oneteaminglasgow

November 2021 Pumped by UE, pumped out the cup and another draw with the newly promoted side. A shite month, basically. We're down to 2nd bottom, admittedly having played less games than most of the other sides. "Expected to finish top half" is looking swell.

October 2021 Delighted - genuienly delighted - to beat Atletic Escaldes. They took 10 points off us last season, which was the big reason they finished ahead of us. We got our arses handed to us by FC Santa Coloma, escaping with a 1-0 loss was great given the way the game went. Could easily have been 5 or 6. We're doing ok. I have a feeling that FC Santa Coloma will win the title, but if we can keep going as we are, then we should be fine.

I don't know, I tried the 4-2-3-1 gegenpress for a while, and won 1 match out of 14 with it. I think it's probably still overpowered but not to the same extent that it was last year.

September 2021 Couple more signings before the window SLAMMED shut - First up, Ivan Fernandez, a striker who should do fine as a back up. I mainly signed him because I played my first game and realised that I didn't have a single attacking player on the bench, and his finishing is ok. Was playing at UE Santa Coloma before as well, so hopefully will weaken them a little. The other signing is Jacinto Ordonez. I'll be honest, I didn't even scout this guy - I saw that he had some under 21 and thought f**k it. He's pretty pish, but he might turn out good at some point in the future, and makes my squad a slightly more respectable size. Anyway, onto the results. Not ideal - particularly drawing with newly promoted Ordino. We absolutely stole the point against Carroi as well, I think the penalty might have been the first time we got into their box. Lot of draws going on, so we somehow sit 3rd.

Pre-season 2021/22 That's the outgoing players, and is an absolute pisser. If you asked me to name my 5 best players last season, 4 of them are on this list, and the rest are pretty useful (apart from Estragues, who was shite but was also my only right back). I also released a load of complete dross... All of that leaves me with the lovely task of trying to replace 4 of my best players, while also improving the rest of a fairly poor squad. To that end, we've brought in... A mix of genuinely alright players, and absolute crap I signed to fill up the squad a bit. I'll start with the guys who I think are likely to be quite good. First up, we've got Josep Cabanes, a right back. He's fairly average at everything, and has nothing obviously terrible about his game. My right back last season was appalling, so hopefully he'll be an upgrade. Next up, Gustavo Giordani is a defensive midifleder/midfielder, but I'll be playing him at centre half mostly. Looks pretty good, and I'm hoping he can replace Alfaiate. As an aside, he is one of the least skillful players I've ever seen in FM, but hopefully it's fine. Jorge Pinto is next up, and he's also a right back, but I'll be playing him at left back. He looks fine. I spent last season with a centre back playing left back badly, so someone who's actually supposed to be playing there will be nice. Alex Villagrasa looks passable, but he won't (if I'm lucky) be a regular starter. Will sit on the bench mostly. I'm going to put group Robi, Luciano Maciocia, Gabriel Cunha and Sergio dos Santos together under the simple header of "shite, but I needed some more players" So that's my team. I think we're probably weaker overall than last season, but our really bad bits aren't as bad as they were if that makes sense? Inexplicably, out board expect us to go from staying up on the final day of the season to a top half finish, despite being a worse side (I think). I wouldn't be surprised if I'm looking for a new job fairly soon.

Got a leaflet with this c***s face on it through the door today. Just the 2 mentions of “SNP” and 10 of “independence referendum”. Must be nearly a record low for them. It doesn’t mention a single thing the Tories are actually up to, so at least they’re consistent on that front.

Relegation Playoff Right, into the relegation playoff we go. We're facing Jenlai. It's a two legged affair, and we're at home to start with

June 2021

May 2021 For some reason, we didn't have any games in April but our first two games of the split were mixed. Great win against UE Santa Coloma gave us a good chance at staying up, but we fucked it against Atletic. They've taken 10 points off us this season. An absolute shambles. Right, one more game. If we win against Sant Julia, we're in the playoffs at worst. If we combine that with a Atletic loss, we stay up.

March 2021 A point, so better than expected to be honest. 4 points to make up on Sant Julia in 3 games, so we'll need to beat them and hope for a favour elsewhere. I think best case scenario is now the relegation playoff.

February 2021 Loss against Atletic was poor, but they outplayed us and completely deserved the win. Hattricks for both my front two followed, some performance from them. Real shame that both of them have signed pre-contacts elsehwere. Two games to go until the split. Our goal difference is pretty good, comparatively, so that could prove vital. Helpfully, Atletic completely fucked their games in hand. We've got Carroi and Engordany to play. I wouldn't expect much out of that. Post split will be the important bit.

In fairness to the match engine, I’m currently one of the poorer sides in the Andorran top flight, and that’s my second choice keeper so it seems like a thing that could happen. The xG thing is slightly irritating. I don’t mind them having it in, I’d just rather my assistant didn’t tell me about it every 3 seconds. And I don’t understand how they calculate it, I see guys miss absolute sitters and it goes up by like 0.04... I get that it’s to measure the quality of chances created (I think) but seems a bit much. The other thing that’s really, really annoying me is the “media liaison officer” or whatever they’re calling them popping up at the end of press conferences. I’ve never seen them say anything apart from “I think it went fine.” What’s the point in having them? I know it went fine, and press conferences have no impact whatsoever on the rest of the game anyway, as far as I can tell.

You’ll forgive me for having absolutely no sympathy for you and your “downward trajectory”

Not sure about the dad and uncle, but “he lives up north so how could he possibly support anyone else?” was the gist of it I think. Genuinely can’t get over the Celtic fan saying that going from 1st to 2nd was an unparalleled downward trajectory

January 2021 Well, we've finally won a couple of games, with Raul Ahibar dragging us to an inexplicably comfortable victory over UE Santa Coloma. Unfortunately, he's signed a deal to leave at the end of the season. We also beat FC Santa Coloma, which was a massive shock, but a couple of losses against Atletic put a dampener on the month. Out of the relegation spots for now, but Atletic have 3 games to get a single point to overtake us. We'll have a tough time staying up from here.

December 2020 We've kept the shite performances, but lost the scraping points. We conceded late against Ergordany and Sant Julia, we were 4 down before we started playing against Carroi and my keeper literally threw the ball into his own net against Inter. On that keeper, he asked for more game time at the start of the month. On paper, there's not much between him and the other guy so I said aye. He has not repaid me. Been directly responsible for at least 3 goals in these 4 games. An absolute joke. I don't know what to do. We haven't won for 11 matches, and have lost 5 in a row. Don't know how we're not bottom.

I've just conceded this goal.

November 2020 Hmm. No wins in 90 minutes, we took penalties to beat lower league shite and we've looked generally awful. That said, we've only lost once, and points ticking over while being dreadful can't be that bad. No wins since the opening day though, need to change that soon.

October 2020 A mixed bag - comfortably outplayed by reigning champions Inter d'Esclaes, and then a boring draw against Atletic.. It turns out that FC Santa Coloma aren't that good, and my happiness at drawing with them was somewhat misplaced. Still, we're doing fine overall.

Has he actually been officially sacked yet?

September 2020 Starting our season with the two Santa Coloma sides, and they went pretty well. FC Santa Coloma are the traditional powerhouse of Andorran football, so a draw was good, and we've not conceded a goal yet, so that's pretty nice. League works as play the other 7 teams 3 times, then splits for 3 more games. Going fine so far, but obviously early days.

Season kicks off shortly, so we'll see how the team building has gone. First off, I moved all the complete dross from my B team to the first team squad, purely for depth. I'd really like to not have to play any of them regularly though. I brought in about 100 players on trial, and the 4 who made the cut were... Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but will have to make the most of it I suppose. Ronely Kingo Bonkene is a attacking midfielder, who can also play right wing and up front, and is here to sit on the bench mostly. Might be useful, might not. Derrick Pachou is a centre half, and will probably play quite a lot, which is pretty depressing. He can header well, and that's about it. Tiago Flores is a centre midfielder, he'll probably be a regular. Not really good enough, but neither are any of my other options. Joel Martinez is a right winger, can also play attacking midfield and, at a push, left wing or up front. His versatility will be useful, and he's alright I suppose. His dribbling is pretty good, but he doesn't have an end product. Bit of a struggle to find decent players, but I would think that'll be a recurring theme in countries smaller than East Kilbride or Livingston. Oh well, let's see how it goes.

First job, and I'm in the Andorran top flight with what appears to be a Benfica supporters club. Only founded in 2009, but have made it to the top flight a couple of times. We've got no staff other than me, and our squad looks like this... 11 players in total, 2 of whom are goalkeepers and no full backs. This'll be a laugh. Only expected to avoid automatic relegation, which should be doable as I imagine most of the other teams in Andorra are pish too.

I enjoyed my last career thread, so you’re being inflicted with another one, with a slightly loftier ambition. Basically, I’m going to try to win every league title in Europe from starting unemployed, and by using only teams who have never won the title before. I’ve downloaded the extra leagues from Steam, mostly done by the boy Timo (FM21 Leagues Mega Pack by @Timo@ | FM Scout) , and I've also downloaded the real name fix from sortitoutsi and will be starting from the bottom and working my way up, using the UEFA coefficients to determine what the bottom is… The outlier here is Liechtenstein, who don’t have a league system of their own, which leaves 54 league titles to win. To ensure the game runs at a reasonable speed, I’m going to load up the bottom 5 to start with, and load up the next country up once one is completed. I’ll also load up Scotland for the whole save, just to see how it goes - I won’t be taking a job in Scotland until it’s next in line though. As stated, any club who’ve won their league previously are out of bounds, which means that I won’t be managing any of the following: I’ve loaded up leagues in San Marino, Andorra, Estonia, Wales and Iceland (the Icelandic league won’t be playable for a while, for some reason) and the job market looks like this… I’ll be applying for every eligible club and will check back once I have something. Only one eligible top flight club (Penya Encarnada) so that's the job I'm after, but will need to take whatever comes up. Being even vaguely realistic for a second, I’ll be happy if I make it as high as Armenia, but let’s see how it goes. Spoiler has map of completed countries:

Hooray! Lewis Vaughan was my best player - Raith let me have him for 25 grand. He managed to stay relatively injury free, which is probably a miracle. There's also a centre half called Lloyd Jones kicking about on a free who absolutely strolled it. That and FM not working out that Tam O'Ware is an absolute fraud is helpful. f**k knows what happened with Forfar. They had Keiron Bowie and a guy called John Robertson on loan who got 35 goals and 10 assists between them...