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FM20 All-European (Less England) Small Club to Big Club Challenge


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Kelty Hearts - Scotland

Starting this challenge with Kelty Hearts in Scotland. Surgery is one week today, so using some spare time before hand to get things set up and organised, so i can jump into it properly post-op.

My Profile - first time i've used the 3D photo game face a la Fifa, and it was too funny to change

Club Profile

Club History

Excited to get started, never tried the challenge in my homeland. Wish me luck!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ended up going back to Edinburgh, this time trying Spartans. Visiting Scotland in July so I'd like to get a good run there before then. 4 games left in the season, in a 3 way battle for the last two playoff spots. Should have a more complete update in the next few days.

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On 23/02/2020 at 19:37, duccio said:

The German Regionalliga clubs have had their reputations revised in the winter update, and now a much larger variety clubs can get promoted. I might jump in here at some point with a German save.

i am entering December now first season in Germany and am enjoying it so far...

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Spartans FC 2020-2021

Good first season for us. The board set an expectation of a mid-table finish. We squeaked into the playoffs in 4th place on the last day, then managed to demolish Peterhead from League 1 5-2 at home and then 1-0 at their house. In the final round we faced Stirling, a team we had trouble with all season. We drew with them 1-1 at home in the first game but couldn't find the net and fell 0-1. 

League Table - Finished 4th over Montrose on goal difference, 12 to 6. Defense was our strength, giving up the second fewest goals. Also scored the 4th fewest but we seemed to get things going in the department toward the end.

Also had a decent run in the Scottish Cup, taking it a bit more seriously than usual. Dominated Forres Mechanics 5-1, then we got our rivals, Edinburgh City. Two draws saw us going to penalties where they pulled their final shot wide, allowing us to advance. We had an excellent season against them overall considering they were one of the better teams, beating them 3 times in league play. We then fell 0-1 to Championship side Ross County. We also lost our only match in the Wafer Cup 1-2 to the St. Johnstone Reserves.

We mostly ran a 4-4-1-1, nothing too aggressive as far as pressing. Target man attacking, playmaker at the 10 (a spot we need to improve), right wide midfielder getting in close to the striker to support. Left winger spraying in crosses. Our attacking finally started clicking when I started using an underlapping attacking inverted wingback on the left, hopefully I can find a better player for that role in the offseason.

Owen Gallacher was our star and top goal scorer. The former Newcastle and Nottingham Forest striker was far too good for this level scoring 19 goals with 3 assists in league play. Unfortunately there's no chance he is staying, drawing attention from English sides.

Jordan Manson was one of our primary play makers as a left winger with 5 goals and 10 assists.

Youth Intake - Actually a couple players I'm quite excited by here. The scouts love Marc Fotheringham. 6'5" number 10, I think I'm going to move him out to right wide midfielder. Doesn't really have the teamwork or work rate that I want in my 10 but he's a beast physically. Or maybe make him a striker, we'll see. Also loving Jamie Hurst, looks like he could be an excellent ball winner for us.

Financially we are in very good shape with a pretty low wage bill and 100K in the good.

Looking ahead, I need a new front 2 to improve our attack. Definitely going to miss Gallacher, hopefully we can bring someone in on loan after our strong performance. The defense could probably use some new faces as well, it doesn't look anywhere near as strong as it performed.

 

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2030/31 (Season 11)

Summary | Table

Yes, you read that right. Season 11. I ballsed up on screenshots for a number of consecutive seasons and didn't notice my mistake. They can be pretty well summarised by consistent league finishes in the Europa Conference League spots, and falling out of the ECL to teams bigger than us that we had a small chance against, but weren't shocked to lose to. Financially we were still mostly surviving on the José Henrique money, but in truth we were leaking money still and it didn't look good. The 29/30 season was the only slight exception to this, as we were on course to challenge for the title right up until the final quarter of the season, whereby we pulled out the old bottle and settled back to 3rd (and still an ECL place).

30/31 saw us get a big windfall, though, as Juve and Malaga came in for our players. It was tough to lose two of our best players, but for about £7m I really wasn't in a place to refuse it. Plus I negotiated future sale clauses. Thus began the search for players to replace them.

The season itself was somewhat unremarkable with Dinamo running away with the league, but we were in the fight for second right up until the last couple of games of the season. Unfortunately we weren't able to pull it off and slipped to 4th.

Players of note were Hakan Mema, who stepped into our playmaker role upon the sale of our French Guinean star; Manassé Limbombe, who joined us at the end of the 26/27 season and has been our main goalscorer for a few years now and Rúben Ribeiro who was my first Internationally capped player and is the rock at the heart of my defence.

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Oh boy, we've reached the 5th round of the Scottish Cup after beating 3 Highland/Lowland sides. Now we get to go play at Celtic. This could get ugly, hopefully we'll get a nice chunk of change out of it though.

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Taky Maly Yezzko - AFC Nové Mesto nad Váhom - Season 1 - 2020/2021

 

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2. liga

I restarted the challenge maybe 5 times(usually gave up around matchday 20 when I had seen it's all done and dusted) before I got to the point my tactics was good enough to get us some points from time to time. The season started with 5 straight losses, then I changed the tactics from counter to pressing one and suddenly everything started to click. We got some wins and losses too and occasional draw. In the end we finished at respectable 11th position, 4 points safe from relegation. I was delighted to finally finish the season after so many restarts. It took me some 4 weeks of RL to get there :).

Slovnaft Cup

The money in the cup are worthless so it's only purpose is to give a game to backups. We were kicked out in the 2nd round by our parent club Dunajska Streda.

Transfers

We let in a lot of freebies and loanees since the squad was circa 7 people strong.

Finances

We finished some 100K in the red, loans for zero wages helped a lot to keep us under wage budget. The owner put some money in too.

Three stars

Vladislav Slovak - free transfer, played as mezalla  with a return of 7+4 in 32 matches, our most prolific player.

Jan Griger - attacking winger on the right side, made countless number of dribbles. One of the few original players that wanted to stay in the club.

Manfred Strobel - quite a good allrounder for this level, played at CB, DM and CM too. Achieved the highest rating with 6.96. Came in on loan from our parent club Dunajska Streda.

Youth intake

We got one 3,5 star potential player with good personality, rest was not worth mentioning. Can't hope for much better with bottom tier facilities.

History

Season    Division        Position     Slovnaft Cup      Champions League     Europa League   E. Conference League    Notes and Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21   2. liga         11th         2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Not relegated

 

Edited by yezzko
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 Taky Maly Yezzko - AFC Nové Mesto nad Váhom - Season 2 - 2021/2022

 

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2. liga - 2nd - promoted

We started the season superbly with 4 straight 2-0 wins. Three straight losses followed, but we managed to steady the ship and continued moving up the table. We kept the second place since matchday 22 and finished right there 5 points behind eventual winners from Tatran Presov. Our position meant we were to fight for promotion against Fortuna Liga 11th team SKF Sered. The first match was quite a tight affair with more chances on our side. The match was decided by two headers from our young starlet Tomas Kuzma, on loan from MSK Zilina, we won 2-0. The second match on the home soil of Sered was different, Sered were on the front foot for most of the match and we were fortunate to lose only 1-2 thanks to another header from Tomas Kuzma. We won the tie on aggregate. The promotion was ours!

Slovnaft Cup - 2nd Round

I wanted to go as far as possible and was very dissapointed when we left the competion with penalty loss against lower league team of Trebisov.

Transfers

We brought in only two player on free and 12 players on loan. Our only hopeful young prospect YP21A Balaz was sold to Slovan Bratislava for meager 40K plus 50K in bonuses and 40% of next sale profit, sadly our board went over my head since we were in insecure financial situation.

Finances

Still some 100K in red despite relying on free loans. Thanks to our promotion we now have new 160K sponsorsip deal compared to 75K last season.

Three stars

Tomas Kuzma - our young star on loan from Zilina, turned the beast mode on in the second half of the season, 12 goals in 20 appearaces is very good.

Jan Griger - another good season from our right winger, managed 9 goals in 26 appearances.

Daniel Petrovic - very solid season from our best defender.

Youth intake

Solid intake - 3 guys with 3.5 star potential.

History

Season    Division        Position     Slovnaft Cup      Champions League     Europa League   E. Conference League    Notes and Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21   2. liga         11th         2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Not relegated
2021/22   2. liga         2nd          2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Promoted

 

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4 minutes ago, yezzko said:

Thank you @rlipscombe. It was quite a pleasant surprise. All thanks to our loanees :) We'll be depending on them to avoid relegation next season.

loanees are so vital in these types of challenges, particularly when promoted or new in the challenge.  The clubs rep often dictates that decent players are unwilling to join permanently...

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Spartans FC 2021-2022

Excellent season for us as we moved into first place after the 10th game and never gave it up, clinching the league title with 2 games to go and finishing 7 points ahead of 2nd place Edinburgh City.

League Table

Cups

We were entered in the Betfred Cup for the first time and ended up in a group with two League 1 sides, one Championship team and one Premiership team, Kilmarnock. Kilmarnock beat us rather easily but we drew with the other three sides, winning 2 of the 3 subsequent penalty shootouts and finished third in the group, an excellent result.

The Wafer Cup didn't go so well, lost in our first game to Stenhousemuir 1-3. No shame in getting knocked out by a higher league team (they're not higher anymore)

Great run in the Scottish Cup with some help from a favorable draw. Took out Kelty Hearts in our first match 1-0, beat East Kilbride 3-2 in a replay at home and then defeated Brora 2-1.  That led to a 5th round match at Celtic. Yeah, not pretty, lost 0-4 and it could have been uglier. But the money we made from the game was not ugly at all, should give us a nice boost going into next season.

Key Players

Owen Gallacher's return was huge as he was our leading scorer again with 18 goals as well as 9 assists. And he's signed for another season, we'll see if he can step up.

Our player of the year though was Daniel Macintyre, out number 10 that we managed to sign from Queen's Park before Inverness could nab him. Simply too good for this level and devastating delivering set pieces, he racked up 21 assists and netted 9 goals. Unfortunately, teams were lining up to sign him and Ross County got him. I'll definitely try to get him back on loan next season.

Neil Slooves was our other big acquisition to shore up our defense. We brought in the central defender on loan from Cove as they had transfer listed him for some reason.

Youth Intake

One player of note this season, our potentially future number 10 Brad Ellis.  Excellent passing skills and teamwork for someone so young, he became our youngest player ever as I gave him a couple of appearances off the bench as the season ended.

Finances

Looking very good between our title win and the Celtic game, 400K on the positive side after basically breaking even last season.

Scotland

Celtic dominated the Premiership, winning by 32 over Aberdeen. Dundee Utd and Rangers got the other European spots. Celtic actually got through the group in the Champions League, finishing 2nd behind Real Madrid and ahead of CSKA Moscow and RB Salzburg. They then beat PSG at home 3-1. But were destroyed in Paris 0-7. In Europa League competition, Hibernian fell to AA Gent in the 3rd Qualifying Round, Rangers lost to Valerenga in the 2nd Qualifying Round and Aberdeen had the best finish, losing to Torino in the 4th Qualifying Round.

The national team missed out on qualifying for the World Cup, finishing 3rd in their group.

Looking Ahead

We should be able to survive in League 1, we dealt with those sides quite well last season. Macintyre is a big loss if we can't get him back on loan but everyone else I want is resigned. Going to be looking for upgrades pretty much everywhere but outside of finding my 10, nothing is urgent.

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Kilmarnock stole Brad Ellis from me :( Taught me to pay more attention to my youth and who are eyeing them. Signed a couple of them to real contracts including Fotheringham, who is looking like my new 10 in a shadow striker role.

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2031/32 (Season 12)

Table

Allow me to introduce you to Javier. Javier Joined us at the mid of last season on a free but missed most of our games through injury. Javier is a regular Chilean international at age 21. Javier is a big part of the reason we managed to win both the 1.HNL and the Europa Conference League against Feyenoord this season. I fully expect Javier to be stolen away by a big club in the near future.

Along with Javier Troncoso (who took 78% of the fan vote for player of the season) I would also say Manassé Limbombe was very important to our successes, along with Denis Les who has ousted Stefulj in the holding role.

 

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 Taky Maly Yezzko - AFC Nové Mesto nad Váhom - Season 3 - 2022/2023

 

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Fortuna Liga - 3rd

We started the top league in Slovakia with a very good form, in the first 15 matches we had a record of 9w 4d 2l and were hovering on 2nd place. After matchday 22 the league is divided in two halves, top six playing for the title and botom six for the survival plus european playoff. In the Championship group we faltered a bit and dropped a lot of points against good sides. On the last matchday we went in on 3rd place 1 point behind leaders Dunajska Streda and MSK Zilina in the second place. We were up against the 4th place Slovan Bratislava, at the time arguably the best club in country and the other matchup was Dunajska Streda against MSK Zilina. That game ended in drab 0-0 draw which would enable us to clinch the title should we beat Slovan in our final game. Sadly we were beate 2-0 in the very tight game and finished the season in the 3rd place. Despite the fantastic third place finish I was so sad to lost the title when we were so close.

Slovnaft Cup - 3rd Round

Unlucky exit on penalties against Tatran Presov.

Transfers

We resigned a lot of loanees from previous year, I would like to rely on our own players but sadly finances won't allow us to sign more and our reputation is too low for good quality players that would push us forward so massive loans are way to go for us so far. On the upside we managed to sign Tomas Kuzma for a permanent contract since he was transfer listed by Zilina.

Finances

Despite using only 10K from 14.5K wage budget we finished more than 200K in red. We have new 275K sponsorship starting next season and Europa Conference league will bring some money too thankfully.

Three stars

Tomas Kuzma - finished top scorer in the league with 18 goals in 28 appearances. He's our true star.

David Toth - his second season on loan from Dunajska Streda. He replaced Jan Griger on the right wing and improved upon his mentor's performances. 8g + 5a in 27 appearances.

Oliver Janso - our left FB, very attacking minded, provided the team's most 8 assists in 33 appearances.

Youth intake

Below par intake with only one 3.5 star guy.

History

Season    Division        Position     Slovnaft Cup      Champions League     Europa League   E. Conference League    Notes and Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21   2. liga         11th         2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Not relegated
2021/22   2. liga         2nd          2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Promoted
2022/23   Fortuna Liga    3rd          3rd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     

 

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Spartans FC 2022-2023

Pretty good first season in League 1, finishing comfortable in 5th and missing the playoffs by just a point. At the same time, it was rather disappointing as we were the best team in the league in the first half and in first 2/3 of the way through. Form slid though and then we couldn't win a winnable final game to finish outside the playoffs.

League Table

Cups

Not quite as good a run in the cups this year. Finished last in our Betfred Cup group with only a shootout win and a shootout loss.

In the Scottish Cup, we won our first game over Stenhousemuir from League 2, then fell 1-0 at Clyde. No shame there, they were one of the better teams in our league.

We at least won our first Wafer Cup game, beating Dunfermline Reserves in a penalty shootout. We also beat Peterhead pretty easily before falling to Airdrie in a shootout.

Key Players

Our player of the season was a loan signee from Hamilton, left winger Declan McStay. He really acted like a true attacking winger, using his speed and dribbling to wreck havoc on the opposition. Finished with 7 goals and 10 assists in league games and a 7.26 rating. And it looks like we'll be able to sign him on a transfer.

Owen Gallacher kept producing although not at his previous level, scoring 13 goals and 5 assists in all competitions.

And one of my youth showed up as Marc Fotheringham jumped in as our number 10 and scored 12 goals as a shadow striker. 

Youth Intake

Not so promising this year although central defender Euan Thomson could be useful soon

Finances

Good shape, lost a little money this season but still very much in the positive.

Looking Ahead

I think we can make a run at promotion. My front 6 are pretty well set with last year's star player Daniel McIntyre likely returning to us on a transfer after getting no playing time at Ross County. I also have a couple other promising midfielders already signed. Strengthening the defense is big, still looking for a long term solution at goalkeeper and my central defenders are pretty marginal for this league.

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 Taky Maly Yezzko - AFC Nové Mesto nad Váhom - Season 4 - 2023/2024

 

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Fortuna Liga - 2nd

Again very close finish. Slovan Bratislava were crowned champions, we finished mere two points behind them. We manage to win over them with 3 rounds to go and were behind only by a virtue of results against them. In the penultimate game we drew 1-1 against 3rd place Dunajska Streda and since Slovan won over Michalovce I knew our fate is sealed. We won our last game and Slovan won theirs, so 2nd place finish for us. It's and improvement upon last seasons' 3rd place but we were again so close to the title.

Slovnaft Cup - Winner

I'm really pleased with our surprising win. We were quite lucky along the way, won twice on penalties, in the 2nd round against FC STK Samorin and in the quarterfinal against Tatran Liptovsky Mikulas. In the semifinal against Spartak Trnava we got through on away goals after 0-0 and 1-1 draws. In the final we were total outsiders against Slovan Bratislava. The match was a close affair, we seized a two goal lead thanks to goals from Tomas Kuzma in 24' and 31', but only for a short time, since Slovan turned the game around with 3 goals in the rest of the first half. In the second half I tried to throw everything at them and was revarded with late equaliser from our midfielder Gejza Molnar in 88'. The game went into extra time, in the 94' we were 4-3 up after quick counter-attack from axis Toth, Kuzma, Slebodnik. David Toth dribbled on the right wing, squared the ball for Kuzma around penalty spot and Kuzma laid it for onrushing inside forward Tibor Slebodnik. Slovan managed a few good chances in the rest of the game, but we stood our ground saw the game out.

Europa Conference League - 2nd Qualification Round

We embarked on our european journey in 1st Qualification round against FC Milsami Orhei from Moldova, the club of slightly higher standing than we were. We started the tie at their ground, it was very tight game that ended in 0-0 draw. In the return leg we were totally dominant throughout the game and finished 1-0 winners. The second round put us up against HJK from Helsinki, the biggest club in Finland. We manage to draw 1-1 in the home leg, but we were unlucky in the return tie and lost 2-1 ending our first journey in Europe.

Transfers

We are starting to ease up on loanees to continually transform our club into one of the top in the country. Top picks are superb CD Karel Zilank on loan from Viktoria Plzen, young Gibraltarian  AMC Eddie Barnes who we picked up as a free agent and finally 19 years old Slovakian LB/CB Andrej Slavik, our record transfer, signed for 45K from Bardejov.

Finances

We continued to steady the ship, new sponsorship deal and european money allow us to spends some more on wages. We have again new sponsorship worth 550K for one season, doubling up the this seasons' 275K.

Three stars

Tomas Kuzma - again. This season our second best scorer with 17, just one behind Jan Kuciak, added 8 assissts too.

Jan Kuciak - his second season on loan from Slovan Bratislava. Operated on the right wing and finished top scorer with 18 goals in 35 appearances.

Oliver Janso - improved upon last season, this time team's higest 12 assists in 41 appearances.

Youth intake

Amazing intake I would say, YP24A Peskovic is top prospect with 4.5 stars, got one 4 stars and one 3.5 stars player too.

History

Season    Division        Position     Slovnaft Cup      Champions League     Europa League   E. Conference League    Notes and Achievements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21   2. liga         11th         2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Not relegated
2021/22   2. liga         2nd          2nd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     Promoted
2022/23   Fortuna Liga    3rd          3rd Round         N/A                  N/A             N/A                     
2023/24   Fortuna Liga    2nd          Winner            N/A                  N/A             2nd Qual. Round         First Silverware

 

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good luck with Anji - a club that would fit with my taste in restoring former big clubs to their past glories.  Anji are certainly a club with rich history with the past signings of Roberto Carlos and Eto'o to name a few.  Hopefully you'll be able to bring players of that calibre to the club again in future

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  • 2 weeks later...

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Spartans FC 2023-2024

We regressed slightly this season in terms of points and goal difference but ended up finishing in the playoffs in 4th as the table was a bit more top heavy this season. This was the first season where injuries had a serious impact on the team as we lost several key players for weeks at a time and, unfortunately, we lost our best playmaker in the final, meaningless game of the regular season.

In the first round of the playoffs we faced Arbroath, the 9th place team in the Championship. A pair of boring 1-1 draws led to a penalty shootout where they choked on their first two shots, letting us advance. We then faced Airdrie, the third place team in our league. Our lack of depth and having to go through extra time and a shootout proved too much for us, losing at home 0-1 and then at their place 0-2. The lack of goals needs to be addressed next season as our defense largely carried us.

League Table

We were in first for a couple weeks early but spent most of the season in a 3 way battle for the last two playoff spots.

Cups

A favorable draw in the Betfred Cup helped us along to winning our group, easily our best result yet.  No Premiership teams in the group helped, we got St. Mirren, newly relegated from the SPL and Patrick Thistle from the Championship, Clyde, the team that won our league this season, and Queen's Park, newly promoted into League 1. 

We won our first two games against St. Mirren and Clyde both 1-0 on injury time goals. Then a penalty shootout win over Patrick Thistle basically guaranteed a spot in the next round and a penalty shootout loss to Queens Park sealed the group win.

Our reward was another game at Celtic. Dominated again although we only lost 2-0 but we're laughing to the bank.

3 days before our game at Celtic, we had our first Wafer Cup game, at League 2 side Dumbarton. Rested a lot of players, lost 1-2. Meh

The Scottish Cup saw us draw BSC Glasgow in the first round. Playing a lot of subs we only managed a scoreless draw at their park. We had an easy 2-0 in the replay though. The next round had us away to Raith who was just below us in the league table at the time. A hard fought battle that had us on our backfoot most of the game saw us pull out a 2-1 win. 

Next we drew a home game against Rangers, our first televised game! And it was entertaining as we came back from a 3-1 deficit to manage a 3-3 draw and force a replay at their stadium. Easily our biggest result yet. Yeah, the replay was ugly, 4-0 but a double dose of away games this season against massive teams was huge for our finances.

Key Players

Kevin Noble swept our awards with Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year, Signing of the Year and Goal of the year. A box to box midfielder, was just tremendous for us on offense and defense. He caught my eye our least season in League 2 playing for Edinburgh City, on loan from Hibernian. Very happy they let him go, we'll try to keep him around for quite awhile. Tied for the team lead with 9 goals.

Daniel MacIntyre returned to us after his brief spell at Ross County and jumped right back in as our primary playmaker. So good on set pieces.  Two significant knee sprains though have me worried about his long term future.

Michael McArthur was our biggest defensive signing, a centerback from Patrick Thistle. Very physical if not necessarily the greatest in the air.

And I finally found a goalkeeper I'm happy with in Robbie Mutch.  Played for Falkirk for several seasons, even has 16 starts in the Championship and still only 25. Had 11 clean sheets in 27 league games.

Youth Intake

Got a nice winger out of this year's crop in Callum Manson. Could be my backup right winger next season. A couple potentially useful defensive players as well

Finances

Looking so very good with our away games at Celtic and Rangers. 1.35 million on the positive side. Now to convince the board to do something with it.

Looking Ahead

Need to find a way to score more. May experiment with a 4-3-1-2 as I have a couple decent strikers and really want to use a 10 as well. Much of my team should be left intact for the upcoming season so the continuity may help. An attacking right fullback is looking like our biggest target, especially if we're going with a narrower formation.

 

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2032/33 (Season 13)

Season Summary | League Table

Last season's success was something I was very keen to repeat, but unfortunately we lacked in consistency. A second place finish was actually probably better than we deserved, in truth. It is also worth noting that we finished 3rd in our Champions League group consisting of Inter, Porto and Ajax, with Porto being the only one of those not to lose to us at least once.

Javier Troncoso was again my linchpin, sitting just in front of Denis Les (who is my first Croatian player to be capped while at the club). Rúben Ribeiro rounded out my most important players, and you can tell by the lack of any real attacking players in this list where we found ourselves lacking. I would like to make special mention of Serge Imbongo, but mostly just because his name is Imbongo and he comes from DR Congo.

Edited by Biscotti
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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2033/34 (Season 14)

Season Summary | League

(A quickfire double, because I played on quite a way)

Another real regression for Krk. We were in the lead pack right up until the death, but we were never quite on the same level as the teams above us. Way too many draws from winning positions.

Javier Troncoso is still very much our star man, and I've managed to renegotiate his contract to not include a release clause now, so if I am going to lose him it will be for an absurd sum of money. Nino Tomas was Troncoso's primary midfield partner this season and was among the better of our not so stand-out season. Lucianinho is also worth highlighting - I rather overpaid for him at £17.25m, but his Italian second nationality made him considerably more desirable to me.

Our youth setup has also finally produced someone of serious note. Kristijan Valenta is a talented looking 6'6" CB who was born in Krk and will be making his debut with the first team almost as soon as he's 17 in early December - U17s are not eligible to play in Croatia, unfortunately.

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tough first season @Vipertitan - hopefully a good clear out of the squad will help you make a move forwards next season.

unlucky in the league @Tecmo but games against Celtic and Rangers (unlucky there by the way - great result in the first game) would be good for finances.  the team seems to be coming together nicely too - good luck next season.

Unlucky with a couple of tricky seasons there @Biscotti - hoping for a return to form next season.  Like the look of Valenta 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey everyone, nice reading through this, going to have a shot at it, thinking Russia myself. Beat this challenge back in 2012 with ES Viry Chatillon in France, looking forward to giving it another shot! 
 

how do u all do ur screenshots now? Whats best/quickest way? 

Edited by aldojags
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Fantastic @Vipertitan - congrats on promotion.  good luck mixing it with the big boys next season.

 

@aldojags - good to see you back considering this challenge again - your name does ring a bit of a bell in my mind...  as for screenshots personally i print screen in the game and paste to paint and save that way.  i have then uploaded to the internet via a web hosting site.  others do it differently i think.  from there, when writing your posts, click on the 'LINK' tab above when typing your posts (the link symbol), paste the web link there, add the text you want it to appear under and then save it.  That is if you want to hide the image behind text.  if want to put on the screen, screen print to paint, then 'copy' the image and then paste into the text field on here.

 

Hope that makes sense...

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2034/35 (Season 15)

Season Summary | League

Once again we find ourselves in that no-man's land where we're definitely better than "mos" of the league, but we're not quite on a level with Hajduk and Dinamo. I'm now thinking the season we won was a bit of luck as we don't seem to be quite there any more. Being a club of our stature, I always knew Troncoso would head to a bigger team eventually, and this was the season it happened. I'm a firm believer in not having unhappy players in the squad, so when the big offer came in I knew it was time to move him on.

Fortunately for me, I'd been grooming Amir Hodzic as his replacement for a few years at this point, and while he may not be quite on the same level he definitely filled the role well. Wide-right was Stipe Ralis, who was probably our MVP for this season - he was instrumental in our run to the final of the Europa Conference League. Bosko Mustapic was the key man in defence for us, although it's worth noting again that our real issues are in finishing chances rather than preventing opposing chances.

A quick note on the progress of Kristijan Valenta. He made his debut with us on his 17th birthday and made himself a handful of appearances through the rest of the season. Definitely a solid back-up whom I have no concerns over, although it's still early days.

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@Biscotti - a season where you seem to have evolved a bit - good offer for Troncoso.  hopefully you can improve up top and then come back for another shot at the title.

 

@Vipertitan - congrats on survival - always the first hurdle in the top league.  good luck establishing yourself in the top league next season and improve the finances a bit.

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2035/36 (Season 16)

Season Summary | League

The turnover continues as I both lose talented players to bigger teams and try to find the answers to our goal-scoring problems. This time around it was Hodzic and Ralis out the door with their replacements finding varying degrees of success. On the plus side, our bank balance is looking extremely healthy right now which goes quite some way toward helping us retain players (by paying higher wages). Second place this time around, but we took it to the last day of the season so I'm much happier about that.

I still haven't solved the goals problem, but Tosin Fatai felt like a step in the right direction. 20+ goals is much better, but it was all a bit streaky and I'd like him to be scoring more consistently. I'm looking at perhaps bringing in someone with a proven track record to be my first choice for a couple of seasons before Fatai comes back into the fold. Lucianinho was as essential this season as Mustapic was last season, and while 'm still sure I overpaid for him I'm definitely not regretting it. Brayan Palomino was the real revelation, though. Brought in to replace the outgoing Hodzic, I wasn't sure if he was going to work for me, but in the end he went ahead and broke Troncoso's record for average rating. £3m feels like a steal right now, and I'm hoping I can rely on him to be an asset on the pitch for many years to come.

Unfortunately, I forgot to screenshot Valenta in all of this. He played plenty of games, and currently holds the position of "first back-up", although I have another young lad who's been on loan in the Czech Republic who might also be worth that consideration.

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Spartans FC 2024-2025

Not really any progress this season. Our points and goal difference were a bit better but we finished in 4th once again and lost in the playoff final once again.

League Table

There was a pretty clear gap in quality between us and the top three. Pretty much hung out in 4th for most of the season although a good 2nd half run did get us to 3rd briefly. Kind of coasted the last 4 games once the playoffs were assured. We played last season's League 1 champions Clyde in the first round of the playoffs. Won the first game at home comfortably 2-0, then held on in the second leg to win 3-2 on aggregate. We played Falkirk in the finals and were outmatched, losing both games 1-2.

Cups

Not as good in the Betfred this season, only managing 5 points to finish 3rd in our group.

Tough draw in the Wafer Cup playing at Clyde and lost that 1-3.

And not much in the Scottish Cup. We won our first game over Dumbarton 2-0 at home but then played at Montrose, eventual League 1 champions, and lost 0-2. No big money games this season.

Key Players

Our player of the season and young player of the season was the 23 year old centerback we signed from Patrick Thistle last season, Michael McArthur. Really stepped up in his second season, netting 4 goals and playing some solid defense.

And we found a partner for him, making our biggest transfer buy yet during the winter window. We signed 19 year old Mark Forrest from Dundee Utd where he was unhappy for some reason. 20K later and we had a new potential star. 7.15 rating and 2 goals in 11 games was a good start to his career with us.

And our top scorer was Bruce Anderson, a feisty veteran striker we signed last season. He got off to a slow start but then really thrived once I moved him into the 10 spot behind a more physical striker. 18 goals in all competitions.

Youth Intake

Bleh, not much this season, I don't see any likely contributors.

Finances

Still in great shape, over a million in the bank despite operating at a loss this season.

Looking Ahead

Would really like to gain promotion this season. I think we figured out some things toward the end of last season, most importantly that I need a more physical player at striker for my 4-4-1-1. We brought in a good one on loan, hopefully I can make that permanent for next season. Very happy with my defense right now, I don't think I'll have to make a lot of changes this coming season.

Elsewhere in Scotland

Celtic won the Premiership easily again by 19 points over Rangers. Motherwell and Hibernian took the other to Europa spots. Celtic got to the Champions League group stage, finishing 3rd. They then knocked out Lyon in Europa before falling to Valencia.

Hibernian played in the Europa group stage after finishing 2nd in the league last season, but finished last in their group. Aberdeen also got to the group stage and finished last. Rangers were knocked out of Europa by Atalanta and Motherwell was knocked out by Molde.

 

 

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Gonçalo Brandão | NK Krk | Croatia | 2036/37 (Season 17)

Season Summary | League

This season saw us much better able to keep hold of our key players and our league form reflected this. Only one loss and one draw in our first 10 league games saw us leading the field early, and while we stumbled once or twice, we were never quite in danger of being sucked into a battle. We finished the season 10 points clear of Hajduk, wrapping up the league title with 3 still to play. In the Champions League we were third seed a reasonably tough group of Anderlecht, RB Leipzig and Juventus but thanks to a draws away at Juve and home against Leipzig we went into the final game needing only to not lose away against Leipzig - which we won 1-0. Our first ever Champions League Knockout Round saw us drawn against Manchester Utd. We were able to win the first leg at home 1-0, and we even took the lead at Old Trafford, but in the end their attack outclassed us and we succumbed to a heavy 7-2 defeat.

In terms of departures, the only notable ones were Tosin Fatai and Lucianinho. I said last season about wanting to improve our chances to goals ratio, so when the bid for Fatai came in from Spurs I had already secured another striker who I had identified as being better suited to the way we were playing. Jan Vacek did not disappoint and broke Limbombe's previous scoring record despite a 4 week layoff for injury. Speaking of record breakers - Brayan Palomino came through strong once again for us, breaking his own Krk average rating record, the HNL average rating record and the Krk record for assists in a season. I've so far been able to keep interest in him low by making sure he's always got plenty of time on his contract (currently 4yrs to run) and no release clause, but there's a part of me that knows it's still an inevitability that he'll want to move on at some point. The third player I'd like to highlight this time around is a returning hero of the past. Mitja Toplak left us for Osijek for £3.3m a few seasons ago, and this year we picked him back up for £2.6m. He picked up pretty much exactly where he left off and I couldn't be happier with his contribution.

Other things to note - Kristijan Valenta is still developing nicely. I can't currently envision him ever being first-choice at centre back, but he makes a very solid rotation option. He's now been capped by Croatia and I can see him being a key squad member for years to come. Also of interest (for me, at least) is this season's Cup of Nations, where my left-winger Aissa Labiod is currently playing. His first game in the tournament was a bit of a standout - scoring SIX goals! Post-season also saw the board start planning for our first stadium expansion, going from 3,000 seats to a massive 4,500. It's still not huge, but it is a 50% increase.

Also, for possibly the first time in this save, I've done the very FM thing of signing a bunch of young players ahead of time to join us at the start of the transfer window. With our finances as they currently are I can definitely afford it, so let's hope I can dig up some gems. 

 

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Palermo SSD

Season 1 -  2020/ 2021

Review

The season was okay because I had so many new players. I had a small squad and needed some transfers. 4th in the regular season and then a loss against Triestina in the semi finals of the playoffs. Misuraca was my best transfer.

| Stats | Squad [1][2] | Transfers [1][2] | Finances |

JE5WnjV.png

Edited by gb2003
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Palermo SSD

Season 2 -  2021/ 2022

Review

I had a great season. With 89 points I would be champion in the other two 3rd divisions but in my division Bari was too good. They had a loss and a draw against me but the rest of the league couldn't beat Bari so I played again the playoffs and lost both games versus Foggia 1-3. I'm very upset because I had 29 games without a loss until the quarter finals but hope for promotion next year. I hope Calo stays at Palermo but i fear somebody activates the release clause of 1 mio. He had a great season and was the best player in the league with 7.81.

 

| Stats | Squad [1][2] | Transfers [1][2] | Finances |

NgM484A.png

Edited by gb2003
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unlucky couple of seasons there @gb2003 - great first season (and second too) - just a shame you had to contend with Bari.  Hopefully you will be in a position to make the step next season.  Hopefully Calo stays as you look on potential to have a decent squad there.

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Really struggling in Scotland this season. It doesn't look like we're going to make playoffs, which was a board requirement, so we'll see if I have enough built up goodwill to keep our job. Very frustrating as I feel this is our strongest team, even by how we're playing, but we can't get the ball in the net. Creating lots of good chances, just can't get past the goalkeepers. Very frustrating. If we survive I definitely need to get better at striker, maybe try a different tactic.

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On 10/02/2020 at 02:56, Thebaker said:

Has anyone tried with Caley Braves in scotland.  Im just curious to know if all their youth players really are french.

So, I'm doing some testing in my league that is in the year 2026 to see if any new teams pop up. I just got Caley. So maybe just try simming a few years further out?

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