[FM19 BETA] Having fun in Haifa

[dalenichol]

Maccabi Haifa F.C

After plenty of trial and error (many trials, many more errors) with the FM19 Beta and a spell of thinking I'd have to wait until the full release and the editor before I could find a save that I actually found myself feeling involved with, it finally began to sink its teeth in to me within a few months in Israel, a nation I've had brief spells in before but never fully invested my time in. 

Considered one of the 'big four' of Israeli football, alongside Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem, Haifa have won 7 titles since the inception of the Israeli Premier League in 1999, the most of any club, but have found themselves without a title win in 8 seasons and outside the top 3 for the last 5 seasons, whilst Hapoel Be'er Sheva have insterted themselves as the new dominant force with 3 straight league wins. 

As most will know, Israeli football has a strong political foundation and whilst not being as outwardly left wing as Hapoel Tel Aviv, Maccabi Haifa are a more left leaning club with a strong Israeli Arab and Palestinian fanbase, resulting in a fairly bitter rivalry between themselves and Beitar Jerusalem, arguably Israels most infamous and overtly right-wing football club. 






In terms of facilities, the club plays its home games at the 30,870 capacity, and frankly bloody gorgeously situated Sammy Ofer Stadium next to the beach in Haifa. The club boast great training facilities, excellent youth facilities, well establish youth recruitment and good junior coaching. Whilst this wont strictly be a youth save, given the strength of Israeli regens in previous versions of the game and the 6 foreign player limit in the league, they will undoubtedly begin to form the backbone of my side before too long. 

I am quickly approaching the end of season one here in Israel, so I'll likely wait until that has finished before I post anything else, but I'll look to do a squad overview, as well as a look at some of the exciting youth prospects that have already come through at the club, which will give me a good chance to ask how you guys are handling player development and training this year with all the changes that've been made!

[dalenichol]

So we're one game off the end of the season and this has been confirmed. No grand promises or massive investments (An initial investment of £3m was made, but we're fairly sound financially, so that's now £15m in the bank)

It'll be interesting to see if there's any investments through the summer, whether this has a proper 'tycoon' impact (in previous reports, Fleming is described as a 'business tycoon')

We'll see what happens. 

[dalenichol]

Maccabi Haifa - Season One





Well, I guess I couldn't have asked for a more productive first season!
We had no European football and went out of the cup at the 8th round (only our second match) but to win the league in our first season was a fantastic achievement. It went down to the last day, knowing we had to win our Haifa derby against Hapoel Haifa, which is an even sweeter way to clinch the title. 

Highlights of the season included a 4-0 home win in the Haifa Derby, a 2-0 win over Maccabi Tel Aviv and a 2-0 win away at Hapoel Be'er-Sheva midway through the season, which gave us the top spot which we never let go after that. 

Kudos has to go to Michiel Kramer, who's 21 league goals were absolutely vital in our title winning campaign, as well as to Rami Gershon, who had the highest average rating of any player at the club over the course of the season


Youth Intake:

It was a solid intake for us this season, much better than I had initially anticipated. 



That's the top end of our youth team, any player with a 'yth' status button is a player that came in from intake, so even without looking closely you can see the quality we've produced. 

Rafi Mizrahi and Eli Cahlon are the obvious standouts and I think they may well have a part to play in the first team next season, with Shlomi Alkobi probably not too far behind. 


Moving forward:


I'm not going to do a squad review here as I'd initially planned, as the Israeli season runs into June and as a result all my loan deals have ended, meaning my squad has lost a few players from last season, but gained an absolute tonne of players that weren't here last season, leaving it bloated and me with the task of sifting through it all and deciding who to get rid of. There's 38 players in the senior squad currently, I'd like to cut that down to about 20-25 if possible, and still need to find room for some youth players to promote. 



We've ended the season with £15m in the bank and with about £5m to spend next season. I don't envisage us using much of that, as the squad is a fairly strong one that needs slimmed down, as opposed to bulked up, but we'll see what options are available to us.


It's a bit short and vague, so feel free to ask any questions. I will endeavour to get a bit better with my updates as we progress, but I really don't have much to add right now!

[dalenichol]

It's getting close to the middle of season two here in Israel, but before I do an update on that, I'll leave this here as a little indicator of our progress so far!

[dalenichol]

Maccabi Haifa - Season 2 (19/20) - Mid Season







As far as seasons go, we're having a good one!  As my previous post shows, we went on a 30+ game unbeaten streak which, in ironic fashion, ended in the match which came after me making that post! In fact, before that game we had played 13 games, lost 0 and conceded 1. We've now played 15 games, lost 1 and added a draw, conceding 2 more goals. Awful stuff!  Hapoel Be'er Sheva are keeping us on our toes though, as they continue to push us each week, but the 4 point gap is a good place to be as it stands. 


Adventures in Europe:

It was a fun and eventful run in Europe and we did much better than I'd anticipated:




Olympiakos were just too good for us in the Champions League playoff and we were handed a tough group as we dropped in to the Europa League. Our results make things look a lot worse than they actually were, as we actually only went out on goal difference, the 2-0 loss to Genk seeing them progress and us finishing 3rd, whilst Zenit were rock bottom of the group.  It was a learning experience and one which I appreciate, we'll hopefully be back in Europe next year to give it another shot. 


Transfer Dealings:




I didn't do quite as much housecleaning as I'd anticipated over the summer. I don't know how others are finding it, but I'm finding it quite difficult to actually get rid of players that I really don't want.  With that said, we did sell Yuhav Gurfinkel and Guy Haimov for decent money, most of the others were released to clear up the wages and make some space in the team. 


Ilay Elmkies joins on loan from Hoffenheim, whilst Eitan Tibi joins on a free transfer. The big signing, however, has to be Tomer Hemed. A big name as far as Israeli football is concerned and he has a great pedigree. He started the season very well, but as we have struggled for goals towards the middle of the season, so has Hemed. I'm hoping it's just a temporary blip, because we're somewhat short on strikepower, as last seasons top scorer Michiel Kramer also isn't scoring. 


I'll be back at the end of the season for another, proper update. 

[jawzy]

Noticed on steam at some point you were in contract negotiations with Beram Kayal, did that fall through? or is game ahead of story

[dalenichol]

Haha, I didn't even know that was something that it would show on steam. I was around the 1st of January when I posted the update and I've progressed a little more since then, but nothing substantial. We did speak to Kayal as his contract is up in the summer but he wants too much money. I'm fairly confident that he'll be a Haifa player next season though, yeah. 

[fmamerican]

Always been intrigued by an Israeli save. May have to add the nation to my journeyman save at some point.

[jawzy]

Nov 1, 2018 17:35:45 GMT dalenichol said:

Haha, I didn't even know that was something that it would show on steam. I was around the 1st of January when I posted the update and I've progressed a little more since then, but nothing substantial. We did speak to Kayal as his contract is up in the summer but he wants too much money. I'm fairly confident that he'll be a Haifa player next season though, yeah. 

yeah this steam feature is abit odd

Only seems to show the match your playing and contract negotians as far as i can tell - been wondering how I could slip something into a discussion...

[scott]

Woah, Dale winning leagues? Congrats mate - a great start to life in Israel!



It's a really interesting league to manage in - one that you don't see many FM'ers explore. I've never played there myself, but have often found myself intrigued by a save there.



Hemed is a great signing for you - he was pretty good a few FMs ago when he was at Mallorca, and should do well back in Israel.



What's the grand plan? Are you just taking it as it comes and seeing what happens?

[dalenichol]

Cheers Scott!

Yeah, it's one of those leagues that would actually be ideal for a lot of people. It's mid tier, there's some decent money kicking about, some good youngsters and plenty of European places, but with a lot of potential for growth. The league split is annoying (league splits are a gripe of mine) but such is life.

There wasn't really a grand plan as such, as I wasn't sure if this was even going to be a save I take over to the full game, and I'm still not sure it will be, but it was just one of those "take a club, make them great" type ideas probably.

[mrcool]

Good work mate.