashy, but the job got well done. Especially after the dramatic result up in Ohio. Where UTEP had completely outdone themselves from UCLA a week prior, the team seemed toothless in front of goal. Even though they managed to show an equal amount of danger from their possession as their hosts Toledo, the game ended in a hard loss. The heavy loss had stripped the Miners from their ranked position. It didn't happen often that a team would drop from #3 all the way out of the top 25, but the season was still young and so the rankings at times erratic. Returning in El Paso, the shift moved to the next home game, against the University of Colorado. Another ranked team from the Pac-12. However, just like the UCLA game, El Paso seemed an impossible fortress for the visitors from the Far West. Even though UTEP was trailing before half time, they had been the better team up until then. Ferguson's half time speech tried to stress that results against them had been pure bad luck and his players' class still showed. The result spoke for itself. And so, midway through September, the Miners were 3-1 for the season and back into the #12 seed. Three more non-conference games to impress the polls and to pick up some momentum until the shift moved to the conference itself.

15. SEPTEMBER 2018 "Coach, I think it's time to call your mom." "Why's that?" Tim responded to Joe. "Well, I just found out you guys are the number 3 seed this week. And you're facing Toledo, who are number 19, so that one's definitely going to be on the TV." "Geez, guess we got the writers on our side pretty easily huh?" "That's what you get for beating the #12. I'll see if I can drop by when you guys come back home. Talk to you later." Tim put his phone down. His office had become nicely furbished by now. He had been here for a month and half but already it seemed as though he'd never leave. Just a couple of days ago, UTEP faced big shot UCLA in their second non-conference game. Don't ask Tim what happened, but it was a gallery perfomance from start to end by the Miners. A 5-1 final score wasn't even undeserved. Everything clicked. The team was having a huge amount of fun. And so, UTEP had stormed the polls. The polls, a true American invention used to subjectively rank college teams because the myriad of different conferences prevents the human brain of comprehending true strength among the teams. Tim didn't really take the polls too much into account. The only thing they're good for is to decide for which bowl game the Miners could possibly get invited at the end of the tournament. As long as they were a DII team, being ranked didn't mean a lot of fame or cash yet. Nevertheless, a #19 Toledo vs #3 UTEP matchup next week. Season had just begun, but the Miners managed to make a good showing.

A MarcxD thread? Sign me up!

14. AUGUST 2018 "Come on, let's go!!" "Wooo! Hell yeah!" Loud cheers and celebratory profanities filled the locker room at the SDCCU Stadium. At least, in the UTEP part. A last second winner by right winger Robert Ahmetovic had sealed victory for the Miners in the first game of the new season. In an even game, UTEP had managed to equalize just before half time after trailing 1-0 early. Tim didn't want to make the Cincinnati mistake again and continued to lead the guys forward. This worked, because a 70 minute counter attack goal looked to be the winner for El Paso. Unfortunately, some sloppy defending led to an equaliser on the 90th minute. Timothy was already preparing for over time (yes, every game needs a winner in American sports). The guys were having none of it. Ahmetovic, towered over the San Diego State defense making Tim confuse him with one of his central defenders. A thunderbolt struck the top left corner and sent all of UTEP into a bonanza. A great win on a better team. That sure must've sparked the attention of the polls. "Holy shitballs guys, that was an epic one"! A euforic eruption raised among the group. Some snuck in lite beers were the victims of celebration before a shower was touched. This was a huge win for Ferguson's team. --- Half an hour later, ears still humming from the noise, Tim did his obligatory "we faced a great team today" speech at the press conference. Before walking out, Tim was halted by Diana Natalicio. "Coach, just wanted to say: great win. We were going crazy up in the boxes." "I think we all were, Ms. Natalicio." "I know you've been asking for this for a while, but, I think you're having a great impact on the guys and I think we should reward you for it." "I...I'm getting a Lambo?" "Nice try, coach. I was talking about the upgrade."

They're a DI-AA team (one level above us), so we won't face them unless we meet in some of the spring tournaments, but I'll definitely try when we get there Are you a North Carolina fan?

Cool! I loved your previous saves with Malta and Andorra so I'll be following!

Great save, you've completed it. Shame that you didn't get past the A, but you did your best. Go out on a high

13. AUGUST 2018 "Good job guys. It wasn't to be, but you worked hard. Just look at the teams we've faced so far and the relative ease we've had in fencing them off." The dressing room nodded in approvement. The atmosphere was buzzing. UTEP had showed up for the Canada Invitational with the idea it would get kicked all around the field by Minnesota in the quarter final, but everything turned out differently. Some disciplined attacking, backed by decent defending and one huge error by the Minnesota goalkeeper meant that UTEP managed to snag 1-0 win against the Midwestern powerhouse. In the semifinal, Cincinnati awaited. Tim had chosen a more defensive approach, but as many times in his career, it appeared tinkering with an offensively in-form side is not always the best thing to do. The counter attacks were hapless and after trailing by 0-2, he had spurred his men forward and asked them to regain control of the game. They did so formidably, but didn't manage to do more than score one goal. Still, beating Minnesota by a goal and losing by one to a second tier college had showed Tim what his guys got. The disadvantage of being thrown out of the semifinal of the Canadian Invitational was that they were now in God foresaken Edmonton, rather than buzzing Toronto where the final would take place. Tim was wondering what the odds were of getting hammered in this town without drawing too much attention. He had noticed he hadn't been drunk since the michelada incident, which is way too long for a man of his standards. End of preseason. In two days, the crew would fly back south, which meant start of school for everyone. The last Saturday of the month, the regular season would start. Before actually competing against the other Big Sky teams, seven non-conference games were planned from August till the start of October. Mostly for money, prestige and a little competition. However, the press and manager polls were watching as well, which meant that these games were certainly no friendlies. All results against non-conference teams would be taken into account when the distribution of postseason tournaments would come to take shape. Tim had sighed at the sight of those seven games. The first one, right off the start, an away game in California. At San Diego State to be precise. A team they might face if they'd manage to get promoted to the Mountain West Conference next year. A good test, but a long away game in the first week of college? Luckily the non-conference schedule only contained 3 away games but trips to California, Ohio and Utah were best suited to airmiles collectors than student athletes. "So, having said that. I think we need to go out for some poutine."

I noticed only DI-A teams have a conference tournament actually. No tournament in DI-AA and DII. Is that correct?

Thanks for following! The structure has a lot of things that someone who follows American college sports might recognize, but it's very wacky indeed. But I think @samba23 really managed to hit home on a lot of those tournaments.