[FM18] Quest to achieve former glory - Djurgårdens IF

[Goofan]

So. I thought I would try my hands on a career save for public view. I have been playing FM since the 08 edition but rarely post on the forum, although I am a frequent browser.

My team of choice is Djurgårdens IF (short DIF). It is a football club created 1891 and is one of the more well known club in the Swedish top tier - Allsvenskan. The aim of the save will be to restore DIF to their former glory. This is done through winning Allsvenskan and qualifying for Europa League and Champions League. I do not have any specific rules while playing, but I will try to keep the squad mostly Swedish. DIF's recent history is as follows:

As one can see, DIF has won its fair share of domestic titles, with the last glory days being in the early 2000's. In 2009, the club was struggling to stay up in the highest tier and barely managed to retain their place after a relegation qualification which was won in extra time. Ever since, the club has slooooowly but steady improved and after making some big sales the last couple of transfer windows the future is looking bright. The home games are being played at the recently built Tele2 with a capacity of 32,000. The arena is shared with our local rivals, Hammarby IF. Other than Hammarby, our archnemesis is AIK. We hate them. They were created 1891 as well and the derby between us is often referred to as the 'Twin derby'. Those games will be very important to win - for my own sake. We are also not particularly fond of IFK Göteborg and Malmö. They speak funny down there in the south. 

The squad is as follows:

Its decent. We are a bit short on wingers, but overall the squad is relatively good. The people with keen eyes may notice a few familiar names on the squad sheet. We have our goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson who has made over 130 appearances for Sweden over the years. A man of similar stature is Kim Källström, who with 131 caps for Sweden was brought back to Djurgården this year. His previous stint occurred during our heydays where he was one of the more prolific players in Allsvenskan. He spent most of his career at Lyon, winning the league on numerous occasions, and eventually left for Russia with a brief loan spell at Arsenal of all places. He brings back tons of experience and a delicate left foot. My hope is to have him become a coach after his contract expire.  

Another familiar face to many people is the tall, scrawny looking Jonas Olsson with the fabulous hair, having plied his trade at West Bromwich Albion before returning home to Sweden. He is our top-defender and will be key for our success. As with Källström, Olsson will hopefully remain in the club as a coach after his contract expires. 

Our main attacking threat will be Gustav Engvall. He was recently bought from IFK Göteborg (one of our main rivals) by Bristol City, but after falling down the pecking order was sent out on loan to DIF. 

While the old fellows are important, DIF have several young talents ready to make their mark. Chief among them is Felix Beijmo, with Jesper Karlström, Kerim Mrabti, and Jacob Une-Larsson looking solid as well.

As you notice, the most important players of our team are 35, 34, and 33 years of age, with Engvall being here on loan. It is therefore crucial we gather early momentum and reach top 3 (which means qualification for Europe) latest in the second season. While I do not believe winning the Allsvenskan is a realistic target this year, the Swedish Cup also provides a route to Europa League qualification, and we will be mustering the best squad for those games. 

Our transfer budget is fairly low (3 million SEK, which is roughly 300k EUR), so I do not expect to do any major signings the first window. 

Looking at the material, our main formation will be the 4-2-3-1, with Källström being the deep-lying playmaker. If we are struggling, 4-4-2 will most probably be adopted with Badji and Kristoffersen, two tall guys, ready to make their impact. 

 

As in real life, Beijmo will bomb forward on the right flank while Eriksson (one of our key players as well) will be attempting to cut inside. El-Kabir will alternate between Winger and Inside Forward, where his dribbling skills will come in handy. Otherwise, nothing too fancy. We'll aim to play it from the back with Källström dropping deep to provide his lovely crosses across the field. I might experiment with a 3-5-2, depending on the situation. 

 

So. Ready then? Let's try make DIF great again! 

[Goofan]

The Swedish league starts in April, with the Swedish Cup group games being played in March, and ends in November. It is quite different from most of Europe, but with the cold weather up here, it is understandable. The Allsvenskan consists of 16 teams and has historically been quite an even league, with many winners over the years. However, lately, Malmö FF has stepped up as the main force in the league and will be favourites this year. We are expected to finish 4th. Board expectations is top-half finish, something I am quite confident achieving.  Playing it safe at the moment so I won't risk sacking early on. 

Djurgården is in the group with Degerfors, Halmstad, and Sandviken. With Sandviken playing in 3rd tier, Degerfors in 2nd tier (Superettan), and only Halmstad playing in Allsvenskan, the group is more than winnable. I have a good feeling about it. 

And that feeling proved to be correct. We started the group with a win over Degerfors after a goal by Tino Kadewere, who played instead of the injured Mrabti in the attacking midfielder role. It was followed by a hard-fought victory over Halmstad and a relatively easy one over Sandviken. We were then drawn against Team TG FF in the Quarter Finals. As the name suggests, it is not one of the bigger teams in Sweden. Instead, they fight their battles in the 2nd tier. I imagined the game would be easily won, considering the vast quality difference but I was wrong. We managed to scrap together a 2-0 victory in extra time after they had gotten 2 red cards. We switched our formation to 4-4-2, throwing in Badji alongside Engvall, and it proved to be a successful move since he went on to kill the game with his late goal. 

Next up was our rivals Hammarby. While we barely managed to remain in Allsvenskan back in 2009, Hammarby got relegated and after 5 years in the 2nd tier returned two seasons ago. They tend to draw large crowds and therefore have a strong economy. This has been visible in their latest signings, bringing home Jiloan Hamad and getting Sander Svendsen from Norway for an absolute steal. They will be dangerous this year. 

But not this game. We beat the comfortably and Källström made his first goal since his return, scoring a penalty just before half-time. Our super-sub Haris Radetinac then closed the game early on in the second half. 

 

 

A fine start indeed! 

And the good times would keep on coming.

Our first month in Allsvenskan went much better than I expected! A hard-fought victory in the opening game against Sirius proved to be just what we needed. Gustav Engvall showed his worth and scored 6 times in the opening 8 games. A slight concern is that we only managed to keep a clean sheet three times, but you can't win 'em all! What I thought was a surprise victory over reigning champions Malmö, was maybe not such a surprising victory after all. Malmö has won the Allsvenskan 3 times the lat 4 years and managed to qualify to the Champions League group stage a few years back. Despite them receiving some tough lessons by Real Madrid and others, it filled their coffers to the brink and therefore boosts by wide margin the best economy in Allsvenskan - and consequently the best squad. However, they are after 8 games in 13th place, having scraped together 2 wins. Can't say I'm particularly sad over it. 

 

Having beaten Hammarby in the Semi Finals of the Swedish Cup, our opponent in the final is our eternal enemy - AIK. They beat Östersund and Sirius before reaching the final. This game will be essential to reach a surprise Europa League qualification (which due to Cup rules will be the coming Europa League, and not next season). 

[KillercowDivine]

Congratulations to a great start. Hope you will be sucessful reaching the goals you set for the team

[Goofan]

Cup-final time!

The game was played at Friends Arena, which just happens to be AIK's home stadium. 52,000 people in the stands  with half of them being away supporters! For this game Kim Källström and Kerim Mrabti were out injured so two of our most important players were unavailable. We still played our usual 4-2-3-1 formation with Karlström and Kadewere filling in. 

AIK plays a 3-5-2 formation, which while proven to be successful in real life did not work quite as well as they thought this time around. We took command of the game early and dominated possession and shots on target. Despite this, we only managed to score our goal in the 62nd minute, when Engvall was at the right place at the right time when Radetinac put in a cross.  A few minutes after the goal we switched to a defensive 4-1-2-2-1 with Hansson taking the defensive midfielders role to shield the defence. The move proved to be a successful one with AIK not managing to come to any clear cut chances for the remainder of the game.

We had won the Swedish Cup! As mentioned in the opening post I had this as a goal since it meant qualification for Europa League. However, there seems to be a bug in the game where the qualification occurs NEXT season instead of the current one, as is the case in real life. This has been reported to SI. While it was a bit of disappointment, we know we have qualification secure next year at least.

 

 

After the Cup final we sustained our first loss in Allsvenskan after resting several players believing Örebro would be an easy game. This was followed up by a 1-1 draw with Hammarby. Three games remained before the summer break, with us managing to beat AIK 3-2 (after having been 3-0 up) and beating newcomers AFC with Badji filling in for Engvall. The final game before the break was against Häcken and it started out disastrously. 3-0 down after 48 minutes forced us to change our formation to a more attacking 4-4-2, with Badji taking the role as Target Man. We quickly scored two goals and in the 86th minute we played a sort of 4-3-3, with Beijmo taking the right wing all by himself and Kristoffersen, Badji, and Engvall upfront. What started out as really bad game turned the complete opposite after Beijmo scored his first for the club in the 91st minute.

Next comes a 1 month summer break where I hope to get some people back from injuries and rest a bit. I have been fielding mainly the same players throughout the season, although Radetinac and Karlström have been playing more than expected due to injuries to Källström and El-Kabir. This hasn't been much of a problem since they have been doing more than a good job! I hope to get some games in the break against lesser opposition just to keep the spirits up and use some players that haven't gotten much play time yet.

This is how the injury table has looked like throughout the season:

As noticed, our wingers are suffering from injuries the most. I've been lucky enough to mostly only have 1 winger out at the same time, meaning we have been able to play our regular formation. In times of crisis, I have been turning to Käck to play a Winger in the midfield role and Augustinsson getting some games as Left Back. We might be looking to bring in a few more players during the transfer window, but I am also considering playing with this time and maybe bring some reserves or youth player up instead. 

 

[Goofan]

Slightly larger update this time in terms of matches played.

We continued our impressive form after the break, picking up 5 straight wins but then falling to Göteborg. This was followed by a disastrous run of form with only  2 wins in the last 7 games. Most importantly we won over Hammarby in the 94th minute. Hammarby is our main rivals for the title at this stage, with Göteborg posing as a distance threat. Engvall has completely lost his form, failing to score in 8 matches and the team overall is failing to create proper chances. Our leaky defence doesnt help and Isaksson has not been up to par, leading to our back-up keeper Tommi Vaiho wanting his chance and creating fuss in the dressing room. 

We got completely outplayed by AIK in the last game, creating only 3 chances the entire game. This led to Hammarby surpassing us in the league and with four games to go, they sit on 54 points while we are on 53. 

Hammarby is on a great run of form, but looking at the remaining fixtures I would say I might have the easier one. My hope lies on Göteborg doing their part and beating Hammarby, but to be fair, I am quite pessimistic. 

 

This is how the table looks at this point:

 

Hammarby has scored the most goals and concedes fewest. We have been conceding far too much in recent games and despite me dropping Källström and Walker to DM positions with a DM (d) and a VOL, things haven't really changed. I will probably start looking to Badji to fill Engvall's shoes the last games, but we'll see. 

On happier notes I signed new contracts with Käck, Walker, Karlström, Mrabti and Beijmo. The most important is of course Beijmo, since  I believe he can go for at least 2-3 million EUR in the end. I have also signed Jonathan Ring for the next season on a free transfer to add some depths to the wings.

[Goofan]

After the last post I decided to try my hands on a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with Källström sitting deep as a DLP with Mrabity and Karlström in front. Also dropped down our attacking wingers to midfield position - like this: 

It proved to be a good move since we won our two upcoming games. Mrabti scored against Häcken just before halftime and Engvall finally got on the score sheet against AFC. At the same time Hammarby lost against Göteborg with 0-1, but won the game after. At this stage we are 2 points ahead with two games to go! 

 

Enter Halmstad.

 

We completely dominated the game. They barely had any goal scoring opportunities. Karlström scored a 25-yard goal in the 66th minute and the game looked sealed! Took a more defensive approach and Badji replaced a slightly injured Engvall. The game looked like a certain 1-0 victory. Then Augustinsson plays it up to Badji who fails to do anything noteworthy and loses the ball to a defender who plays it long into the box and Augustinsson cannot make up the distance in time and trips the Halmstad player - Penalty! In the 96th minute..

And of course Hammarby went on to win their game so now the table looks like this with one game to go:

 

Hammarby is facing Östersund away while we are going up against Sundsvall at home in the final game. Quite gutted to have dropped the ball and ended up in this situation in the final leg! Our slump of form came in a very inconvenient time, but then again Hammarby has been in a veeeeery good form.

 

[Goofan]

 

We did what we could and secured a victory over Sundsvall despite being down to 10 men, but it was not enough since Hammarby won their game against Östersund with 3-1, despite being 0-1 down. It was a ****** end to an otherwise great season. The final table looks like this:

 

 

It was a close race from start till finish, but Hammarby proved to be the better team this time around. As seen in the first post, they were expected to finish 7th, so it is a massive achievement for them, unfortunately for us. 

 

The hierarchy in the club is pretty good at this time and so is the morale. As my assistant manager notice, the leaders are all getting old and we need to find a way to deal with it. 

 

In the coming months we will be looking to strengthen the squad with at least a good striker, since Engvall is returning to Bristol City. Might be looking at another CM as well, since Källström is declining and while Karlström played decent last few games, Walker was not as good. I will try to keep most of my players as well, but offload some dead wood such as Jawo, Haruma, Hansson etc. 

On a more positive note, Beijmo got called up to the Sweden senior squad and his progression is coming along nicely. 

 

And these are the stats for the season. I had expected Mrabti and Kabir to be more productive. I am really happy with Eriksson who scored 11 from his right wing position, and Une-Larsson who progressed very well! A future Sweden squad player there i believe. 

[withnail316]

Best of luck. Really enjoy playing in Scandinavia myself, usually Norway, but had fun with Örebro in Sweden too. I enjoy the restrictions which really focus me on having to use homegrown talent, so both Norway and Sweden are excellent places to manage. 

Unlucky losing the title to your local rivals, best of luck next year.

[Goofan]

12 hours ago, withnail316 said:

Best of luck. Really enjoy playing in Scandinavia myself, usually Norway, but had fun with Örebro in Sweden too. I enjoy the restrictions which really focus me on having to use homegrown talent, so both Norway and Sweden are excellent places to manage. 

Unlucky losing the title to your local rivals, best of luck next year.

Thank you. Yeah, I do quite enjoy the fact that the leagues are quite even. Although, with the economy Malmö has, and the players, they should really have finished top3.

Yeah it kinda sucked. Especially since the penalty Halmstad scored was by a former player of ours. But, just another challenge! We'll win it next year

[Goofan]

So we're starting the new season knowing we need some more signings. First priority is a striker and some depth in midfield. We are giving a large transfer budget of about 5 mil EUR, but I am no fan of buying big superstars for an expensive price.

We got a tip from our scouting section about a ball-winning midfielder named Alfa Semedo from Moreirense in the Portugese Liga 1. We took him in for roughly 500K with quite expensive wages. But I have high hopes for him and believe he will be shielding our defense better than Walker or Karlström did last year! At the age of 20 he still has plenty of room for improvement. Will try to get his marking attributes up.

 

We brought in Fejzullahu from relegated Kalmar, hoping he can provide a replacement for Engvall as a deep lying forward. Previously we had brought Jnathan Ring in from Kalmar as well, and we also managed to get Elias Andersson from relegated Sirius for a nice penny. He is deemed as long-term replacement for Källström but can still do the job today. We managed to offload Garba and Hansson, with a few more going out on loan. 

 

I had hopes of perhaps getting another striker, but it was not meant to be. Hammarby signed Jordan Larsson who I was looking at buying as well, but I was too late. Worst case scenario, Magnus Eriksson can play on top as well. 

 

We started the season with the Swedish Cup group stages. We had an easy group, but our finish infront of goal was sorely lacking and we ended up in 2nd place on same point and goal difference as Sirius, but with them having scored 1 more goal they went through. Not super disappointed since we will qualify for Europa League this season anyway and I hope to finish top 3. Malmö is once again favourites for the title with us 2nd and Norrköping 3rd. Reigning champions Hammarby is expected to finish 4th.

We started Allsvenskan quite poorly with a 1-1 draw with AFC, but followed it up with 2 wins. Fejzullahu finally got his first goal against Öresund and he will hopefully add to that tally in the coming games. We have had some poor luck with injuries, having Eriksson off for 5 weeks and new signing Ring 4 weeks. 

 

Still not sure about Isaksson, Olsson and Källström for next year. Their contracts are expiring after the season and they're getting old. While they still have quality, their wage demands are way above the rest of the squad.. Will have to do some thinking here and see whether it's wort to keep them around. Might just keep 1-2, so not all leaders go out at the same time.