TheLutterworthFox Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 (edited) September/October is always a time where I start planning for the new release of FM and with the game apparently being released at the end of November I got cracking on deciding what save I was going to attack when the new version came out. Well that got scuppered when SI announced that they were delaying the release of FM25 until late-March. With plans in place for the new save I couldn’t sit on it for that long and with The Nearly Men coming to a natural end it seems only prudent that I get started with my FM25 save on FM24!! As the title suggests this is going to a Build A Nation save, something I did before in Gibraltar and really enjoyed, we were helped with a bumper TV deal that came very early in the save and then a tycoon takeover! It still took over 20 seasons for me to win the Champions League with College Europa, even with a tonne of money. https://fmstevethefox.wordpress.com/2023/03/02/fm23-build-a-nation-part-14-miracles/ I did think about doing another Gibraltar BAN save but I’ve decided to go somewhere new, somewhere I haven’t managed for a long time and, as the title of the thread suggests, I’m off to Finland. Not the worst UEFA Nation in the game, out of the Vanilla DB nations Gibraltar, Wales, Northern Ireland, Iceland and Belarus are lower down the coefficient ranking. None of them really took my fancy, but Finland did! My only knowledge of Finland and its towns and cities comes from playing Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries, so I went away and spent a bit of time getting myself acquainted with what clubs are in the Veikkausliiga, the top tier of Finnish football. I could easily have gone with one of the big boys. HJK are the dominant force in Finland, winning 12 of the last 15 league titles. Seriously though, taking over a side destined to win everything seems a little boring, doesn’t it?! For me, I would much prefer to find a club, a smaller club and build them up to become the best in their respective country. Once you’re there, you then look at building the league up by filtering either players or money to the other clubs in the division(s). I love a challenge and after some serious deliberation I have decided to take over the at…. IF Gnistan! Who, I hear you ask? Well let me enlighten you and also explain why I chose them. Formed in 1924, they are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year, in those 100 years they have won no major trophies and the current season is their first ever in the top flight in Finland, not a bad way to celebrate your centenary!! The club is based in Helsinki, so a nice side challenge is trying to make them bigger than their close neighbours HJK. As you can see their grounds are close together, only a 7.2km drive away. Time to become the best team in Helsinki! Now for the sad news, the club play their games at the Oulunkylä Stadium (Mustapekka Areena), but in July of this year the main stand was destroyed in a fire meaning the club had to play their home games elsewhere. Obviously this isn’t in the latest version of FM, the club still play their games at this ground. There are rumours of a new 6,000-8,000 stadium being built next to the old ground, this isn’t planned in FM24. The club does seem to have decent facilities for this level. Average training facilities alongside Adequate youth facilities isn’t bad, they also have Adequate academy coaching and average youth recruitment. With the club being based in the capital this should mean a decent range for recruiting youth players through intakes, as long as HJK don’t nab them all! So what are the aims for this save? Well, as previously mentioned and as the name of the save eludes to, I want to build the nation up to be the best in Europe, this can’t be done alone, we need the other clubs to help, the AI has never been good at building clubs up in this way, it will be down to myself, once the club I am managing is at a point of dominance and financial stability, to help the other clubs in the league out by filtering money down to them to help each club improve their facilities and their playing squad. Also, once the players are at the right standard, I can look at loaning or selling my players to the other clubs. This is something I did pretty well when I tried this in Gibraltar but obviously, at a smaller club, this will take time. The biggest aim at the start is to get the club I’m managing challenging domestically and from there hopefully qualifying for the League Phase of European competitions. We also need the other sides in the league to improve to bolster their chances of progressing well in Europe. The one big aim in this save is to get Finland to the top of the coefficient rankings. We all know though that overtaking England at the top is near-impossible on FM but I will give it my best shot! I have set myself a small list of aims and objectives that I want to achieve in the save. Most are personal aims that I want to achieve at the club but some are more generic, based around taking the overall nation to the top of the coefficients and league rankings. There are also some player aims there, for example, having a player make 1,000 appearances, something I’ve done before! My next update will take a deeper dive into the club, the playing squad and the finances, etc. The updates I do after that will more than likely be every two months of game-time, they will obviously revolve around IF Gnistan, the results, transfers, etc, but I also want to add more information on how the other clubs in Finland are progressing, whether that be major results, club upgrades or even signings. I don’t just want the updates to be the generic “here is how we did and here is the table”!! Something I am guilty of doing too often. Although the main part of this save is about me and IF Gnistan, it’s also about improving the whole of Finnish football, so it will be nice to chart the rise during my updates. Edited October 12 by TheLutterworthFox 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 12 Author Share Posted October 12 (edited) SAVE HISTORY SEASON TRACKER FINANCES TRACKER FINLAND IN EUROPE TRACKER VEIKKAUSLIIGA CLUBS OVERVIEW (END OF 2027 SEASON) ACHIEVEMENTS TRACKER - 4/35 Edited Thursday at 19:18 by TheLutterworthFox Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick87 Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 (edited) Good luck mate, Finland have had some decent players down the years, Hyppia, Litmanan, Neimi, Forsell, Jaaskelinen off the top of my head, I'm sure there are plenty of others I'm forgetting.It's a little surprising their record for qualifying at tournaments is so poor. Hope you can unearth a few more. Edited October 12 by Rick87 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coxie84 Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 I thought Antti Niemi was Scottish? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick87 Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 4 minutes ago, Coxie84 said: I thought Antti Niemi was Scottish? He did play in Scotland for Rangers and Hearts, but he was Finnish. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domoboy23 Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 13 minutes ago, Rick87 said: He did play in Scotland for Rangers and Hearts, but he was Finnish. He was Finnish at the age of 28 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coxie84 Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 A shame he was Finnish his career at 28. Huge talent... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 12 Author Share Posted October 12 40 minutes ago, Rick87 said: Good luck mate, Finland have had some decent players down the years, Hyppia, Litmanan, Neimi, Forsell, Jaaskelinen off the top of my head, I'm sure there are plenty of others I'm forgetting.It's a little surprising their record for qualifying at tournaments is so poor. Hope you can unearth a few more. Thanks for the kind words mate, let's hope I can find some top Finnish talents Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
phnompenhandy Posted October 12 Share Posted October 12 Good luck with this one - I'm intrigued to see how you handle your Build-a-Nation. I'll be taking notes 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 12 Author Share Posted October 12 8 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said: Good luck with this one - I'm intrigued to see how you handle your Build-a-Nation. I'll be taking notes Thanks mate, hopefully it will go well! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 12 Author Share Posted October 12 (edited) Part #2 - The Overview In this part I want to look over a few things. Firstly, IF Gnistan. The Playing Squad Key Men Tactics Finances Club Vision And secondly: An overview of the other clubs in the league An attribute comparison between ourselves and the rest of the league. But before some bits of housekeeping. I've downloaded a "realism update" to make the squad and promotions/relegation up to date. I've started the save at the start of the 2024 season, meaning the game starts on December 18th 2023. This means the league is up to date to real life, hence why Gnistan are in the top tier. THE PLAYING SQUAD The squad overall is pretty small, 24 players all-in-all, we do have an U19 squad but there is no-one there that is going to push the first-team at the moment. We do have some quality there, as you'll see later on but we do have some glaring gaps in the squad. I always put my playing squad into my "squad builder" spreadsheet to see where the gaps are. As you can see we only have one goalkeeper and one right back. We also only have one decent left winger with the back-up nowhere near good enough. This is something I will need to sort out, either by going to my U19's to bolster the ranks or look at bringing some players in. KEY MEN Tomas Castro is one our highest rated player in the squad and also the player with the highest value. You can see why, he looks a decent AM for this level with good dribbling, first touch and technique. In central midfield is Vertti Hanninen, only 21 but one has really good potential. I like the fact he has good stamina and determination but does need some work on his techncials. Right Winger Jonas Enkerud also looks really good, at 33 he is near the end of his career but he offers experience, he can also play up front and as an AM, CM or LW, with a smaller squad this is really helpful. Finally is 35-year old defender Jukka Raitala, massive experience and still the best player at the club. He has been all over the place in his career, including the MLS, the Bundesliga and a few season at Finnish giants HJK. This lad will be huge for me this season, I need to him to a be rock in the centre of defence and a leader on and off the pitch. TACTICS Those that followed my Nearly Men save will know I don't tend to talk too much about tactics, I don't have a specific philosophy, I just want to get the best out of the players and win! After looking at the players I have I've gone with a 4231 formation. I've also used a vertical tika-taka style as that was the recommendation from the assistant manager. I have tweaked a few roles though, the WB on the right is changed to an attack duty and the wide-man on the left is now a winger on attack. The base 4231 for this style has two DMs, we only really have one decent DM so I've moved the left-sided player to be a CM as a DLP on support. As for team instructions I've removed quite a few, I've removed the "underlap" instructions and also removed "play through the middle". I've also added "run at defence" as we have some good dribblers and also "play for set pieces" FINANCES A quick look at the finances does not make for good reading. We start with £4k in the bank and the projection show things are due to drop considerably! Nearly a £1m loss each season, that needs sorting but at the moment I'm not sure how, we don't have a play worth enough to sell to slow down the losses, maybe I could reduce the wages but then that means losing players. For this season we just have to ignore the finances and try to end as high as possible, profits will only be made once we get into Europe or have a Worldie player we can cash in on. As you can see the budgets aren't great. My plans for a new GK and RB may have to wait unless I can find a free loan! CLUB VISION The vision given to me by the board is pretty basic. The only requirements are to stick to the wage budget and avoid relegation. I'm pretty sure we can do that! Something I don't tend to look at very often is the "supporter profile", well here it is... More than 50% of the fans are classed as "hardcore" or "core", hopefully that means decent attendances. Although we only have 50 season ticket holders, as you'll see in a bit, that's the lowest in the league. OVERVIEW OF THE OTHER CLUBS I really want to keep track of the other clubs in the Veikkausliiga to see how they improve throughout the save, here is the overview at the start of the save. A league of 12 teams, as you can see we rank way down on stadium capacity (second lowest) and also the lowest season ticket holders. Facilities aren't too bad for most teams with nearly all team have decent youth recruitment. ATTRIBUTE COMPARISON Another thing I want to track is the average attributes for the league, to see how it improves and also a comparison of the average league attributes to our own players average. I have split this out into four areas and used the attributes that are on the "comparison" page. Goalkeepers Defenders Midfielders Attackers GOALKEEPERS We only have one goalkeeper and he is pretty decent so I expected him to be around average to the rest of the league. Most of the attributes average around 10-11. DEFENDERS Again the league averages around 10 at least for all attributes with ourselves pretty close in all areas. MIDFIELDERS Attributes for the midfielders average a little lower, most around 10 with tackling way down at around 7. Again we are pretty close to the average. ATTACKERS Looking at that we know we can jump at least! We actually are ahead of the average in quite a few areas. Heading, Long Shots and Anticipation the main one. Averages again are around 10-11. Now I need to go away and start planning for the new season, we have a while until the league starts. The opening games aren't until early-April, before then we can the Liigacup, which starts in February, it includes the 12 Veikkausliiga teams split into two groups of six, we are in a group with HJK and Inter Turku, the top two ranked teams in the league. We play each side once. if we want to progress out of the group we need to end in the top two. Edited October 12 by TheLutterworthFox 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 13 Author Share Posted October 13 (edited) Part #3 - Season 1 - January to March 2024 It very rare I put this much care and attention into a save, I'm usually a load and crack on kind of guy, but in this save I have purposely took a step back and slowed down, so much so that I spent over 3 hours before I even clicked continue! Well the opening few months are over, it's been a long pre-season, over 3 months before the league starts, we do however have competitive games during pre-season in the form at the Liigacup, it opens with a group stage and boy has it started well. TRANSFERS But before that let's firstly look at transfers. I said in the last update I needed a new GK and a new RB, mainly because we only had one to play in each of those positions! With money and wages tight I had to be thrifty but I do think I've brought decent players. The first signing of the save is right back Kalle Taimi, a decent player for the level I'm at, he can also play in central defence. Only costing me £200 per week. And the second signing is goalkeeper Mehdi El Moutacim, signed to be my backup keeper, he is on a non-contract deal so not wages, he just gets paid if he plays. Highly rated and will be a solid backup to be called upon when needed. NEW SPONSORSHIP DEALS In other news I have some financial news to bring you. When I took over I noticed we had no sponsorship deals whatsoever, obviously I can't ask the board to find one but I didn't need to, a week after I joined this came through. Two deals sorted totally just short of £400k per season. A nice bump up to the bank balance which was already well in the red! Projection started aren't great though, it's now expected to be -£354k, up from the previous prediction of -£900k! FINLAND IN EUROPE I also took a quick look over how the Finnish teams has done in Europe, because the season goes over a calender year, this means the clubs European adventures will span two Finnish seasons, so the season we're about to start will be for qualification to the 25/26 European season and the 24/25 European season will be from whatever happened the previous season before the save started! Well in the 23/24 campaign we had four teams in Europe and it didn't go well! HJK - Lost in the Champions League 2nd Qualifying Round to Qarabag, then lost in Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round to BATE, lost in Conference League 4th Qualifying Round to Dinamo Tbilisi FC Haka - Lost in Conference League 1st Qualifying Round to B36 Tórshavn KuPS - Lost in the Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round to Luzern FC Honka - Dropped to 4th tier at end of 2023 season due to bankruptcy but qualified for Europe somehow! Played in Conference League and lost in the 1st Qualifying Round to Havnar Bóltfelag Tórshavn So really not great! GNISTAN RESULTS - LIIGACUP Now we come to results and it's been an incredible start! 4 wins from 5 group games, some really good performances as well. The stand-out one there is the 4-0 win over HJK, the Finnish giants did play a lot of their reserves, resting most of their key men but still, we were incredible against the side with the best squad in the league! The one big concern was the lack of goals from my Strikers, only one goal in the 5 games came from the man playing up top and that was Momodou Sarr's goal in the 3-0 win over Ekenas. He missed a LOT of chances! 1 goal in 5 games and an xG of 3, he definitely got in the right positions but missed way too many easy chances. Nicely top of the table ahead of HJK on goal difference and we qualify for the semi-final where we face FC Oulu, at home because we ended as group winners. Where we played out of our skin to absolutely smash them! A 4-0 win, putting us into the final, against SJK after they beat HJK on penalties. Where we just didn't show up, a poor performance culminating in 0 shots on target, SJK only mustered 2 all games but their goal was the only of the match. A 1-0 defeat but what a run we've had! To get to a cup final, albeit the minor cup competition in Finland is still some going seeing as who we beat along the way and that will give me confidence going into the league season. NXGN TOP 50 WONDERKIDS Here is the top 10, Gavi winning the award, some different names in there than what I'm used to. There were no Finnish national or players playing in the Finnish leagues in the top 50. THE FINANCES As you can see we are losing a lot of money each month, £86k over March but the bank balance still remains positive due to the influx of sponsorship money that came in at the start of January. It still means that we have lost nearly all of that sponsorship money since it came in, the bank balance say at £4k when I joined, it's only gone up by £15k! Some hard times ahead! The big question is, where is the money going? Well since the save started the biggest expenditure is "other" which equates to £136k, I literally have no idea what "other" means!! Wages are the next biggest outgoing, £88k over 3 months, around £29k per month on player wages and £81k on staff wages over the same period. That massively exceeds the gate receipts which currently add up to £11k! As I said in the last update I'm just going to have to roll with the punches for now, unless I sell all my players to cut down on wages, which I cannot do!! The next update will come at the end of May where I look over the opening months of the league season....unless anything interesting happens between now and then. Edited October 13 by TheLutterworthFox 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 13 Author Share Posted October 13 (edited) Part #4 - Season 1 - April/May 2024 The opening few months of the league season are over but before I show you how the results have gone, lets talk about the league rules and a few other pieces of news that's happened during April and May. LEAGUE AND SQUAD RULES In short, the league features 12 teams who play each other twice, once those 22 games are over the league split into a Championship Group (1-6) and a Relegation Group (7-12) I only want to focus on the Championship Group, the rules don't really say which positions qualify for Europe bar the generic "European Places Playoff" notes for 3rd to 7th. After a deep dive into Wiki this is what I have found... 1st Place qualify for the Champions League (1st Qualifying Rd) 2nd Place qualify for the Conference League (2nd Qualifying Rd) 3rd Place qualify for the Conference League (1st Qualifying Rd) 4th - 7th Place go into a playoff to seal last Conference League 1st Qualifying Round spot Obviously, as Finland moves up the coefficient rankings that will change but that is how I see it for the 2024 season, which is for qualifying for the 25/26 European season. The other rule I want to look at is the squad and match rules. Luckily there are no squad registration rules but we do have a few rules to keep to for the matchday squad, mainly making sure there are no more than 3 non-EU players and also to have at least 9 HG in the squad and 4 HG in the first XI. IN OTHER NEWS The first big news is a major injury to one of my better players, Winger Jonas Enkerud got injured the second game of the season, a serious one which rules him our for at least five months. We've also had the season ticket sales announced and it's a measly 50 tickets sold! A massive shame seeing as our first home league game was a record attendance (1,250) for the club! RESULTS - APRIL PLAYED 4, WON 3, LOST 1 An absolutely fantastic start with some quality wins, seeing as we are expected to end second bottom in the table I am delighted! We faced Haka, VPS and Lahti, predicted to end 5th, 6th and 8th respectively, a great start. We then faced HJK, who actually hadn't started the season well but we were out shadowed by an incredible team. Not bad though, 4 games, 9 points! RESULTS - MAY LEAGUE - PLAYED 5, WON 2, DREW 2, LOST 1 SUOMEN CUP - PLAYED 2, WON 2 At one point I was worried the wheels were coming off, after the defeat to HJK in April we started May with a poor draw against Ilves before being smashed by SJK. We then had a Suomen cup game against lower-league side HJS which the reserves played amazingly to secure a 5-1 win. That seems to get our morale back, the next two games we won 3-2, but in both we lead 3-0 before defending like idiots! The final league game of the month was a tough away trip to Inter Turku and we did well to come back twice to secure a 2-2 draw, ending May was the next round of the cup against another lower-league side KyPS, we didn't play great but came out with a 2-1 win to go through the to Sixth Round (Last 16). For a team expected to end in the bottom two it's been a great start, we've looked really good in most games but the big two, HJK and SJK are way ahead of our level at the moment. We sit nicely in third place, the two teams above us are the only teams to be beat us so far. STAR PERFORMERS It's been a great start for the attacking midfielders so far. Tomas Castro, playing as the AM has had an incredible start, in the 8 league games he's played he's scored 6 goals and grabbed 2 assists, averaging 7.61. An absolute superstar! Pauli Katajamaki has come in and replaced the injured Enkerud and has been so good, playing down the right he has been an integral part to our good start, 7 league games, 4 goals and 2 assists! Another key man this month has been right back Jean-Claude Mabinda who came 3rd in the League Player of the Month award. He has been a key man down the right as an attacking wing-back, continuously getting forward and setting up chances for the forwards. FINANCES The balance continues to drop, a £50k loss this month, the player and staff wages more than treble the gate receipts! NEWS FROM THE OTHER CLUBS I have notes set (I'll talk about this in another post) to remind me to look at how the other clubs are getting on, mainly off the pitch, here is what's happened lately... Ekenas - Their ground has been expanded from a capacity of 1,900 to 2,600 Inter Turku - The club have had a takeover classed as "promotion from within" Not massively interesting overall, Turku's takeover seems to have given them a bump up in their bank balance, they have recorded a current season profit of £650k Edited October 14 by TheLutterworthFox 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 14 Author Share Posted October 14 (edited) Part #5 - Season 1 - June/July 2024 I'm obviously doing well as only a couple of days into June the board offered me a new contract! I made a point of lowering my wages by about half, to try and help the finances best I can. June means the end of the season for most of Europe including the main European competitions. EUROPEAN WINNERS Champions League - PSG beat Man City 3-1 Europa League - Liverpool beat Barcelona 2-1 Europa Conference League - Fiorentina beat Aston Villa 1-0 That is PSG's first ever Champions League win, no longer nearly men! EUROPEAN RANKINGS UPDATE A few weeks later the European competitions reset for the start of the 24/25 season, this means news items with updated league and coefficient rankings. The league drops 3 places, not good! Finland also drops a place in the coefficient rankings, luckily this does no damage to our qualification places. For the 24/25 European season the following Finnish teams have qualified: HJK - Champions League 1st Qualifying Round KuPS - Europa Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round VPS and SJK - Europa Conference League 1st Qualifying Round Let's hope they do better than the previous European season! YOUTH INTAKE The preview has come through, on the face of it I'm not sure it's that good but the "C's" and "D's" contradict what the star rating of the overall intake says, which is a "golden generation", it'll be interesting to see how good it actually is when it comes through in September. JUNE RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 4, Won 4. An absolutely superb month, four tricky games and we won all four. It was nice in the game against Oulu to get a clean sheet but after that we were very very leaky! Luckily we're scoring plenty as well! Suomen Cup - Played 1, Lost 1 But our cup run is over for this year, probably one of the poorest performances in the save so far as we to lose to second tier title-chasers KTP. A really disappointing result. But our league form has been recognised with two of the top three players in the League Player of the Month award. Won by defensive midfielder Armend Kabashi, a brilliant month for the lad with 4 assists and a goal in 4 matches. And I end as the League Manager of the Month, my first award since I joined. Well deserved after a 100% winning month. JULY RESULTS Veikkausliig - Played 4, Won 1, Drew 1, Lost 2 The good form from June did not continue into July but we had some much tougher games, our win was another 3-2 (I've lost count how many games we've won by that score) against Ilves, we also got a solid draw away to FC Lahti, as for the two losses, I expected better at home, even if the games were against the best two teams in League, SJK and HJK, but we lost both 3-0 and did not perform well. We will sit nicely on second place, that is likely to be third once HJK have played their games in-hand, overall though I'm happy, for a team expected to end in the bottom two we are pushing for the European places! And a quick look at the data hub shows how well we're performing. I won't lie, I don't think actually ever looked properly at the data hub, it looks like a minefield to me but with my wanting to slow down and try and play the game a different way, I spent a bit of time looking around, setting up my analytics to see where we are doing well (or poorly) and who is performing well (or terribly). For now, as you can see above, the "general performance" makes for good reading. We are well ahead of the average on goals per game and non-penalty goals per game, we are also having way more shots than anyone (we are first for shots per game). We are conceding more than the average which needs looking at but for a team who apparently are one of the poorer teams in the league I am delighted with how this looks. FINANCES It's been another few months of watching the finances deplete! Not much I can do about it bar keep winning games, if we keep winning then that may attract more fans to come to the game, more fans means more money! Currently we are under 50% attendances compared to our capacity on average. Edited October 14 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 14 Author Share Posted October 14 PART #6 - SEASON ONE - AUGUST 2024 Only one month in this update, mainly because at the end of August the league splits, so I thought it best to have that as a separate update. But first..... FINNISH EUROPEAN PERFORMANCES The European qualifiers have been completed and it's gone a lot better than last season! SJK One round progressed, not too bad, knocked out by much better opposition VPS Unfortunately lost on penalties, gave them a game though! KuPS Another side to get through a round, I actually thought they would win the game against Macedonian side Shkupi but like VPS they lost on penalties. HJK A TEAM HAVE QUALIFIED FOR A LEAGUE PHASE!!! Ok it's only the Conference League but they did manage to navigate a round in the Champions League before losing to much better sides in the next round and the qualifying round of the Europa League. They then had Latvian side Valmiera in the playoff round of the Conference League and smashed them! And here are their fixtures.. Some toughies there, if they get a point I'll be delighted! AUGUST RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 5, Won 4, Lost 1 Just wow! What an incredible end to the regular season. 4 amazing win with loads of goals, those first games of the month culminated in 10 goals and two stunning performances! We also beat Inter Turku who are much better than us. A loss to Oulu set us back before we capped the regular season off with another 3-2, that's the fifth one this season! And that means we have made it to the Championship Group but it could get even better than that..... We're only joint top!! What an incredible season. Now it gets tough, five games left and our final match is away to HJK. Could that be the decider? TRANSFER NEWS August brings the closure of the Summer transfer window, no one left and I had no expectations of bringing anyone in, my main aim was to keep the wage bill down but when I saw this lad available and on a non-contract I had to snap him up. In comes young DM/CB Noah Nurmi, a cracking player who will offer much needed depth, mainly in defensive midfield where I only really had Kabashi to play there. And here is the roundup of the Finnish transfer window. A very quiet window overall, only one deal actually cost any money, which was a HJK signing for £625. It was nice to see our deal go down as deadline deal of the day! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelinho Posted October 14 Share Posted October 14 Really strong performances so far! Keep it up! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 14 Author Share Posted October 14 PART #7 - SEASON ONE - SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024 The end of the season is here, when I left you last we had five Championship Group games to go and were well in the title hunt, for me just getting a European spot will be amazing, that's the main aim! But before we see how it's gone, let's look at some other things first. SUOMEN CUP FINAL It's quite funny, no HJK, no SJK, the final was played between Oulu who at that point were bottom of the league and Mariehamn, sitting 9th in the table! Well the final was won by Oulu, that means they qualify for the Europa Conference League next season, they could be in Europe and in the second tier!! YOUTH INTAKE It's that time, the first intake of the save and it looks pretty good! Two elite talents, 3 top talents, I won't go through them all, but here are the elite talents. A Kosovan striker, looks solid enough, mentals are good bar his determination, no strength though! And I love the look of this lad, mentals amazing, just needs to improve his passing! RESULTS Veikkausliiga Championship Group - Played 5, Won 1, Drew 2, Lost 2 Not the best ending to the season, I think the pressure of going for the title got to the boys, the Ilves defeat was the one that really dented our hopes, HJK did claim the title after we drew against Inter Turku, we went into the final game, away against HJK, 3 points clear of SJK in 3rd, SJK had to win and we to lose, luckily, even though we lost 3-0, SJK drew, meaning we somehow claimed 2nd place!!! 2nd place means we qualify for the Europa Conference League for the 25/26 season, not bad for a team predicted to end 2nd bottom!!! PLAYER AWARDS PLAYER OF THE SEASON - TOMAS CASTRO A top quality season for Castro, mainly playing as the AM, he grabbed 14 goals and 9 assists in 26 matches. A key man for next season YOUNG PLAYER OF THE SEASON - JEAN-CLAUDE MABINDA Such an exciting talent playing from right back, I mentioned in a previous update that, although his assists numbers didn't look very high (7 in 30 games), he was a constant threat down the right and provided numerous key passes. He also defended really well, winning 88% of his tackles and making more than a clearance a game. TOP GOAL SCORER - MOMODOU SARR I was pretty critical of Sarr in the opening few months of the season, he missed so many sitters and I thought about replacing him, it took him a while but he eventually kicked on and played really well, he grabbed17 goals from 29 starts, 13 of those in the league. He also massively exceeded his xG in the the league. I did change his role after the Liigacup games, from an AF to a PF(a) and it seemed to work! Here is the clubs Best XI And here is the whole squad. FINANCES Yes the finances still look in a state, but where we were projected to lose nearly £1m, we actually ended nowhere near that. Just over £400k lost this season, we need to start making money, luckily we have that chance by being in Europe this season but with only £85k made per round we need to get through a round or two to help stem the losses. Hopefully the sponsorship rises as well due to our cracking season and place in the 25/26 European campaign. NEXT SEASON PLANNING Now we look forward to next season, I have a feeling it is going to be a lot tougher than this campaign, I think clubs took us lightly seeing as we were expected to end near the bottom, ending second will put a big target on our back. Squad improvements are needed but that may be tough, the bank balance isn't great and we only have a big of wage budget to play with. The budgets are actually pretty good, a £300 rise in the wage budget and just over £60k in the transfer kitty, I will not be spending that seeing as the bank balance is in the red. We do have quite a few players leaving currently, due to either retirement or being out of contract and refusing to discuss a new deal. Raitala (CB) has decided to retire Ojala (CB), Penninkangas (LB), Enkerud (RW), Yii-Hietanen (ST), Aijala (LB) and Agbo (CM) are all first-teamers who currently are out of contract. Out of those players I really want to keep Agbo, Ojala and Enkerud around but currently they will not discuss a new deal with me. So there may be a lot of transfer business during the Winter, recruits are needed to replace those who do go and players need to come in who can improve the side to continue to challenge HJK. SPREADSHEETS I'm a sucker for a spreadsheet, I love charting things in the save as they go, here are the spreadsheets I'm using. VEIKKAUSLIIGA CLUBS OVERVIEW A very brief overview of the clubs in the top tier. I am monitoring each clubs bank balance, League titles and Suomen cup wins, Sponsorships and any changes to facilities. The ones above in bold are ones that have changed through this season. IF GNISTAN CLUB OVERVIEW IF GNISTAN FINANCIAL OVERVIEW FINLAND CLUBS IN EUROPE TRACKER Lots to track! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 15 Author Share Posted October 15 PART #8 - SEASON TWO - PRE-SEASON UPDATE It's been a relatively quick pre-season, even though it's been over 2 and a half months since the 2024 campaign ended I've somehow blasted through and am now at the end of pre-season. It's actually been pretty quiet, well quieter than I expected. I mentioned in the end of season update that we will be more than likely losing quite a few out of contract players, well I managed to get nearly of them to sign up to stay for another season. Agbo, Enkerud and Ojala all agreed new contracts with Penninkangas and Yii-Hietanen both agreeing to stay but instead of a paid contract they are on non-contract, pay as you play deals. The only two main first-teamers to go were CB's Aijala (contract expired) and Raitala (retired), we did let a few others go but no one worth mentioning. What this did do was save me around £1.8k per week in wages, nearly 30% of the wage spend from last season. So I didn't actually need to bring too many players in. My main aim this Winter was to improve the defence and the goalkeeper. It was a struggle, with not much scouting budget and also me wanting to keep the wages down I had to be a little thrifty with my signings. Four players joined and here they are... TRANSFERS IN MARCUS BOBJERG - GOALKEEPER - FREE TRANSFER Koski had been great last season but I felt I could find a better keeper, Bobjerg is slightly better in his overall attributes, much better in his goalkeeping ones, not so much in his mentals. I do feel like he is an upgrade though. ANDREAS VAHER - CENTRAL DEFENDER - SEASON LOAN FROM HJK With Raitala and Aijalla both leaving I needed to bolster the defence, I decided to dip my toes in the loan market, a decent, young player who will offer a good option in the centre of defence. SAMUAL FROJDH - LEFT BACK/CENTRAL DEFENDER - FREE TRANSFER Signed mainly to play left back, I only have Olander who can naturally play there, Frojdh is a solid player who can also play as a central defender. EEMELI VIRTA - CENTRAL MIDFIELD - FREE TRANSFER FROM FC LAHTI A player I pre-signed before the last season ended, the reason I did that was because I was expecting Agbo to leave when his contract expired, he ended up staying so I now have two top quality CMs to play, I may have to rotate the two of them around! OTHER NEWS FROM IF GNISTAN A quick look at the finances does not make for good viewing, our near-£400k sponsorship came in but it hasn't helped, for some reason we lost £272k for ground maintenance, I had no inbox news item about this, so I have no idea what it was used for! We start the season £500k in the red, I need to keep the wages down as much as possible, so far I've done that, with the in's and out's sorted, we are £1k per week down in the wage bill, not masses but every little helps. We just need to stem the tide for now and hope, when the Conference League qualifying rounds start, we can navigate a round or two, this may help! The board have also asked me if I wanted to create a B-team, I said yes, the reason for this was because the B-team was already there, it had players in it as I kept getting news items about players I couldn't see that played for me. I couldn't see the B-team anywhere in the game, it now means the playing squad is viewable and I can see what players are in there! A quick look at the 2025 season preview and again we are expected to struggle! I fully expect us to be higher than this although I do expect it to be much tougher this season, as mentioned earlier, I don't think teams will take us as lightly this year. We've also had the Liigacup Group stage draw and it's another toughie. Inter Turku and HJK will be our biggest challenge, it would be nice to end in the top two again and get into the semi finals. MY USE OF NOTES One thing I wanted to speak about in the previous updates but didn't, as I felt the updates were way too lengthy is how I use notes to remind me of things. I am terrible at forgetting to do things, so in my saves I use notes to job my memory. I have set myself reminders to update my spreadsheets and see how the other Finnish teams are doing, alongside reminding me what to look for when I am writing these updates. Actual save-wise I have set myself memory joggers to remember to look at general and individual training, praise/criticise training performance and look at the units. I've also set up a scouting reminder, to look at my shortlists and recruitment focusses. HJK'S EUROPEAN ADVENTURE A quick word on how HJK have done in the Conference League and my word did it go better than I expected, I said in a previous update if they got a point I'd be happy, well they ended up with 6 points from 6 games! Unfortunately they agonisingly missed out on a playoff spot, ending 25th! A great run though. NEWS FROM THE OTHER FINNISH CLUBS Finally a look at the other clubs in the league to see if anything has changed, again it's been quiet! FC Lahti - Takeover Inter Turku - Another takeover TPS - Promoted and turned professional I'm going to leave this update here, I really want to add more information to my posts, not to make it as generic as I've done before but I am conscious these posts are getting quite long! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny-Trotter Posted October 15 Share Posted October 15 Nice idea for a save - Finland is definitely one with great potential for growth. I am guessing that the 272k expenditure is related to the creation of the B-team, but the game doesn't have a way to categorize that so just dropped it into Ground Maintenance? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 15 Author Share Posted October 15 6 minutes ago, Johnny-Trotter said: Nice idea for a save - Finland is definitely one with great potential for growth. I am guessing that the 272k expenditure is related to the creation of the B-team, but the game doesn't have a way to categorize that so just dropped it into Ground Maintenance? Ah yes, you may be right! Might have been a bad idea then! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 15 Author Share Posted October 15 (edited) PART #9 - SEASON TWO - JANUARY TO MARCH 2025 A new season begins and it starts with the Liigacup, the second cup competition in Finland, last season we narrowly missed winning it, losing in the final to SJK, this season we are going all out to win it! Well it started amazingly, a 5-game group stage with the top 2 going through. After drawing the first match 2-2 against Turku and throwing away a 2-0 lead in the process I was worried. I didn't need to be, 4 straight wins followed including a 3-0 hammering of champs HJK! This competition may not mean much to most of the clubs but to me it's massive, Gnistan haven't ever won a top division trophy. We were now 2 games away from reaching that feat. We end top, meaning we have a home tie against SJK in the semi-final. Where we played so well, SJK had more of the game, more chances, more possession, but we were clinical, 4 shots on target, 3 goals and a sensational 3-0 win! It was karma as well after they beat us in the final last season. We then faced Inter Turku in the final, a team we've only beaten once in 4 games so far, I knew it would be tough but once again we defended amazingly, Castro scored an early goal for us and when Koski saved a penalty I knew it would be our day, Turku went at us for the whole second half but we held firm, Koski ending as POTM and we had won our first ever top tier trophy and my first trophy of the save! What an amazing start to the season, we now need to take that into the league campaign. In other news, I have made one more signing, mid-way through the Liigacup. We only really had Sarr as a main-line striker, the back-ups weren't great so I went and got a striker in on a season long loan. Kaius Harden joins from HJK. His finishing isn't great but he offers us another option if Sarr gets injured or isn't fit enough to play. I also wanted to show the tactic I am going to use this season. Last season I played a 4231 with one midfielder as a CM (DLP) and a DM. This season, in the opening games I noticed we were struggling down the right so I moved the CM back to be a DM and switched the right-sided DM to be a BWM (s), I also asked him to stay wider to help out on the right-hand side, it seemed to work a treat! I also want to speak about how the Finland NT have been doing so far, at some point in the save I'd like to manage them so I want to keep an eye on how they're progressing. Well so far they've played their Nations league games and so far it hasn't been too bad 10 points from their 6 games in Division B but they missed out on promotion to Division A as Ukraine ended top. I'd usually talk now about any other news that's happened but it's been very quiet! Edited October 15 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 16 Author Share Posted October 16 (edited) PART #10 - SEASON TWO - APRIL/MAY 2025 The opening few months of the league season are over, after winning the Liigacup I had high hopes we could continue that good form into the Veikkausliiga, before I show you how the results have gone, let's take a look over any other news that's happened. Firstly, the Winter window has closed and, unlike last season, where very few actual fee-paying deals happened, this year there's been a little bit. HJK actually sold a player to Italian giants Juventus for £750k, rising to just short of £1m. That lad is Topi Keskinen, he has rejoined HJK on loan for the season. Overall there's been 8 fee-paying deals, 7 of those are incomings to Finnish clubs. Next, we have had our season ticket sales confirmed, last season is was 50, this season it's......52! Thank you to those 2 new fans! The end of April means contract renewals time as most contracts expire at the end of November. Well things do not look good! Currently all of these players will not discuss a new deal.. My two best players are in there, Castro (LW) and Mabinda (RB), Sarr is my first-choice Striker and Katajamaki (RW) is also a first-choice starter. If we lose all them at the end of the season it is going to be one hell of a rebuild next Winter, we had the same issue last season and most decided to stay. A quick update on the finances and, as expected, things still do not look good. We are closing in on -£1m bank balance and there is still no sign of the losses stopping, we are getting bigger attendances but it's still nowhere near enough. The Europa Conference League qualifiers start in July, we need to get through a round or two to help stem the tide! Finally, a quick update on the European trophy winners for the 24/25 campaign. Champions League - Real Madrid 1 Inter Milan 0 Europa League - AC Milan 4 Rennes 1 Europa Conference League - Manchester United 2 Real Sociedad 0 We will get an update on the coefficients towards the end of June, look at it now, with how well HJK did this season, we should rise from 37th to 33rd in the rankings, that means instead of three Conference League spots, we will get one Europa League and two Conference League places. Now to the results. APRIL RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 4, Won 3, Drew 1 What an amazing start to the league season. 10 points from the opening 4 games including a stunning 3-0 win over HJK, the second time we've beaten them by three goal this season so far. Suomen Cup - Played 1, Won 1 ] We also progressed in the cup, the reserves played and beat lower-league side HyPS 3-2, 2 of those goals were from Daniel Metaj, a player who came through last season's intake, this was his debut! MAY RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 6, Won 3, Drew 3 As you can see things did slow down slightly but 12 points from 6 games is still bloody brilliant, we end the opening two months of the season unbeaten and top of the League! SJK did start with 6 wins from 6 but have tailed off massively since then. The big question is, can we keep this up?! Suomen Cup - Played 2, Won 2 Good progression as well in the cup, we played the reserves away to 2nd tier Atlantis and then beat newly promoted TPS in the next round, this put us into the Last 16 where we have a home tie against lower league Reipas. It was also interesting to see my B-team get through 2 rounds before losing the Last 32 to VJS/2. So overall a fantastic start, we took our Liigacup form into the League campaign and although we've drawn a few games lately we still are playing really well, especially for a team expected to end 2nd bottom! A quick look at the data hub shows how well we are defending and attacking. Way ahead of the average in all areas, we are 2nd behind SJK in goals conceded per game, top of the number of clean sheets and final third passes against per game. We have let a few more goals in lately but still look pretty solid. Attacking wise, we are top of the amount of goal scored, we also top the charts for crosses and crosses completed. It's also nice to see us top the amount of dribbles per game, especially as I have asked my team to "run at defence" in my tactic. This is especially good down my right-hand side where Mabinda at right back loves to maraud forward with the ball. Edited October 16 by TheLutterworthFox 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted October 17 Share Posted October 17 (edited) Wow, this is a nicely written story from my home country and almost a local club as I live in Espoo. Funny fact also that I was quite close to being appointed by the team about a year ago, before the bankruptcy of FC Honka and the promotion of Gnistan were announced. Decoded to take a sure office job instead of this opportunity which could have been a dream as I have always wanted to do marketing for a sports team. Haven't read the story completely yet but going to do so during the weekend! Keep up the great work that you're putting up with this. Which database are you using, by the way? Somehow got tempted to have a Finnish save... Edited October 17 by El Payaso 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 1 minute ago, El Payaso said: Wow, this is a nicely written story from my home country and almost a local club as I live in Espoo. Funny fact also that I was quite close to being appointed by the team about a year ago, before the bankruptcy of FC Honka and the promotion of Gnistan were announced. Decoded to take a sure office job instead of this opportunity which could have been a dream as I have always wanted to do marketing for a sports team. Haven't read the story completely yet but going to do so during the weekend! Keep up the great work that you're putting up with this. Which database are you using, by the way? Somehow got tempted to have a Finnish save... Thanks so much for your nice comment. That's really interesting that you nearly took a job at Gnistan! I am just using the base FM database but have downloaded a realism pack to include promotions/relegations, etc but the Finnish league is the same as it was in the normal FM database 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 (edited) PART #11 - SEASON TWO - JUNE/JULY 2025 Early in June we got the annual intake preview and, just like last year, the ratings are rubbish but the predicted star rating is "excellent", which one will it be?! We've also had the update for the beginning of the 25/26 European season, the following Finnish clubs have qualified: HJK - Champions League 1st Qualifying Round AC Oulu- Europa Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round Gnistan and SJK - Europa Conference League 1st Qualifying Round The Veikkausliiga has also risen one place in the European competition ranking. And here is the updated coefficient rankings, I was correct in predicting that we would rise to 33rd, I was wrong though in the qualifying places, I thought we'd have a team in the Europa League, it looks like we need to end 32nd to get that. So again, for the 26/27 European campaign we will have one team in the Champions League and three teams in the Conference League. JUNE RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 3, Won 3 An absolutely amazing month, 3 games, 3 wins and 3 brilliant performances. Suomen Cup - Played 1, Won 1 We also progressed in the cup, the reserves played and eased past a lower league side. Our good form was recognised as our star man Tomas Castro ended as player of the month. JULY RESULTS Veikkausliiga - Played 3, Won 1, Lost 2 I'm not going to say the wheels have come off just yet, July was the month we started our Europa Conference League qualifying campaign, we had our busiest month of the season so far and the players looked knackered. We lose our first few games of the season but we still are massively over-exceeding where we should be. Still top and we have a game in-hand on SJK and FC Haka below us, HJK do have a game in-hand on us but even if they won that they'd only be level on points with ourselves. A title challenge is well and truly on, 6 games of the regular season to go before a Championship Group with another 5 games. Suomen Cup - Played 1, Won 1 A really good win in the Quarter Final, we dominated the match and never looked in trouble. In the semi-final we will face a home tie against the mighty HJK. Now to the main event this month.... EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE We entered in the first qualifying round and had a tie I fully expected to win, we faced Swift Hesperange of Luxembourg, first leg at home and we dominated to seal a 3-1 win The in the away leg we had a serious wobble! The game ended and we had lost 2-0, meaning 3-3 on aggregate and it would go to extra-time, we then went crazy, scoring 3 goals in 14 minutes of extra time to take a 6-3 lead, Swift did get one back but we had done it, a little too close for comfort though! In the 2nd Qualifying Round we faced Swiss side Lugano FC. We were huge underdogs and Lugano showed how much better they were than us in the home leg to beat us 2-0, we just didn't show up. An uphill task as we went into the away leg but my word did we play well, we had more of the chances, more possession, double the xG and could easily have scored more than the 1 we did. We ended up 1-0 winners, a massive win against a much better side but unfortunately it wasn't enough and we were out. Now for the big news from that little European run, the money we have made has virtually cleared the negative bank balance! At the beginning of July our bank balance was -£940k, it ends -£121k! As you can see below we made much more in our European participation that I expected. We made £85k for playing in each of the two rounds, we then also got £300k for losing in the 2nd Qualifying round and £300k for our Conference League participation, add to that our away game to Lugano was on TV, giving us another £18k. We also made more than 50% of our total season gate receipts this month, for some reason we didn't play our home European games at our own ground. We ended up playing at the 3k capacity stadium in Helsinki called Töölön pallokenttä, as far as I can no one actually plays there regularly! The ground holds 500 more fans than our, the Swift home game got an attendance of 2,740, the Lugano game was a 3,000 sell-out. This is all I wanted this season, to give our finances a decent bump up, OK it's not put us into a positive state but it has massively helped. I'll go through the other Finnish clubs European performances in the next update when they're all out, that gives you a clue that at least 1 other side is still in qualifying! Edited October 17 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 17 Author Share Posted October 17 PART #12 - SEASON TWO - END OF REGULAR SEASON & EUROPEAN PERFORMANCES It's been a relatively simple month this time around, plenty of games, lot's of European action...for the other Finnish team and not much exciting news apart from that! Firstly, let's see how the other Finnish teams did in their respective European competitions AC OULU It was a short stay for last season's Suomen Cup winners. They entered in the Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round and lost to Maccabi Haifa. SJK SJK did much better in the Conference League, they entered in the same round as we did and got a round further than us. Good wins against Belarussian side Neman Grondo and then KF Shkendija of North Macedonia got dispatched in round two. They then came up against Czech opposition in Mlada Boleslav and got beat easily. A good run though. HJK Now to the big boys and once again they did amazingly. They got through a round of the Champions League beating Maltese opposition before losing to Maccabi Tel Aviv, this meant they dropped into the Europa League, but unlike last season they made is past Sheriff Tiraspol and then beat Riga in the playoff round to seal a spot in the League Phase of the Europa League an amazing achievement. And here are their fixtures in the League Phase which span over the end of this season and the beginning of the next campaign. Some toughies there but definitely a chance of a couple of points. Now to how we have performed in those final regular season games, July was poor but August was much better in parts! Veikkausliiga - Played 6, Won 3, Drew 1, Lost 2 6 games, 10 points, some good wins but those final 2 games of the month really hurt. Overall though we've played pretty well and to just be challenging the likes of HJK and SJK is amazing. We have been lucky though, all of the chasing pack have slipped up. SJK have only managed 2 points from their 5 games this month, FC Haka have claimed 9 from 5 games and HJK, 10 points from 7 games. So our 10 from 6 doesn't look too bad! This means we take a 1 point lead into the Championship Group, 5 games left to make history! For the second season running we face HJK away but, unlike last year where we faced them in the final match, this time it comes around in the second match! That could be the title-decider! In other news, it was a great August for Striker Momodou Sarr, I've slated him at time but when he is on form he is unstoppable, he grabbed a first half hat-trick in the win over KuPS and overall got 6 goals in 5 games. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 18 Author Share Posted October 18 (edited) PART #12 - SEASON TWO - 2025 YOUTH INTAKE It's that time of the season where we see if we have any wonderkids in our youth intake. The intake preview wasn't great, the best rated positions was a "C" BUT the overall intake was classed as "excellent"! Odd! But before we have a look through it, I wanted to speak about my HOYD, I don't tend to speak about my staff much, I never though it was that interesting for people to read through, but someone in my previous post asked me about it, so I thought why not have a little staff chat now and again! Please welcome Riku Jokela, I actually brought him in at the start of the season, replacing my old HOYD who had a rather unfavourable "temperamental" personality! I always tend to look for the following attributes in HOYD. Judging player ability Judging player potential Determination Working with youngsters Pretty self explanatory really. I also want him/her to have a preferred formation that is the same (or as close as possible) to the formation I play and a positive personality. As you can see Jokela ticks the box in all those areas. Preferred formation - 4231 Personality - Balanced JPA - 12 JPP - 13 Determination - 11 Working with youngsters - 13 That is over and above the average player attributes for the league, I seriously hope we can help me bring through better and higher rated young players. Now let's see what the intake looks like... We get a 4* "good" intake, one elite talents and a lot of top talents, but are any of them actually going to make it? The one thing that stands out is all the decent rated players are all either midfielders are wingers! Kalle Honkanen is the elite talents of the bunch, naturally a central midfielder but can also play in lots of other positions (RW, RWB, DM). I like the fact he is versatile but I do have to decide on the position to train him in. He has also a resolute personality which is great and is 2-footed. Attribute-wise, he has 15 for determination and 14 for natural fitness, 2 of the 4 attributes I always look for. 10 for finishing is interesting. Would this make him better as a inside forward on the right? Esa Rajala, for me is probably the best of the top talents. A natural left-winger but as he has good finishing and, even though he's only 5ft 9", can head and jump, maybe he is better being training as a Striker? An exciting talent nonetheless, the four attributes I look for are: Determination, Bravery, Team Work and Natural Fitness, Rajala only has Work rate below 10. I can see this lad, with a bit of help in training and mentoring, that he can become a first-team squad player pretty quickly. They are the two I really like the look of. Here are the other top talents, do any of them take your fancy? Edited October 18 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbalsnes Posted October 18 Share Posted October 18 Another great save, thank you! Also - Thank you for the little insight in your staff! I like! Regarding the talents, are you going to include them in your 1st squad or put them in your newly made B-squad? Great start in Finland, amazing performance thus far! Look forward to see Gnistan in Champions League sooner, I can imagine, than one might think..! Keep up the good work! T. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 18 Author Share Posted October 18 52 minutes ago, tbalsnes said: Another great save, thank you! Also - Thank you for the little insight in your staff! I like! Regarding the talents, are you going to include them in your 1st squad or put them in your newly made B-squad? Great start in Finland, amazing performance thus far! Look forward to see Gnistan in Champions League sooner, I can imagine, than one might think..! Keep up the good work! T. Thanks for your comment mate. For the two players I've pinpointed that I really like, they'll go into the first team squad, to be mentored, but I'll have them available to play for both the B team and youth team. The others will go into the B team for now with a view of loaning them out when I have the option to 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 18 Author Share Posted October 18 (edited) PART #12 - SEASON TWO - SUOMEN CUP, CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS AND END OF SEASON REVIEW It all comes to this, it's only season two in the save but already my Gnistan boys are close a first ever Veikkausliiga title! But before I go through the league results, we also have a Suomen Cup semi final to talk about.. SUOMEN CUP SEMI FINAL And it didn't go amazingly! We lead 2-0, then conceded 3 times before we levelled it to 3-3 with 10 minutes to go. The game ended, extra-time also came and went and it would go to penalties. Where we lost 5-4 on penalties, the deciding penalty missed by one of my intake players from last season, Jore Turunen. Gutting! But the league is much more important, win it and we go into the Champions League for the 26/27 season but even more than that, it will be the clubs first ever top division title! VEIKKAUSLIIGA CHAMPIONSHIP GROUP Game 1 - FC Lahti (H) It started amazingly, we destroyed Lahti with 3 first-half goals and 2 in the second 45, Lahti did get a goal back but we ended 5-1 winners. Game 2 - HJK (A) At this point HJK were only 3 points behind us, we couldn't lose and we didn't, this was probably the performance of the season, again we scored 3 in the first half and 2 in the second, HJK scored 2 second half goals themselves but we ran out 5-2 winners! This put us 6 clear of HJK with 3 to play with Haka 4 behind us. Game 3 - TPS (H) A shocking performance, this was just after the cup loss to HJK, the players looks shattered and we didn't perform anywhere near our best. TPS took a 2-0 lead and although we grabbed a goal back we ended up losing 2-1. A big set back, Haka also lost but HJK won, closing the gap to 3 with 2 to play. Game 4 - SJK (A) A tough game and another slip-up, at any other time of the season I'd be happy drawing one of the better teams away but this was a big set back. Luckily HJK also drew, Haka lost again putting them well out of it. This meant, with a game left, the title was 99% won. We were 3 clear of HJK with a game to go but we had a massively better goal difference. It would take a 16 goal swing for them to over take us! Game 5 - FC Haka (H) And so it came to be, we played fantastically after a couple of iffy performances, HJK sealed a 1-0 win in their match but it wasn't enough, we ran out 2-0 winners in a very professional performance. And that means...... We've only gone and won the bloody league!!!! An absolutely insane achievement after two seasons. This has been so much fun but what it does show is the teams in the league, even HJK, aren't that good, we were predicted to end 11th, we won the league by 3 points!!! Now we have to back it up next season and retain it! KEY MEN Jean-Claude Mabinda was by far our best player this season, the right back was so good in both defence and attack, with 11 assists and 4 goals from 32 starts. He ends as the club and league player of the season. He is out of contract at the end of the season but, after numerous attempts, he has eventually agreed to discuss a new deal! The clubs young player of the season goes to right winger Pauli Katajamaki, 33 starts this season, he only made 9 the season before, he took over from Enkerud on the right and was fantastic. He ends with 9 goals and 7 assists. Another player that is out of contract but, after winning the league, had agreed to discuss a new deal, an actual paid one as well! It was another good season for Momodou Sarr, he can be hit and miss at time but he did seem to not miss as many chances this season. He ends with 21 goals in 28 starts, with 16 of those goals in the league. He ends as the Veikkausliiga top goal scorer. Here is the clubs Best XI. And here is the whole first-team squad. As you can see there are a raft of players out of contract, luckily most of agreed to sign a new deal but we will be losing a few players. Enkerud is retiring, we are also losing defenders Ojala and Ala-Iso but the biggest loss is Tomas Castro, he has decided to leave and I can't even "offer new contract". A big big loss and it will be hard to replace him with someone just as good. THE FINANCES Firstly some bad news, the board have downgraded our training facilities! I did immediately request for them to be improved but they decline citing our poor financial position and you have to agree with them! We end the season still in the red, just short of £300k in the hole. This is actually a decent profit from last season but completely made up by the prize money gained from our two round in the Conference League qualifying. We once again need to be careful over the Winter window with our signings, we need to keep the wages down and try and slow down the losses.....for now. Obviously when July comes around we have Champions League qualifying, we enter in the first round, if we lose, we drop into the Europa League second qualifying and if we lost that, we go into the Conference League third qualifying round, so we are guaranteed at least three rounds in Europe, this will massively help the bank balance out. So I'd predict another season and we should be out of the red and into the black, then we can start looking at getting the facilities improved and start to bring bigger and better players into the side. Clearly the squad is good enough to challenge in Finland but next season will be very tough, we will have an even bigger target on our back!!! It's nice to see a raft of green in the above screen, it shows we are heading in the right direction. Budget-wise, the board have given us some crazy figures seeing as how bad the finances look. That's a £2.5k per week increase in the wage budget from last season, it will help if I do want to bring some players in but I'm not sure I'll be spending it all! PLANS FOR NEXT SEASON Now we look forward to the 2026 season and, as I said before, it's going to be tough. If we can be challenging for the title again I'll be delighted, a European place is a must! Can we do it? Of course we can! It's going to be interesting to see how we do in Europe, the squad isn't anywhere near good enough to be challenging most of what we will get pitted against, if we can get through a round of the Champions League that will be amazing, like I said earlier, we are guaranteed three round, whether that be in the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League, my hope is we can get to the fourth qualifying round of one of those competitions, this gives us a shot at a possible League Phase spot and with that, a LOAD OF MONEY!!! If we can do that it will set us up for the next 4, 5 or 6 seasons financially, I can then look at starting to improve the club on and off the pitch. When those qualifiers come around everything else takes a back seat! But we have a long time before that comes around. For now we need to navigate pre-season and try and improve the squad in certain areas. Losing Castro is a big loss, he has played most of this season on the LW so that is a position I need to look at bringing a player in. With Ojala and Ala-Iso leaving we definitely need at least one central defender. We will also lose loanee Harden, the Striker will return to HJK, we definitely need a new forward to challenge Sarr. Bar that it will depend on who else leaves through the Winter. I will also be taking a closer look at my staff, I haven't really done that yet due to the finances but we have nearly all of our staff out of contract at the end of November, perfect time to assess who is good and who can be replaced by someone better. For now I'll leave you with all my spreadsheet trackers! SEASON TRACKER FINANCES TRACKER FINLAND IN EUROPE TRACKER VEIKKAUSLIIGA CLUBS OVERVIEW (END OF 2025 SEASON) ACHIEVEMENTS TRACKER - 2/35 Edited October 18 by TheLutterworthFox 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelinho Posted October 19 Share Posted October 19 Amazing season mate, congrats with the title! Financially you’ll have to climb a mountain, but I know you’re up the challenge. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 19 Author Share Posted October 19 1 hour ago, Michaelinho said: Amazing season mate, congrats with the title! Financially you’ll have to climb a mountain, but I know you’re up the challenge. Thanks mate, oh yes more than up for the challenge! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 19 Author Share Posted October 19 (edited) PART #14 - SEASON THREE - PRE-SEASON UPDATE It's only the end of December but there is enough to tell you about, so thought I better do an update for you! HJK IN EUROPE HJK have so far been bloody brilliant in the League Phase of the Europa League, so far they've played 6 games (there are two more in January 2026). 6 points from their games so far including a win over Slovan Bratislava and draws against Partizan, APOEL and Almeria. Fantastic!!! FINLAND IN WORLD CUP QUAILFYING Finland had a tough qualifying group, but overall they did well, claiming 10 points from their 8 games. 3rd behind Italy and Turkey, their 3 wins came against Malta twice and Iceland once. They also drew Turkiye. Unfortunately thought that means no World Cup place for them! STAFF CHANGES I've spent a bit of time this Winter looking over my staff, letting those members go that were out of contract or, in my opinion weren't good enough. The staff size has shrunk down as we were over the quota set by the board. Here are the new members of staff. Well actually the first member of staff is someone who is staying! I looked for a better Assistant Manager but there was no-one who improved on Eero Laurila. He is OK, not amazing but has some decent attributes. I signed myself a new DOF. Please welcome Riku Savolainen, he has some really good all-round attributes, I like my DOF to go and make initial bids on players so I wanted him to have good JPA and JPP, good negotiating and good tactical knowledge. The only thing he hasn't got is decent determination. Now for two new coaches. Firstly is Mark Strudal, signed for his high attacking, tactical and technical attributes, a big upgrade on our previous coaches. Secondly is Goalkeeping Coach Jani Viander, compared to my last man doing this role there is no comparison, his GK'ing attributes were all 6's and 7's, this man has more than double that!! I do want a fitness coach but unfortunately I'm only allowed 2 coaches! Finally is a new Head Physio, please welcome Ida Sillman, 20 for Physiotherapy and her mental attributes are incredible! Some big upgrades on what we previously had, I have also signed a whole backroom team for my B-team but none of them are worth talking about! We still have a long way to go though before we anywhere near the level of some of the other teams in the League, as you can see from the comparison, we are way off! TRANSFERS Now to the new signings, I mentioned previously we had quite a few players leaving, the big ones were Castro (LW), Ojala and Ala-Iso (CBs) who left after their contract expired and Harden (ST) who's loan deal was up. I've so far signed 4 players, and here they are... Arnar Danial Adalsteinsson - Central Defender - Free Transfer A top quality defender for this level, he has fantastic ball-playing skills, something I really needed in the centre of defence. He does have low jumping reach and strength but he more than makes up for that in nearly every other department. Juhani Pikkarainen - Central Defender - Free Transfer A second central defender joins, I really needed to bring two in. Another high quality CB who is a big upgrade on those that have left. He is tall, strong and can jump, the opposite to the other signing in this position. I have high hopes they can form a cracking partnership. Maksim Stjopin - Winger - Free Transfer The first of two signings out wide. Stjopin is my replacement for Castro. Is he better? No, can he do a good job? Yes! He has really good mental attributes, is quick and likes to dribble, he is going to cause the Finnish defences all kinds of trouble. Lukas Vikgren - Winger - Free Transfer And here is the second wide signing, more of a back-up, VIkgren joins on a "pay as you play" deal. He looks decent enough as a substitute and cup game player. I do still want to bring in another Striker, we have enough wages to bring one in but I want to make sure the signing is the right one, so far I haven't found that player. We will have another 3 weeks until the Liigacup Group Stage starts, in that time I want that new Striker in and then, bar any outgoings, my squad will be complete for the new season start. Edited October 20 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 PART #15 - SEASON THREE - JANAURY/FEBRUARY 2026 HJK IN EUROPE HJK has their final two Europa League games at the start of the new season, they were just outside the playoff places before the matches, probably needed to win one of them to steal a playoff spot, unfortunately it didn't go well. 1 point from the 2 games, but overall though they've done amazingly. , they ended 28th in the table with 7 points. What it does do is bump out coefficient up, 4.750 for this season, the highest in the last 6 seasons, currently we are going up to 31st at the end of the season, I'll keep an eye to see what happens! TRANSFER NEWS Firstly, some annoying news. One of my intake stars from 2024 has been nabbed by SJK, this is the issue with having players on non-contracts. I tried to offer him a new deal but he refused to speak, a big loss but it will be interesting to see how he does at his new club as I do think he could be a top player. I said in the previous update that a new Striker was the only first-team signing I wanted prior to the season starting and, after a lot of scouting and searching, I eventually settled on this lad... NUNO DA COSTA - STRIKER - FREE TRANSFER Some experience for our front-line, I could've signed a younger player but none of them were good enough and the ones that were wanted well over £1k per week, more than anyone at the club. Da Costa comes in on a wage of £300 a week. An absolute steal! I also decided to go on a wonderkid hunt, I scouted every player in my scouting range who are under 17 and have 10+ in determination, work rate, bravery and natural fitness. I then decided to sign the ones who were rated highly, are on a free transfer, able to sign on a non-contract and that I liked the look of, there are quite a few so I'll keep screenshots down a minimum, click the players name and you can see the player profile. Osku Maukonen - Goalkeeper Jere Makinen - Striker Kim Rihimaki - Right Winger Wille Jallow - Defensive Midfielder Nicolai Fechtenburg - Defensive Midfielder Eirik Hellesnes - Central Midfielder Clearly, after Matej, I'm running the risk of losing them for nothing but I think it's worth it, they will all go into the B-Team to get game-time, if they perform well they will then get promoted to be a first-team player. LIIGACUP RESULTS I said at the end of last season that I expected this year to be very tough, Finnish champs for the first time, teams maybe took us lightly over the past 2 seasons, we would have a big target on our back. We start the season with the Liigacup, a 5-game group stage with the top 2 going through. We won this competition last season and it massively set us up for an amazing league campaign. Unfortunately it did not go well! We opened with a 3-3 draw, that after being 3-1 up. We then won our next 2 games and in that FC Lahti 5-0 win I actually saw signs of progression, we dominated and, for the first time, we defended well! After that though we claimed a poor 1-1 draw at home to TPS. This meant we went into the HJK game knowing we needed a point to claim a top 2 spot. We lost 2-1, Inter Turku won meaning, for the first time in my 3 seasons in charge, we failed to qualify to the semi-finals. Really, really poor, let's hope it's just a blip. After the first 2 games, where we conceded too many goals I did switch to a 41221 and for a couple of games it worked. Maybe this season HJK will actually put in a decent title challenge! VEIKKAUSLIIGA PREVIEW This season we are predicted to end 6th, a big jump from the 11th place expected finish last season. We need to be challenging those European spots again, that is the top 3 positions. Can we win the league again? After what I've just witnessed in those Liigacup games, I seriously doubt it but I love a challenge! However, I do still think the squad I have is good enough to challenge, we just need to deal with the tag of "Finnish Champions", can the players live up to that?! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 (edited) PART #16 - SEASON THREE - MARCH TO MAY 2026 We have 26 more fans!!! It's not a lot but it's a 50% rise! WINTER TRANSFER WINDOW CLOSURE A quick look at the Finnish window and it's been pretty quiet. Only 6 fee paying deals! Really not exciting and seeing as 3 clubs have quite a bit of money to spend I'm surprised more hasn't been spent. We did make one more signing and it's another one for the future Striker Topi Snellman joins on a free from HJK, I did promise him he would be a squad player so I do plan to give him a bit of game-time. He does look pretty good but he needs to improve his finishing! Maybe he's more suited to being a wide man! Now to the results and it's been a busy couple of months APRIL RESULTS VEIKKAUSLIIGA - Played 4, Won 3, Lost 1 After a dodgy Liigacup run I was sceptical as to how we'd start the league campaign, well I no reason to worry. We started incrredibly with 3 wins, only conceding once and also winning a really tough away games against SJK. We then ruined it all by losing the final game of the month, 3-2 to Ilves Tampere! Annoying! SUOMEN CUP One game played in the cup and it was against the fantastically names Sexy Poxyt! A lower league side, the kids and reserves played and we eased to a 3-0 win. MAY RESULTS VEIKKAUSLIIGA - Played 6, Won 3, Drew 3 A really busy month with loads of games, 6 in the league and we end the month unbeaten, we struggled for goals at time, all of our draws ended 0-0, one of those was away to HJK and I will more than take that. Our 3 wins though were really good, TPS have been near the top so far this season, so to beat them 3-1 was really good. And that means it's very tight at the top! We are top on goal difference to HJK, with SJK only a point behind and TPS two further points back. SUOMEN CUP Two rounds played, both against lower league opposition, as ever I rotated and gave some of the kids a chance and they performed really well to beat I-Kissat 4-0 and FC Honka 3-0. There is one player I want to speak about and that's one of our own! 2024 intake star Jere Turunen has massively improved over the past 6 months and has now pushed himself into contention to be a first XI starter. I started by playing him in the opening round of the Suomen Cup against Poxyt where he scored and assisted and ended as POTM, since then he has featured in 10 games, starting in 8, he's grabbed 4 assists and 5 goals and has claimed 3 POTMs. This lad is something else. At the end of the season I'll be losing my first-choice AM Latonen, at this rate I won't need to replace him! An absolute superstar! IN OTHER NEWS Finally, a couple of pieces of club news, firstly, the finances! Yeah still not good! We currently sit just over £400k in the red, we are losing anywhere between £50k and £80k a month. So far we've actually made a profit over the season of £36k but we brought in just over £600k in sponsorship money! I just have to roll with it for now, see out June and then in July the European qualifiers start, I'm sure we will have at least 3 rounds to play so that should bring in a decent chunk of money! Next, we've had the annual youth intake preview and it's a weird as ever! Apparently it's an "excellent" intake coming in that could be a "golden generation" BUT every position is rated D or E!!!!! It'll be interesting to see what we actually get in September!!! Finally, the 25/26 European season is over and here are the winners: Champions League - Manchester City 2 Paris Saint-Germain 0 Europa League - Chelsea 2 Feyenoord 0 Europa Conference League - Fiorentina 1 Sevilla 0 A quick look at the co-efficient for next season shows that we should move up 2 places from 33rd to 31st, this makes no different to our qualifying places or the rounds we enter in. Also, a quick note on my updates, I'm beginning to feel like doing the posts bi-monthly is making the posts quite long, so I'm going to move it to an update every month (as long as enough has happened!) Edited October 20 by TheLutterworthFox 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 20 Author Share Posted October 20 SEASON THREE - JUNE 2026 European Update Firstly, here are the confirmed teams in Europe for the 26/27 season 2026/27 European Season Gnistan - Champions League 1st Qualifying Round FC Haka - Europa Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round HJK and SJK - Europa Conference League 1st Qualifying Round There is a change in the fact I thought if we lost the 1st Qualifying Round in the Champions League we dropped into the Europa League, well I got it wrong, if we lose we go into the Conference League 2nd Qualifying. And here is the draw for the Champions League. We face Icelandic opposition in Vikingur, a tough challenge, they are a lot better than us but I have confidence we can give them a game. So if we lose we go into the Conference League, if we somehow win we will face either Astana or Derry City in the next round. Now for some rankings news and it's good news all around! The Veikkausliiga has risen another place in the league rankings We have also had a big rise in the club rankings, I guess it helps when you play your first ever season in Europe! And finally we have the coefficient rankings confirmed We rise the expected 2 places to 31st but what it says above is the whole story. We lose a Conference League spot but gain a Europa League place, I'm not sure why it doesn't say it in that news item but here it is in the Veikkausliiga rules. The Europa League spot will go to either the team ending 2nd or the Suomen Cup winners. JUNE RESULTS Now to the results, only 4 games this month so let's take a look game by game Firstly was a league game away to bottom of the table IFK Mariehamn, a game we should win and we cruised to a 3-0 win. We then played in the Last 16 of the Suomen Cup, another lower league side in our way in the form of SJK 2, the kids and reserves played and we eased to a 3-1 win. Next was a tough home tie against 3rd placed SJK, if we are to keep challenging at the top this is a game we need to win, it was an even match but we scored twice in the first half to take a 2-0 lead, SJK came back into the game in the second half and did grab a goal but we held on for a massive 2-1 win. The final game of the month was an away tie against AC Oulu, we dominated from start to finish, we did get lucky with two first half Da Costa penalties, neither looked like a penalty to me! Oulu grabbed a goal back mid-way through the second half but we grabbed a third short after and claimed a 3-1 win. An absolutely brilliant month, 4 games, 4 wins and we cement our place at the top of the league. A 2 point lead on HJK, with TPS and SJK further back. But now comes the big month, July is European qualifiers time, not just for us, but for HJK, SJK and Haka as well. We all need to do our job and progress a few rounds, firstly keep the coefficient moving in the right direction, but also continuing to improve the clubs finances, for us this is massive! We need to make some money so I can clear the negative bank balance but also get some money to hopefully persuade the board to start improving the facilities. Talking of money, we have just had a nice little surprise, the board have signed a new kit deal, 4 years worth £1.9m over that time. Bit odd this starting midway through the season but it's added £475k to our bank balance, we're still in the red, but only just! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON THREE - JULY 2026 Here we go, it's Champions League qualifying time! This month has been absolutely crazy, games galore, so there won't be much else in this update bar how the games have gone! SUOMEN CUP Firstly the cup, it was the first game of the month and we didn't play well. A 2-1 loss, a deserved loss even if we did conceded the winning goal quite late. Not the best start but we have much bigger fish to fry this month! VEIKKAUSLIIGA The league was to take a back seat this month but with my expectations in Europe planned to be shortlived, we still needed good results in the league to make sure that we are challenging for the title, or at least challenging for European qualification next season. Well it went pretty well. 4 games, 7 points, we should've done better but I had to rest and rotate my team, the players are absolutely shot and dead on their feet but they played pretty well. Somehow we've stretched our lead at the top to 3 points. SJK have done well this month, HJK have fallen away but do have a game in-hand. Now it's time for Europe!!!! CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFYING ROUND ONE Here we go! In the first qualifying round we faced Icelandic side Vikingur, a tough game, a club that on paper looked much better than us, the first leg was away and we played incredible, defended impeccably and ended up 1-0 winners! We had the advantage going in to the home leg, we had to keep it tight and see the game out, what we did though was absolutely destroy them!! Academy star Jere Turunen the main man, a goal and an assist and POTM! CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFYING ROUND TWO To be honest I never expected to get this far, so everything for here on in is a bonus. Up next is Kazakh side Astana, a team, like Vikingur, better than us but after getting through the last round I had high hopes we could get through this one. The first leg again was away and we put in one hell of a performance. We took an early lead courtesy of the man of the moment Jere Turunen but either side of half time we wobbled, a goal either side of the break put us 2-1 behind, I was still happy though, we were well in the game and even a goal down going in to the home leg would be good. My players had other thoughts though, we continued to push and push, chances came and went then, with 12 minutes to go Striker Momodou Sarr broke clear of the defence and slammed him an equaliser. We smelt blood and went for the kill, 4 minutes later Sarr ran through and got upended in the box, PENALTY!! Young winger Vikgren stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way! 3-2!!!! We saw it out with ease! WHAT A WIN!!!! And guess who was POTM!? Yes Jere Turunen! Now we come to home leg, we had the advantage but I fully expected Astana to take the game to us. We had to be on our guard but we also had to play our own game. We started on the front foot and mid-way through the first half Da Costa grabbed the opener, a header from a corner. Astana had chances, in the first half we had goalkeeper Koski to thank with a couple of amazing saves. Into the second half and Astana eventually found the breakthrough, it was 1-1 and now they had their tails up. Just like the last game though we then went on and dominated the match, Astana had no answer and we had so many chances to score. Then, with 13 minutes left, we broke down the left, it was squared to the edge of the box where Jere Turunen swept the ball into the bottom corner!!! As Astana pushed forward we hit them on the break, Turunen won a corner, it was swung in and central defender Pikkarainen hammered home the header! 3-1!!!! The whistle blew and we had done it!!! And yes Turunen was POTM AGAIN!!! A 6-3 aggregate win and somehow, we're into the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round!!! Where we'll face Norwegian side Bodo Glimt. This is incredible! This has been the most fun I've had in a save in a long time, I'd love to talk more about other stuff but at the moment this is all about the results!!!!!! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelinho Posted October 21 Share Posted October 21 Amazing run in both the league as the Champions League! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON THREE - AUGUST 2026 Let's not hang about, let's see if the European adventure continued! CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFYING ROUND THREE We faced Bodo Glimt, a game I knew would be tough but after our wins so far I had a little bit of hope, well that got dashed rather quickly! 3 first-half goals from Bodo was followed by 2 more in the second half. We were terrible, we never got going and although we did create a few chances for the first time this season we were absolutely shocking in defence. Bodo ran out 5-0 winners with an xG of 1.54! A terrible result but I can be proud of how far we've got. Into the away leg and all we had to play for was pride and we definitely did ourselves proud with a decent display. We had more chances and deserved to score a goal, unfortunately we couldn't beat their keeper, Bodo scored once in the second half to seal 1-0 win, 6-0 on aggregate. Our Champions League run had come to an end but our European adventure is far from over! Losing in the 3rd Qualifying Round of the Champions League means we drop into the Europa League, we now have one round to play, if we win, we go into the League Phase, if we lose we are guaranteed qualification to the League Phase of the Conference League. That more than anything is absolutely massive, a massive windfall of money. EUROPA LEAGUE PLAYOFF ROUND One round to go, no matter the result we knew we would have League Phase qualification to one of either the Europa League or the Conference League. Omonia Nicosia stood in our way, we were huge underdogs but I had high hopes we could beat them. The first leg was at home and we were defensively awful once again, they scored towards the end of the first half, into the second half we struggled but then it was that man Jere Turunen who looked like he would save the day, he scored twice in the second half, either side of a second Nicosia goal, to make is 2-2. We had to grab a goal....we didn't....we conceded again to lose the game 3-2! Really disappointing, we went into the away leg needing a miracle. We actually played really well, in the first half we dominated the ball, had more chances and grabbed a goal on 40 mins, left-back Frojdh scoring from the edge of the box, once again though we failed to defend and Nicosia scored from a corner right at the end of the first half. As we pushed for a goal Nicosia grabbed a second goal, the tie was over and we were out 5-3 on aggregate. As much as it's been an amazing run, especially in the Champions League, we end the qualifying round and I'm a bit annoyed, we really should've done better in the Nicosia game, our defence was so poor and, as you'll see in a bit, that's translated into our league results as well. What I've seen from this run is our squad is nowhere near good enough to be challenging on the European and domestic fronts. Big big changes are needed in the Winter but now, as we have qualified for the League Phase of the Conference League, we have the money to start doing big things at Gnistan! And here are our Conference League fixtures. A tough set of fixtures but I know we can challenge at home and we have a winnable game away in Dudelange. If we can get 7 or 8 points from those games we may have a chance of getting a playoff spot. FINANCES As I said before the finances now look really good, mainly due to getting into the Conference League but also from the gate receipts and prize money gained throughout our run through qualifying. £2.5m gained from getting into the League Phase plus £342k for getting through the four qualifying rounds. We've also made around £200k in gate receipts, more than the whole of last season! And this now puts the bank balance way way out of the red!!! £2.9m in the bank!! BOOM!!!! So I have two choices, the first choice is I could ask the board for more money to spend on players and on wages or I could ask the board to start improving the base of the club, the facilities, etc. For me that is a much better option. Yes we do need to improve the side but if we can improve the foundations of the club we can bring in better players through our academy and improve the players we already have. So I went to the board and, well just look! Massive upgrades! But the biggest piece of news is this... We're turning professional! We were the only semi-pro club in the league, from November we won't be! VEIKKAUSLIIGA RESULTS Now to the league results and as I said before, we have really struggled with the sheer amount of games. 4 games, 5 points, we were really poor against Turku, then we defended awfully against VPS before coming from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 with 2 injury time goals. I then watched as we couldn't hit a barn door again bottom of the table IFK Mariehamn, we then played a home tie against rivals HJK, once again we defended poorly but it was a late goal that sealed an absolutely massive 3-2 win! And that win has just about kept us in touch, SJK have been sensational lately with 4 wins in their last 5. They are in pole position to win a first league title since 2015. We have a mountain to climb but we know we can do it. 1 game of the regular season to go before a 5-game Championship Group. We have to end in those European spots! OTHER FINNISH TEAMS IN EUROPE SJK A short run for the league leaders as the lost on penalties to Dnipro in the 2nd Qualifying Round. HAKA The Suomen Cup winners entered in the 2nd Qualifying Round and were handed a tough draw against CSKS Sofia, they were outclassed and lost 3-0 on aggregate. HJK An incredible run for HJK, they got through 3 rounds of Conference League meaning they had a shot of getting into the League Phase. St Gallen was a tough game but I thought they could do it. The didn't! So it's just us left in Europe this season! SUMMER WINDOW TRANSFERS And finally, two new players join, both young and with a view to the future but good enough to stay in the first-team. JESSE TUOVINEN - STRIKER Signed to replace Nuno Da Costa who will retire at the end of the season, a really decent looking striker but he does need a bit of work. FELIPE CHANG - GOALKEEPER Koski really hadn't done well this season but we didn't have anyone decent to replace him. Change comes in as Koski's back-up...for now. He will get his chances. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON THREE - 2026 YOUTH INTAKE It's that time of year, where we all hope and pray for a gem to come through our youth intake. The preview was odd, it was classed as a golden generation but the position ratings were D at best! Which way would it go? Well just look at this!!!! Wowzers!!!! 4 elite talents, 4 top talents BUT the big question is, are any of them actually any good?!?!! EERO RONKKO - LEFT BACK The highest rated player in the intake, already 2.5* current ability and you can see why! This lad looks an absolute gem, "professional" personality, brilliant work rate, determination and bravery. He is quick, good at marking and tackling, I could go on!! My first-choice Left Back Olander really hasn't been great this season, this lad is going straight into the first-team MATHIAS MALM - NOT SURE WHAT POSITION!!! A really odd one. He is classed as a natural central defender but at 5 foot 10" is that his best position? He can also play as a CM, AM and a Striker! The fact he has 10 for finishing tells me he's better up front than in defence. He is nowhere near ready for first-team football so for now will go into the B-team. TIMO NURMINEN - RIGHT WINGER Another one who is highly rated but nowhere near first-team standard. He is quick and has good determination and flair but some of his mentals are really lacking for a wide-man he has really poor crossing and dribbling. Add to that his bravery and work rate are low for what I want in a player he has some serious improvement! He will go into the B-team and we'll see how he gets on. JERE PASANEN - STRIKER The fourth elite talent and another one that really doesn't look good enough to me, again he is quick and has good bravery and determination but he needs a lot of improvement, another one who will go into the B-team. And here are the four top talents. Again none of them are good enough at the moment, all will go into the B-team So on the face of it, it looked fantastic but after a deep dive it's not as good as I expected. HOWEVER we do have one absolute worldie who I will be playing for sure! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON THREE - SEPTEMBER 2026 Well the intake came towards the end of September and all the games were already over but didn't want to put them in the same post, hence why this post has come very quickly after! I won't lie, this is toughest period I've had in my three seasons at Gnistan, July was epic with the run in the Champions League but league form suffered and the players looked absolutely shot, as the season draws to a close we really need to start turning our form around. The league title is looking like a tough ask, especially as SJK are playing so well but we need to end in the top two to guarantee a European place for the 27/28 season and also missing out on the European playoff which involves 3rd to 7th place in the league. Well after a wobbly start we have somehow turned it around! 4 games played which start with a really poor defeat to TPS, we followed that up with a solid 1-1 draw at home to HJK but we really needed to win the match. After that I went back to the drawing board and make some tweaks to my 4231 tactic. The left back was switched from an IWB to a FB (s). I also pushed the two DMs into CMs, the left-sided kept as a DLP but changed to a defence duty and the right-sided player to a BWM (d). As you can see the results changed, a solid 1-0 win over Inter Turku who at that point has overtaken us into 2nd and then a 3-2 win over Ilves, there are some game where we look like we do not know how to defend, that is something that needs to change next season! So with 2 games to go we sit in 2nd, 3 points behind SJK and 3 clear of HJK in 3rd. Our goal difference is also better than all of those around us. Here are our final 2 games of the season. If we can beat TPS it all comes down to that final match against SJK, as long we are in touching distance of them we know, if we beat them, we somehow, against all odds win the league!!!! We've had one Europa Conference League games, away to Norrkoping and it didn't go well. A 2-0 defeat, we never really turned up, it was always going to be a tough game but I expected us to play better than we did. Some more facility upgrade news, the board have agreed to improve the youth recruitment. Finally something different from me. I really should pay more attention to certain parts of FM! I always knew you could see attribute progression but never ever delved into it, only just realised you can change how far back it compares attributes on a player, if you select 6 months, 12 months or all time it tells you how many points each attribute has increased by! This is something I am definitely going to be using more often, especially for those intake players who I want to improve, now I know I can look over this screen and see where they are improving and where they maybe need some focus on. Below is the screen and the improvement in 2024 intake star Jere Turunen. As you can see his mentals have had some serious improvement since he joined 2 years ago, but a lot of that improvement has happened in the past few months, mainly since he started playing more first-team matches. His only real decline has been in free-kick taking which I'm not overly fussed about, he's also dropped a point in his determination. The main focus now is on his technicals, I have him focuses on his passing at the moment, I want him to play as an AM (s) so his passing needs to be better. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 (edited) SEASON THREE - END OF 2026 SEASON REVIEW I've been waiting and waiting for this season to end, the domestic season finished mid-October but I wanted to get the end of season review screens and budgets through before I posted the update, well it's now early-December and with a week until the League fixtures for the 2027 season a week away I still haven't had them, I'm not sure if it's because of the Conference League fixtures but I can't wait any longer without saying how the season ended. EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE After losing the opening game to Norrkoping we had to get back on track and with our next three games at home we had to start winning. Well it went amazingly! 7 points from the 3 games, absolutely massive! This has also seriously bumped up the finances again. Just over £1m in prize money and £200k in gate receipts, the attendances are higher because we are playing our League Phase games at the Finnish National Stadium, a 36k capacity ground! 2 games left and we are well and truly in with a shot of a playoff spot. We need 1 more win...I think! VEIKKAUSLIIGA Now we turn to the league, 2 games left and 3 points behind SJK in 2nd place. The first game was at home to TPS and scraped a 2-1 win, a win is a win though and the biggest news was SJK had lost. This meant we had overtaken SJK at the top of the league on goal difference but our final game of the season was SJK away. A huge game, if we avoid defeat we win the league, if we lose, SJK claim the title and we could end 3rd if HJK win their game. Well we went to SJK and played awfully, SJK ran out 3-0 winners, we had lost the title on the final game of the season. Luckily for us though HJK had lost their match, this meant we had ended 2nd, this means Europa League qualifier for the 27/28 season. It sounds weird but in a way I'm happy, it shows you we have some serious hard work ahead to keep challenging. I wanted this save to be a challenge and winning the league last season made me think it was going to be easy. Playing in Europe and in domestic games is going to prove to be very difficult, this squad needs a major overhaul if we are to deal with the extra games. This season we have really struggled since the European qualifiers start. 14 games, 19 points in the league. KEY MEN/PLAYER AWARDS As I've not had the end of season club player awards I have to improvise! There is only one place to start and that's 2024 intake star Jere Turunen, I've spoke enough about him already this season but he has ended this campaign fantastically. He also ends as the Veikkausliiga midfielder of the year and he ends second in the Viekkausliiga player and young player of the year! And here is the whole squad, if/when we get the end of season review through I'll post something! NEXT SEASON Now we look forward to next season, we have our final Conference League games to come and then hopefully the players will get a break before the Liigacup group stage starts! It's clear we've tailed off domestically since the European games have started and we now need to look at ways to get the squad ready for another domestic challenge, whilst trying to qualify for the League Phase of the Europa League or Conference League. I want to focus on 4 or 5 positions this Winter. Firstly, we really need a new Left Back, Olander has been great but he hasn't improved at the rate the club has and hasn't performed that well this season. We have Ronkko who came through this years academy but he can't do it all on his own. Defensively we've been a shambles this season, although we signed two new central defenders we have still conceded way too many goal, what I have noticed is all our decent CBs are left-footed so a new right-footed CB is imperative Our star DM Virta has said he is leaving at the end of the 2027 season, this means we have big shoes to fill. Bar Virta our DMs have really underperformed this season, we have lost Agbo after his contract expired so a new DM is desperately needed, maybe even two new DMs! A new Striker is also needed. Sarr has been great but is declining, Da Costa is retiring and whilst we have numerous young player who are pushing for a spot in the first-team squad, I need to find a Striker who is going to score 20-30 goals a season. And finally, Mabinda at right back has been absolutely fantastic but has struggled with the sheer number of games this season, we have Taimi but he is nowhere near good enough and then we have 2025 academy star Honkanen who can play right back but is nowhere near ready to be Mabinda's back-up. So I will also be looking for a new RB. Lots of work to do! Now we are turning professional I am expecting that I will need to start offering proper full-time contracts to players, this will mean more money spent in wages. Whilst I haven't had the budgets yet I am expecting a sizeable increase in the wage budget, this is going to be needed if we are to improve this squad. I will also be looking to ship out quite a few players, we have a lot of players who need more game-time, some will stay in the B-team, some will be loaned out. There are also numerous players in the first-team who haven't performed well this season, they will be sold once I have the players brought in who I've mentioned above. This season has been great, a proper challenge in the league whilst progressing in Europe, but the biggest thing this season is the finances. We end the season with just over £2m in the bank. We've made £4m in prize money from our run in Europe and just over £500k in gate receipts. I am now beginning to build the foundations of the club and this is hopefully what I'll be doing more of over the next season. Edited October 21 by TheLutterworthFox 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON THREE We've got the end of season review!!!! MOMENTS TO REMEMBER THE FINANCES Green all the way! Clearly the prize money has increased but it's all good to see the increase in matchday revenue and corporate/hospitality, we've also over doubled our sponsorship money. BEST XI I'm not sure why a random keeper is there! Bar that it's pretty self-explanatory. Only Adalsteinsoon (CB) and Frojdh (LB) averaging under 7. THE ACCOLADES What I can't believe from this is Jere Turunen didn't end as player of young player of the year! Striker Momodou Saar somehow ends as player of the year. He only made 11 starts in the league with 24 starts and 16 sub appearances overall. 15 goals over the season. Right Winger Pauli Katajamaki takes the young player of the year award. A brilliant season for the lad with 13 goals and 8 assists in 36 starts. Still no budgets though! Now I can prepare for next season.....that after I've played the final two Conference League games! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted October 21 Author Share Posted October 21 SEASON FOUR - DECEMBER 2026 A very quick update as we have now played the final two Europa Conference League games in the League Phase. First up was Dudelange away, a game I fully expected to win and we played incredible to win 5-0!!!! This guaranteed us a playoff spot but now we had a serious chance of ending in the top 8, meaning we bypass the playoff round! We faced Maccabi Tel-Aviv away, a really tough game and I felt we had very little chance of winning. Well we pulled off an absolutely stunning result. Katajamaki and Sarr scoring to seal a 2-1 win!!! And that meant we had snuck into the top 8!!! No playoff round for us, we go straight into the Last 16!!!! This is absolutely massive, I predicted we'd get 7 or 8 points, we ended with 13! What this also does is massively bump up the nations coefficient ranking! It's currently 5.750 for the season, the highest of any season so far. Currently though it only means we move up one place in the rankings for next season. Finally, a couple of other pieces of news. We've eventually had the budgets for next season and they are bloody good! Clearly it's been helped by the boost in the finances. Before the start of December we had just under £2m in the bank, with money made from our Conference League wins and £1.5m in sponsorship money, the bank balance now stands at £4.3m! Transfer money more than likely won't need to be spent but the wages will. As I said previously we need to improve the side. And finally, we've had the draw for the Liigacup group stage. I'm sure we get the same teams every season! Once again we get HJK and Inter Turku! My next update won't be until this competition starts or when we play our Conference League games! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted Tuesday at 14:31 Author Share Posted Tuesday at 14:31 SEASON FOUR - TRANSFERS AND STAFF CHANGES Welcome to a new season, it's been short pre-season, mainly because the Conference League games only finished just under 4 weeks ago! Luckily I had my transfers already sorted but also, I've made some changes to my staffing. It's been helped with the fact the board, without me asking, increased the numbers of staff I could have. We can have 3 more coaches and a set piece coach! We've also had big increases to the medical and recruitment departments. I won't go through them all but here are some of the new members who have come in. FRODE KIPPE - COACH A massive upgrade, our defence has been really poor the past season so to get a coach with 17 for defending is huge. He also has good mental attributes. JUHO STAFSULA - SET PIECE COACH For the first time in the save I can have a specific coach for set pieces. This lad was the best I could get. Only 11 for set pieces but it's better than nothing. PEDER LINDSETMO - FITNESS COACH Peder is the first proper fitness coach we've had. 15 for fitness coaching is fantastic, his mental's are also brilliant. ALEX JENSEN - GOALKEEPING COACH And a decent coach for goalkeeping comes in. Some really good upgrades to the coaching team and, as you can see, it's massively improved our rating compared to the rest of the league. Top in every department! Let's hope this gives us some marginal gains. Now to the transfers, in the last posts I pinpointed a few areas to improve, so far we have four new players and here they are: WILLE PERSSON - CENTRAL MIDFIELD I did say I wanted a DM but couldn't find the right player for the right wage. Persson can play as a DM but needs some training to make him natural in that role. Overall though he looks a quality player who is a decent upgrade on Agbo who left in the Winter. ANDREAS POULSEN - LEFT BACK The left back area was one position I really needed to improve, Olander had been my first-choice left back since I started the save but was poor last season, he has now left the club, joining Lincoln City for £31.5k. Poulsen comes in as his replacement, miles better and will be a great mentor to Ronkko who came through last season's intake. ELISON MAKOLLI - RIGHT BACK/CENTRE BACK I needed a new right back to challenge Mabinda in that role, we pretty much only had Mabinda as a decent option. This lad is more suited to be a CB but also the ability to play RB. JONE NYGARD BERG - CENTRAL DEFENDER The final signing, so far, is a new central defender. This was one area that really needed improvements and I really like this lad. Only 21, so plenty of time to grow but he has all the attributes to be a top CB at this level. I always look for positioning, heading, marking and tackling and he has above 10 in all those areas, alongside some good physicals and good determination. Four signings so far, we still need a new Striker but currently I am struggling to find the right player, we also have a little issue. Now we are professional we have to offer all our "non-contract" players new deals and the minimum wage we can offer is £240 p/wk. A massive increase in the wages and I've had to move our transfer budget over to the wages, we've gone from spending just short of £7k p/wk to nearly £11k p/wk this Winter. Luckily the bank balance is very very healthy (£3.92m) and it isn't projected to drop at all over the season, in fact it's predicted to rise by nearly £2m, not sure why! The aim now is to try and find a Striker, possibly on loan and then start asking the board to continue to improve the facilities. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted Tuesday at 18:12 Author Share Posted Tuesday at 18:12 SEASON FOUR - JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2027 The season starts now, with the Liigacup group stage and after the debacle of how we performed in it last season I am going all out to win it! But before that, one more signing and I've eventually grabbed myself a Striker! NICLAS SOHL - SEASON LONG LOAN FROM IF BROMMAPOJKARNA I've spent ages trying to find someone, the players I wanted were asking for too much money, so I eventually settled on a loanee. He may not look amazing but compared to Momodou Sarr, who is our best striker, then you'll see he's a massive upgrade. Better is all areas bar his speed and by a long way as well. Hopefully he is the man who can fire us to domestic glory on all fronts and hopefully help us in Europe. Now to the results, we have a 5-game group stage to play in the Liigacup and it went really well. LIIGA CUP A 100% record over the 5 games and some fantastic performances, once again though we were leaky in defence in some games but luckily we scored more than they did!!! Wins over HJK and Inter Turku the big results, this shows we can match it and have a decent shot at challenging for the league title this season. And it will be Veikkausliiga champs SJK in the semi finals. EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE LAST 16 DRAW We go into the Last 16 draw as a seeded team after ending in the top 8 but we've been handed a tricky draw. We will face Austrian side Rapid Wien, a really tricky tie but you'd expect that at this time of the competition, we will go into the match as huge underdogs but I have faith we can give them a decent match. IN OTHER NEWS I always like to have a look over how the other Veikkausliiga teams are doing and if they have improved anything within the club, what I didn't expect to see were clubs actually regressing! Both Inter Turku and FC Lahti have changed from professional to semi-professional! A real surprise. That's all the news from any of the top tier clubs so far, it's pretty quiet but I'm hoping, as the coefficient rankings increased and clubs get better chances of going further in Europe, the clubs will gain more money and therefore be able to start building the foundations of their club. Talking of building foundations, our training and youth facility upgrades have eventually happened meaning the facility rating for both has increased to "Average". I want to request another upgrade as we have £3.5m in the bank but so far the option isn't there. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gadedk Posted Tuesday at 21:19 Share Posted Tuesday at 21:19 I have been following from the start and just wanna say you're doing great! I like your updates you do. The things is really starting to turn now with more money in the bank, I'm looking forward to see how it's gonna go over the next couple of seasons. Good luck against Rapid Wien! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted Tuesday at 21:48 Author Share Posted Tuesday at 21:48 29 minutes ago, gadedk said: I have been following from the start and just wanna say you're doing great! I like your updates you do. The things is really starting to turn now with more money in the bank, I'm looking forward to see how it's gonna go over the next couple of seasons. Good luck against Rapid Wien! Thanks mate, I really appreciate the kind words and I'm delighted you're enjoying the updates! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted Wednesday at 12:21 Author Share Posted Wednesday at 12:21 SEASON FOUR - MARCH 2027 We're into the Last 16 of the Conference League, a massive achievement in our first ever European season. Rapid Wien stand in our way of a place in the Quarters finals. The first leg was away and we didn't start well, we conceded twice in the opening 20 mins but a goal from Momodou Sarr after half an hour grabbed us a goal back. Into the second half, Rapid dominated the match but we held firm and with 9 minutes to go left back Samuel Frojdh scored a with a lovely shot from the edge of the box. The game ended and we had got a brilliant 2-2 draw. We now had the home leg and I had confidence we could get past them. We played really well, had more of the ball and some decent chances but failed to find a way through. Then, as the game looked to be heading to extra-time we got dealt a killer blow, a deep cross was met by Gregoritsch who nodded home to put Rapid ahead. We had nothing to give, we couldn't create anything, the whistle blew and we were out. An absolutely gutting way to go out but I can look back in pride at how we've done in our first season in Europe, we got to the 3rd Qualifying round of the Champions League, ended in the top 8 in the League Phase of the Conference League and only lost narrowly to a much better team than us. And with that we've made a total of just under £5.5m in prize money. Now to domestic results, we had eased through the Liigacup group stage and now had a semi-final against last seasons Veikkausliiga champs SJK. We had home advantage after ending top of our group but SJK were favourites to win. The game didn't start well, SJK scoring after only 6 minutes, Laine sweeping home after a cross was missed by all of my defence! We got ourselves back into the game when Latonen was fouled in the box, midfielder Hanninen stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way to level the tie. After that it got scrappy, we had more of the chances but SJK defended well. The game ended and it was to go to penalties. Where Koski in goal saved SJK's first two penalties! We scored both of ours and all we had to do now was stay calm, SJK scored, we scored, SJK scored and then it came down to wide-man Vikgren, if he scored we win, he stepped up and GOAL! Gnistan win 4-2 on penalties, putting us into the final. Where we faced KuPS, they had beaten Inter Turku on penalties in the other semi-final, it was a tough tie but we were favourites and we had to win. We started like the better team, Stjopin scoring with a shot from the edge of the box on 13 minutes, we huffed and puffed but failed to blow KupS' house down, numerous chances came and went but it took until the 85th minute for us to double our lead, a cross from the right was met by Stjopin to score his second of the game and put us 2-0 up, all we had to do now was defend well and we failed to do that. KuPS scored pretty much straight the way to get them back in the tie. We played more cautiously, tried to waste time and it worked a treat, 6 minutes injury time came and went, the whistle blew and we had done it! LIIGACUP WINNERS!! A great way to start the season, now all we have to do is take that into the Veikkausliiga! Which starts next month but here is the season preview and it makes for interesting reading. Somehow we are forecast to end 8th! For a team that in 3 season have ended 2nd, 1st and 2nd that is very low down, clearly the odds from 3rd down to 10th are really close showing how competitive the league is but I fully expect us to be challenging at the top of the league with HJK and SJK. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLutterworthFox Posted Wednesday at 13:48 Author Share Posted Wednesday at 13:48 SEASON FOUR - APRIL 2027 April marks the beginning of the Veikkausliiga season and also the closure of the Winter transfer window. We have done no more business since I made my transfers earlier in the Window but, compared to normal, there's actually been a bit of business done by other Finnish clubs. For the second time in four seasons HJK make a player sale for a relatively large fee, young Striker David Ezeh moves to Juventus for just short of £1m Bar that it's all very small deals but it's nice to see the number of fee-paying deals increasing. We've also had our season ticket sales confirmed and disappointingly it hasn't changed from last season. Only 78 sold, really frustrating but I'm sure it will pick up soon. Now to the results and my word it's been a good start! Four games in the league, all wins and no goals conceded! Have we eventually sorted our defensive issues out? By far the biggest win was a 3-0 away victory over HJK, they have started the season really poorly but to go to their place and smash them gives me confidence we can be at the top at the end of the season. As you can see the stats show me dominated the match. And that puts us top of the pile already. Just look how bladly HJK have started! We've also had one game in the Suomen Cup, a home tie against lower league side I-HK. I played the reserves, we also had five intake players in the first XI with one on the bench, this was a huge morale booster for some of my fringe players, but especially for loanee Niclas Sohl who so far hadn't scored in six games. He scored twice in an 8-0 but it was the performances of some of those intake players that really pleased me. We had first goals for Winger Olli Mohamed and Striker Timo Nurminen and an amazing player of the match display from right back by Kalle Honkanen. The future is bright!! The month ended with awards for myself as manager of the month and also a player of the month award to defensive midfielder Eemeli Virta, such a shame he is currently leaving at the end of this season. He is so good! We also had four players in the Veikkausliiga team of the month. I think that's the most players we've had in a team of the month in the save so far. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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