Advice needed - Romania or Ukraine ?

[mightyshrimper]

May not be the right part of the forums to ask, but here goes anyway.

I've been playing a journeyman game on FM14 - spent a few months in Israel and then Holland without success, took on a role in Denmark where I won my first trophy, the board slashed the budgets and wage bill, so I walked and got offered the Lille job, which I took. However, in less than a season it all went very sour and I got sacked ! Gutted, but not surprised given my performance.

So, on to the advice - I have 2 job offers on the table as follows:

CFR Cluj in Romania - a £975k transfer budget, a wage budget of £85K, predicted to finish 3rd, club valued at £4.8m - club 7th in leage with a handful of games left to play, so budgets will no doubt get reviewed for next season and there are a few transfers in already lined up.

Metalist Kharkiv in Ukraine - transfer budget £7m, wage budget £325k, predicted to finish 3rd, club value £36m - I ran game on a bit from the Cluj offer, so this is at the end of the season, so these budgets will be for the next season. No transfers lined up.

Kharkiv are clearly the bigger club, both reputationally and financially, but they have a much smaller squad than Cluj and have 10 foreign players in a league where you an only name 7 in your match day squad - any player who is not Ukrainian is considered foreign. There are fewer constraints in Romania and for this reason I'm leaning toward Cluj. The chances of success seem similar with either club - although the chances of actually overhauling Shaktar seems unlikely - again, here I'm leaning toward Cluj.

Your views would be much appreciated thanks

[Baptista_8]

I'd go with Cluj personally

[mightyshrimper]

Thanks Baptista_8

Any other views ?

[Cougar2010]

Hmmm, personal preference I think depending on how you are feeling.

Metalist clearly the bigger club and gives you a better chance of competing in Europe but the trade off is the restrictions and trying to compete with the likes of Shakter for trophies.

Cluj is smaller, you'll probably struggle a lot more in Europe but more chance of domestic success with less between the teams.

I would maybe have a look on the country summary screens and try to estimate how much of a gap there is between the top clubs and how competitive the domestic leagues are. Its also worth looking at the landmarks history to get an idea of how patient the board is, several manager sacking tend to mean an impatient board which usually puts me off a club.

[jamez_b]

I'd say Metalist but then I had a brilliant game with them in FM 2013 winning the Europa League in the process, definitely one of my favourite teams. Depends how long you want to stay with the club, Romania gets very frustrating as there is literally no money available so very difficult to make any sort of progress and i think you'd find yourself moving on after a season. Metalist on the other hand although there is foreign player limit of 7 that only applies to the first 11. Just make sure that you have Ukrainians assigned to certain positions where there is an abundance of Ukrainian talent and then just have a foreign player on the bench to replace a foreign player.

I found that Ukraine produced a number of decent defenders and some of the youth players at Metalist turned out very nicely for me, Barvinko (D/WB L), Andrievskyi (DM/M/AM C), Azatazkyi (D C), Boychuk (S C) and Denchuk(GK) were all first team regulars after 3 seasons. You'll often find as well that players at Dinamo and Shakthar become unhappy and get shoved in the B team allowing you to get Ukrainian players on the cheap.

Just watch out when selling foreign players as quite a few are owned by agents, Marlos in particular.

[jayahr]

Depends on what you are looking for.

Metalist seems to have the bigger potential. At Cluj it may be easier to win something on the short run.

If you are aiming to build your way to the top and don't mind building a team for three years before moving on, I would opt for the bigger team that also has better chances to be a hit in Europe, Metalist.

[Wonky]

Depends on what you are looking for.

Metalist seems to have the bigger potential. At Cluj it may be easier to win something on the short run.

If you are aiming to build your way to the top and don't mind building a team for three years before moving on, I would opt for the bigger team that also has better chances to be a hit in Europe, Metalist.

And they also give better opportunities for when he moves on from them. Always move up, I say.

[mightyshrimper]

Lots of interesting comments guys - I guess I need to decide if this is a long or short term decision......I was hoping for 2 or 3 seasons at Lille, but it all came crashing down. The next role is probably a stepping stone and little bit of domestic success at Cluj could bring that. But getting noticed in a Euro comp at Metalist would raise profile higher...

Any other views, suggestions or thoughts ?

[braceletwinner]

Lots of interesting comments guys - I guess I need to decide if this is a long or short term decision......I was hoping for 2 or 3 seasons at Lille, but it all came crashing down. The next role is probably a stepping stone and little bit of domestic success at Cluj could bring that. But getting noticed in a Euro comp at Metalist would raise profile higher...

Any other views, suggestions or thoughts ?

To me, it would depend on your goal. Do you want to move up to the top clubs as quickly as possible, or do you want to build lower squads into something better? The former carries some risk, in that if you still need some experience in the game before being confident that you can win trophies with Metalist, you'll likely be sacked, or at the least, not have fun and not progress. Personally, I like to build up at smaller clubs and reject a few big offers, then take one when I feel that I've achieved all that I can with a club. All other things being equal (same amount of board interference, financial status not unstable, etc...), I would take Cluj, but that's just my style.

[Mato]

I vote for Norway

[Johnyfooty]

I vote for Norway

I like Sweden more out of the nordic countries. Although Norway has more money to give at first.

[braceletwinner]

I vote for Norway

I like Sweden more out of the nordic countries. Although Norway has more money to give at first.

"Finland, Finland, Finland... that's the country for me!"

[GEORGE WEAH]

Metalist all day long they are a very wealthy club with great ambition they are considered the 3rd biggest team in the Ukraine they have some great players as well

[Kristof1982]

I would say the challenge of breaking the Donetsk/Kiev dominance would be the way to go, so my vote would be for Metalist

[Clarky323]

I managed in Ukraine recently, I started my career at Dynamo Kiev, I agree that the max of 7 foreign players is annoying (although if you buy young foreign players and they stay in the country long enough they won't be considered as foreign anymore...I think!), another thing that annoyed me was the three month winter break, you finish at the end of November and the next league game is end of February/beginning of March (so if in Europe you have that before).

that winter break also means there is only about 5/6 weeks between the season finishing and the next one starting and the players want about a three week break so its difficult to prepare for the new season.

I stayed in Ukraine for two seasons, I noticed that there weren't very many youth Ukrainian talents at all coming through the youth squads, having won the league in both of my two seasons I got an offer for Arsenal so decided to take it

hope this helps, any questions, just ask

[qwidgibo]

I'd go with Cluj, they are one of the biggest clubs in Romania while Metalist will have to compete with Shakhtar, Dynamo Kyiv, and Dnipro, it could be quite difficult.