Every corner of the globe

[TheEarl]

Authors notes:

This save is played with downloading claasens Megapack. Its an attempt at the challenge made by myself called "The Giant 70 Challenge". The task is to win 25 domestic top league titles, 25 cup titles (from at least 20 different nations) 10 specific continental club torunaments and 10 specific international trophies. 

The game must be loaded with a manager of 20 years of age, no coaching badges and sunday league reputation starting as an unemployed manager. starting leagues are optional, so is attribute masking, while nationality and languages must be realistic of real life. No editors are allowed of any kind. 

Then its just playing to the best of my ability to complete as many of the 70 trophies as possible.

Prologue

Moss, Norway 1996-2016

Two football fans who both work as youth team coaches has a new born son called Chris Earl. Given their big interest in football, they recogn their son could become a really good player in the future. Chris is born a Swedish national but in Norway with dual citizenship and soon get highly involved in the beloved sport. He gradually makes it through the ranks as a youth player. At the age of 13 his team reaches the final of the biggest youth tournament in Scandinavia. 

Soon its evident though the lad has all the brains, but lacks heavily in acceleration and pace to play the modern game. Time and time again he just gets outrun, and when he dribbles past defenders, they just catch him again and takes the ball of him. His left foot is letal both in shooting and crossin, but still its not enough. By the time of 16 years old, no clubs wants to sign him due to the lack of speed. 

Earl understands he needs to take up coaching/management like his parents, and starts to take introduction courses for coaching. He has much greater ambition than his parents though, and its all clear he wants to be the best manager in history. He has a mentor in the coaching courses who advises him to take youth teams at the start, but Earl wants to start at a high. A senior club is clearly in his mind. Luckily the mentor has some connections, but tells him to start in lower ranked nations for a beginning to make a name for himself before he can move to the bigger leagues.

At the age of only 19, Earl is finally invited to his first interview as a manager....

[mark wilson27]

Its good to have you back TheEarl, looks like one hell of challenge. I've seen it attempted in other parts of the forum and I'm glad you've brought it to our part of the forum to tell.

Good luck

[TheEarl]

Episode 1 - July 16th 2016, Abidjan - Ivory Coast

Earl was really nervous for his first ever manager position interview with Koffi Ouattara. Earl who already spoke English and German in addition to the Scandinavian languages soon found a big hurdle. Ivory Coast is a French speaking nation, and he had no clue as to "parler francaise".

Somehow they both agreed to use Google Translate for difficult words, and the chairman did indeed speak some English, just with a totally different dialect than what Earl was used to. The chairman made it clear that Earl was very young for the job, but he got a really good recomendation from his mentor. The previous manager didn't acheive the goals set, and left far too early. So on the positive aspect Earl was a manager with whom ASEC could look to build a long lasting partnership to bring the club back to the glory it deserved.

"You uiin Premier League need and FA Cup" said the chairman.

"Sure, I will win both those tournaments, and the League Cup as well", replied Earl.

"You juice jong Ivorian forr firrst teama?"

"Yes I can build a team around youngsters, I am very aware of the amazing Academy here at ASEC."

A big sigar, some hefty phone calls in French that Earl didn't understand followed, but then a sexy long legged secretary came into the room with a bunch of papers. It was time to sign the contract. Earl didn't understand a word on the paper, except for some numbers in which showed he would earn 285000 West African Franc. The weekly salary sounded insane, but Earl used a currency converter to find out he only earned around 450 GB pounds or 5000 Norwegian Kroner per week. Still this was more than enough, he had got some help from his mentor about a place to live, nad the rest of the contract he didn't care about he wanted a job a signed his name faster than ever before on every paper the secretary pointed out.

So there was no time to hesitate for Earl, he had a quick shake of hands with the coaches, but with no Assistant Manager he was left to do much of the business himself. There was an African Champions League game only a day later. So it was just to jump on a plane as fast as possible to Soul in Tunisia for the game against ES Sahel. 

Earl tried to bring in his tactic of an aggressive but possession based football of 4-3-2-1 with wingers trying to get crosses into the box. The message seemed to only get partly through to the players as they struggled against a team that where about the same strength. It looked like a very bad start when the home team scored both once and then twice to lead 2-0 at half time. Dalla Coulibaly hit one back for ASEC but the game ran out with the Tunisians winning 2-1. Earl fast learned that to succeed he needed to improve in one important area, the language and communication with his players. Back in Abidjan he contacted chairman Ouattara and explained he needed some help with the language or an Assistant Manager that spoke both English and French. The chairman said there was no way to increase the budget, but to help Earl get a good start he would fund an intensive language course and a National C-License course where he could also enhance his coaching.

Next up would be the Coupe de Cote de Ivoire Eight Final, could Earl turn things around already in the second game in charge....