causeforconcern Posted June 9, 2008 Share Posted June 9, 2008 Olympique Gymnaste Club de Nice-Côte d'Azur A French Football club based in Nice. Founded on July 9th, 1904. HONOURS French League Champions in 1951, 1952, 1956, 1959 French Cup Winners in 1952, 1954 and 1997 STADIUM Name : Stade du Ray Capacity : 17,415 SQUAD 1 GK Hugo Lloris 2 DF Patrick Barul 3 DF Alaeddine Yahia 4 DF Vincent Hognon 5 DF Cédric Kanté 6 MF Olivier Echouafni 7 MF Derek Asamoah 8 MF David Hellebuyck 9 FW Lilian Laslandes 10 MF Ederson (on loan from Olympique Lyonnais) 11 FW Joseph-Désiré Job 12 FW Bakari Koné 14 MF Florent Balmont 15 FW Anthony Modeste 16 GK Lionel Letizi 17 MF Mahamane Traoré 18 DF Ismaël Gace 19 FW Nduka Ozokwo 20 FW Habib Bamogo 21 DF Mohamed Yahaya 22 MF Kamel Larbi 23 MF Drissa Diakité 24 DF Gérald Cid 25 DF Onyekachi Apam 26 MF Cyril Rool 27 MF Cyril Jeunechamp 28 DF Anthony Scaramozzino 30 GK Jérémy Moreau KEY PLAYERS Hugo Lloris Can quite possibly become the best goalkeeper in the world in a few years. Easily you most prized asset. Will be almost impossible to keep a hold of him but you'll be much richer when and if he decides to leave. Onyekachi Apam Quick young fullback who, like Lloris, will be in high demand. Will most likely want to leave after the first season Florent Balmont Solid enough defensive midfielder who rarely loses possession. Worth holding onto for at least the short term Bakari Koné Very quick winger who can also play up front. If used right can score and provide others plenty of goals. Yet another player other teams covet. Ederson Young and extremely promising attacking midfielder with pace, precision and an eye for goal. Only drawback is that he'll be heading back to Lyon after the first season. You may be able to loan him again though. TACTICS First off I find it best if you develop or use someone elses tactic before going into the trasfer market. Don't just go out and buy the best players you can, buy the right players for your tactic. I think Benitez said it best when he said "You don't need to buy the best leg for your table. You need to buy the leg you need for your table." PRE-SEASON Okay so we've now established who is in our squad and who the key players are. What I'll do next is run you through my first season in charge and what I did. As per usual I start by deciding on a tactic (in this case I used a modified version of WWW2 excellant 4-1-4-1)and working out which players will fit in and which players will need replacing. After this I set up my training schemes for the year (I've always used Matts training regimes from FM07) and replace coaching staff. I like to get the best possible coaches I can regardless of how much it's going to cost me but that's just a personal preference. With that out of the way I head to the transfer market. After a quick look at my squad I've decided that the defence, while not fantastic, will be able to last the season without any new inclusions. The midfield is fairly solid too with Ederson, Balmont and Koné taking up three of the five spot available. Upfront we are horribly short with only Laslandes the only real option. Unfortunately I can't see his thirty-five year old legs bringing us glory so I'll need a new strike force before the season starts. With the little money I have the only way I can buy is to sell. Fortunately I like my squads on the thin side (less money on wages and with less competition for places equals a happier squad) so I have no problem in selling off some of my players. Hellebuyck, Joseph-Désiré Job, Kamel Larbi, Anthony Scaramozzino, Cédric Kanté, Habib Bamogo and Drissa Diakité (I wasn't sure about selling him but I was offered 2.8 million pounds plus clauses- seemed to good to pass by) were all put on sale and sold. While this didn't bring in a king's ransom it gave me enough to work with. Seeing as I've sold off a good chunk of my team I'm going to have to bring in some reinforcements. Looking at my now depeleted squad I can see I need a left winger, some cover for my midfield and, most importantly, a striker or two. I ended up with the following Mame Biram Diouf- Molde A Senegalese striker who can also play on the left. Éric Carrière- Loaned in from Lens Experienced former French international who can play anywhere across the midfield. Kevin Lejeune- Loaned in from Auxerre Left winger with a great shot and decent in the air- ideal for this formation. Sébastien Grax- FC Sochaux A bit of a gamble here but I needed a striker and he looked okay and came at a reasonable price (1.9 Million pounds) My final squad lined up as follows GK- Lloris LB- Rool CB- Yahia CB- Hognon RB- Apam DM- Balmont CM- Echouafni AM- Ederson RM- Koné LW- Lejeune ST- Grax Not amazing but I had faith that I could achieve what was required and maybe have a decent cup run. SEASON REVIEW So my first season at the helm of OGC Nice has come to a close. Has it been a success or has my limited managerial experience been exposed? Would I be punished for barely being able to put out full teams because I forgot about the African Cup of Nations or would my reserves and youth players see me through? Will anybody have read this far into my guide or have I wasted half an hour? Actually it has to be said that the season went much better than I had anticipated. I managed to finish Ligue 1 in a credible 6th spot while also making the semi-finals of both domestic cups. The players I bought in were inspired purchases as Grax finished the season as top goal scorer with 22 in the league and 10 in the cups. Carriere was in the top five assists chart and Diouf, despite not being a regular, had his value increase to almost 4 million pounds. Not bad as I picked him up for a tidy 22k. Lloris was a god saving my team many, many times. Balmont was the second most accurate passer and Apam is now wanted by half of Europe. Roll on the Euro Vase... SEASON TWO I've just started my second season and as expected paid the price for my previous sucessfull campaign. My players were now in high demand especially my prized asset Lloris. I was getting bids around the ten million pound mark expecting my chairman to buckle, but he did me proud and didn't give in. I decided to scare off his suiters by asking for a ridiculous 16 million plus 50% sell-on fee...unfortunately for me Lyon were not detered and this time my chairman, probably correctly, decided enough was enough and sold him. I was disappointed but this now gave me some serious funds to build with. Apam was next to go. He had previously demanded a transfer and I decided that he was replacable and let him go for 7.5 million. Not as much as I'd like but no one was willing to spend more. This left me a substantial war chest in which to improve my team. But improving it needed as I'd lost my two most promising players as well as my playmaker in Ederson and a couple of players to retirement. The squad as it was would not survive if I didn't spend. I decided to go all out... In came David Jemmali on a free. Despite his age he still looks like he can do the job as a starting centre back. Stéphane Noro for just over 3 million from Troyes. Will be my new playmaker and goalscoring midfielder. With 20 for longshots I'm convinced he'll do well. Malaury Martin for 3 million from Monaco. Promising nineteen year old labelled the next Michel Platini. How could I go wrong? Rudy Mater from Valenciennes costing a cool 3.5 million. Apam's replacement looks much better than Apam himself. Rémy Riou was brought in from Auxerre for 3.5 million. A young promising keeper to replace a young promising keeper. Hopefully I can hold on to this one. Jérémy Perbet on loan from Strasbourg. Not amazing but will provide cover for Grax. and finally my coup of the season Jérémy Menez from Monaco for a rather large ten million plus clauses. Young, fast and expensive as hell. THE FUTURE Looking ahead I'm confident I have the squad to threaten the big guns of Ligue 1. There are still some cracks in my line up but enough quality to potentially cause a huge upset and win Nice their fifth Championship. If things don't work out as planned you can visit me at the thread "The AI is cheating and I want my money back" over in general questions. HINTS AND TIPS Try not to do what I did and forget about the African cup of nations. Had I not forgot I probably would be in the Champions Legue now. Remember a lot of your players are African so make sure you loan/buy a few players in the second transfer window. You can ask the board for more money at the start of the season and they'll bump up your transfer budget to just over five million. Beware though because I noticed you'll lose money throughout the year so it might pay to keep a million or two in reserve as not to go into debt. At the start of the first season offer Lloris the longest possible cotract you can. This should get you more money for him when he leaves. Ask the board to improve the training and youth facilities as they usually comply. Also I should probably mention here that after season two Nice are due to move into a new 30,000+ stadium. Almost doubling your current capacity. Not bad huh? THE END? Well that pretty much sums up my guide to OGC Nice. I hope you gained something from it even if it was laughing at my inability to grasp the English language. I'd also like to add that I don't play this game as a lot of you do. I play this game for realism and immersion and for those two reasons I shy away from buying players who I don't think would sign in real life. Hence I have a huge domestic bias for whichever country I'm managing in. So for all of you who ridicule me for buying a player like Grax when I could have bought Johnny McAwesome from Botswana who's ten times better and half the price you're wasting your time. I apologise for not having any fancy logos on this guide. My computer skills only go as far as typing and even then I'm pushing it. Anyways you shouldn't be picking your team on what their logos look like! Quick thanks to Matt for providing me with really decent training templates. I'd recommend them to anyone and everyone. Also thanks to WWW2 for his fantastic 4-1-4-1 formation. For someone who craves realism this was a godsend. Finally huge thanks to Sports Interactive for making a brilliant if horribly addictive game. Also thanks in advance to a moderator who fixes grammatical, layout, and spelling errors. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
causeforconcern Posted June 9, 2008 Author Share Posted June 9, 2008 I should also probably add that you should keep an eye on Yoann Gourcuff as he can be loaned from Milan after about a month into the game. Definitety worth getting if you can! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purefun Posted June 9, 2008 Share Posted June 9, 2008 Very nice opening post mate. Well done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
acquiesce123212321 Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 I did 3 seasons of OGC Nice a while ago, didn't do too well, finished 10th, 11th and 9th. On my first season my defence was pretty solid, but i couldn't get goals from anywhere, Hellyebuck and Ederson got about 3 times as many goals as any of my strikers. 2nd season i brought in Steve Savidan from the relegated Valenciennes and some random mexican striker called Carlos Cacho (or something), and they both banged in the goals. But my board sold Hugo Lloris and Apam so i was letting in loads aswell, also managed to loan Ederson again.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
causeforconcern Posted June 13, 2008 Author Share Posted June 13, 2008 SEASON TWO Things haven't gone as well as expected so far. Perhaps the team is still taking time to gel but I'm ten games in with four wins, four draws and two losses. Kone demanded a transfer as soon as the season started and I reluctantly sold him for four million plus clauses. I replaced him with an inferior player in Franck Dja Djedje as I couldn't find a suitable right midfielder. The price was right though costing a little less than a million. Most of the new players have settled in well with Menez a regular goal scorer and Mater getting on the assist chants on a consistant basis. The real star of the show though has been Noro. Assists, and goals; the perfect playmaker. Riou has been the let down so far, not nealy as good as Lloris. Hoping he'll grow into a better player soon. I've drawn Celtic in the Uefa Cup qualifier which will definitely be a stern test. If we'd been in better form I'd be more optimistic but the way we're playing I'm predicting a narrow defeat. Hope the board can sympathise. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
causeforconcern Posted July 1, 2008 Author Share Posted July 1, 2008 UPDATE Season three has come to an end and I've finally ended my search for silverware. OGC Nice are now League Champions! It came done to the last day but we managed to pip both PSG and a surprisingly disappointing Lyon to claim our fifth title. Unfortuantely we missed out on the double as Lyon beat me in the cup final with a lucky 3-2 win. I've just started the fourth season and was confident that I'd finally be able to hang on to my stars as I was now a League winner. But like the previous season (where Man City robbed me of my best player Menez by offering twenty million pounds) I still couldn't keep them with my goalkeeper Riou leaving me for Seville. Despite this I'm confident I have a team capable of at least challenging for the title again and maybe an okay run in Europe- provided I don't get a group like last season containing Barca, Fiorentina and Benfica where I unsurprisingly finshed last. Current line up GK- Cédric Carasso RB- Rudy Mater CB- Jérémy Sorbon CB- Sylvain Monsoreau LB- Jérémy Mathieu DM- Alou Diarra RM- Julien Faubert CM- Malaury Martin CM- Stéphane Noro LW- Mame Biram Diouf ST- Sébastien Grax Noro is an absolute beast but at nearly thirty-one will probably need replacing soon. Mater too is getting on a bit but I plan to move Faubert into the right back position so I'll need to invest in a new right midfield at the end of the season. Malaury Martin is still being touted as the next Platini but while his form has been great his actual stats are a bit of a let down. Depending on financial constaints I may replace him too. I've tried to buy Ben Arfa on numerous occasions but Lyon keep rejecting my advances despite the player himself keen on the move. Gourcuff is another I'm trying to sign but sadly he sees my club as a step down. Hopefully a good run in Europe will make us a little more desirable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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