***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Year 2, I found out how General Allocation/Targeted Allocation money really works in the game.

WATCH OUT WORLD, WE COMING FOR YOU.

Also, as part of some of the trades I made last year I ended up with the 2nd Overall pick in the Superdraft, and came up with another centreback with enormous potential, and I traded an international slot for the 6th pick and got a versatile left sided player, can play D, WB, M, AM, which with my formation changes is completely invaluable. I signed former Colombian wonderkid Jhon Arango on a free, and got Schalke to part with Haji Wright for a measly 100k. As far as departures go, Oguchi Onyewu decided to leave, while Patrick McClain and Kevin Venegas failed to make my final roster.

[JHedges2]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I thought I had posted something last night, but I'm guessing something happened that it didn't go through, so that's kind of neat. I think you have a problem on your right with Walcott as a winger and Ox as a Complete Wing Back, they're basically occupying the same space, with Ox dropping a little deeper back. On the left it's a little more natural, as Monreal ends up occupying the space that Alexis vacates when he cuts inside. The space between Xhaka and Ozil could also be a problem, especially considering the only people you have as intermediaries are the full backs, meaning to start an attack, Xhaka will have to either hit Ozil in the middle or Monreal/Ox on the wings, there's no one for him to directly pass to start an attack. I might move him up into the midfield proper, still as a DLP, rather than sitting him back on top of the defence. With wing backs, I'd also have Giroud be a TM-A, rather than TM-S, Whipping in crosses from the side is probably going to end up being your most effective way of attacking, and having Giroud take those chances instead of having him attempt to lay it off is a good thing.

Well said, Suntan. I'll echo what you said about Xhaka and add to that. A DLP with a defend duty in the DM spot has him sitting very deep, which is alright when you don't have possession in covering your defenders, but this limits him when you do win the ball back.

I would use him as a DLP - with a defend or support duty - at CM. He'll still sit as a pseudo-DM when you don't have the ball, and when you do have it, he'll have more options going forward. Additionally, he has the preferred move "comes deep to get the ball," so naturally he ends up a bit deeper anyway(at least when your defenders win the ball back).

Thanks guys--most helpful as always. I'll keep experimenting and def. implement some of these suggestions.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I had certainly resigned myself to defeat in the semi-final, especially after the 2-2 draw at TCF Bank Stadium, but then FM played FM.



I'M THROUGH TO THE FINAL!

EDIT: TIME TO ROTATE THE SQUAD!

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

So I'm goofing around and trying out leagues I've never tried before. I started a save with only leagues I've never played in and waited to get job. First job was in South Korea to a team in a relegation battle.

This was my first game in charge:

Spoiler

You can only have a GK's from South Korea. And you can only have four foreign players in the squad. Not match squad, but overall squad. You also have to have 2 under 23 players in the match squad. One has to start the match, and one on the bench. A clean sheet in this country is a rare thing.

And that match was only one of two games to end out the season. We finished in the relegation playoff spot with the team from the lower division. And the first leg of it is a home game for the lower division team. Which means that leagues rules apply for the match. This is what I just got when I went to start the match:



Um. Yeah. I only have 3 players under 23. Also no team in this country has a youth setup in the first year for some reason. Every teams u18s are greyed out. So I don't even have kids to call up. And the reserves is full of 30 year olds. This is nonsense.

EDIT: Not a bad result with mostly grey out virtual players.

Spoiler

Double EDIT: **** this horse****! Even in the second leg home game for us, we still have to abide by these bull**** rules! This is going to be the shortest lived job in my FM history.

Triple EDIT: I mean, of course this happened. I'm surprised it didn't happen in the first leg to be honest.

Spoiler

Board approval at 22%. I'm so getting fired in a couple days.

Quadruple EDIT: Soon as I hit continue I was fired. I managed the team for FOUR games! LOL. Good game FM, good game.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Absolute scenes at my apartment complex tonight, after falling to a draw at home in the final(Why is the final two legs?!) we head to Mexico to play Veracruz on their home turf. Of note, I had no idea I was going to make it to the final, so this is the first cup final where I didn't have my usual shirt/tie combo and was just casually in basketball shorts/white t-shirt, which feels wrong and will hopefully never happen again.




Bashkim Kadrii is just my favorite player of all-time now.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

What skin is that suntan? It looks familiar but I can't place it. Is it CFM?

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Andromeda Black.

[Velocityy]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Welp. I lost the last 2 games of the season, finishing 15th and losing in the FA Trophy Final 2-1 (giving up 2 goals in 10 minutes near the end of the game).

I just went through and finished the entire offseason/preaseason. I kept 2 of the 4 players I was considering cutting...but was able to sign a new starting RW, new starting RB (who I hope pans out, I paid him a LOT), new starting CM, new back-up/rotational GK, and 2 new CB's who will be my 3rd and 4th options. I got a bit lucky as all were free transfers, including 2 who wanted nothing to do with me until they were released...then they were very interested.

I'm hoping that they gel quickly and we finish top half or better this year. I am a little worried about my GK situation though, as I've had the same guy on loan from Southend the last 2 years who is very very good...won't come back this year though. So I've got 2 guys who are 2 star with 4 1/2 star potential who I'm going to have duke it out to see who is better.

Year 4, here we go.

[gopher_guy]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Finished my 2nd full season at Granit in the Belarusian 2nd division, and we have been promoted!!



I don't quite know why we were promoted even though we were in 3rd, but we'll take it! It was a really fun season, the top of the table was really packed all year long. Seemed like if you lost a game you'd drop from 2nd to 5th, fight back with a few wins to get back up into 2nd, then lose and fall right back down

To be honest, I didn't spend much time researching why we were promoted, because I was somewhat of a hot commodity. I knew that Granit was not going to be a job I'd stay at for very long, so I was happy to see some job interviews in my inbox after the season.

I got 3 coaching courses completed at Granit, so I currently have a National A license. Thanks to the board for that! I'm happy that I was able to get them promoted; I'll be checking in with them and hopefully they can stay up.

My career stats at Granit: 25-18-22, 93 GF, 79 GA.

Had a series of interviews with teams in various different countries: England, Greece, Belgium, and Switzerland. I ended up getting an offer from AFC Tubize in Belgium. I decided to accept!



They were promoted last season from the 2nd division into the Jupiler League. This is a big jump in prestige for me. Belarus' 2nd division is ranked 69th in the Competition Rankings, and the Jupiler League is ranked 11th!

Here are the current standings:



It looks like I've got my work cut out for me, but it looks like they've got some promising players. We'll see how it goes!

I've never done a journeyman save, so it's kind of fun to jump into a new scenario with all new players. Gonna spend some time building a tactic to suit my new team. The only challenge is that I don't have friendlies to test things out. My first match is against Anderlecht, so jumping right in with a tough fixture.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Smolevichi can not ever be prompted into the first division because they are basically a reserve team of Bate. Its part of their affiliation to Bate. So even if they win the league, they can never go up. I think in real life they have the same ownership also, which is why the affiliation doesn't just dissolve, allowing them to go up.

[jasontoddwhitt]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

So when I last posted, I was beginning the Europa group stage. The first match was a home tilt against Mainz. Dirk Schuster was boasting in the media, saying that we wouldn't be a challenge to the German side. We dominated the ball, we outshot them 22-11, and we beat them 2-0 in front of the Ibrox faithful. Then Dirk proceeds to say we got lucky. We dominated the match you fool! Trips to Southampton and Ajax would see us get dominated by a combined score of 8-1 and I was making plans to rotate the squad soon because this was looking like a lost cause. But something weird happened....teams don't like coming to Scotland. Ajax visited Ibrox and scored two late goals to make things look a little more respectable, but we thrashed them 5-2. A trip to Germany would see Dirk again running his mouth in the media. We promptly defeated them 3-1 to secure a trip to the knockout stages (and got Dirk fired...bye Felicia)! With nothing on the line, we heavily rotated the squad and Southampton did the same, going to a scoreless draw.

Our trip to the knockout stages of Europa would see us draw Galastasaray. We laid an egg in the home leg, losing 0-2. The away leg saw a better performance, but we could only manage a 2-2 draw, losing 2-4 on aggregate.

Between our deeper than expected Europa run, our run to the trophy in the League Cup....my squad hit the wall in December. Over a stretch of seven matches, we only took 4 of a possible 21 points and we were languishing in fifth place, costing us any chance of challenging Celtic's shot at 8 in a row. Our goal was second place.

Some reinforcements came in the January transfer period. After bringing him in on a free, Joe Riley never really was able to establish himself, so I sold him to Hibernian for $500k and I brought in Madi Queta on loan from Porto and Chris Mavinga on loan from Toronto FC. Our late season form was much better, only losing one of our final 13 matches (not counting us bowing out of the Scottish cup quarter finals). But too many draws down the stretch cost us in our run to chase down a surprising Dundee who finished second in the league because of their strong start. We solidified third, getting us into Europa again.

A mixed bag of a season. We made it out of our group in Europa. We won the Betfred Cup. But our league form was disappointing. We've got to strengthen this squad if we are to challenge Celtic. Hard to do when they have a $30 million payroll vs our $13 million payroll.

Speaking of Celtic, Brendan Rodgers left Celtic to take over at Man City right before the split. Celtic had already sewn up the title, and they promptly struggled down the stretch, only winning one of their last six matches. I don't mind beating up on interim coaches. Three points against Celtic is three points against Celtic. So who did Celtic end up hiring to replace Rodgers?



The ginger is back at Celtic. I was pleased with him at Hibs. He could've just stayed there!!!!

Another post coming soon on our transfer period, which saw me release six players, sell another seven players, and bring in twelve players.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

After getting job offers from Sporting Kansas City, Brisbane Roar (Australia) and Platinum Stars (South Africa), I decided to try my hand at MLS one last time. Not gonna lie, its because I spent all day watching MLS.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Such a hard result to take.



Goalkeeper own goal in stoppage time after being sent down to 9 men. 2 week fines incoming.

And Dom Dwyer is out 5-6 weeks. Ugh.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***



I just hope one day the schedule changes...