[FMT 20] - Lisbon lions with a twist

[Muttley84]

I know that following the title people will expect us playing with Celtic (they made the Lisbon Lions phrase famous), but no way Jose I am playing in the awful Scottish League. Actually, I haven't yet picked the team, but just the general idea of the challenge - which is achieve success (as much as possible) while only using players from Lisbon (Portugal). As I play my saves on FM Touch, restricting to a single city and with the small youth intakes might be a little to restrictive, that is why I have extended the rules to the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (pictured below) and players produced at the club. 

That is an area of roughly 2.8 million people, so will give me even with a small database a nice option of players to chose from going into the seasons. Of course, there's always the easy path of doing this with either Benfica or Sporting (sorry if you native Portuguese call them different, that's how we say it here in Romania), but I will find no joy in doing that and starting so at the top (at least for Portugal, as the two are part of the big three together with Porto). So what is left now to do is to pick another interesting club with decent enough facilities and strong basis for a mid- to long- term adventure (unless I get the sack in the meantime). So far the candidates are (not exhaustive, might have missed some clubs available in the area):

Primeira Liga
Belenenses SAD - Not actually the real club anymore, that is in 4th league with the fans, so pretty plastic club to be now.
 Vitoria de Setubal - Strong club, nice stadium and facilities, been struggling a bit lately, would I be a bit to easy?

Liga Pro
Casa Pia - The only club in the 2nd division actually in Lisbon. Recently promoted and destined to go back down (irl also).
Cova da Piedade - Dull club, facilities and a name a little to long for my liking (haha).
Estoril - Maybe the best pick out of second league (predicted 2nd), not long ago a regular in Primeira Liga with even some top 5 places.
Mafra - Not a lot to say about them, predicted 3rd from last, but I do love the color scheme (green on yellow).
Vilafranquense - Another club recently promoted and predicted to finish last by the media in season preview.

Campeonato de Portugal
Oriental - The only one found in Lisbon, a nice project to embark on.
Sintrense - Gotta love the castles from Sintra.
Amora - A bit of tradition, fallen down hard.
Alverca - Same as above.
(There are a lot more clubs here in 3rd league which could be available but none sparked my interest).

Now the hardest part in FM, which is picking the club. Let the multicriterial analysis begin in Excel (any suggestions welcomed).

[ManUtd1]

I'd vote for Sintrense. Love the setting and feel, but that's my personal inclination.

[Muttley84]

6 minutes ago, ManUtd1 said:

I'd vote for Sintrense. Love the setting and feel, but that's my personal inclination.

Found out they are actually 3 teams from Sintra in the same group of the 3rd League: Sintrense, 1 December and Sintra Football. Talk abou local rivalries

[Muttley84]

Have yet to pick a club (blame the holidays for that not my indecision and overthinking), but had some time to play around with players - this is a possible current best lineup of players born in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA from now on). Had to go striker-less as I simply cannot think of any good strikers eligible, made some roles switching (like for Nelson Semedo) and maybe missed a couple of interesting players. Opinions?

In addition, I have constructed a filter for FM Touch currently holding for over 100 cities, towns or ''parishes'' (I believe that's how they are called in Portugal) from the LMA. Hopefully that will assist me in time for finding the best available players out there. At a preliminary run that filter returned over 500 players born in the area, so it's a very nice upgrade from last year, when I played in Calabria (Italy) and only had a little over 100 to pick from. Having Benfica an Sporting in the area might help us in the first years. For sure they are going to produce decent amounts of players, and not all of them will be good for their first teams. Hopefully we will be able to attract some of them to us.

Edited December 26, 2019 by Muttley84

[Muttley84]

I guess you could say I have chosen an easier path with the club selection, as Estoril is as strongest as it can get for the second league. A 8000 stadium, average training facilities and adequate youth facilities and recruitment are a solid base to build on. But in the same time the Club Vision is pretty challenging, as the board expects nothing but promotion at first go. Now manager Paolo Ferreira (who is local boy born in Cascais - where Estoril is located, and also played for the club in his younger days, bonus points for those of you who remember) has the first task of making some order in the mess of 60+ players found between the first team and reserves. Many of them are on loans (in and out) so the next transfer windows might be a little busier than expected. I think some staff improvements are required also, lucky for me in Touch I only get one person per department so that should not take to long.

[Muttley84]

I was talking about a clearing in the squad, and that is exactly what we did. And to think that list does not include players sent in loan to teams from the 3rd division of Portugal (I still have hope for some of them). We had a little to many Brazilians for my liking  and most of them returned home. Other players left for 2nd and 3rd division clubs, and I had no trouble leaving some of them off for free transfers or a few pennies, just to clear some wage space. I am now left with around 25 players in the first squad and 10-15 in the reserves, which is more manageable in terms of numbers.

[Muttley84]

The transfers in are nowhere as spectacular as those going out. They are represented by three players: a new right back from Belenenses (20 yrs old Calila) which cost us the most, and two young rotation players, both coming from Vitoria Setubal for pennies and being pretty young: a 19 yrs old GK (Valido) and a 16 yrs old winger (Hugo Neves). I don't expect them to make much immediate impact, but are the first steps in building a team with only players from the LMA.

This is probably going to be our team starting 11. You will notice I am no tactical mastermind so just went with the predefined tactics of 4-2-3-1 Wide Control Possession. Probably some individual roles need a bit of fine adjustments, but we have the friendlies in the beginning of the season and we are doing just that as we speak. Backup tactic is one for counter attack where the AM is transformed into a DM, will probably use it against larger teams.

Having taken a look through the other teams in the league I am pretty confident of our chances of going up. I say that despite the fact that we have no less than 3 recently relegated teams from Liga NOS (Chaves, Nacional Madeira and Feirense), which together with Academica Coimbra should represent the main contenders for the two positions going up.

[Muttley84]

Going into the season we were lacking hard on confidence. That's mainly because our friendlies did not go exactly as planned, with no less than four defeats without scoring a goal, and if I could understand losing to Levante, Athletic Bilbao or Sheffield United, the one against Gondomar was a total surprise. For sure, we were not using the best lineup, and played a bit with player roles, but still. It did not help at all that the first official match was to be against Rio Avo from the Premier league. They did not used their best 11 against us and it costs them greatly, as we smashed a 4-2 win to put us in the groups of the Taca da Liga (league cup). Given than we have been drawn against Benfica, Moreirense and Setubal our chances are next to nothing, but hopefully we will get some money out of it (although it sucks we only play one match at home against Moreirense). What followed is a run of 4 league wins and a draw, which is a super way of starting the League and got Paulo Feirrera manager of the month for August. 

[Muttley84]

The young winger we brought from Setubal already breaking records. He still is not first team quality but I just want to shove as many LMA born players in game-time, preparing for the next seasons when hopefully we would be foreigners-free.

[Muttley84]

We continue our good run of results in the league, which saw us sitting undefeated in first position, joint with Nacional in the promotion spots. Our lead on the chasing pack isn't that big but its only been 9 matches (out of 34 ) for us. We also destroyed two lower league sides in the Portugal Cup (with tennis scores 6-0, 6-1) but our run is about to end soon as we have been paired with Boavista in the next round. In the League Cup we lost as expected at Benfica, but managed a lucky miracle in winning at Vitoria Setubal. Still, since just the first place qualifies further our chances of progressing are rather small. Despite how good cup runs feel, our main task is the league and to consolidate our position in the promotion places.

[Muttley84]

We were bound to lose in the league at some point, but it feels a bit like we gathered to many defeats in the end of the year. First we lost in a friendly against Sintrense, then we were out of the Cup following an over-time goal from Boavista. We then lost the two following away games in the league, against Academica Coimbra and Sporting Covilha. We somehow are still top of the league (guess our early lead was big enough and the other teams are as poor as us), but we need to step up our form to achieve promotion.

The main positive of this period is that somehow we won away at Moreirense in the League Cup and in the same stage Benfica lost at Setubal, so we finish first in the group with 6 points and managed to qualify for the semifinals - where we will meet Sporting. In the other one Porto is meeting Braga, so I guess you could say we ruined the big boys party.

[Muttley84]

Did not stand a chance against Sporting in a match in which we were simply outplayed. Sure, our 4-2-3-1 control possession gave us just that, as we had 57% of the time the ball, and we even created some chances (mainly by defenders going up at set pieces), but the quality of their players made the difference (although out of 23 shots they only had 8 on target and 3 goals). Their front 3 - Vietto, Acuna and Bolasie, each scored one, to put us out of the League Cup semifinal. It was a performance reaching this phase anyway, and now we can go back to concentrate on the league.

[Muttley84]

A busy transfer period in the winter also with both ins and outs of the clubs. We brought in more players which fit in the criteria of being born in the LMA and sold some who did not. I am not sure we are stronger as a team after the dealings, but if we could keep at least the form in the first part of the season which saw us sitting first at the new year, I would be more than happy.

[Muttley84]

Overall, a pretty balanced game statistics in the beginning of the year in the league: 3 wins, 2 draws and 3 loses. Not exactly the form of a champion but it's enough to keep us up there in the table with a 9 points lead over Nacional (Benfica B doesn't count in the promotion race) with 10 games left.

[Muttley84]

We continue our good run of results, although a bit to many draws than we would have liked for, but with 3 games left we are still sitting in 1st and we should be already promoted as they are 10 points to Nacional (might be a showing mini-bug).

[sgevolker]

Great overview, like your presentation and also a nice challenge idea. How many leagues do you use beside Portugal? 

[Muttley84]

1 hour ago, sgevolker said:

Great overview, like your presentation and also a nice challenge idea. How many leagues do you use beside Portugal? 

Only loaded Portugal, the main reason being I want to keep the save file low as I store it on Dropbox so I can play both at home and at work

[Muttley84]

A longer than usual update, but only cause it's the season finale. Somehow we managed to get destroyed at Leixoes, but bounced back with a win at home to Penafiel and a draw at Chaves, to not only promote to Liga NOS but also win the second league. Chaves will be the team joining us in the first division, while at the other end of the table Varzim and Lisbon-based Casa Pia are relegated to the third division.

These are the players which guided Estoril to promotion this season. You can't help but notice that our top goalscorer and the highest average rating player are not eligible to continue much longer with us (in fact we already lost Braganca as he was on loan to us and signed to another team). From the team of the season we can build on having both wingback covered. But they are another bunch of good players who came this winter transfer window and proved themselves to be useful to us (like Robinho).

What comes next? We have been given a decent enough budget for wages and a smaller one for transfer (but I would assume a nice one given prices in Portugal for players aren't that high). We already pre-signed a couple of players and are keeping an eye for what Sporting and Benfica release or transfer-list this summer. I have found that our reputation is still a bit low to sign a lot of players from these two teams, but hopefully as we promote to the first division we receive a nice upgrade to make us more attractive. The board expectations are pretty decent, just avoid relegation - we'll just have to find two teams who are worse than us and reach the 34p barrier (seems to be enough for staying up). No surprise in this season in the league: Benfica and Porto going to Champions League, Sporting, Braga and Guimaraes to Europa League.

[Muttley84]

By now I got used to youth intakes in Touch being reduced in numbers. But I guess it only takes out a lot of the players who wouldn't make it anyway, and just leaves the best of the bunch. In this case I am going to sign the first three and put them in the reserves to develop.

[Muttley84]

The bookies don't give us much chances of staying up, but on the other side there are 5 teams with the odds of 1-1000 of staying up (that seems a bit unrealistic to me and never saw such a thing in the season preview). The schedule is pretty easy in the beginning of the season, so hopefully we can start strong in the league.

[quee]

Are the asterisks next to the players name for new players or LMA players?

[Muttley84]

One of the things missing in FM Touch is the possibility to select affiliate clubs, but the board did that for us in selecting a team from Belgium. Not sure how much that is going to help us.

1 hour ago, quee said:

Are the asterisks next to the players name for new players or LMA players?

They are players from the LMA area. We are pretty close to getting the full team roster with only such players so not sure I am going to keep using that system afterwards.

[SixPointer]

Where is Duarte valente? I signed him for heerenveen in Fm18 what a player he became 

[Muttley84]

4 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Where is Duarte valente? I signed him for heerenveen in Fm18 what a player he became 

He only played in 2 matches this season for the first team while being retrained and mainly in the reserves as I don't play with a DM. For the new season I think he will be ready to play in MC so he is in the first team rooster. I don't know how he was like in FM18, but he doesn't look that special in this edition to be honest.

[Muttley84]

The team which will try to keep Estoril in the first division this season. Not sure what to make of their quality, on paper it looks pretty decent hopefully we can connect together good and play some nice football.

[Muttley84]

Complete list of the transfers we made this summer. A bit to many moves in and out to have any consistency in our game, but I'd like to think what we brought in is at least of the same quality if not better to what we sold. Only games will tell us that though.

[Muttley84]

Not really a dream debut of our adventure in Liga NOS, but at least we are sitting in mid-table mediocrity safety so far.

[Muttley84]

We continue our mediocre performances in the league. Furthermore, we are out of both cups by now. Lucky we won some games at Moreirense and Portimonense, and even managed some draws (including a miracle one at home to Porto). We are siting in 10th and we are not going to make any transfers this winter, although we still have some money left both in the transfer and wage budget, but we want to increase current team cohesion. 

[Muttley84]

Holly Molly this is one bad performance. I was so angry with the players (instead I should have been with myself), that I made a full rotation and put in all the reserves against Chaves, ending up losing so bad (and they were dead last at the moment). In February we switched to a 4-5-1 counter tactic, and managed to squeeze some draws out of it against Boavista, Guimaraes and Maritimo. For the first time in the season relegation seems a prospect, as they are only 3 points of safety for us. It is going to be a nerve-wrecking end of the season.

[Muttley84]

One win and one draw is hardly enough to keep us afloat in the league, and with 2 games left to go we are sitting in the relegation spots. It's a three way tie at the end of the table, and we are facing two teams which don't have anything to play for, so maybe miracles can happen.

[Muttley84]

Nope. We did not made it. And although the board did not sack me and proposed that we continue together pushing for another promotion, I don't think I will continue this career. So much for the second fail in FM 20  I will be back though, with something similar for sure.