MikeClarke

Haven't played much at all since my last update, hoping to pick up the pace again this coming week but real life been taking a toll. Ticked off a couple more milestones though so happy with the first year as international manager. France/Man City : 2036/38 Took a role as manager of france (world #1) as a good way to tick some of those international boxes. Bit of a wait for the Euro/World cup but definitely capable of ticking over those two boxes. After the International league win, I rocked up an took the Man City job, they have struggled and missed qualification for champions league but plenty of cash to reclaim the league title (and some silverware) in the next few seasons whilst I work with France. First season with Man City and we were in a whole in wages and a few players looking to leave because we aren't in champions league. Managed to reclaim the title but all of our tournaments were underwhelming. Using the off-season to clear off some of the unused players across the season and shore up defense ahead of a push for some silverware next year. Going into the summer for a run at the World Cup and made the mistake of making the squad a little smaller than I probably should, caught a few injuries in the group games but it was a weak group so managers through comfortable enough despite this. Early knock outs were quite tough and up to the Quarters we required extra time to seal the deal. Fortunately back at full strength for the Semi's and beat Portugal 2-1 before heading to the final to face European champions Spain, 2 breakaway goals sealed that for us and I can gratefully put an International trophy in my cabinet. Several key players retiring after WC so will be interesting to see what talent arrives in time for Euro 2040 Season Team Position Notes & Achievements ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 1st(C) Promoted to League 1 2026 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L1 8th 2026 Mito Japan L3 1st(C) Promoted to J2 2027 Mito Japan L2 2nd Promoted to J1 2028 Mito Japan L1 2nd 2029 Mito Japan L1 3rd Super Cup Winner 2030 Mito Japan L1 1st League Winner, All Japan Cup, League Cup 2031 Mito Japan L1 Resigned ACL Winner 2031/32 Orlando Pirates SA PSL 1st(C) SAFA Cup Winner, ACC Winner 2032/33 Orlando Pirates SA PSL 1st(C) ASC Winner, SA KO Winner, SA Champions League 2033/34 OL Lique 1 6th Took over in 14th 2034/35 OL Lique 1 2nd Europe league final 2035/36 OL Lique 1 1st(C) Trophee des Champions 2037/38 Man City Premier League 1st(C) Shield winner Season Team Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2036/37 France International League Winner 2038 France World Cup Winner Club 4/10 Club Domestic Leagues (Japan - Mito 2030, SA - Orlando Pirates 2033, France - OL 2036) 2/10 Club Domestic Cups (Japan - Mito 2030, SA - Orlando Pirates 2033) 2/5 Continental Championship (ACL Japan - Mito 2031, CL SA - Orlando Pirates 2033) 0/1 Club World Championship International 0/5 Continental Tournaments 1/1 World Cup (France 2038) 9/32

Orlando Pirates : 2031/32 After my swift exit I opted to be patient and find the right opportunity, after a short while a dream opportunity for this challenge presented itself. Orlando Pirates were suffering in the division, they play the same 4231 I introduced at Mito and have plenty of cash on hand for improvements - not to mention they agreed for me to get another coaching license (despite them already having the best coaching setup in the division). Took over the job early in the season whilst they were sat at 11th after 11 games and some disappointing cup results but still areas to work. Extremely loose registration rules in the league (up to 99 players) meant I could introduce talent and build depth on the cheap. This coupled with an immediate impact and being unbeatable in year one has taken us straight to the top of the table without any stutter, easiest league to date. Opted to renew first team so we can challenge for the champions cup next season. Expecting a very short SA stint so opted to load the top 2 divisions from each of the "top 5" leagues to find some high rep work moving forward. Maybe even a crack at International management if any jobs become available (never really done that before). Orlando Pirates : 2032/33 Suffered my first defeat since taking over at Orlando with a loss in the Be The Coach matchup, 3 early goals and could only claw back 2. KC were my bogey team as they also prevented us winning the Super Cup due to the away goals rule. It was very rewarding to claim the league title win a win over them, but in fairness claiming that title was never a concern. Glad to be exiting SA for pastures new, I always want to win but I prefer more of a fight. My initial pleasure of getting a great team has been a bit of a curse in itself. OL : 2033/34 Couldn't find an International job so decided to take a crack at one of the top 5 divisions with a role at OL. They were sitting 14th in the league and wanted a top half finish, not much of a transfer budget and already over wage budget meant season one would be about trimming some of our expenses. Managed to qualify for Europa league but missed out on Champions League on the final day. Highlight of the season was beating PSG in the league match up but otherwise lost a lot of games by 1 goal. End of season saw my AML worth 60-100mil look for the door so opted to offload him for a deal worth around 85m and bring in a young keeper for 48m - the rest of my transfers will be bargain bucket whilst I hope some of our youth can strike it lucky. Not sure if I will manage to unseat PSG as rulers of France but board is giving me coaching licenses so I'm happy to spend a few seasons trying. OL : 2034/35 Very patchy season throughout, didn't quite hit good form and tried reverting to a 433 to no avail. Brought in some extra strength during the mid-season transfer but my scouts can't seem to find me cheap talent and with a 20m budget each yet its a bit of a challenge bringing in talent that's ready to fire, instead I need to rely more on youth developing. Sold 145m worth of players and brought in 47.5m. Qualified for champions league but not expecting much, still on the search for an international job. The second half of this season was a solid performance so could give PSG a really run for their money (literally). OL : 2035/36 Got my first bit of silverware with OL right out of the gate which a huge 5-0 win over PSG. Definitely filled me with confidence for the season and we stayed top of the table for the year, PSG constantly on our back but we only suffered a slight hiccup in form in March which fortunately impacted our champions league run losing to Barca with only 1 loss impacting the league before a return to form. PSG's persistently amazing form really did have us running to the wire as we only had a 3pt lead on them heading into our final H2H but based on our previous H2H's I was fairly confident, we took a good win 4-1 which also clinched our title! That is what I call slaying the beast. Time to move on to new pastures and see which new horizons open up for me, finally have one of the big 5 in the bank and very happy with that. Resigned from OL and have since took on the job of Man City (previously failed to make ECL) and France (currently ranked #1). Hoping for a relatively short stint in England as its my usual played country but the Man City job is too good to pass up. Season Team Position Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 1st(C) Promoted to League 1 2026 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L1 8th 2026 Mito Japan L3 1st(C) Promoted to J2 2027 Mito Japan L2 2nd Promoted to J1 2028 Mito Japan L1 2nd 2029 Mito Japan L1 3rd Super Cup Winner 2030 Mito Japan L1 1st League Winner, All Japan Cup, League Cup 2031 Mito Japan L1 Resigned ACL Winner 2031/32 Orlando Pirates SA PSL 1st(C) SAFA Cup Winner, ACC Winner 2032/33 Orlando Pirates SA PSL 1st(C) ASC Winner, SA KO Winner, SA Champions League 2033/34 OL Lique 1 6th Took over in 14th 2034/35 OL Lique 1 2nd Europe league final 2035/36 OL Lique 1 1st(C) Trophee des Champions Club 3/10 Club Domestic Leagues (Japan - Mito 2030, SA - Orlando Pirates 2033, France - OL 2036) 2/10 Club Domestic Cups (Japan - Mito 2030, SA - Orlando Pirates 2033) 2/5 Continental Championship (ACL Japan - Mito 2031, CL SA - Orlando Pirates 2033) 0/1 Club World Championship International 0/5 Continental Tournaments 0/1 World Cup 7/32

I'm in SA just now managing Orlando and they are far to good for the division. Because I'm not needing to really do anything to run away with it I'm already eyeing up an escape to a new division. I love the challenge of bringing up an underdog, cant wait to escape to a division with that huge gap between top teams and everyone else.

Mito : 2028 First year up in J1 and interesting to say the least. Start of the season went very smooth, rose to the top of the table and seemed to be holding it but a few injuries and a persistent chaser in Kobe watched us slip out of 1st and fall a fair bit short of retaking it. Finished 2 with no shiny silverware in the cabinet. Mito : 2029 Started with a Super Cup win, not that it really matters and did some strengthening to the squad. Despite this we suffered some vital injuries (Keeper, AMR & Striker the most severe) we never really challenged for the top spot this year and imploded at the end of the season leaving a lot of "what could have been" on the board. Running into 2030 with more questions than answers. On the bright side, club finally in a profit. Mito : 2030 Core of the squad was solid but brought in a few new international players to provide bulk, restrictions meant only 5 in the matchday squad but they were cheaper to acquire than the local talent so this gave me some injury support as needed. Stepped away from my 4-3-3 gen gen to a 4231 approach with more time spend creating individual tactics and wow it made a huge impact, won pretty much everything on offer (apart from ACL). League Title, All Japan Cup & Japanese League Cup means I can finally start my tally. Added some additional leagues to give me future options. Mito : 2031 No transfers/changes to the squad, focused on claiming the ACL (successfully). Opted to rest my squad for league games and holiday mode through league games so we could go full strength for the title. Close final winning the first leg away 2-1 and losing the return leg 0-1 meant we claimed it on away goals. Swiftly resigned after to see what I can find on another continent. P.S This challenge game is incredibly addictive, spent some Annual Leave and neglecting sleep to keep pushing forward Season Team Position Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 1st(C) Promoted to League 1 2026 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L1 8th 2026 Mito Japan L3 1st(C) Promoted to J2 2027 Mito Japan L2 2nd Promoted to J1 2028 Mito Japan L1 2nd 2029 Mito Japan L1 3rd Super Cup Winner 2030 Mito Japan L1 1st League Winner, All Japan Cup, League Cup 2031 Mito Japan L1 Resigned ACL Winner Club 1/10 Club Domestic Leagues (Japan 2030) 1/10 Club Domestic Cups (Japan 2030) 1/5 Continental Championship (ACL Japan 2031) 0/1 Club World Championship International 0/5 Continental Tournaments 0/1 World Cup 3/32

Mito : 2027 A season of two halves we began with a loss but quickly took form and held top spot for quite a while, typically 5pts ahead of our 2nd place chasers. Around about the time I started to envision us claiming back to back champion status my squad decided to take a few to many dives and began dropping like flies and we couldn't find a win to save ourselves and we slipped to 2nd and back with the play-off pack in close touch whilst Kyoto ran away with the title. Opted to spend some money to shore up our defence in hope we could avoid a play-off and this definitely helped. We had a close run with the team in 3rd but just about saw them off to avoid a dreaded playoff. We had a great run in the cup, when we got to the SF I was certain we were going to be exiting but managed to control the game and book a place in the final. However, despite a long break allowing my squad to heal we went 2-0 in 15minutes which was a good sign today was not the day for our first domestic cup. Realistically this squad shouldn't compete to well in J1 and will take a season or two to increase ability of our younger players with a focus on trying to shore up weak points with a key signing or two rather than a dozen. My primary objective this year was to fix the finances and I spend under my wage budget, spent 575k on transfers whilst selling 1.5m in players and yet we still found ourselves running at a loss. Around 600k further in the whole than we were end of season last year. We had a story for a while that the chairman was going to step down so hoped for a big cash injection but that story vanished with no new money. Club objectives for next season is to avoid relegation and repair financial damage over the next 2 years - hopefully J1 pays better as it also requires our stadium to be expanded and I doubt they will do that for free perhaps I'll stick with my A coaching badge and not ask the club for any more until were on better ground. Season Team Position Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 1st(C) Promoted to League 1 2026 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L1 8th 2026 Mito Japan L3 1st(C) Promoted to J2 2027 Mito Japan L2 2nd Promoted to J1

Persijap Jepara : 2026 Entered the season with the intent of signing for a different club applying to every Korean 2nd division or Japanese 2 or better job that became available. Continuously knocked back (even by 2 teams in the J3) without any interviews. I was desperate to get the Mito job, partly because I love the logo but they seemed to be underperforming and set to improve. I flew through the season with some up's & down's but didn't really do any transfers so overall pleased to avoid relegation. Allowed my contract to run down then resigned from the club. Mito : 2026 Mito had expectations of a top table finish in the J2 but found themselves in a relegation battle and fired the boss. When I applied (and declared interest) the fans laughed me off and I failed to get the shortlist. Skip forward to when I'm unemployed and the job had come back up. Despite hiring someone else this person had done a stellar job and had them relegated to L3 then the team was positioned 9th. That made no sense to me as they were clearly over resources for the division, thankfully when I applied this time they weren't so dismissive and I got the job! Did my usual cull straight out the gate & brought in some depth for the upcoming transfer window. The team however was ridiculously strong with 4 top division loanee's in key places, lost my first game in charge because I used the 4-2-4 the AM recommended then took a closer look at what I had available (and incoming). A switched to the Gen Gen 4-3-3 DM WIDE with positive mentality was all that was needed to run through the entire remainder of the season unbeaten (opposition individual instructions used). I always expected we would get promoted but to was amazed at our run. The scary part however, is the finances, the club operated at a loss of just over £2.7million last season. As I want to make Mito my Asian home for the foreseeable seasons addressing this will be priority one in 2027, aiming for mid-table next season and hopefully another badge. * Updates will be slower moving forward had a quiet weekend and now a storm has kept me up to 5am so got a little challenge obsessed, back to work now though. Season Team Position Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L2 1st(C) Promoted to League 1 2026 Persijap Jepara Indonesian L1 8th 2026 Mito Japan L3 1st(C) Promoted to J2

Persijap Jepara : 2024 & 2025 Update First year at the club I did a cull of the worst players and tried to bring in replacements, unfortunately finding anyone to play DL/AML was a severe weakness and I lacked any depth. I opted to go with a 4-3-3 DM WIDE formation which was working ok compared to my original expectations but the struggle was as much as we could score, we conceded alot. A couple of injuries really made things a struggle. Ultimately we missed out on Phase 2 of the league by 1 win, which means the entire year consisted of just 18 matches. Lost my key striker (loan player) during the off-season as his club wanted to him to experience other challenges to further his development. Second year, my board thankfully allowed me to get another coaching qualification. Added more depth to the squad and we were a force to be reckoned with, went unbeaten in Phase 1 of the league despite a string of draws in November that started to narrow the race for Phase 2. Quick return to form and we were through to Phase 2. We suffered our first loss of the domestic league but the team rallied and put us through to the final - at this point we had secured promotion but felt the season deserved the cherry on top which we achieved with an extra time goal. Outside of retiring players I secured the contracts of everyone who appeared in at least 10 games (subs includes). The board gave me a contract extension but I am still looking abroad at my options. As much as a domestic top division win would be nice early on I want to try and find a way to challenge for the ACL which I'm feeling Japan/Korean leagues would be a better place to build up and take a run for it. Season Team Position Notes & Achievements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2024 Persijap Jepara 3rd 2025 Persijap Jepara 1st(C)

Jumping in with this challenge. I've just done a Marine to PL champions but used downloaded tactics throughout and felt like it was easier than it should of been. Starting with Asia/SA divisions and dropped into holiday mode to skip the initial team options. Took over a team in the Indonesian League 2 as the structure looks different to what I'm used to. Board expectation is a mid table position but the budgets are all tight and most squad looks quite poor. Couple of months until my first official fixture so trying to clear some dead wood and will look to bring in some young talent. League requires 8 younger players and my team only has 4 so looks like rectifying that will need to be a priority. Thinking 4-3-3 DM WIDE as my starting point strategically but will see what talent I can bring in and how that affects things. EDIT: Profile picture attached, club agreed to coaching during interview