Bear with me here....my first careers post and it's in Russia, it's freezing so hard to type!

[Beestonite]

Ok, this is my first FM Careers Forum save, so after already struggling to upload images and find out the correct format, I thought I should now introduce myself briefly. I'm the usual long term FM'er, been on it for years so won't bore you there. I've won most of the major trophies but no that regularly, I tend to get bored with winning everything and prefer a struggle with a debt ridden, tiny club who I can transform. When I say 'winning everything' in such a blase fashion, don't think for one minute that I am extremely successful - I'm not.

Anyway, I will be continuing my usual theme in this save. Albeit with a slight difference....it's in Russia! I tend to stick with Scandanavia and FM12 at the moment as I couldn't get on with FM13 and I'm still struggling with FM14. However, I realise I'm falling too behind the times and need a change, so with FM14 having quite a few bugs, I'm going for FM13. It's progression, of a kind! It'll also be my first venture into the tactics creator, *gulp*. I am a sliders man, always have been. I do realise that the game is leaving me behind, though, so it's time to change and embrace the tactics creator! This should be interesting. No doubt I'll stumble along for the first few months but so be it. I'll get there.

Anyway, enough rambling, here are the details.

The Club

Torpedo Moscow

The Stadium

Eduard Streltsov Stadium

Moscow

(Named after our former Superstar Striker a.k.a. 'The Russian Pele')

Capacity: 13450

Club History

Thanks WikiPedia!

Torpedo Moscow Football Club (based on Proletarskaya Kuznitsa teams) was formed in 1930 by the AMO automotive plant (soon to be Stalin Automotive Plant - ZIS and later Likhachev Automotive Plant - ZIL).

They played in the Moscow League until 1936 when they became one of the founder members of the Soviet 'B' League and changed their name to Torpedo Moscow. In 1938 they were promoted to the 'A' League.

Torpedo have won the National League Championship on three occasions, and have lifted the National Cup seven times. In 1957 Torpedo Moscow, as well as other Soviet sport clubs named "Torpedo", became a part of the republican VSS Trud of the Russian SFSR. Nicknamed the Black-Whites, Torpedo hasn't been a major force in Russian football since the days of Eduard Streltsov, the brilliant striker of the 1950s and 1960s, known as "the Russian Pele". Past glories for Torpedo include 3 USSR titles (1960, 1965, and autumn 1976), 6 USSR Cups (1949, 1952, 1960, 1968, 1972, 1986), 1 Russian Cup (1993), and three appearances in the quarterfinals of European/UEFA Cup competition, and one Ciutat de Lleida Trophy in 1991. The club used to belong to the ZIL automobile plant until a fallout in the mid-1990s that resulted in Torpedo leaving their historic ground and moving across town to Luzhniki, as they became property of the Luzhniki corporation and its name was changed to Torpedo-Luzhniki between (1996–1997) before it was renamed as Torpedo Moscow.

Torpedo-Luzhniki logo (1996–1997)

After selling Torpedo Moscow in 1996, ZIL created a new team Torpedo-ZIL (1997), which made a debut in the Third Division and reached the Russian Premier League in 2000. However, ZIL sold the team to MMC Norilsk Nickel in 2003 and it was relaunched as FC Moscow. Eventually this team was dissolved after spending 2010 season in Amateur Football League when their owner and main sponsor, MMC Norilsk Nickel withdrew funding.

After selling Torpedo-ZIL (1997) in 2003, ZIL created another team Torpedo-ZIL (2003), which also started in the Third Division, yet this team was eventually disbanded in 2011 after its efforts to seek promotion to the First Division did not succeed.

Under SC Luzhniki ownership (1996–2009), Torpedo Moscow relegated to the First Division in 2006 and after two seasons it further relegated to the Second Division. In early 2009, Luzhniki sold the team back to ZiL.[4] It was speculated that ZIL would merge Torpedo Moscow and Torpedo-ZIL (2003). However, this did not happen and rather Torpedo Moscow spent 2009 in the Amateur Football League and they achieved 2 consecutive promotions to gain a spot in the First Division from 2011. In their first season back in the First Division, Torpedo Moscow finished in 8th spot during the first half of the tournament at the end of 2011 taking them through to a Top 8 Promotion play-off during the second half.

As you can see, the club do have history, winning the Premier League 3 times and the cup 7 times. However they are certainly not enjoying life at the moment. I aim to change that (hopefully!).

[Beestonite]

The Manager

Name: Phillip Barnard

Age: 34 Yrs (The game has me younger - not complaining!)

Location: Leeds, England

Contract

As you can see, I've got a 1 year contract on just over £1000 a week which I am happy with.

My Aim

As Russia is the place where many have ventured to gain vast riches (Samuel Eto'o £300k p/w springs to mind), I have decided to take control ofa club who are relatively poor and try to take them to the top and compete with the mega rich Spartak Moscow, Zenit, CSKA etc. Then conquer Europe.

So here we go!

[Beestonite]

So after taking a look around the club, I'd say everything looks pretty good. The ground is pretty decent, ok it's not very plush with no roof on the stands but it's big enough to bring in some decent income. The club finances are also in decent shape and we're projecting a profit this year. Some good sponsorship helps here by the looks of it. Disappointingly, I don't have a transfer budget and the entire wage budget is currently being used.

Finances

The squad looks ok as do a couple of prospects in the Youth Squad. There is also a decent couple of options in the reserves.

First Team

Reserve Squad

U18 Squad

Star Player

There is one player who appears to stand out in terms of value.

Tadas Labukas

He'll certainly fit into my style of play I prefer.

We've got three friendlies coming up, so will get started and post the results as soon as I get chance.

Any questions or feedback would be very welcome. I hope you enjoy.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Good luck with this, decent club to start with

[EvilDave]

Good luck with Torpedo, as the board's resident Russophile I'll be keeping an eye on this. A word of warning however - your money will disappear very quickly in the second tier, so use it while it's there!

[deltablue]

Ah yes, tragic story of Streltsov.

[Beestonite]

Season Expectations

League: Respectable position

Russian Cup: 5th Round

I think the expectations are pretty realistic. The media are touting u for 6th in the league which I hope I can achieve but as I'm using the tactics creator for the first time, it could be a lottery.

Friendlies will begin tonight.

[Beestonite]

Good luck with this, decent club to start with

Good luck with Torpedo, as the board's resident Russophile I'll be keeping an eye on this. A word of warning however - your money will disappear very quickly in the second tier, so use it while it's there!

Thanks Guys!

[Beestonite]

Ok, so a brief update. I had to restart my save very early on, as I realised that some extra leagues I had added via a download had made the game process ridiculously slowly. That's now been sorted by removing the editor change and keeping things standard. While this didn't affect my save too much, it did change my Reserve and U18 Squad, which I was disappointed about given that I had a great prospect in my original U18 Squad. Fingers crossed for another future star......I'm never that lucky though. Sticking to form with the luck, my U18 squad is pretty poor.

Here are the new Reserve and U18 squads.

Reserve

U18

I did also sign a Striker who is knocking on a bit but will give me more options than I currently have. The squad has too many loan signings for my liking so I'm trying to filter them out gradually, however trying to sign anyone of any quality is like pulling teeth. You'd think that joining Torpedo meant that they had to play on a pitch made of horse **** or something. Still the signing went ahead and I'm reasonably happy with him, despite his age. He signed a 1 year contract too which gives me the option to offload quickly. On the down side he is another foreigner! The 3 foreigners in the first 11 rule is a real killer I think. It's not like there are Russian whizzkids coming out of the floorboards. Here's the signing...

Robertas Poskas

I have played the friendlies and I'm halfway through July so will post the results tonight. Friendlies went ok but the season is up and down so far, still a couple of games to go in July so fingers crossed. Might change my formation slightly.

[duffy89]

Good luck mate, was just going to ask who that star was in your U18s but looks like you've lost him after restarting!

[Beestonite]

Good luck mate, was just going to ask who that star was in your U18s but looks like you've lost him after restarting!

Cheers duffy89. I could certainly have done with a good young Russian too, because of the foreigners rule. Still onwards and upwards. The few 2 1/2 star youngsters will be given chances, I don't have much of a choice really as the board are very tight with money.

[Beestonite]

Ok, So....I've made another signing. He's cover at RB which I needed. He's also Russian which again, is what I needed. Cost nothing as he was a free agent so that fits the bill too as my transfer budget is still zero!

Aleksandr Katsalapov

So, on with the fixtures...

Friendlies

Not a bad start all in all. The team didn't look like they had gelled, given the new tactics I was asking them to play, but the results were ok. We were lucky in some of the matches though.

July

Not what I had in mind. I am willing to accept this start though as I'm still tinkering with the tactics right now. I do have something settled so hopefully an improvement will show soon. The opening draw was actually unlucky as we dominated, they equalised in the 92nd minute which was gutting. After that, the only win had me thinking that this FM13 and tactic creator is easy! Not really, we were very lucky, they bossed the game from start to finish but coudn't score. We took a rare chance and held on. From this I realised my tactics weren't sound, despite not losing I hadn't been convincing enough. I then started tinkering and as you can see, it went......TERRIBLY! The 3-0 defeat against Yenisey was actually the best performance. We were terrible in our next two games and didn't deserve a thing. I'm really struggling due to the foreigner rule as all my best players are foreign, yet I can only field 3 of them in the first 11.

Hopefully August will be better.

League Table

[elbilly]

Tough start, hopefully your tactics will click with the team and it will all come good

[Beestonite]

Tough start, hopefully your tactics will click with the team and it will all come good

Thanks, I have had a couple of games where things appeared to click, but I am having trouble finding the back of the net. August is looking slightly better than the end of July but not by much!

[AK22]

Ouch! Not the greatest of starts. Need to try and get the team scoring

[Mr Prince1982]

You stopped the save???

[kris0710]

You stopped the save???

Given no one has posted since January it's a fair bet to guess he has, right?