[FM23] Sigma Olomouc - Czech yo'self, Before you wreck yo'self!

[Matty Aqua]

Homegrown players?, Loans?, or Transfer fees? Every football club is built using a blend of these strategies, but take one of those strategies to an extreme and it becomes your club's identity. Welcome to my FM Sigma Olomouc save.  I wouldn’t be shocked if you hadn’t heard of Sigma Olomouc as they are an obscure choice indeed for Football Manager save, but perfect for the exciting project ahead. The information I’ve researched about them largely has come from Google searches and the Football Manager database itself. The foundation of the inspiration for this save stems from a short video I came across long ago, it focused on two clubs with vastly different approaches to club squad building: Sigma Olomouc and Bayer Leverkusen.

 

Olomouc is a small city in the East of the Czech Republic populated by just over 100,000 people and the club is majority-owned by the local community, this keeps a family feel to the club which mostly employs previous players as staff and has a lot of players returning to the club to finish their careers.

 

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Sigma Olomouc were top of the list for playing the most homegrown players in Europe. Olomouc had an impressive 17 homegrown players from the youth academy who played first-team football for Sigma Olomouc, more than anyone across Europe! Of those 17 youth academy graduate players they accounted for 52% of the minutes played during the season for Sigma Olomouc. They have a clear philosophy of developing players, selling them on, and hopefully seeing them return to Olomouc to finish their careers and become a coach, scout, or part of the backroom staff in some way, which is the inspiration behind this project. Of course, Sigma Olomouc have to be versatile in their recruiting methods to stay competitive as no team can survive by fielding only youth players from a youth team. They recruit players from other countries and divisions too - after all young players need to be guided and mentored by older more experienced players right? So recruiting the right characters and personality to blend in with this philosophy of developing young players is important. A club doing it differently is Bayer Leverkusen who are down the other end of the scale when it comes to putting homegrown players on the pitch. Bayer Leverkusen have given significantly fewer minutes to their homegrown players with less than 1% of minutes dedicated to homegrown players from Bayer Leverkusen. They generally stick to a philosophy of buying low and selling high. Florian Wirtz is an exception to this, though he did initially come through the academy from 1.FC Koln before joining Bayer Leverkusen's youth set up.

                              

 

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OBJECTIVES

• ⏱ Homegrown players must account for 52% of minutes per season

Whether you agree that Sigma Olomouc’s youth strategy is a progressive strategy or not - it’s an interesting one, and a philosophy I’m going to try to implement as this FM Universe develops. Developing players is the heartbeat of what makes FM great and whether I can win with this strategy at a smaller-sized club from the Czech Republic is a challenge I’m up for!, also it forces me to change things up tactically to accommodate homegrown players into the squad during the season to make sure I achieve the threshold for minutes played!. I've set up a view to take a look at the minutes in total at the end of the season, I will have to promote some youth players at this stage but I will cover squad details in another post, as you can see below we have 6 players trained at the club that need to account for a total of 52% of minutes on the pitch throughout the season!.

 

• ✍ Sign ex-players as Backroom Staff

One thing I love about Football Manager is signing former players to your backroom staff in some form. Sigma Olomouc are renowned for using this strategy and there are many past players and long-term serving employees already in the staff ranks within the club such as Tomáš Janotka the current under 19's coach who started his playing career way back in 2004/05, as mentioned by Jakub Beneš - They like to keep people involved with the club, developing our own brand of high-quality coaches and staff is something that blends in nicely with how I play Football Manager.

 

• 🤝 Player capped for the Czech Republic

As the development of players is a big focus at the club naturally I hope some catch the eye of National Manager Jaroslav Šilhavý as it would be a huge tick for the academy to have a player from Sigma Olomouc academy representing the Czech Republic national team on the world stage, whether they hang around long enough and remain a player of Sigma Olomouc to eventually get capped for the Czech Republic will be an interesting challenge as players will have to be sold to regenerate finances.

• 🌍 Manage Czech Republic National Team

While I hope Jaroslav Šilhavý has his eyes on my players, I have my eye on his job!, and I would love to manage it for a Euro/World Cup run! Jaroslav Šilhavý is 60 years old at the start of the save so should the national team job become available I could have the honours of managing both club and country or potentially accomplish all the challenges I have set and take the national team job towards the end of the save!.

• 💰 Sell a Homegrown player for €16.20M

With a bit of strategy and luck in youth recruitment, I hope to sell a homegrown player for the highest fee received for a Czech player in history, you might recall West Ham doing a nice bit of business for a relatively unknown player from Slavia Prague by the name of Tomas Soucek for €16.20M, the aim is to break that transfer record, now let's hope for some good youth intakes!.

• 🏆 Win a European Trophy

The trophy cabinet is pretty bare at Sigma Olomouc with only one trophy the MOL Cup which they won in the 2011/12 season against Sparta Praha. There’s a lot of luck that needs to happen to reach the goal of lifting a major European trophy. Winning the Europa Conference League, Europa League or Champions League would certainly make a good fairy tale story, with our homegrown policy it may be unlikely but hey…this is Football Manager after all!.

 

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STADIUM & STAFF

Let’s just take a quick moment to appreciate the Andrův Stadion!. The stadium was built in 1939 and owned by SK Sigma Olomouc but it was sold to the council as a way of safeguarding the future of football in Olomouc in 2017, consider it a way to ensure that potential owners in the future wouldn’t demolish the club and build something else on the site. The stadium holds 12,464 people and I guess in terms of this FM save I can’t just go and ask the board to build a new stadium given the beauty of the Andrův Stadion and the attachment it has to the people of the city…so stadium upgrades only would preserve some authenticity about the club as the save progresses!.

    

A big part of this save will be on youth development as we will need a constant stream of quality youngsters coming through the system to keep our homegrown players on the pitch and logging minutes. I’ve spent a few hours compiling a shortlist of players that have come through the Olomouc academy with some exciting names I’d love to try and bring back either as a player or staff member at some point. Remember that players who have come through the Olomouc academy still qualify for our philosophy of "players minutes on the pitch" at any age. So ideally a Goalkeeper would log a lot of minutes and is high on my list of prospects to find. Below I have compiled a shortlist of players in the game that I have found that would qualify for our "52% Czech" philosophy, these players have all come through the Sigma Olomouc academy.

 

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If you have enjoyed the write-up so far and are interested in keeping up to date with this save feel free to leave a like and follow along, you can find me on the View from the Touchline Discord channel or on Twitter where I’m happy to chat all things FM and Sigma Olomouc!.

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Matty Aqua

[Matty Aqua]

OK so finally FM23 is here and I can begin this save!, with the squad a bit light on homegrown players I promoted some players to the senior squad to help integrate some potential prospects to help us maintain our minutes for homegrown players status, here is two players I'll be promoting and keeping tabs on as well as monitoring their development as the season progresses.

 

    

• Jáchym Šíp - Great acceleration, pace, agility and decisions make Jáchym Šíp a problem on the wings, not quite the finished product mentally but the little 'wanted' tab in the top left hand corner means he is being monitored by Slavia Praha and Sparta Praha, which means we need to maximize the time he has with us at Sigma Olomouc as the vultures are already circling the talented 19 year old winger.
• Matěj Hadaš - Just 18 years old and quite a balanced set of attributes for a young striker, lot's of potential ability - now to make sure he full fills it!. Although more natural as a striker with the bigger clubs monitoring Jáchym Šíp, Matěj Hadaš could find some minutes on the pitch at the end of the season - a very exciting prospect!.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[DomD]

That is quite the detailed set up for a save. Looks very interesting. Good luck.

[SixPointer]

Love it’s so far! Great place to start!

[Hootieleece]

I will stop in and "Czech" up on you from time to time.

[_Ben_]

Read this on Twitter - glad you've posted it here, too. Good luck!

[Hanys]

Good luck, or hodně štěstí, as the Czechs say.

Olomouc is quite a lovely town, by the way, lots of historical monuments and sights, second in the country after Prague in this regard, I think.

[Chris_ANZFM]

It’s bloody good seeing you back in the fold Mr Aqua and what a fantastic save to do it with! 

[vara]

fantastic blog mate! this is quite a unique challenge and one that'll be interesting to watch! good luck

[Matty Aqua]

6 hours ago, DomD said:

That is quite the detailed set up for a save. Looks very interesting. Good luck.

Thank you, I'm not sure I will be able to win anything but maybe the focus isn't solely on collecting trophies!

4 hours ago, SixPointer said:

Love it’s so far! Great place to start!

Thanks, I wanted to try something different as I didn't get into FM22 as much as I would have liked too!

2 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

I will stop in and "Czech" up on you from time to time.

Hope you do Czech in!

1 hour ago, _Ben_ said:

Read this on Twitter - glad you've posted it here, too. Good luck!

🙏 enjoyed your long save last year - can only hope to get that far into the save and really see some structure develop in the club.

1 hour ago, Hanys said:

Good luck, or hodně štěstí, as the Czechs say.

Olomouc is quite a lovely town, by the way, lots of historical monuments and sights, second in the country after Prague in this regard, I think.

As we say in Australia "cheers mate", looks like a nice little place!.

36 minutes ago, Chris_ANZFM said:

It’s bloody good seeing you back in the fold Mr Aqua and what a fantastic save to do it with! 

👊 Good to be back!, looking forward to FM23!.

13 minutes ago, vara said:

fantastic blog mate! this is quite a unique challenge and one that'll be interesting to watch! good luck

At the end of every season I'll check and see if we are in line with the clubs policy of playing homegrown players for 52% of the total minutes!.

Keep in mind that can also be older players that have returned to the club who are from the Sigma Olomouc acamdemy, they qualify too!.

Going to be a fun nightmare I think!.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[Tommo_]

Great start mate, look forward to following this.

[Matty Aqua]

14 hours ago, Tommo_ said:

Great start mate, look forward to following this.

Thanks! - I just spent the last few hours compiling a shortlist of players from other clubs who are homegrown players of Sigma Olomouc.

which I might add to the second post, so people can see who came through this academy and potentially on my 'Czech list'

Ideally a goalkeeper would be handy as they log a lot of minutes on the pitch!.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[Guest]

Great start!

[wearesporting]

I've an incredibly similar save planned for when the game comes out proper. I usually start saves with the idea of having club grown as a part of it but end up giving nobody a chance. With restrictions it forces you and is more realistic. Currently doing a dummy run with Bohemians on 22 to see if I actually enjoy the idea. It's a nice league, lots of talent.

[Matty Aqua]

On 30/10/2022 at 22:06, wearesporting said:

I've an incredibly similar save planned for when the game comes out proper. I usually start saves with the idea of having club grown as a part of it but end up giving nobody a chance. With restrictions it forces you and is more realistic. Currently doing a dummy run with Bohemians on 22 to see if I actually enjoy the idea. It's a nice league, lots of talent.

who is your save with?.

BTW - *few updates to the first post!* 

[wearesporting]

14 hours ago, Matty Aqua said:

who is your save with?.

BTW - *few updates to the first post!* 

I'll be crossing the border to manage Zilina. The majority of their players are club grown and it's a young squad. Had my dummy run with Bohemians as they were ironically one of the oldest squads in Czechia.

[DomD]

That stadium looks very cool!

[Matty Aqua]

A nice welcome from chairman Petr Konečný now it's time to deliver!, as I set up the save and have spent a few hours getting familiar with the inner workings of the club looking at various things from staff, finances, training and of course tactics I realized to maintain the goal of keeping homegrown players on the pitch for 52% of the minutes over the course of the season some adjustments were going to have to be made to re-training some players. There were two players I wanted to integrate into the first team squad that needed some focus on developing a different role to play Ondřej Zmrzlý who is more proficient as a left back but will be re-trained as a Defensive Midfielder (Defend) with a focus on developing his positioning, still only 23 years old there is a bit of room for growth as Ondřej Zmrzlý could become a central midfielder in the future of his defensive game continues to develop. Another exciting player is Mojmír Chytil who is more comfortable playing as a Advanced Playmaker or even as a striker, will be retrained to be a creator in the middle of the park. Mojmír Chytil has all the tools to be a threat from range if he can improve his mental attributes, 23 years old now is the time to really focus on improving his decision making to compliment his 16 Off the Ball attribute.

• INDIVIDUAL TRAINING ADJUSTMENTS

Spoiler

• Ondřej Zmrzlý

 

• Mojmír Chytil

 

Financially we don't have any debt which is great because it's one less thing I have to worry about!, there's a bit of money in the wage budget that might come in handy in January if we need to bring in some reinforcements. The board is expecting a top half finish so with the first transfer window closed I'll re-asses in January (If I haven't been sacked!).

So, one of the more challenging aspects of this save will be defining a play style as to maintain a certain amount of homegrown players we were quickly limited as to what tactic we can play. Settling on a 4-3-3 we will have to retrain a few players in different positions and hope that youth can fill the voids for the first few seasons. I’ve attached a Sigma Olomouc logo beside players that are from our academy who will need to be logging minutes throughout the season, this will by far be the most challenging save I have ever attempted!.

It's not the most inspiring tactic you've ever seen no doubt, but I'm working within the confinements of our club values!. I mentioned earlier about retraining Ondřej Zmrzlý and Mojmír Chytil but I've also shifted 37 year old veteran Michal Vepřek into the midfield as he is unfamiliar with the role but attributes wise looks capable - consider it a stroke of genius...or a stroke of madness. Michal Vepřek is in the final year of his contract and while still having great technical ability for a Left Back I felt his acceleration might be lacking and it gives another homegrown prospect Jiří Sláma a chance to gain some minutes at Left Back. Vepřek is a favoured person among the supports having made 298 appearances for Sigma Olomouc, I'll be looking to get him started on his coaching aspirations and add him to the backroom staff once his playing career is done, but for now his final season will be spent in the middle of the park at Andrův Stadion.

 

Jiří Sláma will spend the season shadowing his mentor Michal Vepřek, I've set up a few groups to try and maximize the remaining development out of some of the younger players withing the squad. As you can see from the image below some of the players should significantly benefit from the mentoring of our senior players. I'll continue to slowly move through the start of this save and get the pre-season sorted, appreciate all the interest so far the kits are all sorted!, and hopefully another update isn't to far away!.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[Matty Aqua]

As mentioned in the opening post I stick to placing adverts to hire coaches as I find it a more realistic way of employing staff and makes things that little bit more challenging.

                                                                                              ...and so 

I do also look through favoured personal to see if there is anyone available.

Speaking of favored personal!, Ales Skerle returns to Sigma Olomouc and joins the Under 19's backroom staff!.

David Villa applied for a B-Team coaching role, the former LaLiga and Melbourne City star will be a welcome addition!.

We also lock down our new Head of Youth Development coach George Ogăraru who will oversee the Youth Development for the next 4 years!.

Welcome to Sigma Olomouc!.

      

 

I've placed some adverts to fill some other various roles which I won't go into to much detail about, I will also play through the pre-season and probably return with an update after the first 10 games or so!.

Enjoying this save so far! - I will be treading water trying not to get sacked!.

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[SteinkelssonFM]

Looking forward to you getting stuck into pre-season and then onto the competitive fixtures. Your tactic is very aggressive, with those midfield runners and wing backs it will look like a 2-3-4-1 when in possession, expecting lots of goals! 

I also prefer to recruit staff through placing job adverts, there is something about the realism of picking candidates that actively applied that I enjoy. 

[Matty Aqua]

1 hour ago, MattyLewis11 said:

Looking forward to you getting stuck into pre-season and then onto the competitive fixtures. Your tactic is very aggressive, with those midfield runners and wing backs it will look like a 2-3-4-1 when in possession, expecting lots of goals! 

I also prefer to recruit staff through placing job adverts, there is something about the realism of picking candidates that actively applied that I enjoy. 

The tactic was a bit aggressive!, but I until I get some youth intakes through I'm limited as to how many players I can play that are not homegrown!, I have made some adjustments to balance it

But I am looking to hit teams through the middle!.

Pre Season is now done!, Looking forward to getting on with the season finally!.

Put up a good fight against Young Boys and Sporting CP rotating players and testing a few things tactically.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[Matty Aqua]

I had one last job application to tend too right before the start of the season, and since everyone has World Cup fever, it was hard to look beyond a stand out applicant from the Qatar ASPIRE academy Mariano Giménez.

Having worked as a scout for Estudiantes and ASPIRE academy in Qatar he was the best candidate for the Chief of Scouting rounding off my backroom staff applications for this year as I slowly build a Coaching and Recruitment team.

   

 

Start of 2022/23 Season!

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JULY 2022

   

A few tweaks to the tactic over preseason and things started really well picking a nice opening day home win against Hradec Králové and an away draw to 1. FC Slovácko with Radim Breite opening his scoring account early!.

Still lacking match familiarity and team cohesion I focused most of my upcoming training session around trying to get the team to gel on and off the pitch!.

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AUGUST 2022

Bouncing into the season, form didn't drop away thankfully and Radim Breite continued to play above his attributes throughout the month helping us pick up 4 wins out of 5.

   

            

We came out out of the blocks real slow against Slovan Liberec and Juraj Chvátal gave me no reason to doubt his ability banging in two goals to get us the win at home - not bad for a Right Back!.

I thought we would really struggle against Viktoria Plzeň and we did rely on a bit of luck as they completely missed an opportunity to score a penalty before Pavel Zifčák scored the winner netting his first of three goals of the month.

Jan Kopic misses a penalty!

   

The momentum was largely in favour of Viktoria Plzeň, but the XG tells a different tale as we took our chance to score late on.

Slava Prahia delivered our only loss for the month but the match was much closer than the 3-1 scoreline suggests as we progress in the MOL Cup and comfortably win against Bohemians Praha.

   

Injuries have hit early losing two homegrown players from rotation for a few weeks, including starting attacker Jan Navrátil who will be out for 7 weeks with a broken arm!.

At the end of August there has been a total of 6,915 minutes played among the team

Homegrown players have logged a total of 2.926 minutes falling behind the 52% range I'm aiming for, only achieving 42.3% so far (someone please notify me if my math is wrong)

The remaining players have logged a total of 57.7% -  3,989 minutes, not having a homegrown goalkeeper and injuries have effected things early on, but a good start to the season.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Matty Aqua

[wearesporting]

Have nightmares from facing that Ewerton chap in the league. Could never stop him.

[Matty Aqua]

Vít Beneš has been red carded twice already this season and back up CB Florent Poulolo is away on International duty with Martinique.

Being a bit below on minutes for homegrown players as mentioned above I had to promote Mikeš Cahel from the Under 19's, not quite ready for first team football

but it's sink or swim!

 

[Shrewnaldo]

On 15/11/2022 at 13:57, Matty Aqua said:

 

   

 

These graphics really interest me. I wonder how the game calculates "danger of possession" for the top graph. Clearly it's not based on xG so perhaps something like final third passes? It'd be useful to know, will have a dig about later

Enjoying the thread btw 👍

[SteinkelssonFM]

56 minutes ago, Shrewnaldo said:

These graphics really interest me. I wonder how the game calculates "danger of possession" for the top graph. Clearly it's not based on xG so perhaps something like final third passes? It'd be useful to know, will have a dig about later

Enjoying the thread btw 👍

I have always thought of them as a lift and shift of Sofascore's attacking momentum.

This is described by them as....

Every minute produces one spike. The higher the spikes, the more intense the pressure. And just one glance at it is enough to see which team is pushing as well as how strong and long the pressure is. It is really an amazing direct insight into how balanced and intense the match is.

So my interpretation is that FM would use final third passes as the measure to show who is under pressure...the more sustained the wider the spike. 

[Matty Aqua]

3 hours ago, Shrewnaldo said:

These graphics really interest me. I wonder how the game calculates "danger of possession" for the top graph. Clearly it's not based on xG so perhaps something like final third passes? It'd be useful to know, will have a dig about later

Enjoying the thread btw 👍

Thanks @Shrewnaldo

2 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:

I have always thought of them as a lift and shift of Sofascore's attacking momentum.

This is described by them as....

Every minute produces one spike. The higher the spikes, the more intense the pressure. And just one glance at it is enough to see which team is pushing as well as how strong and long the pressure is. It is really an amazing direct insight into how balanced and intense the match is.

So my interpretation is that FM would use final third passes as the measure to show who is under pressure...the more sustained the wider the spike. 

yeh i found it interesting that the XG didn't really align with the momentum.

I might go back and review the game and look at events at certain moments

 

[Chris_ANZFM]

Nice few updates to binge through. Good start so far mate, some excellent pick ups in the staffing! That penalty miss is absolutely atrocious too!