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I have a Dream!


Niebiescy

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I have never, ever had a career on FM even though I always want one when I start up new games. I always become too attached to the squads that I build and get to the point where I cannot bring myself to leave them and start over again. This time I am finally going to have a proper career!

As the title suggests I am working towards my dream job, which is to manage my favorite club, Ruch Chorzow of the Polish Ekstraklasa who I have never managed before on FM. I am however not going to start at this level. That would be unrealistic and wouldn't offer me a long-term challenge. Instead I will be starting in the Czech Second Division. I have chosen the Czech league ahead of the Polish one because the teams there are typically far smaller and poorer. Therefore managing at this level initially is far more realistic than in Poland. The reason for choosing the Czech leagues ahead of other smaller Eastern European ones is that up until the end of last October I lived in the Czech Republic. I lived there for five years and know the football leagues there very well and have been to watch most of the teams in person. Managing tiny clubs who you know well and have watched in person is far more exciting than managing a club that you know nothing about, where the players names are unpronounceable and where you cannot appreciate rivalries and the local football culture. I am hoping that this will give me the initial excitement that I need to get into this game.

The team I have chosen to manage is Slezska Opava. The reason for this is pretty simple. There are two teams who have any kind of fan support in this league plus another 14 clubs who range from 50 or so hardcore fans (such as Zlin or Most) down to just a couple such as Bohemians Prague (know by the fans as Strizkov after their real name) who have taken another club's indentity but have no real support. Opava and Brno are the two clubs who are easiest to identify with. Brno are one of the largest clubs in the nation and are the only professional team in the second biggest city in the Czech Republic. Usually they are a solid mid table first division club with a largish (but old and crumbling stadium) and a bit of money. For these reasons I didn't feel like they would be challenging enough to manage. Opava on the other hand haven't been in the first league for years and last year suffered the humiliation of having to play in the third division (Eastern Region) and this season in real life look like a mid table finish is the best they can hope for. This is their first season back in the second division and I like the challenge of trying to take them to their top.

Opava are an interesting club because their fan base is very large for a club from such a small town. The population of Opava is only around 60,000 but they do draw fans from the local villages also. Their biggest rivals by far are Banik Ostrava who are from the nearest major city, which has a population of around 300,000 and a history of being one of the three biggest Czech clubs along with the two major Prague teams (Sparta and Slavia). This is what happened last time the two clubs met in the Czech cup three years ago.

[video=youtube;Ft6XyqE1HFs]

The reason for posting that video is to show how much these two teams hate each other because I am linking my initial aim to the rivalry here. I appreciate that managing such a small club that it will take me probably ten years to win anything domestically therefore I am setting myself the goal of finishing a season higher in the league than Banik before I am allowed to leave.

My long-term aims and goals are:

- Win promotion to the Gambrinus Liga

- Finish ahead of Banik Ostrava

My short term goals for the first season are:

- Finish in the top 5

- Strengthen the squad

- Stay out of debt

I am also going to set myself a transfer related rule to avoid the game being too easy:

- I can only sign players from the following nations CZ, SK, PL, AT, HU, HR, RS

My team are predicted to finish 5th in the league. I find this a little strange tbh. It seems like a very high aim for a newly promoted club that doesn't have a big squad or money. It's going to be a big challenge to meet this goal. It would've been much easier to take over a club with low aims but a similar reputation such as Zlin (established at this level and played in the top league only a few years back) or Usti (relegated last season and kept most of their squad) who have stronger squads than me, especially Usti who have a player worth £400k who if sold would fund a complete squad re-build at this level.

In my squad I have four star players (none of whom are particularly great):

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I have been given the task of finishing at least in the top half of the table. For this goal I will be given £80k to spend on players and a wage budget of £6k p/w. I currently have just over £400 a week in wage space currently. I have chosen to play it safe and select this option because the next is to gain promotion, which is next to impossible due to the top two only going up. Here are my aims:

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I am going to have to spend most of this budget because I only have two players who can possibly play on the wings and am weak and shallow at nearly every position.

I will post another update once I complete my preseason when I will know more about my squad and it's potential

Other details:

Manager reputation - Sunday League

Leagues loaded - Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Slovak

I will add/remove leagues in the future depending on which nation and level I am managing at

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My preseason is now complete and my team is ready to start this challenge! The situation was not quite as bad as I first expected. I did lose two of my star players to bigger (or at least higher division) clubs. Zdenek Simek who was the best ball winning midfielder by far went to Dukla Prague. I couldn't turn down £100k how ever good the player is. From my experience managing in the Romanian lower leagues I have learned that money can disappear very quickly at this level with such small incomes so you have to sell your best players and then try and replace them with loans and free transfers. The other key player I lost is Zdenek Partys who I posted above as one of my star players. When Slovan Liberec agreed to pay me £100k for a year's loan plus £75k to make the transfer permanent there was no way that I could ever possibly say no.

With regards to signings I am actually very happy with what I managed to pick up. I agreed loan deals for four youngsters (two Polish, two Czech), signed a loan of older free agents and then added a star signing for £425. I actually found wheeling and dealing to be relatively easy due to the amount of talented older players playing for Czech amateur clubs and therefore not having contracts.

Here is my transfer activity:

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My star pickups were:

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and my 38 year old :D

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On top of these signings I managed a real coup. I found this young lad advertised as being available for loan from Mlada Boleslav with them not requiring a penny in either loan fee or wages. I am not sure if he will perform as well as his stats suggest because he has been injured all preseason, but from the looks of things he could potentially be the goalscorer that I need to mount a serious promotion challenge. He looks like he could be awesome playing either on the left wing as an inside forward attack or otherwise upfront as a poacher.

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My preseason was pretty mixed in terms of games. I am not sure how the teams rate on FM because they are not playable mainly, so I will write based off their real life abilities. Zaglebie Sosnowiec are bottom of the Polish third tier (West) in real life but are a pretty big and well supported team. Also the town is only around 100km from Opava so a realistic -preseason fixture. The fact that we beat them so easily was impressive for a first game where I knew nothing about my team and hadn't managed to sign anyone. Rybnik are in the same division and not far from the relegation places so to draw with them was an awful result. Having said that they were pretty good last season and are a big club IRL so may be better on FM than in reality. It was also another realistic game with the towns being only 60km apart. Vitkovice are the second team in Ostrava (and a minor rival) and were Opava's main contenders for promotion from the third tier last season. Beating them only 1-0 at home was a concern, but it was still a win and we had more players to sign and were very much a team in transition. The result wasn't ideal but was acceptable. The next game was set up against Banik to see how far we had to go to get to my goal. It was at home, in a one-off game and a meaningless preseason one, but was still interesting to gauge where we're at. We managed to pull off a great result and draw with them after going behind early. We were actually the better team for most of the game and grabbed a late equalizer, which was extremely positive. The final preseason game was a reserve team fixture where I didn't play anyone likely to start in the league opener due to potential fatigue.

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I doubt you've heard of any of my players, but here's my squad.

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As you can see I have kept it was Czech as possible and followed the realism rules that I wrote about earlier. You may have noticed that Dremlyuk and Dembele are not EU citizens. The reason for signing them is that Dremlyuk played last season for Elbag in the Polish third tier while Dembele played last season at Slavia Prague in the Czech first division. Therefore the transfers were both from active leagues that I have knowledge of in the game. I have to admit that I could have a really insane squad if I was allowed to sign players from Non-EU leagues. African agents keep offering me youngsters who are probably better than anything I have, but I don't see these offers as being realistic so ignored them. I will maybe consider these types of players once/if I am promoted because then the club would have a larger scouting network.

I have set my tactic up to take advantage of the fact that my best players pretty much all play in wide positions. My starting full backs and wingers should be pretty awesome at this level while the centre of my midfield is my weakness. Because of this I am looking to attack from wide and want my wingers and WB to be running inside or otherwise drilling crosses in to my poacher. To help with this I chose the largest pitch size possible. As a fall-back I am using the same tactic but with a DMC/Anchor man instead of AMC/trequarista for when I play away from home against stronger teams or cup games against teams from the top division if I get that far. I have also trained my players to play 4-4-2 with wingers, but would prefer not to use that type of tactic unless losing because it would leave my weakness (central midfield) too exposed.

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I will post tomorrow or Tuesday once I've got stuck into my league games to let you know whether my optimism is misplaced or not.

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I am now at the winter break and am not sure what to do from here. The way things work at this level is that teams will typically sign players for a season and then they'll head off somewhere else for a season. Am trying to decide whether to go way over my wage budget to push for promotion (knowing that I won't be stuck with the players for years) or whether to play things safe and try and finish with what I have. The season's been interesting so far. Started dreadfully in the league winning only one of the first four games and were also knocked out of the cup. We were then on fire for the middle of this part of the season and then had an awful finish (especially away form) due to injuries.

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We've now played seventeen of our thirty league games and sit four points behind the top three (two teams go up). The promotion race seems as though two from the current top six will go up with the gap between sixth and seventh being five points with seventh being ten points off the league.

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In terms of star players I don't really have any. My two centre backs (Chleboun and Lysonek) have been pretty solid when they've started together and we don't really have a third worth playing. Both full backs have had problems. Kaufman has been out for pretty much the whole season so I've had to use players who are better at CB and have RB as their second position. Sedlacek at LB is fine for 60 minutes and then always is exhausted and has to be subbed. In midfield thirty eight year old Milan Barteska who I rescued from amateur football has been my most reliable player so far although he hasn't done anything special. Zahustel who I thought was going to be my star player keeps getting injured and has been extremely inconsistent. Vaclav Stipek has been my best striker playing as DLF/S. His statistics are pretty dreadful. He is rated only six for finishing and he seems pretty thick too but he can run for hours and is tough. Not sure how he's scored goals but he has.

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Now I have a four month mid season break to do nothing. I like playing in nations with short seasons, but without any continental competitions or domestic cup games to fill the space it's going to be an awfully long break. I know in real life that teams can (literally) sign a new entirely different first eleven during this time because contracts tend to be so short. I have no idea of what to expect from now on.

I also may have to change my goal for the challenge. My original goal was to finish above Banik, but it looks like they are going to be relegated this season so next season I will be in a higher division than them if I am promoted. I will have to re-think my goals during the preseason if this does occur.

Here's the first division table:

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Just finished the season. Finished a disappointed third. It all came down to the last two games. We lost the penultimate game away at Znojmo after having a man sent off in the first half and then I didn't even try in the final game because we had nothing to play for. The amount of injuries that you receive at this level are insane. I am not sure if it's just that I've been unlucky or if it's typical but I've had to continually sign new players just to cover injuries.

Here's are the final table and my second half results:

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My goals for next season are:

- Trim the squad. The wage bill is currently too high at the club is in the red. I need to sell players and reduce wages to get out of this situation.

- Gain promotion. It's a tough ask, but the relegated clubs (Bohemians and Hradec Kralove) are not too strong or powerful so I like my chances. My main worry is that the CZ researcher has done an awful job of research for the lower leagues and Kladno usually come up into the second league and often end up in the first division after a season because he's made their squad and reputation strong for some uinknown reason when in reality they are tiny.

- Avoid signing so many players. I want to rely on loan signings from bigger clubs and trialists in order to avoid paying large wages and being locked into keeping players who can't operate at a higher level

- Start better. The first half of the season cost us promotion this year. We were the strongest team in the league for the second half, but it was too late with the leaders being so consistent.

I'll post an update once the preseason has finished and I have my squad assembled.

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This season looks like it's going to be tough with two very small clubs with mediocre squads promoted (due to signing awesome players on loan), two better squads being relegated and the researcher's two love children being promoted in place of two squads full of deadwood. Looks like I could end up being sacked for the second time in my FM career due to high expectations (Wolfsburg was the other team to fire me). It's going to be fun and a challenge if nothing else!

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Thinks are going much better than expected at the winter break. We are 7 points clear with 13 games left. Also on another positive note we are more than £3,000 under the wage budget with lots (relatively speaking) of transfer money left over. My strategy this year was far more intelligent. I signed as many young loan stars as possible while building a strong core that can play in what will hopefully be a battle for survival at a higher level next year. I managed to make a profit of £440k in the transfer window which I will keep for running costs this year. Here's the table:

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I will do a proper write up when the season ends. I now have 4 months of clicking continue with a few weeks of friendlies at the end. The massive winter break is the main problem with this save so far. I hate playing long seasons, but there just aren't enough games currently. It does make the league much harder though because one bad run can end seasons like what happened to me last year. Both newly promoted teams from last year are struggling in the bottom four, which suggests the first division will be very challenging and more exciting probably.

Btw the main reason for my change in fortunes it changing my tactics to play a kamikaze type game which has led to me not drawing so many games, which is what ruining my season last year.

Here's my current crazy tactic (will obviously change to something more suitable after promotion for the big leagues):

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Finally escaped the second division as champions. Was pretty easy in the end even though we had a bad run directly after the winter break. Karvina came up with us, which wasn't a shock because they qualified for Europe last year as cup winners and therefore had more money and a better squad than everyone else in the division, especially their two African strikers who were both among the top three scorers in the division. Here's the final table:

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Sadly our old adversaries from last season, Most were relegated. I expected it because all of their best players from the second division campaign were on loan rather than permanent signings. Sokolov who were the other promoted club did a great job and managed to finish in 12th. Banik Ostrava had a good season and finished 4th, which pleased me. I want them to do well because it'll give me a challenge to chase them down rather than being easy if they are near the bottom.

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I am not sure what my goals are for next season right now because I don't have my budgets yet. I am however very worried because the board just spent £1m on under-soil heating, which is not really needed urgently when we were already 375k in debt. We are now in debt by £1.375m and the amount is obviously likely to grow the longer it takes for us to pay it off. If there is not a big cash injection from the board it's likely that we will be in a major relegation dog fight and will probably go down. The reason for this is that most of my best players are loan signings with 100% wage contributions and I won't have the budget to continue to pay them next season if the board cut budgets. In real life the difference between the bottom half of the first division and top of the second is tiny. Newly promoted clubs often finish mid table without a problem, even tiny clubs with no fans like Dukla this season, HK stayed up the season before easily, Bohemians and Slovacko the one before that, Pribram the one before that etc... If I had some money I will look to solidify my position within the top division and really go after the cup as it's the only shot we will have at Europe because the big clubs don't tend to take it seriously. European money is obviously the only way for a club at such a low level to grow. It looks like Sparta and Plzen are way ahead of everyone else and then the likes of Slavia, Sigma, Banik, Teplice, Boleslav etc are so much bigger than us too. Having looked at the small clubs like Ceske Budejovice, Pribram, Sokolov, Dukla, Zizkov and Karvina I am confident of being stronger than at least two of them.

I'll write an update once I am aware of my financial position.....

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I am now extremely worried that my board have destroyed the future of our club for the sake of under-soil heating, which the club has done without for years. I would like to just walk away but I can't. First problem is that I have committed myself to this challenge and can't leave until I achieve my goals. Secondly I have not been mentioned when a single job has come up so if I were to leave I would just have to start from scratch all over again in the second division and I really Don't want to do that. Here's are my pathetic budgets for the year:

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And this is the financial disaster the board have created:

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It may not look that bad, but the Czech leagues are not like playing in England or Germany. Even if you win the league your prize money is only £436k. For a survival place near the bottom you are looking at being given around £70-100k. The cup also pays badly and tickets are priced at around £2 with only 2,000-3,000 fans attending each game so this obviously doesn't offer much potential for profit either. With my wage bill, the interest and lack of income I can see the debt growing to over £2m by the end of the season. I really need a miracle to make Europe.

I will set my initial goals as:

- Survival (I don't have any money to buy players so have to rely on free transfers and loans. Can't expect anything more considering our small reputation and financial constraints)

- Make a cup run (With a lot of luck we could potentially win it although it's an outside shot, but at least playing extra games vs bigger clubs can bring in more cash)

- Sign some talented youngsters who I can sell on to get the club back in the black

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Haven't updated for a while due to visiting family for Easter. I have now finished my preseason and am about to play my first game of the season. My finances have got even worse and I'm worried about what could happen. I think we'll see a situation where my board will start selling players behind my back because I doubt my owner has the money to pay the debts off. The whole under soil heating thing is so frustrating because lots of Czech clubs don't have it and it's clearly an English element programmed into the game for us to be in so much debt because of it. Usually Czech teams will move their games to another stadium if the weather is so severe that they cannot play at home. For example IRL it wouldn't be unrealistic to use Vitkovice in Ostrava, which is a neutral athletics stadium with under-soil heating. The only time in recent memory where Czech teams have had a real problem with weather stopping games was the season before last where the winter was long and brutal. In that case teams whos towns didn't have a pitch with this facility had to play in other cities. For example Kladno played a few home games at Strahov in Prague (20km away). Usually it isn't an issue because the winter break lasts until March and by then most of the bad weather is gone.

Here's the financial screeshot. I still haven't used my maximum wage budget and don't intend to but have signed players to give me depth all over.

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The best news that I had was finding a parent club. I asked my board to find someone and I was amazed at how great the options were. I was offered Shakhtar Donetsk, Lokamotiv Moscow, Rubin Kazan and Parma. I chose Shakhtar. It only happned a few days ago so am yet to receive any players but the potential is huge.

I signed a couple of players who have the potential to play abroad who I hope to be able to sell on for big money at some point. Here's the best one. A young centre back who can start from day one.

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The second is a young midfielder that I picked up on a free last season and loaned out to my feeder club. There's already some interest in him from Slovan Liberec.

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My final prospect is a winger who I picked up on a free from Olimpic Donetsk. I've loaned him out to my feeder club because he isn't ready for the first team. He doesn't look amazing but the scouts like him:

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I am under a lot of pressure to have a very fast start to the league. My first three games are all against clubs I'd consider to be small and relegation rivals. Two of those are at home. I then have an extremely difficult away game against Mlada Boleslav before hosting Banik Ostrava which is massive not just because they're rivals but also because I can't afford a bad run to start. The next few games are against clubs bigger than ourselves, but nobody too scary before facing a murderer's row before the winter break. In consecutive games I will have to face Jablonec, Sigma, Ceske Budejovice (only easy one), Slavia, Slovan Liberec, Sparta and Plzen. The last four are probably the best four Czech teams on the game apart from Boleslav. I also have them as my last four games of the season so really cannot afford to be in a dog fight in the end. A fast start is key with my schedule being so unbalanced!

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I have now reached the winter break and have played 16 of my 30 league games. I am also in the 1/4 finals of the cup. I have to say that this is probably the best half season I ever managed on FM2012. I have one of the lowest wage bills in the league and am broke thanks to the idiotic board yet am somehow in fifth position in the league and within 5 points of a European qualification place. I think realistically my team will fall away in the second half, but our points total of 28 is probably enough to guarantee survival already considering the team in second bottom (two teams go down) only have 8 points currently. There are however now rumors being reported that my team are going to have to sell tons of players once the transfer window re-opens at the end of January thanks to the mess the board have put us in. The squad that I have managed to build during the summer is a mixture of unknown youngsters my scouts managed to find, veterans who were let go by clubs they were no longer good enough for and foreigners who were without clubs and had agents who offered them to me. In terms of numbers my squad is tiny compared to those of rival clubs and only has a few stars. However as always seems to be the case on FM my most valuable players are my youngsters. I imagine that they will be the ones that will have to be sold off first. I will post my finances, table and fixtures below to show how the season has gone so far.

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Hopefully I'll get some good bids for some of my less needed players. I will write an update before the season resumes in March with regards to finances if there is anything to report. I don't care if I lose half of my team during the summer because I can easily replace them with free transfers, but to lose them at this stage of the season would truly be a disaster.

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My season didn't end as well as it started and I resigned three games before the end. My favorite team Ruch were relegated and their manager was fired so I felt like I had to step in to save the club that I love. I left Opava in eight spot one point behind our rivals Banik. We went out of the cup on away goals against the best club in the country (Mlada Boleslav) and had nothing left to play for apart from pride and a few Crowns worth of prize money. I didn't leave just because the Ruch job became available although it was obviously a factor. I left because I had taken Opava as far as I could. The club will never challenge for the Czech title and the squad has to be weakened in the summer because of the debt from the under-soil heating installation left us broke. The board would put £600k in ever now and then but it would only cover the interest. We wouldn't have been given money to improve the squad and the wage bill needed to be cut even though we were under the board's ridiculous budget. I seriously feel for the future of Opava. It will be interesting to see what the new manager chooses to do with my players.

I have now taken over Ruch with them in an even worse position than Opava. The club is basically £4m in debt, the squad is dreadful and we have a massive re-building project ahead. The club are so broke that I had to resign from Opava because the board couldn't afford to pay the compensation to hire me. To go from a club that were good enough to finish mid table in the Czech First Division (top tier) to a club in the Polish First Division (second tier) may seem like a backwards career step to some but I can assure you that it isn't. Ruch are basically the Polish version of Liverpool. Until the recent emergence of Wisla as a superpower Ruch and our biggest rivals Gornik Zabrze were always the two most dominant clubs in Polish football history with 13 (Ruch) and 14 (Gornik) league titles (it was like a Man Utd - Liverpool situation up until the end of the 80s) respectively. Nobody else is even close to those three clubs with Legia next most successful with only 8 titles. On top of this Ruch also now playing in Silesia Stadium (will do IRL from next season) which is probably the best stadium in Poland and has a capacity of 44,731 (according to FM). This just shows the potential of the club compared to 7,758 capacity of the City Stadium in Opava. I have a huge mess to sort out here because of the debts and the pitiful level of the squad, but I think it's no tougher than it was at Opava. I see more potential to grow the club because the Polish league has four continental qualification spots compared to the Czech league's three. On top of this the top Polish teams are weaker than the top Czech ones at least on this particular save.

I am actually considering contacting SI about the awful job done by the Polish researcher for this game. I genuinely believe that he is biased against my club and this is clearly reflected in the game. In real life Ruch are challenging Legia and Slask for the league title with only a few games left to play. We are also most likely going to be facing Legia in the cup final. We are 3-1 up after the first semi final with the second final away in Krakow. It's very unlikely Wisla can come back from this. Last season we also weren't far from qualifying for Europe yet Ruch are relegated on pretty much every save I ever play on FM and at the start have one of the worst squads and lowest reputations in all of the Polish top division and are projected to be relegated the first season. This is just ridiculous considering that it's a club back on the up with the move to the new stadium planned for the summer, a great manager in place and a successful squad that has performed excellently on the pitch. On top of this it is claimed that the new Silesian Stadium is in awful condition, which is insane considering it is currently being re-build and will be modern and as good as any stadium in Poland. On top of this the researcher has made obvious errors in listing rivalries that don't exist. There are similar problems with the Czech league with regards to rivalries also. I am not sure who researches the game and who finalizes these issues, but really the amount of mistakes that were made is awful.

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I decided against writing an initial report about the task ahead of me because the majority of my senior squad either had their contracts about to expire or were going to be leaving the club so I didn't feel that they were worth writing about. I have basically had to build a whole new team apart from the starting keeper, my captain and best centre back, my left winger and two strikers. I lost my star striker for £375k on a relegation release clause although I didn't mind too much because his contract was due to expire at the end of the season and he'd have never agreed to extend even if we were promoted so it was best to take the cash. Also his salary was too high for a broke club in the second tier. I also lost my star young centre back who looked amazing. His youth contract had expired and he refused to sign a professional contract with us (probably due to the relegation) so I lost him for the huge sum of £525k to Slask. Due to the abysmal financial situation the club is in (debt now down to £2m thank God!) I couldn't re-invest the large sums I received and instead have had to sign bargains and free transfers. Here's my summer's transfer activity:

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I doubt you've ever heard of any of the players on that list, but I am extremely happy with what I managed to put together. I am pretty strong and deep at every position now apart from both full back positions and on the right wing. The star signings are probably Oliver Agbo (who amazingly wasn't getting a game for his old Nigerian club and was desperate to leave) for the massive fee of £2k:

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and also Predrag Randjelovic whos agent kindly contacted me offering his services. Was ecstatic to pick up such a good looking player for free. His wages are a bit high, but I think it's worth paying for because not getting promoted is not an option and he should be a machine at this level.

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So far I have found Polish clubs to be far poorer than Czech clubs both financially and talent-wise at this level. Czech second division clubs still have the money to pay £100k for signings and can afford wages of £1k per week while in Poland teams are really scraping for pennies because they are so broke. That really show in terms of the quality of squads they can put together. For what I have seen so far there appears to be a massive gap within the league I will be playing in. You have the big clubs who have relatively good squads and can sign players (e.g. Cracovia, LKS Lodz, Ruch, Pogon, Arka, Gliwice) and then you have the tiny clubs with no budgets whos squads are quite pathetic and their players are worth basically zero (e.g. Otwock, Sokolka, Gornik Walbrzych etc...). This will most likely show in the final table although like always on FM there should be a few shocks along the way.

I was amazed to see that I have been projected to finish 4th in the league. I was expecting to be the favorites and most likely winners, but because of the mistakes made by the Polish researcher the club reputations are unrealistic and my goal is to push for a promotion place instead. We had an awesome preseason beating Bytom and drawing with Legia when both are top division clubs and Legia are probably the biggest in all of Poland.

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Based on that form and the easy win over Gaz Metan (who are also a higher reputation club with a stronger league) I think we should win the title this year. I Will set my season's objectives as follows:

- Win the First Division title (Promotion is the key, but I want to set the bar higher)

- Win the Polish Cup (This is probably ridiculous and unrealistic, but I need to aim for Europe ASAP for financial reasons. Big clubs do tend to rest players for cup games and I do not fear anyone outside of the five or so truly big teams).

- Find and sign some talented Polish youngsters who I can sell on down the line at a large profit (Opava have sold on some of my bargain pickups and seem to be getting over their financial crisis and I need the same from Ruch)

I will write an update most likely around the time of the winter break to let you know how this goes. I just hope that my confidence is not misplaced and my squad really is as good as I think.

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I am actually considering contacting SI about the awful job done by the Polish researcher for this game. I genuinely believe that he is biased against my club and this is clearly reflected in the game. In real life Ruch are challenging Legia and Slask for the league title with only a few games left to play. We are also most likely going to be facing Legia in the cup final. We are 3-1 up after the first semi final with the second final away in Krakow. It's very unlikely Wisla can come back from this. Last season we also weren't far from qualifying for Europe yet Ruch are relegated on pretty much every save I ever play on FM and at the start have one of the worst squads and lowest reputations in all of the Polish top division and are projected to be relegated the first season. This is just ridiculous considering that it's a club back on the up with the move to the new stadium planned for the summer, a great manager in place and a successful squad that has performed excellently on the pitch.

Ruch came 12th in the league last season, you were 9 places off European qualification and not "not far from Europe". Stadion Śląski's condition is set to "very good" in the database, so either you're playing an edited db or you're confusing stadium condition with pitch condition. Your squad and reputation I feel is fairly researched, except for Maciej Jankowski, who is overrated for such an unproven player and always becomes a regular in the Polish NT and scores hatfuls of goals. If anything, it's the other clubs in the Polish db that are overrated. Rivalries aren't set by researchers.

Oh, and you were very nearly kicked out of the cup yesterday by Wisła, way to jinx yourself.

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Ruch came 12th in the league last season, you were 9 places off European qualification and not "not far from Europe". Stadion Śląski's condition is set to "very good" in the database, so either you're playing an edited db or you're confusing stadium condition with pitch condition. Your squad and reputation I feel is fairly researched, except for Maciej Jankowski, who is overrated for such an unproven player and always becomes a regular in the Polish NT and scores hatfuls of goals. If anything, it's the other clubs in the Polish db that are overrated. Rivalries aren't set by researchers.

Oh, and you were very nearly kicked out of the cup yesterday by Wisła, way to jinx yourself.

Ruch finished 12th because they played badly during the last few weeks of the season once Europe became impossible and lost the last four games. Still they only missed Europe by 11 points. Losing your last few when you have nothing to play for doesn't mean that you are miles off of Europe when you spend most of the season in the top 6 before a late fall. For example if Ruch now fell apart after losing in Warsaw last weekend and finished in 5th or 6th (not impossible) would you say that they didn't contend for the title? I'd say Ruch have been contenders because they went to Warsaw with only 6 games left and if they won they'd have gone top. Either way there is no justification for them being projected to be relegated and having one of the worst squads in the league even on the update when they proved to be not the most talented team, but one of the best. That would be enough to give them at least average level players for the league they are in.

Is squad reputation not different to club reputation? I find it strange that a club like Ruch could have a lower reputation than clubs like Belchatow or Polonia which they appear to have. Having said that Polonia are made to be one of the biggest clubs in Poland when in real life are tiny and laughed at by most people as a club that has very few fans and is very much in Legia's shadow. There are similar issues on the Czech version where Plzen are made to be as big as Sparta or close when they won the title for the first time ever last season and have now sold or agreed to sell their best players.

The squad may not be as strong as Legia or Wisla if we analyze it man for man, but it is basically pathetic compared to those clubs, Lech and the other clubs the person who researched the DB has rated as elite. I think most people can see that it's a league with a lot of parity and where a squad like this shouldn't be so far behind the top ones.

I am not sure if the other teams are necessarily overrated either. Based on recent European performances, stadium improvements and crowd sizes the top Polish clubs should be rated close to the top CEE clubs such as Sparta Prague, Partizan Belgrade or Dinamo Zagreb yet they are miles behind these clubs on the game.

Who sets rivalries then because there are lots of problems here and it would be good to give them some feedback. Simple examples:

- Opava are not listed as a rival of Banik Ostrava on Banik's info page when the clubs hate eachother and Banik probably only hate Sparta more

- Banik are only listed as a minor rival for Opava when in reality Opava only really care about Banik and hate them more than anyone. Their other listed rivals are tiny clubs with no fans who are not close to Opava's size and stature.

- It lists Gieksa and Widzew as a "fierce" rivalry which I find a bit weird. Maybe the fans are fierce towards each other if they bump into each other at a Ruch vs Gornik game, but the clubs are not massive rivals that live for beating each other.

- It lists Legia and Polonia as fierce rivals, which is ridiculous. Legia fans couldn't care less about them. Their fierce rivals are Widzew, Lech and Wisla who are listed as "other rivals".

- Slavia Prague and Bohemians 1905 are listed as rivals when in real life they are known for their friendship

- Same as Timisoara and Rapid Bucharest

- Sparta and Banik are not listed as fierce rivals when it is probably the most heavily policed game in Czech football

- Sparta and Zizkov are listed as rivals when Zizkov's only fans are basically Sparta fans who go to watch them because of the 10.15am kickoffs and cheap ticket prices. Zizkov are more rivals of Bohemians than Sparta or Dukla

I could list more but I'd probably bore you....

Maybe the stadium probably was only on my game then. Ruch had a whole stand closed for health and safety purposes and the stadium condition is listed as being "very poor" and you can see the amount of seats closed off for games. How could this happen if it is set to being very good? Btw I don't use any patches and am playing off of the standard SI made DB update. Here's the screenshot:

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I probably did jinx myself by being so arrogant lol. Was lucky in the end but a place in the final's a place in the final ;)

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Ruch finished 12th because they played badly during the last few weeks of the season once Europe became impossible and lost the last four games. Still they only missed Europe by 11 points. Losing your last few when you have nothing to play for doesn't mean that you are miles off of Europe when you spend most of the season in the top 6 before a late fall.

Ruch may have missed Europe by 11 points, but on the other hand they finished 10 points in front of Arka, who were relegated. In that sense you were closer to relegation than to Europe.

For example if Ruch now fell apart after losing in Warsaw last weekend and finished in 5th or 6th (not impossible) would you say that they didn't contend for the title? I'd say Ruch have been contenders because they went to Warsaw with only 6 games left and if they won they'd have gone top.

Title contenders, no. Contenders for Europe, yes.

Either way there is no justification for them being projected to be relegated and having one of the worst squads in the league even on the update when they proved to be not the most talented team, but one of the best. That would be enough to give them at least average level players for the league they are in.

Well, I agree they shouldn't be rated so much worse than other teams. That being said, I think their biggest asset is their manager, they lack any really outstanding players and don't have strength in depth.

Is squad reputation not different to club reputation? I find it strange that a club like Ruch could have a lower reputation than clubs like Belchatow or Polonia which they appear to have.

I meant squad ability, not squad reputation, sorry if I caused any confusion. While I agree they shouldn't be rated lower than Bełchatów, it was Ruch's best player who moved to Polonia, and not the other way round :) However, if you look at Ruch's recent history, you'll admit that the club hasn't been very successful in the last decade: your last trophy came in 1996, you quite spent 4 consecutive seasons in the second tier, twice avoiding the drop to the third tier by winning the playouts. Things like these hurt reputation as it is understood in the game.

Having said that Polonia are made to be one of the biggest clubs in Poland when in real life are tiny and laughed at by most people as a club that has very few fans and is very much in Legia's shadow. There are similar issues on the Czech version where Plzen are made to be as big as Sparta or close when they won the title for the first time ever last season and have now sold or agreed to sell their best players.

I think you're being unfair to Polonia. They may be riding high only thanks to Wojciechowski's riches at the moment, but I wouldn't call them "tiny" or "laughed at by most people".

The squad may not be as strong as Legia or Wisla if we analyze it man for man, but it is basically pathetic compared to those clubs, Lech and the other clubs the person who researched the DB has rated as elite. I think most people can see that it's a league with a lot of parity and where a squad like this shouldn't be so far behind the top ones.

I am not sure if the other teams are necessarily overrated either. Based on recent European performances, stadium improvements and crowd sizes the top Polish clubs should be rated close to the top CEE clubs such as Sparta Prague, Partizan Belgrade or Dinamo Zagreb yet they are miles behind these clubs on the game.

I'll stick with my opinion and say that it's the other clubs that are overrated. Polish clubs may have put in some decent European performances in the past few years, but they were one season wonders in the Europa cup, which isn't taken entirely seriously by big European sides. When transferring to foreign leagues, most Polish players struggle badly to adapt and find themselves out of their depth even if they were standout performers in the Polish league, and don't even get me started on our national team.

I think many FM researchers should take a reality check when rating their players, but that's a topic for another rant.

Who sets rivalries then because there are lots of problems here and it would be good to give them some feedback. Simple examples:

- Opava are not listed as a rival of Banik Ostrava on Banik's info page when the clubs hate eachother and Banik probably only hate Sparta more

- Banik are only listed as a minor rival for Opava when in reality Opava only really care about Banik and hate them more than anyone. Their other listed rivals are tiny clubs with no fans who are not close to Opava's size and stature.

- It lists Gieksa and Widzew as a "fierce" rivalry which I find a bit weird. Maybe the fans are fierce towards each other if they bump into each other at a Ruch vs Gornik game, but the clubs are not massive rivals that live for beating each other.

- It lists Legia and Polonia as fierce rivals, which is ridiculous. Legia fans couldn't care less about them. Their fierce rivals are Widzew, Lech and Wisla who are listed as "other rivals".

- Slavia Prague and Bohemians 1905 are listed as rivals when in real life they are known for their friendship

- Same as Timisoara and Rapid Bucharest

- Sparta and Banik are not listed as fierce rivals when it is probably the most heavily policed game in Czech football

- Sparta and Zizkov are listed as rivals when Zizkov's only fans are basically Sparta fans who go to watch them because of the 10.15am kickoffs and cheap ticket prices. Zizkov are more rivals of Bohemians than Sparta or Dukla

I could list more but I'd probably bore you....

I think rivalries are set by the clubs themselves, like the legends/icons/favourite personnel. I can only comment on the Polish rivalries, but I think that GKS and Widzew have a fierce rivalry set because of the friendship between Ruch and Widzew fans (and as far as I know, there's a "kosa" between GKS and Ruch). As for Legia and Polonia, well, a derby is a derby, whatever Legia fans may say.

Maybe the stadium probably was only on my game then. Ruch had a whole stand closed for health and safety purposes and the stadium condition is listed as being "very poor" and you can see the amount of seats closed off for games. How could this happen if it is set to being very good? Btw I don't use any patches and am playing off of the standard SI made DB update. Here's the screenshot:

Yeah, I loaded the editor to check the state of the Śląski and it's listed as very good in the database. It probably deteriorated quickly in the game due to Ruch's debts (which also caused the closing off of stands). It seems to be a bug / research error, because as far as I know Ruch don't own the stadium and don't pay for its maintenance.

I probably did jinx myself by being so arrogant lol. Was lucky in the end but a place in the final's a place in the final ;)

Eh, I hope you actually win the thing and the Ekstraklasa in front of Legia. Good luck to Ruch from a Widzew fan and I'll stop derailing your thread :)

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Don't apologise for hi-jacking the thread. I find it interesting discussing this with another fan because not many people play the CEE leagues and any time I give feedback or opinion it seems to be ignored due to the lack of people who play them on these forums.

With regards to last season I can see where you are coming from. I just remember dreaming of going back to Europe like the season before and the big trip to Vienna and wanting something similar to happen again. The team seemed to be legitimate contenders for third until near the end with that great run of games around Easter time before the late collapse. I am biased but I find it frustrating to see my club rated so low by the game when we finished in third two seasons ago, finished 12th last year but competed in the top half for most of the year and are contenders for the title (or at worst Europe) again this season. I know that since the fall of Communism the club has struggled (kind of like the region with the industry) but it is still one of the great clubs in Poland and in recent years things have definitely shown signs of improvement. This is why I am a little unhappy because Gornik Zabrze were in the second tier more recently and have looked weaker yet are a much stronger squad and seem to be a bigger club according to the game.

I find the whole rating of club reputations to be quite interesting with regards to the game. There should maybe be a separate rating for how attractive a move is to a player with the way football has changed and how money rather than a club's real size seems to be more important. With clubs like Anzhi and City this is particularly important. I think most people recognize Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd as the three big English clubs and the Moscow clubs being the biggest in Russia, but now things have changed and these traditionally smaller clubs have money they can sign foreign players who do not care about the size or reputation of the club that they play for and want mainly money/potential success instead.

For example in Poland in terms of fan base and following the only massive clubs are Legia, Wisla, Lech, Ruch, Lechia and maybe Widzew. You then have the smaller clubs who have money and can attract good players relative to the competition such as Kielce, Polonia, Slask and Zaglebie. Then you have the traditional clubs who are big but not quite as big as the first clubs in terms of fan base such as Gornik, LKS, Cracovia, Arka and Pogon Szczecin. Then in terms of Ekstraklasa clubs you have the smaller clubs such as Belchatow, Podbeskidzie and Jagiellonia who aren't that big or rich but are doing well to play at such a high level. On FM it uses the word "reputation" which to me suggests how well known, supported and successful a club is. This is why Liverpool can sign top players IRL even though they haven't won a league title for as long as Ruch. I am not going to claim that Ruch should be top of this rating. At the moment Lech, Legia and Wisla are the clear big three from this point of view. However after these clubs I would put Ruch somewhere near the top. Definitely ahead of clubs who have no history of success and small fan bases. On my game for example Ruch are rated as smaller than Piast Gliwice when we are in the same division. This is just crazy. There are probably more Ruch fans in Gliwice than Gliwice fans. Same with Polonia Bytom being ranked higher. When large amounts of people there support either Ruch or Gornik.

Your stadium comment makes sense. The stadium will be rented to Ruch and not owned by the club. I believe that when the move takes place Ruch won't have to pay to play there. It will just mean the stadium owners taking some of the gate receipt money.

Thanks for the kind wishes. I would wish Widzew well but I guess it doesn't matter with them safe but too far from Europe and stuck with nothing to play for. I heard there will be lots of Widzew fans at the cup final and it's always good to have their support like for the game in Gdansk which was epic with so many people from Elana and Widzew. Sadly I am in the UK now so can't go so often.

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Forgot to respond with regards to the Europa League. I agree that definitely that teams from the major leagues (apart from Spain and Germany maybe?) haven't taken it seriously. I was thinking mainly about CEE leagues and have SI have made the top teams in Serbia, Croatia and Romania far superior to the Polish ones as well as Sparta Prague. I admit that the Romanian league is a tiny bit stronger currently, but Poland is very close to being as good with the money from the new stadia making the big clubs much stronger and more successful while Romania hasn't moved on financially. I guess the Balkan clubs have their money purely because of player sales due to their clubs producing far better youngsters than we see in Poland. The Polish league however is far better than either of the big Balkan ones. Serbian clubs have been dreadful recently with Partizan this year humiliating themselves against Shamrock in qualifying and Zvezda being mismanaged and having financial problems. Dinamo made the CL group stages this year but were way out of their depth and they haven't been good in previous years while the rest of their league is a joke. Bulgaria also is pretty wealthy on FM when in reality their clubs are even poorer than ours.

I think that as you said the finances need to be looked at strongly because the researchers are well out of touch from reality.For example I have regularly seen Partizan Belgrade for example pay more than £1.5m for single players, often from Western European clubs which is extremely unrealistic. Them, Zvezda and Dinamo basically sign the top young players from small clubs in the former Yugoslavia and then sell them on abroad at a profit. I have seen Sparta (I'll comment on them more because I know them best out of the Non-Polish clubs due to living there for 5 years and regularly watching them) pay more than £5m for players which is insane because IRL they are a club who buy off all the top Czech and Slovak clubs for relatively small amounts and then sell to anyone who bids from Russia or the West (even minor clubs such as Vitesse buying Bony last season) at a profit. They don't have the funds to be spending big money because Czech crowds are tiny (due to ice hockey being better and more popular) and the league is declining and definitely such weakner than the Polish league. This is also unbalanced for the second tier where in Poland crowds are often as good as those for Czech top division games yet in Poland the second tier clubs on FM are so poor that they can't sign anyone while the Czechs all have money to spend. Even the smallest clubs such as Trinec, Strizkov (Bohemians Praha) or Znojmo (average attendances of way less than 1,000 which is unheard of in tiny) can sign players for £100k and pay around £1k per wages week while in Poland you're lucky to be able to pay a free transfer £500 per week even as one of the bigger clubs at this level (Arka, Gliwice, Pogon etc).

I hope SI look into this because a lot of clubs are out of touch with reality due to biased fans researching them. Plzen and Mlada Boleslav are the other Czech examples that string to mind. Two tiny clubs with tiny fan bases who have done well recently but are not big clubs or talent factories yet consistently challenge for titles on the game when IRL Liberec, Banik, Teplice, Brno and Slavia are so much bigger.

End of rant ;)

Will post a mid season update soon. Things are looking good so far.

Btw endtime have you played the Polish league on the game? I am interesting in your thoughts or experiences. This is my first season and I am finding it different to the other leagues I played such as Cz, Romania, Ukraine and Germany.

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Game update time....

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So I am now just over halfway through the season and it looks like this will be an easy title to win. This league really is dreadful on FM it has to be said, especially considering there are some really big clubs in here with me. I am also in the quarter finals of the Polish Cup after knocking out two top tier sides in Warta Poznan and Gornik Polkowice. I genuinely think that I have a shot of winning it and qualifying for Europe like I did when I started in the Romanian second tier with Timisoara before. What makes this stranger is that my club has one of the smallest budgets in the league. We have a wage bill that is less than half of the largest and our net transfer spend is by far and away the lowest out of anyone due to losing our best players and not being able to replace them due to the financial problems that the club has.

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Right now I am thinking ahead to next season because this one is pretty much over apart from the cup. I have decided not to sign anyone else even on free transfers (unless they are youth team players) due to the step up in class and the fact that we will be able to attract better quality players in the summer. I expect to be able to challenge for Europe next season immediately after promotion and escape the financial chaos that is stopping the club from growing. My expectation for this year is still the same. To win the league and to win the cup. On top of that I want to go undefeated the rest of the way, but doubt I won't because I want to blood youngsters as soon as we are mathematically promoted. I have picked up a few youngsters but have no idea what they'll be worth in a few years, but hope they have re-sale value. Opava have made more than £2m from re-selling my free transfers so hopefully Ruch can do the same. For what it's worth here's my results from the first half.

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I played the Polish league before the 3rd patch, moving from Piast to Podbeskidzie to Widzew. It wasn't a great experience, mostly due to the unrealistic transfer market. At the start of the game, foreign clubs bought up all the best players for huge fees, which caused an inflation in the market, and after a few seasons Legia would spend £5.75 on a player from Zagłębie Lubin. I edited the db and lowered the reputation of all the competitions in the game by 20 points, and it has resulted in a somewhat more realistic game. Players from the Polish league no longer command such high transfer fees, although they are still overpriced and there are too many foreign transfers in general. Apart from Polonia, who probably have a sugar daddy set in the db, clubs haven't been spending such outrageous money and the game seems much more playable, although I haven't managed in Poland with this setup yet. I think the issues you mention with Sparta or Partizan spending huge amounts of money on transfers partly stem from the reputation problem, and are partly caused by the fact that the entire financial side of the game is lacking. I took a look at Sparta transfers in my game, and even with the lowered reputation they still make over 10 million pounds in player sales every season. Add CL money to that and you can see why they can splash the money on players in the game. In this sense it's not something that the researchers can influence.

I think it would be hard for SI to have such close control over the research in all leagues present in the game. I doubt they have any detailed knowledge of Eastern European leagues, so apart from really obvious cases where obscure players are vastly overrated, they have to trust their researchers. Another problem is that people who play the game often don't want realism, but "fun" - and they find the game fun when they can sign the best players and accumulate cash. Throughout the years I've read posts made by people on the Polish FM forum where they complained that it was impossible for Polish clubs to sign good players, and I guess some of the researchers finally caved in and made clubs better than they really are. I can imagine that people playing other Eastern European leagues are similar in that regard.

I don't think that FM will ever accurately simulate the realities of smaller leagues, there are too many variables, too many details specific to certain countries, that creating an accurate representation of each league would take a disproportionate amount of work. You would have to virtually code a separate game for every country, and Poland and other Eastern European countries aren't big enough markets for SI to give special attention to them. Especially since there don't seem to be many posters from this part of Europe registered in the official forums - most Polish players, for example, post on the Polish forum, and it's hard to raise issues with SI if it seems like there is no interest in a given league from a wider player base.

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Managed to get rid of my biggest disappointment this season. Was so happy because I picked him up on a free and managed to receive more than ten times his listed value. Funniest thing is that he went to Gornik Zabrze and their fans are really pissed :D Also managed to loan out my best goalkeeping prospect for a 100k fee so am getting closer to financial stability. Maybe sell some of my other best players or loan them out if I can get big fees because I think I can replace them in the summer if I invest some of the income on scouting.

Bad buy but looks great:

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I played the Polish league before the 3rd patch, moving from Piast to Podbeskidzie to Widzew. It wasn't a great experience, mostly due to the unrealistic transfer market. At the start of the game, foreign clubs bought up all the best players for huge fees, which caused an inflation in the market, and after a few seasons Legia would spend £5.75 on a player from Zagłębie Lubin. I edited the db and lowered the reputation of all the competitions in the game by 20 points, and it has resulted in a somewhat more realistic game. Players from the Polish league no longer command such high transfer fees, although they are still overpriced and there are too many foreign transfers in general. Apart from Polonia, who probably have a sugar daddy set in the db, clubs haven't been spending such outrageous money and the game seems much more playable, although I haven't managed in Poland with this setup yet. I think the issues you mention with Sparta or Partizan spending huge amounts of money on transfers partly stem from the reputation problem, and are partly caused by the fact that the entire financial side of the game is lacking. I took a look at Sparta transfers in my game, and even with the lowered reputation they still make over 10 million pounds in player sales every season. Add CL money to that and you can see why they can splash the money on players in the game. In this sense it's not something that the researchers can influence.

I think it would be hard for SI to have such close control over the research in all leagues present in the game. I doubt they have any detailed knowledge of Eastern European leagues, so apart from really obvious cases where obscure players are vastly overrated, they have to trust their researchers. Another problem is that people who play the game often don't want realism, but "fun" - and they find the game fun when they can sign the best players and accumulate cash. Throughout the years I've read posts made by people on the Polish FM forum where they complained that it was impossible for Polish clubs to sign good players, and I guess some of the researchers finally caved in and made clubs better than they really are. I can imagine that people playing other Eastern European leagues are similar in that regard.

I don't think that FM will ever accurately simulate the realities of smaller leagues, there are too many variables, too many details specific to certain countries, that creating an accurate representation of each league would take a disproportionate amount of work. You would have to virtually code a separate game for every country, and Poland and other Eastern European countries aren't big enough markets for SI to give special attention to them. Especially since there don't seem to be many posters from this part of Europe registered in the official forums - most Polish players, for example, post on the Polish forum, and it's hard to raise issues with SI if it seems like there is no interest in a given league from a wider player base.

You make some good points here. Even the top leagues are completely overvalued in terms of transfers with German and English clubs receiving so much prize money and spending sums that they would never be able to bid in real life. I am not sure if there is a way to deal with the transfer situation, but it is too easy to sell players for large sums of money and then find better players on free transfers which allows you to build up a strong squad. I only buy players that I have scouted or who are in the search function yet I still find some many bargains every season even with crappy scouts like my ones at Ruch who have around 8-10 in judging ability and potential.

Can you please tell me the link to the Polish site. I would be interested to read it.

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Thanks for the link to the site endtime.

AK22 thanks for the kind words. If I have small squads like this with a bit of wage budget room I always seem to find the game quite easy. My major weakness is playing in Europe with strong teams where I never seem to win knockout games which drives me insane. Hopefully I can try (and probably fail) at that level with Ruch before I move on to a tougher league challenge such as managing a small Ukrainian club and trying to overtake the massive teams at the top or doing something with a small Russian club.

Will post a season update later today probably. Have 10 games left in the league and am still in the cup. Have lost a league game though when I played my youth team so my starters would be fresh for the cup.

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The season has finally finished and it turned out to be a great one. We won the cup quite easily. I imagine that none of the top clubs took it seriously because the best team I had to play the whole tournament was Zaglebie who finished 6th in the top division. I did check and the best teams I played did field strong teams. Lech and Jagiellonia seem to be far better than everyone else at the moment and I avoided them luckily. We obviously won the league with ease but did drop far more points after the winter break due to playing the youth team ahead of cup matches and also selling a few players to raise funds which left me with far less squad depth. Here's the results I had after the break:

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And here's the final table. I think the two highlights for me would be Gieksa getting relegated and also Arka & Pogon both dropping points on the last day of the season to be overtaken by Gornik Walbrzych who are obviously relative minnows.

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I actually have a lot of problems currently. My team is slightly over the wage budget and the board are getting really pissed about it. This is a major problem because my star striker who was the league's top scorer is complaining about wanting a pay rise, but I can't afford to really give him one. Here's the only forward that I have who will be even remotely effective at the next level. Without him I think I'll be doomed to a relegation battle. Currently he won't even discuss a contract and is demanding to leave due to my stalling tactics. Hopefully something can be done to keep him. The success we've had this year plus player sales and cash injections have got the debt down to less than £1m now which is a major positive' Providing we can qualify for the 4th round qualifying stage for the Europa League I can confident of being in the black very soon. The 4th round normally has quite a few famous clubs and would offer the chance to make a lot of money from tickets. Would also give us more prize money.

Right now I have no idea whether I can afford to keep any of the players whose contracts are expiring or do anything to turn my striker around. I will write another update once I have received my budgets for next season and my reputation has been increased.

Two positives:

1. My reputation is finally at a good level. I am receiving regular messages about being linked with jobs. They are not massive clubs, but it's still nice. I've had three links to Czech first division clubs, two with Romanian first division clubs and one to Chornomorets Odessa, which is the perfect type of club I want to move to in a couple of seasons once I have got Ruch to the level I want them to be at.

2. I have two star youth players who will bring in some big money In the future. One was in the youth team when I arrived and I signed the other on a free transfer after Olimpic Donetsk strangely released him. Here are the profiles:

Not bad for a 17 year old ;)

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I will write an update tomorrow to explain how the preseason went in general and what I have done with the squad and our domestic aims. Just thought I'd write about my European adventure before going to sleep seeing as it has just ended. I have to say that for a newly promoted club with a tiny budget, debts and no experience at this level we really performed excellently.

We drew Sparta Prague in the third round. The were one of the strongest teams in the round. We were sadly unseeded due to a lack of recent European games which made the draw very tough. I knew from my Opava days that while Sparta have lots of talented players and a huge budget they are currently underachieving and are very beatable. In the first leg I made a real mess of the first half an hour. Basically every shot they had against me that you can see in the stats happened during this period. I was foolish and naive and went for my usual 4-2-4 suicidal tactic rather than taking the time to think about the talent differential and due to a lack of numbers in midfield we couldn't keep the ball and were over-run. I think changed things to go to 4-5-1 playing on the counter and it worked brilliantly. I sat an anchor man infront of the defence to protect them and went one up with two attack minded wingers. Now we had three central midfielders we closed them down better and kept stealing the ball and hitting them on the break. Our goal that won the game was a result of a fast breakaway.

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I started out in the second leg playing my 4-5-1 counter tactic that I finished the previous match with although I did tweak it a little and once again it was deadly. I let Sparta have the ball and shots from distance while keeping plenty of men between the ball and the goal. My lightening fast wingers and striker once again allowed me to break on them at will. It probably worked even better than the first leg due to their need for a goal. As soon as we scored (another breakaway goal) the game was basically over. I probably could've won the match outright but was too lazy to change my tactics to play defensively and waste time because the away goal meant they needed three so we were through. They nicked their goal at the end but were never a threat to go through.

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The draw for the fourth qualifying round was a disaster. Instead of drawing some medicore Turkish, Danish or Austria club from the seeded pool we ended up with Twente who were one of the top seeds in the whole draw. We had to play the away leg first so the strategy was simple. Don't even think about attacking and try not to let them put the tie out of sight in the first leg. I played 4-5-1 but with time wasting on the max setting, a defensive strategy and slow pace. We were completely outclassed and deserved to lose for sure, but the way it happened was very unfortunate. The scored early on from a penalty that occurred right in the corner of the penalty area as far away from the goal as possible. I didn't even notice the foul until I saw them going to the spot. They then nicked the second just before half time. We did amazingly well to kept a second half clean sheet and limited them to a total of only three clear cut chances. We even had a great chance of our own to steal an away goal but my striker missed from six yards out.

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I have quite a few regrets from the second leg to be honest. I sent my team out with the goal of not losing the second leg rather than trying to qualify. I'd seen other smaller teams get destroyed and didn't want my morale damaged. I assumed I was out facing a two goal deficit with no away goal. I expected them to score and didn't believe I had a shot at scoring four. I left my team playing on the counter with quite a few attacking players up until the sixtieth minuted but didn't really go after them. At this point I went 4-2-4 and created my two half chances and on top of that had other great positions that could've turned into goals. I wished I'd started off with an aggressive tactic like this at home because when I went after Twente they looked vulnerable.

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I have to say that on the whole I am ecstatic to have got through to the fourth qualifying round considering how much stronger Sparta are than us. I just remember playing as Timisoara and knocking out Fiorentina and had a glimmer of hope that I could've done the same here. It wasn't to be but my team will learn for it and hopefully be back next year for another shot at a big side. I am sure next season we will be far more ready and will have a much stronger squad.

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Painful lesson in Holland.

Yeah we were just completely outclassed. It's what makes managing in these leagues so much fun. If you qualify for the Europa League as an English club for example you will probably make at least the 1/8 finals in your first season because you are so rich compared to clubs from other countries. However playing as a club from a small league where your opponents starting 11 are all individually worth more than your whole squad combined and also earn more than your squad combined makes the challenge so much more fun and victory (on the rare occasion that it happens) so much more exciting and sweeter. Can't wait to return next year and receive another beating from someone else! ;)

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Because of my bad habit of playing the game a night rather than during the day I didn't have the chance to write about my league goals due to being too tired and more focused on my mini Euro adventure.

I am actually quite sad about what I've had to do to my squad. I have had the same problems that I had when I was playing the Czech league in terms of domestic players being far too expensive due to my financial state so I've had to sign mainly foreigners. I managed to find some good (by the standard of my squad) defenders and defensive midfielders who were Polish but had to go abroad for higher quality attacking players who were either free or close to. My squad is one of the lowest valued in the league, but is quite young and I have some players who I should be able to sell on for a large profit (like Opava did after I left) that will allow me to start paying money for players rather than relying on my scouts (who are not very good) to find free transfers or bargains.

I think that the step-up to the top division is not too big. I can see my team having a similar season to my Opava team who were promoted. I imagine that we will finish around mid table and have a long cup run.

I am setting my objectives for the season as:

- Finish in the top 3 in the league (this is a really tough one, but only the top three qualify for Europe so I need to aim high for financial reasons)

- Retain the cup (we are far weaker than Legia, Jagiellonia and Polonia so won't win the league but the cup isn't an unrealistic goal. it also offers the European place that I desperately need)

- Discover another 2-3 youngsters who can be sold on at a profit

Last year we managed to achieve all of our objections (although only one youngster with massive re-sale value is Polish) after aiming high so we will do the same this year.

The transfer window is now closed and we have played six games so far. We lost to the two teams who were expected to outclass us and have played well against everyone else.

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By niebiescy84 at 2012-04-14

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My aim is to continue beating (or at least not losing against) the non-elite teams and pray to the good Lord when we face the rich clubs who have players worth more than all of mine combined.

Here are my main hopes for bringing in finance in the not too distant future:

The first lad signed on a free transfer after being released by Obolon Kiev. He looks awesome compared to my other central midfielders but did say in his interview that Ruch are a stepping stone to bigger things, which is a slight concer. I don't mind though if I can make some big money quickly from him. The only concerns are his high salary and the fact that he has already been injured twice.

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My second signing has performed below expectations so far, but has good stats and has been watched by the Serbian national team manager. If he does manage to win some caps I imagine I'll be able to sell him on to Zvezda or Partizan for a large profit.

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I'll post some sort of update at the winter break.

In other unrelated news I am making arrangements to fly back to Poland to go to the cup final against Legia a week on Tuesday. It's going to cost me all of the money that I have but should be worth it. I will fly to Poland on Monday and leave on Wednesday. Me and my friend I am travelling with will sleep in our friend's allotment shed in Piekary so will be a very cheap trip once I arrive. Game is on Tuesday. Hopefully there will be a great atmosphere and an exciting game. I expect we will lose but it's not too often you get to see your team in a cup final.

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I doubt anyone cares because this isn't a Polish forum, but there were big problems at the Ruch vs Gornik game today. Gornik took their top hooligans without Ruch hooligans knowing and stopped their train 200m from the station at Chorzow Batory and then attacked regular Ruch fans who were waiting there to watch. Ruch's hooligans heard about this and wanted to attack Gornik before the game but couldn't get to them. During the game both sets of fans threw flares back and forth and then they tried to get to each other to attack. Game finished 0-0 and was boring, but off the field it was crazy. Here is a photo from outside the stadium that shows how crazy the policing was

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Here is the Ruch choreo using the word "gangbang" with the Gs from Gieksa and Gornik as an insult

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Here is the video from Ruch's fan club of the game. It gets crazy at 7:32

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I am now very worried that we will be banned from the cup final maybe. There will definitely not be fans at the next home game. This is what the Euros will probably look like. Shows that Polish football has not moved on.

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Sorry for not updating much recently. I've had a busy week and haven't had the chance to play FM. I have finally made it to the winter break of my first season back in the top division. There appears to be a massive bug in the game that is destroying any hope I ever have of getting my club back on a stable financial footing. The database has us down as owning Silesian Stadium, which has somehow managed to be in a poor condition for a long time. Because of this it is costing the club an insane amount of money and stopping us from every getting back to being secure because of the costs of maintaining what in the database appears to be a massive crumbling mess. More than 10,000 seats are still closed and stadium maintenance has been by far and away our biggest expense this season. Without it we would be back in the black already and in a position to grow the club, but instead we just end up in more debt regardless of how many players we sell. According to the financial stats maintaining the stadium has already cost more than £1.5m this season, which is almost twice the amount we have earned in gate receipts even with the European qualification games, which both broke our home attendance record. Match day income was another £250k, but even with that added to the ticket income we have lost 400k so far this season and we're only in January. I am seriously considering leaving the club if something doesn't change soon. I know that the whole point of this career was to make the club that I support great again, but I really don't want to stay around if we are in an impossible situation where we are haemorrhaging money due to a bug in the game and have no chance of ever becoming financially stable again. I think I am going to finish the season and then see who wants me. The only other option is to wait and see if I quality for the group stages of the Europa League. This is obviously incredibly unlikely but if it were to happen it would make the club sustainable for one more season providing I can sell a couple of players.

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This season has actually started pretty well to be honest. We are 2/3 of the way in with 20 games played from 30 in the league and are also in the quarter finals of the cup. I am surprised to be doing so well because I have played the game so lazily compared to usual. Because I've been busy I've been playing in the background and not really watching games. Just check at HT and then maybe make a few changes if I can open it at the right time when the game is playing. I've found the step up to not be too hard. Legia and Lech are way ahead of anyone else talent wise most of their first team players being valued in the millions while mine are in the tens of thousands but the other clubs haven't been too hard to compete with. We have managed to play our way into third by beating or drawing with (if away from home) the teams that we have a good shot against and losing the toughest games with the bad loss against Widzew being the exception.

Here's the current table:

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Right now I am not sure what to list my aims as for the rest of the season. My top aim is to retain the cup. I really couldn't care less about winning the trophy. I just want to win it because I need to qualify for Europe again for financial reasons and the cup is a far easier way of making it than through the league. My league fixtures are really tough. My first two games after the winter break are against Lech and Legia. I would be ecstatic to take 2-3 points from them combined, but doubt I will. I hope I can beat Lech, but going to Legia is an impossible task with such a huge talent disparity. I then face the bottom two at home (Gornik and Gornik Walbrzych) in what are must win games. I then have tough away games to Widzew and Zaglebie. Winning one of those two would be a fantastic achievement. I then finish with three winnable games. I'd expect to beat Kielce at home for sure. I think we can beat Polonia again too. Going to Warta Poznan isn't easy but we should expect a draw minimum. I am aiming for 17 points from the 30 available. I think that would be enough to give me a top 4/5 finish although it depends on how other teams perform. if I add 1/2 of everyone's current totals (20 games gone now so +10 gives a projected finish at their current rate) then I'd finish fourth with the total I expect, which isn't bad. I have to aim for top three though purely because it guarentees European football. I see no way of chasing down Legia who have a six point lead with ten games left so have to aim to finish second of third. I have also sold quite a few players during the winter break so have to work with a smaller squad now. I will post another update when the season finishes.

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Just lost my only good player to Vorskla after the chairman accepted on the club's behalf. We will receive £2.7m but it's mostly over 18 months and I won't have a penny of it to spend. I'm confident we could've got far more for him if I was allowed to offer him out in the summer and also having him would've pretty much guarenteed European qualification, but now we have nobody of starting quality on the right wing, which is a key position in my tactic. I'm becoming really fed up with this financial bug related to my stadium and how it's ruining my game. I think I'm gonna run off to the Ukraine and find myself a small club that I can try and build into something that can compete with the giants there. I really see no future at Ruch with the way things are and have no interest in managing another Polish club. The only other club I'd be interested in managing here is Widzew but I really can't be bothered to leave Ruch for them because I'd have to start the re-build all over again with the same tournaments, goals etc..

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Eh, come on, none or few of these hooligans will make it to the stadiums for the Euros. Maybe they'll meet in some forest or field and have a big international fight together with their pals from abroad, but I don't think the regular folks will be bothered.

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