Jtomsett11

August 2022 Well, it's been a tough few weeks work-wise, illness-wise and game-wise, leaving me only able to update you on my progress now. August had just the two league games, both at home, and we dominated both, but unfortunately could only pick up the 4 points. I'm already a little concerned with our ability to break teams down. Of the 22 shots, 11 were from headers (corners) which our attacking wing backs seem to be winning a lot of, to no avail. You can argue we should have scored, but really we're not creating high quality chances here. Against Unionistas, we were a lot better, creating an extra clear cut chances and burying two well made goals with overloads in the box. However, 27 shots for an xG of just over 3 means we're taking a lot of low quality shots again. Time will tell, but I think we've got some tweaking to do tactically before our domination turns into goal scoring. Ahead of the Linares game coming up next, I'm tweaking things to see if we can do more. It's quite a while since I had to think in detail tactically (due to using instant result in my last career and having a very successful tactic prior to that that just seemed to 'work' in Scandinavia) and I'm sure I'm making school-boy errors here. My thoughts are to shift another midfielder further forward as we haven't seemed to need any defensive cover yet. September's fixtures:

Incredible journey and I understand the need for a break, having hit the lack of motivation on mine back in September! Good luck on 23!

Pre-season Really we've only faced one decent side, Vitesse. Overall, I'm still pretty happy with the results. We're pretty solid defensively, but we do sometimes struggle to open up sides and that's the concern going into the season proper. As the pre-season has gone on I've experimented with changing from two DMs to one CM and one DM to two CMs. I think a lot will depend on how superior we are to the opposition in the league. If we're needing to break down teams, then having essentially just three forward players with the support of the wing backs is probably going to restrict us in the opposition box.

Staff revamp One of the things I put quite a bit of effort in is ensuring that my coaching teams, medical teams and recruitment teams are as top notch as they can be for the club at that level. It feels quite 'gamey', as the staff that clubs start with often have attributes that don't make them the best coach or best physio, for example, but they're employed on large contracts and have been in the role for a while. It's therefore quite easy to upgrade across the board for relatively little financial cost. The impact of a better coaching staff, or better medical team is not something I've ever looked in to, so I just assume it makes training and medical care more effective. With Depor, I want to do something slightly different, and that is to retain as many players as possible on my staff. The reason for this is we have a number of current players who are pretty old. It would be great to employ them, allow them to develop (hopefully) and see if we can do this successfully. I start with three staff members with ties to the club. Fran is our HOYD. He has a decent personality, but I'm not exactly blown away by his stats. However, for our current position in Spanish football, he's pretty good. I've not gone all the way back, but Fran was a big part of the successful Depor side. Manuel Pablo played more recently, so is associated more with the worsening situation for Depor over the years. He's a decent enough U19 manager. In the long term it would be good if his technicals developed for training purposes. And finally, Dario Cotelo, who I wouldn't say had the best career as a goalkeeper with 20 total appearances, but he came through the youth ranks so he counts! I immediately set out looking for anyone associated with the club. So close! Probably too much to expect Valeron to join us at this point. Instead, I've strengthened the rest of the staff team around our homegrown talent. I've kept the medical and recruitment teams a little light so we don't tie down average staff to long contracts, and hopefully if we see any retirements we'll be recruiting from our own team soon.

Yeah, with less time to commit and a desire to not use instant result, I needed something that would prove relatively easy to pick up and play but would offer a long term challenge. I feel that Depor probably do that, as to win La Liga again I'll have to put in quite a bit of time and effort!

Squad planning continued - some old faces! Now, I'm not completely set on this formation. I've had some mixed success in my 4 friendlies so far, including a turgid 0-0 that made me re-think having two DMs. The only two players not in the squad and registered are Mendes and Isi in the midfield. I could move Mendes to this squad, but I don't think he'll get much game time, while Isi isn't registered and I don't have space for him. That's probably an issue as he's a new signing and might be annoyed if we don't select him. This is what the tactic looks like so far. The idea is that my wingbacks push up, creating overloads that we also exploit with our wide centre backs. We should also retain the ball well with a pretty solid back 6/7 as we build up slowly. I'm going to wait until the end of pre-season before I go any deeper than that as I'm tweaking each game as I see things I really don't like (such as no shots for a whole half). The starting eleven as per the squad depth above, looks like this: GK - Mackay He actually started out at Deportivo, but didn't make a first team appearance (29 for the B Team) until he joined again last season. LWB - Antonito Another who started at Deportivo, but never made the grade whilst the club was successful. He also re-joined last season. RWB - Carnero Yep, you guessed it, he started at Deportivo! Carnero even played 5 times in 2009/10. Average age so far just over 34! CB x 3 - Lapena, Martinez and Granero Our first player to still be in his 20s... followed by two old souls again. None have played for Deportivo in their junior years. Martinez is reasonably well suited to the wide centre back role, but Granero isn't quite as suited but Lapena really isn't suited to it so he'll play in the middle. DM: Bergantinos An absolute Deportivo veteran,he's played in La Liga and La Liga 2 and is still a quality player at 37 years young. By the way I normally don't have players over 30, so this is a real departure from the norm for me! CM: Villares I really like the look of this guy as he's an all-rounder. Is he my roaming playmaker of choice? Probably not, but at this level he's probably fine (I have no real idea yet what this level looks like!) He's been at Deportivo for 4 years. AML and AMR - Ibai and Narro Ibai looks quality from a technical point of view and I'm looking forward to utilising his dead-ball ability. He clocks in at 32 years on the planet, so is pretty young compared to the defenders. Narro has had a good start to pre-season so is ahead of others in the position. He's the youngest starter. We have a lot of options on the wing! ST - Quiles He looks a decent striker and we've just signed him to a new deal as he's only 27. His age also means he can run, which will be useful! I plan to show some of the younger players as they play more, otherwise it's death by screenshot! Next up for me is sorting out the staffing situation, as I always find in Football Manager that you can rapidly improve the staff in every department at every club without fail and without too much effort if you're willing to put some time in. We've also got some Deportivo legends on the staffing team who I'm very keen to keep in their roles.

Squad depth Having played through the entirety of FM21 with Jersey Bulls, I've forgotten that feeling of inheriting a squad of unknown players and having no real idea who they are or where they play. It's initially quite daunting. I can see quite quickly that some of our highest rated players are pretty old. Gomez, Martinez, Carnero, Bergantinos and Mackay are all the wrong side of 30 and some are very close to retirement realistically. This looks like a decent squad to win promotion followed by quite a lot of refreshing being required. I'm going to try and use the squad depth and work out whether I'm playing 3-5-2 or 3-4-2-1. Looking at this initially, with one striker and a tonne of inverted wingers, I think the latter is more likely. We also appear to have quite a bit of depth and talent in the B team and U19s. B Team I particularly like the look of Ares, although he's another inverted winger, Puerto and Barcia, but that's purely from potential without looking at their attributes. U19s Again, a few with potential here. The B team don't seem to have any fixtures, but the U19s do, so I'll have to manage this well considering the size of the B team squad and the age of some with good potential. I don't want them stagnating.

The eyebrows have been raised! Firstly, this is a team that is way too big for this level. These are our facilities, which are a very good starting point (bar youth recruitment). We're also hot favourites to win the league, and without me touching the squad, no fewer than 7 of our side are in the Dream Eleven. This should be a walk in the park, but then it should also be a walk in the park for Deportivo in real life and they currently sit sixth. We're well set financially, but the projections are for the money to evaporate over the year. Our wage budget currently sits at £89,000 a week but we are using most of that. We don't want to be sitting in this league too long.

So pleased to see you win the champions league! I've been struggling to play any FM recently and therefore lacking time to keep up with the forum, but I have dropped in at the perfect time! Are you still motivated for more success?

The what and the how I took this image from the club's ticket website. The main aim of this save is to get Deportivo back into La Liga and to improve on their one League, two cup and three super-cup total trophy count. I imagine this is going to involve some severe balancing of the budgets, or a very quick ascent to La Liga, or most likely, probably both. I like to keep a tight financial reign on a club, so this shouldn't be a problem. I'd love to get back to the Deportivo of the 1990s and 2000s, with Brazilian world cup stars and big European transfers pulled off, but hopefully on a more sustainable footing. Expect a focus on youth initially (not necessarily home-grown), but a move into the markets if we become more successful. I also want to try out new things tactically. I've played with a 4-4-2 or 4-2-4 or occasionally a 4-5-1 since FM10, so it would be good to try, say, a back 3! Beyond this I'm keeping my aims fairly limited. Time is not my friend anymore, so I'm not going to commit to attribute tracking as I have done in my Jersey save. That's not to say it won't appear at some point!

The who Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña Commonly known as: Deportivo La Coruña Deportivo La Coruna (I shall be ignoring the tilde, apologies my Spanish friends! However, I shall place emphasis on the 'n' when I say it in my head to make up for it), also known as Deportivo, or Depor, were founded in 1906 and currently play in Primera Federación, the third tier of Spanish football. This is a far-cry from their most recent success, as alluded to in my above post, which began with their Promotion to the top tier in 1990-91. Prior to that season, their highest finish was 2nd in 1949-50 and they had not won the Copa del Rey. In just their third season back in the top flight, they finished second in La Liga, following that up with another second place in 1994-95 and ending their 99 year wait for a major trophy by winning the Copa del Rey. They beat Valencia 2-1 in the final. They won the cup again in 2001-02 ("El Centenariazo", the 100th year of Copa del Rey, beating the Galacticos of Madrid in Madrid), following on from their maiden La Liga in 1999-2000 and finished 3rd in the league twice in a row before an 8th place finish in 2004-05 spelled the end for Javier Irureta, who had managed since 1999 and taken Depor to new heights. However, things were about to get a lot worse than 8th place in La Liga. The success of the late 90s and early 2000s had been bankrolled by Augusto Cesar Lendoiro who became president of the club in 1988. More specifically, they had been bankrolled through a series of loans. He convinced Mauro Silva, Bebeto and Donato, a trio of Brazilians to join the club and they helped take the club to within a spot kick of winning the league in 1993-94. In 1999-2000, it was playmaker Djalminha and Maakay who had been attracted to the club and helped win the league. Maakay got 22 goals that year. By 2007, the superstars had been replaced by youngsters who couldn't achieve Champions League football, and so began the decline with the club losing millions for every year they didn't qualify for the promised land. By 2013, and their second relegation back in the second tier (after relegation in 2011 and promotion in 2012), the Spanish Treasury were involved, demanding Lendoiro resign by Christmas to allow the club's administrators to keep the club from being wound up. At this point Deportivo's debts were around £160 million. The new president, Tino Fernandez, paid off the loans owed to the government and halved debt in 5 years, but the local fanbase were unhappy with constant hiring and firing, including 3 managers in 2017-18 alone as their most recent 4 year stay in La Liga was ended. Fernandez was replaced with Zas in in 2019, but he lasted just 3 months. New president Vidal then swapped debt for shares with bank Abanca - they now owned some 78% of the club. Each season they remain out of the top flight requires further investment; Almeda were rumoured to have invested £30 million in 2021 just to keep the club afloat as they fell further into the third tier. All in all, this is a club that has fallen far from their peak. What hasn't fallen is the support; they have over 20000 season ticket holders even in the third tier and the Deportivistas as they are known, are probably key to their revival in a football manager sense. Large crowds equal money equals budget. As you can see from their history below, a return to the top-flight and a consistent stay there could spell their most successful period yet: they're currently at rock-bottom.

The why My first proper memories of Champions League football are of Manchester United overturning their deficit against Juventus in the Semi-finals with a Roy Keane-inspired comeback, followed by their victory against Bayern Munich with those late goals from Sheringham and Solksjaer. I was entranced by the drama and sheer occasion of the Champions League. Closely following these games in my memory is the two-legged Leeds vs Deportivo affair in 2001. At the time, Deportivo were the Champions of La Liga and had belitted Leeds in the build up, with midfielder Victor stating that Leeds "were the weakest team left in the competition". Leeds went on to win 3-0, with Deportivo only managing to get 2 back in the return leg and Leeds going through. At this time and at a tender age, I believed Deportivo to be Spanish giants of similar ilk to Madrid and Barcelona and at the time, Valencia. They beat United twice in the group stage in the next season, while they were extremely close to making the final in 2004 against Mourinho's Porto , where they ultimately fell to a penalty for a 1-0 aggregate loss in the semis. Diego Tristan. Roy Makaay. Excellent players I throughly enjoyed watching. Although I was aware that they had fallen on hard times, I had no idea how bad things had gotten. In discussing teams for FM23, I mentioned to a friend that I didn't want to have to work as hard as I had with Jersey Bulls on FM21, but still wanted some sort of redemption story to keep me motivated by a single club. He suggested Deportivo La Coruna. My initial reaction was "that's not really a challenge enough", thinking of them as still being in La Liga. It was only when I took a deeper look that I realised that my then-burgeoning interest in football at the end of the century coincided with Depor's most successful period, at odds with large chunks of their past and their most recent history. My impression of Deportivo La Coruna as a Spanish giant couldn't really be further from the truth. For me, a successful save on football manager is about the story. In the past, I'd discuss progress while driving in the car as though I were the host of the local radio show analysing the clubs progression under my managers helm. Having started posting on the career update for a journeyman career in Scandinavia for FM21, I then felt the draw that was the story of Jersey Bulls. It pulled me in until I felt I had to play as them and write about my progress with them. I'm feeling a similar draw now. Time isn't on my side anymore, and I want to avoid instant result to immerse myself more deeply this time, but I'm committed to seeing whether I can bring Depor back to La Liga and back to the success of the 2000s.

Thank you both! I am planning a save which is slightly less gruelling but equally interesting. I've started on the BETA, so I'm just going to see how things play out for the next week and then hopefully I'll be writing again!

As you can probably tell, I never made it any further as work took over my life slightly! Thanks to everyone who followed, posted, upvoted or took an interest in this journey! Although I'm slightly sad I didn't play any further, I feel I achieved my original aims and can now move on to FM23 as I have some (limited) time available to play again! BackTheBulls!