That said I have managed to install a standard logo pack and FLUT dark skin this afternoonOriginally Posted by Lofty
That said I have managed to install a standard logo pack and FLUT dark skin this afternoon
Atalanta 2029/30 Midseason Update
Well, I'd say we've done a decent job consolidating. We didn't make any huge moves, other than selling overpaid squad player Tommy St Jago for £26m at the start of the summer, but I did put a focus on bringing back some homegrown veterans to help out with squad registrations, and ensure our young players could all go out on loan without sacrificing depth. We've also agreed a deal to bring in a beastly looking young goalkeeper, who should be my long term number 1 & will probably challenge the other beast I manage for Italy as the best young GK in the world in a few years time.
Despite losing the European Super Cup 3-0 to Arsenal at the start of the season, we've carried on our momentum from last season in both domestic & European competitions, sitting second in Serie A midway through the season & third in the CL league phase with five wins from six, including beating both PSG & Barcelona. The other game? A 2-0 defeat to Everton
TRANSFERS | SERIE A FIXTURES | SERIE A TABLE | CL FIXTURES | CL LEAGUE TABLE | EURO SUPER CUP
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Italy
Quick update here too. We qualified for WC2030 as expected, beating everyone except Austria, who we drew 1-1 with. Unfortunately, having already lost to them before I took over that meant we only finished second in our group, but we did top the second placed teams table & since been drawn alongside Iran & Tunisia. which seems about average.
2029 FIXTURES | QUALIFYING TABLE | SECOND PLACE TABLE | WC2030 GROUP DRAW
Is 'Chairperson' instead of 'Chairman' a new feature in 23?
Started a journeyman save, sunday league footballer experience, C licence, Tactician, England Germany Italy France Spain all leagues running. Was rejected for a lot of jobs, eventually got offered two interviews: Banbury and Chippenham. Banbury opted for Dean Holdsworth, and whilst Chippenham look to be in dire straits (18th in the Vanarama South with 13 points from 12 games, -4 GD) I am bored of waiting so off we go.
Last edited by Lofty; 01-03-2023 at 08:07 AM.
Found this manually, search is useless. FM23 is verified and can run a lot of leagues and ultra graphics, just small text naturally.
Atalanta 2029/30 Season Review
Just gonna keep this one short because I'm not over it yet.
We continued our good form in all competitions, winning the Italian Super Cup & progressing from the CL league phase with 7 wins from 8 games. We got drawn against Dortmund, who we'd played in our last league phase game, and saw them off again, only to get drawn against Man City, who totally outplayed us - as every team would have, we we easily the smallest team in the last 8.
In the league, Milan refused to lose until we met them for the second time, and our win proved to be their only league defeat all season. Despite that, we actually had a 5pt lead coming down the home stretch, although we still had to play Napoli, Juventus & Inter, so I expected to watch it slowly disappear before my eyes. The way it played out, however, was even more dramatic, as we beat Juve & Napoli, but lost 3-0 to 16th placed Udinese & drew against Torino & Sassuolo, before throwing away a 2-0 lead against Inter. Somehow, though, we could still win the title on the last day if we beat relegated Pisa & Milan lost to Napoli...
Toggle Spoiler
SEASON TRANSFERS | LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE | CL FIXTURES | SUPER COPPA | SQUAD OVERVIEW
I have the World Cup with Italy up next, which will be the only tournament I manage them for, so hopefully we can do well - we're the defending champions, but we've definitely not played like the best team in the world, so I feel like anything beyond the last eight would be a decent result.
EDIT: Unfortunately for me, the Italian FA think the minimum we should achieve is reaching the World Cup final
Last edited by Dan; 03-03-2023 at 12:08 PM.
That January transfer update really did wipe out a lot of the Wonderkids lol. Schjelderup, Endrick, Duranville, Datro Fofana, Murdryk and Santos all moved clubs off the top of my head.
Chelsea must be the easiest long term save in a while. The rebuild has basically already been done for you.
Turns out that I was right.I have the World Cup with Italy up next, which will be the only tournament I manage them for, so hopefully we can do well - we're the defending champions, but we've definitely not played like the best team in the world, so I feel like anything beyond the last eight would be a decent result.
EDIT: Unfortunately for me, the Italian FA think the minimum we should achieve is reaching the World Cup final
We sailed through our group of Iran & Tunisia, before seeing off Scotland in the second round & Portugal in the third. Unfortunately, we faced France in the quarter finals, and they have this lad called Kylian Mbappe who'd quite good - two France highlights, two Mbappe goals.
The FA considered that to be a campaign deserving of an F grade, but I pretty much got on a plane out of there as soon as the final whistle went, so that'll probably be it for my international management career
2030 FIXTURES
So...
Carlo Ancelotti retired & Real Madrid brought Zidane back again (I did apply & got an interview, but clearly never stood a chance). That meant Dortmund, the team I beat in the CL league phase then dumped out in the last 16, needed a new manager, and considering they're offering me 9x my current transfer budget & double the wage budget, it's pretty hard to say no. It does feel early to leave Atalanta, but Dortmund were one of the two clubs I'd targeted as the ideal next step - the other being Lyon, who now have a tycoon.
We're no better off in terms of competing against a juggernaut, obviously, as Bayern have won every title on the save so far, and Zidane has already decided to activate the release clause of the superstar GK I was looking forward to managing, but it's another huge jump in resources so we should be able to throw some money about & get the squad to a good place before the start of the season.
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I'm leaving Atalanta in a good spot, fresh off the best season in their history, with a squad full of talented young players & having just accepted a £50m+ offer from Real Madrid for a striker who's been out on loan the last two seasons. Maybe I'll come back further down the line & try to finish what I started, but after the heartbreak of last season it does kinda feel like we gave it our best shot & would probably have to wait another few seasons for another opportunity, in which case I may as well just build with a 2-3 year window at a team with way more resources & pulling power.
Last edited by Dan; 03-03-2023 at 04:31 PM.
Getting absolutely fucked up in serie A, but it's been a really productive season. Spent the last 8 seasons slowly haemorrhaging money until prize money/board injections/player sales bring us back to the black. This year, on account of our frankly ludicrous serie A warchest of ~350k/week wages (about half of even the second cheapest knackers in the league), every time I check the finance tab we have a couple of million more than before.
Signed shit loads of saleable young prospects and upgraded all the facilities. I'm looking forward to destroying Serie B next season.
Following the disappointment of that first campaign where we were so fucking good and didn't win the title.... we weren't able to follow up on in in season 2, at least not in the league. Juventus absolutely ran away with it leaving us to fight for a top 4 spot. When January rolled around we continued the project of fixing our defense signing Janne Hamalainen, a Finland internation LB from Atalanta for £6m, Leonel Briz Castillo, a Mexican international RB from Club America for £7m, the previously mentioned Balazs Kiralyvari from Stoke for 6.5m (Hungarian international RB) and bringing back old favourite Nico Schlotterbeck from Dortmund for 4.8m. We also signed a young defensive midfielder called Damion Zettl from Red Bull Salzburg for £3m. To offset some of this we sold Claudio Mezo, a Paraguayan international striker who wasn't worth a valuable non-EU slot to Villarreal for £2.5m. We also loaned out a bunch of young players, most notably Briz Castillo to PSG (as we couldn't register another non-EU player) and Fabrizio Cazzaniga (more on him later) to Salernitana in Serie A.Toggle Spoiler
Long story short we finished 2nd again, never threatening Juve, but went on a fantastic Champions League run. In the group phase we won 7 out of 8 games, beating Trabzonspor, Ajax, Celtic, Hertha, Lille, Everton (Who have a tycoon) and Leipzig and only losing to PSG (though we lost 5-1 there). We then beat eventual champions Juve 8-3 on aggregate in the round of 16 before stunning Man City 5-2 on aggregate in the quarters. Unfortunately we bumped into PSG in the Semis and after a 2-2 draw at home, we went one worse in the 2nd trip to Paris and lost 6-1.
So we went back to business for Season 4, my 3rd season in Serie A (after taking over in Serie B) and continued to plug away at the defense, signing:
Pascal Ludovic- A RB/CB from recently relegated Werder Bremen for £12m. He was a bit part player for the first part of the season and spent the 2nd half of the season on loan at Gijon to get some game time.
Marcus Vinicius- A wonderkid LB/CB from Atletico Mineiro for £5.25m. We couldn't register him (non EU issue again) so he was loaned out to Atletico Madrid for the season where he was a starter for them. Annoyingly as soon as he left the game decided he was now registered but I didn't include a recall clause.
Mario Napoletano- a LB I've had my eye on for some rime from Sassuolo for £10m. I had previously agreed deals with him but he wanted £250,000 a week or so. Now his demands were down to £120,000 which still made him our top earner but I needed to replace an ageing Malacia so in he came.
William Cosenza- A young striker signed for £3.9m from Boca Juniors and loaned back out. Looks like he might not be good enough to be fair.
Our only notable sales were Cher NDour joining Sociedad for £5.5m, Samuele Vignato joining Spezia for £1.4m, Enrico Delprato joining Bologna for £1.2m and former starter Nicolo Casale hoining Salernitana for £800k.
This left the new look squad as:
GK- Huriez- Still our number 1 despite not being a world beater, we just haven't found better. By the end of the season he had played 111 league games in Serie A for us Vs 1 league game in the rest of his career. He's 30 as well so not like he was a kid when we signed him.
LB- Napoletano, displacing Malacia who was just too old now.
CB- D'Agostino remained a starter despite big money bids in the summer from Newcastle unsettling him (he still wants to leave but has agreed not to unless someone bids £36m.) He was partnered by Fabrizio Cazzaniga who returned from a loan spell to another Serie A club last season and looked to have bags of potential and was now listed as a wonderkid. One of our own
RB- Leonel Briz Castillo who could now be registered following his 6 month loan at PSG.
DMC- Zang Xianglong who was signed FOR FREE from Arsenal and is a beat, alongside Pedro Henrique who played at CB for us last season but we moved him forward to accommodate Cazzaniga. Henrique is probably the player I'd most like to upgrade on, aside from maybe the keeper.
AML, AMR and ST- Unchanged- Martino, Romero and Ghillarducci retain their spots but Almada dropped to a bench option for Taylor Hatton, another freebie (This time from Liverpool) stealing a starting spot after being the top marksman in Europe last season.
And it was a season of 2 halves to be sure.
We kicked off the season with the toughest game possible, away at the champions Juventus and we didn't get a kick as we lost 3-0. I wasn't worried as we faced promoted Cremonese next... but when that finished 2-2 I was suddenly very worried. An international break happened and following it we got D'Agostino back from injury which was huge but for whatever reason I blamed the slow start on Napoletano and bought back Malacia to play LB. This worked as we romped past Atalanta 5-1 and then Atletico Madrid away 3-0 in the next 2 games. We snatched a 2-2 draw in a tough game with Napoli and then beat Benevento 4-0 and things were looking up and after that run of games I gave the job back to Napoletano and he didn't let it go again. Cazaniga still hadn't kicked a ball all season due to injury and Ghilarducci had also been injured in the first game but other than that we were finally at full strength. Unfortunately, despite the fact the CL was still going well we suffered back to back league losses against Roma and Sampdoria and were then struggling in midtable. We went to Inter soon after and I felt we had to win to stop the streak of us getting up into the european places and then dropping down. We went all out for it and stole a 2-1 win in a result that was pivotal. All told by the midpoint of the season we were in the top 4 and we had cruised through into the Last 16 of the Champions League again, winning all of our games except a 3-3 draw with Bayern (where we were 3-0 down at HT) and losing 3-0 to Man City when I rested everyone.
The 2nd half of the campaign... was the polar opposite. We collapsed in the CL, losing to a last minute goal against Atletico Madrid who we had previously spanked in the group phase... but we stopped being so hit and miss in the league. We beat Roma 2-1 to close the gap on them and Inter who were at the top and then following 3 more wins we were top, although it was about a point separating the top 4 (Us, Roma, Inter and Juventus). We blinked first, drawing 2-2 at Napoli and letting Inter and Roma overtake us. All 4 teams continues winning streaks but Juventus dropped away when we beat them 3-0 and they also lost to the other 2 as well. It was now a 3 horse race. For much of the season Roma were ahead of us by a point and we were 2 points above Inter but they had a game in hand. After that Napoli draw where we gave up the lead, we won 13 games in a row and that was only enough to steal a narrow lead over Roma who only dropped points once, ironically by drawing at Napoli just like we did. Inter meanwhile refused to drop points, also going on a 13 game win streak which snapped abruptly when they came to face us at Olimpico and we dismantled them 5-0. This was after we had won our previous game 1-0 with a 89th minute winner. Following those 2 results we had 2 games to go and a 1 point lead over Roma. Inter were all but out of it following the 5-0 loss to us and when they only drew 1-1 at Fiorentina in their next game it was a 2 horse race. Unfortunately, we had one more slip up in us, going to the San Siro and losing 2-1 to AC Milan despite absolutely bossing the game. Roma won and we had that sinking feeling as they went back top by 2 points heading into the final day. But there was still a glimmer of hope because Roma had to go to Inter on the final day while we had Genoa at home. We ruined Genoa, winning 7-0 and frankly it should have been more. And then the news came through that Inter had beaten Roma 1-0, making us the champions. I don't know if I could have handled getting 92 points and not winning the league 2 seasons after getting 93. We pipped Roma by 1 point and Inter by 3 points.
Player wise, Taylor Hatton was the top scorer in the league with 32 goals. Ghilarducci was 3rd with 22. They were also the top 2 players in the league on average rating with Ghilar on 7.77 and Hatton on 7.73. Sukru Karaman, a wonderkid I signed from Liverpool for £6.5m in January was also ranked high with 7.36 despite only really being a sub. He managed 12 league goals and 4 assists in 20 games with 18 being off the bench. Luka Romero had the most assists with 16 and Hatton set a record for most MOTM awards with 10.
Frankly, I don't know where I go from here. This was seen by me as a season of transition, especially after our bad start. We had some great young players, especially the LB on loan at Atletico and Cazzaniga who eventually broke into the first team as our starting CB and I was planning to just let them develop with a view to challenging for the title properly in a season or 2. To have won the league with such a young squad who have so much potential feels a bit like "completed it mate" and time to move on, but.... there's something about this team and this league that is just fun. We'll see if I move on or not I guess.
With the January data update having landed I need to get back into this. I have a few ideas for a save, but any suggestions?
Reims and show the gimp in charge who the real FM super star is
Dortmund 2030/31 Midseason Update
Well, it's been a very Bundesliga season so far - Bayern out in front, us in behind & everyone else beating each other too frequently to keep pace.
We didn't end up spending much, and in fact have sold more than we've bought, although we did bring in four goalkeepers since we only had two shit ones at the club after the good one followed Zidane to Real Madrid. The players we did sign have been good though, with Marian Diekneite our new number one, Thom Visser impactful on the left wing, Benjamin Jimenez reuniting with me to keep things ticking over in the middle & Jon Karrikaburu leading us in goals despite only being intended to be a backup player.
As mentioned, we're sitting second in the league at the midway point, although having beaten Bayern at their place we probably should be top - unfortunately a couple of classic FM specials have cost us, but we're certainly closer than I expected to be.
TRANSFERS | LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE
The Champions League has been a mixed bag, with some good results balanced out by a smashing against Benfica where all four of their goals were scored by players I'd had at Groningen, then a loss to Man City where we threw away a 2-0 lead. We are still in position to get an automatic spot in the last 16, but we have my former club Atalanta up next, which will probably be an interesting one.
CL FIXTURES | CL TABLE
I may have gone a bit far with the player sales & loans, as we've been having some problems with depth & fitness, particularly at the back where CB Thiaw & LB Moha have been needing a rest for what feels like two months. As such, I've gone crazy the other way & have already brought in a bunch of defenders & midfielders to help ensure we have some extra cover through the second half of the year. The youth setup doesn't seem to have a huge amount of talent at the minute, so I'll be looking to snap up some promising youngsters & hopefully the youth intakes will start chipping in as well.
Just finished the 27/28 season with an all-time Cov record finish of fifth which was good for a spot in the Europa League, then a news item confirmed that thanks to coefficients both England and Germany now had 5 Champions League group spaces so I'm in the big time somehow.
My board has set me the target of reaching the 'table stage' so I'm guessing the European competitions are all a bloated mess that makes no sense now
Palamós CF 37/38 Season Update:
Transfers Out:
Sergio was a quality backup option for us being able to cover 3 positions and I wasn't planning on selling him this season. Leverkusen kept making shit offers for a CDM of mine (which got progressively worse every few days) and then out of the blue they decided to meet Sergio's release clause of £71m. I was stunned that they went that high, especially as it came from nowhere.
Toby Macneil was a HUGE part of the team since signing in 2030/31 for £9.5m. He was absolutely amazing for us at AMR as an IF but struggled at times when I moved him to ST as an AF. I wanted to make a push for the CL this season and didn't think he was good enough to lead the front line so I wanted to sell him to bring in a newgen from Spurs who looks mustard. However, I couldn't get it done in the Summer as Spurs wanted £300m or so. I went back in during January and got a deal agreed of £270m or so (a lot on instalments) but he accepted a new contract at Spurs for a lot less money.
I also had a problem selling Macneil too, despite many big clubs wanting him all I was getting was shit offers. His value was £100m+ but teams kept bidding closer to £40m. Macneil ended up being phased out slightly after the Summer though as I decided to give Matias Soucase a chance as the striker and he flourished which made Macneil redundant and I accepted £80m in January when Norwich came calling.
Eduardo Stevens was our first choice keeper and whilst he was great for us he had a bad performance in him. In November he conceded 4 goals in back to back games (against Real Madrid and Bayern) which pissed me off so I benched him and I splashed the cash on a new first choice keeper in January.
Transfers In:
We didn't really need a new striker (nor an AMR) but I liked the look of him and he did really well this season. Scoring at a decent rate when played and he managed a few assists.
In came Matthias Jensen to become our new number 1 keeper, he's probably the best keeper in my save so it was a huge upgrade over Stevens. He played really well and was even named the keeper of the year in the CL. The only negative is that he saved his worst performances for the final couple of games when we really needed him...
I didn't need a LB (I've even agreed to buy another in the Summer) but I couldn't say no to Maurizio Remorini. He was 20 when he signed and he's already fairly comparable to my starter but he has bags of potential still. He introduced himself well with 3 assists on his debut but struggled when playing in any other game sadly.
League:
I'm not really sure what happened here, Real were top of the league after the mid-season break (albeit by H2H IIRC) and looked like they would go toe to toe with us throughout the season but when they came back they turned to shit winning only 7 games, drawing 7 and losing 6. As such no one was going to realistically catch us come the end of January and the only reason we didn't hit 100+ is because I kept playing the second 11 in games before the CL.
Also, the 4-3 with Real Madrid right near the end was fun. I played my second 11 and we were 3-0 down after 33 minutes. We grabbed one before halftime and then the reserves levelled it up before I sent on some of our big guns to win the match.
Cups:
Our second Supercopa win for the second 11, such a pointless super cup. In the actual cup we were shit. We battered Osasuna for 120 minutes but they held on and then won on penalties. The board were seething but fuck it.
Europe:
Second year in a row that we failed to hit the top 8 but the game screwed us with some mental hard fixtures (four of which finished in the top 8, what bullshit) and so we needed the playoffs.
Playoffs:
Milan were never going to stop us but I did worry how bad we looked in the first leg. Thankfully we smashed them in the second.
Round of 16:
Leverkusen were the easiest team by far that we could have gotten in this round and the FM gods were kind to us. I was a little scared in the second leg when they went 1-0 up and we got a red as I thought the game was going to screw us over. But we managed to hold on.
Quarter-Final:
The 3-2 score line flattered "Atleti" a lot as we should have done a lot better. Again, I feel tis was the easiest draw we could have had as we are much better than all the Spanish sides right now.
Semi-Final:
After the first leg I was cautiously optimistic as we looked the better side and probably could have won it by more. I thought we were going to the final when Ikanga scored early but then the game stuck the middle finger up at us. Carlos Guevara (sadly not Che) was sent off for fuck all and then it was near enough all them, sadly my keeper had a shitter and he really should have saved two of their goals. I was crushed and felt we had been done over by the game, this was tough to take.
PSG went on to beat Dortmund (no idea how they did it as they finished 3rd in the Bundesliga behind Leipzig, who are the first team to win the Bundesliga other than Bayern, and Bayern) in the final.
Squad:
The squad right now is brilliant and more than capable of winning the Champions League but the game seems to keep throwing random red cards and penalties against us in the biggest matches to hamper us. I did try to buy a WORLD CLASS CB or RB to come in as I feel our defence is the weakest position but they were both £250m+.
I decided to bring heavy metal football to the Vanarama South with great success. Put together quite the run after a debut defeat against national league opposition. We even managed to briefly top the league table before doing an impression of Marv from Home Alone 2 and immediately falling. Essentially form stuttered during the run in partly due to injury and partly due to Chippenham being a part time outfit with no money meaning the players I had got playing well were easy pickings for other clubs. Finished 2nd with 91 points behind Ebbsfleet. Beaten 1-0 with a man sent off by Havant and Waterlooville in the playoff
Have you chosen?
Is this lagging for anyone else since the minor update from yesterday?
God, I love these useless dickheads.
I haven't yet. Been tied up with some tedium and haven't had the time to crack into a game yet.
Another season down at Lazio following our title win the year before and it was eventful.Toggle Spoiler
Going into the Summer Transfer window I was happy to just keep the band together, but the game had other ideas. 3 of my first team players- Huriez, D'Agostino and Briz Castillo were seriously unsettled following premier league interest. While I was able to get 2 of them to stay in the end, Castillo just wasn't having it and he eventually departed for Man City for £36.5m which could rise to £42m, not bad considering we signed him for £7m 18 months ago. Malacia was released due to being too much money for his age and Schlotterbeck was sold off for £3m after getting homesick but then randomly choosing Wolves over a return to Germany..... alright mate. Janne Hamalainen who had been our back up LB/LW was also sold when Atletico offered us £16.5m for him which was frankly too much for the role he played. On deadline day Karalyvari threw his toys out the pram and was sold to Napoli for £8m. While all these were good deals, I did take my eye off the ball a little, and not realise just how many defenders we had let go....
Transfers in were more low key than the outs. We signed Frederic Andrey, a young Defensive Midfielder for £14.25m from Caen and immediately loaned him out to Sunderland. We also completed the £12m signing of wonderkid Keeper Dario from Espanyol but I didn't realise I had still included a loan back so he went back there on loan. To offset losing him we signed Norway's keeper Simon Nokolaisen from Dortmund for £1.7m to warm the bench. We also bought in a young promising winder, Mouhamed Ndao from Atalanta for £3.6m and Alexis MacAllister who was released from Napoli joined us on a free.
It was only after deadline day that I realised just how badly I'd fucked up. We had 6 first team defenders on the books.... and we played a back 4. To make matters worse, 1 of the other 2 was our first choice at DM. This meant we had 1 player to fill in for 5 first team spots. Oops. I got to work trying to solve it but the rules being what they are meant that no matter what I did (free transfer, loan etc) no one new could join us until January. Surprisingly this didn't bite us on the arse as hard as I expected as we, for the most part, avoided injuries and were able to soldier through. When the transfer window opened, we immediately signed:
Caio Henrique- a verteran I signed on a free hoping I could register him to play before January.... I could not. He ended up not playing and leaving at the end of the season.
Gabriel Fernando- A Brazilian CM/RW who was released by Mineiro but seemed good enough to play a role for us. He was my first back up at CM and did well enough.
Betinho- my favourite signing of the window for £12m from Palmeiras. Unfortunately, we fell victim again to the non-EU rules and couldn't play him. He was therefore loaned out to Hertha.
Andreu Crusat- A young defender who joined on loan from Barcelona, featured a little.
Moises- a promising winder from Napoli for £5m who barely featured as he's not ready.
Alfred- A young defender from Las Palmas for £8m. He again featured a bit as our first reseve whenever a defender needed a rest.
Pedro Suarez- Another youngster, this one a DMC who played again as a first reserve.
Rusembergue- Young Brazilian fullback from Fluminense for £5.75m who was loaned to our feeder club as he's nowhere near ready.
This gave us the depth we needed to not struggle as much in the 2nd half of the season. Towards the end of the window we added Jose Rodriquez, a decent looking Uruguayan wonderkid who was available on a free and all of Europe were in for him. We actually did sign and register him but I wanted him to play more so he was loaned out to PSV. We then added Edemar, a wonderkid I noticed a couple of years ago who ended up going to Spurs but they were selling for a cut price fee of £14m. I couldn't register him so out he went on loan to Schalke.
The starting line up ended up being:
GK: Huriez- been in the job 3 years but will probably be moved on as he constantly asks to leave and Dario will be back from his loan spells.
LB: Mario Napoletano- His 2nd year as our starter, very solid player but 31 years old now.
CB: Same pairing as last season, Cazzaniga and D'Agostino. I thought we might lost D'Ago but luckily we didn't.
RB: Pascal Ludovic who we loaned out last season. Not as good as Castillo we lost, but solid enough.
DMC: Pedro Henrique- Still looking to upgrade on him, may well be able to when Andrey returns from Sunderland.
MC- Zeng Xianglong- still amazing, still can't believe he was free.
LW and RW are still Martino and Romero as always.
ST- Ghillarducci is the most important player at the club, but Hatton, despite being the top scorer in Europe 2 years running, dropped to the bench with Karaman taking his spot.
The season quickly turned into a 2 horse race between us and Inter Milan for the title. We had a bit of Champions League hangover that saw us drop points early on especially with our small squad making rotation impossible. We also nearly got knocked out in the group phase, but a couple of wins towards the end snuck us through. The 2nd half of the season once the new players came in we improved a lot and built up a 4 point lead over Inter, although that disappeared when we got hammered 4-1 by AC Milan. Inter weren't as dominant as usual though so we were able to stay above them and when we beat them 2-0 with 3 games to go, it all but killed off their title challenge. Our penultimate game with Sampdoria was then delayed until after the "final day", and on said "final day" we wrapped up the title by beating Pisa 3-0. Inter actually lose to AC, though it didn't matter as we won. We then won the delayed game as well, though the title was already done.
Lazio- 92
Inter- 85
Genoa- 77
Juventus- 71
- - - - -
Roma- 70
Napoli- 63
Milan- 62
So for the second year running we end up with 92 points, but this time the title was much more comfortable.
In the Champions League we went on a great run. Despite stuttering through the group phase and into the Play Off we beat Sociedad 5-2 (4-0 at home, 1-2 away) to advance to the round of 16. We then beat Arsenal 6-3 (3-1 at home, 3-2 away) and Liverpool 8-2 (5-1 at home, 3-1 away) to make the Semi Finals for the 2nd time in 3 seasons to face Bayern Munich. Much like last time though.... we were nowhere near. We once again drew 2-2 in our home game, but lost the 2nd leg 4-1.
All told, another successful season, and the squad is only getting stronger. Karaman was a revelation up front, bagging 50 goals in 43 (11) games. Ghillarducci's goal totals dropped off massively playing behind him as he only managed 19 goals (Luka Romero had 24) but it was worth it to get so many out of Karaman. Taylor Hatton chipped in with 17 in 34 (17) games but he did score 2 goals including one in the 88th minute to help us beat Juventus 3-2 in a vital game at the end of the season and then both goals when we beat Inter. He was rewarded by FINALLY getting called up by Mourinho's England and is going to the World Cup.
Last edited by Browning; 10-03-2023 at 08:48 PM.
Dortmund 2030/31 Season Review
We've finally got to the end of the season, and for the most part everything stuck to the patterns above.
BUNDESLIGA:
I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this one, as despite beating Bayern home & away this season we still finished comfortably second, thanks to those occasional games where FM just decided we were losing. I got that vibe a couple of times in the second half of the season - take a look at the fixtures & see if you can guess which games they were.
LEAGUE FIXTURES | LEAGUE TABLE
POKAL:
We had first world problems in this one, as despite not caring about this one at all we kept progressing & ended up in the semi finals against Bayern, in a game that would surely decide who would end up winning the trophy. Once again we prevailed, meaning we went 3 for 3 against Bayern this year, and with only mid-table Gladbach standing in our way, it seemed like we were going to end up basically winning the trophy against our will.
After 90mins of the final, however, the score was 0-0, with us dominating but having failed to capitalise...
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POKAL FIXTURES
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE:
Having put ourselves in a good position to secure a top eight spot, we started the new year by travelling to Bergamo to take on my former club, Atalanta, who were also pushing for the top eight. A 2-0 win in Italy pretty much secured our place in the last 16, and the reserves finished the job against the whipping boys of the competition.
We drew Chelsea in the last 16, and managed to see them off thanks to a 2-0 win at their place. Our reward was a tie against Man City, who we'd lost to in the league phase having been 2-0 up. Bizarrely, the same pattern happened in both legs of this tie as happened in the league phase - we went two up, then they pulled one back. Luckily for us, however, this time we held our nerve & took our revenge with 3-2 & 2-1 wins to secure our place in the semi finals.
Barcelona were our opponents in the final four, and we went to Spain for the first leg just hoping to stay in the tie. We frustrated them throughout, and were actually the better team, which made our injury time winner extremely satisfying. Back in Dortmund we proved it wasn't a fluke, and a 1-1 draw meant we had somehow made it to the final, where we would be taking on defending champions Liverpool.
Oh, and it was going to be played at our home ground. No pressure then...
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CL FIXTURES | CL LEAGUE PHASE TABLE
Players of the Season:
We had some great performance this season, particularly from our attacking players, with both Youssoufa Moukoko & Jon Karrikaburu scoring 25 times, and Karim Adeyemi, Thom Visser, Mario Berlanga, Nico Williams & Garang Kuol all chipping in nicely as well. In midfield both Benjamin Jimenez & Krystian Wojtkowiak stood out amongst a solid all round group, and in defence our back four played well, but goalkeeper Marian Diekneite proved to be an outstanding replacement for the guy that followed Zidane to Real Madrid, with more than 10 expected goals saved, as well as the only penalty he faced.
TRANSFERS | SQUAD OVERVIEW | GOALKEEPER STATS | OUTFIELDER STATS
Overall I'd say this was a pretty fun first season, but we still have some work to do to be able to finally break Bayern's dominance at the top of the Bundesliga. We've got plenty of money to spend, and some talented young players out on loan who can help round out the squad, so hopefully we'll be able to close the gap with a good summer.
So, first season in Serie A we got absolutely battered and finished bottom. Serie B we ended up winning the league on the final day (unlike previous horrible seasons, promotion was wrapped up pretty early).
Came into our second attempt with the big boys, I was quietly confident we'd stay up reasonably easily. I did not expect this though:
also, I've literally only just clocked that our right flank is very reminiscent of a different sport:
class
Trent 'TAA' Alexander-Arnold looks to have taken a big hit on the new winter update. Down to 3 stars in the Liverpool squad
Some nice FM game ideas here in the "local derbies that have been played the fewest times"
I'm baaaack.
Journeyman game with the aim of getting to the top having started as a manager with no badges and only Sunday league experience. Want the full journey experience so I've loaded all of the default leagues in Asia and South Africa to start with and I'll add/remove more as we go.
Hoping to be able to avoid Indonesia as the first stop as I've managed there loads before.
I never keep a Gateshead save long enough to get a Tyne derby on the cards.
Season 1 - Pre Season Preview
So after holidaying for a couple of weeks it didn't take long to get a job and I think I've hit the starting jackpot with this one. I give you:
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Looks like I've hit the 90s Blackburn of the Hong Kong league. We have some decent forriners (including the mandatory flairy Brazilian) and £3m in the bank. I can't spend any of it yet (as I have first window budgets turned off), but a look at the competition and we might not even need to to win the league, where we're already predicted to finish second. 12 month deal on £300 a week. The only downside as far as I can see is the dressing room think I'm out of my depth.
Asian journeyman save
For some background, for some reason a lot of HK clubs are very rich, notable Lion City Sailors (formerly Home United) - I suspect they'll be the team to beat, along with Albirex Niigata, the weird Japanese team playing the league who have dominated for the previous decade or so.
EDIT: had a mini stroke - those clubs play in Singapore
Season 1 2022/23 - Lee Man - Hong Kong Premier League
What a joy managing in Hong Kong is. The league season is only 18 games, with no bullshit second phase or other such nonsense. There are probably too many games in the Sapling Cup, but were I planning to stay here that'd be a great competition to blood youngsters. Anyway, onto business.
The League
We led from start to finish and won the title with three games to spare, also securing a place in the AFC Champions League Group stages. Looks like Hong Kong have been flitting between that and whatever the confed cup is and I suspect the former is a bit out of our league but bring it on.
The Cups
Securing the title led to a wanky run of form which coincided with our Sapling Cup run and saw us spurn numerous chances in the semi-final, which was a shame.
Still, we held it together to secure a domestic double and two trophies in the first season of a journeyman game is very welcome.
I was going to leave after a season, but the board finally released the WARCHEST and we have £1m to spend on transfers in the summer, so I'll stay for one more year and then it'll be time to move on.
I ready Leung Lap Tin as Leung Tap In. Also, Irn Bru Rangers
Must admit, I had no idea Irn Bru was a thing in Asia.
Season 2 2023/24 - Lee Man - Hong Kong Premier League - Pre-Season Update
The board were kind enough to send me on my National C coaching license badge over the summer, which with the domestic double helped to up my rep to one star. Heady heights. I then set about figuring out how to spend the £1m WARCHEST we'd been given and quickly realised that'd be impossible - the Hong Kong league is dreadful and no one commanding anything like that fee will touch it. In the end I decided to syphon a load of it into wages and see what we could do on that score. I picked up some of the better domestic players I could find (all shit obviously) but they'd help keep me within the forriner limits and then set my sights on seeing what quality we could tempt from abroad. I give you the holy trinity of:
I signed a new contract on £400 a week for another 12 months as the last season drew to a close, but once that winds down we need to be moving on from Hong Kong. Some more trophies before we do would be cracking.
I wonder what retirement age the game has in mind for Kazu.
Sadly 2024, but I am determined to get him to score once he turns 57 in February.
Season 2 2023/24 - Lee Man - Hong Kong Premier League - Mid-Season Update
The league is going swimmingly and on track for our second league title in a row.
We're also still in both cups, although did just spunk a 3-0 lead against Kitchee to lose 6-3 in the Sapling Cup group stages.
However, the real DRAMA has been reserved for the continent, where we featured in the Asian Champions League. Our draw on paper looked alright: Johor Darul from Malaysia, Kashima Antlers from Japan and Jeonbuk from South Korea. Now the latter where clearly much better than us, but I fancied taking the Malaysians and it would come down to me vs Antlers for second place. That was until I realised that only the group winners are guaranteed to go through, with the 3 best second placed teams from 5 groups.
After 5 games we had 3 wins and 2 losses and we were in with a shout.
It was pretty clear a draw wouldn't be enough even though it would see us second in the group and there was a scenario where even a win wouldn't see us through, so we had to beat Kashima Antlers at home. Antlers had the better of the first half, but we managed to equalise just before the break, only to see them take the lead again and us go down to 10 men. With nothing left to try I threw on Miura in one last ditch attempt to get us the win with 10 minutes to go.
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king Kazu
Season 2 2023/24 - Lee Man - Hong Kong Premier League - End of Season Update
So my time in Hong Kong comes to an end and we bagged another couple of trophies. First we ran out comfortable winners in the league.
And then added our first Sapling Cup. Sadly Jeonbuk were too much for us in the AFC, but we did run them close and our final game was a disappointing Cup defeat.
Lee Man Summary
44 HoF points accrued in our two seasons:
In terms of where next it depends on who'll have a one and a half star manager, but a team with a chance of winning the league in India, Australia or South Africa would be cracking.
So after leaving Hong Kong it took 6 months to land the job I wanted, but finally it's happened.
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Season 3 2024/25 - Melbourne Victory - A-League - Sit Rep
This is the situation we inherit. With the league obviously gone the aim is to get top 6 and make it to the playoff thingy, which I think is a separate competition with its own HoF points. So as these split league dogshit things go, one of the better ones.
We're also still in the Asian Confederations Cup, in a semi-final of sorts. I say of sorts as I've no idea what we need to do from here to win the bloody thing, but a team from Myanmar to start is nice.
My squad is bad, but on the plus side the foreign players are all old so the opportunity for a quick rebuild with some shrewd business is on. Looking at the rules I'm allowed 5 foreigners in the squad and 4 designated players that don't count towards the £29k p/w wage budget.
I've also binned off Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia and introduced Canada and the MLS.
Season 3 2024/25 - Melbourne Victory - A-League - Sit Rep
First season in Australia finished and we did pretty well.
Managed to claw our way up the table to third and make the final series in the process:
Sadly despite being the form team we weren't quite good enough to take the trophy.
Really pleased to beat Central Coast over two legs but we were a massive let down in the final.
In more positive news we won the Confederations Cup:
Must be the most random continental competition I've ever been in. From starting in the semi's against a team from Myanmar, to endless matches labelled as finals which manifestly weren't, to finally reaching the final and seeing we had to play the team we were facing in their home ground. Just bizarre as fuck.
Two years left on the contract, but there's a major problem with Australia, in that you can't buy any players from the A-League, you have to exchange to get them. What this means in practice is that I spend all my time looking for Australians who don't actually play in Australia just so I can meet the foreign quota. Wouldn't be so much of an issue if I was staying longer term, but not that ideal for a journeyman game. With that in mind I think I'll see out the next season and see what's about then.
Only just catching up on this now Yev, good start to the career.
I managed in Hong Kong too in my Journeyman save - ended up going to Kitchee SC and winning pretty much everything across 2 seasons. My foreigner signings were significantly worse than yours however, don't think I had the same amount of cash you did. I also made too many, had to bench about 3 or 4 throughout the season.
I definitely had a step down when leaving though - I ended up at semi-pro Warrenpoint Town in Northern Ireland...
Hit a bit of a problem with this save in that having to use the add/remove league option to use the MLS it's populated that league with players far too good for that level. I've rocked up at NYC and have a generated 26 year old striker who wouldn't look out of place in a top 6 premier league side and players like this are now littered throughout the MLS. Absolute realism and immersion killer.
It's weird that it does that sometimes.
I added Canada mid-save once and about 10 world class players at their peak suddenly appeared. World beaters overnight.
It's really annoying and has killed the save for me.
Presumably 'View Only' gets round that problem but is the saving on processing power loading leagues that way enough to make it a viable option for a Journeyman game?
Last edited by Yevrah; 24-03-2023 at 12:53 AM.
Right, back in the game for another crack, this time with the other save I was toying with, Aberdeen.
I'll keep the season 1 update brief as with first window budgets turned off there wasn't a lot I could do other than play games, but we did pretty well.
With the Scottish Cup final still to go (which we're not in, the Old Firm saw to us in both cup competitions) I think we'll be in the Europa League qualifying if Celtic win it and the Conference League if they don't.
Decent budget just announced as well which is much needed given we had about 12 players in the first team squad on loan from other clubs in the first season.
Palamós CF 2038/39 Season Update:
Transfers In:
Decided to add another nationality to the team (at 19 right now) and I felt like we needed a new youth striker. Mehdi is pretty raw but my scouts think he could be incredible and he's super consistent and a perfectionist.
Pablo is not someone we need but I like the look of him (minus the inconsistency) as he's a big boy who is quite quick and his value has shot up. Plus it's rare to find a 5* potential guy at the club.
Esteban has been someone who I've had my eye on for a while now and I've always decided he wasn't worth the price. We were a bit light on left wingers and I like his versatility plus money is meaningless to us so I thought fuck it.
Transfers Out:
I wanted to keep Leonardo as I like him a lot and he is someone who was always a backup yet scored a lot when called upon. However he played a lot less last season and was moaning a lot with his contract not far from expiring so I offered him out. I expected more than the £36.5m rising to £59m but oh well.
I bought Ji-Hoon with £1.8m and I knew he was never going to get game time for us. Selling him for £38.5m rising to £43m was great.
We have so many keepers so I decided to sell one. Matijas goes for £19.5m rising to £21.5m.
League:
Easiest yet. Madrid were in third for almost the whole season and Rayo were never close enough to worry us. I think I felt safe after about 15 games or so.
Cup:
Reserves win the Super Cup again and we finally win the Copa Del Rey.
Europe:
We pissed the league phase and I thought this was our year. Beating PSG and Bayern felt HUGE.
Round of 16:
I don't know what the fuck happened. We looked really shit in both legs. I thought we'd win the second leg easily when we scored early but the red card killed us as we needed to attack but were far too exposed. Brutal.
Squad:
The squad is good enough to win the Champions League I know it. So much so that I'm not really sure where I can make improvements that don't cost £200m+.
We go again.
How many Champions League have you bottled now?
I'd say it's between 3 and 5 now
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