[FM14] Back once again for the renegade master

[noikeee]

[video=youtube_share;GJMUkLTBXEk]

With the ill behaviour.

Right, I'm back to FMCU with a brand new journeyman career after a bit of a break, you may (or may not) remember me from the previous careers, some of them lengthy, some of them not:

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

2. [FM12] The complete world encyclopedia of insults shouted at virtual football players

3. [FM13] The Third Journey, by noikeee

4. [FM12] One more time - moonwalking my way through 'mo clubs

5. [FM13] Please bring me my coat - it's Chile in here

I'm not sure I have the time and patience to go as deep in writing as I've done in previous years, but however still have an itch to at least document my progress even if just for my own reading pleasure when I look back as the seasons roll back. My goal for this one is rather simple - journeyman, start from the bottom, anything goes. In previous attempts I've delved with specific goals, like venturing into leagues I'd never played in before, or playing as an alter-ego, this time I'm just playing as myself, a young Portuguese newbie to the world of football management, starting from as low as possible in his own homeland. This mimicks closely my most fun career to date, which was the very first one in FM11.

Leagues setup:

Portugal 3

England 6

Italy 3

Spain 3

Germany 2

France 2

Holland 1

Austria 1

Greece 1

Argentina 1

Brazil 1

Mexico 1

Scotland 4

Hungary 2

Uruguay 2

Croatia 2

Database: medium + all international players from all continents + all continental rep players. Around 100,000 players total.

[noikeee]

São João de Ver, 18th of July 2013

Portuguese minnows São João de Ver are a team from the Santa Maria da Feira council, in the Portuguese coastal west near Aveiro and Porto, who play in the third tier, recently re-branded "Campeonato Nacional de Séniores", and whose closest rivals are União de Lamas. Feirense are a parent club. This side plays in red-and-white horizontal stripes, and has no silverware known of in its history.

The team I have inherited:

There is one player that stands above the rest, and that is a familiar face:

I still remember when he made his first few appearances at the very top level for my club - FC Porto - as a no-nonsense aggressive, tough tackling winger. He never made it at the top but I am still staggered to find him so further down the leagues at an age of merely 32 - it wasn't that long ago he was playing for the likes of Braga and Belenenses, at least as a fringe player. His skills are one level above the rest of my squad and I intend to build my team around him.

The other standouts would be:

Júlio (ST) - A fairly complete forward for this level, I am looking for him to spearhead my attack

Ricardo Catarino (AMR) - Young winger who provides speed and tricks down the right-flank

Cândido Costa, Júlio and Catarino should provide my attacking trio, whereas I will look to build a solid defensive setup behind them as for the rest.

Goals for this season

In terms of expectations, my board want a "respectable league position" in our 10-team league, and I don't really know what would register as "respectable". Media think we're good enough for 3rd place. The league runs only until January, at that point the top 2 go into a promotion league vs the teams of the other groups, whereas the bottom 8 fight to avoid relegation. I wish we can nail a top 2 place but it's total guesswork on whether I'll make the team tick well enough for that or not.

I'm actually a few good matches into the season (no spoilers on how well or badly I'm doing!), but unlike previous journeyman careers I'm intending to only update twice per year so should come back when this mini-league ends in January.

[B.W.G]

Yes,I remember you from all five of your careers Welcome back to FMCU and good luck with São João de Ver

[Deisler26]

Ah, noikeee, I remember your threads well.

Gutted that Leiria went down the tubes

[noikeee]

Yes,I remember you from all five of your careers Welcome back to FMCU and good luck with São João de Ver

I just checked your thread, I remember you used to have some utterly ridiculous success using classic tactics, so I clicked on it thinking smugly "ha... now that classic tactics are gone he's gotta be struggling like most of us do".

5 years from nowhere to the Champions League... oh crap. Not so smug now.

Ah, noikeee, I remember your threads well.

Gutted that Leiria went down the tubes

Ah yes, the only Leiria fan in the universe. Don't be sad about Leiria, my new club is bringing in bigger crowds than they do. (they're playing on the same level as we do and apparently capped in-game to 300 spectators on a 300-seat stadium )

[abulezz]

Portugal is a nice place to start.

[deltablue]

I too remember all 5.

[noikeee]

Portugal is a nice place to start.

For me it's home... like starting in the BSP for most of you guys.

I too remember all 5.

And I remember a lot of your teams, Magic Milan Ipswich vs Norwich fighting for the top of the Premiership

[noikeee]

Mid-season update - 2013/2014

Transfers

With no money to spend, I had to hit the free transfers market, and focused mainly on building a safe midfield that could hold the team together behind Cândido Costa and the forwards. Toninho (MC / AM), Deodato (MC / DM) and João Ricardo (MC / DM) all strengthened that area, whilst I also searched for an attacking left-back, investing in Domingos (DL / ML) and João Cardoso (DL); and brought in target man Ricardo Barros (ST) with the intent of becoming a nice alternative to Júlio upfront. A goalkeeper was also badly needed so in came Australian shot stopper Adriano Varnier (GK) who has been a magnificent capture. Later in January youngster Celso Freitas (DR / DL) arrived, the third player I got on loan from parent club Feirense.

Several players were let go on free to open up wage budget, however that kinda backfired in January as I thought I'd be able to hire someone to replace them and I wasn't as the club is going deep into financial crisis under my "great" account management.

Results

I focused on building a predominantly defensive formation from the very beginning, so was utterly puzzled at the way goals flown in everywhere at the beginning of the season. Thankfully they were coming at both ends, and I kept on avoiding defeats in miraculous fashion, but it didn't fill me with confidence. A minor tweak making it 2 DMs and 1 MC instead of 1 DM and 2 MCs made a gigantic difference from the Tirsense match onwards - we were knocked out of the cup right there, but finally found defensive stability and for a while we successfully turned games into unwatchable tributes to Greece's Euro 2004 winning side, to my great delight. The team clicked superbly for the Grijó and Espinho matches and despite summing vast amounts of draws, managed to reach the 13th fixture of the league undefeated.

We were 3rd then and closing in on the leaders Cinfães and Anadia with a mere 2 spots to fight for, giving access to the promotion playoff. With a couple easy home matches next I figured we could take advantage of any slip-ups from the leaders, but frustratingly our team couldn't cope with the pressure of having to open up the opposition, and crumbled apart. It was made worse by the fact that our opponents did slip up so it was entirely our fault we didn't make it to the top 2, and even dropped to 4th - relegation playoffs await us for the rest of the season.

Player performance

Unsurprisingly Cândido Costa has been our better player, with 8 goals and 5 assists, he is by tactical design our only creative spark and looks like it on the pitch. I'm gutted he doesn't want to renew his contract. Upfront we've had a massive crisis as Júlio picked up a bad injury early on, thankfully Ricardo Barros was there to replace him and netted 8 goals (is our joint top scorer together with Cândido Costa) but then Ricardo had a massive hip injury and is out for the rest of the season. This made us struggle with strikers in December/January and it may not be coincidental that our form dipped there.

Summary

My board didn't tell me to get a top 2, just a "respectable league position" but apparently they're unhappy with the fact we came 4th which caught me by surprise. I think my job is safe, but I'm also killing the finances pretty badly - now 77K in the red from a starting balanced position -, have got a lengthy relegation playoff to play in coming months, and have many of my better players finishing their contracts at the end of the season. I think I can sum up our position in just 2 words: mildly depressing.

[withnail316]

Finances are so difficult in Portugal, but that makes it a fun place to start. Hard lines with the promotion race - it sounds like it's even harder to get out of the bottom tier than it used to be... and it was rough back then!

[noikeee]

Finances are so difficult in Portugal, but that makes it a fun place to start. Hard lines with the promotion race - it sounds like it's even harder to get out of the bottom tier than it used to be... and it was rough back then!

It does seem like it's harder, you need to finish in the top 2 in the first half of the season to qualify for the "promotion stage", then in that stage you need to finish first, or come second and win a playoff. Crazy stuff.

[AK22]

Only two defeats. I'd be pretty happy with that start even if the board isn't

[GazTheDoood]

Only two defeats is a very impressive start really. Good luck with this career, I've enjoyed reading your previous editions so I'll be following this too mate.

[noikeee]

Only two defeats. I'd be pretty happy with that start even if the board isn't

Only two defeats is a very impressive start really. Good luck with this career, I've enjoyed reading your previous editions so I'll be following this too mate.

Cheers, rest of the season update and season review coming up in a minute.

[noikeee]

End of season update - 2013/2014

Youth intake

Couple of decent players but no outstanding superstar:

Rodolfo Costa (DR)

Simão Penetra (DM)

Adriano Teixeira (ST / AMR)

Ademar Dabó (AMC / ST)

Joaquim Mota (DR)

Results

I think I was nearly a casualty of a bug, basically when the league split into new promotion/relegation leagues, we were dead last purely on alphabetical order as everyone was sitting on 0 points, and I think that's why my board suddenly were annoyed with my performance. We won the first match yet still it didn't seem enough as the media speculated I'd be sacked if I didn't get a result against Espinho. A 4-1 away win dissipated doubts as we now briefly topped the table, albeit I started looking after my back again after we got 2 suddenly terrible results afterwards, but the rumours had calmed down and the sack never came.

We got into a rhythm, particularly with those two consecutive 4-1 wins against Espinho (again) and Cesarense, and spent most of this relegation stage wandering between 2nd and 3rd place, with never any real danger of dropping down a division. Come the last match there was a bit of excitement as we could overtake Vildemoinhos and finish 1st if we won, it turned out to be a bit of a thriller, we spent most of it winning but conceded a late equalizer, only for the returning Ricardo Barros (from lengthy injury) to immediately score back and give us the dubious honour of becoming Relegation Stage champions.

Player performance

The trio I identified as our attacking stars finally starred as a whole in this 2nd half of the season, as young winger Ricardo Catarino burst very nicely into form after a poor first half of the season, and striker Júlio came back from injury to score a decent haul of goals (total: 11), whilst Cândido Costa remained influential pulling the strings from midfield albeit I felt his performance dipped a little.

Summary

Well it was nice to finish 1st in something, even if everything that happened from January onwards rather felt like just meeting our calendar obligations as we'd always be far too good to get relegated. I think I've found a system (it's actually 2 tactical systems - more on that in just a minute) that works well, and whilst we'll have to cope with a few important departures as players' contracts end and the club is on deep financial trouble (161K in the red), I think I'm well prepared to attack next season with São João de Ver as I've just signed a new contract.

[noikeee]

Season review - 2013/2014

Tactics and usual starting eleven

I usually just post my main tactic, and the one I used the most was the one on the right, but these were 2 such wildly different systems I reckon both deserve their screenie. Our main Greece-like defensive tactic had an unconventional formation, the way to give it stability was almost always to tell the ball-winning midfielder (MCL) to go out of position to mark the opposing right-back, he also had instructions to get forward more often, so basically behaved like a winger without the ball and as a box-to-box midfielder when we had possession!

Cândido Costa as the key man was given license to roam - whilst also told to close down more than your usual playmaker, and both left-back and right-winger were told to stay wider, as both were our major sources of width.

Evidently the 4-3-3 as the more aggressive tactic was utilized almost exclusively on home matches I thought we were obliged to win, whilst the other was used for almost every other situation, certainly at the start of every away match.

Squad

Top 5 key players of the season

5. Paulo Jorge (DC) - I identified this veteran defender as one of our most reliable men at the beginning of the season, and he didn't disappoint albeit his physical abilities are disappearing at the age of 38.

4. Ricardo Catarino (AMR, AML) - Massive disappointment early-on in the season, exploded with a superb string of goals and assists from February onwards. I think he enjoys particularly when I play 4-3-3 as he can then cut in from the left.

3. Ricardo Barros (ST) - The tall man on loan from Feirense suffered a pretty bad injury that took him away from the pitch during the majority of the 2nd half of the season, but still showed up just at the last minute to nick us the goal that put us 1st. 9 goals total.

2. Júlio (ST) - I expected him to lead the line competently and he did not disappoint with 11 goals in 18 appearances, I just wish he hadn't broke a foot which took him out for 4 months, thankfully Ricardo Barros was there to fill in for him then.

Player of the season - Cândido Costa (AMC, MC, AMR, DR)

Pretty difficult to find flaws in an attacking midfielder that netted 12 goals (even if 4 of those were from penalties), and got 7 assists, he even did allright out of position in the 4-3-3 as a MC, or as a makeshift AMR or DR in rare occasions, unfortunately he will not stay at the club as he wants 4 times his current wage to renew. Cheers for the nice season Cândido and good luck in your future projects.

Career overview

[b]Season   League                      Cups                       International               Notes[/b]
****************************************************************************************************************
São João de Ver (Portugal)
****************************************************************************************************************
13/14    Nacional - 4th / 1st (RS)   Taça de Portugal 2nd rnd   ----                        

[setzel]

Good job mate , interesting to see if u can keep Candido Costa

[noikeee]

Good job mate , interesting to see if u can keep Candido Costa

It's unlikely I will, guy wants silly money and the club is pretty much bankrupt! Even if the board would let me I'm not going to spend one third of my wage budget in one player...

I did a bit of cleaning up of previous posts regarding picture sizes (particularly the huge club logo), which is why they all show up as edited now.

[noikeee]

Well, actually...

He suddenly dropped his demands from 4K+ per month, down to 1.4K. I negotiated a bit and he managed to accept 1.1K which is the most my board would allow me to give him. I'm quite pleased with that!

[setzel]

Nice re-signing mate , hopefully you will promote and get to keep him for another year hopefully he will not start regressing fast.

[deltablue]

Thankfully he gave way.

[noikeee]

Pre-season - 2014/2015

Transfers

There was a large amount of exits of players who ended their contracts, so I had work to do in order to refresh my squad and maybe got a bit over-excited hiring a total of 14 players.

Let's do this by sectors. In goal I just needed 2 backups for Varnier, so in came Miguel (GK) and Pedro Mano (GK) both on loan.

On defence I needed a major upgrade on centre-backs particularly with Paulo Jorge having gone, so I got a nice new duo of potential starting centre-backs in Brazilian Valdemar Neto (DC) and in Bertinho (DLC). Bruno Silva (DC) on loan from Porto adds depth.

Centre-midfield took a few players as well. João Ricardo (MC / DM) came back for a 2nd year on loan from Feirense and he is an important player, veteran Pedro Caravana (ML / DL, MC, AML) looks pretty handy too and can cover for left-back. Rúben Oliveira (MC) and Varela (DM) should be backups.

For the wings Gílson (AMRL / ST) looks like of my most exciting additions for this season, whilst Chapinha (AMR / MR) and Gomes (AMRL, ST / AMC) add depth.

Upfront Ricardo Barros (ST) has joined permanently after being on loan to us last year, but the real upgrade is new man Paulo Vaz (ST / AMC) who I genuinely believe has the ability to bench both Barros and Júlio who scored a lot of goals for us last year.

Squad

This is my full squad for the season, I am particularly worried about wages, despite trying to keep an eye on it I've somehow managed to be above wage budget again and that was after the board raised our budget! That was a surprise as the club is in pretty deep financial trouble, now 195K€ in the red.

Results

The friendlies have been rather promising...

Goals for the season

The stakes have been raised as the board have asked me to qualify for the promotion stage, minimum. That was my personal aim anyway but the extra amount of pressure isn't welcome. I'm not entirely sure my starting eleven is any noticeably stronger, despite the large number of transfers, but we certainly have extra depth. They seem to be performing well so far, I'm wishing the form continues into the official matches.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update - 2014/2015

Transfers

I wasn't planning to do any January changes however Rebordosa came in and snapped up our backup DM Deodato on a free (he was on a non-contract) so I had to go search for an alternative DM, and thankfully our parent club Feirense had a pretty awesome guy available in Zé Pedro (DM, MC).

Results

We had a bit of a false start at the beginning with 2 defeats in our first 3 league fixtures, this put us on the back foot for a while in the league table and forced to recover. However I then realised those were both away and to the teams that shoot apart from everyone else to the top in the beginning of the season - Espinho and Estarreja - and as we continued to sum up an impressive string of victories we closed in on them in no time. We were 2nd by the time we had another minor blip in October/November and dropped momentarily down to 3rd, but as another very long sequence of victories started we were back to the top 2 and eventually led the table. The 6-1 demolishing of Estarreja marked our dominance, and the 3-0 over Vildemoinhos qualified us with 2 games to go.

Together with this we also had a bit of a cup run. There was a scare as we were nearly knocked out by lower league Cucujães in the 2nd round as Cândido Costa got sent off and we were forced to extra time. However past this we were paired with parent club Feirense and I knew we could beat them as we had done it already in a pre-season friendly - duly repeated it with a 3-1 win. Next up was another team from a level above (Oliveirense) and we went there and knocked them out 1-0 at their home. There was a chance to knock out a team from the 2ª Liga 3 times in a row as we hosted Chaves next, but that was a step too far for us, clearly we still dignified ourselves by only losing 1-0.

For the remainder of the season we will be fighting in this:

Player performance

Two players have been making our local headlines, #1 is most certainly striker Paulo Vaz who has successfully benched Ricardo Barros and Júlio as I suspected he would, scoring 21 goals in 23 appearances and also netting 11 assists. He has been immense, perhaps a little hit-and-miss with his finishing but his full set of skills creates so many chances it more than makes up for it. The other guy on excellent form is winger Ricardo Catarino who continues to get better and better, he is now on 9 goals and 12 assists. This duo has been the absolute soul of our attack this season.

Summary

Well this has been a very nice 6 months as almost everything has gone to plan - if we forget for a minute our dismal financial standing with a debt now of 259K€. This financial situation makes me focused on getting promotion as soon as possible, but it's hard to predict what will happen in the promotion stage, as I don't know exactly how good are the teams that came from the other zones, and we need to be either the very 1st (promoted directly), or 2nd and then win a playoff. That looks hard, and I don't like the fact that teams like Boavista and Guimarães' B side are on our group, Freamunde, Fafe and Tirsense are also recognisable names of teams who could be tough.

[sc91]

Good work so far, I'm of the daft assumption that you've made to the 'promotion stage'?

[noikeee]

That would be a daft correct assumption. Top 2 from every zone moves to the promotion stage (which has a Group A and a Group B - one team from each goes up, a 3rd team goes up from a playoff between the 2nd placed of either group), the rest who didn't qualify fight between themselves the relegation stage from February onwards.

Basically relegation stage remains split into zones (we are in zone D, there are 8 of them I believe) whereas promotion stage is packed into 2 groups.

[Reinoud]

Nice thread Good luck fighting for promotion!

[EthanM]

Good luck in the promotion stage! Hopefully Paulo Vaz will fire you to promotion.

[noikeee]

Nice thread Good luck fighting for promotion!

Thank you!

Good luck in the promotion stage! Hopefully Paulo Vaz will fire you to promotion.

Just picked up a 4 week injury.

[AK22]

Going well so far! Sounds like Portugal has embraced the South American mentality when it comes to competition rules

[b101]

Always loved Portugal when I was playing as rivals Lamas - will be following this

[noikeee]

I've been entertained with other hobbies and general real life commitments the past two weeks hence the lack of updates, but have finished the season yesterday and will report on it soon.

Going well so far! Sounds like Portugal has embraced the South American mentality when it comes to competition rules

It looks kinda convoluted but I actually like the format, you really need to prove yourself to make the massive leap from 3rd tier semi-pro obscurity together with another 100 teams, to professional football. It's considerably different from South America's Apertura/Clausura format which is what I think you're referring to - the league splits in half at the middle of the season yes, but in a totally different way.

Always loved Portugal when I was playing as rivals Lamas - will be following this

Nice, Lamas are more well known than my club because they were in the 2nd tier a few years ago in real life, though I have not heard about them in a very long time!

[noikeee]

End of season update - 2014/2015

Youth intake

Pretty bad bunch but I still signed 3 guys, it'll take extreme luck for any of them to come good:

Hugo Ramos (GK)

Joaquim Ferreira (AMR / MR)

Vítor Ramos (AMC / MC)

Results

What can I say, this didn't go too badly, eh? As we smashed Vilaverdense and Tirsense 5-0 and 4-0 in the very first matches, it quickly became apparent that we could really do this and match up well against the other sides fighting for promotion. We got a sensational 6 wins out of the first 6 matches including away at Boavista (probably the toughest looking fixture in theory) and vs Fafe who had emerged as early contenders for direct promotion.

The 4-4 match at Guimarães made us drop points for the first time, it was a wild ride as we were winning 4-1 with just a few minutes to go. Despite stumbling there we continued winning and whilst further draws vs Boavista and Freamunde - who had emerged later as the real definitive closest contenders - kept alive a small danger we could still lose the race to automatic promotion, wins over Fafe and Estarreja confirmed it. We got out of one of the toughest divisions around, from the obscurity of this league into professional football, with surprising ease.

There was still one official match to play, the Playoff vs the winners of Group B which would decide the overall 3rd tier champions. Having to face Sporting's B side was daunting as Sporting are well known to have one of the best youth academies in the world - Cristiano Ronaldo, Figo, Nani, Moutinho, Quaresma, the list of top players produced there is endless - but we fared well enough with a sensational performance by Paulo Vaz scoring both goals to turn the game around into our favour.

Player performance

I'm gonna expand further in the season review but winger Ricardo Catarino had an absolutely extraordinary 2nd half of the season raising his total goals scored to 18 (!), whilst striker Paulo Vaz was out for a while with injury but before and after kept on showing he is indispensable - total of 30 goals.

Thoughts

1st place in the 1st stage, 1st place in the promotion stage, automatic promotion, overall champions, a nice cup run beating a few professional teams above us... this was pretty much the perfect season sporting-wise and one of the most dominant I've ever had in any FM. I'd even say it kinda got boring! We continue to have a financial problem being 185K down in the red, but with the doors of professional football now open, I am more confident than ever we can start paying that back, this level was just a infinite pit of endless debt with no obvious revenues available. I'm definitely planning to stay for a 3rd season.

[noikeee]

Season review - 2014/2015

Tactics and usual starting eleven

No changes from last year's formations and instructions, this just works. I did use my alternative 4-3-3 a little more often this season as we got stronger and expected to win more matches but the basis continues to be this defensive asymmetric formation. I also stuck to my starting 11 almost religiously apart from occasional injuries which we thankfully mostly avoided this year.

Squad

Top 5 key players of the season

5. Toninho (MC, DM, AM) - This guy's ability on paper doesn't seem that great but on our heavily modified BWM role, which made it almost a box-to-box role, running forward to score goals, his excellent finishing and off-the-ball movement skills were greatly used - I'm very happy with his totals of 11 goals and 7 assists.

4. Valdemar Neto (DC) - To concede as few goals as we did most season, basing our game in defensive solidity, we need a good duo of centre-backs and the 2 guys we hired for that position this year were absolutely excellent. Valdemar was the most prolific going upfront, scoring 7 goals in set pieces.

3. Bertinho (DC) - There was little difference between the level of performance of my 2 CBs but whilst Valdemar scored more goals, Bertinho had a slightly better average rating.

2. Ricardo Catarino (AMR, AML) - Last year he started to come good on the left, this year I played him almost exclusively on the right and holy crap he delivered! 18 goals, 18 assists, plenty of amazing performances winning games on his own. It was very close between him and Vaz for player of the season.

Player of the season - Paulo Vaz (ST, AMC, MC)

What do you want from a striker? Goals? Big check, 30 of them. Assists? Pretty important as a lone guy, 17 of them. Physical presence both on air and in terms of getting that yard of pace? Absolutely. Consistency? Yeah he scored all year long. Confidence to score from ridiculous angles and situations, winning games on his own you wouldn't expect? Another big check. I know the stats don't look amazing but Paulo was a total superstar this season - for 3rd tier standards. Definitely my best signing yet.

Career overview

[b]Season   League                      Cups                       International               Notes[/b]
***********************************************************************************************************************
São João de Ver (Portugal)
***********************************************************************************************************************
13/14    Nacional - 4th / 1st (RS)   Taça de Portugal 2nd rnd   ----                      
14/15    Nacional - 1st / 1st (PS)   Taça de Portugal 5th rnd   ----                        Promoted, overall champions 

[Dexter_Morgan]

Well done on promotion, seems a lot tougher to get out of that league since I last managed there so to do it in 2 seasons is superb

[AK22]

Excellent job

How do you think the current squad will cope in the second tier?

[noikeee]

Well done on promotion, seems a lot tougher to get out of that league since I last managed there so to do it in 2 seasons is superb

Thank you.

Excellent job

How do you think the current squad will cope in the second tier?

I was optimistic but first few results have been wildly mixed, I think we should stay up but when we get beaten we can get beaten pretty badly. It feels pretty obvious that the standard of our opposition has been raised.

[DazRTaylor]

I also remember your previous threads Noikeee, though I doubt you remember mine.

Cracking second season - congratulations!

(Whatever happened to Chaves? Always had a soft spot for them. They were top flight in the 90's).

[B.W.G]

Congrats on winning promotion

[noikeee]

I also remember your previous threads Noikeee, though I doubt you remember mine.

Cracking second season - congratulations!

(Whatever happened to Chaves? Always had a soft spot for them. They were top flight in the 90's).

I do remember you but not your teams, though I'm sure a quick look over the threads would refresh the memory!

Chaves are on the same division as us now, we've just beaten them.

Congrats on winning promotion

Thank you.

[deltablue]

Well done on a great promotion campaign.

[noikeee]

Pre-season - 2015/2016

Transfers

I didn't want to do a massive revolution despite the promotion, however we had relied on a lot of loans and a couple other players ended contracts, I also couldn't pass on the chance of doing a couple upgrades to the squad so ended up with 13 recorded signings.

3 of them weren't actually new as I managed to sign permanently 3 of those loanees who were here last year - João Ricardo (MC / DM) is the most talented of the trio whereas Bruno Silva (DC) and Chapinha (AMR / AML) are expected to be no more than squad players.

Highly talented veteran Brazilians was a recurring theme among this Summer's arrivals and the first of them was goalkeeper Yamada (GK) who will also double up as a goalkeeping coach. Young Dani (GK) should be third choice for goal.

In defence I stuck mostly with last year's guys but did hire one left-back in Fábio Gaúcho (DL / WBL) who also has a double job, in his case the U19s manager position.

The middle of the park saw possibly the most substantial upgrades particularly with star veteran Carlos Alberto (MC / DM) as well as Abdoulaye Gueye (DM) on loan from French side Laval. The creative Telmo Texeira-Rebelo (AMC / M/AMR) can play either in the middle or in the right wing, whereas Hélder Arruda (MR, AMR/L / ML) is a pure out-and-out winger. Meanwhile, 36 year-old Faisal Agab (AMC / ST) is by far the most exotic signing of the season as you do not see many Sudanese players around here, nevermind a guy with 91 caps for his country, and who had played his entire career for a single club (Sudan's Al-Merreikh) before moving at this advanced age!

Upfront Róbson Salles (ST) provides very fierce competition for our regular star Paulo Vaz, whilst young Dominic (ST) should not be more than 3rd choice.

Squad

Vital to have a large squad for this season as the 2nd tier football has a ridiculous amount of 42 fixtures, plus we now play in 2 different cups - I wanted to have even more players! Financially wise I went a little overboard going beyond the wage budget, but I think we will hang on fine this year despite remaining in the red.

Results

This might be a pre-season post but I do my cut-off date for this as the transfer window closes, and by then the incredibly congested calendar had already made us play a large amount of official fixtures. In the League Cup we managed to qualify out of a tight group thanks to a last gasp comeback vs Tondela in the final match; whereas in the league results have been mixed, perhaps 3 wins out of 5 matches is very nice for a recently promoted club but the heaviness of the 2 home defeats is worrying.

Before that, friendlies were looking highly optimistic until the massive trainwreck vs Rio Ave. Thankfully that did not kill our morale but does provide a warning, now confirmed, that our defence is not that solid now for this level.

Goals for the season

I don't really know what to expect. I think we're grabbing enough wins here and there for me to believe we can be clear of relegation and that's really the key thing. However "clear of relegation" opens up a very large scope of positions, anything from 1st to 19th. I'm confident we can pull of a safe midtable position which would already be very nice, but anything more than that sounds optimistic for how shaky we're looking like at times. This really is a step up in competition.

[noikeee]

Sorry for the really slow rate of updates (some of you probably do 5 seasons in the time I've been taking to play 1), but I've not been playing FM as intensely this year as in previous years. Am spending most of my free time in the computer doing racing simulators instead - namely iRacing and Assetto Corsa. Highly recommend both titles to any fans of that genre as they are immensely realistic and fun to drive!

[AK22]

Despite the defensive frailties, it seems that Paulo Vaz is still up to the task upfront, so you may need to go for the 'we'll score one more than you' approach

[noikeee]

Mid-season update - 2015/2016

Yeah it might not look like it but this is progressing, just finally made it to the middle of the season. This league has a bizarre spread of fixtures, 28 of them until the end of December, just 14 for the rest of the season so I split updates at the end of December instead of January - we don't have cash for any January transfers anyway.

Results

It's been a good old struggle in the league as after the promising start we have not been able to find any sort of consistency, and have limited ourselves to trying to scrap points whenever we can. Victories have been rare - just 5 of them in this time period, against Sporting B in September, Gil Vicente and Leixões in November, and Porto B and our former parent club Feirense in December. Thankfully we've got a lot of draws and those have been just enough to hang around marginally outside of the relegation zone.

Our defence is obviously an issue as anyone can see by the vast amount of goals conceded, even despite usually fielding a very defensive side. I have been constantly tweaking tactics and never really reaching a proper conclusions, at a point things clicked well as I started playing a false nine and a lopsided formation with a lone winger and 3 CMs shielded by a DM, but then our only proper choice for false nine, Sudanese veteran Faisal Agab, picked up a bad injury and I had to revert to the previous tactical alternatives.

Things have been happier in the cups, in League Cup we made it out of the group stage to face top tier side Arouca and dropped out there; in the Portuguese Cup we have made it to the last 16 after beating Setúbal, another top tier club, in probably the best result of the season. Next round we face Guimarães away and that'll probably be it.

Player performance

You'd think Paulo Vaz isn't good enough for this level at first glance, but 22 goals out of 32 appearances say otherwise - and not all of them have been as striker! I sometimes like to play him as an onrushing late runner from MC position, and he scores quite often in there as well.

Unfortunately almost nobody else has approached his level of performance, apart from winger Chapinha which has been a nice surprise with 8 goals and 11 assists - by now he has benched the previously untouchable Ricardo Catarino.

Summary

Hang tight and pray for the best? Anything can happen in this extremely tight league (as much in the game as it is in real life) and we are right in the middle of a relegation battle together with countless other teams. As the smallest club in the league, we will have done well if we reach the finish line in the place we occupy at the moment. But it's not been a joyful ride so far, and it's hardly a given we will make it.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Glad you are posting again Your side is far from dull

[noikeee]

Glad you are posting again Your side is far from dull

Not sure I'm gonna post regularly, I see the future of this along the lines of Nobby's FM11 save, updating this career well into 2025 real life time. Just not much into FM at the moment but I still get a game once in a while and like to document progress.

I actually try to play very defensively, obviously my players aren't exactly following my instructions very strictly.

[deltablue]

4 clean sheets in 28 games I counted. You're not very good at this 'defensive manager' business