The Ultimate Football Manager Challenge - Silver Age Archive

[vikeologist]

Also just to ask - if a cup is only open to top flight teams does it still count towards my overall total?

Yes, the cup they are all in counts, but you can only count 1 cup from each nation towards your total. Hope you're asking the questions because you've won it.

Which side has the tycoon?

jcricky - Welcome to the challenge. Since 16.3 update I don't think that it's possible to start off with a league 1 side. I did it in my save, but I started on 16.1 or 16.2. Accrington Stanley should be a challenge, but how is Josh Windass doing for you? if John Coleman didn't sell him. IRL they got to the playoffs, but I'm not sure the game reflects that potential.

[Fadedaf]

Lech Poznan Season 2018/19

I was hired at Lech Poznan after the club finished a disappointing 5th in the league the previous season, so was tasked with improving that with no european football to worry about interfering. After having a look at the squad i was surprised that they had even managed to get as low as 5th place as it was already up there with the best in Poland. With a few good additions i was convinced we could win the league for sure.

And that we did, although the Ekstraklasa was much, much harder to win than any of the Scottish leagues i'd won before. We lost only 3 matches all season in the league and even went on a 23 game unbeaten run to finish it off, but still only secured the title with one game to go! we actually spent more of the season in second and third place than in first despite our incredible form. Legia Warsaw and Piast Gliwice pushed us all the way to the finish but i must give credit to a great team performance by my whole squad. Key players included the three new signings brought in before and during the season; Tomas Vlk (17 goals, 14 assists), Kamil Grosicki (17 goals, 9 assists) and Graham Young (17 goals, 6 assists). The rest of the team was also solid and i can't complain about lacking in any area, they did the club that brought us the Poznan celebration and Robert Lewandowski proud. Keeping hold of my key players will prove to be the big challenge ahead of next season.

One disappointment to this season is our performance in the cup, where we were knocked out in the second round by a team in the league below us. We played a weakened side and were knocked out on penalties in a competition we really should have gone further in. Aside from that, I'm enjoying being at Lech so the plan for now is to stay on for at least another season to try and win the cup as well as go as far as we can in the Champions League as winning the league won't be as much of a priority next season.

I was also able to get the job as manager of Cameroon with the aim of qualifying and playing in the ACON in two years time (2021). Not one of the very top teams in Africa but we've still got a decently talented squad. Elsewhere, Clyde were relegated in last place from the Scottish Premiership while Celtic won for about the 900th time in a row. Fairly confident i made the right decision to move clubs to complete this challenge faster.

[table="width: 300, align: center"]
[tr]
[td]Season[/td]
[td]Team[/td]
[td]Position[/td]
[td]Notes and Achievements[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2015/16[/td]
[td]Clyde[/td]
[td]3rd[/td]
[td]Promoted to League 1[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2016/17[/td]
[td]Clyde[/td]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]Promoted to Scottish Championship[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2017/18[/td]
[td]Clyde[/td]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]Promoted to Scottish Premiership[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2018/19[/td]
[td]Lech[/td]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]Manager of the season, qualified for preliminary stages of Champions League[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

[table="width: 300, align: center"]
[tr]
[td]Season[/td]
[td]Team[/td]
[td]Notes and Achievements[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2017/18[/td]
[td]Poland Under 19s[/td]
[td]Failed to qualify for U19 euros, resigned when i got the Lech job[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2018/19[/td]
[td]Cameroon[/td]
[td]Started ACON qualifying[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Challenge Progress:

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (Poland)

0/10 domestic cups ()

0/5 club continental championships ()

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments ()

0/2 world tournaments ()

[darren1983]

Yes, the cup they are all in counts, but you can only count 1 cup from each nation towards your total. Hope you're asking the questions because you've won it.

I'll have an update later this afternoon once I make up my mind if I stay or not, been a busy season all told

Which side has the tycoon?.

Jomo Cosmos got the tycoon, they got relegated same time as I got promoted.

[darren1983]

Season 2018/19 Review

Black Leopards

South African Premiership

League Table - pretty average season for us, form would change from game to game, would win 6-0 one week before losing 5-1 the next. Think I've taken them as far as I can

MTN 8 - cup for the top 8 from last season. Got smashed after being 3-1 up with 25 mins to go

Telkom - couple of early struggles needed extra time to advance before getting to the final. Tight 1st half but our best players showed up after half time leading us to the win and my first trophy.

Nedbank Cup - Out at the first hurdle

Transfers - spent some money for once but also recouped most of it in sales.

Squad - decent but not much more

Finances - have turned finances around but just can't compete with the bigger boys

Nigeria

After the ACON some international jobs came up and thought I'd apply, got the Nigeria job. Lost our first friendly 5-2 away to Argentina (mainly as I spent the game messing with formations) but beat Iran 4-0 next up, stuck with that line up for out only competitive game so far and secured an easy win.

Career Overview

Season     Team                 Country    League                            Position       Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           2nd            Took over on 31.12.2015
2016/17    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           1st            Promoted as champions
2017/18    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    7th
2018/19    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    9th            Cup winners
2019       Nigeria                                                           26th           Took over in March

Challenge Progress

Club

0/10 top domestic leagues

1/10 domestic cups (South Africa)

0/5 club continental championships

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments

0/2 world tournaments

Next Season

Not sure what to do now, tempted to have one final season now I have a transfer fund to use (850k up from 100k last season) but we're not even close to competing with the big boys over a season, have won a cup so think with the Nigeria job to hold me over for a while I will look for a new team.

[jcricky]

Yes, the cup they are all in counts, but you can only count 1 cup from each nation towards your total. Hope you're asking the questions because you've won it.

Which side has the tycoon?

jcricky - Welcome to the challenge. Since 16.3 update I don't think that it's possible to start off with a league 1 side. I did it in my save, but I started on 16.1 or 16.2. Accrington Stanley should be a challenge, but how is Josh Windass doing for you? if John Coleman didn't sell him. IRL they got to the playoffs, but I'm not sure the game reflects that potential.

In all honesty I only played with him once in a friendly before I realised that I didn't have attribute masking enabled, I think that's a bit of a grey area in the challenge but I wanted in on just to add a slight bit of realism as it'll be my scouts that do that for me. So I'm ready to start again, hopefully the same opportunity will come round again but all depends on if Coleman leaves again!

[vikeologist]

jcricky - Sorry to hear that. Glad you're starting again though, because I don't think attribute masking is a grey area. I think it's essential to a level playing field in the challenge. I don't want to have lots of rules in the challenge. Frankly, unneccessary restrictions used to annoy me in other challenges, but I guess we've ended up with a lot. Good luck getting at least some League 2 club (or attractive equivalent) in your restart.

d1983 - Congrats on your first trophy. Hopefully the cup will enable you to get a better job in S Africa. The issue is knowing whether to quit Black Leopards to better your chances of getting that better job. I honestly don't know the answer, or whether taking the international job improves ort hinders your chances in that regard. The job acquisition side of the game is a total mystery to me.

fadedaf - Fantastic progress. Clyde success clearly wasn't a fluke. we'll have to keep an eye on you, young paduan.

[darren1983]

fadeaf - congrats on the title, good luck in the Champions League

vikeologist - cheers. Yeah no idea how the job acquisition works either, did notice my reputation jump from half a star to 1 and a half after taking the Nigeria job (have yet to be able to do a coaching course due to finances and timing) but the board have given me a good sized transfer budget this season so have decided to give it at least one more year here to see how it goes.

On another note looking at the wage budgets for this season - Jomo Cosmos (tycoon side) have 11m with the next highest being Oralndo Pirates with 3.7m - I have a huge 1.1m

[jcricky]

TNS – 15/16

After the failed attempt at Accrington Stanley I decided that this time I would wait until further on into the season to look for a job, meaning I could get the perfect job for me. I applied for a few jobs through the season, both Linfield and St. Pats Athletic offered me job interviews and then decided against hiring me as manager.

On the 14th of February I got a job interview at TNS in Wales, the only professional club in Wales who were already top of the league with 6 games to go. This seemed the perfect place to start my career and on the 19th of February I got the job. Unusually the old manager Craig Harrison left to join Peterhead in Scottish League 1, a job that did not interest me in the slightest.

I am so happy to have got this job, but I have a question to ask, with 6 games to go if I win the league does it count or not? What are the rules on this?

[TheEarl]

TNS – 15/16

After the failed attempt at Accrington Stanley I decided that this time I would wait until further on into the season to look for a job, meaning I could get the perfect job for me. I applied for a few jobs through the season, both Linfield and St. Pats Athletic offered me job interviews and then decided against hiring me as manager.

On the 14th of February I got a job interview at TNS in Wales, the only professional club in Wales who were already top of the league with 6 games to go. This seemed the perfect place to start my career and on the 19th of February I got the job. Unusually the old manager Craig Harrison left to join Peterhead in Scottish League 1, a job that did not interest me in the slightest.

I am so happy to have got this job, but I have a question to ask, with 6 games to go if I win the league does it count or not? What are the rules on this?

You should decide for yourself whether you find it good enough to count or not, but yes according to previous matters on this subject winning the title with TNS already this season DO count even if you only managed them for 6 matches. If there are any cuptitles left to win, you would need to manage them at least in the final.

Good luck

[darren1983]

Season 2019/20 Review

Black Leopards - South African Premier League

League Table - Well this was unexpected to say the least! A very good start where we were unbeaten in our first 16 games (half the season) meant we had a lead we never really looked like losing despite suffering 4 defeats in our final 12 games (2 of which came after we had won the title) Seems my progress in the transfer market over the past couple of seasons finally paid off here as the team just clicked. It's safe to say I'm happy to have stayed another season.

Telkom Cup - our defence of this ended right at the start as I gave some squad players a chance to get some minutes considering our league form

Nedbank Cup - a nice run to the semi finals but we didn't really turn up on the day

Transfers - Not much money spent it was quality over quantity with a couple of players really improving the team

Squad - heroes!

Finances - Slow steady improvement here

Nigeria

Mixed sums it up best, our African Nations Championship campaign was a disaster,only allowed to pick domestic based players we were smashed 4-1 away to Togo in the first leg of qualifying and a 1-0 home win wasn't enough to see us through. However despite a 1-0 loss away to Congo we still sit top of our qualifying group with one game to go.

Career Overview

Season     Team                 Country    League                            Position       Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           2nd            Took over on 31.12.2015
2016/17    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           1st            Promoted as champions
2017/18    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    7th
2018/19    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    9th            Cup winners
2019/20    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    1st            Champions!

                                                   [b] [u]International[/u][/b]
2019       Nigeria                                                           26th           Took over in March
2019/20    Nigeria                                                           31st

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa)

1/10 domestic cups (South Africa)

0/5 club continental championships

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments

0/2 world tournaments

Next Season

Now the title has been won I think I'll stay for just one more season to have a crack at the CAF Champions League and then move on. My reputation is now 2 stars but still can't get an interview with teams in Australia or even league one sides in England.

[apchivers]

Vaasan Palloseura 2019 update

A pretty disappointing season overall saw VPS narrowly avoid relegation by winning the relegation play off (11th in Premier League vs runners up in First Division). We started the season well with a decent showing in the League Cup, finishing 2nd in our group. However, the league campaign started dreadfully with 1 win and 1 draw from my first 12 games. A mixture of not being able to defend and attacking players not quite clicking was always a recipe for disaster. Things picked up a bit in the second third of the season before tailing off again in the final 11 games.

A lot of my players wanted to leave at the start of the season and a few of my star players left due to their minimum fee release clauses being activated. The board only gave me 5% of transfer revenue so replacing them was a challenge and not one that I passed!

However, two players did shine. New signing Denzeil Boadu was on fire in the attacking midfield role and won the league player of the season award - not bad playing for a team who finished second from bottom. Fellow African Emile Tendeng also performed well in the box to box midfield role, scoring 11 and assisting 5 in 35 games.

I won't be renewing my contract at the end of the season and will resign once the contract comes to an end. I may be more picky with my next team as I don't fancy managing a team in as poor a financial situation as VPS.

Former Club Watch

Linfield haven't won the league since I was in charge, but have won the League Cup another time. They sold my star regen Robbie Davidson to Sunderland for 98k + future incentives. After one decent and one good season in the Championship, Premiership side Burnley signed him for £7.5m!

Season   Team      Country     Pos  Notes and Achievements 
2015/16  Linfield  N.Ireland  3rd   Won European Places Playoff
2016/17  Linfield  N.Ireland  1st   CHAMPIONS! LEAGUE CUP WINNERS!
2018     VPS       Finland    10th   Took over with 11 games remaining
2019     VPS       Finland    11th   Won relegation playoff to stay up.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Year  Nation  Ranking  Achievements
2017  Canada  78th     Qualified for World Cup
2018  Canada  67th     4th in Group G



Challenge Progress


Club
1/10 top domestic leagues (N.Ireland (Linfield))
1/10 domestic cups (N.Irish League Cup (Linfield))
0/5 club continental championships 
0/1 club world championship


International
0/5 continental tournaments
0/2 world tournaments 

[darren1983]

The tycoon funding Jomo Cosmos has withdrawn his funding leaving them in some trouble.

Plus the Kaizer Chiefs manager retired so I applied for the role, had the interview, they were offering 14m transfer fund - the things I could do with that! Didn't get it though 3 days after missing out our opening league was at home to.....yep, you guessed it, Kaizer Chiefs! Beat them 2-0

[jcricky]

TNS 2015/16

Taking over with 6 games to go and a Cup Quarter Final to play I was full of optimism, hoping I could win the double in Wales in a short time. However things didn’t go to plan, we were very inconsistent, winning 2, drawing 3 and losing 1. We were also destroyed by Port Talbot, who look like being my bogey side in Wales, 4-1 in the Quarter Final, and before anybody asks, our league loss was to Port Talbot too.

The squad looks okay, work needs to be done over summer in order to make sure we win the league again. Our best player, Ryan Brobbel is set to leave on a free as he refuses to sign a new deal with the club, most of our back line is made up of loan players and one of our players has retired. This could mean an almost new defence

for the new season.

I decided that I would count the league as my first domestic title, however I will be sticking round at TNS for another season as my reputation is still low. Hopefully I’ll win the league again (I know this doesn’t count to my progress) to show that I am able to do it for a full season, hopefully we will be able to do well in the cups too and get a domestic cup under my belt.

CLUB CAREER
							   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS)

0/10 domestic cups -

0/5 club continental championships -

0/1 club world championship -

International

0/5 continental tournaments -

0/2 world tournaments -

[darren1983]

Season 2020/21 Review

Black Leopards - South African

League Table - was closer than it should have been, we won our first 13 games making me think it was going to be a stroll to the title, but injuries and rotation as I made the champions league my main target meant we did our best to allow Sundowns back in to the

MTN 8- lost in the semi finals, wasn't great from us really

Telkom Cup - a nice run to the final before a comfortable win

Nedbank Cup - good run to our first ever final in this, and a tight win in the final

CAF Champions League - our campaign has been pretty straight forward toward the end of our domestic campaign as we have qualified for the group stages, it's the last trophy I need to win in Africa so the sooner I do it the sooner I can move on

Transfers- we didn't need much so in stead I targeted areas I felt we needed

Squad - looking good, maybe bit more strength in depth

Finances - getting better season by season

Nigeria

We qualified for this year's ACON and went into it on the back of 6 straight wins where we conceded 0 goals so I felt like we had a shot at going all the way. Our opening game was against DR Congo, a 3-1 lead at HT was thrown away as we only managed a 3-3 draw. Next up was my adopted country of South Africa who we smashed 5-0, final group game was Algeria, a draw would be enough to see us through, a win would mean we win the group, Algeria needed a win to qualify, a cagey game saw us run out 3-1 winners and progress to the quarter finals where we would face Ivory Cost we dominated the match with chance after chance while they scored with their only 2 chances on target as we lost 2-1. After the game my time with Nigeria came to an end.

Career Overview

Season     Team                 Country    League                            Position       Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           2nd            Took over on 31.12.2015
2016/17    Black Leopards         KSA      National First Division           1st            Promoted as champions
2017/18    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    7th
2018/19    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    9th            Cup winners
2019/20    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    1st            Champions!
2020/21    Black Leopards         KSA      Premier League                    1st            Champions, Telkom Cup winners, Nedbank Cup winners

                                                   [b] [u]International[/u][/b]
2019       Nigeria                                                           26th           Took over in March
2019/20    Nigeria                                                           31st
2020/21    Nigeria                                                           20th           ACON quarter finals, resigned

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (South Africa)

1/10 domestic cups (South Africa)

0/5 club continental championships

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments

0/2 world tournaments

Next Season

Target is the champions league, if I can win it this season then great, otherwise I will have to stay around for another, I do think it's time to move on (though I've been saying that for the past 3 seasons )

[jcricky]

TNS 2016/17

League

The league performance was solid, winning the league with 19 wins, 8 draws and 5 losses, accumulating 65 points, 4 less than last season but still a success. We started off the season going 11 unbeaten, before losing 1-0 to Rhyl away, we then got back on track, going another 5 games unbeaten. Unfortunately losing to our bogey side, Port Talbot, 2-0. Following that defeat we finished the pre-split league unbeaten, we continued the unbeaten run for another 7 games, before losing our final three games of the season to Airbus UK, Bangor City and obviously Port Talbot. We finished 5 points clear of Airbus UK in second, with Bangor 3rd and Port Talbot 4th. Carmarthen and Llandudno were relegated.

Champions Cup

1st qualifying round - TNS 1–0 Tre Penne

1st qualifying round - Tre Penne 1-3 TNS

2nd qualifying round - Lech Poznan 4-1 TNS

2nd qualifying round - TNS 1-0 Lech Poznan

A disappointing early exit in the Champions Cup 2nd qualifying round, but losing to the Polish Champions is no disgrace.

theWord Cup

1st Round – Flint Town 1-5 TNS

2nd Round – Barry 2-6 TNS

3rd Round – Connah’s Quay 1-3 TNS

Semi Final – Haverfordwest 0-2 TNS

Final – Port Talbot 0-2 TNS

First domestic trophy won! We were never really challenged in this cup

JD Welsh Cup

3rd Round – Aberdare 0-4 TNS

4th Round – TNS 0-0p Airbus UK

A disappointing loss on penalties after dominating the game meant that we couldn’t win the treble, I was gutted. Port Talbot went on to win 4-1 v Airbus UK in the final.

Players

Top Scorer – Scott Quigley (27)

Highest Average Rating - Adrian Cieslewicz (7.87)

Most Assists - Adrian Cieslewicz and Laurent Davis-Wilson (10)

After a good season I think it is time to leave TNS and look for a new job, in February I landed the Australia U23 job, hopefully this will help enhance my reputation. I also completed a coaching course during the season.

CLUB CAREER
							   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times



INTERNATIONAL CAREER


Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	      					Took over on 19/2/16

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS)

1/10 domestic cups – Wales(TNS – theWord Cup)

0/5 club continental championships -

0/1 club world championship -

International

0/5 continental tournaments -

0/2 world tournaments

[threelions1goal]

Lazio - End Of Season 2034/35

Review

After getting the sack at Inter Milan, I really wanted to hang around in Italy, so bided my time and when the Lazio position became available, I applied for and got the job.

I took over in December, one week before Christmas with the team in 14th position in Serie A.

They'd already been knocked out of the Champions League and the Euro Cup, so as things come in threes, I managed to get us knocked out of the Italian Cup in one of my first few matches.

The transfer window saw me raid my old club Pumas (from Mexico) for the two wonderkids who were there - an attacking midfielder and a centre half, although the defender wouldn't join until the end of the season.

Those two signings pretty much ate up all my transfer budget, so I couldn't believe my luck when one of my scouts unearthed a striker on a free transfer who really looked the part - so i signed him and he was instantly worth £28m!!

I struggled to find a good formation as my trusted 4-4-2 wouldn't work with the players I had at my disposal, I often favour a 4-3-1-2 narrow too, but that didn't really work either.

In a team meeting, a member of my coaching team suggested a 4-2-3-1 Narrow formation, so I tried it and it all fell into place and I managed to finish the season in 7th place, just missing out on continental qualification - when I too the job, the board only wanted me to steer clear of relegation, so they're pretty happy with me at the minute.

Going into the next season, my transfer budget is bobbins, so I may have to sell before I can buy - my wage budget is quite good as three of my highest earners all retired, so I'm going to have to be pretty shrewd in the transfer market!!

Internationally, I was in charge of Iran ahead of the Asian Cup.

Iran were ranked 30th in the world and in our group we managed a draw against Saudi Arabia (ranked 51st), we beat Bahrain(69th) with a score of 3-1 and managed a 0-0 draw against Qatar (79th)

Into the second round we were favourites against Lebanon(71st) and we easily beat them 4-0, setting up a tie against Australia in the Quarter Final.

Australia were ranked 29th in the world, so we were pretty evenly matched.

We set off like a house on fire and raced into a 2-0 lead.

However in the second half Australia clawed it back, making the score 2-2 and forcing extra time.

They went 3-2 up in the 6th minute of Extra Time and as we threw everything forward, trying to equalise, they scored in the 120th minute, making it a 4-2 defeat.

Then Iran sacked me..........!!!!

Season	Team		Country       	Pos	Notes          
15/16	Linfield	N. Ireland	6th	Took over in December, sacked before the end of the season
16/17	Cliftonville    N. Ireland	3rd	Took over in January, Euro Qualification
17/18	Cliftonville    N. Ireland	4th	League Cup Winners
18/19	Cliftonville   	N. Ireland	1st	Champions, Manager Of The Year
19/20	Shanggang	China		1st	Champions, Cup Winners, Manager Of The Year     
20/21	Shanggang	China		N/A	Resigned after being knocked out of Champs League
20/21	Jeonbuk		S. Korea	4th	Cup Winners, Knocked Out 2nd Round Champs League
21/22	Jeonbuk		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED 4th in league, QF of Champs League, SF of FA Cup
22/23	Pohang		S. Korea	6th	Cup Winners, knocked out in SF of Asian Champs League
23/24	Pohang		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED after first match of the new season!!
24/25	Seoul		S. Korea	3rd	Took over with 14 games played, qualified for Champs League
25/26	Seoul		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED - Team finished 2nd & won FA Cup
26/27	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa	1st	Champions
27/28	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa	1st	Champions, KO Cup Winner, S/F Champs League - Resigned
28/29	Houston		USA		2nd	1st in West Conference, Lost in MLS Shield  Final, SF of NACL
29/30	Tigres		Mexico		4th	Closing Stage, SF of Champions League	
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		3rd     Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas -  reached SF of Cup
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		1st     Closing Stage	 - Won in Final - Champions!!  2nd Rnd Copa Libertadores
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		1st	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas, Qualified for KO stage of NACL
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		7th	Closing Stage - Lost in SF of Play Offs, Lost in SF of NACL.....SACKED!!
32/33	Pumas		Mexico		1st	Closing Stage, Won in Final - Champions!!, NACL Winners
33/34	Inter Milan	Italy		6th	Qualified for Euro Cup - Boardroom disagreement - SACKED!!
34/35	Lazio		Italy		7th	Took over in December, team in 14th Position



International
2026	Cameroon	Africa		Resigned after 2 matches
2026	Morocco		Africa		Eliminated in Group Stage at World Cup, qualified for ACON
2027	Morocco		Africa		ACON Winners - resigned straight after
2029	Australia	Asia		Qualified for World Cup
2030	Australia	Asia		Knocked Out In Group Stages, lost every match - SACKED!!
2033	Jamaica		N. America	Lost in Final of Gold Cup - Resigned
2034	Iran		Asia		Lost in QF of Asian Cup - SACKED!!

Challenge Progress

Club

4/10 top domestic leagues (N. Ireland, China, S. Africa, Mexico)

4/10 domestic cups (N. Ireland, China, S. Korea, S. Africa)

1/5 club continental championships (NACL - Pumas)

0/1 club world championship

International

1/5 continental tournaments (ACON - Morocco 2027)

0/2 world tournaments ()

[jcricky]

Australia U23 – U23 Asia Cup

Group A – Saudi Arabia 1-3 Australia

Group A – Australia 0-0 Kuwait

Group A – Australia 3-0 India

Quarter Final – Australia e1-0 Iraq

Semi Final – Australia 1-0 Iran

Final – South Korea 3-1 Australia

A good run, unfortunately ended in the Final, but I can’t fault the lads as most of them were actually under 18. Korea were by far the strongest team in the tournament but it’s still disappointing to lose in a final. For some reason Australia U23 'won't be playing for the considerable future' unsure why, but now I am back to being fully unemployed.

CLUB CAREER
							   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times



INTERNATIONAL CAREER


Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	   U23 Asian Cup 	Lost in Final	Took over on 19/2/16

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS)

1/10 domestic cups – Wales(TNS – theWord Cup)

0/5 club continental championships -

0/1 club world championship -

International

0/5 continental tournaments -

0/2 world tournaments -

[vikeologist]

jcricky - congrats on the domestic cup. Pity about the U23. Winning even minor competitions can give your rep a real boost.

Incidentally, not only is it ok to manage a side in the final, youi don't even need to manage a side in both legs of a 2-legged final. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think (in my completed challenge) that I won the Copa Libertadores in only my second match. The first was a league match. The second match was the second leg of the final. Bear in mind that I had applied for the job quite a while before. I once took over a Mexican side on the actual day of the second leg of the Mexican league final (The league champs are decided on a knock out basis). I refer you to the fact that I recently managed 2 different nations in the same World Cup. Of course this is massively unrealistic, and you may take pleasure in the fact that the second team was elimiated from the next ACON by the first team.

3L1G - Commiserations on the sacking. When selecting an international job, one can take the world ranking as a possible indicator of quality in the team, but it's also an indicator of what the baord may expect of you. It's so frustrating when you know you stand a chance of winning a competition, but there's so many things that can go wrong. I spend the months before an international competition warily viewing my inbox for major injuries. Anyway, even if you'd kept your job, you'd have had to wait 4 years for the next Asian Cup. you can't have been the only manager to lose their job. Haven't there been other jobs to apply for? Of course, you've already got the ACON, so any jobs there won't be any use. I have re-enetered the international arena in Asia myself, but with less than 4 years to wait.

Hope you can achieve success with Lazio next season.

d1983 - That's the thing about Africa. Once you only need the Champions League, the climax of your season is in the middle.

ap - Good luck finding a more suitable job. Anyway, congratulations on avoiding relegation. I'm not sure if anybody in this challenge has ever actually been relegated. I'm mean, I'm sure a few have, because first jobs often involve digging a side out of relegation problems, but I don't think anyone has reported it.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2023/24 Southend and Saudi Arabia Report

Another 15th place, and only 5 more points, although this time we survived far more comfortably.

I am trying to leave Southend, honestly. It’s just that I’m not prepared to manage any club that will take me as a manager. At this point I am very tempted just to stay with Southend. In a year’s time we will have a new stadium; only 25k capacity, but that will still be about 66% more than now.

So what went wrong this season? I brought in quite a few new players who upgraded things, without losing any of our starters to transfers or old age.

One problem was our back-up strikers, both of whom I purchased at the start of the season. Andoni Santamaria was a bargain 425k for his 2.5 stars and potential. Alberto Tenconi had been on loan from Inter the previous season. He’d only played in 10 games because he hadn’t scored any goals so I decided to blood some of my youngsters. However, when he became available on a free, I jumped at the chance to add someone with that much pedigree.

Although Faour and Hepburn-Murphy were our unquestioned starters, Santamaria and Tenconi still notched up 42 matches between them including 17 starts.

And how many goals do they total in these 42 matches? None. Nada. Zilch. An egg.

Needless to say, I’m open to offers for the 2 of them, and in the summer will be arriving another player, Alan Neill, who we had on loan from Liverpool for a couple of seasons. He was too young and raw to get many games, but he did at least score a couple of goals each season despite his limited opportunities.

I am still applying for other jobs, but I think that next season could be a good one for Southend. Our mid-tably 2 seasons in the Premier League means that I’ve given a lot of opportunities to young players who are now pretty good.

I nearly forgot the player mentions, but as it was exactly the same people as the previous season, it didn't take so long to add.

Most goals – Rushian Hepburn- Murphy – 23 goals. In 23 games because he was injured a couple of times, so not so shabby.

Average-Rating – Nicola Weiss 7.40. He has never asked to leave, but if he did, I'd want something in the region of £60 mill.

Man of the Match – RH-M - 5. Actually, this one was different. This season Weiss for some reason wasn't MoM even once.

On the international side of things, I took over Saudi Arabia in December 2023 when their previous manager retired. We picked up 4 points from out last 2 games of the WC Qualifiers 2nd round and had to settle for qualifying for the Final Group stage as one of the better 2nd place teams, but it does mean that we have now qualified for the Asian Cup. It’s not a great squad, but some of the players are very good, and there’s lots of promising youngsters who may blossom in time for the Asian Cup in 3 years.

Season    Team                    Position    Notes                                        Challenge Landmarks

15/16    Unemployed                n/a        I have my standards and I'm sticking to them    
16/17    Southend (England League 1)        13th        Yawn
17/18    Southend                13th        Wake me up when tomorrow comes
18/19     Southend                8th        Missed out on playoffs in final game of the season
19/20    Southend                1st        English league 1 Champions. League cup semi-finalists
20/21    Southend                4th        Lost Playoff final in extra time. League cup semi-finalists again
21/22    Southend                1st        Won league by a country mile. FA Cup semi-finalists.
22/23    Southend                15th        Lost final 6 matches and achieved safety in final game of the season (if being thrashed by one of the other relegation contenders counts as an achievement).
23/24    Southend                15th



Year    Team                    Achievements    
2019-22    South Africa                2020 CHAN Champions. 
                       Eliminated in group stage of 2021 African CoN
                       Qualified for 2022 World Cup
                       Eliminated in group stage of 2022 World Cup. Quit to manage a better team in Ghana.
2022-23    Ghana                    Lost in World Cup 2nd round in my first match in charge
                       Sacked after losing in Q/F of ACON - to South Africa!
2023-    Saudi Arabia                Qualified for Final group Stage of WC Qualifiers

[Siepe1990]

Well, let me first introduce myself. I'm Siepe and I've played FM since way back in 2001 (01/02 was my first version).

My 'normal' save would consist of the top 7/8 leagues from Europe with only the top divisions, but this time I got bored after a while (after topping the Hall of Fame, what's there still left to achieve anyway ). I stumbled upon this challenge and thought that it might bring the fun & challenge back into the game.

So, I decided to start a save with quite a few leagues (Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, USA, Mexico, China, South Korea, Belgium, Portugal, Russia - all top division only - and Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Holland - top 2 divisions - and finally England - top 3 divisions). It took me quite some time to just get some interviews ; however, all were unsuccessful. I started to doubt my odds when the first season ended without any job for me, but then the Olympics came around, and surprise surprise, Argentina accepted my application!

Argentina U23 - Olympics 2016

Making the squad selection was just bliss. I mean, with talents like Dybala, Icardi, Vietto, Romero, Mammana, Correa and Mauri (to name a few), building an awesome squad is easy! I didn't include Messi in my squad, as I had enough quality up front already, but choose to add Rulli, Otamendi and Di Maria (playing as a CM, almost natural there to my surprise) to add some defensive quality & creativity from midfield.

The group I got handed was quite straightforward, with Germany providing the only threat next to South Korea and Tunisia. I won all three games though, beating Germany with 3-1 as the highlight. Quarter Finals saw me matched against rivals Brazil (with Neymar and Gabriel Barbosa amongst others). It turned out to be a tight affair, but I beat them nonetheless, finishing 1-0 after 90 minutes. In the semis, Mexico was waiting for me. I took a gamble by resting some key players for the final - turned out to be a good one, since Mexico provided no real threat (3-0).

So, I ended up in the final, where the Portugal of CR7 was waiting for me... The maestro himself was leading the scoring charts (12 goals in 5 matches!) just ahead of my own Icardi (9 goals in 4), so I was warned. After 15 minutes if playing, everything appeared to be lost, with Portugal scoring twice in quick succession. But then, the 38th minute started, and things got crazy.

I have seen quite the turnaround in all these years, but never have I experienced this. It started with an own goal by Portugal in the 38th minute, followed by another own goal just 2 minutes later, making it even again. But wait, the first half wasn't over just yet! In the 42nd minute, Icardi banged in his 10th of the Tournament and ending the first half, Dybala scored on the brink of half time - which same me going into half-time with a 4-2 lead after being down 0-2 in the first 38 minutes... Well, Portugal never recovered from that blow (oh how I would have loved to see CR7's face ) and my team took the foot of the gas, resulting in no more goals in the second half - which meant I obtained my first prize, and quite the one as well!

Settling down after all the excitement, I noticed that my personal 'rating' had gone up from 0 stars to 1 star as a result to all the magic in Brazil. I started applying to everything again, resulting in 2 offers (1 from China & 1 from South Africa). However, both clubs were at the bottom spot with only a few games still to go, so my chances were quite slim, and I decided to let them slip. My patience was rewarded, as I received an offer from the club at the bottom of the League One in England somewhere early December 2016...

Bury F.C. - League One

Bury F.C. - one of the oldest teams in England with quite the history. Winning the FA Cup twice (in 1900 and 1903, with the '03 final being the highest scoring FA Cup Final ever (6-0)), they have some history of success, but it's a looooooong time ago . They are however the first and so far only club in England to score over a thousand goals in all four professional tiers, so you'd say they do know how to score .

When I took over, there were 19 games played (of the 46) and they only scored 10 points. We are at the bottom of the table, with a 6 point gap to the 23rd place. Based on a first quick glance, the squad is actually quite OK - media prediction is 11th, so that confirms my quick analysis. Got some decent wingers, a good striker and some sturdy defenders. My goalie is Brad Jones (!), so that's a nice plus as well.

First two competition games ended in a draw and a loss, both games played with a 4-2-2-2 wide formation. In both games, possession was OK, but chances were close to zero, with my opponents having quite some shots (10+ in both games) - so something isn't quite OK yet. I'm wondering if I'm playing to offensive for this level and I'm planning to try a 4-1-2-2-1 next match, substituting a striker for a DM.

Quick question to end this first post: any of you have any tips when it comes to managing lower league teams? Scouting & Training are going well, but the formation and especially the Team Instructions are a pain for me - I'm used to playing offensive football with close to a dozen Team Instructions, but perhaps that's to 'complicated' for the lower league teams?

Well, I'll keep you updated on any progress and I hope to - at the very least - save Bury F.C. from relegation in my first season!

Season		Team		Competition		Position	Notes and Achievements
2015/2016	Argentina U23	Olympics		1st		
2016/2017	Bury F.C.	League One (ENG)	-		Took over when 24th in Dec. 2016

[numero uno gunner]

Season review 2026-27

Real Madrid and Colombia

I left Juventus after two seasons, and decided to accept a job prior to the World Cup. I'm aware normal convention would have been to wait for the plethora of jobs that would be available after the tournament, but ultimately this was a position I just couldn't turn down. They finished 2nd in La Liga last season, but a whopping 17 points behind runaway winners Barcelona. Actually, the Barca job came up after the World Cup, but having compared their squad to Real's, I was confident I had made the right decision.

We started the season like a train, 10 wins and 2 draws from our opening 12 games, including an 8-0 mauling of Levante with my squad players starting, and a 4-1 demolition of Barca at the Nou Camp. It was a sign of things to come domestically, as we went from strength to strength. For a while, it looked like both Athletic Bilbao and Atletico Madrid were going to run us close, and then suddenly I pulled away, and pulled away in some style. I've got the best strike force in the league. Even though I only play with one up front, my two strikers who I rotated were the top two scorers in the league. Burak Strutz hit 37, with Emanuel Allende scoring 29, with my four wingers contributing 47 goals as well. Our attacking force is phenomenal, but its our defence that needs some work. We ended up sealing the title with 6 games to go, and winning the league by 18 points. The Bernabeau was a fortress, as we won all 19 home league games there. We also broke the record for most goals scored in the league, netting 101 times.

In the Spanish Cup, a 12-0 aggregate smashing of lower league Ferrol was followed up by a 9-2 smashing of Villareal over two legs in the 5th round, before a 6-1 win overall against Malaga in the last 8. The semi final saw us pitted with our closest title rivals Athletic Bilbao, but a 4-0 first leg win was enough to put us into the final, despite losing the return leg 1-0. In the showpiece, we faced Barcelona, who had had a storming end to the season, coming from 16th to finish 3rd. I knew it was going to be a tough game, and matters weren't helped when I lost Juaquin Cuellar, my star winger, the week before to injury. The final was a tale of two strikers in the main. Burak Strutz put us one up, but Antonio Paredes squared up the game before the break. It remained 1-1, and into extra time we went. Paredes scored in the 112th minute to put Barca 2-1 up, but Strutz scored again three minutes later. It ended 2-2, and to the dreaded penalties we went. I needn't have worried, as 5 perfect penalties, along with a fantastic save from our keeper Pietro Cerutti was enough for us to win the cup and seal the double.

The Champions League was a bit of a disaster. A tough group pitted us against Bayern, AC Milan and Shakhtar. Ultimately, we blew the chance to top the group, and ended up as runners-up to Bayern. We only had ourselves to blame, as having put ourselves in pole position going into game five, a 92nd minute goal looked to have been enough, but Shakhtar still had time to equalise. Furious doesn't quite cut my reaction. This meant a last 16 game with Arsenal, who thoroughly demolished us over two legs, winning 7-2. Yet again, my team has failed in Europe. Its something I'm going to have to work out before next season. Arsenal went on to win the title, beating Man City 2-1 in the final thanks to a double from Romelu Lukaku.

Internationally, 2027 was a Copa America year. Our friendly results in the build up were shocking, with three defeats on the bounce. That said, we were still ranked 2nd in the world, behind hosts Brazil, so I harboured hopes of doing well. Goals from Luis Gil, Juaquin Cuellar and a wonder strike from Harold Preciado in stoppage time sealed a 3-2 win over USA B, and this was followed up with a solid 2-2 draw with Argentina, Luis Gil and Hector Lopez netting either side of a Paulo Dybala double for Argentina. Francisco Angulo put us ahead against Ecuador in our final group game, before we were pegged back to 1-1. Joaquin Cuellar put us ahead again, for all of 2 minutes, before Walter Restrepo netted the winner in stoppage time as we sealed top spot in the group, and a quarter final with Peru. Luis Gil put us ahead after 4 minutes, but Peru equalised 20 minutes later. Both teams had chances, but the game ended 1-1. I was expecting extra time, but the game went straight to penalties. We hit five perfect penalties, and with one of theirs hitting the bar, we marched on to the semi finals, where we were to play Argentina again. Of the four semi finalists, three came from my group. A dour game was decided by a classy passing movement, and our right back Enrique Gomez, who was uncapped when I took over, slotted in what proved to be the winner. Hosts Brazil awaited in the final. We had played well up until this point, but I didn't expect to win the final, as Brazil have looked excellent throughout the competition. Our players relished the role of gatecrashers, and were determined to wreck the hosts' party. Luis Gil opened the scoring in the 4th minute, before Leandro made it 1-1. Our back up right back popped up in the 20th minute to put us back in front, before Leandro again levelled it up again just after the break. Both sides had chances, before Juan Pulido put us back in front just after the hour. Brazil started throwing men forward, but somehow our defence held strong, and we added the Copa America to our World Cup title!

Now, I don't know what to do. In terms of the challenge, I should really look for a team that can challenge for the Champions League and either the English or German title (or PSG, if the job becomes vacant). However, my Real side are playing utterly beautiful football, so I might stick around and give them one more season to see if I can win the Champions League. I guess it depends on what jobs become available. One thing I think I have decided is that I'm going to stay in Europe until I've won the big 5 leagues, and then head to South Africa. I've got a couple of vague plans for how I want the domestic side of this challenge to end, all of which are a little outlandish, but I'm still a while away from needing to worry about that yet. Internationally, I'm torn. The Euros are next summer, and a few managers of good sides (particularly Italy) are barely clinging onto their jobs. Do I hold tight and wait for the Confederation Cup in two years time, or look to move on?

Club
Season        Team             Position      Notes and Achievements
2015/16      Dungannon     10th          Won Northern Irish FA Cup and kept Dungannon up after taking over with 3 games to go
2016/17      Dungannon     8th            A solid but unspectacular season
2017/18      Yiteng            8th            A settling season in China
2019           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and FA Cup, as well as claiming MOTY.
2020           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and Asian Champions League
2020/21      Aberdeen       9th            Won Scottish League Cup
2021/22      Monterrey      5th/5th      Won Opening Stage, knocked out in semis of closing stage. Won NACL.
2021/22      Salzburg        1st             Won league and cup double
2022           Corinthians    1st             Won league
2023           Corinthians    8th             Won Copa Libertadores
2024/25      Juventus        1st             Won Serie A and Italian Cup
2025/26      Juventus        2nd            Won Italian Cup
2026/27      Real Madrid    1st             Won La Liga and Spanish Cup

Season        Team              Notes and Achievements
2016/17      Congo              Resigned without playing a game
2016/17      Cameroon        One win away from WC qualification
2017/18      Cameroon        2nd round of 2018 World Cup
2019           Cameroon        African Cup of Nations winner!
2021           Poland             An abject failure!
2022           Ireland            4 wins, 2 draws and promotion to European International League Division B
2023           Ireland            2 wins, 2 defeats from 4 qualifiers before taking Colombia job
2024/25      Colombia         Currently top of WC qualifying and ranked 4th in the world
2026           Colombia         World Cup winners!
2027           Colombia         Copa America winners!

Challenge Progress

Club

6/10 top domestic leagues - China (Jiangsu), Mexico (Monterrey), Austria (Salzburg), Brazil (Corinthians), Italy (Juventus), Spain (Real Madrid)

6/10 domestic cups - Northern Ireland (Dungannon), China (Jiangsu), Scotland (Aberdeen), Austria (Salzburg), Italy (Juventus x 2), Spain (Real Madrid)

3/5 club continental championships - ACL (Jiangsu), NACL (Monterrey), Copa Libertadores (Corinthians)

0/1 club world championship

International

2/5 continental tournaments - ACON (Cameroon 2019), Copa America (Colombia 2027)

1/2 world tournaments - World Cup (Colombia 2026)

**********************************************************************************************************************************************

@darren1983 - I really hope that you manage to land the Champions League so you can leave Africa sooner rather than later! Out of interest, what is your reputation rating like now?

@vikeologist - Maybe secretly you're just enjoying the Essex nightlife too much to leave? Its good to see you've got a long term international plan as well.

@apchivers - It does get easier once you've got a club with some finances. Would you consider a move to another continent? I found that when I went to China I was able to get a lot of my coaching badges, which really helped improve my reputation and allowed me to access better jobs eventually.

@threelions1goal - I enjoyed managing in Italy, so good to see you've stayed there. How much improvement does your Lazio side need to realistically challenge for trophies next season?

@jcricky - You've done a good job in Wales, and made a solid start to the challenge. Where are you looking at going next?

@Siepe1990 - Congratulations on the Olympics title. I think even though things like that don't count towards the challenge, the boost they give to your reputation definitely make them worthwhile. Good luck with your challenge!

[sherwinriga]

Lazio - End Of Season 2034/35

Review

After getting the sack at Inter Milan, I really wanted to hang around in Italy, so bided my time and when the Lazio position became available, I applied for and got the job.

I took over in December, one week before Christmas with the team in 14th position in Serie A.

They'd already been knocked out of the Champions League and the Euro Cup, so as things come in threes, I managed to get us knocked out of the Italian Cup in one of my first few matches.

The transfer window saw me raid my old club Pumas (from Mexico) for the two wonderkids who were there - an attacking midfielder and a centre half, although the defender wouldn't join until the end of the season.

Those two signings pretty much ate up all my transfer budget, so I couldn't believe my luck when one of my scouts unearthed a striker on a free transfer who really looked the part - so i signed him and he was instantly worth £28m!!

I struggled to find a good formation as my trusted 4-4-2 wouldn't work with the players I had at my disposal, I often favour a 4-3-1-2 narrow too, but that didn't really work either.

In a team meeting, a member of my coaching team suggested a 4-2-3-1 Narrow formation, so I tried it and it all fell into place and I managed to finish the season in 7th place, just missing out on continental qualification - when I too the job, the board only wanted me to steer clear of relegation, so they're pretty happy with me at the minute.

Going into the next season, my transfer budget is bobbins, so I may have to sell before I can buy - my wage budget is quite good as three of my highest earners all retired, so I'm going to have to be pretty shrewd in the transfer market!!

Internationally, I was in charge of Iran ahead of the Asian Cup.

Iran were ranked 30th in the world and in our group we managed a draw against Saudi Arabia (ranked 51st), we beat Bahrain(69th) with a score of 3-1 and managed a 0-0 draw against Qatar (79th)

Into the second round we were favourites against Lebanon(71st) and we easily beat them 4-0, setting up a tie against Australia in the Quarter Final.

Australia were ranked 29th in the world, so we were pretty evenly matched.

We set off like a house on fire and raced into a 2-0 lead.

However in the second half Australia clawed it back, making the score 2-2 and forcing extra time.

They went 3-2 up in the 6th minute of Extra Time and as we threw everything forward, trying to equalise, they scored in the 120th minute, making it a 4-2 defeat.

Then Iran sacked me..........!!!!

Season	Team		Country       	Pos	Notes          
15/16	Linfield	N. Ireland	6th	Took over in December, sacked before the end of the season
16/17	Cliftonville    N. Ireland	3rd	Took over in January, Euro Qualification
17/18	Cliftonville    N. Ireland	4th	League Cup Winners
18/19	Cliftonville   	N. Ireland	1st	Champions, Manager Of The Year
19/20	Shanggang	China		1st	Champions, Cup Winners, Manager Of The Year     
20/21	Shanggang	China		N/A	Resigned after being knocked out of Champs League
20/21	Jeonbuk		S. Korea	4th	Cup Winners, Knocked Out 2nd Round Champs League
21/22	Jeonbuk		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED 4th in league, QF of Champs League, SF of FA Cup
22/23	Pohang		S. Korea	6th	Cup Winners, knocked out in SF of Asian Champs League
23/24	Pohang		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED after first match of the new season!!
24/25	Seoul		S. Korea	3rd	Took over with 14 games played, qualified for Champs League
25/26	Seoul		S. Korea	N/A	SACKED - Team finished 2nd & won FA Cup
26/27	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa	1st	Champions
27/28	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa	1st	Champions, KO Cup Winner, S/F Champs League - Resigned
28/29	Houston		USA		2nd	1st in West Conference, Lost in MLS Shield  Final, SF of NACL
29/30	Tigres		Mexico		4th	Closing Stage, SF of Champions League	
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		3rd     Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas -  reached SF of Cup
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		1st     Closing Stage	 - Won in Final - Champions!!  2nd Rnd Copa Libertadores
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		1st	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas, Qualified for KO stage of NACL
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		7th	Closing Stage - Lost in SF of Play Offs, Lost in SF of NACL.....SACKED!!
32/33	Pumas		Mexico		1st	Closing Stage, Won in Final - Champions!!, NACL Winners
33/34	Inter Milan	Italy		6th	Qualified for Euro Cup - Boardroom disagreement - SACKED!!
34/35	Lazio		Italy		7th	Took over in December, team in 14th Position



International
2026	Cameroon	Africa		Resigned after 2 matches
2026	Morocco		Africa		Eliminated in Group Stage at World Cup, qualified for ACON
2027	Morocco		Africa		ACON Winners - resigned straight after
2029	Australia	Asia		Qualified for World Cup
2030	Australia	Asia		Knocked Out In Group Stages, lost every match - SACKED!!
2033	Jamaica		N. America	Lost in Final of Gold Cup - Resigned
2034	Iran		Asia		Lost in QF of Asian Cup - SACKED!!

Challenge Progress

Club

4/10 top domestic leagues (N. Ireland, China, S. Africa, Mexico)

4/10 domestic cups (N. Ireland, China, S. Korea, S. Africa)

1/5 club continental championships (NACL - Pumas)

0/1 club world championship

International

1/5 continental tournaments (ACON - Morocco 2027)

0/2 world tournaments ()

threelions1goal, I am happy that you found well in Lazio, but your bad and unlucky sacking in Iran is worse than two sackings before! I hope you have to manage another Asian team so that you will get another title in Asia. Come to think of it, who is the new managers of Tigres, Inter Milan and Iran? Do better in Asia because another bad sacking in Asia would be proved to be worse. I hope that you proved better in Italy. Did you also manage to beat Inter Milan in the league?

[jt8604]

Grindavik 2015 Takeover Report

I have been a longtime lurker on this forum and decided to get more involved and saw this challenge and thought i would give it a go.

I started with all leagues from Argentina, Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, USA and Urugay loaded. Playing on FM16 fully patched.

Had a few offers (Chelmsford, Fram, Bromley) but decided to go to Icelandic 2nd flight with Grindavik. Have taken over with the team 3rd after 10 games, just 1 point off the top. Hopefully it will be a quick jump to the top flight and the challenge can begin

[vikeologist]

Might as well respond to the last few posts before the switch-over. After all, for all i know, the new forum may be banned in China, so this may be my goodbye.

jt8604 - Welcome to the challenge. Hope your promotion aspirations transpire.

n1g- You are in with a chance of the quickest finish to the challenge, although I'm not sure that will matter to you, and indeed I probably shouldn't even discuss it because I wouldn't want to attract the kind of person who reloads to ensure they are the quickest finisher. That's not what the challenge should be about. It's easy to say that because it's becoming clear that I'm not going to finish by 2037. I'm 8 seasons in and I haven't won anything (other than the CHAN).

Anyway, has there been a turning point in this challenge for you?

I can see your dliema with the Confed Cup. If you take over a Euro side you could win 2 trophies in 2 years, and maybe pick up one of the other 2 in 2031. That gives you a great chance of completing by 2035, and possibly even completing internationally by 2033. On the other hand, if you leave Colombia your first shot at the Confed Cup will be when you eventually win the Euro Championship and you could spend years trying to win trophies you already have just to get a ticket for the Confed Cup. I've always felt that this was the nightmare scenario for Ultimate Managers, although so far everybody has won the Confed Cup fairly early on. I actually don't remember winning it, although I sure as hell remember my best in the universe by a country light year Holland losing in the final. Awful. Still haunts me.

Anyway, if you stay with Colombia, you remove any chance of completing by 2035. I think that would be (almost) impossible because you're not going to be able to win the ACON / Asian Cup in 2031 and then get a job for the Euros the following year. It will be difficult if you leave of course, but mathematically possible.

siepe - Welcoe to the challenge. Yeah, on the latest update, i don't think it's possible to get a fist job (of any sort) in league 1, so congrats on the Olympics. I started in league 1 myself (and am still with the club) but that was on 16.1 or 16.2. Good luck avoiding relegation. It's never occurred to me that you need to have simpler instructions in the lower leagues. The players are rubbish, but not necessarily stupid, though to be fair, most top footballers are pretty stupid, and I'm basing my opinion on the fact that I was told that by the chief executive of a Premier League side. (They're in league 1 now, and nor is he still the managing director, so maybe it wsn't just the players who were stupid. Incidentally, I am a Bradford City fan, but this was a different side).

Anyway, hopefully I'll still be here in a couple of days time. If not, i'm back in the UK next week, and I'll sort something out for this thread.

[threelions1goal]

Might as well respond to the last few posts before the switch-over. After all, for all i know, the new forum may be banned in China, so this may be my goodbye.

Anyway, hopefully I'll still be here in a couple of days time. If not, i'm back in the UK next week, and I'll sort something out for this thread.

I don't think I'm being dramatic when I say that if you couldn't access this forum, then this thread / challenge could potentialy die a death - and that would be a travesty, as it was you who pretty much resurrected it before, when it was flagging.

Hopefully you'll be able to use it in China.

As for everybody else, it's great to see the progress some of you are making - Numero Uno Gunner......very impressive!!

I'm at work at the minute and won't be back on here until after the "upgrade", so I'll do a more in depth post then.......hopefully see you all on the other side!!

[numero uno gunner]

@vikeologist - I really hope you've managed to make it back after the update to this site. Has there been a turning point? Hard to say, really. I guess I've become more ruthless in terms of the challenge and prioritising competitions I haven't won yet, which I wasn't like at the start of the challenge. That came in my second season at Corinthians, where I was happy enough to sacrifice the league, which I'd won the season before, to concentrate on the Copa Libertadores. Internationally, taking charge of Colombia felt like a big step, not because of what followed, but because it felt like I'd reached a stage where I could legitimately take charge of a 'bigger' nation. I've actually decided to leave Colombia, and taken charge of Italy. Despite being ranked 26th in the world, and only the 12th best nation in Europe, the squad is really strong, and they'd started qualification with 2 wins from 2, in a group of 5. I'm confident of topping the group, and then we'll head to the Euros fully of confidence. I'm taking the risk that we might win the competition and head to the Confederations Cup that way, but its definitely a gamble. I can't see me being the fastest finisher, simply because I've yet to win three of the big five leagues, or ventured to South Africa yet.

 

@threelions1goal - Thanks. I got very lucky in beating Peru in the quarters, but luck is essential in winning the international competitions! How's your save coming along?

 

@jt8604 - Welcome aboard! Let us know how your first season went.

[vikeologist]

Good news. I survived the change of forum. Bad news, the Hall of Fame didn't fare so well. Hope it's going to be fairly easy to reconstruct it.

[jt8604]

2015 Season Review

Grindavik

 

My first season is now over and ultimately we just missed out on promotion to the top flight by 2 points. In my 12 games as manager i picked up 18 points but it was the 3 draws we finished the season on that eventually cost us promotion. In the first game we were leading 1-0 before we let in a 91st minute goal. Our second to last game saw us play 2nd from bottom and we lost a lead 3 times to draw 3-3 and in the final game we were unable to pick off bottom of the table and a 0-0 draw was all we got.

 

It is clear we need to better our defence so that is one area to look at.  Our best keeper was unavailable for the whole season and he is now back and available to pick so that instantly improves that area. We also need a striker as our top scorer came from the right wing with 15 goals with our best out and out striker getting just 5.

 

I did however manager to pick up my National C coaching badges

Season     Team                  Country      League                   Position      Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015       Grindavik             ISL          1. Deild Karla           3rd           Took over with 10 games played

 

Edited July 28, 2016 by jt8604

[apchivers]

@vikeologist Thanks - hopefully I won't be the first!

 

@numero uno gunner Congratulations on the league and cup double and the Copa America. I have decided to move away from Europe for my next job so hopefully it will bring me better luck!

[jcricky]

Hebei Huaxia Xingfu – 2018

Following my exit from TNS I had to wait just over a year for my next Club job, this came in China with Huaxia Xingfu. They were languishing down in 11^th place with targets of winning the league. I knew I had to take this job as the two years previous they were in the Asian Champions League, so the squad was definitely good enough. In China there is a limit of foreign players and when I joined, our foreign players were Gervinho, Gulum and Mbia. However Mbia and Gervinho refused to sign new deals and by the end of the season they were both sold. My new foreign players were Matthew Spiranovic, Jonathan Kodjia and Valon Behrami. A new spine to the side was my aim and it was what I got. The rest of the season in the league was great, we finished 4^th, just missing out on qualification of the Champions League, which was disappointing in the end, but to finish up there was a great achievement.

Chinese FA Cup

4^th Round – Qianbao 0-3 Huaxia Xingfu

Quarter Final – Fuli 2-3 Huaxia Xingfu

Semi Final 1^st Leg – Huaxia Xingfu 3-1 Guangzhou

Semi Final 2^nd Leg – Guangzhou 0-1 Huaxia Xingfu

Final 1^st Leg – Huaxia Xingfu 1-2 Hangzhou

Final 2^nd Leg – Hangzhou a0-1 Huaxia Xingfu

Absolutely gutting to lose in the final, more so as it was on away goals. The worst thing was that if I had won this we would have been in the Champions League, very disappointing but life goes on. Time to think about next season.

Targets for next year

League - Champions League Qualification (top 3)

Cup – Winners

Egypt

Took over on the 22/7/18, with one game left to go in AFCON Qualifying against South Sudan. When I took over we were top of the group with Eq. Guinea level on points, so it was key that I won my first game in charge, which we did, 4-1. The tournament will take place in January 2019.

CLUB CAREER
								   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times, resigned
2018	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	4th	2nd	N/A		N/A	N/A	Took over with 13 games gone, in 11th place


INTERNATIONAL CAREER

                                 
Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	   U23 Asian Cup 	Lost in Final	Took over on 19/2/16
2018  Egypt	   AFCON Qualifying	Qualified	Took over on 22/7/18, only one qualifying game to go

 

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS)

1/10 Domestic Cups – Wales(TNS- theWord Cup)

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

[Fadedaf]

Lech Poznan Season 2019/20

Polish Super Cup- a disappointing 1-0 loss to Legia that we really should have won, one of the few disappointments in an otherwise fantastic season.

 

Ekstraklasa- Fantastic performance by the team in the league this year, despite it not being my top priority. I was actually fielding weakened lineups for many league games during the season while sending out full strength squads in the cups which was a bit weird. We were picking up consistent good results however and i kept waiting for any sign of it stopping. It didn't however and we finished the season unbeaten with 24 wins and 6 draws as we ran away with the title. Some of the other big Polish clubs like Legia and Piast didn't perform as well this season and it was only really Jagellonia, a generally mediocre Polish team that challenged us at all for the title.

 

Polish FA Cup- more good performances from the lads in this competition, as we dispatched plenty of lower league teams en route to a comfortable 2-0 victory over Korona Kielce in the final. Many of the bigger teams seemed to get knocked out early so while i had learned from my mistakes last season and made sure we dealt with the lower league teams, we won the competition reasonably comfortably. 

 

Champions League- Dispatched HB, Videoton and Steaua Bucharest in the qualifying rounds to reach the group stage. We were then drawn the incredibly tough group opponents of Man United, Bayern Munich and Sporting. We played admirably, getting a draw and a win over Sporting as well as one draw against Man United. We finished third so entered the Europa league

 

Europa League- entered the knockout rounds where we were drawn against Celtic, who i'd actually never played against despite my time at Clyde. They outclassed us pretty easily and beat us comfortably over two legs.

 

Overall this was one of the best seasons i've ever had on FM and i am sad that i'll have to leave Lech in order to progress further with this challenge. I'm definitely going to keep a save file from now to possibly continue sometime so i can stay at Lech. However, i must leave to keep going with the challenge, as i can't really see us being able to challenge the top teams of Europe for the Champions League for at least another 4 or 5 seasons. I do believe Lech are now one of the best teams in Europe outside of the big 5 leagues however and I am proud of what i've built here in such a short period of time. 

 

Transfers- two of our best players, star Polish international centre back Jan Bednarek and Australian wonderkid striker Graham Young both had their release clauses activated by big foreign clubs so we had to do a bit of business in the transfer market. Our best signing was definitely Chris Gunter, the Welsh international full back for only 24k. He was solid defensively and in attack all season and never let me down. We also managed to bring in Mekhi Leacock-McLeod who was released from Rangers for some reason. This guy was in the Clyde team that i took over back in the Scottish League 2! we signed him as a backup wide midfielder and he was as impressive as he was at Clyde in his limited opportunities. Highlights from him include a hat trick in the league and three absolute worldies scored in the Champions League off the bench. Possibly my favourite player i've managed in this save so far. We also brought in young wonderkid Swiss midfielder Sandro Delucchi on loan who had an outstanding season, breaking into the first team and putting in some great performances.

 

Best Players- Along with the aforementioned Chris Gunter and Sandro Delucchi, Kamil Grosicki had another excellent season out wide for us, contributing 26 goals and 16 assists. Also our young Polish striker Krzysztof Gladosz who i promoted from Lech II last season had a great season up front, becoming our top scorer with 29 goals and 14 assists.

 

International- Mixed results this season for Cameroon. We started terribly, getting thrashed 7-0 over two legs by Equatorial Guinea in CHAN qualifying which nearly got me fired. We came back once we got our foreign players back and managed to qualify for the ACON from a pretty easy group with a game to spare.

 

My plan now is to stick around for the start of the season to see if i can win the Super cup, the only Polish trophy i am yet to win and then start looking for another job to progress through the challenge. Thinking probably another continent, then I will come back later for the big 5 and the Champions League.

 

Season       Team       Position       Notes and Achievements     
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16      Clyde       3rd           Promoted to League 1
2016/17      Clyde       1st           Promoted to Scottish Championship
2017/18      Clyde       1st           Promoted to Scottish Premiership
2018/19      Lech        1st           Manager of the season, Qualified for Champions League
2019/20      Lech        1st           Manager of the season, Polish FA Cup winners, Qualified for Champions League




Season          Team              Notes and Achievements     
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2017/18      Poland U19s         Failed to Qualify for U19 Euros, resigned
2018/19      Cameroon            Started ACON qualifying
2019/20      Cameroon            Qualified for ACON, failed to qualify for CHAN

Challenge Progress:

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues (Poland)

1/10 domestic cups (Poland)

0/5 club continental championships ()

0/1 club world championship

International

0/5 continental tournaments ()

0/2 world tournaments ()

 

[Fadedaf]

jt8604- Good luck conquering Iceland! I had a good save a while back where i spent a few seasons at Huginn, and i found that its definitely possible to get a little club like that to dominate the top division in reasonably quick time but once you got there it was very hard to get any better eg in continental competitions

[jcricky]

Egypt AFCON Report – 2019

 

We were drawn into a group with Algeria (holders), Nigeria and Zambia. It was a very tough group and in the end we came 2^nd with 4 points, Nigeria topped the group.

Group Stage – Algeria 3-3 Egypt

Group Stage – Egypt 0-1 Nigeria

Group Stage – Egypt 2-0 Zambia

Quarter Final – Egypt 0-3 Senegal

 Our downfall was finishing second in the group I think, as following that we drew the highest ranked African team, no positives through the tournament and as the tournament ended I resigned, will have to wait to return and win AFCON. 6 days after my resignation I was appointed England U21 Manager, which did wonders for my reputation, in the summer we have the U21 European Championships

 

CLUB CAREER
								   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times, resigned
2018	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	4th	2nd	N/A		N/A	N/A	Took over with 13 games gone, in 11th place

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

                                 
Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	   U23 Asian Cup 	Lost in Final	Took over on 19/2/16
2018  Egypt	   AFCON Qualifying	Qualified	Took over on 22/7/18, only one qualifying game to go
2019  Egypt	   AFCON		Lost in 1/4	Resigned after tournament

Challenge Progress

Club

1/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS)

1/10 Domestic Cups – Wales(TNS- theWord Cup)

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

Edited July 28, 2016 by jcricky

[threelions1goal]

Lazio  2035/36 End of Season (Sort of!!)

Review

 

As you can see from the link in my "review", my first post on the new forum reports of (another) sacking!!

 

I had pretty high hopes as I entered my second season at Lazio, I'd made a couple of decent signings, my backroom staff were the best in the league, we'd found a good tactic and formation to use, so everything looked good.

Then my star striker (the one who I'd signed on a free the previous season and was now worth 28m) decided he wanted to play in the Champions League.

I told him that I thought we could achieve that here, but he wasn't happy with how I dealt with it and neither were a couple of his team mates who requested a team meeting, but I managed to smooth things over......but my striker was unhappy (and remained unhappy until the end)

In Italy, as I'm sure you all know, you have to name a squad of 25 players - I've no problem with that.

But 4 players who were left out of the squad weren't happy and they weren't happy with my reasons for leaving them out.

And that pretty much was the tone for the season, every decision I made was questioned, I must have had a team meeting at least once a fortnight because one of the precious little luvvies wasn't happy about one thing or another.

We won our first two matches but it was all downhill from there, until October when the board gave me a target of 10 points from my next five matches.

We won the first match vs Sampdoria by 2-1, although that was touch and go as we had 2 goals disallowed.

Next match against our bitter rivals, Roma, saw us have 2 more disallowed goals and we ended up losing by 1-0.....although we were completely outplayed.

Then it was Inter Milan, my old club. A traditional disallowed goal for us, an 86th minute winner for them, a 1-0 defeat and it was "Arriverderci Carlos" as Lazio sent me on my way.

 

I'm going backwards in this challenge - when I left Pumas my Reputation was "Fairly Good" and 55%.............I'm now only "decent" and 45%

 

I'm not going to apply for any jobs until the end of the season, unless something mouthwatering comes up and I think I'm going to have to set my sights a little lower and maybe take a team in the second tier of a country and try and get promotion........I'll have to wait and see!!

 

Season	Team		Country       	Pos	Notes          
15/16	Linfield		N. Ireland	6th	Took over in December, sacked before the end of the season
16/17	Cliftonville    	N. Ireland	3rd	Took over in January, Euro Qualification
17/18	Cliftonville    	N. Ireland	4th	League Cup Winners
18/19	Cliftonville   	N. Ireland	1st	Champions, Manager Of The Year
19/20	Shanggang	China		1st	Champions, Cup Winners, Manager Of The Year     
20/21	Shanggang	China		N/A	Resigned after being knocked out of Champs League
20/21	Jeonbuk		S. Korea		4th	Cup Winners, Knocked Out 2nd Round Champs League
21/22	Jeonbuk		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED 4th in league, QF of Champs League, SF of FA Cup
22/23	Pohang		S. Korea		6th	Cup Winners, knocked out in SF of Asian Champs League
23/24	Pohang		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED after first match of the new season!!
24/25	Seoul		S. Korea		3rd	Took over with 14 games played, qualified for Champs League
25/26	Seoul		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED - Team finished 2nd & won FA Cup
26/27	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa		1st	Champions
27/28	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa		1st	Champions, KO Cup Winner, S/F Champs League - Resigned
28/29	Houston		USA		2nd	1st in West Conference, Lost in MLS Shield  Final, SF of NACL
29/30	Tigres		Mexico		4th	Closing Stage, SF of Champions League	
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		3rd 	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas -  reached SF of Cup
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		1st 	Closing Stage - Won in Final - Champions!!  2nd Rnd Copa Libertadores
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		1st	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas, Qualified for KO stage of NACL
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		7th	Closing Stage - Lost in SF of Play Offs, Lost in SF of NACL.....SACKED!!
32/33	Pumas		Mexico		1st	Closing Stage, Won in Final - Champions!!, NACL Winners
33/34	Inter Milan	Italy		6th	Qualified for Euro Cup - Boardroom disagreement - SACKED!!
34/35	Lazio		Italy		7th	Took over in December, team in 14th Position
35/36	Lazio		Italy		N/A	Was 14th in December, players all unhappy.....SACKED!!




International
2026	Camaroon	Africa		Resigned after 2 matches
2026	Morocco		Africa		Eliminated in Group Stage at World Cup, qualified for ACON
2027	Morocco		Africa		ACON Winners - resigned straight after
2029	Australia		Asia		Qualified for World Cup
2030	Australia		Asia		Knocked Out In Group Stages, lost every match - SACKED!!
2033	Jamaica		N. America	Lost in Final of Gold Cup - Resigned
2034	Iran		Asia		Lost in QF of Asian Cup - SACKED!!

 Not certain why that code thing has gone weird - I'll do it better next time!!

 

Challenge Progress

Club
4/10 top domestic leagues (N. Ireland, China, S. Africa, Mexico)
4/10 domestic cups (N. Ireland, China, S. Korea, S. Africa)
1/5 club continental championships (NACL - Pumas)
0/1 club world championship

International
1/5 continental tournaments (ACON - Morocco 2027)
0/2 world tournaments ()
 

[numero uno gunner]

@threelions1goal - Rather than go for a second tier side, why not consider a South American side? Its great fun, plus its something you still need to do in your challenge. I found it was a good way to boost my reputation as well. Just a thought.

@jcricky - A couple of near misses. Fingers crossed you'll manage to win the league in China next season.

@vikeologist - Glad you survived the switch over!

@Fadedaf - Where do you fancy going next? Asia, Africa, or one of the Americas? I'd recommend seeing if you could grab a job in the top Mexican league yet. Two chances to win the title each season, plus potentially two continental titles (if you end up at a really good side).

[Fadedaf]

@numero uno gunner yeah i was thinking probably a mexican team or maybe one of the better teams in brazil/argentina or maybe chile.

@threelions1goal unlucky with the sacking, sometimes everything just goes against you. and i agree that maybe a south american team good be a good idea?

[threelions1goal]

@Fadedaf @numero uno gunner

South America is a good shout and in the next couple of days, I'm gonna remove a couple of European Leagues (that I don't think I'll ever manage in) and add a couple of South American Leagues - as you state, I need to go there at some point (or back to Mexico!!)

As it happens, I applied for the Juventus job, not expecting anything...but I got an interview!!

 

And......I got the job!!

If I can't win anything with Juve, I may as well sack this challenge off!!

 

Good luck with your next moves, guys!!

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2024 West Asian Football Federation Championship Saudi Arabia Report

 

Going to give the new spoiler option a drive. I have used spoilers before for tournaments, but it looks a lot better now.

 

Spoilers can ramp up the tension a bit and stop you jumping ahead to the end of the post to find out if I won the major tournamant.

 

Of course, my challenge is not going well, so I'm not going to very many major international tournamants, so the WAFFC will have to do.

 

Preamble - The reason i took over Saudi Arabia was because I thought they would stand a good chance of winning it, and thus boosting my reputation. My chances of winning were based on the fact that SA have won it a few times in the recent past. Unfortunately in the even more recent past, SA have proved incapable of beating anybody at all under my management, so I was not optimistic.

 

There was also the problem that even though we were the 4th highest ranked nation in the competition, the 3 above us were all in the same group as us, which is enormously unfair.

 

Group Stage

 

Spoiler

Saudi Arabia 3 Qatar 0

Saudi Arabia 0 Jordan 0

Saudi Arabia 4 Iraq 1.

We needed to win that final group stage game because only the top team was sure of progressing. Luckily we did, and in o doing knocked out highest ranked team and hosts Iraq.

This meant that now we just need to beat much lower ranked nations, but world rankings can be misleading.

Semi-Final (If applicable)

Spoiler

Saudi Arabia 4 Yemen 0. Yemen were ranked 152nd and fortunately their ranking wasn't misleading. Easy peasy.

Final (if applicable)

Spoiler

Saudi Arabia 2 Oman 0. This was a close game until late in the second half we scored what was either a wonder goal or a total fluke. Impossible to know which. Oman's style of play was route 1, so once we were a couple of goals ahead, we went defensive and they were like helpless babies.

Aftermath

Spoiler

So I eagerly looked to see how much my reputation had been improved by this momentous tournament win, and it is exactly the same at 50%. I picked up a measly 15 points for the game hall of fame. I don't know whether to stay for the World Cup (which we probably won't qualify for anyway) and the Asian Cup (which I truly doubt we can get past Australia in). Australia are currently ranked 7th in the world and beat us 5-1 in the WC qualifiers. However if we can play like we did in the WAFFC, who knows what could happen.

 

Edited July 29, 2016 by vikeologist

[jcricky]

Huaxia Xingfu – 2019

I went all out this season, with a large transfer budget and no foreign places available as I signed an Iranian on a free, I tried to sign some of the best Chinese players available, and it seemed like this paid off as we went on to win the league. We finished with 67 points, 5 points clear of Shanggang in second and 8 points clear of Beijing in 3^rd. We won 21, drew 4 and lost 5. I think we were also helped out by Guangzhou having a terrible season as they finished in 7^th, but who cares, that’s our second top domestic league ticked off and I am very happy. I have now obtained a National A License in the close season, I finished my National B at the start of this year, on the way up. My reputation is now Fairly Good (2 and a half stars.)

FA Cup

Zhongyou 2-0 Huaxia Xingfu

So we lost to a Second division North side in the first round that we entered the cup, brilliant, a disappointing part of an otherwise great season.

Players

Top Scorer – Jonathan Kodjia (10)

Highest Average Rating - Ali Asghar Alipour (8.25)

Most Assists - Ali Asghar Alipour and Sun Ke (8)

England U21

I felt like I had a huge chance to win the European U21 Championship as we had a really strong side, the likes of Joe Gomez, Brendon Galloway, Lewis Cook, Dele Alli, Patrick Roberts and Marcus Rashford provided a good spine to the side. Unfortunately Roberts got injured in the first group stage game, I still felt we could win however.

Group B – France 0-1 England

Group B – England 4-1 Ukraine

Group B – Italy 1-2 England

Semi Final – England 3-2 Germany AET

Final – England 0-1 Italy

Is anybody a bigger bottler than I am? That’s now 3 finals lost out of 4, maybe I’m cursed. On the plus side Rashford won the Golden Boot with 7 goals. After the tournament I resigned, in preparation for the next International Job, which hopefully will be at a Senior side

CLUB CAREER
								   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times, resigned
2018	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	4th	2nd	N/A		N/A	N/A	Took over with 13 games gone, in 11th place
2019	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	1st	3rd Round Won		N/A	N/A	Won Manager of the season, first League win in clubs history, Won All Star Game


INTERNATIONAL CAREER

                                 
Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	   U23 Asian Cup 	Lost in Final	Took over on 19/2/16
2018  Egypt	   AFCON Qualifying	Qualified	Took over on 22/7/18, only one qualifying game to go
2019  Egypt	   AFCON		Lost in 1/4	Resigned after tournament
2019  ENG U21	   EURO U21		Lost in Final	Resigned after tournament, Marcus Rashford won Golden Boot

Challenge Progress

Club

2/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS), China(Huaxia Xingfu)

1/10 Domestic Cups – Wales(TNS- theWord Cup)

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

[jcricky]

Huaxia Xingfu – 2020

 

I can’t remember the last time I fell in love with a club like I have with Huaxia Xingfu. We had a quieter off season, with only a couple of players coming in. This left us with a very small squad as I released quite a few players. I didn’t really realise how small the squad was until we got a few injuries and saw that I couldn’t even fill the bench. Then in the summer, Daniel Sturridge was brought in as we had a free foreign spot. We went on to win the league again, we were only top once according to the past positions graph and that was on the final day. We topped the league with 66 points, 21 wins, 3 draws and 6 losses. Second was Shanggang with 64 points, followed by Beijing in 3^rd with 63 points. On the final day we won 2-0, whilst Shanggang lost 3-2 to Guangzhou, which left us free to win the league.

Super Cup

 

Final - Huaxia Xingfu 2-0 Shandong

A good way to start the season, well deserved victory and was a sign of what was to come.

FA Cup

 

4^th Round – Wuhan 0-2 Huaxia Xingfu

Quarter Final – Jiyayunhao 2-3 Huaxia Xingfu

Semi Final 1^st Leg – Huaxia Xingfu 5-1 Hangzhou

Semi Final 2^nd Leg – Hangzhou 0-2 Huaxia Xingfu

Final 1^st Leg – Huaxia Xingfu 3-1 Quanjian

Final 2^nd Leg – Quanjian 1-0 Huaxia Xingfu

No repeat of last year’s embarrassment or the previous year’s bottle, a great run to the final. This meant that we had won the treble, a great achievement.

Asian Champions League

 

Group Stage – FC Hiroshima 3-3 Huaxia Xingfu

Group Stage – Huaxia Xingfu 2-0 Western Sydney Wanderers

Group Stage – Huaxia Xingfu 3-2 Jeonnam

Group Stage – Western Sydney Wanderers 2-0 Huaxia Xingfu

Group Stage – Huaxia Xingfu 1-1 FC Hiroshima

Group Stage – Jeonnam 2-0 Huaxia Xingf

The bottle is still there, after a good start to the group with 7 points, we only picked up 1 point from the last 3 and finished 3^rd in the league with FC Hiroshima and Jeonnam taking the top 2 spots. The target for next year has to be to win the Champions League, will be difficult but I believe we can do it.

 

 

Players

 

Top Scorer – Wu Xi (12)

Highest Average Rating - Ali Asghar Alipour (7.86)

Most Assists – Sun Ke (11)

 

CLUB CAREER
								   Cups
Season	 NAT	Club		Division		League	1st	2nd		Cont.	CWC	Other & Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16  WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	QF	N/A		N/A	N/A	Arrived with 6 games left of the league season
2016/17	 WAL	TNS		Welsh Premier League	1st	Won	4th Round     2nd Qual	N/A	Double winners, Manager of month 4 times, resigned
2018	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	4th	2nd	N/A		N/A	N/A	Took over with 13 games gone, in 11th place
2019	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	1st	3rd Round Won		N/A	N/A	Won Manager of the season, first League win in clubs history, Won All Star Game
2020	 CHI	Huaxia Xingfu	Chinese Super League	1st	Won	Won		Group	N/A	Manager of the season again, treble winners! Won All star Game

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

                                 
Year  Nation 	   Competition		Result		Notes        
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2016  AUS U23	   U23 Asian Cup 	Lost in Final	Took over on 19/2/16
2018  Egypt	   AFCON Qualifying	Qualified	Took over on 22/7/18, only one qualifying game to go
2019  Egypt	   AFCON		Lost in 1/4	Resigned after tournament
2019  ENG U21	   EURO U21		Lost in Final	Resigned after tournament, Marcus Rashford won Golden Boot

Challenge Progress

Club

2/10 top domestic leagues – Wales(TNS), China(Huaxia Xingfu)

2/10 Domestic Cups – Wales(TNS- theWord Cup), China(Huaxia Xingfu- Chinese FA Cup)

0/5 Club Continental Championships -

0/1 Club World Championship -

International

0/5 Continental Tournaments –

0/2 World Tournaments -

 

Edited July 29, 2016 by jcricky

[ReclaimTheKop]

Been doing this challenge for a few weeks now. Won the Icelandic league 3 times and the cup a couple then moved on to platinum stars in South Africa. I've won the league and cup twice here now and just won the African champions league. 

 

I'm now looking at moving on to South America and have got my eyes set on Argentina. When it's time to move on do people just apply for jobs whilst still in a job or resign first? In Iceland I resigned after being knocked out of the Europa league knock-out stages. If I keep resigning it will look bad on me for future jobs won't it? But if I apply for jobs whilst still in a job the board won't be very happy? Not sure which way to go?

[jt8604]

2016 Season Review

Grindavik

My first full season in charge of Grindavik and it was a great season. To boost my chances i scoured the market to add new faces. A new centre back pairing consisting of a Gambian International and a travelling American were chosen. A young english Central midfielder to add depth and the veteran Heidur Helguson to lead the line upfront were added to the side.

We started off with the pre-season league cup. Split into 3 groups of 8 you play each team once. It was not a good tournament as we lost the first 3 games by narrow margins before switching to a more traditional 4-3-3 / 4-5-1 and securing 4 draws from the final 4 games. The Icelandic cup saw us get our first victory of the season against Hauker before going all the way to penalties against higher division side Kevlavik before losing 7-6 in the shootout.

The league season saw us at a different level as we beat team after team without conceding. In fact after 19 games we had only conceded 4 times all season. We wrapped up promotion with 3 games to spare and the league title was finally ours with 2 games to spare. We were in fact undefeated until the last day of the season where we basically just gave up safe in the knowledge we were promoted and now a top flight side.

Fixtures

League Table

Season     Team                  Country      League                   Position      Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015       Grindavik             ISL          1. Deild Karla           3rd           Took over with 10 games played
2016       Grindavik             ISL          1. Deild Karla           1st           Promoted and Undefeated until the last day of the season.

During the season i also managed to pick up my National B Coaching badges. There is now a long off-season in Iceland and i am keeping my eye out to see if there is a slightly better opportunity out there for me. The main one that is precarious is KR who are the biggest team in Iceland and may allow me to get that first top flight a season or two quicker than if i stayed here in Iceland. I am also looking for an International role (I got rejected for the Iceland top job) to help boost my reputation further

[sherwinriga]

On 7/29/2016 at 04:06, threelions1goal said:

Lazio  2035/36 End of Season (Sort of!!)

Review

 

As you can see from the link in my "review", my first post on the new forum reports of (another) sacking!!

 

I had pretty high hopes as I entered my second season at Lazio, I'd made a couple of decent signings, my backroom staff were the best in the league, we'd found a good tactic and formation to use, so everything looked good.

Then my star striker (the one who I'd signed on a free the previous season and was now worth 28m) decided he wanted to play in the Champions League.

I told him that I thought we could achieve that here, but he wasn't happy with how I dealt with it and neither were a couple of his team mates who requested a team meeting, but I managed to smooth things over......but my striker was unhappy (and remained unhappy until the end)

In Italy, as I'm sure you all know, you have to name a squad of 25 players - I've no problem with that.

But 4 players who were left out of the squad weren't happy and they weren't happy with my reasons for leaving them out.

And that pretty much was the tone for the season, every decision I made was questioned, I must have had a team meeting at least once a fortnight because one of the precious little luvvies wasn't happy about one thing or another.

We won our first two matches but it was all downhill from there, until October when the board gave me a target of 10 points from my next five matches.

We won the first match vs Sampdoria by 2-1, although that was touch and go as we had 2 goals disallowed.

Next match against our bitter rivals, Roma, saw us have 2 more disallowed goals and we ended up losing by 1-0.....although we were completely outplayed.

Then it was Inter Milan, my old club. A traditional disallowed goal for us, an 86th minute winner for them, a 1-0 defeat and it was "Arriverderci Carlos" as Lazio sent me on my way.

 

I'm going backwards in this challenge - when I left Pumas my Reputation was "Fairly Good" and 55%.............I'm now only "decent" and 45%

 

I'm not going to apply for any jobs until the end of the season, unless something mouthwatering comes up and I think I'm going to have to set my sights a little lower and maybe take a team in the second tier of a country and try and get promotion........I'll have to wait and see!!

 

Season	Team		Country       	Pos	Notes          
15/16	Linfield		N. Ireland	6th	Took over in December, sacked before the end of the season
16/17	Cliftonville    	N. Ireland	3rd	Took over in January, Euro Qualification
17/18	Cliftonville    	N. Ireland	4th	League Cup Winners
18/19	Cliftonville   	N. Ireland	1st	Champions, Manager Of The Year
19/20	Shanggang	China		1st	Champions, Cup Winners, Manager Of The Year     
20/21	Shanggang	China		N/A	Resigned after being knocked out of Champs League
20/21	Jeonbuk		S. Korea		4th	Cup Winners, Knocked Out 2nd Round Champs League
21/22	Jeonbuk		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED 4th in league, QF of Champs League, SF of FA Cup
22/23	Pohang		S. Korea		6th	Cup Winners, knocked out in SF of Asian Champs League
23/24	Pohang		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED after first match of the new season!!
24/25	Seoul		S. Korea		3rd	Took over with 14 games played, qualified for Champs League
25/26	Seoul		S. Korea		N/A	SACKED - Team finished 2nd & won FA Cup
26/27	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa		1st	Champions
27/28	Kaizer Chiefs	S. Africa		1st	Champions, KO Cup Winner, S/F Champs League - Resigned
28/29	Houston		USA		2nd	1st in West Conference, Lost in MLS Shield  Final, SF of NACL
29/30	Tigres		Mexico		4th	Closing Stage, SF of Champions League	
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		3rd 	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas -  reached SF of Cup
30/31	Tigres		Mexico		1st 	Closing Stage - Won in Final - Champions!!  2nd Rnd Copa Libertadores
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		1st	Opening Stage - Lost in Final to Pumas, Qualified for KO stage of NACL
31/32	Tigres		Mexico		7th	Closing Stage - Lost in SF of Play Offs, Lost in SF of NACL.....SACKED!!
32/33	Pumas		Mexico		1st	Closing Stage, Won in Final - Champions!!, NACL Winners
33/34	Inter Milan	Italy		6th	Qualified for Euro Cup - Boardroom disagreement - SACKED!!
34/35	Lazio		Italy		7th	Took over in December, team in 14th Position
35/36	Lazio		Italy		N/A	Was 14th in December, players all unhappy.....SACKED!!




International
2026	Camaroon	Africa		Resigned after 2 matches
2026	Morocco		Africa		Eliminated in Group Stage at World Cup, qualified for ACON
2027	Morocco		Africa		ACON Winners - resigned straight after
2029	Australia		Asia		Qualified for World Cup
2030	Australia		Asia		Knocked Out In Group Stages, lost every match - SACKED!!
2033	Jamaica		N. America	Lost in Final of Gold Cup - Resigned
2034	Iran		Asia		Lost in QF of Asian Cup - SACKED!!

 Not certain why that code thing has gone weird - I'll do it better next time!!

 

Challenge Progress

Club
4/10 top domestic leagues (N. Ireland, China, S. Africa, Mexico)
4/10 domestic cups (N. Ireland, China, S. Korea, S. Africa)
1/5 club continental championships (NACL - Pumas)
0/1 club world championship

International
1/5 continental tournaments (ACON - Morocco 2027)
0/2 world tournaments ()
 

Too bad you get another sack. That feeling about gutting is bad when you get sacked. Are you planning to remain in Italy for another Italian team to take out both Lazio and Inter? I have suggestions that you need to make these players happy on time. I hope you get second chance or push to another nation for the title. I remembered about what happened to the teams you have managed after you left?

Edited August 1, 2016 by sherwinriga

[Fadedaf]

Fadedaf's ACON 2021 Report

Just finished up the 2021 ACON with Cameroon so thought i'd give an update. I'll follow in @vikeologist's footstep and try out the new spoiler feature.

Going into the tournament, we lost two of our star players to injury; my personal favourite Cameroon player, midfielder Patrick Wamba as well as star Arsenal centre back Joel Matip. This meant we had a slightly dodgy looking defense and an unsettled starting lineup. 

I decided to play two pre-tournament friendlies against other African opposition to warm up, which went pretty well as we beat both Zimbabwe and Congo 3-0. We went into the competition at an all time high world ranking of 10th, the best in Africa so i was cautiously optimistic going in. We were drawn into a group containing Nigeria (who have tried to sign me twice since i took the Cameroon job), Morocco and Zambia. This is one of the toughest groups we could have gotten, of course so my optimism definitely took a hit.

Group Stage:

Spoiler

Cameroon 2-0 Nigeria

Cameroon 3-0 Zambia

Cameroon 3-3 Morocco

A pretty solid performance all round, despite the crazy last game. We needed a point against Morocco to win the group so at 2-0 up i thought we had it in the bag but they scored three then had a penalty saved immediately so it was not as straightforward as i would have liked! We ended up winning the group but drawing Algeria in the QF, probably the toughest opponents we could have gotten!

Quarter Final (if applicable):

Spoiler

Cameroon 5-2 Algeria

One of the nerviest games i have ever managed on FM. We went behind twice, at 0-1 and 1-2 before equalising and finally running away with it with three late second half goals. I honestly thought we weren't going through to the next round for the majority of this game. On to the Semis!

Semi Final (if applicable):

Spoiler

Cameroon p1-1 DR Congo (AET)

The closest game so far, We went ahead courtesy of an excellent goal from Allan Nyom but were pegged back immediately. We were not at our best this game so it ended up being a very tight, nervy game which went all the way to penalties. Our goalkeeper Andre Onana had an absolute blinder and saved three penalties, sending us through to the final.                    

Final (if applicable):

Spoiler

Cameroon 2-1 Senegal

This was an incredible game and my heart rate was ridiculously high from the first until the last whistle. We took the lead through a great looping header from midfielder Axel Ngando in the first half and held on to the lead for most of the game. Then, in the 76th minute our left back Collins Fai (who had been brilliant all tournament up to now) was sent off and we had to try to hang on until the final whistle. Disaster struck when they scored in the 82nd minute and i thought all was lost, so close yet so far. But then, in the 92nd minute, just before full time, Junior Mbatama poked in the winner to send the ACON back to Cameroon. A great game and fitting that it led to my first international trophy!

Aftermath:

Spoiler

I picked up a small reputation boost from the competition win which always helps. I'm most likely going to resign from the Cameroon job soon as i can't really see us going very far in the World Cup and i have several more international tournaments on other continents to win!

In club news, i am still at Lech. I have tried to leave, i promise! I narrowly missed out on several jobs including Fluminense, Racing Club, Monterrey and Universidad de Chile but i'll keep applying and see what happens. Lech are doing better than expected in the Champions League however so i'd like to stay on until we are knocked out of that at least. If i don't secure another job before the end of the season, i will resign from my beloved Lech.

 

[numero uno gunner]

Season Review 2027/28

Real Madrid and Italy

I made the decision to stay in Madrid for another season, despite the fact I had won the domestic double the season before. There weren't many jobs available that took my fancy, and I came to the decision that my Real Madrid side gave me the best opportunity at the time of winning the Champions League. Internationally, I was torn, and took a long time to decide, but ultimately the lure of managing in the Euros proved too much, and with a very, very heavy heart I departed from Colombia and headed for Italy.

Domestically, my Real side were head and shoulders above the rest for the vast majority of the season. With 10 games to go, we had a 12 point cushion at the top. And then the slump hit. We went from playing beautiful, fast-paced football to being beaten by Eibar and Malaga. We went into our last three games 4 points clear of Valencia. Our last three games were away at Atletico, away at Barcelona, and home to title challengers Valencia. Not exactly the easiest of run-ins. A 2-0 win at Atletico set us up to win the league at the Nou Camp, and we bottled it. 1-0 down, 2-1 down, it took a dodgy penalty 11 minutes from time to scrape a draw, and set up a mouth-watering last day clash to decide the title. I was nervous going into it, as we should have had the title wrapped up by this stage. I really needn't have worried, as we raced into a 4-0 half-time lead, and won 5-0 in the end, with Emmanuel Allende netting a hat-trick. Champions again, although definitely with a touch of good fortune about it.

We had a fairly easy route to the final of the Spanish Cup, defeating Mirandes, Zaragoza, Almeira and Celta in order to face Athletic Bilbao in the final. It was a tense, nervy game, lacking in chances, and finished 0-0 in 90 minutes. Into extra time we went, and I decided to go for it, throwing on another striker, top scorer Burak Strutz, who had been injured for the last game of the season in the league and lost his place to Emmanuel Allende. It was a master stroke, as Strutz netted the only goal of the game on the break of half time in extra time, and we had retained the Spanish Cup.

I'd love to say that this run of silverware continued in Europe, but that's not the case. Having topped a group of Hammerby, Lille and Chelsea, with 15 points (we managed to lose 2-0 in Lille despite beating them 6-1 at home - go figure) we were paired with Dortmund in the last 16. Juaquin Cuellar scored the only goal of the away leg, to allow us to bring a 1-0 lead back to the Bernabeu. However, Dortmund had other plans, and took a 1-0 lead in the return leg. That was enough to send us into extra time, where they got a second, meaning we needed 2 in order to go through. We pulled one back through Juan Jose, but despite throwing everything we had at them, we couldn't get another. Yet another failure in Europe. That's four seasons on the bounce now. Depressing.

Performance-wise, my two strikers, Strutz and Allende, were both fantastic, but the productivity from my four wide men was sensational, as they netted a hugely impressive 65 goals between the four of them. Juaquin Cuellar was my player of the season, scoring 25 from the left wing. I've got to the stage in the challenge where I've begun to think about players that might make my all time 11, and I'm in no doubt that Cuellar will be the first name on my team sheet. The man has won six medals with me (2 La Ligas, 2 Spanish cups, Copa America and World Cup), and has been instrumental in all of those wins. He oozes class.

And so to my reign as Italy manager...

I took over after two games of the qualification campaign for the 2028 European Championships, held in Scotland and Wales. 5 wins and a draw, scoring 24 goals in the process, was enough to see us through to the finals, where we were drawn with Hungary, Romania and France. Hungary were up first, and provided stout resistance, until Domenico Berardi popped up in the 87th minute to break the deadlock, and Hungarian hearts at the same time. It came at a cost, as Fillippo Camporesi, our star striker, was injured for 2 weeks. Romania held France to a 1-1 draw in the other game, but were blown away by us, as we ran out 5-0 winners. They had a man sent off after 27 minutes, and we turned the screw, with back-up striker Vittorio Aimati grabbing a brace, and fourth choice left winger Gian Fillippo Felicioli also getting on the score sheet. He was only in the squad after injuries, so I was pleased for him. In the final group game, France smashed us 4-0, and I had to pick the squad up as we headed into the knockout stages.

Wales were our opponents in the last 16, and any nerves we had were soon washed away as Felicioli scored a brace, his goals either side of third choice striker Leandro Brucia's goal, as we ran out 3-0 winners and went on to face Turkey in the last 8. Felicioli again got on the scoresheet, putting us ahead in first half stoppage time, but Turkey scored twice in fifteen minutes after the break to lead 2-1. We won a penalty with 8 minutes to go, and Domenico Berardi held his nerve to send the tie into extra time. No more goals, so penalties decided it. Berardi himself stepped up to take the first, and missed. They scored, then we did as well. My Real Madrid keeper Pietro Cerutti made a great save to level up the penalties, before the next four were all scored. 3-3 after four apiece, meaning we were essentially in sudden death now. Denis Fracassi scored for us, before Cerutti made a fine stop to win the match for us!

Germany awaited in the last four, but, crucially, they were missing my Madrid striker Burak Strutz, who had been injured in their last 16 tie. Its a good job, as I have no doubt he would have converted one of their 16 shots on goal (compared to my 9). As it was, it looked like we were heading for extra time goalless, before that man Felicioli popped up in the 88th minute to grab an undeserved winner and send us into the final to face the Portuguese. To say we were outplayed by the Germans would be an understatement, but a solid defence was enough for us to win the tie. Man of the tournament Felicioli opened the scoring again in the final, 8 minutes before the break. Returning striker Camporesi doubled our lead after 72 minutes, before Vittorio Aimati sealed the win in the last minute. And the trophy was ours! More importantly for me, it vindicated my big decision to leave Colombia. I'm looking forward to the Confederations Cup next summer, but hope I don't meet my former side.

So, I've stepped down as Real Madrid manager, and am now on the lookout for a new job. I've been headhunted by Valencia and Athletic Bilbao, but as I've already won La Liga I've turned them both down. I was expecting a loads of jobs at top clubs to become available as people stepped up into the national jobs, but that hasn't happened. At the moment, the only half-appealing job is at Everton, who finished 7th last season, but are seen as a rich club. I also had England offer me the national job, but turned them down as well, as I want to stay with the Italians. My reputation is now excellent and at 90%, so I'm fairly confident I can get almost any job I want when its available. I guess the decision is do I wait for a top job to come about, or do I take a lower job and build a side up?

Club
Season        Team             Position      Notes and Achievements
2015/16      Dungannon     10th          Won Northern Irish FA Cup and kept Dungannon up after taking over with 3 games to go
2016/17      Dungannon     8th            A solid but unspectacular season
2017/18      Yiteng            8th            A settling season in China
2019           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and FA Cup, as well as claiming MOTY.
2020           Jiangsu          1st            Won Chinese Super League and Asian Champions League
2020/21      Aberdeen       9th            Won Scottish League Cup
2021/22      Monterrey      5th/5th      Won Opening Stage, knocked out in semis of closing stage. Won NACL.
2021/22      Salzburg        1st             Won league and cup double
2022           Corinthians    1st             Won league
2023           Corinthians    8th             Won Copa Libertadores
2024/25      Juventus        1st             Won Serie A and Italian Cup
2025/26      Juventus        2nd            Won Italian Cup
2026/27      Real Madrid    1st             Won La Liga and Spanish Cup
2027/28      Real Madrid    1st             Won La Liga and Spanish Cup

Season        Team              Notes and Achievements
2016/17      Congo              Resigned without playing a game
2016/17      Cameroon       One win away from WC qualification
2017/18      Cameroon       2nd round of 2018 World Cup
2019           Cameroon        African Cup of Nations winner!
2021           Poland              An abject failure!
2022           Ireland              4 wins, 2 draws and promotion to European International League Division B
2023           Ireland              2 wins, 2 defeats from 4 qualifiers before taking Colombia job
2024/25      Colombia        Currently top of WC qualifying and ranked 4th in the world
2026           Colombia         World Cup winners!
2027           Colombia         Copa America winners!
2028           Italy                  European Championship winners!

Challenge Progress

Club

6/10 top domestic leagues - China (Jiangsu), Mexico (Monterrey), Austria (Salzburg), Brazil (Corinthians), Italy (Juventus), Spain (Real Madrid)

6/10 domestic cups - Northern Ireland (Dungannon), China (Jiangsu), Scotland (Aberdeen), Austria (Salzburg), Italy (Juventus x 2), Spain (Real Madrid)

3/5 club continental championships - ACL (Jiangsu), NACL (Monterrey), Copa Libertadores (Corinthians)

0/1 club world championship

International

3/5 continental tournaments - ACON (Cameroon 2019), Copa America (Colombia 2027), European Championships (Italy 2028)

1/2 world tournaments - World Cup (Colombia 2026)

Edited August 1, 2016 by numero uno gunner

[Siepe1990]

Bury F.C.

When taking over Bury, they were at the bottom of League One with only 10 points from their first 19 games. Almost half way through, the gap to the 'safe-zone' was already 15 points and my team... well, let's just say I've had them better . Luckily for me, the transfer period was only a month away, so that was my opportunity to sell some old heavy-earners and loan in some talents + sign some free transfers. Having thus strengthened my squad, all I needed to do was find a decent tactic. I ended up using a 4-1-4-1, which is really ultra defensive for me (you'll notice later on, when I hope to get bigger clubs eventually, that I always play on the offense). This 4-1-4-1 worked brilliant however, with a good possession game followed by some good results early on. The 15 points gap to the safe zone got smaller and smaller and somewhere around game 35 I got to the safe zone (position 20 that is) for the first time. All the teams from spot 10 - 21 however were quite close together, so everything was still possible. With 3 games still to go, I found myself safe from relegation and ended up finishing 16th on my first season.

Now, I was quite content to stay at Bury, but I also realised that reaching promotion to the Championship would be almost impossible (with a negative balance and a still not so great squad), so I decided to stay on the lookout for nice opportunities. I got a few interviews at some really nice clubs (Union Berlin, Stade Rennes, FC Utrecht), but none would have me, until...

 

West Bromwich Albion F.C.

Somehow, the manager of W.B.A. had managed to get them relegated with only 10 points for the entire season! I applied and, I have to say to my huge surprise, they have decided to hire me! The team is amazing, I don't know how he got them relegated in the first place. Besides the already great squad, W.B.A. is a 'rich' club, which means I got a budget of close to 25 million and a wage budget of close to 1.5 million...

Of course, after a relegation, players start to whine. I got a bit rusty at handling these situations and made the mistake of trying to convince my top player (centrel defender Jonny Evans) to stay - whilst all I should have said was: I'll accept a bid when it comes in (like I did with the 10 other cry-babies), and things would have sorted themselves out. Anyway, Jonny-boy is now playing for Stoke, but I did managed to get his 'face-value' of 20 million, giving me a budget of close to 40 million to work with...

Two or three others left as well (after offers coming in), but with the money at hand strengthening the squad should be easy... not! None of the South American talents want to play in the Championship (Mammana, Lincoln, Romero), same goes for a lot of players playing first tier in Portugal of Russia... So building the squad is more difficult than I thought, but I'm learning to find the right players very quickly. Top signing so far is Daley Sinkgraven from my beloved AFC AJAX for my left wing position, closely followed by Asmir Begovic on goal and Martin Hinteregger for my defence. Combine that with the already available players like Antonio Barragan, Darren Fletcher and José Salomón Rondón (whaaaa ) and I should be able to get promotion in my first season, me thinks...

And on International level, some progress has been made as well, as I have been appointed as manager of...

Nigeria

I took over with two games remaining in the World Cup Qualifying, with my first opponents being Tunisia, who were currently tied with me in the group for first place. A brilliant performance by Ahmed Musa (2 goals and 2 assist) handed me a 2-4 victory, which means I'm now heading the group by three points on Tunisia with one game to go... Seems like that one's in the bag! I also played my first game in the ACON Qualifying against Mail - my biggest threat in the group - and managed to beat them quite easy 3-0, so everything's going great so far!

Club Level
Season		Team		Competition		Position	Notes and Achievements
2016/2017	Bury F.C.	League One (ENG)	16th		Took over when 24th in Dec. 2016
2017/2018	West Brom	Championship (ENG)	-		Took over after relegation in 2017

International
Season		Team		Competition		Position	Notes and Achievements
2015/2016	Argentina U23	Olympics		1st		Quit after winning Olympics
2017		Nigeria					-		Currently qualifying for WC & ACON

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@numero uno gunner: congrats on the EC with Italy, appears to be a good decision to leave Colombia indeed - now on to the Confed. Cup! Shame that you can't seem to get your club teams up and running in the CL, after winning La Liga twice you know sure that your team is good enough, but perhaps it just wasn't to be for Real...

@jt8604: well done on the promotion, will be interesting to see how you fare in the top league of such a small country!

@jcricky: congrats on your 2nd Domestic League & Cup in China, good luck on trying to win the CL next year, it's a great opportunity now that you've built up a nice squad

@Fadedaf: amazing job winning ACON with Cameroon, well done! You should really be leaving Lech now though, you know...

@threelions1goal: too bad Lazio didn't work out, but now with Juventus you'll be almost sure to get some more prizes on the shelves!

@vikeologist: I would sure stick around with Saudi Arabia, with some good management you might just be able to win the Asian Cup - and how's the club side of things going for ya?

 

[numero uno gunner]

I'm not liking this new forum. The spoiler tags are a pain on my phone (first world problems, I know), and now I can't even seem to add images properly again. And god knows what I did to the coded table, but for some reason its centred it and I can't undo it. Can someone remind me how to do images please?

If a mod would kindly realign my coded table I'd also be most grateful!

[Siepe1990]

@numero uno gunner: adding an image can be done through "insert other media" (bottom right when you're typing a message) and inserting the url of the image. The coded tables need to be added through notepad (as suggested by vikeologist in one of his first posts). Make the lay-out OK in Notepad and copy-paste into the code-box. The lay-out will the look wrong, but once you post it, it'll be OK again (I know, it's confusing, caused me some trouble when posting my last one as well to get it right).

[numero uno gunner]

@Siepe1990 - All done, thanks! How's your game going?

[threelions1goal]

On 30/07/2016 at 09:31, RecliamTheKop said:

 When it's time to move on do people just apply for jobs whilst still in a job or resign first? In Iceland I resigned after being knocked out of the Europa league knock-out stages. If I keep resigning it will look bad on me for future jobs won't it? But if I apply for jobs whilst still in a job the board won't be very happy? Not sure which way to go?

When I've been looking to move on from one club to another (if I haven't got the sack first!!) I start applying for jobs, with the philosophy that if my existing employers get the hump and sack me - then I was looking to move anyway.

 

13 hours ago, numero uno gunner said:

I'm not liking this new forum.

Must admit, I'm struggling with it too, but I guess it's just the getting used to it thing.
Worst thing for me personally is that I can't access it at work!! the only browser we are allowed is an outdated version of Internet Explorer and this forum won't work.
Luckily I've got a mate who works in the I.T. department and he is going to allow us access to Chrome!!

And @numero uno gunner well done with Italy!!