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Post by dalenichol on Jun 25, 2022 18:12:16 GMT
After a few days away on a work trip, I am back for a weekend of FM! I've completed another season in Syria, where we retained out league title. My rep has went from 2 to 2.5* continental, which is a boost at least. I'm not sure how much of a boost that is in real terms, but I'm really hoping that this is my last season here and I can jump into a top 10 league. I want to win the ACL before I leave Asia, especially after the disappointment of the OCL not working properly. I think I'm going to need to jump to 2 maybe 3 more clubs before that happens, but you never know how my luck might turn out. I've been pretty fortunate so far, but I did get laughed out of Japan and Saudi Arabia last year, so you never know. Our ACL group wasn't the worst experience ever, 2 wins over Umm-Salal and a draw with Al Nassr was respectable enough. I did think that Persepolis would be the sort of club I'd go for, but Iran is currently the 2nd ranked top flight in Asia behind South Korea So that's the top 15 leagues in Asia currently. We currently sit in 14th. I'm starting to think that I'll need to be more tactical too, maybe? UAE, Uzebkistan and Thailand are higher ranked leagues, but probably don't represent a big enough step up unless I manage to get one of the biggest sides in those leagues? With the exception of Iran's Tractor S.C, the ACL has mostly been dominated by the usual Japanese/Saudi/Qatar/Korean suspects, so I guess I need to aim for somewhere like that. EDIT: So I resigned at the end of the season, after being linked as a "leading candidate" for a few jobs including Brisbane Roar, Beijing Gouan and Buriram Utd. I got none of them, got laughed off by Esteghlal and now there's no jobs coming up. It's only been 2 and a half months, but your boy is starting to get nervous. I might've fucked it
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Post by jawzy on Jun 25, 2022 22:37:05 GMT
6 months in a european league? would help boost maybe?
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 26, 2022 8:49:08 GMT
I don't have any non Asian leagues loaded at this point, so it wasn't an option unfortunately. I might think about adding some new leagues soon but until then... I'm off to China! After 4 months unemployed, we finally get a lifeline and it's with Hebei FC. The club have struggled in recent years, a 5th place finish in 2024 seems like a distant memory for a club fighting for survival after relegation and promotion. Whilst teams like Tianjin and Chongqing have 150-200m in the bank, we're £2m in debt. We have 3 games and a 4 point buffer to secure survival in the CSL this season and that is the aim. Maybe financial backing will come after that? There is little in the way of talent in the league and we're definitely not seeing ageing foreign stars appearing. I'm not sure if that's just the way China is now with it's stricter foreign player limits, or if it's a symptom of no European leagues added/using the add and remove league feature, but we'll see if I can change that!
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Post by chaodck on Jun 26, 2022 17:20:43 GMT
Good luck in China Dale, here's hoping to a successful run and then either a ACL challenge or a change of teams.
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Post by jawzy on Jun 26, 2022 19:29:35 GMT
Based on my brief spell on China on fm22, i noticed there was very little transfers happening at any AI china side. Hebe not got a big sponsor deal at the start of FM iirc, might be a tough chinese side to be at.
domestic signings that i made felt like i was overpaying for everyone though!
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 26, 2022 19:50:03 GMT
Thanks chaps. We survived, winning all 3 of our final games - 4231 Gegenpress strikes again! We're currently 11 games into the new season and sit 11th in the league out of 18, 10 points clear of the relegation zone. Financially we're not good although we might be starting to claw it back a little as we sit £1.9m in the red, next to no sponsorship money and no real prize money to speak of. The overvaluation of domestic players don't seem to be a thing at the moment, or if it is our players simply aren't good enough to draw attention, which in a way is fine because we couldn't afford to replace them, I guess. Ultimately as jawzy says, this is a tough team to be at in this league, but there is a chance that we can do alright and maybe reach mid table. More than anything, I guess it's a route to something bigger, although it's only the 8th ranked league it's still an improvement on Syria and we're not the best team in this league, so even if my next job is still in China, there's a clear route forward from here. But I'm getting ahead of myself just now, need to focus on the job in hand!
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Post by jawzy on Jun 26, 2022 21:48:10 GMT
I found when i tried to sell, the fees were small, but when i tried to buy the fees quoted seemed insane. but I was also at a side who had abit of money!
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Post by chaodck on Jun 26, 2022 22:50:39 GMT
As I'm right at the midpoint of the season I decided to do a small report to show you how we've fared in our first season in Serie A. We started off strong with 3 wins in our first 3 games, beating Napoli (H), Cosenza (A) and Ascoli (H). Then we had a rough patch, where we only managed to get 1 point in 5 games, including a few tough games against Juventus, Inter, Lazio and Fiorentina. We then managed to get a 5-game unbeaten run, with wins over Sampdoria, Udinese and Bologna, and draws against Salernitana and Spezia. Roma stopped our streak with a 1-2 loss. We then won two games, drew against Milan at home and finished the round with two disappointing collapses, a 2-4 loss against Cagliari (we were 2-0 up) and a last minute conceded goal, meant a 2-2 draw against Atalanta. We're doing better than fine though, with 29 points, sitting at 9th position. I think midtable is possible, but despite flirting with the european positions I think we're off that level yet. Regarding player performances, Nikola Iliev has been our top player, moving onto the striker role and leading all scoring with 10 goals. Iliev's loan finishes after this season and I want to bring him back again next season, but I doubt Inter will let him. He's not interested in a permanent move according to his agent. Other players with good performances have been newcomers Jamie Lawrence (bought from Bayern for €200k) and Hugo Novoa (free transfer from Monaco). Meanwhile I've been a bit unhappy with the performances from two of our newcomers, despite having great ability they are a bit inconsistent, Osame Sahraoui (on loan from Dortmund for 2 seasons, with a €3.4M optional fee) and Silko Thomas (free transfer from Chelsea). Finally, this winter window I managed to bring in one of our most wanted players. Since the first Next Gen top 50 list from the save, I saw Enes Sali as a viable prospect for us as he played in a small team, with a low salary and not many teams asking around. Fortunately this kept the same for two years when he finally decided he wanted to come here and I brought him for a bit of compensation (€925k, plus around €1.3M in future fees and 15% of the profit from the next sale). He came in at a whopping €15-24M mark and is by far our top valued player. He has a release clause of €20M though, which is unfortunate. Financially we're in a great spot. Due to TV money and much improved ticket sales (we're averaging around 10k fans per game), we're making around €1.5-2M per month. I think we'll finish the season at around €30M.
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Post by jawzy on Jun 27, 2022 9:50:17 GMT
I find being a promoted club in top 5 leagues a very hard thing once in top flight, so to see you 9th. Makes me happy. Lol
I want a side project from reading, a big club within a nation, initially thinking fc basel could be a rewarding big side to revive
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Post by chaodck on Jun 28, 2022 18:13:54 GMT
So, I finished the season, and it was rather uneventful. I managed to keep the bad runs of form limited though, and our worst patch was 3 straight losses in April, against Sassuolo, Bologna and Roma. After that skid, we finished the season strong, with our best run in Serie A, as we never lost again and managed to win 4 and draw 5 games including a 1-0 win over Juventus at Bruno Benelli and a 0-0 draw against Milan at San Siro. We finished the season in 10th position, but just a few points removed from the UECL Qualification, as Bologna qualified as 8th with 6 more points than us. Not much else to say here. We've had a lot of good player development and I think that with a few key additions we can be ready to step up and get into Europe or at least be closer than this season. The best news of the end of the season was that I managed to extend Nikola Iliev's loan for another season, and included a €14M optional fee. It's a bit too steep for us at the moment, but I think we can afford him next summer before his loan ends (or renew him again with a smaller fee as his contract runs up in two season's time). Our starting wingers, both have ridiculously low minimum release fees, so that might hurt us if they are activated. The few other players who have them, are decently priced (although less than what I would charge for them, obviously). I managed to upgrade all facilities, and still ended up the season with €26M in the bank. The Board gave me between €8M and €12M to spend in the summer. Unfortunately we had our first bad youth intake, with only two players salvageable, but none of them good.
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 28, 2022 18:28:52 GMT
Go chaodck you incredible human, you!
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Post by jawzy on Jun 28, 2022 19:19:18 GMT
If i had managed to get to Serie A with monterosi I would of accepted 1 point. so for you to finish 10th is incredible with tiny Ravenna
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 29, 2022 20:41:52 GMT
The first full season in China is complete. After securing survival last season when I had 3 games left to play, it was time to give a full season a blast. A respectable 10th place against a media prediction of 11th and a board prediction of "please, don't get relegated". So that's alright. There's not much else to say on top of that, really. Financially we're still fucked. We're almost 3m in the red with few sellable assets, our wage budget keeps getting cut and there's no sight of any increased sponsorships. Ah well. I've removed a bunch of the smaller Asian leagues and added a bunch of the upper tier African leagues such as SAfrica, Tunisia, Egypt etc. I'm not in a massive rush to leave Asia or even Hebei, but if the right move comes up I'm not against taking it. At this point, I'm kinda just having fun country hopping and if I manage to win some continental competitions, then even better.
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Post by chaodck on Jun 29, 2022 22:25:40 GMT
The first full season in China is complete. After securing survival last season when I had 3 games left to play, it was time to give a full season a blast. A respectable 10th place against a media prediction of 11th and a board prediction of "please, don't get relegated". So that's alright. There's not much else to say on top of that, really. Financially we're still fucked. We're almost 3m in the red with few sellable assets, our wage budget keeps getting cut and there's no sight of any increased sponsorships. Ah well. I've removed a bunch of the smaller Asian leagues and added a bunch of the upper tier African leagues such as SAfrica, Tunisia, Egypt etc. I'm not in a massive rush to leave Asia or even Hebei, but if the right move comes up I'm not against taking it. At this point, I'm kinda just having fun country hopping and if I manage to win some continental competitions, then even better. Great season there mate, best of luck moving forward!
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Post by jawzy on Jun 29, 2022 23:58:07 GMT
My brain after another season in Hebei would want to move to a more lucrative side in the CSL as could result in a stagnation
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 30, 2022 8:23:07 GMT
My brain after another season in Hebei would want to move to a more lucrative side in the CSL as could result in a stagnation The issue I have is that every time I manage to get my rep up to 'continental' and use that to move to a new side, it falls back to 'National'. So it seems like I'm going to need some sort of success, be it domestic or continental, before I can start to move again. I'm hoping a bigger job comes up in the league, but I'm not holding my breath
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Post by jawzy on Jun 30, 2022 10:04:37 GMT
Shenua imo would be better, financially kunshan in tier two would be better lol
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Post by dalenichol on Jun 30, 2022 21:33:13 GMT
Shenua imo would be better, financially kunshan in tier two would be better lol I was turned down by Al Ain in UAE and Shandong in China during the season break. Just getting into a new season now, so I'll keep an eye on the job market, but I'm not holding out too much hope
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 2, 2022 13:56:55 GMT
Our second full season in China is complete and it was very much a typical FM season - Good first half, where we sat in the top 5 and settled in the top 10, followed by a disastrous second half where we won 3 of our last 17 games, falling and staying in 14th place. We're incredibly inconsistent, we don't have the money to buy better players and most of our team has either been sold, leaving on a bosman or simply doesn't want to be here...good times! On a plus note, we do end the season only 60k in the red, so we might be in the black for at least a little while! As we enter January 2031 it's a bit of a crossroads in the save. Because rep seems to pretty much rest entirely on winning things, and because it's reset itself back to "national" every time I've moved clubs, I'm not sure where to go from here. I've been turned down for jobs in China, UAE, Morocco and South Africa so far and I'm not sure if there's a way out of here. I'm going to keep plodding along and see if anything remotely interesting pops up.
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 2, 2022 22:40:38 GMT
This isn't how I planned on moving forward, but here we go! Still torn over whether or not I stay in the club job, but for realism I think I might just resign. This could make or break things!
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Post by chaodck on Jul 3, 2022 3:25:33 GMT
This isn't how I planned on moving forward, but here we go! Still torn over whether or not I stay in the club job, but for realism I think I might just resign. This could make or break things! Wow, good move Dale! I'm reaching the midpoint of the season, we're doing fantastic in the league so far. I'm still torn about whether to post or to plough through and do a single season update.
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 3, 2022 7:14:35 GMT
This isn't how I planned on moving forward, but here we go! Still torn over whether or not I stay in the club job, but for realism I think I might just resign. This could make or break things! Wow, good move Dale! I'm reaching the midpoint of the season, we're doing fantastic in the league so far. I'm still torn about whether to post or to plough through and do a single season update. Thank you sir! I'd been turned down for between 10-15 jobs during the season interval. It didn't matter what league I tried, I was turned down and never shortlisted for an interview, so I thought 'screw it, let's see what international jobs are about' and there was Senegal, Australia, Chile and Iran. I applied for all 4 and quickly got a response from Senegal. The move has increased my rep to Continental - 2.5* with the 26th ranked nation in the world. I really can't complain about this. It is 2031 however, and with the AFCON taking place before I took over, it's going to be a wee while until we have any meaningful matches, but that's fine! Now, chaodck get that season finished and get me an update!
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 4, 2022 10:52:36 GMT
I need to leave for work, so I'll do a wee post when I'm home about how things are going with Senegal, but until then, I'll leave you with this! ....
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Post by jawzy on Jul 4, 2022 19:26:06 GMT
Not bad, that will help that reputation, planning, africa/Asia or Americas?
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 4, 2022 22:18:22 GMT
Reputation is now 3* continental, which I'm happy about. As far as future planning, I'm going to add 4 more nations: Brazil, Argentina, USA and Mexico. I'm not in a mad rush to change continents, but if they're loaded and a big job becomes available, I'm going to apply for the sake of applying and see how much my reputation holds up. I'm in no rush to end this save, by any means, but I'm also conscious of the fact that I'm 13 years in and other than this admittedly good achievement with Senegal, I've yet to really achieve anything major so I need to start looking at getting a proper jump to somewhere. Europe will be the last continent added and I'll possibly even do it in installments, because Europe seems a bit lopsided with reputation, it's much easier to climb the ranks there than anywhere else. But anyway, I digress - It's 2033, we're African champions and I have a World Cup next year that we need to qualify for. I wont be leaving this job until we've either failed to qualify or until the World Cup is over, whichever comes first. Also, can we take a second to appreciate how cool the Senegalese badge is? So, I've kinda whizzed through my time with Senegal because I forget how little there really is to do with International management, especially when you're on a Journeyman...well...journey. I'm basically looking at one 'cycle' of all the competitions I can enter and then it's off to somewhere new - So far it's 2 down, 1 to go! First up, if it definitely counts, was the CHAN - African Championship of Nations (Championnat d'Afrique des Nations) which is a continental competition only featuring players who play in their home nation. I actually think this is a brilliant concept, particularly in Africa which exports so much talent, as it gives a boost to domestic players and a chance for them to represent their nation. We played well. It was always going to be a bit iffy as I've loaded Africa a good number of years into my save and I didn't load Senegal, so I was unsure of what domestic talent I'd have. We gave a really good account of ourselves until coming unstuck against Ivory Coast, but a 6-0 hammering of South Africa was a nice way to end the campaign. This doesn't count as an achievement for me or boost my rep as it was technically the B team, but still! Now, on to the next one: See that? Dominance. Despite qualifying with relative ease, I'd never been absolutely comfortable. We'd always been a little shakey, a little nervy, but when it came to the AFCON itself, hosted in South Africa, any nerves I had quickly disappeared in the 2nd game, with our 3-0 comfortable win over Egypt. After a hatrick in the first game against Niger, Mamadou Kaly Sene put the Egyptian defence to the sword and we'd qualified for the second round with a game to spare. We survived a scare against Tunisia where we went behind after 50 minutes, but after an equaliser just after half time, it took a Franck Kanoute penalty in the 87th minute to see us through. This was followed by two more fairly comfortable wins against Kenya and DR Congo before we faced off against Morocco in the final. Just like Tunisia, we fell behind but were quickly able to find our feet. Demba Seck, who scored almost all of his 25 international goals (in 45 caps) since I've been in charge, levelled from the spot before half time and it was the second half substitute, young Talla Gueye, a player I can definitely see my signing later on, who came on and scored his second, but potentially most important of his career, senior goal to win the trophy. What an absolute lad. And the rest, as they say, is history. So that's where we're at. Just the World Cup to go and this is how qualification looks: We managed to beat Ghana but somehow draw against Tanzania, because of course we did. It's a tough group but I think we can do it. It's weird to say, because I've been playing FM for so long, but I can't remember the last edition of the game where I played at a World Cup, especially with the expanded format, so that could be interesting. Time to holiday for a year!
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Post by jawzy on Jul 4, 2022 23:05:13 GMT
love idea of CHAN.
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 4, 2022 23:40:06 GMT
It's a shame, because it should be kicking off next week but has been rescheduled to January 2023, so the only inherent bonus of that is that we'll have the World Cup immediately followed by CHAN. It's a weird one, because Africa is probably the only continent where something like CHAN would actually work. Maybe South America too, but otherwise every other continent would pretty much stay the same, but I love it as a concept.
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Post by dalenichol on Jul 6, 2022 10:28:08 GMT
Well, it took me a long time to get there and...it was a massive letdown! We just weren't good enough, basically. We were coming up against some extremely talented newgen players and we just weren't able to match them, but such is life. I'm going to stay in charge at least until the end of the tournament in case I'm due for any sort of rep boost (still at continental 3* but risen from 50% to 60%, so that's good. Just need to see what sort of jobs are out there!
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Post by chaodck on Jul 6, 2022 13:45:56 GMT
Well, it took me a long time to get there and...it was a massive letdown! We just weren't good enough, basically. We were coming up against some extremely talented newgen players and we just weren't able to match them, but such is life. I'm going to stay in charge at least until the end of the tournament in case I'm due for any sort of rep boost (still at continental 3* but risen from 50% to 60%, so that's good. Just need to see what sort of jobs are out there! That's a great Senegal stint mate. AFCON Champs and Third Round in the World Cup is fantastic. I haven't advanced much in my game lately, mainly due to the release of F1 22 and me playing a lot of Marvel Champions The Card Game. I'll see if I can finish it before the weekend.
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Post by jawzy on Jul 6, 2022 18:37:07 GMT
Been busy with work and a wee trip down to Carlisle. thus my reading progress has slowed down.
Should i use a exanded canadian pyramid or just role with vanilla CanPL? if i get a hankering for a new save in canada. vanilla has few teams and a salary cap of 11k per week, so i may try the expanded pro/rel db i found for canada in future.
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