Gundo's FM08 Small club from a small nation European adventure challenge

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Well here I am Melvin Finchett

hope you like the pic

[CoachFlu]

Try Alt-F9 instead.

This automatically makes a printscreen and saves it as a PNG file in the My Documents/Football Manager 2008/screenshots folder.

You can then open it with something like Paint and convert it to a jpeg (because PNG files are rather large to upload.)

[dodged up]

East Belfast , 2007/2008

Pld Won Drn Lst Pts

Second Division 2nd 22 13 4 5 43

Intermediate League Cup 4th in Group (didn't Qualify)

Irish Cup 4th round (Chimney Corner 1-0)

Antrim Trophy 2nd round (Abbey Villa 3-2)

Intermediate Cup[/b Qtr Final (Institute 3-2)

I did well in my first season coming 2nd and getting promoted I brought in 10 new players, and sold a player to Larne for 1k and 5 free transfers, I also brought in 3 loanes from Ballymena, Linfield and Glentoran. My player of the season had to be B.J McMenamim the loanee from glentoran. with 2 games left in the league I was drawing on points with QUB in 2nd and 3rd place, My next match was against Oxford United Stars who were 11th and I managed to beat them 4-0 and fortunatly QUB lost to Lurgan Celtic 2-0 and with 1 game to play, It was QUB, they had to beat me by 10 goals because of my Goal Diff and I went on to beat them 1-0

[Quacky]

FK Spartak Subotica

Having stepped into my time machine in Békéscsaba I was mysteriously transported back to July 2008 at a time before my world class football manager reputation had been founded. Hitchhiking outside of Békéscsaba I managed to head west before the driver turned south into Serbia, scared that I was being taken to join a NATO force in Kosovo I jumped out less than 10km into Serbia where the people still spoke Hungarian. Tired and exhausted I crawled up to the football ground and to my relief they hired me to manage the newly promoted side. The new adventure had begun.

Location

Profile

[Gundo]

Originally posted by Quacky:

FK Spartak Subotica

Having stepped into my time machine in Békéscsaba I was mysteriously transported back to July 2008 at a time before my world class football manager reputation had been founded. Hitchhiking outside of Békéscsaba I managed to head west before the driver turned south into Serbia, scared that I was being taken to join a NATO force in Kosovo I jumped out less than 10km into Serbia where the people still spoke Hungarian. Tired and exhausted I crawled up to the football ground and to my relief they hired me to manage the newly promoted side. The new adventure had begun.

Location

Profile

Superb, I'll look forward to reading your progress reports from Serbia.

Have you any time plans for getting to the top flight or European competition?

[Quacky]

Quite a long time probably, I seem to have some talent in this team and getting to the Serbian Superleague should be within 3 years maybe. At the top though are some really big clubs in Red Star and Partizan but with 5 slots up for grabs maybe I can grab a UEFA cup one quite quickly. Maybe 5 seasons for a UEFA cup if all goes well. Champions league could take a long time to break Partizan and Red Star.

[gaijin]

Just took charge of Hapoel Ashkelon in Israel.

Quite unusual really. National reputation, a full and strong playing squad, an 8,000 capacity stadium and good financial backing. Maybe this will be a little too easy...?

Just brought in a few backroom staff and a new keeper with great stats (has some Israeli u19 caps.) Should be fun.

However despite all these wonderful trappings such as money, players or stadium. Its the fact that the city of Ashkelon is slap bang next to the Gaza Strip. Oh, how I want Europe's finest to be playing there!

I'm way too busy to have a good crack at this. But what the hell!

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Originally posted by gaijin:

Just took charge of Hapoel Ashkelon in Israel.

Quite unusual really. National reputation, a full and strong playing squad, an 8,000 capacity stadium and good financial backing. Maybe this will be a little too easy...?

Just brought in a few backroom staff and a new keeper with great stats (has some Israeli u19 caps.) Should be fun.

However despite all these wonderful trappings such as money, players or stadium. Its the fact that the city of Ashkelon is slap bang next to the Gaza Strip. Oh, how I want Europe's finest to be playing there!

I'm way too busy to have a good crack at this. But what the hell!

Sounds like a millon times better than my team Ely Rangers.

Well good luck with it

[Quacky]

This new team started with way too much of a team, I think I prefer to have a team of grays that 60 players in the first team. I've free transfered about 35 players already to get down to a manageable squad and naturally I'm short of full backs. I started with 20 centre midfielders.

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Originally posted by Quacky:

This new team started with way too much of a team, I think I prefer to have a team of grays that 60 players in the first team. I've free transfered about 35 players already to get down to a manageable squad and naturally I'm short of full backs. I started with 20 centre midfielders.

[ManU@oldtrafford]

anyone else in charge of a team in wales?

Gundo why don't you make a website?

[Quacky]

I've found another bug already in Serbia, it seems pretty minor visual thing but still I don't think they test some of these lower leagues very much after all the bugs I found in Hungary and now here. I've reported them all already so don't worry

Gundo can I revise my estimate down to 1-2 seasons to get promoted, things are going quite well if only I could find a really potent striker. I get a lot of shots but theres a lot of very good Serbian goalkeepers, everyone has one.

[Jimbokav1971]

My unbeaten run of 30 league games has just come to an abrupt end .

[Quacky]

FK Spartak Subotica 2008/09 Winter Break

Away we go with the new team, using slightly modified chaos tactics that I used in Hungary and I don't quite have the right players to do it properly. Going as well as can be expected really at the winter break by the way the colours you see all over that table is part of the bug I reported earlier, 7th to 10th don't actually get anything special.

Best moment with the new boys was this amazingly luk-y goal for my Slovenian goalie. Finances are bad; -£30K a month, attendances are bad; 1000 if I'm lucky, as it should be I guess.

[aaberdeenn]

It looks like you'd have to be quite unlucky to not have some end of season action there.

[Quacky]

Have you ever seen the dutch leagues aberdeen, thats where you're either relegated or promotion playoff . Most the ones in this league are falsely labeled as there being something there.

[endtime]

Originally posted by Quacky:

FK Spartak Subotica 2008/09 Winter Break

Away we go with the new team, using slightly modified chaos tactics that I used in Hungary and I don't quite have the right players to do it properly. Going as well as can be expected really at the winter break by the way the colours you see all over that table is part of the bug I reported earlier, 7th to 10th don't actually get anything special.

Best moment with the new boys was this amazingly luk-y goal for my Slovenian goalie. Finances are bad; -£30K a month, attendances are bad; 1000 if I'm lucky, as it should be I guess.

isn't there some sort of a reorganization of the league structure? then the colours would indicate who gets put into which division in the nex season.

[rlipscombe]

Originally posted by ManU@oldtrafford:

anyone else in charge of a team in wales?

Gundo why don't you make a website?

i'm playing in Wales!! i believe i'm the only other person doing so. am about half-way through 1st season as Caerleon AFC, and am mid-table at the moment which i'm pleased with. had to heavily strengthen the squad.

Good luck with your game!!

[dodged up]

Anyone managing in Northern Ireland atm ?

well in my second season the frendlies have beeen alright including a 7-1 win over some team in 1st division and also a 4-3 win over premier league side Glenavon

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Originally posted by rlipscombe:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ManU@oldtrafford:

anyone else in charge of a team in wales?

Gundo why don't you make a website?

i'm playing in Wales!! i believe i'm the only other person doing so. am about half-way through 1st season as Caerleon AFC, and am mid-table at the moment which i'm pleased with. had to heavily strengthen the squad.

Good luck with your game!! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks

good luck with your team

I've just started with my Ely Rangers doing quite good mid table upto now

[ManU@oldtrafford]

I've just beat TNS away

Looking good for my first season

[aaberdeenn]

Originally posted by Quacky:

Have you ever seen the dutch leagues aberdeen, thats where you're either relegated or promotion playoff . Most the ones in this league are falsely labeled as there being something there.

Ahh right, I misread the other bit.

[Gundo]

Originally posted by ManU@oldtrafford:

Gundo why don't you make a website?

I don't have the knowhow to make the type of website needed unfortunately. I do agree though we definitely need one in the near future.

One of the major downsides personally is it takes me forever and a day to manually update the challenge table before I post it.

[CoachFlu]

Meldert, Belgium - May 16th 2020

Media prediction: 1st

Board expectation: win the title

Mid-season table

End of season

A rather smooth sail to the title, for a change. Which doesn't mean we completely dominated the league - 22-5-7 shows that we were far from unbeatable. But we were the most consistent team, and by March we had built a bit of a lead and looked pretty certain to stay on top.

Dominating the league will not be for the immediate future, I think. But that's ok, as long as I keep challenging for the title every season, I'm pleased. I don't mind some competition, keeps things interesting. We've won the title three times in four years now, so we can definitely be considered the top team in Belgium by now.

This season was also the first time that we had a bit of an injury crisis. Well, maybe not a crisis, really - nothing my squad depth couldn't handle. But by far the most amount of decent-length injuries I've had so far. (Injuries have hardly been a problem at all in FM08 though, so I'm certainly not complaining.)

Belgian Cup:

Winning the Cup is my main short term goal. And this is why.

Three consecutive Cup finals, three times runners-up. Each time we lost to a different team. We'll want to break that spell pretty soon.

Europe:

Already covered in the mid-season update. In short, we reached the Champions League group stage, and finished 4th in our group with 4 points.

The squad.

Decent squad, but it's definitely a work in progress. A few players are getting old, a few others are unhappy. The areas I'll be paying particular attention to during the summer:

A Belgian DC who's at least good enough to be a regular bencher, to maintain my Belgian-players-quota;

a youngish AMR to break in for a season, to replace the 31year who only has one season left in him, and the Romanian who's good but unhappy, so he'll probably leave in 12 months;

and a good extra striker who's at least as good as my two starters, to act as cover.

I sold my two unhappy Spanish strikers this season - one in the summer, he wanted first team football, and the other (Navarro) wanted to move to a bigger club, so he moved to Newcastle in January for 1 million euro. (I could have gotten more if I had sold him sooner, but kept him around for the busy schedule with the CL group matches, and with 6 months left on his contract, 1 mil is a decent price, considering I signed him on a free.)

I did manage to get another Spanish striker last summer: Rodrigo.

Another lad who bounced between the Barcelona A and B squads for his entire career and was then released. I don't mind, I'll keep picking up their rejects. Had a very respectable debut season in Belgium.

My other striker was yet again the star of the team though. Alex Lambrechts. (his profile was in last season's update, so this is his history.)

A long string of league awards this season - Pro player of the year, Highest AvgR, League topscorer, Most assists, Most MoM. Also owns a bunch of club records, including most league appearances and goals. He just signed another 4 season contract, and is only 26 now, so he's a Meldert legend in the making.

A few other players who should play an important role in the team for a few seasons to come:

Alexander Fischer: His second season as the first choice on the left, and he got up to speed this season, getting the amount of assists I like to see from a winger. Not as fast as I'd like, but he's not a turtle either.

Patrick Jansen: My young Dutch goalie, who got his first senior cap this season. Should be my starting goalkeeper for as long as he wants to extend his contract. That may not be very long though, since he already briefly complained about wanting to move to a bigger team (but then signed a new contract anyway). As he'll only get better over the next few years, I think I may lose him eventually. But at least he's good for at least two more seasons.

An added advantage to this player: since he joined my club at age 17, he also counts as a "home grown/club" player for the European squad registration now.

Finances.

With the Champions League money and some player sales, the cash situation looks quite decent now. Reaching the Champions League group stage next season is not an absolute financial necessity at this point. It would still be nice though, because if I don't, my cash balance will probably be almost halved in a year's time.

Contract renewal time as well. I failed to meet two of the four "competition" expectations - lost the Belgian Super Cup and didn't win the Belgian Cup. (My board is a bit on the ambitious side, I was expected to win pretty much everything this season.) They're still pleased though, mainly because of the long term expectations, so I'm confident they'll offer me a new deal soon.

History:

2008/09: Third Division A - 6th

2009/10: Third Division A - 2nd (P)

2010/11: Second Division - 6th

2011/12: Second Division - 1st (P)

2012/13: First Division - 17th ®

2013/14: Second Division - 3rd

2014/15: Second Division - 1st (P)

2015/16: First Division - 6th

2016/17: First Division - 1st

2017/18: First Division - 2nd

2018/19: First Division - 1st

2019/20: First Division - 1st

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Originally posted by Gundo:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ManU@oldtrafford:

Gundo why don't you make a website?

I don't have the knowhow to make the type of website needed unfortunately. I do agree though we definitely need one in the near future.

One of the major downsides personally is it takes me forever and a day to manually update the challenge table before I post it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know must take ages to the table

[Gundo]

Randaberg IL - 2011 Norwegian Adeccoligaen End Of Season Report

The 2011 season went really well and eventually seen us finish in 5th position despite occupying 3rd spot for long periods of the season. There was a slight feeling of what might have been if it hadn't been for things like injuries to key players in the closing stages of the season and the fact that Norway under 21's team kept calling up two of my best players (Stian Ringstad & Christian Per Myhre) at various times during our league campaign.

The main talking point of the season though is the difficulty in trying to bridge the Semi-Professional > Professional clubs gap. Take a look at the top five below:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">1st C HamKam +41 70 (Professional)

2nd P Stabæk +44 68 (Professional)

--------------------------------

3rd Kongsvinger +29 63

--------------------------------

4th Moss +21 60

5th Randaberg +21 57

6th Sparta Sarpsborg +12 56 (Professional) </pre>

The professional clubs in this divisjon are really hard to keep up with, I can beat them sometimes it's just that they demolish everybody else. I know someone on here mentioned this before a while back, but now I'm in that situation I realize just how frustrating it is. It's not just on the pitch either, I can't compete with them in the transfer/loan market either. It's seems good players just have no interest in joining a Semi-Professional club and to be fair who could blame them.

Players of mention are the the Superb Stian Ringstad who has most of Norway's top clubs hot on his tail. Christian Per Myhre, this lad has become my favorite player (above Ringstad I hear you shout! , well tbh yes) I've seen this lad progress and turn into a fantastic player over the season. When I first scouted him the scout came back and said 'don't bother he's s**t', now who's laughing. Rashid our Cbk and captain was solid, along with Striker/Winger Abdellaoue who weighed in with 13 league goals.

So the closed season has come and gone and Randaberg Il where unable to strengthen their squad because nobody's interested in joining them. So what I've had to do is promote three or four of our better youth players and I've given them all full time contracts, hopefully they'll develop quicker now. Alan Hanson's voice is suddenly ringing in my ears... "You don't win anything with kids", so we'll see what happens I guess???

The Randaberg Adventure So Far...

2011 1.divisjon 5th

2010 1.divisjon 12th

2009 2.divisjon Avd.3 2nd

2008 2.divisjon Avd.3 7th

[Gundo]

League Table.

[Fire Bracelet]

Originally posted by Jimbokav1971:

Sytse. I wouldn't recommend Iceland.

Other than that, probably Norway, N.Ireland & Croatia seem to be the most popular.

Northern Ireland blows, unless you're a glutton for punishment. I think we all are a little otherwise we probably would be managing EPL teams I guess.

[iacovone]

Good season Gundo

Seems like you're having a similar problem to what I had, very difficult to overcome the pro clubs when you're still semi-pro. You'll get there though, just takes a bit longer!

Any chance of Christian Per Myhre's screenshot? Maybe with Ringstad too?

Cheers

[Gundo]

Congrats on your second successive title CoachFlu. Do you think you've got the measure of the other teams now and that you're going to dominate for years to come?

[Gundo]

Stian Ringstad.

Per Christian Myhre.

Remember it's early pre-season so their attributes aren't as high as they will be.

[aaberdeenn]

Good season all in all there Gundo. Looks like you're finding the business of breaking the pro teams as difficult as I did.

But it's unlikely that you'll turn pro till you're promoted which is where it was hard. At least you've got three chances of promotion unlike the two that I had in Croatia.

[CoachFlu]

Originally posted by Gundo:

Congrats on your second successive title CoachFlu. Do you think you've got the measure of the other teams now and that you're going to dominate for years to come?

Thanks!

No, I don't feel confident yet that we'll easily win the title every year. I think that'll be a few years away.

Our wage budget, while decent now (I'd say it's in the top 5, possibly top 3 of the league) is still only about half of Club Brugge's wage budget.

With the decent finances now, I do have enough scope to probably bring our budget close to theirs, but I'm not in that much of a hurry. I'm letting it rise gradually for now, until we had a few more profitable Champions league seasons, and get a stadium expansion/higher attendance.

We're a good team, but if Club Brugge perform to their potential, or some other team has a surprisingly strong season, I'll have a challenge on my hands.

We've been very consistent so far, however, so I'm quite confident that I can keep finishing in the top three, at least.

If we qualify for the CL group stage again the next two seasons, our finances should be healthy enough to expand the stadium and still have enough left to start spending some of my transfer budget.

For now I've mainly relied on picking up unattached players, and I've done quite well in finding some good ones, but if I want to up the quality a notch, I'll have to start splashing the cash. Bit too soon for that.

[spotg]

A History of Danilo Spotgic in Slovenia

FM2006 - Spotgic appears at Krsko for a couple of seasons, takes them to the First Division and runs out of steam.

FM2007 - Spotgic takes over Portoroz-Piran on their promotion, keeps them up in season one, and then gets relegated.

Undaunted, he takes over NK Krka, and they experience unprecedented glory. 5 Slovenian Cups, 4 league titles, UEFA Cup quarter finals and regular places in the Champions League group stages, only for the ungrateful bastards to sack him for having the temerity to be out of Europe and four points adrift in the league by Christmas.

FM2008 - Holiday Man is doing his thing. If a side comes up with Krka listed as rivals, Spotgic WILL take them over. If not, he will do his utmost to condemn Krka to relegation by keeping his new side up.

Judging from emgergo's experiences, this will be very very tough this time out, and I'm starting it now due to immense frustration with San Marino, so I may not be massively active in here, but I will keep it going..

[Gundo]

What do you guys think of this guy, he's a home grown by the club player.

[Quacky]

To be honest Gundo, I see guys like that all the time through youth system. They got some pace and physical stuff which is always useful and a little sniff that they may have some technical skills where you want them. Its very hard to know if they'll ever improve though. I've seen so many that look good at 16 but never improve.

What do you think of this refereeing decision I can't understand it at all.

[spotg]

Danilo Spotgic will be managing at NK Tolmin

No staff. One player on loan from Gorica, who looks really good. 6 youths, none of whom are worth anything at all, and three of whom play in the same position as my player.

Should be fun...

[Quacky]

FK Spartak Subotica 2008/09 Final

As it turns out they were not phantom promotion slots and the superleague has been expanded. Therefore Serbia is officially the easiest country to be promoted in and so I was. Interestingly the bottom two from the superleague were still relegated which is a little unlucky for them. I struggled to score goals all season and need quite a lot of help to survive next season and the finances took a horrendous dive with paying out £325K for squad bonuses.

[johnnyquest409]

Originally posted by Quacky:

FK Spartak Subotica 2008/09 Final

As it turns out they were not phantom promotion slots and the superleague has been expanded. Therefore Serbia is officially the easiest country to be promoted in and so I was. Interestingly the bottom two from the superleague were still relegated which is a little unlucky for them. I struggled to score goals all season and need quite a lot of help to survive next season and the finances took a horrendous dive with paying out £325K for squad bonuses.

I think I'm right in thinking that if you fail to achieve promotion in that first season, when 6 places are available, it then becomes much harder as from there onwards there are only two places. So good work on the quick promotion and good luck in the top flight!

I played in Serbia on last year's challenge as Novi Sad. The first couple of years in the top flight were a little tricky and I pretty much just wrote off any game against Partizan and Red Star as automatic defeats. Hopefully with more teams in the top flight now, especially with 6 being promoted, there'll be quite a few of you around the bottom of the table of relatively poor standard so you should be able to pick up enough points against these teams!

[rlipscombe]

Originally posted by Gundo:

What do you guys think of this guy, he's a home grown by the club player.

i think he's got a great moustache for a boy of 15!! i hope that develops!!

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Originally posted by rlipscombe:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Gundo:

What do you guys think of this guy, he's a home grown by the club player.

i think he's got a great moustache for a boy of 15!! i hope that develops!! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[ManU@oldtrafford]

Noooooooooooooooo just tried to load my game and it won't should of backed it up

i'll have to start again I'll post my profile later

[iacovone]

Originally posted by Gundo:

What do you guys think of this guy, he's a home grown by the club player.

Plenty of potential with him only 15! Has good pace which is a great thing, hopefully dribbling and finishing can keep rising and you could have a good player there. Glad to see you look out for the home grown talent, its the only way to fly!

[iacovone]

Just realised something about the foreigners rule in Croatia. It says:

There must be no more than 4 foreign players in the first 11

So this means I could potentially have another 7 on the bench. \o/

[iacovone]

Sorry for treble post but I'm just wondering whats going on with my player Drazen Jurcic. He is 25 years old but if you look at his history that would make him 10 when he played his first pro game

Think I've come across FM's first ever immortal player!

[Quacky]

I think you've got you dates wrong iacovone, he played his first game at 12 from what I can see. Hes on my Serbian game, only he looks rubbish and I guess he must be better on your game.

[Gundo]

Originally posted by Gundo:

What do you guys think of this guy, he's a home grown by the club player.

Cheers for the analysis chaps, I'll keep you informed of his progress.

[iacovone]

Well I'm going by his history which would actually make him 9 back in 2000. Unless I'm being incredibly stupid and missing something?! Anyway he's ok on mine, decent squad player.

[iacovone]

Well, whilst we're on the topic of youngsters, what do people think of this guy?

[Quacky]

I'm really not very good at analyzing centre midfielders, theres just so many things you would like him to do. Hes certainly showing some promise though but needs some help in the technique department and things like positioning and decisions.

About that other guy, I think you're being stupid because on mine hes born in 1987 like me, making him 13 in 2000, I said 12 because it was in December so to play for 2 different clubs that season and 7 for the first he was probably 12 when he started.