PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 This save will follow the managerial career of Matt Hart as he bids to help launch China into a global superpower in football, with the long term aim being to lead China to a World Cup win and have world class Chinese players turning out for Real Madrid, Barca and co. Matt's grandfather, Paul Hart, was the subject of my FM15 Alphabet Career, which can be found here and for some reason has Lenny and Carl from The Simpsons as a cover photo? : Matt's father, Adam Hart, was the subject of my FM17 career, where I started at the 9th tier and had to accept every job offer I ever got. That can be found here, with for some reason, a prison as the cover photo: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Great to see this! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 I'll be starting this game as I'd start a 'Small Club to Big Club' type challenge. So I will holiday for a season and then take over one of the newly promoted clubs to the lowest playable league in China. On FM18 this will be the Chinese 1st Divison, which is their 2nd tier. I've loaded these leagues to start, with all of the additional Chinese players added in. This gives me around 40,000 players in total. I did think about loading the Brazilian league as the Chinese Super League teams tend to poach a lot of their players, but as this isn't the aim of my save, I haven't bothered with that. I don't have any strict rules on how I'm going to go about this save. The loose way of playing that I will follow is to build the team that I take over up using Chinese only players, but if I feel I need to use the foreign players to initially get us to the top level then I will probably do that. I'm planning to stay with the same team, but if I do get sacked or there's limited money, club won't increase facilities etc, then I won't rule out taking over one of the bigger clubs if I'm offered the job. I'm also not going to rule out eventually taking over a big club in Europe and signing the top Chinese players/prospects and trying to improve things that way. Of course I'm also aiming to get the Chinese job as soon as possible to help improve their fortune in the tournaments. I'm going to do a few posts that will briefly outline the Chinese Super League and the Chinese National Team as things stand at the start of the game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillHoudini24 Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Following for the third time! The Harts kinda remind me of the Skywalker saga. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 The Chinese Super League consists of 16 teams: The teams play each other twice (30 games) with the top 3 qualifying for the Asian Champions League. The 4th team may also qualify, although only if one of the Top 3 teams wins the Chinese FA Cup. You're allowed 3 foreign players in your starting 11, with 5 overall, although if you're only allowed to start 3, I guess it's a bit pointless having 4 or 5 on mega money. Every match squad must have a minimum of 1 Chinese U23 players starting, with 2 in the overall squad. This doesn't seem too bad since you're allowed 7 on the bench and 3 subs. The other main rule is that you must have a Chinese goalkeeper, with no foreign goalies allowed. Guangzhou have won the last 6 titles in a row. Felipe Scolari is in charge of them and with Jackson Martinez up-front for them as well as Alan and Ricardo Goulart, they'll be hoping for another win this year. Shangai Shanggang will be looking to give them a run for their money though, with Andre Villas-Boas at the helm and Oscar, Hulk and Elkeson in their side, they'll be there or there abouts at the end of the season you'd imagine. The bookies have Huaxia Xingfu as 3rd favorites, they've got Manuel Pellegrini as their manager, with Gervinho, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Stephane Mbia in their team. Jiangsu have Fabio Cappello at the helm, with Alex Teixeira and Ramires in their side. Shandong's manager is Felix McGrath, their foreign players include: Gil, Diego Tardelli and Graziano Pelle. Shenhua are the highest ranked side with a Chinese manager at the helm (Wu Jingui), they boast the likes of Fredy Guarin, Obafemi Martins and of course, Carlos Tevez. It will be interesting to see if he can crack on more than he has in real life. Elsewhere, Fuli have Dragan Stojkovic in charge, whilst Quanjian, a promoted side, have Fabio Cannavarro as their manager, with Anthony Modeste on loan and marquee signings, Axel Witsel and Pato. Tianjin have German manager Uli Stelike, who can call upon Brown Ideye and John Obi Mikel in his team. A few other notable players/manager combos sees Beijing have Renato Augusto, Henan with Ricardo Vaz Te and Guizhou, another promoted side, who have Nikica Jelavic. As you can see, it seems like the top half are sides with loads of money for foreign players and managers, whilst the lesser sides don't seem to have too much of a chance in comparison. There's really not much in the way of prize money either, so I guess your income depends on money from the Asian Champions League, whatever TV money there is and gate receipts (as well as Sugar Daddy funds if you have it). The stadiums are all massive even for the smaller sides, but I've got no idea what the average attendances will be like for some of those sides. I'll post them as the Chinese Super League first season progresses. The Chinese 1st Division has the same structure, with 16 teams playing each other twice, with the bottom 2 sides going down: Yifang are strong favorites to be promoted, with Renhe likely to join them. Zhonhyou look dead set to go down, with one of Rongda and Meizhou likely to join them. The majority of teams do have the 3 foreign players and foreign managers (quite a few Spanish ones kicking around) but nobody really of note. I imagine it's more open and the gulf in class between the 1st Division and the Super League itself looks absolutely massive. The prize money is actually even for every position, which is an interesting one and seems quite fair to keep things open. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 China start the game ranked 84th on the FIFA World Rankings. They are managed by former World Cup winner, Marcelo Lippi. He's 68 so you'd imagine he would retire within 2/3 years, but I almost certainly won't have a high enough reputation to be offered the job by that point. At the halfway stage of World Cup qualification, they have a decent chance at finishing 3rd and getting the Playoff place that comes with it. Their most notable player is probably Zhang Yuning, a 20 year old striker who West Brom paid £8M for, they've subsequently loaned him out to Werder Bremen. I can't show you any of his stats as I'm currently unemployed. Other notable players for the national team are as followed: Again, as I'm unemployed and about to holiday I can't show stats of any of these players, but I'll be showing them when I get a job and can see them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 The season is over. But first things first, how did the Chinese National Team do in their bid to make the 2018 World Cup in Russia... They lost 3 on the bounce before getting 2 draws in their last 2 games. Was it enough? Nope. They ended up finishing rock bottom of the group! Their is clearly work to be done, but for now it seems that Marcello Lippi will keep his job. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 A bit of a surprise in the league as Guangzhou's reign of terror is over. They slumped to 5th, missing out on Champions League football next season, with Scolari sacked mid-season and replaced with Jose Gonzalez. Huaxia Xingfu ended up as champions, with Pellegrinni's side comfortably winning by 12 points. AVB's side, Shanghai Shanggang finished 2nd, with the relatively unfancied, Beijing Guo'an finishing in 3rd place to get a place in the Champions League next season. The Chinese FA Cup will be played in a months time in the end of November, with Huaxia Xingfu looking for a domestic double, with just two legs against 7th place Quanjian in their way. The season also saw notable big names Fabio Capello (Jiangsu) and Dragan Stojkovic (Fuli) sacked, with lesser names coming in to replace them. The furthest any of the Chinese sides got in the CL was the Round of 16, with Shanggang Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Shenhua all getting knocked out at this stage: Tianjin and Yanbian went down, not a surprise for Yanbian but Tianjin were tipped for mid-table with the likes of John Obi Mikel surely set to leave them now they've gone down. There were no real surprises in the Chinese Division 1, with hot favorites Yifang going up as predicted. Renhe did miss out though, as Yongchang just about did enough to pip them to that 2nd place. Meizhou and Zhongyou were the bookies favorites to go down and they didn't disappoint, although Meizhou were only 2 points off of safety. I'll holiday a bit more and we'll soon find out who Matt will be managing... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crispypaul Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Looking forward to this - good luck! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 The two options were Qingdao Zhongneng and Shenzen Renren. Qingdao have history in the top 2 tiers, with an FA Cup win back in 2002, whilst Shenzen Renren are a very new side, only formed back in 2015. Qingdao have a smaller stadium, at 23,000 all-seater, whilst Renren have is a 40,000 all-seater. However, Qingdao's infrastructure and facilities are significantly better, as you can see: Despite this, I have decided to choose Shenzhen Renren instead. They represent a more difficult challenge, but they're a new club with their own history to forge, with a bigger stadium and there's plenty of room to grow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 I've been given a 1 year contract on 2.2K p/w. I set my badges and reputation to the suggested level for the club, which was Semi-Pro and National A. I set my abilities to be more on the side of Youth Development than anything else. The majority of our better players appear to be wingers and strikers. With the likes of Ma Xiaolei, Yang Bin and Yang Zi. There's not really anyone of note in the Reserves and as we have no youth recruitment, there are no youngsters to come through yet. That's something we could do with looking at in the near future. The club appears to be in fine financial shape, with a bank balance of £1.6M, although as things stand the club is forecast to have -£1M by the end of the season. This hasn't stopped the club from giving me a £2.19M transfer budget, as well as a £48K wage budget on top of what I already have. That's better than I was expecting and it should mean we can recruit the best possible Chinese players that we can. I don't think that many foreign players will be interested in joining us even if we could afford them, but if there's someone really good it might be worth doing to at least help keep us up this season. Another thing that I didn't notice before is this: A link with the Newcastle Jets was set up just before I joined. It looks good on paper but I don't actually have the Australian leagues loaded, so they don't actually have any players. I'm not fussed enough to actually load the Australian league so I'll leave it for now and see if we get any players through at some point. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Button Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Following this. Get those facepacks/logos sorted! Might not matter much in China tbf. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 I'm hoping that this will help get them to approve upgrades to facilities, junior coaching etc in the short and long term future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoxToBox Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Good luck, I can't imagine picking a team with no youth recruitment, hopefully they'll kick that on for you soon enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slipky Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Good luck! Gonna follow this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggiana Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Any chance of Lampard getting a job managing in China? Looking forwards to this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wavelberry Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 4 hours ago, BillHoudini24 said: Following for the third time! The Harts kinda remind me of the Skywalker saga. That Hart is our last hope... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 The transfer window was fairly uneventful for the big Chinese clubs, with most of the bigger money going on Chinese players. Andre Villas-Boas ditched Shanggang Shanghai as he "wanted to leave", so they're now managed by Felix Magath. We spent £235K in total. The * indicates who will be regular starters, this is more for me so I don't forget when i'm picking the team. The bigger fees came for younger prospect players who are just about good enough to start for us now, who have the potential to develop into much better players. The most expensive of these was right winger Wang Dongsheng, who is 20 and joined from Hangzhou. Fan Jinming also joins from Hangzhou, he'll be our first choice keeper at the age of just 21, I'm hoping he can improve a lot too. Xu Haofeng is a young defender who we also spent reasonably decent dollar on, like the others his determination stat is a bit of a concern but I'm hoping a bit of tutoring can sort him out. Yang Lei is a decent versatile midfielder who I'm hoping can do a good job in the middle this season. Yang Wenji is another CB signed to bolster our defence. Diego is a 28 year old Brazilian midfielder who played for Meizhou before they went down last season. He was the only foreign player interested in a move to us and I couldn't say no to him as he's better than anyone else we have and cost just £2.4K (plus the 100 percent tax on foreign players). The rest of the players I signed were youngsters for nothing or not that much money. A lot of them have low determination but I'm hoping some of them can kick on in the reserves this season and be viable options for us in the next few seasons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wavelberry Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Sales of cheese in Shanghai about to go through the roof. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 A very good win against South Korea, but ultimately not the best East Asian Cup for Lippi and co. Rock bottom again. China have now dropped to 96th in the world, sandwiched inbetween Turkmenistan and Antigua and Barbuda... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgeeD Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 It will give commentators plenty to tangle their tongues over when Renren win the league Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 March Just two games in the first month of the season, with two very different performances. We got completely outclassed against Renhe, who happens to be the team that Jelavic plays for, he was the best player on the pitch by a mile and ended up with 2 goals and 3 assists. At one point it was 4-2 which didn't seem thaaat bad, but then we shipped another 2 late on. Rongda are a lower mid-table side and after the awful first result I thought a draw against them would be a smashing result, so to beat them 3-0 in a really comfortable fashion was really promising. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 10, 2017 Author Share Posted November 10, 2017 April The FA Cup is a bit of a cluster-**** as you have to have at least 5 U23 Chinese players on the pitch at all times. Despite that, we beat 3rd tier Tiehan to get our first away win of the season. We've got a home draw in the next round, but it's against Liaoning who are currently 3rd in the Super League. Not looking forward to that game Our shocking away form continues, but we pulled off a fantastic comeback victory to get all 3 points at home to Yiteng. The main positives are that Tianjin and Wuhan both look like strong sides, so maybe we shouldn't take thaaat much from losing to them in the manner we did. We also have quite a few injuries to various players at the moment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim owen Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 good luck, happy to follow again Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Heath Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 decent start, looking forward to following your progress again Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted November 10, 2017 Share Posted November 10, 2017 Nice to see you back. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitner Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 Will follow with interest Cheers, Bitner Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdanbartlett Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 Wahoo!! Will v much be following this, loved the last thread. Be good if you can avoid a relegation scrap then build on that. Keep an eye out for out of contract players as you might be able to pick up a few foreigners if they have been without a club for a while, a good spin of say a CB, CM and CF of decent quality would help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjg11 Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 Definitely gonna be following this... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayR2003 Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 Count me in for Part 3! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 13, 2017 Author Share Posted November 13, 2017 May A decent month saw us only lose 1-0 to a very good Liaoning side, which was good because I thought we'd get smashed 4/5-0. We picked up our first away league win of the season thanks to 2 very late goals from Han Jiabao, we also got an away point at Chaoyue with Jiabao on the score-sheet again. We lost to Shenxin, but got a point at Qingdao. When we look at where Qingdao are in the table though, we probably could've done with beating them at home. It's really tight. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjaferrie Posted November 13, 2017 Share Posted November 13, 2017 Loved your FM17 thread PH71, hopefully Matt ends up with a Chinese son to continue the dynasty. I mean legacy. I mean.. eh... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted November 14, 2017 Share Posted November 14, 2017 On 10/11/2017 at 16:40, PaulHartman71 said: China have now dropped to 96th in the world, sandwiched inbetween Turkmenistan and Antigua and Barbuda... Well, I hear Turkmenistan have quite a good youth set-up Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 14, 2017 Author Share Posted November 14, 2017 Ooh just seen Guangzhou have splashed out £32M (potentially 64M after the 100 percent tax) on Victor Wanyama. Maybe he can get them back to winning ways! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 15, 2017 Author Share Posted November 15, 2017 June A bit of a switch-around this month as we won both of our away games but lost all the home games. Han Jiabao had a very good month. We're at the halfway stage now and I'm reasonably confident that we will stay up. I think we have too much quality not too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 15, 2017 Author Share Posted November 15, 2017 July A solid month, with 2 wins, 1 draw and a loss. Would take something catastrophically bad for us to go down now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdanbartlett Posted November 15, 2017 Share Posted November 15, 2017 Really solid season. - How is the scouting going? Found any potential signings? - How are the finances? - Doing your coaching badges? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 The scouting is going okay, pretty limited at the moment though as we have such a limited scouting budget. The good news is that we have £5M in the bank. The board aren't yet letting me do any coaching badges though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 Just came from 1-0 down to beat Beikong 3-1 in the league. There opening goal scorer was none other than Viktor Anichebe Seems an interesting strategy to combat the 100 percent foreigner tax is for Chinese clubs to sign foreign players on free transfers. Something I'll certainly have to look into, but at the moment we can only scout in China so wouldn't be able to do that anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdanbartlett Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 23 minutes ago, PaulHartman71 said: Just came from 1-0 down to beat Beikong 3-1 in the league. There opening goal scorer was none other than Viktor Anichebe Seems an interesting strategy to combat the 100 percent foreigner tax is for Chinese clubs to sign foreign players on free transfers. Something I'll certainly have to look into, but at the moment we can only scout in China so wouldn't be able to do that anyway. On August 1st just go to Premier League/Championship > transfers > released players, then see if anyone is interested, might be slow going but you might bag a gem. Don't rule out the SPL too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 August 3 wins from 4 this month, which is cracking stuff. It would be pretty cool if we finish closer to going up than down Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 September 2 wins and 3 losses this month, as we come closer to the end of the campaign. We still sit in a respectable mid-table position Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 October We lost in the away Shenzhen derby game, but beat Hangzhou to end the season on a win. 8th place in the end without any real relegation worries, which makes for a good first season in my eyes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoxToBox Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 Cracking start, no doubt! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 16, 2017 Author Share Posted November 16, 2017 I can't actually scout him but this guy's agent has popped up trying to get me to sign him. 46 YEARS OLD FFS Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 17, 2017 Author Share Posted November 17, 2017 Season 1 I'm very pleased with how the season went. I expected a relegation fight and thankfully we managed to avoid that completely. We did reasonably well in the cup and didn't get humiliated in a game against a top Super League side, so my debut season has to go down as a win for me. Squad The squad is pretty decent for a relegation battling side at this level, but it will need improving if we're to push up the league and go for promotion. Thankfully we have the money at the club to do this, as we have £5M in the bank, so they will likely give me another £1M+ budget with plenty of room for wages. I'll give a brief overview of where we are in each position: GK I signed young keeper Fan Jinming at the start of the season, the keeper I already had was slightly better but this guy has much higher potential according to my staff. To be honest he hasn't really shown a great level of improvement this season and I think rather than wait I'd rather sign someone better, as that will improve our promotion credentials next season. DF We have a couple of decent CBs in the 19 year old Xu Haofeng and 25 year old Yang Wenji. I'll look to sign another better one in the window and keep Xu Haofeng as 3rd choice. Both of the full back positions are an issue as we've been playing players there who aren't natural full backs, they did a decent enough job for the first season, but I'll be looking to get better and natural full backs to replace them in the window. MF Wang Dongsheng was signed in the summer to play on the right wing and unlike the keeper, he's actually kicked on quite a bit and has shown real signs of improvement. He'll keep his spot in the team next year for sure and I hope he gets better and better. Ma Xiaolei was on the other side having already been at the club, he's alright, but I'll improve in the summer if I can. Yang Lei is our DM at present, he's okay, but again, somewhere we can improve in the window. Diego is our only foreign player and plays at CM, he's probably our best player on paper, he's been kicking off about wanting to leave though and there's a few Polish clubs that have been interested in him. If he doesn't sign a contract extension I will most likely sell him. ST Han Jiabao was our best player by a mile, he's a great target man and ended the season with 23 goals in 28 games. Brown Ideye was the only player to score more goals than him in the entire league. He's one to hang onto for sure. His partner, Yang Zi, is okay, but he ended the season with just 6 goals in 22 games. I'll be looking to get someone better in for sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Season Division Position Achievements ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2018 Chinese 1st Division 8th N/A ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 17, 2017 Author Share Posted November 17, 2017 Chinese NT Overview Marcelo Lippi has actually got the national team playing pretty well at the minute, they might have all been friendlies, but China have 4 wins from 4 in 2018 so far: The qualifiers for the East Asian Cup take place soon and given the group you would expect China to qualify: The Asian Cup proper will take place next year. I can't yet view the top Chinese players' stats as they're all in the top division. A disappointing development has been Zhang Yuning, who is probably the best player and the only player abroad. Since he signed for West Brom in 2017 he's spent the entire time on loan at Werder Bremen. Despite netting 9 in 15 games for the national team in that time-frame, since the start of the save, he's been given just 3 league games, all for Bremen's B team, where he scored 2. Not sure why they didn't play him anymore, but his contract really can't expire soon enough as he's wasting away. His loan contract expires in June of 2019, with his West Brom contract ending in 2020. Hopefully a Chinese club picks him up in 2019. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 17, 2017 Author Share Posted November 17, 2017 Good stuff. They were very happy with how things went this season so I took full advantage of that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulHartman71 Posted November 17, 2017 Author Share Posted November 17, 2017 Lippi has left the Chinese NT job in order to take over Iran. I'll be following closely to see who takes over, obviously I'm nowhere near being in contention for the job at this point. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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