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

[noikeee]

Ohhh this is an interesting one! Been a very long time since I last managed in Portugal, and Covilhã are a club with a bit of history having played on the top level back in the 80s. However they're on the 3rd tier just like the club I'm at now (even if they only missed the promotion playoff by a few points - they finished 4th). I think it'd be a bad move for my career if I get promoted here in Turkey to the 2nd tier, to move to a 3rd tier. But if I *don't* get promoted here in Turkey, changing leagues could be pretty refreshing, I'm a bit sick of this division by now..

I'll take the job interview and think about it later.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Promotion fight! - round 32 of 34

Perhaps the best chance here for Nazilli to lose points - away to 7th place Tuzlaspor. We're at home to midtable Kahramanmarasspor, however without our ever-present (up until here) DLP Mustafa Ilan who picked up an injury.
 

We again dominated this match, but gave away a silly penalty and had to recover from it. Ultimately two indirect, side freekicks sealed it for us.
 

We were keeping an eye on the Nazilli match and...

Yes!! At last! Nazilli opened up a lead twice, but eventually Tuzlaspor turned it around and smashed them! Their run came to a very abrupt end!
 

We're back to the top and the league is ours to lose now. 

[kidthekid]

Oooh, great season so far, hope you can pull through here.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Promotion fight! - round 33 of 34

We might be back to 1st place but there's a pretty damn tricky fixture here for us, away to Menemen Bld, currently 5th and already qualified for the playoffs. Nazilli face an even more competitive side, Karabükspor who are 3rd, but they play at home.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo. We had the game well controlled here! It was far more even than previous matches, but we had a 2 goal lead damnit. We conceded the equalizer in something I've never seen - on a counter from our own attacking corner, our set pieces are designed exactly for this not to happen.

We can't afford to drop any points as our head-to-head record with Nazilli is negative... now all they need to do is to win their 2 matches and they're champions. They play later than us this time:

... but they shockingly lose at home!!! It was always a tricky fixture, but I didn't expect them to hand this over to us!! Two early goals undid them, the scenes! Does anyone want to win this league?

We need a point from the final match at home to Kirklarelispor to become champions and get promoted, regardless of what Nazilli does. We can do it, come on!

[noikeee]

20 minutos atrás, kidthekid disse:

Oooh, great season so far hope you can pull through here.

So close now!

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Promotion fight! - round 34 of 34 - Final day

Welcome to the final day of the TFF 2.Lig Kirmizi Grup. We will be following Şanlıurfaspor v Kirklarelispor, whilst also keeping an eye on Bandirmaspor v Nazilli Bld. A point for us seals the title and promotion....
 

 

We line up on our wacky formation as ever, on a near-full-strenght 11 but not quite, missing DLP Mustafa Inan (only just returning from injury) and right-back Savas Polat, who broke a toe in the previous fixture. We're also hindered by a slightly botched team meeting ahead of this! Apparently my players wanted a little more cuddling and reassurance prior to this match...
 

Minute 11: Our left-back Mete Çelik sees a yellow card. Not great, he's always at risk as an attacking fullback with no winger to help him.

 

Minute 15: Another yellow card, to segundo volante Mehmet Özcan... time to instruct "stay on feet", I don't want to risk red cards....

 

Minute 20: Our opponent's fullback Caner Bulut is replaced due to a foot injury.


 

Minute 21: GOAL FOR SANLIURFASPOR!! 1-0!! A corner from the right is met by the head of Güven Yalçin, who controls it down for the successful finish of Mehmet Tosun! It still hits a defender that was on the far post, but to no avail. We're closer to the title now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minute 40: It's another corner for us and SAMET AKAYDIN HITS THE BAR!! The ball is then saved by their keeper.

 

 

 

Half time: We look well in control and on course for the title, specially with Nazilli drawing 0-0 as it stands (I've had no news from their match). However, things could still change...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minute 63: GOAL FOR SANLIURFASPOR!! 2-0!! A patient buildup in midfield suddenly releases leftback Mucahit Albayrak (who had replaced Mete Çelik a little earlier) and he puts in a low cross for winger Mahsun Çapkan to easily tap in!! We can feel the taste of title champagne already!

 














 

Minute 80: GOAL FOR SANLIURFASPOR!! 3-0!! Again! It's pretty much the same goal! Mucahit finds himself now a little wider and puts in a longer cross for Mahsun Çapkan to finish again! This is surely all over!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full time: IT'S ALL OVER! SANLIURFASPOR ARE CHAMPIONS AND PROMOTED!!

 

 

 

 
 

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Nice one man! 

[Minuy600]

Woo, congrats! 

So what's next?

[Rikulec]

Well done.

[noikeee]

1 hora atrás, Fer Fuchs Ake disse:

Nice one man! 

 

1 hora atrás, Rikulec disse:

Well done.

 

1 hora atrás, Minuy600 disse:

Woo, congrats! 

So what's next?

Cheers!

Unless a better job offer comes up I'm managing this team in the next division, however I'm not really thinking of staying in Turkey for the long term, I'm planning to take the next good opportunity wherever that is.

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - April/May 2021

 

A quick summary of the last few posts. We largely did our part, however a 2-2 draw with Menemen Bld. could've thrown it all away. It didn't as our opponents Nazilli Bld. melted under the pressure, and we confirmed the title and promotion in the final match.

 

 

[noikeee]

Şanlıurfaspor - Squad review 2020/2021

Tactics

 

  

 

This is what the tactic ended up looking like at the end of the season after the tweaks to try to get the best out of the strikers, it's pretty goddamn effective, and the front duo started scoring a hell of a lot, a little counter-intuitively, after I turned off "focus down left and right flank". Specially scoring more from crosses. Eh? Essentially with our "extremely wide" width there is always easy passes to the wings, so with those TIs we would always build up play through there from the beginning. Now the dynamics are different. We play more direct balls to the front duo, and when we don't play direct to them we do the earlier stages of build up more through the middle, releasing the WB/A and the WM/A later on... when they'll put in extremely dangerous crosses by the byline.

Full list of PIs:

every player bar the STs - shoot less often
+
DL - stay wider
DR - cross more often
DLP - more direct passes
SV - take more risks
WM - stay wider, cross more often
F9 - roam from position
AF - stay wider

The end result is... quite frankly something more out of Moyesball than "Barcelona-ing":

 

I would like to see a bigger variance of goals and not so many through crosses and corners, but have struggled in this match engine to do anything of that kind effectively.

Stats and best 11

 

GK - Asil Kaan Güler
 
A good season from our keeper, he's fairly average and I'm not so sure he's who's helping us get a good defensive record, but has been okay so far.

DR - Savas Polat
 
Given a slightly odd position in the tactic as play seems to bypass him so I decided to keep the RB as a cagey FB/D instead of another attacker (earlier I had this position as WB/S), the Konyaspor loanee beat the more celebrated Cabrail Karayel to the position as I trust him more defensively.

DC - Onur Berber
 
The youngest player in our starting 11, he formed a pretty great duo of CBs, and scored 6 goals in set pieces, one of our strenghts.

DC - Samet Akaydin
 
The other CB was one of the standouts of the season, likely due to his attacking abilities on set pieces as he got a pretty crazy 4 goals and 6 assists(!). In my corner kicks I often see players heading it down to assist others and he did that a lot.

DL - Mete Çelik
 
Wow, a dream season. In our tactic the LB is a big attacking outlet, and despite this player being in theory one of the weakest in the starting 11, he just went on an assists rampage totalling 13 of them.

DM - Mustafa Inan
 
An unsung hero, sitting in front of defence pinging passes around is unspectacular but he is quality at it.

DM - Mehmet Özcan
 
I expected crazy things once he scored 5 goals in the first 2 friendlies (!) as segundo volante, but he'd score "just" another 5 throughout the season - I think my tactical changes to get more goals out of the strikers by consequence got less from the SV and the mezzala and therefore this hurt these two players. Nevertheless a very strong year from him.

MR - Mahsun Çapkan 

One of the most talented players in the squad, he was pretty subdued the first half of the season (I think he had 0 goals and 1 assist by midseason), but the tactical changes made him absolutely explode. Suddenly he started pinging around loads of assists (crosses - becoming the equivalent attacking outlet to the LB on the other wing) and also a few goals, finishing the season on 5G, 11A.

MC - Mehmet Tosun
 
Much like the SV, Tosun as mezzala was one of the players to be negatively affected by the tactical changes as the goals stopped coming from him but rather the strikers. However there was also the tiny detail of having stopped for 3 months due to injury! I will remember the quality first half of the season, and he ended the year on 6 goals 3 assists.

ST - Güven Yalçin
 
One half of a duo of talented young loanee strikers, that didn't quite excel the first half of the year, and got relatively mediocre ratings, but who did obtain a lot of goals the 2nd half of the season. He played as a false nine in theory but was almost like a mashup of a F9 and a target man as he headed in a lot of balls. Also helped by taking penalty kicks to become joint top scorer on 15 goals.

ST - Ílker Karakas
 
A very poor first half of the season, but the tactical changes transformed him to become a pretty ruthless goalscorer and become joint top scorer with his striker partner, also on 15.

Career progress table

 

[noikeee]

This is a team that just got relegated from the Portuguese top level. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Tondela, and it's a club on the way down, however it's also a pretty big opportunity. For example the wage budget is over twice what I will get here in Turkey. And I could do with a refreshing new destination. I'm taking the interview and hopefully I get selected (I ended up not getting offered the Covilhã job earlier as they appointed someone else).

I also got a job interview from Torreense, they got relegated from the league below. Thanks but no.

[noikeee]

Ha, the next day I got a contract offer from Sanliurfaspor, I forgot it was running out. I accepted because at this stage I'm just one of the possibilities to be Tondela's new manager - but I dunno if through accepting the contract the job offer gets put off the table?

[noikeee]

Well that's it then.

[noikeee]

Goiânia, Brazil, 30th of June 2021

Last time I posted a map was a relatively short travel of roughly 560kms throughout Turkey. This time, well...

 

We're travelling half the world!

The club

It could've been interesting to take Şanlıurfaspor for another season on the 1.Lig as we had built a bit of momentum, however I was getting quite sick of Turkey tbh, and needed a fresh challenge. After a bunch of job offers from homeland Portugal, I started to keep an eye on what came up on the job market and decided to apply for a job that also meant speaking Portuguese, just a tiny little bit further away... across the Atlantic. They took me. I am the new manager of Atlético Goianiense.

 

 

 

This is a pretty interesting side, yo-yoed wildly across the Brazilian divisions the last 2 decades, from fleeting passages at the top level from 2010-2012 and again in 2017, to languishing in the third tier earlier on in 2000-2007 and again for one bad season last year... in which they gained promotion back to the Serie B.

And I join a club that's having a pretty wonderful season considering they just got promoted! We are 8th in the table after 11 matches, just one point below a potential promotion slot to the Brazilian top level again. The only reason I got this job in the first place, is that the previous manager (Osmar Loss) was so successful he just got poached by Atlético Paranaense.

The squad

 

Unsurprisingly this is a step-up in quality from what I had to deal with in Turkey, although not a giant step-up. One thing that I really liked about this club is that they were playing on the Brazilian 4-2-2-2 box, which translates well to my formation as that's almost the exact same, just take out one midfielder and add a winger. I've decided to mirror the formation sideways as it fits this side better IMO, with the winger on the ML position rather than MR.

The stars
 

 

This is the best player in the side IMO, excellent centre-back.
 

 

I see this São Paulo loanee doing great as mezzala.
 

 

Players that can do the full wing are a delight to work with and I expect to see many of them here in Brazil. The reason I want to play a left winger (though at a push I could see him doing LB, if this was the other way around, and the LB was the one of the fullbacks told to attack)
 

 

One area I'm not super impressed about is forwards which might be a problem, this guy is rated 4* stars but doesn't really excel in anything, just a pretty complete player. Might be our F9 for now. Either-footed though. And is named "Pitbull" which is always a bonus.
 

The finances

 

This is a huge step-up from Turkey, no doubt about it. Actual cash on the bank, no transfer budget but a much bigger wage budget that has plenty of room to play with as well, this isn't the Premier League riches by any stretches, but dream-like conditions compared to Turkey.

The goals for this season

Having joined a side that's already having a brilliant season, my goal #1 is clearly not to **** this up and at least maintain the position! To stay in 8th would be good already. However I'd be lying if I wasn't keeping an eye on that very enticing top 4 position and consequential promotion to a big top division, which is just one point away from us...

I enter very unknown waters as I never managed in Brazil before (although I have some experience of South America). I've always avoided this league due to the sheer amount of matches, so it will be interesting to see what happens. There is one thing I don't like about this club which is the very weak state championship we're in (Campeonato Goiano), which isn't particularly attractive. But, conversely, it's also a good chance to win trophies and boost my reputation - this year we reached the final and only narrowly lost to Goiás. But that's something I should only concern myself with next season, for now Serie B is the only competition we're in, and are absolutely focused in.

 

[noikeee]

Another great thing about Brazil is the youth prospects, here's our most promising, some really exciting talents in here:

[noikeee]

For future reference, squad stats before my arrival:

[abulezz]

Gotta love that Youth Intake - is there anybody who is going to even see the first team?

[noikeee]

5 horas atrás, abulezz disse:

Gotta love that Youth Intake - is there anybody who is going to even see the first team?

Unlikely, but not my problem anymore. 

That was one of the worst intakes I've ever had.

[abulezz]

5 hours ago, noikeee said:

Unlikely, but not my problem anymore. 

That was one of the worst intakes I've ever had.

Back before I started the Kafra saves, I used to LOVE scouting Brazil for youth players.  Brazil and Germany seem to churn out ridiculous youth talent in FM. 

[deltablue]

Great end to your time in Turkey. 

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - July 2021

 

4 new players, 3 on loans 1 on a free:
 

 
Good rightback, I think I probably should've gone for one with higher dribbling though as RB is expected to do the full wing.
 

 
We needed quicker CBs, he's not particularly great but adds another option. 11/11 in acceleration/pace is better than some defenders I had.
 

 
One of two forwards, am expecting him to play on the F9 role. Been pretty awful so far though!
 

 
The other forward, am planning to play him as AF. Also hasn't scored yet and has now picked up a 3 to 5 weeks injury.

My first month in Brazil has certainly not gone to plan! This is all looking considerably more difficult than I expected, the only win came in a near-miraculous last 10 minutes turnaround and we've been generally outclassed. I'm unsure whether this is because

a) players are still learning the tactic, low familiarity etc
b) although the squad looked good at first glance, I've now realized it's below average for this division
c) it might well be that this playing style just doesn't suit this division in Brazil anywhere near as the division I was playing in in Turkey, I've noticed teams are far more attacking here than anything I faced even as severe underdogs with Tokatspor!

Or it might be a combination of these 3 reasons, who knows.

... and another reason is we're coming across players like Kaká and Thuram.

 

 

[noikeee]

Em 21/11/2018 em 11:47, deltablue disse:

Great end to your time in Turkey. 

I'm already starting to wonder whether I was an idiot for leaving Turkey. But well the fun of a journeyman is to explore whatever happens!

[noikeee]

I'm noticing one of the ways we're getting obliterated is due to attacking fullbacks we're facing (which never happened in Turkey), and that makes lots of sense. Our unstable assymetric formation has no obvious way to deal with that threat, as that'll force players to go way out of position to cover the manless wing.

Therefore, and this is very much a work in progress, I might have to switch to something like this:

Essentially taking off one of the DMs, in this case the segundo volante, for a MR to shut off that wing and therefore hopefully give us stability.

This is a 4-4-2. 4-4-2 is something that seems very alien for a "Barcelona-ing" career but it's the logical thing to do.

[noikeee]

I was wondering why I was getting my players mixed up lately:

.... fixed!

(it's still confusing but at least NOT THE SAME)

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

11 minutes ago, noikeee said:

I was wondering why I was getting my players mixed up lately:

 

[noikeee]

5 minutos atrás, Fer Fuchs Ake disse:

 

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - August 2021

 

Only transfer in August was the free transfer release of backup center-back Handerson.

 

 

This was starting to get really grim with the defeat to América MG being the 4th consecutive loss, and a consequential drop to a pretty poor 15th place, so I had to get creative and toyed with that 4-4-2 version. That led to a win over Vila Nova (GO) - one of the statual rivals - but I was unconvinced about this tactic and a home defeat to Vitória led to me scrapping it again and building a 3-5-2.

The 3-5-2 couldn't have had a better start as we beat the then-leaders 2-0 away then got another 4-1 win away! Against Juventude it was trickier as we only managed to pull a 85th minute equalizer but we had dominated the match (although largely inoffensively - instead of chances we got 20 corners!!), so for now I'm sticking to the 3-5-2 as it's been what's working best so far. Back up again to 10th place and trying to recover back to the 8th place I was given when I arrived at the club. Unfortunately promotion is now pretty much off the table but I can consider this season a learning experience.
 

 

This is how the new tactic looks like now:

 

For now I'm pretty much abandoning the original pretenses of trying to play possession or any type of modern pass-and-move football, and simply trying to focus on what works best on the pitch. I know that was the premise of this thread but I feel it simply doesn't work in a satisfactory way in the current ME, so let's just consider this a standard journeyman from now on instead, with the goal to win football matches whilst travelling the world.

[noikeee]

 

.... no really, it IS surprising. I did start pretty **** but we're now recovering back to where we were, which was an overachieving position in the first place. And their support for me is going down? Only because I'm a bit unexperienced? Dickheads.

[noikeee]

This sounds familiar... guess the boards in Brazil are just like the ones in Turkey then. They do nothing.

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - Youth intake 2021

 

 

Ha, a youth intake in September! Also the 2nd I have this year, which means I've now got two players named YP21A one Turkish one Brazilian, two players named YP21B etc.

This is definitely better than Turkey for youth but I think this year's generation might be a miss. I'm most excited by players D and E (the keeper and the DC/DM) which in theory have low potential, which is unfortunate as I think the attributes of players A, B and C (with most potential) are pretty ****.

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - September 2021

 

Nothing interesting on the transfers front, a few 3rd/4th/5th choice players were loaned out or released.

A strange mixed month. We were struggling to score any goals against teams from the bottom half of the table, lost two very winnable matches, and then suddenly just smashed one of the teams fighting for promotion 4-0. There could be something in our tactical setup that simply clicks better when we're underdogs. Whichever way, we've just about slowly moved up to 9th but the teams above us have a bit of a gap, so it might be difficult to get 8th place back (my main goal now) from here to the end of the season.

 

[noikeee]

My assistant manager jinxing my RWB.

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - October 2021

 

Loaned out winger Ceará for whom we don't have a use for, as our current 3-5-2 tactic doesn't use wingers.

 

Wow, a really good month! We went on a very nice run that had started the previous month and found ourselves on 6 consecutive wins. With this we recovered the 8th place back that I had been given when I arrived at the club! Unfortunately we then lost it with a slightly mediocre match against Criciúma in which we could only equalize in the 89th minute after dominating, and then a defeat away to leaders Paraná, in our poorest match of the month as Paraná were well superior. With this we drop to 9th again, but being only 1 point away from 8th there's a chance I can salvage ego and claim back that starting position - or maybe go even further as 7th is only 2 points away, too.

Mathematically we can even still claim a playoff spot, but realistically this comeback in form has come a little too late for that - I think if I had started with the 3-5-2 from the beginning we'd have had a chance of promotion. But that bodes well for next year...

 

 

Also I am using an alternate slightly bonkers 2-6-2 (a diamond really, just with the FBs pushed up) for when the opposition is very defensive, here are the 2 tactics I'm using now, side-by-side:

 

[noikeee]

I hate this game sometimes.

[noikeee]

Atlético Goianiense - November 2021

 

A very disappointing final month of the season as our defense went missing. We finish the year losing to one of our local rivals and dropping to 10th...

That's not very good and I am disappointed to finish the year lower than the position I was given when I joined the club, however I still have reasons for sticking to the 3-5-2 and being positive for next season. Overall the performances have still been better with the 3-5-2 than with the previous tactics; I will be able to mould my squad better into my liking; and presumably over time the players support for me should become less of a problem as currently it's "abysmal"!!