You're really Goran on me...

[dalenichol]

Did I just make a The Darkness reference? Yes. Do I regret it? Also yes. 

FK Akademia Pandev Strumica


So friends, here we are with what will no doubt be another fairly short lived saved before I inevitably get sacked, get bored or think of another idea. But until then, you'll find me here in Sturmica, North Macedonia. I tend to do much better with these low pressure, somewhat obscure and out of the way saves. Not sure why, really, but it's where I find myself most comfortable and I hope that this continues with this save. 


So there's a chance that you might have spotted something in the name already...Pandev! The club were founded in 2010 by none other than arguably the most famous Macedonian footballer of all time, Goran Pandev. Initially founded as a football academy, it quickly grew roots and within 10 years the senior side found themselves in the top flight of North Macedonian football; the 1.MFL. The club have yet to win the top flight title, but have won the 2nd tier title as well as the 2018/19 Macedonian Cup. 


The club play their home games at the 9,200 capacity Blagoj Istatov stadium and boast "Good" training and youth facilities. 



The club has ambitions to be the best in the country and it is up to me to realise these ambitions. It's fairly straightforward; win, win and win some more. There are no great user imposed restrictions on the save, but given the location and the okay-at-best financial situation around Eastern/Southern Europe, I will have to be somewhat shrewd. There's a limit of 7 foreign players in the league, so there'll be a focus on youth development with no allowance given to any other nationality (I'm not sure if we join the EU down the line) but I would quite like to build us up as a gateway club, bringing in players from some of the lesser represented nations in South America, Africa and Asia and selling them on for a profit. I understand this is nothing new to how most people play the game and I'm not reinventing the wheel, I'm just looking for something that's going to keep me invested for a couple of real life months.  

I've actually completed my first season in charge, so I'll quickly knock up another wee post for that shortly!

[Marshdweller]

Good to see you writing about a save Dale, I hope it all goes well!

I know what you mean about the smaller leagues. While I tend not to go for leagues as small as you do, I increasingly find that I prefer to manage in what could bluntly be called the 'second tier' nations in Europe (no offence to any nation I have managed in!). Italy is about the only exception I make to that.

[dalenichol]

Akademija Pandev - 2020/21 Season Review





So it was a relatively competitive first season here in North Macedonia.  We're looking to break the deadlock of a top two that have dominated for most of the last decade, with Shkendija and Vardar having won 8 of the previous 10 league titles between them (interestingly, if anybody wants a challenge, 3 times runner up between 2010-13, Metalurg Skopje, are now in the 4th tier). We gave it a good shot, but those two are still a good bit ahead of us in terms of both consistency and quality and this is something I'll need to rectify, but that was always part of the understanding when I took on this save. 





There were some solid performances throughout the season from what is a bit of a hodge podge squad, with some real talent but also some massive gaps in key areas (our keepers are awful, for example) which gives us something to build on and that should be an enjoyable challenge in and of itself. 

Player of the season had to be Sasko Pandev, the younger but still 33 year old Pandev brother. Probably the closest we'll get to the real thing appearing for the club, but we can dream! Players like Kire Markoski and Milan Tomic, whilst they're never going to set the world on fire, are players that we're going to be able to build a team around when players like Pandev start to drop off.

Viktor Kirovski was the highlight of the 1st seasons intake and whilst I know to many he wont be much to look at, I'm quietly excited about how he could turn out once he's given some exposure to first team football. 





Finances are somewhat troubling and that could be an issue. Whilst we have £405k in the bank, you can see we lost 365k last season. There aren't many areas where we can really expect to cut corners but I'll need to see what I can do.  Hopefully we can make a little bit of money from the Europa Conference League and some extra season ticket money, but this could prove to be a real sticking point until we can start finding players to sign and resell down the line. 

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Nice to see another Balkan save! Good first season as well and the European football should certainly be a boost to the club.

[chaodck]

Good start here mate, getting into european qualification is a nice way to start boosting those coffers. Kirovski looks super decent for the level as well, I see this as an absolute win.

[dalenichol]

So we're up shit creek financially but we're flying in the league and now we've just had this. I know we're in Macedonia, but a good intake is a good intake. 

[dalenichol]

Not too bad an intake this year:






Slave Kolev and Jordan Nikolov are the two standouts and two players I'm absolutely going to keep an eye on going forward. We need to be producing players that are going to be good enough for our first team, especially if we can't find a way to sort out our ever dwindling finances

[dalenichol]

Akademija Pandev - 2021/22 Season




I quite like these end of season screens, they're handy for these updates


With the consistency we struggled to find last season, the season was relatively straightforward and stress free...as much as a season at the top of Macedonian football can be anyway (and I've literally just watched Rangers concede a 95th minute equaliser, so there's that too)

So I expected us to win the league within a few seasons, that was always the plan, but I figured it'd maybe be season 3 or 4 as opposed to the second season so that is a nice surprise. Helped in part by the fact that Shkendija, who've won the last 3 league titles, had an absolute nightmare of a season and Vardar Skopje weren't doing much better for the first two thirds of the season either. Us being fantastic or other teams being awful, either way the end result is that same and we've come away with the clubs first ever league title!

We also made it to the Quarter Final of the Macedonian Cup, losing 1-0 to Vardar, which the board weren't happy about, but fuck 'em. 



Our European adventure was shortlived and is a stark reminder that I hate the idea of the Conference League and everything it stands for. The fact that we only made about £150k out of our appearance doesn't help, and whilst I'm not expecting us to achieve much in the Champions League qualifying rounds next season, we should hopefully be able to make a little bit more money out of it than we did this year. My aim would be to get far enough along that we drop into the Conference League, but I'm not sure what round we'll need to make to achieve that and knowing my luck we'll get some horrible draws. 




Some decent work in the transfer market, particularly in the loan signing of Grent Halili, we almost got him on a bosman but he opted to sign a new deal at Albanian side Tirana. Damjan Siskovski was probably my favourite signing as we desperately needed a new keeper and he's repaid us by keeping 26 clean sheets over the course of the season. 

Melo Dala and Sumer Hasan were signed to bolster the numbers and both came in on amateur deals, which was excellent for us financially. Unfortunately neither are up to much and will likely both be allowed to leave in the summer, unless things become particularly difficult. 




So this is where we need to really fix things up.  We're 100k in the red and it's only that low because we got 100k for winning the league. We might need to sell some assets if there's interest, and it doesn't help that our low rep allows teams like Shkendija to poach our best players, we lose Milan Tomic to them on a bosman which is absolutely gutting, considering we're champions and they finished mid table!

So really, we need to find some players to flip if possible, make plenty of money from European qualifiers, lower the wage budget somehow whilst still being competitive and get more fans in the ground, as we're averaging 300 fans in a 9,500 capacity stadium.

That all sounds easy, right...?

[jt]

Well done Dale. Enjoying this save. Like you i do enjoy the smaller less travelled leagues. It seems like you are going to have some similar challenges to me so keeping a very close eye on this. Keep it up!

[dalenichol]

Okay so we've been knocked out, but regardless of that, this is pretty close to the top of the list of things you love to see..




And again!




This is massive for us! 

[dalenichol]

Akademija Pandev - 2022/23 Seaoson Review


There are few things in the world of FM better than winning the league. Then there's beating your rivals to the title by 1 point, and then..well then there's beating your rivals to the title on the last game of the season thanks to a 92nd minute own goal. 

That, my friends, is a good feeling!




It was almost so different, though. We could've won the league with 4 games to go but we conspired to drop point in all 4 of our last games, and we only won 2 of our last 8 games.  Not entirely sure what got in to the lads, but something really just stopped clicking in those last games, maybe I'll need to look at some better personalities in future, but the pressure really did almost cost us in the end. 

Transfer business was decent but not great. I was hoping I'd be able to start finding more regens kicking about in Africa, Asia and South America that I could bring in for cheap and either develop or develop to sell and that just hasn't been the case yet. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, this is Northern Macedonia we're talking about, but still. However, with that in mind, the board have upgraded scouting from Continental to Worldwide, so that's a good bit of progress and I'll be able to find more players this way. 

So, on the players signed. 

Ivan Cruz is undoubtedly the most talented of the bunch but has commanded a high wage, making him the highest earner by quite a way. I'd be open to selling for the right deal, but he's also a quality player for this level. 

Matej Cvetanovski is another decent player and being Macedonian is always helpful. He's been a decent rotation option for Radeski and Markoski, so I'm glad to have him about. 

Vitor Hugo came recommended by his agent and cost a massive £222. He's very one dimensional, being a quick technical winger, but he's decent and has room to develop. The cost is irrelevant and he owes us nothing financially. He's the sort of player that will either find his level and be extremely effective here or he'll be somebody I can sell on for a bit of money, either way it's a win win.

The other players on the list are mostly squad based/development players and aren't really worth showing. 

Kire Markoski continues to be our best player and should be signing a new contract in the coming days, which is great as he was set to leave on a bosman until a few games ago. We managed to hold off interest in him and potentially tie him down to a new contract, so that's huge for the club. 






Our European adventure was fantastic both for the club and for our finances. We gave a good account of ourselves in those early qualifying matches and really can't complain about going out to Steaua Bucharest. A tough penalty win against Qarabag would see us through to the group stages where we would get hammered by our opponents, but we don't care! We made it, we got our money and we came home again. Here's to next season!







Well fuck, that's a lot of money! 

We're about to spend £1.6m on new youth facilities but even then, to go into next season with around £4.5m in the bank is massive and i wont really have any use for that kind of money, but it does give me the freedom in knowing that if we do have a few seasons where we don't win the league or make it into some of the european group stages, we're not going to be in too much trouble and that's the main thing. I might try to use some of it for another facilities upgrade, but that's maybe being a little bit greedy at the moment! 


As always, cheers for reading if you have and let me know if there's anything I've missed or you want me to talk about!

[dalenichol]

And with that, arguably the biggest win in our history, Akademija Pandev are once again into the Europa League group stage! Not to mention, a few million better off!

[dalenichol]

Not the worst draw, not the best.  I don't think we'll do much here, but even if we get at least one point, I'll consider it an achievement.

With that said, though, I'm not convinced that we can't manage to sneak third or maybe, maybe 2nd if things go our way. 

[chaodck]

Fantastic read so far mate. Really liking this story. You're well on your way of becoming dominant in Macedonia, do you rate your chances to become a decent team in european competitions?

[dalenichol]

Feb 16, 2021 20:45:39 GMT chaodck said:

Fantastic read so far mate. Really liking this story. You're well on your way of becoming dominant in Macedonia, do you rate your chances to become a decent team in european competitions?

Thanks chaodck. It's kinda tough to say, really.  I think we're going to come to dominate Macedonia fairly quickly, which isnt necessarily a good thing, but we'll see how that plays out. 
European competition is a different one, because the way our coefficient is just now means that the league winners qualify for the Champions League, whilst the other 3 spots all go to the Conference League. I can see us being good enough to go far in the conference league or maybe the Europa, but it's going to be a long while until we're ready for the Champions League.

The problem is, there's no money in the conference league, so we need to make sure we drop in to the Europa group stages each season, so we can get the money to sign the player, but by constantly going out we're going to start losing the players. So it's a tricky one to navigate, but if we can start pushing the coefficient rankings up, maybe we can get some luck from there. 

[dalenichol]

This years intake has given us 4 players that could end up being decent for us. 

Kire Jazkov is the most highly rated of the lot. He looks decent enough, and I guess at 15 there's plenty time for improvement, but I don't see how he's going to be any more than an okay poacher. Let's hope I'm wrong!

Spajose Culum, to me at least, looks to be the better prospect, but then I am partial to a quick, technical winger so maybe that's just me. 

Still, if even one of the four of them can make it to first team level, I'll be happy. 

[Reiver]

I think you're right about Jazkov - not strong enough to be a targetman, not fast enough to be an advanced forward, not good enough defensively to be a pressing forward.

But if you can improve Culum's vision, you have a nice prospect there.

[dalenichol]

FK Akademija Pandev 2023/24 Season Review

Lads, we're absolutely flying through the game at the moment, such as the joys of being on annual leave from work!



Another season brings with it another league title and it wouldn't be unfair to say that we're running the risk of starting to hold a monopoly in this league. A poor run of form between February and April allowed Vardar to catch up and cut the league a little, but we managed to turn it around and pick up a few more wins to make sure the league was wrapped up. I'm not sure what to do to keep the domestic side of things from getting a bit boring, but we'll just need to wait and see. We definitely still have European football to keep us occupied and to keep me trying to improve, but we'll need to wait and see I guess. 


Speaking of European football...




It was another really fun campaign. A real shame that we couldn't get past Ludogorets in the CL, and I've really no idea how we managed to get past Galatasary in the Europa League, but we did! We managed to pick up 4 points from our group, with a solid draw in Kiev and a rather fortunate win at home to Augsburg. It's valuable experience and exposure for some of our more talented players. 


Transfers:




It was a big year for transfers at the club, as I was finally able to secure some good young foreign talent with a view to eventually selling them on. That was the plan...until I fell in love. 

His name is Ignacio Arias. There should be songs written about this man, but I don't understand Macedonian so maybe there is. His record speaks for itself, 51 starts, 35 goals and and 16 assists. The man is an absolute machine and I don't know what I'd do without him. He's already wanted by Steaua Bucharest and he has a £1.2m release clause, which I'm currently trying to remove from his contract.  I always knew I'd have to sell these players eventually, but how can I sell him? How?!

Our other signings were Mondli Kubheka, Andreas Denniger, Rogerio and Tiago Henrique all of them very capable and all of them likely destined for bigger things, but I wont complain if they bring me a little bit of cash. 

As we're limited to 7 foreign players in the domestic squad, and we currently have 9, I may not be able to do any more foreign player scouting this summer, but I'll possibly have a wee look to see if there's anybody that's too good to pass up on. 







Well good, god damn and other such phrases, I haven't had a balance like this for ages...

Definitely can't complain about having all that money, even if there's not much to do with it. The board have agreed to expand training facilities, youth recruitment and coaching previously. I'll maybe see if we can put something towards a new stadium? Failing that, maybe we could send some money to some of the other clubs and hope they can become a bit more competitive. 

[dalenichol]

Sometimes things go right, sometimes things go wrong...Sometimes things go so right, that you're sure something must be wrong.

This was one of those times...




Now, we still have a second leg to navigate and if we do that successfully, we have Red Star to meet in the playoffs, but daaamn, the Champions League group stages finally feel within our reach!