Jimbo's Thread (aka [FM20] Nordicland - The Northener Diaries.)

[Jimbokav1971]

I've had as little dabble with [FM20] managing RB Salzburg in Austria and the game seems reasonably stable. (No crashes at all for me so far). I wasn't really feeling the save though so have decided to start a proper one. 

#

I've started unemployed, with no badges and with just Sunday League previous history and all the Nordic Nations available have been activated. 

I played in some of these leagues in FM19 and even won some of them, but others will be completely new to me if and when I get there. 

Last year I started in Iceland, but in the Icelandic First Division the clubs are still professional, so I think I have to start lower than that if possible and look for something part-time or even fully Amateur. That doesn't mean I won't give something else a go 1st just to get things up and running, (remember I started with a B-Team in FM19), but I plan on getting to the very bottom and then making my way from there. 

The game start date is Apr 2019.

[rodesire]

Good luck, love me Scandi saves with short leagues, wacky rules and plenty of talent

[Jimbokav1971]

AFK Linköping. Apr 2019.

I'll give you a brief synopsis of the situation here. 

1. Semi-Pro club. 
2. Attempt to avoid relegation. 
3. Don't sign players over 30 years old. 
4. £5,158 in the bank. 
5. Wage budget of £361pw, (but we are spending £432pw). 
6. AFK Linköping play in the 4th tier of Swedish Football. There are 6 leagues at this level, 3 of them feeding into Swedish First Division North and 3 into Swedish First Division South. We may be tipped for relegation, (there are 2 auto-relegation spots and a 3rd relegation playoff), but the odds suggest that it might be close

The facilities are not good and I will have to sign young players from elsewhere and then sell them on. (If I am able to do that on a semi-pro basis). 

FC Linkopoing City are a Professional club who play in the 3rd Tier of Swedish Football. We don't appear to be a B-Team although they have sent us a number of players on loan. 

Lönn is the best player at the club, and looks decent too. 

We have no less than 18 players with 5.0 PA, and when you have a look at how Lönn good is, then that seems pretty decent. 

[withnail316]

Some of my own favourite saves have been in this part of the world. Best of luck. 

Definitely not a B-Team. FK Linköping were replaced by Linköping City in 2013, which was when your club popped up. Phoenix club, perhaps? 

[Rikulec]

Good to see you've stuck with the idea, Nordic saves are always fun to follow. Good luck.

[Jimbokav1971]

AFK Linköping. Sep 2019.

Swedish Second Division South Svealand.

We finished a whole 11 points clear of the relegation playoff and 15 points clear of automatic relegation. That's a better than decent start for the 1st season of the save, (which I absolutely hate). As far as I'm concerned the save is now up and running though. 

Youth Intake Day. 26th Sep 2019.

I'm a little reluctant to take much notice of "Golden Generation" tags now. I think the label is triggered far too easily and when we don't have a single 5.0 PA player I think it makes a mockery of the whole thing to be honest. That being said, our facilities are not good and I would say that this is actually better than I was expecting so I'm certainly not complaining. 

When each new FM issue is released, I always try to look at the early intakes in depth to see what tiny bits of info I can eke out to try and make me more informed as to who I might sign and why. The rightmost column is World Reputation (WR), and I think it stands to reason that a player with a higher WR must have some reason for that higher reputation to exist. Don't get me wrong, I don't KNOW this. I'm just thinking that there has to be a reason for this thing to exist. I think I have to use absolutely everything available to me to help me make the best decision as to who to sign and why. 

(19d) Björk is deemed to be the best of the bunch, (by the AI), because they are looking at CA and I'm more interested in PA. Thinking about it, that might be the reason for the "Golden Generation" trigger because in (19d), (19b) and (19a), there are players with a little CA that might catch the eye at a club. 

The players I actually signed though are (19a), (19b), (19c), (19d) & (19e) based purely on PA. I signed (19g), because he is a lefty playing on the left and we are short in that area. The only other player I signed was (19j), partly because the only GK we have with better PA is in on loan, and also because he was 1 of 2 players that I highlighted who had high WR, (the other was (19c) who we were already signing because of his PA. 

Like I said before, I don't know if I am on the right track here, but money is tight and I didn't want to sign everyone. Rather than looking for reasons NOT to sign a player, what I did this time was start with a default position of I'm not signing anyone, and then look for reasons to change my mind and sign a player. 7 players signed and 9 released. 

"Kriss" (19a) Roos (2019).

At this level, a semi-Pro club and with these facilities, this is better than I was expecting. 

The Chairman....... (wtf is he doing making decisions), has suggested that we sign 12 of the 16, but you can bet he won't be taking responsibility when it comes to discussing why we are over the wage budget. On that note, do foreign clubs also get a rebate for wages played to youth players in the same way that English clubs do? 

Something that is bothering me is that...... oh, we don't have a HoYD. That's why that role wasn't responsible for who to sign and why the Chairman was getting involved. At the very least I need to change that to the DoF, but I have been unable to find the line about who I am delegating Youth Intakes to, (and I have looked). 

The above is getting changed to  the DoF, (who wasn't at the club when I originally set this up. 

I seem to have both a DoF and also a Technical Director. Until now I thought this was a different name for the same role but we definitely have 2 different roles. 

The DoF is now responsible for hiring and firing all staff except the DoF and the Technical Director. 

There is nothing within Staff - Responsibilities for the Youth Intake, but maybe that's because we don't have a HoYD. I have the DoF responsible for finding players but that's not the same as bringing in players via the Youth Intake. 

I've looked at the Development Centre and it looks as if my Ass Man is the default option and I can't change it. Again, maybe that will change as and when we have a HoYD.

With the 1st Intake players now here I can properly go through the squad and decide who to keep and who should leave. 25 players will be leaving at the end of the season, +3 loan players and 9 Intake players who I haven't offered contracts to. It's possible that others will also leave, but this is who I want to leave. 

My job security is secure, but I am a little worried by being over the wage budget. This wouldn't have been an issue in previous versions of the game, but I'm just not sure how it's going to work in FM20. 

September 2019 monthly review. I'm happy with that bit it's early days yet. I wonder do I get an end of year review like this? 

The Finances are not good, but then again they're not going to be at this level are they. 

The bit that concerns me is this bit. Wages. 

I guess we will just have to keep an eye on it. I will have a clearer idea of who is worth what money now. In order to get us promoted I need to improve some of the young players at the club and to do that I need them on PT contracts rather than NC basis. It's an investment. I know I plan on moving on from here, but I don't want to screw them over either. It would be good to start getting offers for some of the player I improve to see that it's worth it financially. At the moment I'm not sure.

New contract. (I was beginning to wonder if I was getting one). It's only a 1 year deal but I suppose that's to be expected. They are upping my wages from £424 to £450 pw. 

Goal-scoring GK is still alive and well in this save, and the only reason I haven;t mentioned it is that Salah (TUN) didn't score any free-kicks. He did however score 4 penalties, (from 5 attempts I think).

Apologies for such a long post, but I really really really don't like the 1st season and just wanted to get it done. Normal shorter updates will resume. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, withnail316 said:

Some of my own favourite saves have been in this part of the world. Best of luck. 

Definitely not a B-Team. FK Linköping were replaced by Linköping City in 2013, which was when your club popped up. Phoenix club, perhaps? 

I really enjoyed the save last year and didn't think I had done it justice, (unlike Brazil), so here I am for a "proper" go. 

Oh brilliant. yes it is a Phoenix club, founded in 2012. 

I did wonder about that. 

FC Linköping City were also founded in 2012.

This now makes sense. 

I do wonder about the affiliation though. 

LC are in the league above us and I would love to stay long enough to beat them. 

[Jimbokav1971]

49 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Good to see you've stuck with the idea, Nordic saves are always fun to follow. Good luck.

Thanks. It's astonishing that it has taken me this long to do it when you think that these are exactly the type of saves I like following. I loved my little "dabble" at the end of FM19 and want to do it justice now. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Save Tracker. 

Where have we been?.

Linköping is in the South of Sweden, almost directly between Gothenburg and Stockholm. 

Norrköping is the closest City and they have a good side of the same name in Sweden's top tier. 

[ajt]

Had a quality dafuge in Sweden in FM14 such a fun league system to manage in. Nice PA's on those players for sure, and good job staying in the league!

[Jimbokav1971]

37 minutes ago, ajt said:

Had a quality dafuge in Sweden in FM14 such a fun league system to manage in. Nice PA's on those players for sure, and good job staying in the league!

I think you mean Gundo, but I get what you mean. 

The Intake was reasonable, and because I was expecting dross, it's made them appear better than they actually are I think, (at least to me). I'm delighted with that. 

[ajt]

6 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I think you mean Gundo, but I get what you mean. 

The Intake was reasonable, and because I was expecting dross, it's made them appear better than they actually are I think, (at least to me). I'm delighted with that. 

Ahh you could be right yeah. I just remember a big thread with plenty of people playing in Sweden because it's such a short season to complete.

Haha yeah it's great when you're in the lower leagues & the PA stars are all so high. One of the most saddening things is when you climb up and then they (usually) start plummeting 

Do you plan to stay at Linkoping long term? Could be a good rivalry with Norrkoping.

[Jimbokav1971]

Moving Leagues. Mar 2020.

Last season we were in Swedish Second Division South Svealand.

This season we have been moved to Swedish Second Division South Svealand. (We are top of the table for a while at least). 

Season Preview. Last season we were expected to finish 14th of 14, (finishing 10th) and our odds were 30-1. This season our expected finish is up to 9th and our odds are down to 10-1. I'm hoping for a top half finish. 

[Jimbokav1971]

4 minutes ago, ajt said:

Ahh you could be right yeah. I just remember a big thread with plenty of people playing in Sweden because it's such a short season to complete.

Haha yeah it's great when you're in the lower leagues & the PA stars are all so high. One of the most saddening things is when you climb up and then they (usually) start plummeting 

Do you plan to stay at Linkoping long term? Could be a good rivalry with Norrkoping.

Yeah, the dafuge challenge was based in England. The Gundo challenge was based in any "small" Nation in Europe. Scandinavia was a popular choice and I seem to remember that Patryk Burda was a popular player. 

This is a Journeyman save, so I will move on at some point, but I certainly want to do "something" with Linköping first. Whether that's a title at this level or just promotion or something more we will just have to wait and see. Everything is pretty fluid and there is nothing set in stone. I might even get sacked and be forced to move. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Apr 2020. 

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. 3 wins from 4 games is a decent start to the campaign and the highlight was a perfect hat-trick by Elmi against Sävedalens IF.

Elmi.

[withnail316]

Decent start, Jimbo. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake preview. May 2020.

I thought I would post this now so that I can compare it to the intake when it happens. 

It's still a little confusing if I'm honest. 

First of all there is very little green and lots of orange and that's to be expected when you have such rubbish facilities. The only problem is that they are also calling this a "Golden Generation".

[Jimbokav1971]

12 minutes ago, withnail316 said:

Decent start, Jimbo. 

Yeah it is. I'm happy taking it nice and easy, but at the same time I don't particularly enjoy managing Amateur and Semi-Pro clubs. It will be good to get some sort of success and get away from this level of football. 

[OlivierL]

6 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

AFK Linköping. Sep 2019.

Swedish Second Division South Svealand.

We finished a whole 11 points clear of the relegation playoff and 15 points clear of automatic relegation. That's a better than decent start for the 1st season of the save, (which I absolutely hate). As far as I'm concerned the save is now up and running though. 

Youth Intake Day. 26th Sep 2019.

I'm a little reluctant to take much notice of "Golden Generation" tags now. I think the label is triggered far too easily and when we don't have a single 5.0 PA player I think it makes a mockery of the whole thing to be honest. That being said, our facilities are not good and I would say that this is actually better than I was expecting so I'm certainly not complaining. 

When each new FM issue is released, I always try to look at the early intakes in depth to see what tiny bits of info I can eke out to try and make me more informed as to who I might sign and why. The rightmost column is World Reputation (WR), and I think it stands to reason that a player with a higher WR must have some reason for that higher reputation to exist. Don't get me wrong, I don't KNOW this. I'm just thinking that there has to be a reason for this thing to exist. I think I have to use absolutely everything available to me to help me make the best decision as to who to sign and why. 

(19d) Björk is deemed to be the best of the bunch, (by the AI), because they are looking at CA and I'm more interested in PA. Thinking about it, that might be the reason for the "Golden Generation" trigger because in (19d), (19b) and (19a), there are players with a little CA that might catch the eye at a club. 

The players I actually signed though are (19a), (19b), (19c), (19d) & (19e) based purely on PA. I signed (19g), because he is a lefty playing on the left and we are short in that area. The only other player I signed was (19j), partly because the only GK we have with better PA is in on loan, and also because he was 1 of 2 players that I highlighted who had high WR, (the other was (19c) who we were already signing because of his PA. 

Like I said before, I don't know if I am on the right track here, but money is tight and I didn't want to sign everyone. Rather than looking for reasons NOT to sign a player, what I did this time was start with a default position of I'm not signing anyone, and then look for reasons to change my mind and sign a player. 7 players signed and 9 released. 

"Kriss" (19a) Roos (2019).

At this level, a semi-Pro club and with these facilities, this is better than I was expecting. 

The Chairman....... (wtf is he doing making decisions), has suggested that we sign 12 of the 16, but you can bet he won't be taking responsibility when it comes to discussing why we are over the wage budget. On that note, do foreign clubs also get a rebate for wages played to youth players in the same way that English clubs do? 

Something that is bothering me is that...... oh, we don't have a HoYD. That's why that role wasn't responsible for who to sign and why the Chairman was getting involved. At the very least I need to change that to the DoF, but I have been unable to find the line about who I am delegating Youth Intakes to, (and I have looked). 

The above is getting changed to  the DoF, (who wasn't at the club when I originally set this up. 

I seem to have both a DoF and also a Technical Director. Until now I thought this was a different name for the same role but we definitely have 2 different roles. 

The DoF is now responsible for hiring and firing all staff except the DoF and the Technical Director. 

There is nothing within Staff - Responsibilities for the Youth Intake, but maybe that's because we don't have a HoYD. I have the DoF responsible for finding players but that's not the same as bringing in players via the Youth Intake. 

I've looked at the Development Centre and it looks as if my Ass Man is the default option and I can't change it. Again, maybe that will change as and when we have a HoYD.

With the 1st Intake players now here I can properly go through the squad and decide who to keep and who should leave. 25 players will be leaving at the end of the season, +3 loan players and 9 Intake players who I haven't offered contracts to. It's possible that others will also leave, but this is who I want to leave. 

My job security is secure, but I am a little worried by being over the wage budget. This wouldn't have been an issue in previous versions of the game, but I'm just not sure how it's going to work in FM20. 

September 2019 monthly review. I'm happy with that bit it's early days yet. I wonder do I get an end of year review like this? 

The Finances are not good, but then again they're not going to be at this level are they. 

The bit that concerns me is this bit. Wages. 

I guess we will just have to keep an eye on it. I will have a clearer idea of who is worth what money now. In order to get us promoted I need to improve some of the young players at the club and to do that I need them on PT contracts rather than NC basis. It's an investment. I know I plan on moving on from here, but I don't want to screw them over either. It would be good to start getting offers for some of the player I improve to see that it's worth it financially. At the moment I'm not sure.

New contract. (I was beginning to wonder if I was getting one). It's only a 1 year deal but I suppose that's to be expected. They are upping my wages from £424 to £450 pw. 

Goal-scoring GK is still alive and well in this save, and the only reason I haven;t mentioned it is that Salah (TUN) didn't score any free-kicks. He did however score 4 penalties, (from 5 attempts I think).

Apologies for such a long post, but I really really really don't like the 1st season and just wanted to get it done. Normal shorter updates will resume. 

Great idea to add world reputation to your view . i'm already using 'media description '. I think that's also something u can use when u need to know more about youth players.

What do u think about that info ?

Are u starting your real save on the beta, i'm doubting . Want to start lower league so i think i can ignore potential data issues and give it a go ?

Edited November 3, 2019 by OlivierL

[withnail316]

I'm mixed on the golden generation thing. Personally I'd only use it as a description for top flight clubs, or at a push, big clubs who you think should be in the top flight (like Forest, Leeds, Sheff Wed, Hamburg etc).

With that said, it's all relative. Look at Crewe over the years, and the things their players have gone on to do. 

I do miss older FMs though where it was a much rarer phrase. I only saw it once in all my years on 13. 

Out of interest, how are you finding the transfer market on 20? Are you going to have a particular transfer philosophy on this save?

[Jimbokav1971]

30 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Great idea to add world reputation to your view . i'm already using 'media description '. I think that's also something u can use when u need to know more about youth players.

What do u think about that info ?

Are u starting your real save on the beta, i'm doubting . Want to start lower league so i think i can ignore potential data issues and give it a go ?

I've looked at everything at one point or another. 

I'm particularly interested in Hierarchy at the moment, (because I never got to go deep into it in FM19). I "think" that the players some through with hierarchy that is limited to within their own intake, and then on some views you can get it where it is limited only to Youth Team and then other views that are largely useless where is is relative to the whole club. 

To be honest I use absolutely everything and even then you are really shooting in the dark. I have decided that making "Day 1" decisions, (the day they come through the intake), is flawed no matter what you do, and the smart money is to sign all 16 up to a Youth contract every year. If you are at a big/middling club then that's usually not a problem, but at this club, playing at this level then it most certainly is. I just can't afford to pay out 16x £20 x 52week x 3intakes = £49,920 which is what the cost would be per season assuming you signed all 16 players and kept them between the ages of 16-19 for 3 consecutive intakes. My whole salary budget is only £108,576 over a 3 year period, so how can I spend £50k of that on Youth players alone? I just can't. 

The unhappy medium is to do what I do now which is to find reasons to sign players, (reasons why I can;t possibly let them go), whereas my normal default setting is that I am looking for reasons NOT to sign them. 

The longer you can put off the decision, (whatever it is), then the more information you will have because the reports are more likely to be accurate, (but still not 100% reliable). 

This is my real save. The game seems stable and I saw nothing which put me off starting so here it is. If I have to I will start again, but I don't envisage that happening. 

[Jimbokav1971]

16 minutes ago, withnail316 said:

I'm mixed on the golden generation thing. Personally I'd only use it as a description for top flight clubs, or at a push, big clubs who you think should be in the top flight (like Forest, Leeds, Sheff Wed, Hamburg etc).

With that said, it's all relative. Look at Crewe over the years, and the things their players have gone on to do. 

I do miss older FMs though where it was a much rarer phrase. I only saw it once in all my years on 13. 

Out of interest, how are you finding the transfer market on 20? Are you going to have a particular transfer philosophy on this save?

I don't agree that "Golden Generation" should be restricted to top flight clubs at all. I believe that it should be relative to the CA of the best players at the club at that time. If the players coming through the intake have a higher PA than the CA of the best players at the club, then I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to be labelled in this way. I just think it's happening too often. 

I completely agree with Crewe, (and to a lesser extent Barnet who I support). Of course these clubs can produce a "Golden Generation", but when we are talking about Crewe, perhaps there should be some record of the level of players that have historically come through the Intake and moved on elsewhere. That should also be used to gauge "significance". 

It should absolutely happen less often, Don't get me wrong. There are extenuating circumstances here in that when the Intake came through we were very much a club built on PA rather than CA, (with a couple of exceptions), so is it possible that lots of this rubbish intake are capable of reaching the level of our best players? Yes, of course it is, but FM doesn;t really work like that because the club tends to evolve and move forward rather than stagnantly standing still, so by the time this intake reach their peak and are now better than the level the best players were at when they came through the Academy, the club has now moved on and the benchmark required for 1st Team involvement is now significantly higher than it was when they were 16. 

I think I have only sold a couple of players in FM20, (and none in this save), so I am reserving judgement for the time being, (although I did manage to get a £500,000 per month loan deal. (on top of wages), for a winger while I was managing RB Salzburg, (which is ridiculous in my opinion). £0.5M per month for a player who was valued at..... I can't remember now but not a huge amount. 

I don't have a particular transfer policy and I don't think that is going to work in FM anymore. I can have a transfer policy that I use while at this club, (such as not signing players over 30 and also signing players with a view to selling them for a profit), but as soon as I move elsewhere, (or even get a new Chairman), then what they want and what their "vision" is, is going to change and I will ultimately have to adapt to that. If I don't adhere to their strategy, then while it will probably be ok if I'm winning trophies, as soon as I'm not winning trophies they are likely to want to know why I'm not sticking to the agreed plan. 

I've got no interest in signing ageing players so that's not a problem, and I'm trying hard to stay within the budget, (and doing ok), but I don't think any of the players are even attracting interest from anyone so it's pretty hard to sell them.

My highest valued player is only valued at £550, (no I haven't missed a comma or a digit out there), and some of my best players are on NC terms anyway so they can leave on a free if they attract interest. So far not a single one is attracting any interest at all. 

19 year old Wibell has scored 11 goals in 12 games and is on a NC bases so anyone can sign him on a free I think, but nobody is interested. 
23 year old Elmi has scored 5 goals and 6 assists in 12 games and he is on a PT contract, but he's only contracted for 1 season so someone can just nick him at the end of the season anyway. 

I "think" that if I can improve the finances and as the board trust me more then they will allow me to offer longer-term contracts, but I'm pretty sure that there are both Pro and Semi-Pro clubs in the league above so we could be in for a hard slog even if we do get promoted. 

It seems to be very hard to sell players, but I think that's caused by the level we are at than anything else. 

[Jimbokav1971]

May & Jun 2020. 

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. May especially looks like a poor month, but actually the only really poor result was  where we had a player sent off. It's the only home game we have failed to win this season. Contrastingly, we have only won once away this season. We're only 6 points off 2nd place, but that's quite a big margin if I'm honest. I don't really have any expectations of closing the gap significantly and all I am really doing is treading water until such time as our players slowly improve. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jul 2020.

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. After mentioning in the last update that we had only lost once at home this season, it will be of no surprise to anyone that the FM Gods have seen to punish me with not 1 but 2 home losses this month. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Aug 2020. 

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. We were 1-0 up against top of the table BK Olympic only for them to score a direct free-kick and then a penalty. 

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Youth Intake preview. May 2020.

I thought I would post this now so that I can compare it to the intake when it happens. 

Youth Intake. 24th Sep 2020. 

It's another "Golden Generation", but not that special at all. We have 1x 5.0 PA player, but it's interesting that the GK mentioned above in the preview is actually all about CA rather than PA. The GK is decent, but either way, it's really not a great intake. 

"Kriss" (20a) Mathiesen (2020) *.

[Jimbokav1971]

Sep 2020.

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. I had targeted a top 7 finish, so to finish in 4th is pretty decent going. Our home form was goon in the main, (with the exception of just after I commented on our good home form, but our away form was awful, collecting almost as many points away from home this month as we had in  the whole of the season up to that point. We changed nothing tactically and if I had to explain our decent late season form I would simply say that our young players are improving. I have no idea if we are going to be in this league next season or shunted across to another one, but either way I would suggest that we have a decent chance at competing for a Playoff place, (assuming of course we can re-sign all the players I want to keep). 

Goal-scoring GK watch. Unfortunately our GK didn't score any goals this season. He is a new arrival this season and I forgot to add him to both penalties and free-kicks and just ke[t delaying adding him until I just thought I would wait until the end of the season. Apologies. 

[withnail316]

Definitely on an upward trajectory. A pity to miss out on the play off by just four points, though. 

[Thebaker]

nice to see your saves as usual. Was this league weaker than the last  league or just a stronger team?

[Jimbokav1971]

36 minutes ago, withnail316 said:

Definitely on an upward trajectory. A pity to miss out on the play off by just four points, though. 

I'm not too bothered if I'm honest. It will feel like I have earned it more next season, (assuming we go up). We did better than I expected. 

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, Thebaker said:

nice to see your saves as usual. Was this league weaker than the last  league or just a stronger team?

I think we have just improved if I'm honest. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Club vision and expectations. Oct 2020.

The board are being more demanding now and are upping the ante. 

The 2 big things that they are very insistent upon are that we stay within budget and that we sign players to sell for a profit. I will absolutely be staying within budget, but selling players at all at this level is easier said than done. 

They still don't want me to sign 30+ players, and I have no issue with that at all, but they have now added attacking football, entertaining football and high-tempo pressing to the list. Attacking football is not an issue and neither is high tempo pressing, but what exactly is entertaining football? I don't particularly like watching Barca play for example, but I love watching the likes of Liverpool or Wolves. Isn't "entertained" subjective?

Anyway, they also want us to consistently finish in the top half of the table and that shouldn't be an issue either. 

[Thebaker]

i also had my board want attacking, entertaining and high tempo football at the start of my 2nd season. I was also the top league goal scorers that season - coincidence maybe? The board also would not drop the ideas either.

[Jimbokav1971]

New records. Oct 2020. 

[Scoham]

On entertaining try hovering over the "i" - it should give more information.

[Jimbokav1971]

Licence. Nov 2020.

In FM19 it took me so long to get my 1st licence because of the financial position at Stade Bayonne I forgot about them until much later in the save. I didn't manage to get it done in the 1st season, but we are off the mark now. 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

22 hours ago, Thebaker said:

i also had my board want attacking, entertaining and high tempo football at the start of my 2nd season. I was also the top league goal scorers that season - coincidence maybe? The board also would not drop the ideas either.

Probably not a coincidence no. 

The truth is we probably caused this. 

21 hours ago, Scoham said:

On entertaining try hovering over the "i" - it should give more information.

Yes, but this is..... quite an intangible and very subjective. 

[Jimbokav1971]

New Licence. Apr 2021. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Apr 2021.

Swedish Second Division West Götaland. An unbeaten 1st month of the season is a good start. It's just s shame that we didn't also win the opening game, (but maybe that's being greedy). When you consider that the draw was against the only team ahead of us in the league, then perhaps the draw wasn't so bad after all. 

Astonishingly although we only drew the opening game of the season, we didn't actually lose ground on anyone in the league as all 7 league games were drawn on opening day. 

After a season's holiday down to my lazyness, Goal-scoring GK is back and Becker wasted no more time in opening his account with an opening day penalty. 

Becker. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Job Interview. May 2021.

Our good form has caught the attraction of others and IFK Norrköping FK are the first to show an interest. 

We're unbeaten in 11 over this season and the end of last season.

IFK Norrköping FK are the big Premier League club close to us geographically. 

They are 7th in the Swedish Premier League so I'm nor sure where they expect to be. 

Actually the interim Manager has won both his games in charge so maybe they should appoint him.

This is a really big job for this stage of the save and my career, and I think it unlikely that it will prove successful 

Part of me thinks that I don't want to leave yet and it's too early, but I think I'm going to leave that to whether or not I get the job or not. 

This part of the interview is interesting though. 

Sign players U23 is a new one on me, and so is min. 3 year contract for players. I really like the fact that things like this are an option for boards now. 

The board seem quite ambitious and want a top 3 finish this season with a view of qualifying for the Champions League in the season after next, (which means finishing 1st in the league at the moment). At this early stage of the interview I think that even if I do get offered the job, it might not be for me at this early stage of the career because of the high board expectations. 

Does this suggest that my interview went well? 

Wow. 

This is an astonishing development and not something I was really expecting. 

Am I ready to leave now while we are top of the table, unbeaten after 6 games and look to have a decent opportunity of winning my 1st silverware?

The new board are very demanding. They want a top 3 finish this season while making the Final of the Swedish Cup, they want to challenge for silverware in 2022 and then they want to qualify for the Champions League in 2023, but not actually win the title until 2024. I don't think they understand that we have ti win the title in order to qualify for the Champions League. 

I think I'm going to save now, sleep on it and decide tomorrow Afternoon what I'm going to do. 

I will let you have some more info on IFK Norrköping FK and you can let me know what you think. 

Senior Squad. They have offered me a transfer budget of £6.5M and that's significant when you consider that our highest valued player is only valued at £1.3M.

Reserve Squad.

U19 Squad. 

[Bobsled]

That is a huge step up. You started with lowest reputation, right? Maybe this could even be considered a bit buggy?

[Johnny-Trotter]

I managed IFK Norrkoping on a FM19 journey youth-only save - where I would not sign players and would move to higher clubs when they came calling. I had joined them in about 2025 and the had been champions the previous season and fired their manager when they dropped down to 11th. After finishing out that season in about 5th, I then won the league for a few seasons in a row.

I found Norrkoping enjoyable - there was pressure to win though and if that's replicated for you in FM20, then you might have an early challenge to meet expectations. In the medium to longer term, the Allsvenskan doesn't have much consistency - I think I had three different teams finish second behind me in four seasons - so if you can build consistency, you should be well set.  

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, JonasAjax said:

That is a huge step up. You started with lowest reputation, right? Maybe this could even be considered a bit buggy?

That's a really good point and something I have considered. I haven't ventured into the Bugs Forum yet, but I think I will do tonight before making a decision.

The only thing I would say is that I am managing a  club in the nearest Town so that would certainly serve to highlight me to them, and I have also been hugely over-performing and managing in style that seems to fit perfectly with what they want. Despite that, yes, "a bit buggy" sounds like a decent description at this stage.

Very few people have been headhunted according to Steam, (I think it said 1.8% of players), and let's be honest, people generally report bugs that affect them negatively rather than positively in my experience.

I'm at work now but will probably raise it as a potential bug later and continue with the save. If the SI boffins can assure me that they don't class this as a bug then I might go back and take the job from the save point made last night. 

The only other option is to continue the "Haland - A bit special" save, which I really dont want to do, or possibly even start a new save to keep me going. 

What do you lot think?

Has anyone seen this reported in the Bugs Forum? Do you think this is a bug?

Edited November 6, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, JonasAjax said:

That is a huge step up. You started with lowest reputation, right? Maybe this could even be considered a bit buggy?

To be specific, ex Sunday League footballer and 0 badges, but I have already done 2 badges in the save.

[Bobsled]

You make a very valid point regarding the "headhunted" achievement being on such a low percentage. Had not taken into account your proximity to them as well so that might explain things as well. Still going from a 0,5 star reputation team to a 3 star reputation team without winning anything (you are of course doing well) would seem a bit off to me. But I very much do not want to be discouraging you from taking the job. If you like it, just take it, the narrative is easy to make with the proximity etc.

[ToMexico!!]

I think its a bit buggy, I'm managing King's Lynn in the National League North and have been given opportunities to be interviewed at Norwich (who were relegated first season) and Burnley after Dyche left to manage England. No way anyone would go from Level 6 to Level 1 or 2 especially when at National B license too. 

Loving the thread as always @Jimbokav1971 

[Jimbokav1971]

7 hours ago, JonasAjax said:

You make a very valid point regarding the "headhunted" achievement being on such a low percentage. Had not taken into account your proximity to them as well so that might explain things as well. Still going from a 0,5 star reputation team to a 3 star reputation team without winning anything (you are of course doing well) would seem a bit off to me. But I very much do not want to be discouraging you from taking the job. If you like it, just take it, the narrative is easy to make with the proximity etc.

No it's fine. I asked for input and welcome it. 

Ben at SI has responded to my thread and confirmed that "Had a report on this on that we have looked into, looks like the managers rep under the hood could be increasing too much at the moment in some cases. We need to pinpoint what is triggering  the potential spike in rep. "

I think that's good enough for me to accept that this isn't a valid job offer and I will be staying where I am for the time-being. Hopefully this will get fixed, (I'm about to up-load whatever saves I have available), and with any luck it will be a fix that affects existing games rather than having to restart to resolve, (and I think that's likely). Either way, I'm still Manager of AFK Linköping, (which obviously gives me the opportunity to win the 1st silverware of my career). 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

May 2021.

Unfortunately, as much as it's a brilliant opportunity..... it's a no thanks from me. 

[Zilla Blitz]

Great work on this! I'm enjoying following along.

If a patch doesn't address the reputation-spike issue with existing saves, would you start over or put in place some sort of house rule about not jumping more than one level up?

[Jimbokav1971]

1 minute ago, Zilla Blitz said:

Great work on this! I'm enjoying following along.

If a patch doesn't address the reputation-spike issue with existing saves, would you start over or put in place some sort of house rule about not jumping more than one level up?

I'm not really sure. I don't really think it will be an issue though because stuff like this is always save-game compatible. It's not a question of if I will have to re-start if they fix it, but whether they can fix it or not. As far as I'm concerned I will be just continuing and if I feel that an offer is right then I will go for it. We are flying at the moment, but this still wasn't right.