AM23

November 2023 We start the month by playing in-form Ruthin, who have won their last 4 matches. After that, some weird fixture scheduling sees us play back-to-back games against unbeaten league leaders Flint Town, before we cap off the month in a winnable game away at Porthmadog. Llanidloes - Ruthin xG: 2.71 - 0.39; Shots: 25(12) - 4(1); Possesion: 49% - 51% The danger duo up front did it once again for us in an amazing allround performance. Going into halftime we only had ourselves to blame for not having scored at least one goal. Luckily we did so early in the second half and gave away absolutely nothing at the back. Our second goal came from our 20th(!) corner of the match and made an end to any doubt there might have been, as Ruthin's good streak comes to an end. Crazy to think that a little bit more then a month ago I almost wanted to start changing tactics, while now all of a sudden everything seems to be clicking within the team. Will be interesting to see what we can do against Flint Town. Llanidloes - Flint Town xG: 0.74 - 0.44; Shots: 7(3) - 7(4); Possesion: 42% - 58% Another great defensive performance, and we should have gotten a draw. Their goal came from a shot just outside the box which seemed to be going straight at our goalie Niki Lee-Bulmer but somehow it went in. The fans did not get to see a great spectacle today in what was only our second home loss of the season. Flint Town - Llanidloes xG: 2.56 - 0.52; Shots: 17(7) - 9(5); Possesion: 56% - 44% Expectedly, they were a lot more dominating at home, and had the upper hand throughout most of the game. This time out however, it looked like we might take the point we deserved last week through a Jack Orbell header. Sadly that was not to be as an unnecessary foul by Adam Worton gave them the chance to take the lead from the spot before another defensive mistake saw the game end in 3-1. We shouldn't worry too much about these defeats, as Flint Town really look to be in a league of their own at the moment. Instead, we should try and bounce back next game, when we take on 13th placed Porthmadog, who have just appointed a new manager. Porthmadog - Llanidloes xG: 2.33 - 0.00; Shots: 19(7) - 0(0); Possesion: 64% - 36% Awful really... Don't want to spend a lot of words on this, just that I can't remember ever having an FM game where my team did not have a single shot. The send off was fully justified as Josh Hartrick came in with a two-footed tackle from behind. Just gonna leave this graph out there. We are yellow for anyone interested. The win against Ruthin saw us get a little bit of air with 6 points above the relegation spots, but our defeats after that mean that this margin has already been halved. Still, nothing to complain about being mid table halfway through the season. In other news, 5 of the teams have already sacked their manager. Transfers Also, I have made the first signing of the save! We picked up regen Harri Edwards as a free agent. He looks like a good prospect, and is actually already a decent player for our first team. I don't really see him as a winger though, so will try to retrain him to a central (attacking) midfielder.

October 2023 4 games in this month where we look to bounce back from our recent dispiriting results. Mold Alexandra were predicted as relegation candidate but have been doing surprisingly well. Llandudno too should be a winnable fixture. The two away games are against more difficult opponents. Llanidloes - Mold Alexandra xG: 1.32 - 0.54; Shots: 13(6) - 11(2); Possesion: 42% - 58% Great way to start the month! I have said his name before and I'll hopefully say it again: Sergio Gomes. The 20 year old has now scored 7 goals in 11 matches he played from midfield. He did pick up his 5th booking of the season which means he misses the next game, but we won't let that spoil the fun. Someone who I have not named a lot yet is Tom Goodwin who has been solid as our defensive midfielder and scored a beautiful free-kick to give us the lead in this game. After that we never looked back and thank god we did not give up 2 late goals again. Denbigh - Llanidloes xG: 1.33 - 0.74; Shots: 17(2) - 8(4); Possesion: 56% - 44% A stolen point here really. Only thing we did well this game was not letting them come to close to our goal, but for the rest we were totally dominated all throughout. Gomes' suspension gave Lance Jones another chance to show himself, but he did not live up to expectations once again. This meant Ed Clarke got his first minutes this season from the bench and he linked up together with fellow substitute Rhys Evans to create our only real chance of the game, which sees us return home with a cherishable point. Next up is a clash against Llandudno, who have taken over our 14th position. With it being a home game, this is a big chance to get a little bit of a margin on the relegation spots now. Llanidloes - Llandudno xG: 2.83 - 0.92; Shots: 14(5) - 9(1); Possesion: 50% - 50% Best game of the season so far! We blew them away in the first half, and got our first clean sheet since mid August. After missing an early chance Jamie Breese went on to terrorize Llandudno's defence, who had no grip on him at all. Our best defensive performence goes to Drew Reynolds who has been solid for us all season and kept their striker in check. We finish the month with a tough away fixture against Prestatyn Town. I would be happy to come away with anything there. Prestatyn Town - Llanidloes xG: 1.16 - 1.65; Shots: 11(3) - 12(4); Possesion: 55% - 45% Great win to finish of the month. Jack Orbell and Jamie Breese are getting better and better together up front, with the rest of the team also starting to click now. We opened the scoring with a nicely built up attack over the left side and gave away nothing in the first half. They came out of the dressing room furiously, but when the goal they wanted did not come they calmed down again quickly. The match then died down a bit and our 2-0 looked to seal it, but a mistake by goalkeeper Niki Lee-Bulmer gave them the spirit again and had us longing for the final whistle. In the end it means our first away win of the season and that too against the team 3rd in the league. Nothing to complain about here. We have shot up to 9th place in the table, though we are still only 3 points of the relegation spots. Something that might really help us later in the season if we can keep it up is our goal difference, which is a lot better than that of the teams below us at the moment. Flint Town were favourites for the title and are showing why so far, while Chirk who were the big favourites for relegation are proving everybody wrong. For the rest Bangor and Broughton are the biggest underperformers so far. This month has been great and I have already praised our striker duo a lot, but what has also been really important in our success here is our defensive performance, with only 3 goals conceded in the 4 games this month. I just miss out on my first personal prize. Would have been nice but Ruthin came from the same spot as us even winning all of their games, so not a lot to do about that. We do have our first players in the team of the month, though I have absolutely no idea how Josh Hartrick managed to get in as he did not do a whole lot this month apart from 1 assist.

September 2023 A healthy amount of 6 games in this month, which could even become 7 with a win in the Welsh Cup. We start the month by travelling to Chirk twice. They were predicted dead last at the start of the season but have actually started well with 9 points from 5 games. Then we have Airbus UK Broughton coming up at home again. Last month we beat them 3-0 in the league, so let's hope for more of the same. Then two more league games with us being most likely to gain something from the Gresford game. After that another big game in the League Cup, where we will be playing Penybont for a spot in the quarter finals. Aside from the league, my focus will mostly be on the Tier 2 League Cup, as this realistically is the only competition we really have a chance of winning this season. Just the 5 wins there would get us our first trophy, and only teams from the Cymru North/South participate. Chirk - Llanidloes xG: 3.22 - 2.56; Shots: 21(6) - 13(5); Possesion: 44% - 56% Oh man, this one hurts and I only have myself to blame really. With only 15 minutes to go I thought we had this game in the bag and decided to give young right back Joshua Peck, who is not quite ready for the first team yet, some game time. He had not even been on the pitch for 5 minutes when he made a mistake to bring Chirk back into the game. After this our defence crumbled and the 2-2 fell quickly. Before all this it was Jack Orbell who once again proved me wrong in not having him in my starting XI early in the season. He won us a penalty and looked to secure us our second league win of the season, but that wasn't to be. Very tough one to take this. I hope we can bounce back next week against them in the cup. Chirk - Llanidloes (Welsh Cup) xG: 2.08 - 1.51; Shots: 17(7) - 11(3); Possesion: 43% - 57% No revenge for us here. Not our game really. Jamie Breese missed a penalty in the 34th minute. We did manage to score the 1-1 eventually, but after they grabbed back the lead right away we never came close to another equaliser. First competition we crash out of, and the next game could make that two of we don't watch out. As I said, the Tier 2 League Cup is our best chance at a prize for now, so hopefully we can get through this round. Llanidloes - Airbus UK Broughton (Tier 2 League Cup) xG: 2.31 - 1.77; Shots: 20(10) - 16(10); Possesion: 49% - 51% A crazy first 45 minutes saw us give away the lead twice, after which they scored the winner from a corner in a more quiet second half. Rhys Evans was given his second start of the season, this time on the left instead of an out of form Archie Bales, and once again showed us he is a great rotation option. We have the right to feel a tad unlucky to not have come away with the win here, given the fact that we actually had the better of them in the second half. All in all a disappointing and unnecessary early exit in this cup. Back to the league now where we do need to start picking up some points. Llanidloes - Holywell xG: 1.91 - 0.63; Shots: 19(8) - 10(6); Possesion: 59% - 41% I cannot believe this... Their midfielder Ryan Edwards had scored a grand total of 14 league goals in 11 years and 248 league appearances prior to this game, but today everything he touched turned into gold. We absolutely one of the favourites for promotion and with revelation Sergio Gomes chipping in with another goal and assist we looked to set to send Holywell back empty handed. Even in those last 10 minutes we had the better chances, but a last second free-kick left us disappointed once more. Giving up leads of two goals in the last 10 minutes in our last 2 league games has done something to the morale of the team. Next game though, we take on Gresford at 'The Rock' (great stadium name) who are currently in last place. Great opportunity to bounce back. Gresford - Llanidloes xG: 0.51 - 0.81; Shots: 7(2) - 8(4); Possesion: 38% - 62% We really can't catch a break at the moment. They had one chance all game and it went in. Drew Reynolds has been our most solid defender all season long, but today this was not the case. He forgot to mark his man which gave them the lead, and then got two yellows in a second half where we desperately tried to break through their backline without any success. We finish the month with an away trip to Penybont for the League Cup. They are in 5th placed in the Cymru Premier, which is two places below Newtown who we beat in the last round. Given our current form of 6 winless games I don't have high hopes for this match at all. Penybont - Llanidloes (League Cup) xG: 3.03 - 1.37; Shots: 24(9) - 6(2); Possesion: 55% - 45% This is getting tiring. I am not gonna claim we were the better team here, but giving up two late goals again really feels like a punch in the gut. We actually kept them away from our goal for most of the game, restricting them to long distance shots and crosses. We did however give up two identical free-kicks at the end, both of which were chipped over the wall to an unmarked player to end our last ongoing cup run. Especially their second goal hurt us, as the game would have gone straight to penalties after 90 minutes otherwise. Just the 2 points in the league this month, but it should have been so much more. As for the cups, the three eliminations have really affected our morale. All this means we currently have a 7 game winless streak across all competitions, but to be honest it feels like this was not needed at all. Giving away leads in 4 of our games this month is just disappointing to see. One part of me says that I should start looking at a chance of tactics, though that might not even be the right solution at the moment, as we did have the upper hand in about half of our games this month but just failed to capitalize.

August 2023 A nice sequence of 4 home games will hopefully see us pick up some wins. Buckley are predicted mid table, so I hope to come away with at least a point there in front of our own fans. Following up on that game we take on Cymru Premier side Newtown in the League Cup, where we will need to be at our very best to be in with a chance. Then a tough home game against Airbus UK Broughton (who apparently finished last season's Cymru Premier with -4 points). We close of the month with a cup game against lower league opposition and finally an away game to Guilsfield. Llanidloes - Buckley xG: 1.22 - 1.44; Shots: 12(1) - 11(1); Possesion: 56% - 44% Ouch... This one was really unnecessary. Jamie Breese making his first appearance in the starting XI after his injury failed to make an impact, while his partner up front James Smallwood squandered the few chances we did have. On the defensive front we did very well though, aside from Adam Worton giving up a free-kick with a stupid tackle and then pulling down his man when the free-kick was crossed to him to give up a penalty. I am not panicking just yet, but have decided to shuffle some players around a little bit. Mostly, I have been very disappointed with Lance Jones, who plays as our central midfielder and should be one of the best players in our squad. Also, our biggest talent according to me, Sergio Gomes, is yet to put in a good performance at right back, but given that he can also play in midfield, I have decided to give him a go there. For the rest James Smallwood has been missing chances left and right, so he will be replaced by Jack Orbell for the time being. Llanidloes - Newtown (League Cup) xG: 2.69 - 2.04; Shots: 9(6) - 16(6); Possesion: 48% - 52% Wow. Just wow. What a game. After 10 minutes I had a déja vu to our first round match, when we were the team with the comfortable early margin. After that total madness broke out, though, with Sergio Gomes showing he can absolutely play in midfield. At half time I thought most of the spectacle was already behind me, but boy was I wrong. After they took the lead again we totally turned the game around with a quickfire two goals. That lead did not last long either, and after they scored the 4-4 I mostly just hoped we could see the 90 minutes out to get to penalties. But their red card was the start sign for us to throw out one more attack, which was headed home by James Smallwood coming from the bench. A man who may not be visible on the scoresheet, but should definitely be credited as well is Josh Hartrick. Despite two braces he was the one coming away with the MOTM award, as he provided three assists today. Let's take this momentum into our next league game please! Llanidloes - Airbus UK Broughton xG: 1.83 - 1.22; Shots: 12(4) - 13(5); Possesion: 55% - 45% We have our first points on the board in the league! The scoreline does flatter us a little bit, but I could not care less really. Sergio Gomes proving my choice to put him in midfield to be right once again. More of the same, as Josh Hartrick got MOTM once again too. Next is the opening round of the Welsh Cup, where the bookies somehow prefer tier 3 side Brickfield over us. Llanidloes - Brickfield (Welsh Cup) xG: 1.42 - 1.91; Shots: 11(6) - 10(4); Possesion: 51% - 49% A little bit of a rotated side made it a lot harder than it should have been. Rhys Evans got his first minutes of the season as we rested Hartrick, and repaid faith with a goal and two assists. On the other wing Archie Bales did well to pick up his 4th assist of the season already. I am happy we are through, but a little bit disappointed at conceding 3 goals against such opposition. We have certainly given our fans their money's worth so far, with 24 goals coming in our home games, 16 of which scored by us. Guilsfield - Llanidloes xG: 1.76 - 0.63; Shots: 11(8) - 10(4); Possesion: 44% - 56% The small winning streak we were building comes to a screeching halt in Welshpool. Sergio Gomes again with a goal, but even in the 40th minute it already felt like a consolation, and that about sums up our afternoon here. Already a little bit further into the save and forgot to take a screenshot of the league table, so that will make its delayed first appearance next month. I can tell you that we are currently in 14th place. We've got a big month coming up with three league games, as well as (at least) three cup games. Still enough to sort out going into September where we hope to get out of the relegation spots.

July 2023 We start our campaign with a League Cup fixture, where we have a very good draw, as it is a home fixture against one of only two lower league sides (apparently wild-cards). Would be nice if we could win that one and immediately gain some momentum there. The game against Bangor is a hard one, as they are predicted to finish 5th despite them being newly promoted. Only negative we have so far is that our star man Jamie Breese picked up an injury in pre-season, which means he will probably miss both of these games. Llanidloes - Penrhyncoch (League Cup) That's exactly how you want to start a season! Did not expect to be able to relax after 10 minutes into this match. Our young left winger Archie Bales led the way, getting assists on the first two goals. After this we never really got in danger and managed to get two more goals at the end to make the result look even better. The draw for the round of 32 has not been kind to us, as we will take on Newtown FC, who play in the Cymru Premier. Bangor 1876 - Llanidloes Sadly we could not build on our previous result. After their 1-0 our poacher James Smallwood missed a penalty, and despite us getting some chances, we were never really looking good enough to get away with anything here. Next month the season will really break loose, with two cup games and also our first home games of the season.

Thanks! I'm excited to get started. I always find it fun to discover some new leagues. Also, I love the amount of cups there is, because who doesn't love a little cup run.

Pre-season Pre-season was short, as I only came in two weeks before our first competitive fixture. It was mostly about figuring out the squad, which was quite imbalanced with more than 35 players in it. As I disabled the first transfer window, this only really meant that I terminated some contracts of players I was pretty sure I was not going to use anyway. I was not there yet for the first game, so I actually managed to go unbeaten, albeit against Welsh and English lower league sides. For the rest it is clear that this does not have a whole lot of meaning. Tactic Well, I have heard the talk about the 4-4-2 being awful defensively, but given my players I still thought this would be my most logical formation. I also just didn't feel like going for another gegenpress system, so we'll see how this goes. For the rest it seemed logical for me that a team expected to fight against relegation would use a little bit of a more defensive tactic, and given the fact that I have played a save with a very succesful defensive 4-4-2 last year, I thought I'd give it another go. Squad I will only give a short overview of the squad here, and probably show some players in more detail later in the season. Of the 36 players we started with I already let a few go. Also, only 6 of our players are actually earning some money. In goal it is an obious choice, Nikki Lee-Bulmer will be our man in between the posts. Immediately it is clear that we are short at the backs, especially on the left, with only Adam Worton being a real defensive option here. On the right my first choice will be Sergio Gomes. In the center it will be Drew Reynolds and Jordan Ambris to start with, though we do have enough back-up options here. As said before, we only have one defensively minded left back, but Jones and Archie Bales, do give us some options there, although Bales will also be my starting winger on the left. On the right this honour goes to Josh Hartrick, who looks better than the star ratings suggest. In the center it is clear that the defensive midfield postion goes to Tom Goodwin, with Lance Jones next to him filling in a little bit more attacking role. Jamie Breese is our star man, and really should perform as well, as he takes up 30% of our wage budgets. But with him listed as the third best player in the league, I hope he will show us he is worth it. He will be our first choice pressing forward. Next to him I think I will start the season with James Smallwood as he has some great physical attributes with which I hope he can disrupt some defenses. Season preview With three teams going down we are looking like one of the favourites for relegation. Let's hope this won't happen as it would mean that I would get fired at my first job, which would not bode well for the future. For the rest we really should not be thinking about anything else, with only the top team going up, which seems very far out of our reach. Board expectation The board is mild, only expecting us to fight against relegation, as well as being competitive in all three cups we play in. Not a whole lot of ambition from their side. I personally hope to go on at least some kind of cup run. If we were to cross anything of the list this season our best (and probably only) bet would be the Tier 2 League cup, though this will be very tough too.

Job hunt Searching for a job was relatively easy, helped by the fact that at the start of the save there where two Welsh second tier teams without a manager. After applying to some jobs in Wales and Ireland, I eventually got offered both the job at Trefelin BGC (Cymru South) and Llanidloes Town (Cymru North). Both teams were predicted towards the bottom of their respective regional leagues, and have a comparable wage budget. Not a lot to seperate the two really, so what my final choice came down to is the fact that Llanidloes Town play in green and yellow, which are the same colours as my favourite team plays in. The club Llanidloes Town FC was founded in 1875, and is based in, of course, the small town of Llanidloes. Llanidloes in the middle of Wales and is inhabited by around 3000 people. The club has the great nickname 'The Daffodils', and play their matches at Victoria Park, with the beatiful old stand you can see above. In its long history, the club has never had too many succes, mostly playing in the Mid Wales league system. They did win some Mid Wales league titles and cups in this time. In 1992, they became one of the 20 founding members of the new League of Wales, but their precence here was short-lived, as they got relegated in the first season of the league's existence, and are yet to return. It even went from bad to worse, as they dropped back into the third tier in 1999. Even then, the worst was yet to come, as from 2008-2010 the club played at the 4th tier, which was the lowest level they had ever played at. But they found the way back up, winning the Montgomeryshire League in 09/10 and a few years later in 12/13 also managing to win the Mid Wales League, bringing them back up to the second tier after 14 years of absence. After 2 years though, a relegation followed, and it took them 5 years to get back into the second tier, where they have now spent two seasons at the lower end of the table again.

Introduction Well, after pondering about it for a while I have now decided to give documenting my save another try. Last year I did so for the first time and actually really enjoyed doing so. Sadly my career did not last long as my laptop died only 2 months into the save. This actually also demotivated me from playing the game, so I have only picked it up again now with the release of FM24. Anyways, I did have a lot of great save ideas in mind, but all through different reasons did not yet follow up on those ideas. Eventually the memory of the British & Irish steel challenge popped into my mind, and since I have never managed in any of the British or Irish leagues besides some short spells in England, I thought I'd give this a try. I have done a few journeyman saves before, but never managed more than 4 different clubs, as I usually get attached to a club at some point. Also, I have never managed to keep a save going for more than 10 seasons. All in all I have set myself up for failure with this challenge, but you can never be too ambitious right? All that being said, I guess you will have a great struggle to enjoy The Challenge Basically, the goal of the save is to win all playable leagues and cups in the UK and Ireland, as well as all European competitions and the Euros, World Cup and Nations League. If I remember correctly, the original challenge only allows you to use players from the UK and Ireland too, but I won't be following this rule. If I am correct, these are the 49 leagues/cups I need to win: Game setup I have of course loaded up all of England, Ireland, N. Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as some extra European top flights. For the rest I have disabled the first transfer window. As for the manager, I will be starting without any coaching badges and playing experience. Let's hope I can manage to land a job somewhere in Wales or Northern Ireland with this.

Really liking the more realistic career path you have chosen. Good to see the improvement with Latvia, would be great if you could surprise with them and take Latvia to the Euros, though that might be very ambitious

Thanks for the reply! This is from the official website: OFC Champions League explained | Oceania Football Confederation And here Wikipedia: 2023 OFC Champions League - Wikipedia

July/August 2022 I have still not managed the time to play the game a lot in the past weeks, but I did finally manage to get through the first few games. We have a mixed start to the season in terms of opposition, playing against two other newly promoted sides (Elversberg and Bayreuth), as well as a relegated side in Ingolstadt. For the rest we also play Duisburg, which is our biggest rival after Schalke, so that will be quite an important fixture for our fans. All in all I definitely see some chances to get points on the board early, so let's hope we can start the season positively. RW Essen - SV Elversberg A really disappointing start this is, given the fact we played against a fellow promoted side, and even more so as it was in front of our own fans. We did have a good start to the game, creating the best chances. It was unfortunate that our attacking playmaker Clemens Fandrich had to leave the pitch after only 15 minutes due to an injury, and after that our chances in front of goal dried down. Elversberg got one past us just before halftime and we never recovered from that with our only real chance being squandered. Although we managed a higher xG, we never really managed to get close to the goal, which is shown by our shot map. Most of our shots came from outside the box, and only one of our 13 shots was on target, opposing their 3 of 7. Enough to think about going into our next match against Duisburg, who are expected to fight for promotion. MSV Duisburg - RW Essen Goalscorers: Götze (45'), Fandrich (63'), Heber (83'), Berlinski (90') Well, that was quite the match. We got absolutely dominated by Duisburg in the first 30 minutes, after which one of their CB's got sent off with a second yellow. This completely changed the game of course, as we suddenly had way more room. We exploited this by stretching the field, which worked out excellent as we scored all our 4 goals from a cross, albeit 2 of those came from set-pieces. The game was however closer than the scoreline suggested, and we only managed to pull away from them at the end. This really was the game of our wingers, with Thomas Eisfeld getting the first two assists, after which Isaiah Young took over and also got two, even though he only came on in the 75th minute. Our shot map looks quite the opposite from last game, with the vast majority of our shots coming inside off the penalty area this time around (9 out of 12). The fans can be quite pleased with this, getting our first three points away from home against our biggest rivals in the league. I suspect the 20 minute bus ride back was pretty nice for the over 4000 travelling fans. RW Essen - FC Viktoria Köln Goalscorers: Fandrich (20'), Engelmann (79', 90+3') Quite similarly to the next match, we won by a good margin, but had it a lot harder than shown by the scoreline, with us only pulling away late once again. After his first two matches I already started having some doubts about Simon Engelmann, who barely appeared in the play in those. Those doubts were silenced by his masterclass today. After giving a selfless assist early on, he got his first goal of the season in the second half and topped off his performance by scoring a penalty. Our defensive showing was very solid, and resulted in our first clean sheet of the season. We managed to keep our opponents away from our goal for most of the match, which prevented them from getting a lot of good chances. Borussia Dortmund II - RW Essen Goalscorers: Berlinski (75') The league planners have kept us from travelling a lot to start the season, as we played another very close away game. This time against Dortmund II, who had shown to be hard to beat in their 5-2-3 formation, with scorelines of 0-0 (2x) and 1-1. For a long time it looked like another 0-0 was coming, but luckily for us, we managed to break the deadlock. After the midweek game against Viktoria Köln we had to make some changes due to fatigue, with most notably 31- and 33-year old Fandrich and Engelmann not able to play 3 games in a week. Fandrich got replaced by Oguzhan Kefkir, which saw Eisfeld move to midfield, and Engelmann's place was taken over by Ron Berlinski. For both of them this meant their first place in the starting XI of the season, and incidentally (or not), it was exactly those 2 who linked up for the only goal of the game, with Kefkir giving a nice through ball to Berlinski who slotted it home. In the end, we probably were deserved winners of the match, having been the more dangerous team for a big part of it. Once again a rock solid defensive performance. RW Essen - FC Ingolstadt 04 Goalscorers: Engelmann (5', 71'), Kefkir (50') This was probably our best game yet. Putting on such a dominant performance against a team predicted as one of the most likely to be promoted really gives me high hopes for the future. We came blazing out of the starting blocks in both halves, and were not fazed when they scored the 2-1, immediately getting back control over the game. Simon Engelmann scored his second brace which got him his second MOTM-award early in the season, really showing why he is our first choice striker. After his good performance last match, we gave Oguzhan Kefkir the nod ahead of Eisfeld, which paid off as he scored a brilliant free-kick. Our dominance in this match is best shown by the average position maps. Seeing almost all of Ingolstadt's team on their own half, and our striker nearly halfway their half shows how much we really pushed them back. SpVgg Bayreuth - RW Essen Goalscorers: Engelmann (27') This is turning into an amazing early season run of form. We were probably a bit lucky to come out on top in this one, but we could care less. A big chance 20 seconds into the game did not initiate a lot more, with our only other first half shot being the only goal of the match. Bayreuth actually was the better team in this first half, but did not convert their chances. During the break I decided to let the team play a little deeper, and this resulted in a boring second half, with us taking the 3 points back to Essen. I did experiment a bit in this match, with second choice striker Ron Berlinski getting game time on the right wing, a role he can fill in, but did not today. Results have been above all expectations these first months, and this means we are topping the table! I could not have asked for a better start to the season really. We should not get too carried away though, as we came out on top in some very close games, and probably do have some more points than we should have. We will certainly enjoy our position for now. Highlighted Player I am planning on going into some more detail about one of my players every month to show my squad a little bit. For this first month I have chosen to go with the 34-year old veteran Felix Bastians, who is the oldest player in our squad. He has been absolutely rock solid for us as our left central defender, and is one of the main reasons we have conceded such a low amount of goals. He is also our outfield player with the most minutes, missing just 35 minutes due to fatigue in the week with two matches. Bastians can play at either left back or center back, but will play mainly in the center for us. His tall appearance and strength make him an imposing figure. Defensively he is very adequate for our level, and mentally he is great overall. Especially the combination of high bravery and aggression can be very important to nip opponents' attacks in the bud. I made this overview of defensive stats, although it is not great yet due to a lack of data from center backs other than Bastians and Heber, which makes it that I am comparing with fullbacks and defensive midfielders as well. What does immediately stand out, is that Bastians is very strong in the air, winning 88% of his headers, while also going into a whopping total of 22.46 aerial challenges per 90 minutes. For the rest he wins more possession than all of our other defensive minded players, and has the highest rating out of the five. Taking the comparison onto a league basis, we can see that Bastians is really one of the dominant defenders in the air, having a relatively high winning percentage of headers, while also having a lot of them. On the front of winning possesion he has also been a standout player in the league. Let's hope he can continue his form throughout the season and help us keep up our current pace.

Quite the ECL run that is! Will be fun to see your results against the best Swiss teams. Are you getting a lot of regens with Liechtenstein as their nationality? I would suspect that improving facilities could lead to more Swiss youngsters coming through the ranks. Well, let's hope for some Liechtensteinian (yes, I had to google that word ) wonderkids coming through.

Pre-Season This won't be a very long post, firstly because, as said before, I have the first transfer window turned off, and secondly because I just haven't got a whole lot to tell yet. This is for a big part as I usually don't really like the first pre-season, due to the fact that I really need the competitive games to get into a save. Anyways, here are our friendly results: All in all, the results look okay, but do not tell the whole story. All matches came against German teams from tier 4 and below, except for Beerschot, who play in the Belgian second tier. Losing against Velbert is already not a good sign, but the fact that we were actually outplayed in this match quite worries me. Our best performance came against Beerschot, which was also the only match we started (and kept playing) with the first XI I have in mind. Most notable thing is our disappointing defensive performance, conceding so many goals against lower league sides, but also giving away a lot of chances. The conclusion is that I am not totally sure about the tactic yet, but we'll go with it for the start of the season and tweak/change it if necessary. Tactic We will start the season with a pretty basic 4-3-3. I normally like to use less common tactics, and actually had 5-3-2 in mind for this save. However, that did not turn out to be a great idea for this first season, as we lack depth at center back, and on top of that it would mean we would not use our abundance of wingers. For the rest I will not go into a lot of detail yet. Big chance that the instructions will look very different in a few months, so I plan on doing a more detailled tactical post when I feel like we have actually gotten to a good tactic. It may take some time though, as I am not really a tactical genius in this game. Squad I am planning on introducing the individual players to a more detailled degree as the season goes on, so for now just a small summary of every position. Between the posts we have two young goalkeepers to choose from, with more experience as a third choice. Jakop Golz will start the season as our first choice, although some bad performances may lead to Felix Wienand getting a chance, seeing he has a lot of potential. In defense we have a lot of options. In the center we have more experienced players as well as some talents. Daniel Heber, being our captain, will start the season on the right side of the center, whereas veteran Felix Bastians will do the job on the left side. At right back we have an attacking option in Wiegel, while Plechaty and Sponsel are pretty similar players with a more defensive mindset. As Sponsel is in on loan, we will give the nod to Sandro Plechaty. On the left side Felix Herzenbruch is the obvious first choice, because Niemeyer will be out injured for the whole duration of the season. Not that many midfielders to choose from, although we have wingers like Harenbrock, Holzweiler and Eisfeld that can also do a good job here. We will actually start the season with Felix Götze, who is naturally a center back, as our half back. Björn Rother as our ball winning midfielder and Clemens Fandrich as our advanced playmaker finish of the midfield We do have more choice on the flanks, where we will probably also see the most changes between players during the season. For now first choices are Isaiah Young on the right and Thomas Eisfeld on the left, but especially Lawrence Ennali is already very close to my first team aswell. It will be Simon Engelmann to start the season up front, although Ron Berlinski in particular is a very good back-up. The other two might not get as much game time, although injuries may change things there. Season Preview Not a lot to say about this. We definitely should not be caught in a relegation battle, and for anything higher than 9th we would need luck to go our way. Freiburg and Dortmund Second team's are not in here. Board Expectation 3. Liga will be the only competition we play in this year, as RW Essen did not win their regional cup (which is not in FM) last year. Top half finish should be doable.

Game setup Besides having Germany, of course, loaded to the 3. Liga, I have also loaded 6 of the biggest European top leagues. I hope this will keep the in-game world realistic if I would ever have the joy to qualify for European football. All other European top-flights are on view-only. For the same reasons of keeping the game realistic, I have also selected a custom database with all players in continental competitions loaded. I hope these settings will keep the game running smoothly on my laptop. For the rest it's important to mention that I have disabled transfer activity in the first transfer window. This is partly because I like to get a bit of feel for the real life players at the start of a save, and being able to realisticly compare with real life in the first season. Another reason is that once I start a save, I am always very eager to get to the competitive games, so not having to worry about transfers yet makes pre-season go by a lot faster. I did think about using a custom database to add the Verbandspokalen (Regional cups), which in real life serve the purpose of qualifying for the DFB-Pokal for teams not in the first two tiers. I eventually decided against it though, as my last save stopped because of an error in a custom database, and I did not want to risk that happening again. Manager As for the manager, I like to implement a little bit of my past saves into my new ones. For this save I have chosen the character of Bojan Dobaj, who was an amazing Slovenian regen striker in one of my FM22 saves. I have sort of taken over the recommended coaching licence and experience level, apart from tweaking it a little bit to suit Bojan Dobaj's character. So that is that, all is set and I am ready and raring to go. It may take 2 or 3 days until I come with the pre season update, but that remains to be seen. First I have to get a good feel of all the players and set my tactics up.

The Club Founded in 1907 as SV Vogelsheim, the club eventually got its current name after some mergers. Not surprisingly, the club colours are red and white. In its first years, RW Essen led a pretty anonymous life in German football. Short before the second world war, they managed to break into the top-flight, which consisted of 16 regional leagues at that time. After this, RW Essen quickly became one of the best teams in their regional league (Gauliga Niederrhein), although they never won it. After the war, RW Essen managed to get to the top-flight quickly again, getting to play in the Oberliga West, which was one of 5 top leagues. This started the most successful period in the club's history to date. In 1951 RW Essen acquired Helmut Rahn, who went on to become a German football legend after scoring 2 goals to help Germany come back from 2-0 behind in the 1954 World Cup final (The Miracle of Bern). With him in the side, they managed to win the Oberliga West for the first time in 1952. The following season, RW Essen won their first major trophy, beating Alemannia Aachen 2-1 in the DFB-Pokal final. The club reached its pinnacle in 1955, after winning the Oberliga West for the second time, they even went on to become national champions this time around. Because of this championship, RW Essen became the first German team to play in the European Cup, which had its inaugural season in 1955/56. The European Cup saw RW Essen get easily beaten by Scottish side Hibernian, and in the league the heights of the championship season were not reached again. They even got relegated from the Oberliga West in 1961. This also meant they were not one of the founding members of the Bundesliga, which was established in 1963. However, eventually RW Essen did manage to get promoted, and in total had 3 spells in the Bundesliga of 1, 2 and 4 years respectively. In the 1976/77 season they got relegated from the Bundesliga for the third and up to date final time. Succeeding their last Bundesliga relegation, Rot-Weiss Essen spent most of their time in the following 20 years in the 2. Bundesliga, though they also played some seasons at the third tier. A highlight during this time was reaching their second DFB-Pokal final, which they lost to Werder Bremen. At the end of the century, however, RW Essen fell to a new low, getting relegated to the fourth tier for the first time in its history. The club did suffer from financial problems during a big part of this period. Luckily RW Essen managed to get promoted in its first season at the fourth tier, and some better times followed on the field. The club even got to play in the 2. Bundesliga again in 2004/05 and 2006/07, though they could not survive relegation in either season. After the last relegation things went downwards again really fast, with RW Essen dropping down to the fourth tier within a season, although partly due to a league restructuring. In 2010 the all time low was reached, as the club went down to the fifth level due to insolvency. After getting promoted back to the fourth level within a season, RW Essen spent 11 years in the Regionalliga West. With only the team ending in first getting promoted, as there are five leagues at this level, it is extremely hard to get out of. Last season, RW Essen finally overcame the struggles, finishing in front of Preußen Münster on goal difference. Currently, they are getting along nicely in the 3. Liga, being 7 points clear of the drop in 13th place. The City Unsurprisingly, RW Essen is based in the city of Essen. Essen is the 9th biggest city of Germany, not far behind the likes of Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Dortmund with a population of around 580,000. The city lies in the west of Germany and is part of the densely populated Ruhr area. The Ruhr area is known for its industries, most notably the production of steel and coal mining. The area has around 5 million inhabitants, and besides Essen, contains other big cities with traditional football clubs like Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum (all Bundesliga), Duisburg (3. Liga) and Oberhausen (4th tier). Zooming out to the metropolitan Rhine-Ruhr area, which is the third biggest in Europe, we can see that other big cities like Düsseldorf, Cologne, Mönchengladbach, Wuppertal, Leverkusen and Bonn are also not far away. The Stadium RW Essen play in the 'Stadion an der Hafenstraße'. The stadium is still pretty new, as it was officialy opened in 2012, and it has a capacity of 20,650. It is not your traditional arena as it has open corners. This does however mean that there is a lot of room to expand the capacity, apparently to around 35,000. As is usual in Germany, the hard core supporters stand on a big terrace behind one of the goals. The Fans Rot-Weiss Essen has a very loyal fanbase. Despite playing at the 4th tier for the last 10 seasons, they always averaged an attendance of above 7,000 per game. Last season even of above 9,000 per game. Notable is that giants like Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund are less than a 40 minute drive away. The Rivals Being located in such a populated area, RW Essen has a lot of rivalries, though some are bigger than others of course. Historically they have had a city rivalry with Schwarz-Weiß Essen, but this has died down due to the decline of the latter club. Their biggest rivals are actually Schalke 04, even though they have not played a competitive game against each other since the 1992/93 season. This means that more recently the rivalry has actually carried to matches between RW Essen and Schalke's second team, which is active in the Regionalliga West. The rivalry with Schalke is not only born out of the fact that the two cities are directly next to each other, but also due to the 1971 Bundesliga scandal, in which RW Essen was the victim and got relegated, after among others Schalke players were bought to lose a match. Another big rival is MSV Duisburg, also from a neighbouring city, and playing more in the same league as each other. This season they also play in the 3. Liga. Other rivals include mostly teams from the region like Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, Alemannia Aachen, Preußen Münster, Fortuna Düsseldorf and Wuppertaler SV.

Thanks. While searching for some info about the club, I actually found out the Ruhr region even contains another Rot-Weiß club in Oberhausen, with them also being one of the rivals of RW Essen.

Very well written first post! Gets me interested before the FM part has even started

Introduction Okay, so after strolling around the forum for some time now, I have finally decided to do a documented save of my own. Especially because during my last save, which was a build a nation in Indonesia, I already regretted not documenting it. That save was actually supposed to last for this whole FM cycle (and on it's way to do so, as I really enjoyed it), but sadly came to a screeching halt when I found a save-breaking problem in the database I was using, which would seriously affect the challenge in the long run. After having not touched the game for about a month, I am really keen on starting a new save again. I had a thought about trying the same thing again, but was not totally into the idea in the end, as I did not feel like starting all over. It is possible that I try it again next year though. Having had some time to think about what would be next for me then, I came to the conclusion I needed to try managing in Germany, as I have not actually done so before, even though I am very intrigued by German football. Wanting this to be a one club and long term save, I came to the simple conclusion of managing Bayern München in the 3. Liga (3rd tier). And because I really like German fan tradition, I wanted to manage a so-called 'traditionsverein' with a good fanbase. In the end, I narrowed my list down to 3 clubs: 1860 München, Dynamo Dresden and RW Essen. Those three are, not totally coincidentally, the clubs with the highest average attendance in the current league season. However, this is not the only reason I chose them. For 1860 München the reasons are probably clearest, as they have a very long history, and reside in the same city as 'Die Rekordmeister'. Dynamo Dresden is appealing for it's amazing fanbase, as well as them having been one of the best teams in East-Germany, which is still underrepresented in the Bundesliga. Finally, RW Essen are a club from the Ruhr area, close to the likes of Schalke and Dortmund, and has had some great successes in the past, but has not been close to the Bundesliga for a very long time. In the end, I chose not to go with 1860 München, as I have already seen some others on the forum manage them in the past. I also decided against Dynamo Dresden, mostly for the reason that I have another save idea for the future which would probably see me manage them eventually. So RW Essen it is. Not only for the reasons mentioned before, but also as there is still some more to build within the 3. Liga with this club. While the other 2 clubs have recently played in the 2. Bundesliga and are top teams in the 3. Liga at the moment, RW Essen have just been promoted after a 14 season spell in the amateur leagues. What to expect I do not yet know exactly what my style of writing will be. However, I do have the intention to show a little bit more then just the results. I am also planning on playing a little bit slower than I usually do, since I would like to do some micro-managing in this save, and am very keen on using the data center and available statistics to my advantage. This will probably result in monthly updates, with me giving my take on something I find interesting in the save every now and then. Next update will be an introduction to the club, after which I will dive into the save for what will hopefully be a good time!

Great Nations League performance! Hopefully you can carry this form on to the Euros.

Wow! I have to say I am really impressed with how much you've improved the Ekstraklasa so far. Also good to see that Warta and Rakow have kept performing in Europe after you left. Hopefully you can also give the national team a boost now.