Austria Vienna - European Checklist

[robertpeet27]

Austria Vienna - European Checklist 

There are multiple reasons why I have decided to embark on my FM23 journey with Austria Vienna. The main one is the lack of registration rules in the Austrian Bundesliga, for reasons that will become apparant in the next section. Secondly I want to be in a top tier of a countries football pyramid, I dont neccesarily have to have losts of money, because I wont here at the start, but I want the ability to qualify for europe to help boost finances to aid other areas of the journey that I enjoy more than the much discussed match engine. Thirdly there is a domestic rival whom we will have to topple and also continually fight against as I dont see them going anywhere any time soon. The final reason, the facilities, wow are they set up for some good newgens to come through!

Background

Austria Vienna are the most prestigious domestic club, winning the title on 24 occasions, the cup on 27 occasions and the super cup 6 times. However the last title came in the 2012-13 season, hence the 10th year anniversary is a good time to start rectifiying this clubs current standing. The main obstacle to success will be the finances, the club is in debt by £71m with a current bank balance of -£16M. A Loan repayment of £250.000 a month to deal with off the bat, plus the -3 points deduction for financial mismanagement. 

Finances    

Stadium and Rivalries

A 17,500 all seater stadium in which we hope to bring back the glory days, Vienna derby wins here are a must!

We have fierce rivalry with Rapid Vienna, the second most prestigeous club in Austria, however both have fallen behind Salzburg in recent years. Rapid is the working mans club and we will be sure to feel the brunt of their desire to win over us come match day. I am looking to improve the squad mentally so that we can compete in this high intesity battles.

The Aims

1. Compete in europe regularly and win the Champions League (Standard).

2. Dethrone RB Salzburg as the major national powerhouse. 

3. Have a Youth academy product play 100 times for the national team. 

4. Complete the european checklist, have a player from each european nation, play 50 games, score a goal and get man of the match. 

 

[robertpeet27]

Game setup

-          Leagues and nations loaded

-          Manager attributes

-          Club information

-          Youre Hired

-         Brief History

[robertpeet27]

Squad & Tactic

No matter how i look to change up tactically i always struggle to deviate from a 4-3-3 with a DM. I have to have a screen to the back four, otherwise i feel the tactic is just two open, but have two and I think its too defensive. 

Hence I have settled on the below, however I have changed two of my most common roles, I usually have the wingbacks as genuine wing backs to add width. The wingers to be inside forwards on attack to cut inside while the wing backs overlap. 

With this tactic I have taken my interpritation of Pep Guardiolas principles, Inverted wing backs for the half space and two high wingers to spread the defence opening up the pitch to attack and penitrate. 

The players we currently have for each role are nowhere near what I would like nor are the blueprint for the role, but its what we have, so its square peg round hole for now. 

The reason for this is the youth. We must teach the youth the roles so that when they have served their time at Young Violets Austria (18-21) after promotion from the U18's they are ready to fit into the tactical system without much of a transition period.

1st XI Squad

Squad Planner

Young Violets Squad

U18's Squad

The Tactic

[robertpeet27]

Key Players

Andreas Gruber - Winger - an experience player who's experience will help us navigate the first couple of seasons.

He is a new sigining to the club so I am hoping he hits the ground running as I see him being key to us going forward. 

Lukas Muhl - Central Defender - A strong German in our backline, has had one season here after arriving from FC Nuremburg. 

Another strong season here is needed as we are looking to dictate games we need to be able to rely on our defence. 

Mugarem Huskovic - Advanced Forward - The key part to him will be keeping holding of the young prodigy. Thankfully if anyone comes sniffing, im looking at Porto who are currently interested!

He is valued at £7-10M which at present would be handy at addressing the debt but also strengthening the squad throughout. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by robertpeet27

[robertpeet27]

Preseason

Into preseason we head, with a good squad but only one predicted to finsih 6th. 

Im confident with the tactic we can push past that and qualify for Europe in some fashion. 

Salzburg are far ahead of us right now, and we play them matchday 1!

We made two signings, Douiri on the right wing as cover, not great but will hopefully do a rotational job. Again same wih Hassan Amin at LB.

The board restructured the debt not that it helped, it got us closer to back but jumped the repayments up to £350k a month, Ouch!

Below is the league, -3 to start due to the financial mismanagement, we need a good start thats for sure. 

Preseason results

A mixed bag in terms of results but watching the games we were creating fantastic chances and the squad was really beginning to understand their roles and responsibilites, playing some fantastic football. 

[robertpeet27]

July 2022

3/6 points, expected and par. 2-0 against Salzburg at home, given our current position I will take that.

We then took Tirol to the cleaners, not that the scoreline suggests as such but we were utterly dominant in the first half. 

Haris Tabakovic

I initially planned on Huskovic leading the line, valued up to £10m i thought he must be the man, but he under performed pre season. 

One man that didnt was Haris Tabakovic, scoring 7 goals. 

He was predicted as the second favourite to be top goalscorer in the league. I decided to give him the starting position come the 1st game, given Salzburgs strength i didnt expect much. 

However 2 goals against Tirol repayed my faith. 

Lets see how he goes through August. 

[Herr Müller]

 

YES!

[Bayern Bru]

One of my fav ever saves with this team - I'll be keeping updated on this one. Good luck!

[robertpeet27]

August 2022

Sorry for the slow updates, life gets in the way!

First things first the league, a real mixed bag really, 6 points out of 12.

I think the squad is still learning the system, plus it may be too advanced for some members, but thats how they will learn, or be found out and subsequently moved on. 

The Home loss to Austria Lustenau is the killer, we should be beating them. 

Unfortunatley the Europa Leage playoff didnt go well either!

Sivasspor was a strong team to draw, but we went to their ground even after a 0-0 draw at home. 

It got to 60 minutes where we had played cautiously and I decided it was time to see if we could sneak the winner. 

By openinging up it only played into their hands and Clinton N'Jie scored the winner in the 75th minute. The heartache!

Europa Conference League

I am going to really attack this competition, we need as much money as we can get, winning games and progressing is going to help us with that. Plus I think the below teams will help us

We got a little bit of prize money for getting to the group stage too.

[Swaban]

Definitely following this mate, good luck!

 

Ive not yet started my save, I'm currently deciding between Austria, Switzerland & Denmark. I'm a sucker for a save in a mid-tier league where I can dominate after a few years & then look to progress in Europe & hopefully drag the rest of the league up with me. 

 

If I decide on Austria, I can also see myself going with Austria Vienna, where as if I go with Denmark it'll likely be Nordsjaelland 

[robertpeet27]

18 hours ago, Swaban said:

Definitely following this mate, good luck!

 

Ive not yet started my save, I'm currently deciding between Austria, Switzerland & Denmark. I'm a sucker for a save in a mid-tier league where I can dominate after a few years & then look to progress in Europe & hopefully drag the rest of the league up with me. 

 

If I decide on Austria, I can also see myself going with Austria Vienna, where as if I go with Denmark it'll likely be Nordsjaelland 

Literally my same preference on the leagues I like to do.

Austria Vienna are fun too because youve got the financial issues to manage too!

[robertpeet27]

September 2022

Not a good month. Hard gamesbut still, not where we wanted to be in either the league or the Europa Conference. An easy progression in the OFB cup as expected. 

I think the defence is our main issue and will be for the season. LASK and Rapid are two strong teams battling for europe where as Antwerp will most likely win the Group stage. 

Onto October!

[robertpeet27]

October & November 2022

We are in trouble, I am in trouble, I just cannot get us to click, thank goodness for the break and for the fact I am still employed!

We started strongley with a win over Klagenfurt and a draw at Altach. However 4 straight defeats in the league makes for unpretty reading come the world cup.

We did however give ourselves a chance of progression in Europe, a shock win against Antwerp with our only goal needed us just to avoid defeat to Cluj!

Shock!!!!! we couldn't

And with that another negative of the season so far, we did however anti football our way past Salzburg in the cup, putting us in the Quarter final, with it probably being our only way to europe next year!

Here are the tables if you can bear to look

[DefinitelyTaylor]

Enjoying the fact that you’re still sharing the save. We often see plenty of success stories but not particularly the other side when it comes to documenting saves. Although I hope to see you come out the other side sharpish!

[Rikulec]

How has Braunöder been doing for you so far? I felt like he was underrated on last year's game, curious to see what he looks like now.

[Alerion]

Seems like your tactic isnt working at all, especially given the ECL results. I´d change them to a more conservative for now until the summer. 

[robertpeet27]

On 10/11/2022 at 21:48, Rikulec said:

How has Braunöder been doing for you so far? I felt like he was underrated on last year's game, curious to see what he looks like now.

Much like the rest of the playing squad, hes just been average, nothing flashy, nothing noteworthy. 

I have mixed him between Half back and BBM and I cant say hes done anything different in either role. 

[robertpeet27]

End of the Regular Season

Rather than update month by month, I decided to update in larger sections, Mainly because I wanted to see the outcome of this season ASAP. 

We still could not win a game. Even games at home we struggled. 

Then we lost are main Centre forward Tabakovic to a Broken foot!

This put us in the relegation group, not a surprise to anyone, so we start bottom of that with half our points. 

A few wins against lowly opposition should see us safe surely?

I am going to try and be more compact and not lose games first and foremost, lets see how that goes!

The morale of the squad is absolutely decimated so that is the main issue we have. 

 

[robertpeet27]

End of the Season

I cannot believe I am still employed....

We started brightly with two wins and I thought the new tactic was going to secure our survival, 

even at the end of April I was positive, looking at 3 home games to come i couldnt see us not picking up the 1 win we needed. 

We couldnt, needing to win on the final day against Wolfsberger it was never likely.

And with that came relegation

However I am still employed, no discussions to sack me. 

So I'm going to take this as an unexpected twist to the save that we can look to earn promotion back too. 

Plenty of work needed in the off season to get a working tactic to bring us straight back up and beyond.

I will update more regularly now I now my job is safe!

[SteinkelssonFM]

You must have dreaded each time you pressed continue. Hopefully 🤞 you can bounce straight back and not lose too many players. 

[robertpeet27]

On 13/11/2022 at 08:42, MattyLewis11 said:

You must have dreaded each time you pressed continue. Hopefully 🤞 you can bounce straight back and not lose too many players. 

As soon as we lost the last game I was just waiting for it. 

Feeling positive for the new season, mainly wiht us being 1-92 on for being promoted.

[robertpeet27]

Season 2023/2024

Preseason was a success, we clicked, we scored goals, which was our main issue last year. 

I am hoping the change in formation will be the key here, electing to go 4-2-2-2, with Huskovic and Tabakovic leading the line. 

Two strong wingers, the left side inverted with the overlapping left back, the right side staying wide trying to hit Tabakovic in the box. 

Im hoping a Deep lying playmaker and a ball winner will be stronger in the centre of the park.

I've got rid of the absolute calamity that was the inverted wing backs and gone conventional wing backs to stretch teams in the wide areas, hopefully opening up space for the 4 forward players. 

Youth Intake

I didnt cover the youth intake at the end of last season, mainly becuase I didnt pay much attention to it at the time, you know with the whole relegation, job security thing going on. 

So now I know I'm safe and we can really start to get our teeth into this save i have found the best prospects that came through our ranks.

The best talents were:

Tobias Franzen - An exciting Right winger, looks ready for minutes already, I will try and play him 5-10 times this year where I can. 

Steffan Andersen - A good AM who currently doesnt fit into the formation, however by the time he is ready that could all be different.

Armin Salkic - Looks a better Goalkeeper than Sweeper Keeper, so if he does his first job, keeping shot out of the net I will be happy.

Transfers

Incomings:

Two important loans to sure up the Centre back area after losing Muhl. 

He was kicking up a stink about wanting to leave. 

Della Mura signs from Fiorentina, a left sided centre back. 

Flamingo signs from Sassuolo, a right sided center back.

We also cashed in on James Holland, he was a rotation player and his wages were high. 

In came Bernede, a CM who was released by Salzburg, who is going to be fantastic for this level and the next im sure. 

The other incomings bolster the youth ranks. 

Outgoings:

Huskovic - £7.5m upfront, £1.5m in intallments, I couldnt say no, he didnt light it up last year, and the financial state of the club meant I had to take the money. 

Everyone else was rotation players blocking the path of the youth team.

 

Interviews

Strangely I have been offered 3 interviews before the season started:

Union Berlin

Fotuna Dussledorf

Getafe

Season Preview

We have to go up. End of, however the board will be happy with a top four finish. 

 

[robertpeet27]

August 2023

A great Month, we still have issues defensively conceding twice in two matches, however they were both aftter the result had been secured. 

It appears we are weak from crosses into the box, which is something I am trying to work on in the tactic. 

Tabakovic has started fantastically, however injured himself for 2-3 Months in teh Amstetten game. If he could stay fit he would be a fantastic player for us. 

In steps Raguz, struggled last season when called upon, however I think he can make an impact at this level. 

Top after 5, with a 4 point buffer to the next side that can be promoted.

[robertpeet27]

September 2023

Another fantastic month, including beating second in the Bundesliga in the cup. 

The draw to Dornbirn was dissapointing, however looking at the match stats we should have comfortably won, with an xG 2.28 of  and complete dominance of the ball. 

But we will get better at breaking down these teams as the season progresses. 

We fully rotated against a strong Austria Lustenau side, but changed the mentality to Cautions, and this paid dividends as we progress to the Third Round of the cup. 

We have drawn an amateur side so should comfortably progress, I have a sneaky hope we could go all the way in the cup this year. 

[robertpeet27]

October 2023

3 wins from 4, however our first loss of the season, away to one of the stronger sides in St Polten. 

We are not scoring as many as I would like this month however, the two second teams are strong, plus we fully rotated again in the cup

Tabakovic is back so hopefuly he can change things in that department.

[robertpeet27]

November & December 2023

Another Unbeaten month, Tabakovic comes back and makes an impact, but picks up 3 niggles in the month. 

We have to walk around with a stretcher on hand for this bloke!

A frustrating draw at home to, however again we should have won as they score their only shot on target.

Dovedan has taken Huskovic's place as the starting Advanced forward as the latter cannot find the back of the net, very pleased we cashed in on him. 

 

Interviews

I have been offered the following interviews this month, Valencia the most interesting.

Valencia

Torino

Espanyol