itzdrk Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 (edited) Setup I have a bit of free time to undertake this challenge. I've never done this before and I'd quite like to give it a go. I have downloaded a database which includes other leagues since there is only one league in Africa in the game. The leagues I have decided on are: Asia - Japan, Thailand Africa - Egypt, South Africa Europe - Germany, Scotland North America - USA, Barbados South America - Argentina, Chile Due to playing on a laptop I don't think it'll love having 10 leagues running at the same time so my thinking for setup is to run Asia and Africa until (if) I complete both, then load in North and South America and finish in Europe. Using the rules from FM Blog: Single Save. Start unemployed with no badges. No International Management. No in game editor. Attribute masking on. Now just to find a job. Edited February 7 by itzdrk 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richey Edwards Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 Good luck m8. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 Starting out 09/06/23 After a round of interviews I have landed the job at Kamatamare Sanuki in the J3 league. They seemingly do not have a nickname but: The first part of their name was coined by combining the Japanese word Kamatama (a type of udon noodle bowl) and the Italian Mare ("Sea"). The second part is what Kagawa Prefecture used to be called. Playing out of the 30,099 capacity Marugame Stadium, they find themselves 18th in the league after 13 games played. Looking into the rules of the league there is a limit on squad size at 25 and for work permits players from: Thailand Vietnam Myanmar Cambodia Singapore Indonesia Malaysia Players are treated as non-foreign. The season preview had 'Sanuki' down as favourites for a last place finish, they appear to have been operating without a manager and exceeding expectations so far so maybe it will be easy to get rid of me if I maintain current performance. Looking at the squad, the 'stars' are two wingers and two centre backs so I think a 442 will make sense to get the best out of what we have. I have £5.52k PW available for bringing in reinforcements and can sign free transfers until 08 September 2023. Think I'll just do the next update at the end of season 1. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 8 Author Share Posted February 8 2023 Season It was a bit of a slog but we managed to stay up on the last day, mid table Iwate were clearly on their holidays as we were 3-0 up at half time despite struggling for form and goals for a lot of the season. Ended up lower than the media prediction of 14th but I was quite happy with how it ended, a lot of injuries over the course. The board gave me a new 1 year contract just before the end of the season so I am staying put for next season, there is a potential spanner in the works because just as the season ended the supporters stated they were unhappy with my failure to make them an established J3 side so the board called me into a meeting which I tried to say injuries were to blame for not being safe earlier but this was batted away, I asked what it would take to keep my job and the board said I must take 8 points from the next 5 games. Imagine having that hanging over you inbetween seasons On the board, I have been notified that the club plan to build a new stadium in adifferent city, we are currently based in Marugame but the board wish to build in Takamatsu about 40 minutes away. After havving a look on google maps i say good luck to them finding a site to build on. In terms of transfers I kept it reasonable bringing in 7 players. What I wasnt initially aware of was a limit on foreign players in the matchday squad, you are limited to 4. I used the squad planner to see what I needed to stay up. Goalkeeper - Kwon Jae-Boom - Korea. Goalkeepers were pretty bad, I know the highlights arent an actual reflection but the straw that broke the camels back was the goalkeeper standing facing into his net while the other team shot at goal, his positioning was great as it hit his head only to be followed up and put into the net, so he was banished to the reserves . After a couple of failed contract negotiations with others I managed to bring in Kwon. He actually did better than i thought despite conceding 27 goals in 16 games. Spoiler Left back - Park Sung-Hyun - Korea. I had no real left backs, it was doubly a problem as my right back was actually very good so I was being exploited down that side, I moved to bring in who really shored us up on that side. Central midfield x2 - Jung Hyeon-Woo & Chung Sung-won - Korea. we were absolutely rotten in central midfield so i went out and brought in a million trialists because it was urgent and I couldnt wait on scout reports, these two were the standouts and really changed our fortunes. Right wing - Galaxi - Angola. I brought Galaxi in as emergency cover on the right wing, the star player of the team got injured and i had two 16 year olds who were competent at right wing. He was only on about £100 a week and barely played due to being the 5th best foreign player, he is homesick and I am quite happy for him to move on in the close season if anyone will take him. Striker x2 -Takahiko Sugai & Shoma Kai - Japanese. We had two ok strikers but the backups to them were very poor, I brought these two in on trial and they turned out to be better than what I had, they made a good pairing in terms of numbers but regularly one of them was pulling in a low rating during the game, it did seem to work though and they got an ok number of goals between them (5 & 4). As a manager i havent progressed much at this point, the club wont send me on a coaching course because they are scared i'll do the course and then leave for something better (yes, thats the plan). I will do another post as i get ready to start season 2. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 Pre-season and start of season 2 Entering the second season with the target set by the board hanging over my head I wasnt really sure how to approach it. The most important thing was getting off to a good start and then go from there. We had a reserve squad filled with players that were over 21 and rubbish, fortunately all but 1 of their contracts were up at the end of the season so we managed to get 11 wages off the books plus a further 6 first team squad players I managed to transfer so I had to consider this in my approach for the new season as well. This left me with about 5k in wage budget to play with (its been working out around £500 - £800 for a squad player quality and £1.1k - 1.8k for a first team player). There were some players who could improve the first team but really they were all foreign and as before we were already over the limit of what we could play at one time, I made the decision that the best thing to do would be to bring in squad players and go with the team that I built. I like to have two players for every position so I rounded my squad off with what was missing. 9 players came in GK - Masaki Endo DL - Haruki Fukazawa DR - Yuzuki Miyajima DC - Mohamed Diab (Egypt) MC - Tatsuya Ishikawa MC - Jin Hyun-Tae (Korean) ML - Ryu Wakabayashi SC - Ryoga Masuda SC - Masashi Wada Despite what i said earlier you will notice I signed a further two foreign players, this gives me 7 foreign players of which 4 can be in a matchday squad at a time. It will be a bit of tetris to make it work but the thinking on using the foreign player will be the 4 who are alredy there are starters, Galaxi has been put up for sale and into the reserves. Endo who is Japanese is just as good a goalkeeper as Jae-Boom so if I need to play one of the others. We will see how this works out along with injuries and suspensions. Onto results - Target 8 points from first 5 games (H) Nara - 4-0 - 3/8 points (A) Iwate - 3-0 - First Round League Cup - First Leg (A) Kagoshima - 1-1 - 4/8 points (A) Fukushima - 1-3 - 7/8 points (H) Kitakkyushu - 0-2 - 7/8 points (H) Iwate - 6-0 - First Round League Cup - Second Leg - 6-3 aggregate (H) FC Ryukyu - 3-0 - 10/8 points Happy with that start and so are the board and fans, job secured and early signs that sticking with the team seem to be working. Sitting 3rd in the table at this early stage and still have 3k wages in the budget for improving if we do keep this up and end up in a promotion battle - can review when the transfer window reopens. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 Remainder of season 2 This is definately a team in evolution but we fell just short. We were closer to the playoffs than the table looks (there was a point during the final game we were in) but 9th place is a good improvement on the 17th place finish of the season before. Looking at the squad i will be keeping around for next season its probably going to be similar again where i am just mostly finding backups, it will be a starting right back I am looking for though, in other circumstances I would be looking at improving the left back and left centre back options as well but their lower ratings are likely to just be temporary, starting left back is a 16 year old who I expect to improve as the season goes on, starting left centre back is the old left back who after looking at his stats is being retrained to be a centre back because he was a 24 year old left back with 4 for dribbling . On the stadium from earlier it has been confirmed that the board will be building it, I hope that I am not still around when it opens Personally, you can start to see my stats developing now, I have just started on a coaching course as well which should help with that and my reputation. I think at the end of the following season I should be looking to move on for career progression, I should be in a good place for a better job if the team stays around the same again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 Season 3 The transfer plans were thrown into chaos as basically everyone of any notable talent wanted to leave and had release clauses in their contract, ended up bringing about 750k, to be honest all ends up it worked out for the best, repaying the loan was crippling the clubs finances as the season went on and I still had 15k wage budget available at the end of the season but we were almost into negative balance so without the transfers we would probably have ended up in bother. I replaced the players which I wont run through too much but I found a 18 year old Brazilian striker named Dani who scored 24 in 37 which is way better than we had before. We progressed again and finished in 5th place and got into the playoffs As i'd said previously I would be leaving at the end of this season so it is a nice way to leave the club. I was a bit annoyed at not winning the league though which might seem strange from the table but we were in the top 3 most of the season, hit a rough patch in the middle and fell to 9th and clawed our way back to the same scrap for the title we had been in then collapsed again just before the end and only just clung on to our playoff place. So I leave them with good players for J2 signed up and they'll be moving into their new stadium in a couple of months, the board stepped in and tried to offer me more money to stay but building this club up to sneak into the J2 through the playoffs took 3 seasons and they are financially crippled from building a 5,000 seater stadium so I really didnt fancy it, i'd have only considered sticking about if they were going to put me through my badges but they took a lot of convincing to put me through my C badge then point blank refused putting me through the B and it wasnt an option to ask for during their intervention. Because of their refusal my stats are still pretty low so i cant forsee a top flight job opening up for me. Plan is to go in for top flight jobs in the leagues I have loaded without any expectiation and hope to pick up either a decent sized 2nd tier side. See where we end up! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 Quicker than I thought to find something that works. I'm off to South Africa I have joined with 4 games left to play - unrealistic but could still win the title, more realistic but totally out of my control is trying to make up the 4 point gap on 3rd and make it into the playoffs. Board have no expectations for the rest of this season so see what the f**k happens here 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 Season 3 once more Managed to go unbeaten in the remaining games qualifying for the playoffs. The league is weird looking back, it is in 4 stages, the winner of each stage wins £25k but it is all totalled up into a league table at the end (top flight seems to do similar with bigger prize money). The playoff is weird too, it is a mini league with the 2nd and 3rd side from the bottom tier and the 2nd bottom side from the top tier. Managed to win it staying undefeated but unfortunately unable to win every game. This club is smaller than the one I left but we are in the top flight now so I guess I am closer to an achievement, must look good for the CV that i've been able to go to two different coutnries and win the playoffs in both. No idea what to expect in the close season, everyone is out of contract and loads of the players here are on loan, gonna be a challenge putting a team together. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 19 Author Share Posted February 19 Realised i never did anything on the 4th season. It was fairly uneventuful, expected to get relegated but managed to stay up on goal difference. Im most of the way through the 5th season on 29 points so I have already surpassed last season, I noticed on my manager profile that I have the 'wnt' you normally see on players, Kaizer Cheifs are after me which is probably exciting for the challenge to get a shot at managing a big club. Hopefully will know when I round up what happens. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Season 5 This was a notable step forward for the club, some of the bigger clubs in the league werent having great seasons so we were able to record away wins at Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Cheifs. As above we surpassed the previous season's points total with games to spare. Our striker was the top goalscorer. Kinda cool that they are an OG rather than someone I brought in, nice when you get the best out of what you have to work with. The 'wnt' dissapeared from my profile after I beat Kaizer Cheifs away on the last day so when they opened up applications I declared interest as well as applying to try win them back over. This upset the Milford board but i guess thats expected After all that though they decided to appoint someone else I went in for the Orlando Pirates job and also the Zamalek job in Egypt, I got interviewed for all 3 but was unsuccesful in all of them. This is a bit of a problem as these are the 3 of the 4 clubs I thought would give me the best chance at getting my first trophy. It leaves Sundowns or just hanging around here for another 5/6 seasons and seeing how far I can take Milford. Just need to take it how it goes. I was offered a two year contract to stay but I only commited for another season, transfer window was focused on improving the central defence and goalkeeper. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Season 6 Another season of progress on the pitch, after recieving yet again the same buget in the summer it was another year for improving what we have and finishing as high up the league as possible but instead of disregarding the cups as I had been I wanted to try and win one if the league was going to be out of the question. I managed to get 'better' central defenders in and made a big improvement in goals, i knew the top end of my team would see me right so high hopes . We actually didnt have a good start which I put down to the new central defence pairing needing time to learn the system but after losing on 04 November we didnt lose another game until the final game of the season where I put out a younger team because we had the cup final coming up and I wanted no injuries. Finishing at this height in the league qualifies me for an extra cup so that will probably be in some way financially rewarding i would guess. I'm also proud as f**k, especially when you read the final line of this So the cup final came and we won 2-1, we were a goal down but managed to score the winner in the 89th minute, we dominated the match but it was tense. Winning the final is excellent for another reason, we have qualified for Africa's version of the Europa League Excellent season which should set me up niceley and bring in some much needed cash. Surely i'll not just be given £25k wage budget again! Get it right up Kaizer Cheifs btw, Quentin Fortune lasted a massive 161 days in the post losing 12 of his 22 games and they finished nowhere near me. Beat them home and away as well 3-2 each time, hopefully keep up my domination over them. I checked in on Sanuki and they just went back to shit as soon as I left, immediately relegated and finishing in the bottom half of the J3 league. Proabably got out at the right time there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 Before I start the season 7 review this is of enough relevance to jump into the real world. Turns out that wur boys Milford were away to my (not Milford's) in game rivals and managed to beat them on penalties. Even in real life we now beat them every time 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 2 Author Share Posted March 2 Season 7 We had a good season but it wasnt exactly fun in terms of the challenge. We started not great and pretty much were out of contention for the title before the form levelled out we ended up in 4th place and only 4 points off the title but we were about 15ish behind before we got going which is hard to acomplish. 4th place is the highest top league finish so far and progress again on the season before. My Striker scored 45 goals in all competitions (38 starts 6 sub apperances), I didnt even sign him he was already there when I arrived. His stats are really nothing special but he just seems to love the way I have the team set up since I came in (full seasons) - 120 starts, 18 sub apperances - 110 goals. We retained the FA cup so it means we will qualify for europe again but not a trophy that will progress the challenge. Africa is the interesting bit for the season, one thing I found immediately funny is that we still charge £3 to attend a match domestically but the home games in the Confederation Cup were £58!!! We didnt disgrace ourselves, so its a good platform for going again next season. Manastir got to the semi final and we did ok against them in the home game at least. I think I need to consider a defensive tactic for these away games as we werent great tin those. Im at a bit of a crossroads, i'm building this club up to be near to where I need it to be and the bigger clubs in South Africa now arent really all that much bigger, I got offered the Orlando Pirates job in the middle of the season but their squad is poorer than mine, they have less money than we do and were below us in the table - I also clocked some players that wouldnt get in my team on 5k a week, my guys earn roughly 1k per week. The skin I use lets me see everyone's budgets and even in Egypt most of the clubs dont have the cash that we do so its basically a move to Sundowns or Zamalek and while i've improved I am probably still below what they are looking for. I dont want to load in some of the other leagues and just mill about hoping to get a good job eventually so I think a few more 'boring' seasons building the club up as much as I can. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 Hahahahahhahahahaha This guy has been the hero of the save so far, look at those goals last season!!! 45k 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 I think he might be in agreement with me on the hating Kaizer Cheifs, the match after rejecting their bid.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 Offering their manager the chance to be my physio for his cheek 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 16 Author Share Posted March 16 5 years of graft at this club has paid off, we won the league and also won the Confederation cup. Doing this the long and hard way but we are in the African Champions League, hopefully win it first go! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itzdrk Posted March 16 Author Share Posted March 16 Picked up this player in the summer who I think was the difference, been great for us. Confederation cup final was played against Supersport from our league who we also beat to the title by 1 point! Im sure they will be looking for revenge next season. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.