When I intended to start a new career in FM22, I didn't have a clear idea about the country and the club where I was going to play. But it happened to see a documentary about the great king (and conqueror) Alexander III of Macedonia, also called "the Great". I decided immediately : my next career will take place in Macedonia. More precisely, in the area where Alexander's kingdom was located, that is, in Greece.
Alexander was born in a fortress called Pella, the capital of the Macedonian kingdom. The city exists even now, even if not exactly in the same location. The modern city is located in a region of Greece called Central Macedonia, northwest of Thessaloniki (Salonika). There are also two other regions in Greece that are also called Macedonia : the "Western" one and the "Eastern" one. All together form a region that can be called generically "Macedonia" :
And now, back to football, that is, back to FM. I downloaded a database that included the Greek 3rd league. I don't know how well it works, although after 5 seasons of testing it seems to be fine. I don't know if it faithfully respects the real competition system, nor if the rules regarding promotion - relegation or the number of foreign players are correct. Anyway, it's worth a try.
So I created a manager. Sunday league player, no license. Zero experience, which means I had to start with a small team. In the 3rd league, 17 manager positions were available, but only two of them were of interest, that is, they were located in the region where Alexander was born. One of the two clubs even had an interesting name : AO Megas Alexandros Trikala, which means "Alexander the Great Athletic Club". Unfortunately, although I applied, they did not reply. The second club, APO Annagenisi Plagias, not only answered me, but also hired me :
Anagennisi Plagias is a small club. In fact, very small. The facilities are minimal: basic, basic, basic, limited :
The stadium is reasonably large (6000 seats), but unfortunately it is only used temporarily. In fact, I admit, I thought the club was based in a fairly large city (Kilkis, approximately 25,000 inhabitants). Big mistake. The club is based in a small village, Plagia, where only about 400 people live. The team plays in Kilkis only because the stadium in Plagia is not ready yet.
Some other details :
Finances. Really limited. Which is normal, considering that Anagennisi is a semi-professional club.
Competitions Media prediction. We are the number one candidate for relegation. It's still good, at least we're number one in something. Rules. The group consists of 12 teams, but 5 of them will be relegated. As for promotion... the team ranked first will qualify for a playoff together with the winners of the other 6 groups. 4 of the 7 qualified will advance to the 2nd league. This is a strictly theoretical discussion because I don't think we have any chance of promotion in the first season. Our realistic objective is just to avoid relegation. Club vision
Now, about my career rules: I talked about Alexander and Macedonia for a reason. Namely, I'll only be allowed to use players who are born in Macedonia. If a player is Greek but was not born in Macedonia, I cannot use him, so there is no point in transferring him. If he is a foreigner, even more so. However, there is an exception: players who were born in Macedonia but have two (or more) nationalities. I will be able to use, for example, an Albanian or Bulgarian player who was born in Thessaloniki.
Another detail : at the beginning of the save, I activated the "add players to playable teams" option, and that's because this career is not a challenge and, on the other hand, because I don't like playing with "grey" players.
Squad U19 squad
We have 3 very good defensive players (including a goalkeeper). We also have 3 very good midfielders/forwards. Of course, they are "very good" for a 3rd league level mediocre team. But our best player is a "young man" who is only 43 years old. I hope he doesn't intend to get injured very often, because one of the other 6 important players I just talked about .... got seriously injured on the very first day of training (good job, man !). As for our 43-year-old young man, he is also our HOYD, i.e. one of only two people who there are for now in the club's staff.
Back to the big rule of my career. I already had a problem. Almost all players in the first squad and the U19 squad are "born in Macedonia". Places like Plagia, Kilkis, Thessaloniki (= Salonika) are, of course, in Macedonia. As well as villages such as Vaptistis or Stavrochori. But there were two very important players (Zakos and Parpoutsis) for whom the place of birth was not specified. I was tempted to throw them out ... but I realized that a lot of players will immediately become extremely unhappy. So, I decided : these will be the only two players who will not have a "Macedonian birth certificate". And the exception will be valid for only one season.
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August and September 2021 : countless friendly matches (and some boredom)
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October 2021
Over the course of 10 weeks, we played 12 friendly matches (the results didn't really interest me) and one official match (a clear defeat in the Greek Cup). Honestly, the cup match scared me because our opponents (Veroia, a second league team) shot 27 times (!!!) on target. This while we had only one shot ...
Oh, one more thing : the number of fans who wanted to see us live was really impressive. We played 6 games on "our" stadium. The total number of spectators in ALL the 6 matches : 124. So, we have a "huge" fanbase,... which is so huge that the club's finances are seriously affected after only a few weeks of this season.
Transfers. I brought 6 new players ... which are actually 4, because two of these new players arrived at the club before I took over the position of manager. I followed the rule, so all newcomers are born in Macedonia. By the way, following this rule is more difficult than I thought. Not because there aren't a lot of good players born in Macedonia, but because most of them don't want to come to our club. For every good player who agrees to play for us, there are 3-4 others who prefer to sign with another club... and another at least 10 who were not born in Macedonia. Three of the four newcomers are really good players. The 4th is an example of bad management. I mean, I brought in a seriously injured player (at least one year !) because instead of reading "12-13 months" I read "2-3 months". I'm a true FM expert ...
Squad
U19 squad
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The first two matches in the championship. We won (undeservedly) the first game, but we lost the second. Considering that we are still "number one" in the top of the weakest teams in the group (media prediction : 12th place of 12) , it could be said that everything is fine ... until now.
A first (and very important) mention : this is - at least for now - just an experimental database.