Moonshine

FK Csíkszereda February/March 2023 With a two month break before the end of the first phase of Liga II, I thought I'd combine those last four games in Feb and March into one update. We played a hell of a New Year - three wins, just the one disappointing loss, and we finished the first half of the season in 2nd - making our way to the Champions Group, and a chance to make it to Liga I at the first time of asking! A reminder: we play 10 more games for the season, home and away against the other member of the top 6. Our record against them to date is mixed however - two wins, against Selimbar and Corvinul Hunedoara, a draw with Unirea Slobozia, and losses against FC Arges and Concordia Chiajna. But maybe, just maybe, we can make it? If @Muttley84 is correct Selimbar and Corvinul can't actually go up this season - so we've every chance. Let's see. Transfers: Got rid of a couple of dead wood players in the second team. Sadly one of our best players in Salvatore Mannone will be leaving at the end of the season. He wouldn't sign a new contract, and he's off to make three times what we could pay him in the Hungarian Premier Division. I can't complain.

With some frankly insane youth facilities, I'm not too surprised to see this... but it's exciting nonetheless!

FK Csíkszereda December 2023 Two draws, both of which I should have won. Hum ho. You'll note the strange orange and blue tinting of the league table, and the 'Pl' next to the bottom three... Well that's because Liga II has an interesting rule where the league splits in two after 19 games. The top six - which of course includes us - play each other home and away, a further ten games, to decide the promotion spots. Two of the six go up automatically, while two more go into a playoff with the teams finishing 13th and 14th in Liga I for a third spot. The reset of the teams are split into two further groups, who seem to play each other once more, with the two bottom in each group going down, and the fifth team in each playing each other with the loser also going down. We keep our points total going into that next phase, but it's all very confusing and fun...

FK Csíkszereda November 2023 With snow calling off my last game of November (!! - I know this happens in FM, but I haven't seen it since abotu FM13 and I love it as a feature), we only had two games this month. A draw and a thrashing of Mioveni keep us very happily in the hunt. Meantime, we're doing so well I've been offered a new contract... Which is more than can be said for a lot of my players. I have absolutely no wage budget, and far too many players. Bogdan Rotar in particular - with 7 goals and 7 assists in his first 13 games - wants a new contract, which I was happy to promise him, only to realise the club won't let me pay for it just yet. Argh. Thankfully his contract runs until 2025, but I need to clear a lot of deadwood, and fast.

Really? Why are they ineligible? This is excellent news.

FK Csíkszereda October 2023 The loss to Unirea Dej wasn't the greatest, but wins against Steau and then-second placed Chindia Targoviste were lovely. I'm confused as to quite how we're second in the table ourselves, but I can't complain. It can't hurt that, by being out of the cup, we're playing a lot fewer matches than out opposition for the most part - the Romanian Cup moves into a 6-team group stage, which has a bunch of Liga 2 clubs in every week...

FK Csíkszereda September 2023 A first competitive loss as Csíkszereda manageer, yes, but otherwise some great results, including a last minute winner by Bogdan Rotar - unquestionably my standout player thus far - against Ceahlaul. We sit second in the league, and the Magyars are playing beautiful football...

Some fun rules in the Romanian second division. Not only do I have to start with at least one u-18 player in my starting 11 for every match, as well as a further u-20 player to boot - something that won't be a problem with a youth-only save, but fun nonetheless - I also have to register 15 players who can only play for my first team, and never for the reserves. Weird!

FK Csíkszereda August 2023 Blimey. New tactics are actually pretty lovely, all told. An undefeated first month of the season, loads of goals... Not bad! Cup: The second team weren't great in the cup, mind you, losing to third tier operation Aerostar Bacau at the first time of asking...

New tactic works is much better...

Ok, so I absolutely love that this is a thing...

I tried, albeit for three games, but it was absolute carnage. We weren't just seeing those concessions, but also XGs ranging from the high threes to, in the case of Levski Sofia, the high 7s! It might have worked with top-end players, but at this level, with these guys, the DMs were constantly caught napping, and I would be seeing four or five 3-v-1s or 4-v-1s on the break. Gah.

Our tactics... might not work. If we include the fact that our second team were playing with the very same tactic, that's 23 goals shipped in 4 games. I really want to keep an ostensible 4-2-4, with an extremely fluid, possession and pressing heavy gamestyle. But mapping a 1950s tactic into FM, even with the amazing work others have done trying to replicate that Mighty Magyar system, and then applying it to a second division Romanian team? It's for smarter minds than me. With that in mind - and mindful of the massive waste of time that the first few posts here might have been as a result! - I've gone back to the frawing board, creating something that looks rather closer to a modern tactic. Depending on the players that come through, those full-backs will become wing-backs, and those inside forwards will become PFs or SS's. But with the Segundo Volante essentially playing as a third striker, and the centre backs who will become BPDs as they get better at actually passing the ball, it plays nicely in the ME.

Ha! George Weah approach, with added democratic utopianism? We love it.

FK Csíkszereda Squad Depth Breakdown - June 2023 Attackers: 1st Choice: Gábor Makrai (PF); Richárd Jelena (AF) 2nd Choice: Szilárd Magyari (PF); Tamás Biró and Marius Bărăbaş (AF)

FK Csíkszereda Squad Depth Breakdown - June 2023 Wingers: 1st Choice: Salvatore Marrone (AML/ML); Benjamin Babati (AMR/MR) 2nd Choice: Lóránt Kovács (AML/ML); Bogdan Rotar (AMR/MR)

FK Csíkszereda Squad Depth Breakdown - June 2023 Central Midfield: Defensive Midfielders: 1st Choice: Szilárd Veres (Vol); Botond Szondi (HB) 2nd Choice: Bence Pintér (Vol); Bálint Szabó (HB) Youth rotation: Andrei Gheralia AMC: 1st Choice: Sofiane Jebari Second Choice: Lóránt Kovács

FK Csíkszereda Squad Depth Breakdown - June 2023 Defence: We really do have an insanely large squad. Somehow or other we're only paying £13k per week for the privilege, but even for a youth-only save, it's a little on the large side... That'll change next season of course, as the deadwood is cut and the loanees return to their parent clubs, but it still takes some sorting. With my slightly mad Mighty Magyar system, there's not a lot of places to play for here - 3 at the back, and a GK - but I'll be keeping an eye on defenders who I might retrain as half-backs, Eric Dier/John Stones style, too. Goalkeepers: 1st Choice: Szilárd Gyenge 2nd Choice: Máté Simon Centre Back: Millions of them, for just one position. I'm going to sell most of them/let them leave on a free. 1st Choice: Botond Gergely (HG) 2nd Choices: Claudiu Apró & Dávid Keleman Youth rotation: Eric Bartoş Anyone below 2.5* PA is up for sale or release Left Back: Again, far too many. 1st Choice: Daniel Vita (HG) 2nd Choice: Tomi Hadnagy (János Nagy if desperate) Youth rotation: Flavios Colcerieu János Nagy is up sale. Right Back: Better, when you consider that Botond Gergely (HG) is actually my DC choice. 1st Choice: Balázs Csiszér 2nd Choice: Szabolvs Baga (János Nagy if desperate) Youth rotation: Andrei Precup

FK Csíkszereda The team, and the goals A club without much in the way of history - no legends, no icons, no favoured personnel. All the better to stamp the Mighty Magyar way upon the team. I wish we had a nickname, mind you... We shall henceforth be known as "The Magyars," at least to me (I might buy the editor just to change this - I'm very petty) Facilities: The infrastructure is incredibly well set up. Thank you Hungarian overlords... Even the famed Steau București - the reborn version, after an unpleasant legal split between the now "FCSB" inthe SuperLiga and Steau București in Liga II - only have "Great" youth facilities and recruitment. Hell, our "Excellent" facilities beat out FCSB in the SuperLiga. Season Aims: The Team: I'm going to go full @Jimbokav1971 on this, and take a look at the whole team from top to bottom in the next post. Before I do, two things stand out - that we have six players on loan, mostly from either Hungarian clubs or Hungarian-sponsored clubs (four of them originated in our academy, and will be purchasable down the line...), and also that we have eight five-star PA players, once those loanees are removed - including one that is fully 5-stars in Salvatore Marrone. And loanees Daniel Vita and Botond Gergely, both 5*PA players are homegrown and may well be re-signed down the line if we get the chance. Loans: 1st Team 5*s: 2nd Team 5*s: U-19s:

FK Csíkszereda The Tactics I have no doubt this will change and adjust as things go, but to kick things off I've used this amazing 2020 article from Passion4FM as the basis for my Mighty Magyar Total Football approach. Now, frankly, the proposed 3-2-2-3-0 formation in that article scares the absolute pants out of me, so I've used 2 traditional strikers (an AF and a PF), while still scaring the pants out of myself with only one centre back. I get the feeling I'm to score loads, but concede more - at least at the start...

FK Csíkszereda After taking most of 2023 off from FM, I decided that I'd come back for 2024 and try something new - a proper youth-only save, with a club that is set up for it. I'm not a big fan of starting at the top of any nation - I like the idea of taking someone up the pyramid - and, having played mostly in the big five leagues and Scandinavia over the last few years I wanted to try somewhere new. So, as I cast my net wide to consider where to manage, I remembered this article in The Guardian from a few months ago, about Hungary's use of neighbouring countries' football teams as a method of exerting soft power. Ignoring the questionable (understatement of the century) ethics of Victor Orban, the idea of Hungarian teams in nations that once formed a part of Austria-Hungary was really interesting. And lo, we have FK Csíkszereda. FK Csíkszereda - a History Based in Miercurea Ciuc, on the borders of Transylvania and Moldavia, the club is 400km from the borders of modern Hungary, yet is named for the Hungarian name of the city of 34,000 people - 80% of whose population are, in fact, ethnic Hungarians. Founded in 1904, its a club with only local history, really, reaching the third division of Romanian football at its Zenith in the 1970s and 80s. The fall of Communism saw turmoil strike the club - it returned to amateurism, briefly falling out of business altogether in 2000. However a club reborn reached Liga II in 2018, also reaching the quarter finals of the Romanian Cup that same year. This cup run caught the attention of the Hungarian government. While Orban's government have focussed primarily on Sepsi OFK Sfantu Gheorghe, 70km south of Csíkszereda - a team only founded in 2011, whose backing from Hungary has seen them win the last two Romanian Cups - Hungary felt the need to diversify within Romania, and invested a reported €3.2 (doubling with performance-related bonuses) in the club's infrastructure, and, crucially, youth setup. The Mighty Magyars: To me, at least, when I think about Hungary and football, I think of the famed Hungarian national team of the 1950 - Gusztáv Sebes' "Mighty Magyars". Led by legendary striker Ferenc Puskas, as well as the less well known but - apparently - equally brilliant Sandor Kocsis, The Mighty Magyars were the original proponents of what later became known as 'total football.' Jonathan Wilson, in his unparalleled book on football tactics Inverting the Pyramid talks in glowing terms about that Hungarian team. In a world where the W-M formation was the go to, the Magyars proto-Total Football approach re-invented the game, and led to a team that held a 5-year ubeaten streak in international football, should have won a World Cup, and became the first non-British team to defeat England. The aim: I'm pretty crap at FM, but that's not going to stop me from a) trying something hard, b) making it even harder. Not only will this be a youth-only challenge, attempting to make this bastion of Hungarian-ness in the middle of Romania the best team in the country (and, hopefully, eventually showcase homegrown Hungaro-Romanian brilliance in Europe, bringing glory not seen since Ceaucescu-sponsored Steau Bucharest's 80s heyday back to Romania), but I will also seek to do so while playing total football the Mighty Magyar way. According to Wilson, and to manager Sebes' tactical notes, the Mighty Magyars played a 3-2-3-2 that was "a hair's breadth from 4-2-4" More precisely, they played as below from Wilson: “He [Sebes] encouraged the two full-backs, Buzánszky and Mihály Lantos, to advance, but that meant the centre-half, Gyula Lóránt, dropping even deeper, into a position not dissimilar to the sweeper in Karl Rappan’s verrou system. Puskás had licence to roam, while Bozsik, notionally the right-half, was encouraged to push forwards to support Hidegkuti. That required a corresponding defensive presence, which was provided by the left-half, Zakariás, who, in the tactical plan for the game Sebes sketched in his notebook, appears so deep he is almost playing between the two full-backs. Two full-backs, two central defensive presences, two players running the middle and four up front: the Hungarian system was a hair’s-breadth from 4-2-4.” I will be trying - and no doubt failing - to emulate that approach. Possession based, free-flowing, interchangable, total football. The Mighty Magyars in Romania.