[FM11] Barcelona’ing the way through the lower leagues – is it even possible?

[B.W.G]

Congrats on the promotion

[AK22]

Well done on the promotion, you certainly only just clung on at the end there though

Enjoy your first season in the top flight.

[SnakeXe]

Fantastic job winning promotion in an incredibly tight league

[noikeee]

Tks. I'm now suffering some FM withdrawal because my gaming PC is out for repairing (the USB ports were acting funny). I did go as far as the 1st league match of the new season before taking out the computer, but lost 4-0 at home to Porto which was a slightly annoying start. Probably was a bit naive to field 7 or 8 new signings in the starting eleven...

[Deisler26]

Tks. I'm now suffering some FM withdrawal because my gaming PC is out for repairing (the USB ports were acting funny). I did go as far as the 1st league match of the new season before taking out the computer, but lost 4-0 at home to Porto which was a slightly annoying start. Probably was a bit naive to field 7 or 8 new signings in the starting eleven...

I've found that if you get them early enough, you can max out the team prep for 'team blend' and play a lot of friendlies. Worked for me.

[Do you like dogs?]

Great thread noikeee, I always enjoy your posts. This has given me food for thought for my current Barnet save (on FM10 though) in which I generally aim to do the same, but in more of an Ajax/constant position-swapping mold. KUTGW.

[noikeee]

I've found that if you get them early enough, you can max out the team prep for 'team blend' and play a lot of friendlies. Worked for me.

Yeah I do the same, but let the assman do the friendlies and maybe that's why the team doesn't gel as he doesn't pick the same guys as I do.

Great thread noikeee, I always enjoy your posts. This has given me food for thought for my current Barnet save (on FM10 though) in which I generally aim to do the same, but in more of an Ajax/constant position-swapping mold. KUTGW.

Thanks. Barnet playing like classic Ajax sounds ambitious.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - season preview

My computer's back, woohoo.

Transfers

(Transfers)

I really outdone myself this Summer as went to the absurd extreme of bringing in 27 new players. Yes TWENTY SEVEN. A lot of those were youngsters though, many signed completely blind before the board allowed me to scout the world (it's such great news to get this request accepted), so I ended up with a bloated reserve squad with a ridiculous amount of strikers.

I'm not going to post screenies of every signing again, it's pointless, so here's a few high profile purchases/loanees/freebies who should be regulars this season:

Celso Borges (M/AMC, ST) - Veteran Costa Rica international legend, his pace has disappeared but I'm hoping his exceptional footballing brain and technique will still be a valuable asset for us.

Juninho (ST) - Wonder youngster on loan from Fluminense, I have no doubt he's going to be first choice upfront.

Luis Sánchez (DR) - The best of my many youngster signings. Luis is only 19 but is already becoming a regular for the Bolivia national team and there's a lot more to come from him.

Luizão (DC) - Another of the veterans, it's puzzling to me that he still has decent pace for a 34 year old, my assman tells me he is a great centre-back for this level but I was not impressed with his first 2 performances so far.

Marco Costantino (GK) - In theory, a huge boost in quality in goal, the italian's attributes look great. Already made a match deciding mistake though...

Renatinho (M/AM L) - Veteran winger also able to play as AMC, there's still a hint of pace left in him so I'm expecting to still be good. Seems to be a bit of a hothead as he got furious because I substituted him in a match.

Ruud Nijholt (MR, ML) - Dutch 21 y.o. winger with greatly balanced attributes, it's a shame he's not natural neither as AMR or AML as that's the positions I use in my tactic. Already under a retraining program.

Zé Lopes (DMC) - A very rare national signing in the middle of all these foreigners, quite clever, strong guy also able to pass a ball. Should be good.

Full Squad

Plenty of options so I'm going to have alternatives to the inevitable odd few flops.

With such a large reserve squad I suppose I might as well include a screenie of that.

Start of the season

Humiliated in the first match, unlucky in the second (hit the posts twice, beaten by a keeper blunder), about to face current title holders Benfica in the third. What a wonderful start.

Goals for the season

• Prove the media are idiots for predicting a 16th place for us (dead last), and grab at least 14th so we don't go back down to the Orangina.
  
• Make some sense out of the overblown squad I built again. At the end of the season I want to trim down the squad and get rid of whoever doesn't perform, selling a few of our youngsters would be nice too, as their estimated value is hilariously high in some cases.
  
• Survive another year without getting bankrupt. My monthly wage spending not only doubled, almost triplified since last season so that's not helping.

[noikeee]

Lisbon - 24th of October, 2021

This should be fun. Manager Pedro Emanuel was sacked despite going past the first round of qualifiers for the European Championship, I'll have the honour of playing Switzerland, Slovenia and Italy next May in the second round. Meanwhile, I've arranged a friendly versus Spain next month just for practice.

[jt_northender]

Diego Hermoza valued at 1.2M Euros!? Dodgy indeed! Looks like you've made some good signings and you certainly have a diverse squad!! Hopefully you can get a good couple of years out of Borges and Nijholt could be one to watch though might take time to adapt - good idea to retrain. I love having players that can play AMR and AML like Barnetta on my Leverkusen save.

[deltablue]

You can't say you're short on options anyway.

[noikeee]

Diego Hermoza valued at 1.2M Euros!? Dodgy indeed! Looks like you've made some good signings and you certainly have a diverse squad!! Hopefully you can get a good couple of years out of Borges and Nijholt could be one to watch though might take time to adapt - good idea to retrain. I love having players that can play AMR and AML like Barnetta on my Leverkusen save.

No, the dodgy bit was watching Hermoza's value drop from 1.2M to 80K the very next day. Must've been a bug or something.

Borges has been a big flop so far, together with a few other overpaid veterans, I think it was a big mistake to sign them. Nijholt went from competent to accomplished in AML in no time, but is yet to find his good form too, I'm willing to be patient with him tho.

You can't say you're short on options anyway.

I like having big squads because you never know who's going to be a flop and you don't want to have to rely on them, on the other hand I really went over the top this season. With the promotion I was able to attract much better players and offer much better wages, so went on to improve my team, meanwhile for every player I sign it becomes obvious that there's other positions in the squad that there's not on par with the new guys. So when I realized it all had snowballed into too much spending, too many new players.

My next job is to stabilize the squad and trim out the fat, as long as we don't get relegated (looking good) and don't get bankrupt (not looking good) before I get the chance of doing that.

[AK22]

Good luck for the forthcoming season with your super-size squad Tough start, but I'm sure you'll turn it around.

A squad that size would generally cause me a lot of headaches, as it's almost impossible to keep everyone happy. I reckon you might have to micro-manage a lot of egos to keep the harmony of the team together. One positive is that you'll have competition for places, so if someone has a poor couple of games you can just call on the 'next taxi at the rank'.

[shauno_19]

Enjoyed reading this mate, especially as I've just started my own journeyman career and also took the job at SC Praiense. Already becoming fond of this little team.

Good luck for the season with Belenenses.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - mid-season update

Transfers

(Transfers)

Went sort of in the opposite direction to last summer as plenty of players left as part of my effort to solidify the increasingly worrying finances, and trim the squad back to a reasonable size. The big news was the sale of angolan centre-back Alfredo Almeida for 1.5M€ to Lierse, a club record sale, but backup players Guilherme, Sebastian Hayer, Boban Zaric, Ernesto Sitoe, Telmo Castanheira all left for money too, while Alex and Filipe Joaquim were released on frees, a few others sent on loans, some of them with agreed fees for the definite purchase of players. All things summed, the club went from an extremely poor financial record of over 2M€ in the red (and increasing every month) for just 750K€ currently. Wage payments per month also went down, obviously.

Meanwhile, we did sign one player as parent club Toulouse sent us Messi on loan. No, not THAT Messi.

League

We've had a great turnaround after that poor start, actually. With the difficult matches against Porto and Benfica out of the way, we've set out to pull some difficult wins in difficult stadiums (4-2 at Braga a great peak performance!), while still being solid at home. Suddenly we're fighting for european qualification places. It's bizarre for a career that started as an attempt to emulate Barcelona up to a point, that we're now playing rather defensive, counter-attacking football to great success. The front 4 (AML, AMR, AMC, ST) are still told to be very fluid, to roam a lot, and the full-backs to support the attack, but with so many tough fixtures, I've played the more defensive version of my tactic a lot more than the "normal" version. The pace of a few of my attacking players has been absolutely key so far this season.

Cups

Despite often fielding our 2nd line of players in the cups, to keep my key players fit for the league, we've done sort of well. We're out of both cups but have been quite unlucky in my opinion. The Taça de Portugal run ended in Braga, where we had just won for the league, after we missed a penalty and Braga's ukranian keeper Anton Kanibolotskyi had a great match. As for the League Cup, we were set to qualify as group winners 5 minutes before the final whistle of the final match, when Naval scored at Aves, then Sporting finally scored past us as we kept a 0-0 for all match long with a very good defensive performance.

Key players

It's been all about Juninho and I have no idea on how earth are we going to replace him once his loan is over - he's top scorer with 11 goals, the next guy has 5, and the next has 2. That speaks for itself. Meanwhile, winger Fabio Silva has been as great as ever, and I'm having some major doubts on whether I should field him or the also highly impressive Sebastian Schreier. I've tried placing one of them as AML, but both seem to perform only as the most attack minded AMR in my tactic.

Rest of the season

Well, Europe would be nice, wouldn't it? Even if the Europa League gives very small financial rewards. 6 teams qualify, so 6th place may give us qualification depending on the cup winner, that's what I'm aiming for. But I actually doubt we can keep up this level of performance for long, many games that we've won have been tight, I think we're overacheiving and this performance is not sustainable, at least not yet.

[AK22]

Promising first half of the season noikeee, looking good for Europe too

I'm sure you'll find another striker for next season, especially if you can offer them Europa League football. You might be able to convince Juninho to stay too, he looks pretty handy.

[Amethyst21]

Just read through this career, an excellent read for a dreary monday!

Having managed in Portugal, I find it relatively easy to get to the mid table in the league, but it is rather difficult to knock off the Big 3 of Portuguese football, as the have huge finances, good squads and great reputations.

KUTGW!

[noikeee]

Thanks guys, meanwhile I've ended the season, review coming up soon.

The big 3 do have a big advantage but I've never seen it in FM as pronounced as in this career, usually after a few seasons a smaller club randomly catches up, this time the gap between the big 3 and the rest has actually increased, and in a very extreme way!

[Ashcymru]

Just read the entire thread, absolutely brilliant to see someone do this and finally get their break. Just letting you know you have another reader.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2021/2022 - season review

Transfers

Sold veteran Renatinho to japanese side Icasa in March for 45K€, and saved lots of further money in the disproportionate wages I was paying for the player's average performance.

League

It was not the weather as it was dry and the pitches were in good condition, but our February/March form was utterly appalling as we failed to win a single game, usually through frustrating late equalisers - a sign of the team lacking fitness, perhaps?

Despite so many lost points we were only down to 9th, because the pack remained very tight, no team able to find consistency. But everything changed for us in a crazy game at the Barreiros against Marítimo as we won 3-1 despite reduced to 9 men. A bizarre 4-0 away thrashing of Estoril followed, then two frustrating games against tougher opponents, Braga and Sporting - we were beating Braga 2-0 at half-time only to concede a draw, then we resisted and pressured Sporting all match long only for Omar Santana to score a mental lob from way out on the 95th minute... the League Cup game against them had already been exactly like this, 88th minute winner.

With 3 games to go we could in theory grab 5th and go to Europe, but Braga and Leiria were tied with us, Académica on 4th were some 5 points ahead, and we had two tough fixtures, against Guimarães, then away at Académica. It wasn't looking good. But we won all 3 matches, Académica had to play Sporting at the final fixture and predictably lost, hence we not only qualified, but also just about pulled a wildly unlikely 4th place, on only 44 points. Compare that to the points tally for the 4th place over the last few seasons, and it's REALLY low: 57, 54, 52, 59, 57... Indeed, we finished further away from 3rd placed Sporting, than ahead of dead last Setúbal.

(League positions graph)

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. José Freitas (DMC) - Lost of assists as usual, typical being our corner taker, not sure if that's what gave him a high average rating but he's surprised me, his attributes don't look great in theory, yet I'm still playing him regularly at this level, didn't expect that.

4. António Fernandes (DL) - In pre-season I was raving about my other young full-back, the bolivian Luis Sanchez, but it was the portuguese who arrived from Braga who impressed me. Stellar season and improved his skills immensely.

3. Zé Lopes (DMC) - 7.10 average rating is astonishing for a defensive player who ends the season with 1 goal and 2 assists. Another great signing who quickly became our midfield general.

2. Sebastian Schreier (AMR) - Low profile signing, as he seemed a guy with pace and nothing else, but bloody hell it works on the pitch. By the 2nd half of the season, definitely relegated the previously untouchable Fabio Silva to the bench.

1. Juninho (ST) - 18 goals. Next top scorer? 6 goals. I'm so screwed when his loan ends. Definitely don't think I can sign him permanently, we can't afford him and he's too good to want to sign for us.

Finances

950K€ in the red. This right after the league prize money of 1M€ has been put into the club's account. We're nowhere near stable yet.

Conclusions and future expectations

What a great season, I didn't expect to finish anywhere near this high. The next step is going to be way way harder though. The gap to the big 3 is ridiculously large and I'd be glad to repeat 4th next year. I want to make a few signings but far less than this year, get some continental experience into our players, and make further steps into sorting the finances.

Evidently I signed a new 1-year contract, don't want to repeat the Praiense/Venezia mistakes of jumping too early. When I get an offer from another club, then I'll think about it. I did apply for the Braga job mid-season though - they picked ex-german international Markus Babbel instead.

By the way, I got the Manager of the Year award. Quite proud about that heh!

Career overview

[b]Season   Club (nation)     League (tier)                             Notes[/b]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st               Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd            Resigned mid-season
        Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th     Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th      Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd      Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st      Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)     Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 13th                         Resigned mid-season
        Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                   Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 Qualified for Europa League

[B.W.G]

Congrats on a successful season and best of luck in the Europa League in the new season

[brFM2011]

Closer to relegation ^^ love it, 4th is great though

Gl, hopefully Europe will help them finances

[SnakeXe]

Great job qualifying for Europe! Good luck replacing Juninho.

[AK22]

Well done on finishing 4th, but I'm pretty shocked by the 28 point gap! I know Portugal is well known for being a three-club league, but I would have thought this have evened out slightly over 12 FM seasons.

Still, excellent first season in the top flight. Will be very interesting to see if/when you can crack the top three

[noikeee]

Thanks for the comments as usual.

Portugal Under 19s - 2022 season review

Fixtures

A relatively difficult group got harder after we only managed a draw away versus Slovenia, leaving us with the obligation of beating Italy in the final match - only the group winners would go through. And they seemed vastly superior to us. Sensationally, we pulled a total shock and beat them 5-1, booking our place in the finals.

Then an even tougher group ensued, as we were paired with Spain, Germany and the punchbag Israel. We nearly held on the spanish to a 0-0 draw but they scored in aggregate time, then we were destroyed by the germans. A nice 4-0 win over Israel was nothing more than a consolation prize as we were mathematically out before the game anyway.

Then I resigned. International management sounds nice in theory but really slows down game progress, as the one thing I hate is forgetting to pick a player so I thoroughly check every single call-up before every match. And that gets tedious quick. Besides, this group of players was largely unexciting.

Players

(Full squad for the Euro final stages)

Luis Pinto (MR, ML) - Easily our better player, I had to accommodate my tactic a little bit to fit him in but it was more than worth it.

Filipe Lopes (DR, DL) - Handy defender, unsurprisingly picked up by Arsenal already.

Nelson Silva (GK) - Not one of our top guys in terms of theoretical ability, but kept bad results away from becoming even worse results.

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - season preview

Transfers

(Transfers)

15 signings seems very few after the insane past two summers. Here's the relevant new faces from that bunch:

Libor Machala (AMC) - I got rid of all of my AMCs, so I needed new options. This czech 22 year old looks decent enough.

Conte Diallo (DMC, DC) - Signing of the season. Well I actually signed him over a year ago, but he's only turned 18 now so only now could move out from Guinea. 4.5 stars potential, great stats already, and the salary of a slave.

Szymon Misztal (ST) - He's back! After two seasons on loan from Porto on our Liga Orangina days, I now finally got him to sign for us. The past tells me he's not a goal machine, but can be handy sometimes.

Paulo Regula (AMC) - Veteran who's better than Machala for now, but is losing pace rapidly. Gambled on him becoming club captain straight away.

Daniel Carriço (DC) - Legendary centre-back for Portugal who still gets called up regularly at the age of 34, and still can do it at this level. I'm amazed I could sign him, he's got released from AC Milan this summer.

Iuri Medeiros (ST) - Probably no match for Juninho, but has been first choice for striker so far, as he's scored 3 on 3 games. Was pretty good for his previous club Guimarães and seems like he'll be even better for us.

Ahmed Abd Rabo (DMC) - I swear I didn't sign him for the funny name ("arse" in portuguese). Has potential, unforunately just got a very serious injury which hurt his already dodgy pace.

Mohamed Saad (DMC) - Virtually indistinguishable from the other egyptian guy, except for the lack of a funny name and the lack of injury.

Players left too, and for money! I gathered a total of 1.8M€ with the sales of players like Celso Borges, Luka Hadzic, Diogo Salomão, Martín Suarez. And then most of the money came from players I didn't play at all like Karim Raofat (170K€), Gabriel Román (850K€), Bruno Bordad (475K€). Think I've done well in the market here.

Meanwhile, long time key player and fan favourite Milan Gajic retired. Thanks for that, I was paying him 8K€/month for nothing.

Full Squad

Here's my squad! I'd gather them for a team photo, but in FM this is the best I can do:

I think I can't get it any more balanced than this. Experience, youth with potential, a decent amount of signings without getting the team gelling way out of control, and enough options for each position without going over the top.

Start of the season

Great start actually. We got a bit of a scare in Sweden as we unexpectedly got ourselves losing 2-0 and with the round tied at half-time, but then we reversed it thanks to an inspired team-talk, and an uninspired tackle from some swede which gave him a red card. We're into the Group Stage of the Europa League which made us earn 1M€!

With that money, and the transfers money, that means we're in the green! An historical moment in my long career as a wild money waster! The club account's balance is at 1.4M€! I'm so proud of it!

Goals for the season

• Do better than last year in the league. And by that, I mean, repeat 4th place with more points. What, like I was going to promise closing down a 28 points gap and get 3rd? Are you nuts?
  
• Continue improving the club in the transfer market without destabilizing the squad.
  
• Don't get totally embarrassed in the Group Stage of the Europa League. We've had the awesome luck of being drawn against a spanish side, an english side and an italian side (Espanyol, Tottenham and Reggina), so can't really expect anything there.

[noikeee]

A slightly difficult decision to make, as Marítimo are a club I've supported all my life, they were going to pay me a higher salary, and the club could offer a far higher wage budget. However they were 10 places below Belenenses in the standings and have a bank loan that is almost twice as large. It would've been a step behind.

I've also been recently linked to a job in Ukraine, to manage Illichivets Mariupol. I've been often linked to jobs in Portugal for years, but it's the first time my name pops up in rumors abroad. Nice to see as it means my reputation is growing and I definitely want to look at managing abroad again.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update likely tonight as I've finished the January transfer window yesterday but didn't have the time to do the write-up and screenies. Just have to post to say I'm proud to have been linked to the Dynamo Kyiv job. I'd definitely take that, unfortunately my experience is that as I'm 3rd favourite for the job, am unlikely to get it - and the manager hasn't been sacked yet.

I definitely want to manage in either Ukraine or Russia at some point, but am completely baffled as to why I'm getting linked to ukranian jobs all of a sudden. :confused:

In regards to FM12, I'm sticking to this career for quite a little longer, have lots of unfinished business here, and never trust a new version of FM before the final patch.

[SnakeXe]

Glad you're sticking with this, definitely still plenty of interest left

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - mid-season update

Transfers

Erm, pretty much nothing happened. Bolivian youngster Boris Molina was sold for 95K€, egyptian midfielder Ahmed Abd Rabo for 120K€, and Toulouse sent us a goalie on loan again, this time the italian Massimo Lettieri. He conceded 10 goals in his first 2 appearances so it's unlikely he'll get any more playing time the rest of his loan.

League

Goals. Lots and lots of them. We've conceded goals in every single match, and scored in pretty much all of them too. Our games have an average of 4.5 goals/game. No idea on what's causing this as my current tactical setup is rather cagey and counter-attacking.

We did flirt with the lead of the championship for a while but then the likes of Porto and Sporting brought us down to earth, with an odd thrashing in Guimarães in-between. And just as we were picking up the pace again, complete, total humiliation at the Luz with a 7-1 defeat to Benfica. In my defence, this is the sort of players they have (okay, it's their one and only major superstar), and this is the player Porto have just bought. How on earth are supposed to compete with that? The gap to the big 3 is enormous.

So, we're pretty much where we were last year at this stage, but with some extra experience. 5th and with a decent chance of getting 4th, which is our goal of course. Best of the rest.

Cups

I was worried about the Europa League group, but that was nonsense as we hardly were embarrassed. First four games gave us 2 points and 2 narrow defeats, which was alright given the opposition, but qualification seemed impossible. Then suddenly we go to Barcelona and beat Espanyol at their home 3-1 - bumping ourselves into 2nd place in the group. A win over Tottenham would qualify us, maybe even a draw were Reggina and Espanyol to cancel each other out. Didn't happen, albeit we led Tottenham 3 times in a crazy crazy match. I'm proud of my team's efforts anyway.

In the cup, we breezed past the first few rounds, with the curiosity of having me visit the stadium where I started my career - last time I was there was 10 years ago. Praiense were no match for us, obviously. Then came up Porto and I was so close to beating them when they equalised in the 92nd minute, and killed the game in extra-time.

The lesser of the competitions we participate in is the League Cup aka "Bwin Cup". We were seeded thanks to finishing 4th last season in the league, and had no issues in topping our group and qualifying for the semis - although the final match against Rio Ave was funny, we hit the woodwork 6 times, they hit it once, and it finished 0-0.

Key players

I've had my share of wildly free-scoring wingers in this career, but did not expect Ruud Nijholt to suddenly develop into one. He was crap last season. This season, and we're in February, he has 16 goals (6 of them in Europe) and is one of the league's highest average rating players.

Meanwhile, defensive midfielder Zé Lopes has been as solid as ever, while Sebastien Schreier and Fabio Silva continue their entertaining, and impossible to call, battle for first choice right winger.

Rest of the season

Get that 4th place and get lucky in the League Cup. We can play either Benfica, Sporting or Naval in the semis - guess who I'd prefer. As for the future, I'm delaying an extension of my contract for as long as I can, to see if I'll be offered a better job, but if nothing comes up I'll renew it late in the season.

[jt_northender]

Impressive stuff noikeee, the fans are getting value for money!! Unlucky in the Europa League, that was a tough group.

[noikeee]

Impressive stuff noikeee, the fans are getting value for money!! Unlucky in the Europa League, that was a tough group.

Thanks.

Last night I played a little longer, got lucky with the Bwin Cup draw as we faced Naval in the semis and promptly dispatched them 5-0. Now we're facing Sporting in the final, right after playing them in the league. Long time since I've last won any competition, looking forward to that chance.

And in the league, to my amazement, Porto are in very poor form, we beat them 2-0 and overtook them in the league. Not sure we can hold on to that 3rd place with 7 games remaining, but quite pleased about that at the moment. I noticed after posting those screenies that both that Benfica player and that Porto player are being paid more than my entire wage budget of 200K€/month. My board won't let me offer wages above 17K€/month.

Oh, and I was linked to the Veléz Sarsfield job, applied for it, and got rejected.

[Manager]

this is some cool stuff

[noikeee]

Belenenses 2022/2023 - season review

League

A great second half of the season. We started it finally managing to finish a game without conceding goals, against Académica, then had a slight wobble losing to Aves at home, but a great green streak of victories ensued. The most memorable were against Porto (2-0) and Braga (3-0 away!!), particularly since both were direct opponents of ours - yes because while Braga fought for best of the rest, 4th place, with us, Porto was directly ahead in 3rd. And by April we found ourselves surprisingly ahead of Porto!

And indeed we had a good chance to finish 3rd, all the way into the final two fixtures of the season. Unfortunately we lost those very two games, at Choupana against Nacional, and an impossibly difficult home fixture against the all-conquering champions Benfica. That left us in 4th, 3 points behind Porto, but very comfortably within european qualification places.

(League positions graph)

Cups

We were out of the Europa League and the Portuguese Cup, as previously shown. But we were still in the League Cup and thankfully things went incredibly well. Not only we drawn the only easy opponent in the semis, Naval, we beat them 5-0. And then in the final we pulled a superb victory over the remaining member of the big 3, Sporting. We lifted the cup for the first time in Belenenses' history (well, the cup only started in 2008 anyway), which was the first trophy in the club's cabinet for 10 years - and that was the second tier championship. Last top level trophy was 34 years ago, the 1989 Portuguese Cup...

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Iuri Medeiros (ST) - Lost his place in the team mid-season after a poor patch of form, but recovered sensationally with a superb late season streak of 8 goals in 5 games.

4. Zé Lopes (DMC) - Crazily high average rating for such a subtle defensive player. As reliable as it gets - and has started to provide assists too.

3. Libor Machala (AMC) - Had to give him a leave of absence early in the season due to homesickness, but he truly came back from Czech Republic as new. A great signing. Scored a wonderful 35 metres freekick in the League Cup final.

2. Fabio Silva (AMR) - No longer the wild goalscorer as in the Liga Orangina days, but has become a fantastic provider of assists, 20 this season. Together with José Freitas, the only remaining player from the team I inherited when I first arrived at the club.

1. Ruud Nijholt (AML) - A serious injury stopped him from playing from April onwards, but what a great season - 18 goals. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold on to him for long, with a 1.5M€ release clause...

Finances

Prize money from both league and league cup helped us greatly. Now 1.1M€ in the green.

Conclusions and future expectations

I'm amazed to have challenged Porto for 3rd and expect to build on this to now start threatening to split the big 3. We're nowhere near good enough to beat Benfica yet (seriously, that Rogerinho guy alone got 32 league goals in 28 appearances, it's like playing against Messi), but believe we can slowly improve. Hopefully the board will allow me a higher wage budget next season, as we're not competitive enough financially to even offer wages as good as some other mid-table clubs.

The Bwin Cup trophy and then a 2nd consecutive Manager of the Year award should've given me another nice boost in reputation. I want to jump ship, but unfortunately no offer arrived, so I signed another 1-year contract, so that I don't get stuck in a scenario like after Praiense and after Venezia. To challenge the big 3 with this club is a nice challenge anyway, but I'm eager to get some short-term rewards - by now I should be able to pull a job in a far wealthier club.

Career overview

[b]Season   Club (nation)     League (tier)                             Notes[/b]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)    2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st               Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)   Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd            Resigned mid-season
        Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th     Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th      Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd      Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)     Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st      Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)     Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)     3.Liga (3) - 13th                         Resigned mid-season
        Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                   Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 
22/23    Belenenses (POR)  Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 League Cup winners

[B.W.G]

Congrats on the League Cup victory

You finished quite close to Porto,maybe next season you can overtake them

[noikeee]

Tks.

Meanwhile, I was linked to a job and applied. This is the answer:

Will decide tomorrow, but think I'll take it. May be a minor step back in competitive terms as Sovetov are (surprisingly) battling against relegation mid-season in Russia, but they're far far wealthier than Belenenses. And have one or two awesome players.

[Manager]

nice

btw why did you stop doing the old club watch?

[SnakeXe]

Fantastic season, so close to breaking the top 3 and amazing to win a trophy!

[noikeee]

Cheers. I stopped the club watch because I was writing too much, putting too much effort, and wanted to trim down on something to hurry up. Last time I checked Praiense and Dresden were having normal mid-table seasons as usual, Kettering was battling against relegation back to the BSP, and Venezia fighting for promotion to Serie B.

I did find out recently that my former Dresden promising defender David Simecek signed for Man City. The rest of that batch of mega youngsters have done nothing (Marco Troiano is at Saint-Etienne I think, the others wandering around mediocre german clubs) but quite pleased to see at least one of them made it to the very top level.

I need to do a write-up on the world of football too again, saving that for after Euro 2024. World Cup 2022 had a total shock winner.

[noikeee]

Samara - 26th of May, 2023

I arrive to the Metallurg Stadium in Samara, a large city located in the southeastern part of European Russia, with a population of a little over 1 million. FC Krylia Sovetov Samara is the largest local club, and they have just hired me.

I'm going to give some background on the club's history but frankly there's not much interesting stuff to talk about. They were founded in 1942, and quickly reached the top flight of soviet football, but never really made a huge impact in it. 4th place in the 1951 Soviet league was their best finishing position (they did also reach two soviet cup finals - and lost them), and they'd later fade into a yo-yo club constantly jumping between the 1st and 2nd tier. Then the 1980s were a particularly bad decade as they dropped to the 3rd tier a few times.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the first Russian league in 1992, they've become far more stable, never having got relegated from the top flight since. 3rd in the 2004 season was a particularly high point, and that came together with yet another cup final presence, and defeat (they'd repeat that in 2019). And ever since I started my career they've been as consistent as it gets: they've always, and I mean always, finished between 7th and 12th. The only exception was last season where they overperformed to finish 5th. Things are not going quite that well this season:

Finances

No loans, 1.6M€ in the green, a transfer budget of 2.6M€, wage budget of 850K€/month. Awesome, right? Until I realise the club's been losing around 800K€ per month lately. Where on earth does the money for the transfers/wages come from? TV? Prize money? Mafia? The financial graph does show a huge peak at the end of each season so I'm going to trust the money's going to come from somewhere.

Squad

Would've been quite a good squad if it wasn't for the fact we have to have 5 russian nationals in the field at all times, and all my russians are crap. And russian nationality takes 6 years to obtain.

My best player, by far, is the egyptian Ahmed Omar. Very talented with godlike pace, however can only play MC and I don't use MCs in my tactic. Will need to adjust, while I retrain him. Meanwhile I quite fancy the look of right-back Juninho, and my portuguese attacking stars Luís Graça and Daniel Neves.

Goals for this season

The club's more than good enough to overcome the battle against relegation. I'd do poorly not to improve in the standings. Europe's a bit far tho, a mid-table position may be more realistic. I'm aiming at something like 8th/9th/10th.

The transfer window only opens in August, I've got over 2 months of fixtures before that, so may struggle a little until I bring in some new players.

[jt_northender]

Good assessment of the squad make up. Hope the financial peak wasn't because the previous manager sold all the good Russians last summer!! Good luck in Russia, will be interesting!

[AK22]

Just catching up on this noikeee...

Had another solid season with Belenenses. I'm surprise how dominant Benfica were over Sporting and Porto, scoring 90 goals in a 30 game season is quite a record!

Good luck with your new Russian team. I really enjoyed managing there in FM11, but I agree that the 5 Russian player rule is a bit of a nuisance. You'll find that there's very little affordable Russian talent, and when someone does become available, it turns into a bit of a bun-fight with everyone fighting for their signature. Hopefully, you'll turn this around, as I'd imagine you should be a mid-table side at worse. Should be a good challenge for you, especially as you've gone to a club who's not up to their eyes in debt too!

[B.W.G]

You seem to have inherited quite a solid squad,good luck in Russia

[noikeee]

Krylia Sovetov 2023 - mid-season update

Transfers

(Transfers)

Spent a bit, mostly on russian squad players, to give me more options as we were dangerously short of russians and were almost forced to field youngsters/reserves sometimes. I've also spent a little on a few foreigners who I've identified as very good, and 2 or 3 promising russians for the future. Here's the few most important of the new guys:

Ladji N'Guessan (GK) - A beast of a keeper, currently only 3* of CA but 4.5* of potential, I expect very big things of this ivorian young man.

Rodrigo (AM RLC) - A foreigner squad rotation player, but for a few positions where I only use foreigners anyway. Should be handy.

Pavel Soldatov (DC) - May have been a little expensive considering I think he'll be 3rd or 4th option for centre-back but again, more options for us.

Kirill Goryunov (DMC) - Not ready to play in the Prem'er Liga yet, but pretty good for a 16 year old and one of russian football's brightest prospects - 4* of potential.

Evgeny Derkach (DMC) - Proper defensive midfielder, a great deal to get him for 45K€. He's not as good as my other russian DMC Mikhail Ivanov, but Ivanov's on loan from Zenit and doesn't want to sign permanently for us.

Bernard Agu (M/AM RC) - A cheap alternative for AMR who might just be first choice for the moment.

Mohamed Mohsen (AM RL) - Another very good alternative for the winger positions, however to my great frustration he arrived one day after the squad registration window was over, so won't play at all this season.

We extended the wage and transfer budget beyond reasonable extremes to pull these deals, and that after selling a few faces for decent money. César Faletti went for 1.3M€, André Luiz for 525K€, Michael Comitis for 210K€. Didn't matter - we're suddenly 2.9M€ in the red. Wow.

League

Looking good, we're already in 9th which was about my goal for this season. However we've been playing mostly against the smallest clubs, and have a very tough run of fixtures about to come - Dinamo then Lokomotiv then Rubin then Spartak. I have the feeling we're not on par with these top sides yet, looking at the ability of their squads. We've just been thrashed 3-0 at home to Amkar too which wasn't nice neither, but I was saving my best players for the Europa League fixture.

On the bright side, beating Alania 5-0 away was a great result. Was proud of my players that day.

Cups

We had qualified for Europa League thanks to last season's 5th place under previous manager Andrey Gordeev, and we started the campaign amazingly well, beating some macedonians away 7-0 and killing the tie right there. Next opponents were far far tougher tho - turkish top team Fenerbahçe. Thankfully the first leg couldn't have gone any better and we won 2-0 with some luck and efficiency. I thought I had it in the bag again, but the turks equaled our home result in the 2nd leg and the game ended up in penalty spot kicks. There we lost, partly through a bad error of judgment by myself - I sent Bernard Agu to take the 2nd kick despite the fact we had been "playing nervously" all game, and he was the only who missed.

In the russian cup, we've just started with a decent away win with my 2nd string players facing a lower league team, and we've got relegation candidates Spartak Nalchik as the next opponents.

Rest of the season

Now that Europe is gone, it's time to focus 100% in the league - specially since I don't believe we can pull a cup shock win just yet, with the likes of CSKA and Zenit right next in our side of the tree draw, if we go past Nalchik. The next set of tough fixtures will prove just how good (or how bad) we are, I don't expect much from those matches, but at the end of the season I expect to end in a better position than our current 9th place. European qualification is 3 places and 6 points away, it's still entirely possible but I'm a little skeptic.

I am seriously scared about the finances though, didn't imagine they'd go this low so quickly. At this rate we're going to finish the season with some 5M€ in the red, before the income comes from somewhere, not sure if something bad may come from that (administration? forced to sell players?)

[noikeee]

Applied, they offered me the job, and I'm going to take it. I'm not doing badly in Russia in terms of results but have seriously misjudged the club's finances and in panic trying to solve that, I've agreed the sale of our superstar player Ahmed Omar - with that loss, I think we're not going forward next season. The russian limit of foreigners is a serious pain in the ass too, and gives me a big disadvantage over the clubs that actually produce talent like CSKA and Spartak, while rules over foreigners are much more relaxed in Spain.

Celta is in the second tier, and in a poor 11th position, but merely 5 points behind a promotion playoff spot and with tons of money to spend. Don't want to be too cocky, but I'm entirely confident I'll get them promoted this season already.

[B.W.G]

You did well with what you had available to you in Russia but good luck with Celta,hope you get the promotion you desire with

[noikeee]

Krylia Sovetov 2023 - season review (with 3 games to go)

Transfers

5th choice, veteran striker Alexandr Yerkin was sold to Chernomorets for 35K€. No other news.

League

I am delighted to have not lost a game since the last update, particularly having to face the likes of Lokomotiv, Rubin (3-1 win!) and Spartak, but we're tieing too many games too. It was disappointing to fail to beat Terek or Volga in the last two matches, and that has cost us a chance at grabbing 6th place away from Lokomotiv - indeed, after this match we are now down to 8th again behind Tom.

With Zenit and CSKA as the next two opponents, I'm afraid there's little I could've done to still steal 6th from Lokomotiv. Anyway, I think the team has done well in the league under my command, we've gone from 14th to 8th, and my maths tells me we got 31 points from 18 matches since I arrived, hence multiplying the points average to 27 fixtures, we would've had enough points to be 5th right now if I had started the season. Job done I think.

(League positions graph)

Cups

We beat Nalchik 3-0 away despite the fact Daniel Neves was sent off in the 7th minute. We're facing Spartak Moscow in the quarters, but the game is only played next season in April.

Top 5 key players

(Full squad and stats)

5. Sergey Chudakov (D LC, DM) - The giant (20 jumping) was probably my best russian as he always put in good performances, mostly as centre-back but would sometimes fill in as left-back too. Is still only 20 y.o. and my assman thinks he can still improve a full star (from 2.5* to 3.5*).

4. Ladji N'Guessan (GK) - 6.91 average rating doesn't look like much but from my experience it's astonishing for a keeper, I always felt way more secure when he was playing. He's going to be world class and will be top of my shortlist when I arrive to my new club.

3. Luís Graça (AML) - Some astonishing performances when I first arrived at the club, great average rating, but I always felt he missed too many one-on-ones chances. In fact the whole team did, but he was one of the worst.

2. Daniel Neves (AMC, ST) - Top scorer (13 goals) and a serious danger every other game, able to totally dominate a game. Would go missing sometimes too, but on his day, was unstoppable.

1. Ahmed Omar (MC) - A truly astonishing player, there was an aura of class around every single of his movements and decisions on the pitch. I'm gutted to have panicked and sold him for a mere 6.25M€ but the club's finances are catastrophic at the moment. He even finally managed to retrain himself to AMC.

Finances

Sinked to an unbelievable 5.2M€ in the red. I'm amazed at how quick this has happened, surely I had a big hand in this as I used all of my wage and transfer budgets, but never imagined things could get this bad. It's going to get better now as the end-of-season income is about to arrive, and so will the cash injection from the sell of Omar in January, but I'll keep in mind for my next few jobs that the budgets offered by the board are often far from realistic...

Conclusions and future expectations

If it wasn't for the financial status and the foreigners limit, I would've stuck to this, it's been a fun stint here and I'm a little sad to leave the club after only 6 months. I've had far worse experiences in this career and the club deserved a little more determination from me. Better things await me though, and I don't rule out a return to Eastern Europe in the future - I have the ukranian league loaded too and would love to manage Shakhtar to european success, if the chance to do so ever shows up.

Career overview

[b]Season   Club (nation)         League (tier)                          Notes[/b]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10/11    Praiense (POR)        2ª Divisão Sul (3) - 4th
11/12    Praiense (POR)        2ª Divisão Centro (3) - 1st            Lost in promotion playoff
12/13    Kettering (ENG)       Blue Square Premier (5) - 7th           
13/14    Kettering (ENG)       Blue Square Premier (5) - 22nd         Resigned mid-season
        Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 15th  Won relegation playout
14/15    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 4th   Lost in promotion playoff
15/16    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 3rd   Lost in promotion playoff
16/17    Venezia (ITA)         Seconda Divisione Girone A (4) - 1st   Promoted, Serie C Cup winners
17/18    Venezia (ITA)         Prima Divisione Girone A (3) - 6th
18/19    Dresden (GER)         3.Liga (3) - 8th
19/20    Dresden (GER)         3.Liga (3) - 13th                      Resigned mid-season
        Belenenses (POR)      Liga Orangina (2) - 10th
20/21    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Orangina (2) - 2nd                Promoted
21/22    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th                 
22/23    Belenenses (POR)      Liga Zon Sagres (1) - 4th              League Cup winners
2023     Krylya Sovetov (RUS)  Prem'er Liga (1) - 8th                 Left late in the season

[noikeee]

You did well with what you had available to you in Russia but good luck with Celta,hope you get the promotion you desire with

Thanks, it's a sideways step again (after the move from Portugal to Russia) but I think it's a golden chance to finally get a breakthrough to one of the world's top leagues.

[noikeee]

Wait a minute...

17 of December. I guess I'm finishing the season in Russia then. No idea on why the move isn't immediate. :confused:

[SnakeXe]

Good luck with Celta, and on finishing the season in Russia!