[FM19] Barcelona'ing through the lower leagues III: Making love to footballs

[noikeee]

Tokatspor - December 2019

Another good month, 2 wins out of 3 is solid as we move further into midtable. 10th now, 6 points above the relegation zone and 9 below the promotion playoff spots.

 

[noikeee]

Tokatspor - January 2020 and Half-Season Review

I say goodbye to Tokat as a job offer has been taken, with 2 friendly wins, a particularly fun one over Superlig side Ankaragaçu to finish off.

 

Best 11 and Stats

 

 

Best 5 players

DM - Emre Keskin
 
Did spectacularly well once I turned him into a Volante, highest ratings out of the regulars by a mile.

AMC - Azad Filiz
 
I'm surprised he held down a place in the first team, given I had hired both Mert Caymaz and Ali Helvaci to replace him. However Mert was unconvincing and always injured and Ali was unregistered until now! In their absence Azad remained strong just like last year.

AML - Noyan Öz
 
His return from injury coincided with the switch in tactics and he did good scoring 4 goals.

ST - Berat Tosun
 
Another player that scored 4 goals was our IF/forward Berat Tosun. He was absolutely awful as IF on the previous tactic, but now on this setup I've had him leading the front line and he was slowly turning pretty good.

DL - Kaan Kadiz Özdemir
 
This loanee fullback was class, surprised me a bit that he beat the previously unrivalled Anil Sahin to the place quite comfortably.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfa, Turkey, 14th of January 2020

Time for a little road trip across Turkey.

 

The club

I'm pretty delighted to be the new manager of Şanlıurfaspor.

 

 

Again there's not a huge amount of info about this club, what I know is they were founded in 1969, have recently spent a few seasons in the league above, have a spectacularly large stadium with capacity for 28695 people (!), and are in financial trouble after getting relegated last year.

The squad

It's not perfect as I find the defenders and strikers to be slow (and having a quick striker is really key to my new system so that's priority #1 to sign now), but the level of player I'm dealing with here is WAY above what I had at Tokatspor, seriously.

The stars
 

 
One of two most excellent right-footed wingers, he's injured right now though.

 
The other excellent winger. His contract is running out and he wants to move to a bigger club.

 
Brilliant attacking right-back.
 

The finances

This is very bad and the clear downside of this club. We're way above wage budget. 

The goals for this season

I'm being asked for a top half finish, currently the club is in 8th in the division I was in (2 places above Tokatspor), so all I have to do is maintain position minimum, this seems fairly easy tbh. We're 5 points below the promotion playoff spots, what I really want is to find a way to get there.

[PT-KK]

Good luck on this next adventure.

Hopefully the tactic you created fits the squad you have now (not counting the striker) and you don't have to go to the drawing board again!

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

6 hours ago, noikeee said:

Şanlıurfaspor

 

[noikeee]

20 minutos atrás, PT-KK disse:

Good luck on this next adventure.

Hopefully the tactic you created fits the squad you have now (not counting the striker) and you don't have to go to the drawing board again!

Thanks. 

That's what I'm scared of, the first friendly didn't go well and now I'm wondering if I've moved to a team that doesn't fit the system, and have shot myself on the foot with this move. But it's very early days yet and in theory those two wingers and the FB are just perfect for what I want, and a big update from what I had in Tokat.

[noikeee]

1 minuto atrás, Fer Fuchs Ake disse:

 

It was a bloody adventure last night to figure out how to write those two special characters (the S-cedilla and the lower case undotted I). 

The good news is I can just copy paste it everywhere cause I still don't know how to write it. Alt-codes aren't working on my keyboard, they go to other characters. 

[rodesire]

Looks like a decent step-up.  The big contracts are mostly expiring at the end of the season, so you should be able to steady the ship before too long.

[noikeee]

1 minuto atrás, rodesire disse:

Looks like a decent step-up.  The big contracts are mostly expiring at the end of the season, so you should be able to steady the ship before too long.

Plus my experience from previous FMs is when things get really tough, money magically grows out of trees. 

3 million in debt? No problem here's "investments" (aka gifts) from the board. 

I think that's because of legal reasons of not being able to let clubs go bankrupt in the game, or something. Bit of a cop-out though.

[noikeee]

For future reference for myself, these are the player stats at the time I take over, so I can work out later how they performed under me the rest of the season (how many goals etc).

[Rikulec]

4 hours ago, noikeee said:

It was a bloody adventure last night to figure out how to write those two special characters (the S-cedilla and the lower case undotted I). 

The good news is I can just copy paste it everywhere cause I still don't know how to write it. Alt-codes aren't working on my keyboard, they go to other characters. 

Back when I had saves in Scandinavia I just looked up the alphabet of the given country on Wikipedia and copied from there.

[noikeee]

We win on my first match in charge, but we lose our star RB in the middle of what was already an injury crisis.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - January 2020

 

Just one signing on loan, as we're way above wage budget, or any budget on anything.
 

 
... and I suspect we absolutely nailed this signing. In the 2 matches he's played since, he's already scored once, assisted once, and made a defence-splitting pass that then later led to a goal. Perfect fit for the DLP/S role.

This is a pretty good start, 2 wins, 1 draw against the team in 2nd place, I'm happy with how the team is playing and the results so far, specially given we've been missing some important players due to injuries. We move just 2 points outside the promotion playoffs.

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - February 2020

A really boring month with three 0-0s. We were lucky to get away with that against Bandirmaspor as we were down to 10 and really outplayed; and against my former team Tokatspor, they just parked the bus and there was nothing we could seemingly do.

This was still 6 points from this month, and thanks to the teams ahead of us not being on great form neither, we're now actually closer to the playoffs, level on points with Bucaspor for the final spot in 5th. We have 10 matches ahead of us now to overtake them.

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Youth intake 2020

 

Awful. I'm hiring the guys with good personality and getting rid of the others, due to how bad the club finances are (every cent saved on wages counts...).

[noikeee]

[noikeee]

Oh great.

It's not like we needed investments, being only 2M€ in debt plus with a -630K€ bank balance.

[abulezz]

When my club starts doing well defensively, I know I have things figured out.  That Intake was ouch!

[turnip]

36 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Oh great.

It's not like we needed investments, being only 2M€ in debt plus with a -630K€ bank balance.

Meet the new boss, as apathetic as the last boss

[noikeee]

1 hora atrás, abulezz disse:

When my club starts doing well defensively, I know I have things figured out.  That Intake was ouch!

We're certainly doing great defensively, I think it's a factor of the defensive settings I've been using lately (have now completely abandoned any idea of gegenpressing  ), but also the higher ability and higher standing of this club which makes opponents fear us and attack us less.

43 minutos atrás, turnip disse:

Meet the new boss, as apathetic as the last boss

I've no idea what he told the fans to be elected! "Hey guys vote for me, I'm poor and have no power to help the club's financial situation but am gonna be a good chairman, trust me".

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - March 2020

 

2 more wins, 2-0 1-0, everything going swimmingly.... then I decide to change the tactic. Wait, what?

I'm just not finding this deep 4-2-3-1 very exciting, so I decided to go take some elements from the old tactic and fuse it with the new tactic. Why not? It's only a promotion campaign that could go off the rails.

The results since have been... binary. 0-0 1-0 0-1. I am VERY pissed off about the conceded goal because it ended a run of 8 consecutive clean sheets, and also because it was from this position on the pitch:

 

Crazy. We take a slight tumble on the fight for 5th place and are now 3 points off. We have now 5 matches to go get it, despite my self-inflicted injury of now playing in a completely different way, from the way that was working.

 

 

And this is how the tactic now looks:

 

But I'm crazy so am already wondering about another alternative:

 

Whether I use one or two wingbacks depends on how the opposition comes at us... I've found keeping one FB back is key to stability if they have anything more than 1 isolated lone striker. However I need more men upfront, this low scoring game is so boring! At the moment I feel my career is a choice of, 

a) play possession
b) score goals
c) win football matches

... pick two.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - April/May 2020

Uhhhhh... guess what the new tactic was a bad idea and I threw any chances of promotion. We ended up 8th after losing at home to the champions in the final round.

I already played this a few days ago but was so pissed off I didn't feel like posting!

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Squad review 2019/2020

Best 11

 

GK - Asil Kaan Güler
 
A keeper.

DR - Cebrail Karayel
 
A great attacking rightback. Just broke his ankle. Potentially 6 months out.

DC - Samet Akaydin
 
A CB that's pretty damn good. But his contract is running out.

DC - Alper Tatlisu

The other CB, who is worse. And is on loan. 

DL - Mete Çelik
 
A fairly mediocre left-back.

DM - Samed Karakoç
 
One of the stars of this side, can play DM MC AM pretty great. On loan from Fenerbahçe.

DM - Mustafa Inan
 
My only signing, also on loan, he was pretty good.

AMR - Feridun Kiroglu
 
Most assists in the side, though given I arrived midseason I'm a bit confused who did what whilst I was here. Sadly one of those good players that's probably going to leave as the contract is running out.

AMC - Sercan Kaya
 
A very versatile quality veteran, but aged 32 and paid pretty handsomely perhaps it's for the best the contract runs out.

AML - Benhur Keser
 
The one good player whose contract isn't running out. However, I wanted goals, and where were them?!

ST - Mehmet Albayrak
 
It's a shame now at the age of 33 his pace is evaporating, because he's pretty good. Only guy in the team that scores any decent amount of goals, total 11 this season (but I think he had most of those before I arrived).
 

Rest of the squad and 3 hottest prospects

"3 hottest prospects"?! Not gonna bother taking a screenie of anyone here really, there's none.

Career progress table

 
 

[noikeee]

Right now we got the formalities out of the way about that dismal end of the season, time for something exciting. I've been building this tactic in yet another alternate save and **** it maybe tactic number 375 will save the excitement of this career. Surely if I try enough times one day I'll get it right?

 

It's a bit bonkers. Bonkers is good.

I'm also thinking of maybe removing a league or two, this is slow right now and the off season is so ****ing long. Sorry Colombian league.  

[noikeee]

Lmao I simply cannot renew contracts with almost anyone. I think I got the keeper and leftback, and one of the loanees that I could renew his loan, everyone else will leave on frees as we can't pay them.

Remind me again why I moved to this club, oh yeah the chance we could go up and get saved from this fate of losing all the talents in the squad. A chance I decided to squander on a tactical experiment. 

[noikeee]

Wait the new wage budget is higher. Maybe I can still convince some of the lads to stay, once they forget the "unacceptable" contract offers I just made them all (I could only offer half their current wages basically!)

[noikeee]

I've had a change of heart, it's Belarus that's going caput plus Holland tier 2 and the unplayable Romania tier 3. I wanna keep the option of getting some Colombian sugar.

I need a better computer goddamnit, this laptop was great back in 2014 or whenever it was, but by now it's not good enough for keeping options open for journeyman saves.  

[noikeee]

It happened again.

[noikeee]

RIP Sercan's career.

[noikeee]

Oh ****.

I really can't **** up this season now.  

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Pre-season 2020/2021

 

A healthy bunch of new faces, I have not screenshotted center-back Alper Tatlisu who was here last season and we now hired permanently.
 

 
Tatlisu might have to be on the bench as this teenager CB on loan from Adana D.S. has impressive pace and should start instead.
 

 
A pretty brilliant winger on loan from Fenerbahçe, he has excelled in pre-season.
 

 
One of two very exciting young forwards on loan who should make up our attacking duo.
 

 
New backup keeper.
 

 
Hired to be the new mezzala, became an even more important signing once Sercan Kaya got badly injured (Sercan was going to fight for the mezzala position with him).

 
Backup right winger, Mahsun Çapkan should be ahead of him.
 

 
With our quality starting RB injured for a while, it was important to pick up a strong alternative and this lad on loan from Konyaspor might be even better than him.
 

 
Hired just to add depth upfront, as of now I'm expecting him to be 4th in the pecking order for forwards.
 

 
Backup LB, he's pretty impressive going forward though so despite low ratings from my staff he might be in contention for a spot, specially given the LB as of the current plan is a WB/A role.
 

 
Another loanee, he's the first option for segundo volante role, and destroyed the pitch in that role in pre-season with 5 goals in 2 appearances.
 

 
My favourite signing of all, this striker on loan from big bad Besiktas is pretty brilliant. Rated by my staff best player in the squad now.
 

 
Sercan Kaya's injury led to me hiring this guy to add depth for the mezzala position, should be a backup.

 

As you can see I've invested massively in loans this season, with the expected starting 11 featuring 7 loanees. This has made for a pretty exciting looking squad, I feel I've got the talent to make my new quirky formation work - indeed the media prediction of 1st place for us, I believe is based on the ability of all the players that have joined us.
 

I always do well in pre-season then it doesn't translate to the regular fixtures, however *knocks on wood* this pre-season felt special, we were just blitzing everyone. I've got a very good feeling about the new season, hope I'm not wrong.

[noikeee]

13 minutos atrás, noikeee disse:

My favourite signing of all, this striker on loan from big bad Besiktas is pretty brilliant. Rated by my staff best player in the squad now.

Scores 2 from open play playing as false nine on his debut. 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - August/September 2020

On the transfers front we loaned out young striker Gökhan Yilmaz to Etimesgut Bld.

At last we're playing some ****ing football! It's a strong start as we go into October undefeated, we have pretty much dominated all matches (except for maybe the Nazilli Bld. game) and created a healthy amount of chances all the time. We look a bit iffy at the back but the final third has been covering it pretty well, and with the win over Tuzlaspor we climb to 1st place.

On the cup it was a pretty notable match as we met Mersin IY who were in the top tier 3 years ago and now are in the unplayable 3.Lig!! 3 relegations in 3 years! We beat them pretty easily but will now have to play a team that just reached the top tier right now, they're Boluspor.

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - October 2020

Well this is a fair bit of a contrast to the previous seasons!! So far it's been pretty much straightforward to dominate this division, and we've opened up already a gap at the top. And the way we're playing is pretty enjoyable! A bit more reliable on crosses than I was planning for a "Barcelona"-like career, but we camp all match on the opposition half (picking up plenty of possession - we're 2nd in the possession charts in the league with 60% average), and then just hurt them from all sorts of different angles.

Like the fans are saying,

 

"4-2-2-2 DM Asymmetric ST (CL)" doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but yes. All hail the 4-2-2-2 DM Asymmetric ST (CL)!

Meanwhile on the cup we hosted top tier side Boluspor. We held them off pretty well for 120 minutes and took them all the way to penalties... only to miss all our 3 spot kicks. Gutting, but that was a great performance.

 

[noikeee]

Sad, but it's for the best.

I'm NOT touching the "reconsider retirement" button. It's 4.5K€/month we're gonna be saving. Sorry Sercan, I need to be ruthless like that, it's a business we're running here.

[deltablue]

Excellent so far this season. 

[noikeee]

1 hora atrás, deltablue disse:

Excellent so far this season. 

Cheers man!

Have you noticed the new tactic, you're one of the pioneers of the "single winger" approach so I thought you'd like it.  

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - November 2020

 

 

A less spectacular month, as we scored less goals and drew twice, but we remain unbeaten and increased our advantage at the top to 10 points.  We look clear favourites for automatic promotion already, but there's still over half the season to go.

Meanwhile, as I can't stop fiddling, I'm wondering how can I increase the number of goals from our forwards without ruining the whole thing. I like the results and am almost satisfied with the style of play, but lately we've been scoring mostly through the midfielders which is a bit odd for having 2 up top. No wonder my mezzala is scoring so many, I've figured out he has almost twice as many total shot attempts as the strikers!! My idea is to be a little more direct, I'm experimenting with taking off "play out of defence" - this way perhaps there's the odd direct ball for the pacey AF/A to run into.

 

 

[noikeee]

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - December 2020

A 2-2 draw in which we conceded, infuriatingly, in minute 95; and a narrow 1-0 win in which we had 20 corners (!!!).

We go into the mid-season break with a comfortable 8 point lead at the top.

 

[noikeee]

Damnit, he was having a brilliant season at mezzala.

[noikeee]

Setting new records as we continue the run.

[noikeee]

Well this is interesting...

... because he's our BACKUP center back. He's good though.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - January 2021

 

On the transfers front there was a couple of changes, we sold 3 backup centrebacks (!) including the involuntary exit of Alper Tatlisu sold by the board, I decided it was a good deal and he was just a backup so didn't protest the transfer. However this led to us lacking CBs now so I loaned a guy at the last minute. I also picked up a new mezzala because of Mehmet Tosun's injury.
 

 
The new mezzala, he looks good and will have to do for the rest of the season.

 
A better CB that I was expecting as this was a rushed deal just to get some sort of CB, I actually think he might be better as BPD than the guys we already have, but I don't want to disrupt a decent partnership.

 

 

Well finally the unbeaten run is over, and it could hardly have been any worse, as we lose to the teams in 2nd and 3rd place, completely slashing our lead from 8 points to just 2.

I have made some tactical changes to try to get more out of our strikers, and whilst they're now scoring more, this has made us more direct therefore having less of the ball, therefore the opposition is having more ball to create a few more chances for themselves, as seen by the fact we conceded in every single match this month. It's a tricky balance to get right as I prefer to play like this, and there is also an alternate explanation for the 2 defeats and the difficulties, and that's the pretty big injury crisis we're in, together with massive fixture congestion. For now I'm sticking to the altered tactical settings, but if I see the season continues to go off the rails and our promotion is at risk, I will go back to the previous setup.

 

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Youth intake 2021

 

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - February 2021

 

 

 
 

Welllllll that defeat to Bucaspor was a bit inconvenient as we lost 1st place. And then we drew at home to a very beatable side.

I reached the obvious conclusion that the latest tactical changes were just me shooting myself in the foot, and rewinded some of them back. SOME of them - I'm stubborn and still want to get more goals from our strikers. We then won two matches in a row, vindicating this approach, but we're still 3 points off the top now. May I remind everyone at some stage earlier this season we were 10 points clear? Yeah. In that perspective it's been an amazing comeback from our opponents Nazilli Bld. to overtake us, though! They're on a run of 12 consecutive wins!

 

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - March 2021

 

 

Properly back on form with all wins!! It's a breeze of a month as we return to our best and put pressure on our competitors. Now, did this get us 1st place back.....

 

 

... nope. Nazilli Bld did drew the last match so their lead was cut from 3 to 1 point, but they still stubbornly cling on to 1st place. I could attempt to make a joke about the first 4 letters of their name, but that would be mean to them and in poor taste so I won't.

Meanwhile I've had a suspicion we're exploiting corners a wee bit too much (we get absolute **** tons of them every match), and, well...

Uh, maybe a tiny little bit? 

5 matches to go. 1 point between the two of us. The fight is on for the title and promotion big time.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Promotion fight! - round 30 of 34

 

We do our part with a convincing 3-0 win over Pendikspor. Now, what about our opponents...
 

Damn. Still hanging on to that lead.
 

 

I'm now wondering whether is there even anything we can do. On the form they're in they're unbeatable. 16 wins and 1 draw in the last 17 matches!!!

 

[noikeee]

The fixtures until the end of the season. I think they have it slightly harder than us, so there's a little chance they could drop points. Bucaspor are mathematically in this but realistically shouldn't feature.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Promotion fight! - round 31 of 34

 

We have a relatively easy match against relegation-threatened Elazigspor, but away from home. Our title rivals have a similar fixture away to Tarsus IY who are 14th.
 

Another easy win. Two crosses from our talented winger Mertcan Çam sealed it, segundo volante Mehmet Özcan and forward Güven Yalçin on the end of it. However...
 

... I was following the result of the other match and knew our rivals were comfortably controlling it as well.
 

It's the same situation heading into the final 3 matches with 1 point separating the two teams, although Bucaspor are now officially out of it.