Haggis, neeps and tatties: Making Scotland great again

[AceAvenger]

I've been a constant lurker of these forums for a while now, especially the Career Updates section. I've always meant to start a story of my own and get involved, I just needed to decide what my story was going to be about. Scotland seemed like the obvious choice after studying in Edinburgh for the past 4 years while also dabbling in grassroots coaching.

A (very) brief history of Scottish football:

When EURO 2016 got under way, Scotland was the only nation out of the United Kingdom and Ireland not at the tournament. They had to sit at home and watch as the other boys going to go to France and have a jolly good time. England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland all had there moment in the sun while Scotland still hasn't qualified for a major tournament since the 1998 World Cup, also in France.

As for club football in bonny Scotland, recent history has not been that great. With Rangers being liquidated and reformed in 2012, Celtic were left without any serious competition. The Scotland is currently 23rd in the UEFA coefficients, behind other countries with similar populations such as Israel, Denmark and Croatia. 

This wasn't always the case, Scotland played in the first ever internal football match against England in 1872 and during the early days of football they were considered to be the best team around. The Scottish football association was created soon afterwards in 1873, making it the second oldest in the world. Elo retrospectively calculated them to be the best national team between 1876–92. I know this ancient history but it's nice to know how it all started.

Scotland didn't actually play a game outside of the British Isles until 1929 where they whooped Norway's nordic behinds 7-3 in Bergen. Scotland's record in international competitions has been poor. They've only qualified for 2 European Championships, 1992 and 1996. They qualified for 8 out of 12 World Cups between 1958 and 1998, with the undisputed highlight being Archie Gemmill's goal against the Dutch in 1978, forever immortalised by that scene in Trainspotting.

Club competitions have been far more of a success for Scottish sides. The most famous triumph obviously being the Lisbon Lions, where Jock Stein lead Celtic to beat F.C. Internazionale in the final of the Champions League in 1967. It's worth noting that Inter had won the Champions League twice in the 3 years prior so they weren't push overs. Celtic played free flowing attacking football, a style of play similar to that the Dutch would become famous for 7 years later. Rangers would find European success winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1972, the precursor to the UEFA Cup. Rangers would more recently reach the final of the UEFA cup in 2008, losing out to Zenit St. Petersburg in Manchester. Aberdeen are the only club outside the Old Firm (Rangers and Celtic for other unenlightened) to have won a continental competition, winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983 under the helm of one Alex Ferguson (wonder what came of him), beating German minnows Bayern Munich in the final, no big deal. 

 

A little bit about the actual story is about:

As you can tell, this save is probably going have something to do with Scotland. What my main aim is to save Scottish football as a whole, and this is how I'm going to go about it.

• Start unemployed: I want to work my way up the Scottish football ladder, hopefully improving the standard of football along the way. I have no preference on who I end up managing, Ranger or Celtic, Old Firm or not. I don't like to jump around too much so I'll stick to whatever team I'm in until I feel I can't achieve any more with it or a club with significantly better resources becomes available.
• Manage only Scottish teams: Duh!
• Focus on youth: While this isn't a young development save, I want to focus on nurturing home-grown talents.This means I'll be looking to take charge of teams with good youth systems, but it also means I'll look to sign young players that have been let go by the bigger Scottish clubs when I am still drudging through the **** that is the Scottish lower leagues.
• Play attractive football: It's not enough just to be champions, you have to to it with style. I want to play fluid, intelligent football, where the team is 11 pairs of feet synced to one wave length rather than 11 individuals.

What my aims are:

For this save, I am going to have a bunch of aims I am wanted to achieve, both long term and short term. I'm planning of setting goals to reach every season, and maybe have a Stalin-esque 5 year plan going on but we will wait and see. I have a couple of vague long term plans though:

• Win the Champions League: That's the big one, bring that iconic trophy back to a Scottish club.
• Scotland in the knock-out stage of a major tournament: In the long run, I would like to manage Scotland in the game (Side note: I set my nationality as Kuwaiti so it might be a stumbling block, but I checked the editor and Scotland have a 12 rating for likeliness to hire a foreign manager so there is hope). Winning the World Cup or EUROs with a nation as small as Scotland might be a tall order, but reaching the knock-out rounds is not. I especially want to do this in the World Cup and who knows, maybe even win the damn thing.
• 10 league titles in a row: Both Rangers and Celtic came close to achieving this, with Walter Smith in the 1990's and Jock Stein in the 1960's respectively, both winning 9 in a row. I want to reach that target hopefully. It's a very long term goal, but it's worth a try. How funny would it be though if I did it with an Edinburgh team or Aberdeen.

If you've sat through all that dribble and still have the will to read on, I commend you, now it's time for the first part of my story...

Finding a club that will actually hire me!

- Hey sugar, is that a claymore in your kilt or are you just pleased to see me.

[Justin_Case]

Good luck! 

[john1]

Good luck  

[argento]

ill be following!  Good luck with this

[Murrayzoster]

Following mate, hope you end up at the mighty Gers by the end!

[ManUtd1]

Followed.  That scene in Trainspotting is great, I even used the line in my thread as an update title/header. Good luck!

[AceAvenger]

The first victims of my managerial career, Stenhousemuir F.C.

So I got the Stenhousemuir job on just after Christmas. They're in the Scottish League one, which is a decent level to start given that I put my coaching badge as UEFA B and my past experience as semi-pro footballer. They're exactly what I want as a club as they have really good facilities for their level.

There is one downside though, they're currently bottom of the league having only one 1 game all season and the board want me to avoid automatic relegation.

I want to avoid relegation all together, I hate having to deal with unhappy players wanting to leave cos of relegation. I avoid taking charge of clubs who are just relegated because of this, no matter how attractive the prospect it.

Let's look at my squad.

Pretty horrible, not gunna lie. I've got some pace upfront with the two loan strikers, with Oli Shaw being the better of the two. My central midfield lacks creativity except for Vinnie Berry, who has great passing and vision but his legs have failed him in his twilight years. The best player in the squad is Willis Furtado, he's got pace and ability on the ball and lots of potential. I have to sign him on a new contract.

Shaw:

Furtado:

I've got 2 central midfield prospects, Grant Hamilton and Callum Runciman. Both have terrible determination so I have to tutor them ASAP. I might turn Hamilton into a CB as he's accomplished there and he's 191cm and got good concentration. Vital for a defender.

Hamilton:

Runciman:

With the transfer market opening in a few days, I'm gunna try and get as many loans and freebies as I can. Just to improve the entire squad. This brings me nicely to the financial situation of the club. If I'm honest, I've seen a lot worse.

I'm going to be very limited at this club in terms of transfers. The revenue stream is very minimal. Although the stadium is of a decent size at 4,000 seats, the average attendance is 611. At £14 a ticket, that's around £8,400 a fortnight, which actually covers the wage bill of £3,500 p/w. Come to think about it that's not that bad. The prize money in the League One is alright.

If I finish 9th or 8th, I'll make around £60k which will barely cover my current debt, let around account for my £10k per month loss. That £10k per month loss is there even though my ticket sales out way my wage bill because of the running costs of my youth set-up, which is around £10k per month. I'm not going to reduce that, but actually improve it, so if I want to stay at this club long I need to get attendances up fast. Best way to do that is to win games and get promoted, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Focus on the next game.

Which is at home to Alloa, second in the league.

Baptism of fire much.

[andychar]

Good luck with this! 

Always like to see somebody do something in Scotland and the Scottish National Team. Its great to see them do well...if only in electronic form.

[AceAvenger]

18 hours ago, Justin_Case said:

Good luck! 

 

17 hours ago, john1 said:

Good luck  

 

15 hours ago, argento said:

ill be following!  Good luck with this

Thanks guys!

15 hours ago, Murrayzoster said:

Following mate, hope you end up at the mighty Gers by the end!

I've always been a bit more partial to Celtic rather than Rangers but I honestly don't mind where I end up

15 hours ago, ManUtd1 said:

Followed.  That scene in Trainspotting is great, I even used the line in my thread as an update title/header. Good luck!

I remember watching Trainspotting before going to uni and thinking Edinburgh, especially Leith, is going to be like that. Boy has it changed. Still a great movie.

4 hours ago, andychar said:

Good luck with this! 

Always like to see somebody do something in Scotland and the Scottish National Team. Its great to see them do well...if only in electronic form.

Scotland have been in the wilderness for too long, hopefully my imminent success will spur the nation on to following my example...

[AceAvenger]

January 2017 Results

So I go into this month rock bottom and having to play Alloa at home, who are second in the league. The game itself was very one sided and we were lucky to end yo with a draw. The East Fife game was a relegation 6-pointer, which makes the fact they absolutely destroyed us all the more painful. They royally rodgered us and we were lucky it was only 1-0. In those games I've been trying to play decent football but it was obvious that my team were just too awful and the moral was too low to accomplish that already.

I changed to a more primitive 4-4-2 which used the pace I have upfront on the counter and it worked like a charm. We beat Stranraer 2-1 with goals coming from the natural born poacher Ally Roy. Actually that's pushing it, he's just pretty fast and this game he was luck enough to get two goals, cos in every other game we couldn't hit a barn door with a machine gun. We then played East Kilbride in the Scottish Cup, where we lead the whole game, without playing very well, before a straight ball over the top caught my defence out, allowing them to score. 

This game made be remind me how much I hate the flat 4-4-2, I can never get the triangles I want and stuff. I won't give up on it but for the next game I went back to my previous tactic, because the opposition, Airdrie, where only slight favourites and the same was at home so I thought I can give it another try now that the morale of the team is higher a bit after the Stranraer win. And it worked, we were the better team and they only scored from a penalty. Both our goals came from crosses that went straight at the keeper and he fumbles it in.

A little bit more about the tactics I'm using, I'm a massive fan of @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! tactics. I love how he explains his tactics and through his threads I've started to understand the tactical size of this game more. In my humble opinion, I think he's the best poster in the tactics section on this forum. 

Well I say that but I still just copy his tactics and maybe change one thing to make myself feel like I've accomplished something.

My two tactics are:

This tactic is based off the Grassroots tactic, this is obviously the most suitable as I'm in lower league management right now. I love this tactic because how similar it is to Nagelsmann's Hoffenheim tactic. At this level it's impossible to find a striker that can be effective on his own and not be isolated, so two upfront solves that problem. The central midfield role is preferred to a potential playmaker role because it is more maluable. The Moves into Channels shout is available so I can instruct my midfielders to exploit the half-space. The DLP acts like a pivot which is integral to keeping the ball moving. I love wing-backs, with any tactic I use I think the ability to create a 2v1 with an overlap is such a powerful tool.

This tactic is based off his Invincibles tactic. This suits my teams pace upfront and I can utilise my two good left sided players, Connor Duthie and our new loan signing James McFadzaen.

Speaking of signings.

January 2017 Transfer Update

Arrivals

So to start things off, I needed defenders. My defense is the worst in the league, conceding 38 goals in 22 matches. The attributes of all my players were also **** poor with no defender higher that 2.5* CA so I had to bring in something.

Enter Ryan Sinnamon...

And George Johnstone.

Sinnamon was released by Rangers last year, making no appearances for them. He went on loan to Falkirk in the Scottish Championship, our local rivals, in 2015/16, making 3 appearances He's got 4* CA already with 5* PA so he's a guaranteed starter.

I signed Johnstone from Liverpool on loan pretty much blindly. I couldn't go and scout him because my scouting range is only Scotland, but I thought he couldn't be any worse than the garbage I have already. I couldn't get a local loan either because I reached my limit of 4 local loanees in my squad with my next signing.

Callum McFadzaen

Signed him because he would be easily the best player in my squad, or at least joint with Oli Shaw. He can play LWB in my 5-1-2-2 formation or LM in my 4-4-1-1 formation. He got off to a good start having his hand in both goals against Airdrie.

So onto the next game which is the Scottish Cup replay against East Kilbride.

[AceAvenger]

February 2017 Results

So we got off to a bad start against East Kilbride, after leading 2-0 we shipped 2 goals in the last 10 minutes and ended up losing on penalties, against non-league opposition no less. Appalling result but I guess with every cloud there is a silver lining and now we can just focus on the league. 

The games against Brechin and Queen's Park were very tight, with Jack Smith coming on and scoring on both occassions, getting us some points on the board. Then came the most important game of the month, against Albion Rovers. They were above us in 9th, leading by 6 points, so this was a great opportunity to halve the gap between us. We came back from behind to lead with 2 goals with McFadzean coming up with another goal, what a signing he has been. I was over the moon, I started celebrating so much that my family were probably concerned for my mental well-being. The ecstasy was short lived with Albion Rovers snatching a draw late on after my keeper scored an own goal. What a nonce.

The Livingston match was a drubbing, I wasn't expecting anything from that match but it killed my teams morale. Hopefully it doesn't affect us too much. 

I did some calculation and we've been collecting 1.5 points per game in the league in the 8 games since I took over, which is okay. Albion Rovers have been collecting 1 point per game in the same time. So with 10 games left, if our form stays the same, we will gain 5 points on them. As you can see below, that won't be enough.

Hopefully our form will improve, or they bottle it. We still have to play them at home so that will be a must win game if we are going to stand any chance of staying up. It's a must win for me to keep this job too.

Will there be a great escape?

Let's certainly ****ing hope so!

[andychar]

You get a free pass this season but imagine the scenes if you do pull off the unthinkable!

[Justin_Case]

I like the look of the 3-5-2. I always start LLM and have never thought about the impact of playing a single striker, which I always do. I may have to adjust to get a second one in there somewhere.

[AceAvenger]

2 hours ago, andychar said:

You get a free pass this season but imagine the scenes if you do pull off the unthinkable!

Hopefully I will but it's one of my promises to the board to get acceptable performances in the competitions I'm in, i.e. the league, and I don't think relegation would be acceptable.

Also all my senior players deals run out this summer and they're all waiting to see if we get relegated or not.

 

[AceAvenger]

2016/2017 End of Season Run In

Alright so we've gotten to the business end of the season, this will decide whether we stay up or go down. In other obvious news, water is wet.

March 2017

So March starts off with a match at home to Peterhead, a game which would prove to be very influential. Shaw came in with two great goals to offset a 30 yard screamer from the opposition. Then came the match away to Alloa, who were sitting pretty in second, wowing the league with technically astute possession play. With that in mind I came to that game with a very simple game plan, defend like your life depends on it and focus on set piece plays.

Now here is the thing with LLM. Alloa, like all the teams bar Airdrie and Livingston, are semi-professional. This means they don't have that many training session a week. This means they won't be practising set pieces as much, and if you practice set pieces you can take advantage of this and score.

I base this hypothesis on absolutely nothing so it might be ********, but I did find my team to score more often than not when I set attacking set pieces as my match prep, more so than when I managed bigger teams in the past.

But yeah, we ended up drawing with Alloa after scoring from a set piece. Then came Airdrie, where the result was a stalemate. Then came Albion Rovers, a match I predicted to be crucial for us staying up but they went on a good run after we drew with them and were in 7th place when we played them. We won the game courtesy of a late goal by Oli Shaw, who's honestly too good for us but I don't care.

We amongst the awards this month, with George Johnston winning the Young Players of the Month away, as well as coming 3rd in the Player of the Month. Oli Shaw came 3rd in the Young Player of the Month and I was also third in the Manager of the Month away. Happy days!

I forgot to take a screenshot of my award, but who gives a poo.

April 2017

We started April against Stranraer away, where Shaw opened the scoring but Stranraer recovered with 2 goals in 10 minutes. That loss stopped a nice little unbeaten run we had going. We then played East Fife were we were on the receiving end of a set piece goal, but we then scored a set piece to bring balance to the force. Afterwards we played league leaders Livingston at home, a match which gave us a change to exact revenge for them beating us. Livingston already won the league at this point so they were playing a bunch of kids which helped us a lot. Ally Roy opened the scoring after he pounced on a mistake by their keeper to score, with Millar doubling our lead with an absolute screamer. He's only got 4 for long shots so I have no idea how he did it. On terrible thing about this game is we lost Oli Shaw for the rest of the normal season, which made me **** an actual brick cos my other options upfront are inconsistent to say the least.

We then played Petershead, who were on a nosedive since we beat them last month. If we won this game we would have finally climbed out of 10th position for the first time since week 7. We dominated them as the team was buoyed on by the Livingston win, Jack Smith did a good job in filling Shaw's boots by coming up with a goal but Petershead equalised late on after capitalising on a mistake by Johnstone, which was a shame because he's been the signing of the season so far.

Then we played Queen's Park away, the only amateur team in the league. We were absolutely pumped but our goalkeeper, Crawford, came up with a man of the match performance. Ally Roy got the winner late on from a tap in. Petershead lost their game against East Fife so that means we climbed out of last place for the first time!

Kieran Millar also won Player of the Month, after scoring two goals.

May 2017

So final match of the season, if I match Petershead's result I'll avoid automatic relegation, if I win and Albion Rovers lose then I avoid the relegation play offs...

SO WHAT HAPPENS?!?!

Seriously Alloa and Livingston reaaaaaallly took their foot off the pedal. Seeing the updates come up for Petershead's game made me so nervous that this wasn't going to be my day, especially because we've bottle a few crucial matches before. We didn't get relegated. Yet.

Onward to the relegation play off, I just hope they're really really ****.

[AceAvenger]

Also I forgot to mention, we got our intake of youth players.

Those are only the players with 5* PA cos I forgot to take a picture of the actual intake, cos I'm a nonce. Still though, 6 players with 5* PA. I know that's only because my team is atrocious and 6 blind hedgehogs in a bag would probably have the same PA if they were compared to the turds I have in the dressing room, but it's still promising.

I just hope I get to be here next season to see how they develop.

[Justin_Case]

Congrats on avoiding last place, looks like some momentum is building! I really like playing in Scotland with both the smaller leagues and the promotion/relegation playoffs. Good luck!

[AceAvenger]

38 minutes ago, Justin_Case said:

Congrats on avoiding last place, looks like some momentum is building! I really like playing in Scotland with both the smaller leagues and the promotion/relegation playoffs. Good luck!

Thanks! I really do like the smaller leagues, it's far from the exuberance and excess of the top tiers, although that is where I have to end up if this story is to be a success.

[AceAvenger]

Relegation Play-Offs 2017

So the moment of truth, am I going to stay up. In Scotland, the bottom team gets relegated automatically, while the second from bottom goes into the relegation play-off which consists of:

• 4 teams in the play off, 9th in the League One and 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the League Two.
• 9th in the League One plays the 4th in the League Two in one semi-final, 2nd and 3rd place teams play against each other in the other semi-final.
• Each semi-final and the final is a home and away tie with away goals.

So let's go onto the the semi-final, Stenhousemuir vs Clyde!

First Leg:

What a bizarre game, we showed out best qualities scoring so many before we just gave up on defending. They had enough chances to actually equalise, they just couldn't finish.

Second Leg:

Dear lord, how do we do this to ourselves. What a shambolic display, thankfully Jack Smith (I can't get over how generic his name is XD) scored enough goals in the first leg before to give us a mattress for our inevitable fall from grace. Truth be told though, I must take a lot of the blame because I should have set up the team to sit deep and exploit the spaces left by Clyde pushing to get back into the tie, but I went more attacking to get a goal and kill off the game from the start.

At least we are onto the final and continuing our mission of staying up.

The final, Stenhousemuir vs Forfar.

First Leg:

Very tight game, the boys were very nervous because I cocked up the team meeting before the match so I killed their morale. The winner came from a beautiful, beautiful left footed volley from Furtado. It was so good I actually uploaded it for your viewing pleasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dI3PlL9ffs

Second Leg:

So we conceded from a long throw, they were launching them in throughout the tie and we were defending them well enough until then. Their side were exausted but we didn't play well enough to take advantage of in within the 90 mins. So it went to extra time, Johnston got injured after I made all my substitutions but he had to play on, they almost scored when he was off the pitch getting treatment.

The difference came from the fresh legs of Ally Roy, linking up with Oli Shaw one last time  before both their loans end to score the equaliser and putting me ahead on aggregate.

So we're in still in the League One! Hopefully we can get some good players in this summer and some good loanees and build on it next season.

Now time for the most exciting time of the year, the transfer season!

[AceAvenger]

Guys this is about to get interactive.

I need your help deciding on which of these two centre halves to sign.

They even have the same last name!

Should I sign Ally or Cameron, or even both as I play with 3 CBs and there will be a lot of games through the season and I want to do well in all competitions to make as much dollar as I can muster.

I also need to sign a bunch of tutors, any tips boys (and girls)?

[BoxToBox]

I'd go for Gilchrist!

Seriously, if it's one or the other, Ally looks better to me, mainly because he's a bit better at defending, if you can get past the low determination.

Is going for them both much of an issue, financially?

[AceAvenger]

9 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

I'd go for Gilchrist!

Seriously, if it's one or the other, Ally looks better to me, mainly because he's a bit better at defending, if you can get past the low determination.

Is going for them both much of an issue, financially?

Signing them both will only cost be around £300 p/w so not at all. 

I'm going to go for that, plus it'll give the play a more family atmosphere.

[AceAvenger]

Seems legit.

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, AceAvenger said:

Seems legit.

Irish logic, "jump eh, why? Shure me 'ead is already oop dere."

[Nobby_McDonald]

That was some recovery.

[AceAvenger]

Preseason 2017

A new season beacons, now I have an opportunity to have a full preseason behind my team and build the team I want. With Oli Shaw and Ally Roy leaving and not wanting to extend their loans, I'm left short upfront. Also the same goes for Connor Duthie and Callum McFadzean at left wing back. My defence was the worse in the league last year so I also need to improve in that regards. 

So who did we bring in?

Transfers:

So what I did was literally have everyone man in Scotland with a pulse and two legs come and have a trial at the club, so get some new signing. The loan market was a lot poorer than I would have hoped, with our affiliates Aberdeen offering nothing in terms of talented youngsters I can have for the year.

To first our defensive ailments I signed both the Gilchrists:

Cameron Gilchrist

Ally Gilchrist

Both got good potential (Scottish Championship material), so hopefully they can develop as the season progresses and give me the potential for the promotion push soon.

At left wing back I signed the following:

Ross Woodcock

Pretty much signed him for his name. He's also got great physicals which is important for the role of wing-back.

Adam Livingstone

He's pretty poor apart from his pace. He's got 4.5* PA and a fairly professional personality, so hopefully he'll develop nicely.

Upfront I 3 new signings:

Alistair Sutherland

Bags of pace and great mentals. His technicals are atrocious though, especially 5 for first touch. He's only 21 though so I hope he can develope further and become prolific at this level.

Jordyn Sheerin

Signed him as a link-up man upfront. I might need a guy like him to hold the ball up with his strength and decent teamwork/work rate.

Connor O'Keefe

Hopefully will be my goal threat. He's got everything to be a quality poacher, except finishing. Seems like an important thing but if he has the pace and off the ball ability to get into threatening positions often and he's also got good composure so he won't **** it.

July Results:

We played in the Betfred Cup, which is the Scottish League Cup. It strangely starts with a group stage with the top teams and the best 4 second placed teams qualifying for the next qualifying round.

Our competition expectation was only to be competitive, because the other teams are all in higher leagues than us, bar Berwick who are a league below. 

We played well against the big teams and didn't roll over which is great. All I wanted really.

[jambos1990]

Had sheerin for AFC flyde was a goal machine as a defensive forward 

[warpedpolecat]

Any updates pal?