MarcxD

Intake / March - April 2036 It looks insanely strong, but quite a few of these talents don't have good determination (or outright poor). The new HoYD himself has decent determination, but has a balanced personality. Also: there were more players than usual. 22 instead of the usual 16. Not exactly sure why. I've also had mentions of young players being poached by other clubs before the intake, so could we have had even more? I'll be interested to see if this happens in future years too. Straight dominant wins in the league. No more slip ups... can we keep this up for one more month?! One more month, 4 more games... the title race is very much on, Pogon (and Jagiellonia) dropping a ton of points as we are in our best form. It seems to only be up to Legia, the club's biggest club after all, to stop us from taking that title.

January - February 2036 I didn't sign any players, but there were a few departures. Nothing really of note, though. Piszczek has a mandatory fee at Antwerp, so him and Howley are the first team squad players leaving. Well, the league certainly scheduled us a lovely start to the new year, having to face Legia, Lech and leaders Pogon back to back. We started great by beating Legia 4-1 but two losses in a row throw us back a bit. Though, to be fair, only 3 points behind and not having to face those sides again.

Thanks. I feel like we can beat anyone in the league and simultaneously drop points against any one as well, so results like that are bound to happen

July - December 2035 I wasn't sure of it, but we managed to continue like we played in the second half of last season. We aren't always the best team, but we can go in any match and think we can win today. And we quite often did. We did go straight out of the cup though, which was disappointing. And... we're in a title race. At least for now. Very tight at the top between the top 4. With a nice lead of 7 points to the 5th placed, a realistic goal should be top 4 and European football qualification.

Pre-Season 2035 Not a huge amount of outgoings, however Adamski and Banasiak were decent rotational players and Benali was actually a first team staple last year, but I'm looking to upgrade of course and needed space in budgets to do so. The others are pretty much players I needed to get rid off for the same reason, freeing up wage budget. Some of those were failed transfers from last year, like Beukers and Antonisse. A lot of new players, some first team or rotational and some even young players with potential (although we might progress too quickly for them to ever make it here, always worth a try for a low price). A few targeted loans as well, to have a strong and complete squad. A short but good pre-season, and I am quite positive about our chances this season. We are still only predicted to finish in 13th place, so about where we finished last season. I think we can do a whole lot better, at the very least top half.

March - May 2035 Well... we really did turn things around with the renovated squad! I am kind of shocked, to be honest. We went from being 11 points behind safety to being 9 points ahead of the drop. We had 12 points in december, and gained 30 points in the new year. Compare that with champions Pogon (who won a surprising title after Legia had a long streak going of winning titles), who went from 41 to 67. It's probably not realistic, but if we could repeat that kind of performance next season throughout, we could immediately challenge for the top places. I really did not expect this kind of upheaval. Certainly not all of my transfers were successes, but loanees Fjellro, Da Silva & Alilovic were hugely important. I also have been lucky with the fact that there are promising young homegrown players at the club, so that we could easily fulfill the league rules. (you need to have a u22 Polish player in your 11). Those need to be the players I build my squad around. I'll probably still need to keep some loan players around as that is the easiest way to access high quality players, especially with limited budgets. Perhaps this is an explanation for how well we managed to do. The league quality seems to have had a large decrease recently. I remember earlier on in the save seeing Legia quite often qualifying for CL group stage, well now they haven't even been able to win the league. 21st is rough... Well, two things: of course we need to change this, and it should increase the speed at which we compete for European places. However that also means that when we do qualify for Europe, we first need to go through some qualifying rounds to gain the financial fruits from a European qualification. It's too soon to say whether next year we can already compete for those places, but it's certainly possible.

Intake Not terrible, but generally the intake has quite low det. I will sign a new HoYD for next year to try and see if that can have a positive impact on that front. //

I know that feeling of unfinished business but new ideas are also always there! Choices choices Hah, it might be. However, Let's just say I think the Polish league has some room for improvement so comparing with overtaking Bayern... well tbh before the February games I had very little hope but now I think it should be possible to stay up. Thanks man! Yeah, those transfer sums were insane. Kind of fun, as I pretty much never manage those kinds of clubs but also it was getting a bit ridiculous. It's funny to now think of a player being sold for a million as being a big deal.

Transfers / January - February First of all, there were a lot of players who were sold. Just a lot of players I didn't particularly need. Two relatively big sales in Hannes Passage and Buchalik for a total of 2.4M there. Really helpful for the budgets. Incoming it was tough, and I am not building for the future yet. The highest level I could easily find quickly were loan players, mostly from Germany and the Netherlands. The early signs are extremely promising however, the new players really helping raise our level, combined with morale being better after winning some friendlies and some unhappy players leaving. In my first months I got 5 points, now 7 straight points starting from the winter break. Continuing like this and we'll be out of the relegation places in no time!

Tough beginnings.... October - December 2034 Well.... I didn't quite turn things around. Oops. Just the one win... I might be in over my head. Back to reality after thinking I cracked the game at Köln! 11 points behind safety.... With this squad there is no hope, so I NEED to renovate the squad as much as possible in the February transfer period. That is going to be tough, as I don't have much scouting set up yet at this level. We'll see!

Thanks! Danzig was a major Hanseatic city so it really fit with the save and besides I think in my 10+ years of FM I've never managed in Poland before. About time! I should check out your FM21 thread if it's as good as your 22 one

A new job... Not an option for me, as it doesn't fit within the Hanseatic idea of course, besides there's no point making City even richer. But it is a sign of how high my reputation is now. Why did the City job come up at all? Because Klopp (!) left the City job to become the new manager of ... Köln. I had made a shortlist for myself of about 10 clubs in various leagues fitting the criteria of the save, and which were not in Germany and the Netherlands as I wanted a new league to learn, and an opportunity to really create something elsewhere again. It took a bit of time but I found a job fitting the save. (Not quite sure where they got that 4-4-2 from, however) Lechia Gdansk (or Danzig as it's called on the map in the first post of this thread) is a club currently having a really tough time in Poland, but it totally fits the kind of club I wanted to join. Plenty of opportunity to build in a new league! However, before I get to building, I need to make sure we survive the first season and not get relegated. This is the state of the squad as I join. No big outliers with regards to CA, so I am thinking the general level probably won't be great as we're seventeenth! Let's see if me coming here with the gegenpress style will turn our fortune or if I'll need to wait until the transfer period (which is in February in Poland, but there are no games in January) to really turn things around.

That's right... although the AI Did do better than me and won in 2030! thanks!

World cup 2034 After losing the 2032 Euro final now we lost the world cup final... A good run in at Netherlands in 4 years with two finals and two wins in the Nations League, but I think from now on this save will be fully club focused. So I have resigned and am now without any job.

World Cup 2034 2nd round & 3rd round A really tough first game in the KO rounds, but we did manage to beat Brazil. Another close win against another South American opponent. Interesting to see Bulgaria beat Argentina...

World Cup 2034 prep & group Yep, the squad is very old. A last chance for many of these players, including two who will retire after the tournament. Decent start...

Future plans I've made a list of teams I can join (see the map in the first post in this thread), and will be looking to make a big jump down. Not particularly realistic after winning the CL, but I do want to build a new club up again, sporting and financially. It will depend on which relevant team becomes available through the season, but I'll be looking especially at Denmark, Sweden and Poland. / First however, I still have the 2034 World Cup to go with the Dutch NT!

Resignation / End of an Era The club tried to convince me to stay, but I have been sure for a while. Köln has become one of the best teams in the world right now, flowing with cash. While winning so much and seeing insane players developing is cool, I also want to get back to building a club up again, more like I did with VVV. Köln of course was already a pretty big club when I joined. I'm also sure whoever will follow me will have the opportunity to keep Köln at the very top of European football. An overview of my years at Köln: I've even become a club legend. Now that I've left Köln, I also wanted to take a look at how my former club VVV has performed since I left. I will try to do a former club watch update every time I change jobs, however many times that will happen. A remarkable consistency for the first 5 seasons (especially the 71, 70, 70 and 70 points finishes!), not quite being able to keep up with the top 2 or 3, but sadly now they seem to have dropped off a bit.

Squad / Post-season Such a strong team, one of the best teams I've ever managed in any fm. Yes, Thiago did score 52 goals this season!

May 2034 We did it! A Perfect season! (except for losing the supercup earlier) What a way to finish my stay here. Were so dominant in the league this year, although Bayern once again stayed right on our tail throughout. So many big goal scoring performances, and what a way to win the league with a 5-0 win... Before also winning like that in the CL final. I was surprised to see Leipzig beat Bayern in the other CL semi final, and I think we would've had a much harder time had we had to face Bayern. Treble and unbeaten in the league...

Thank you!

April 2034 Fantastic month - winning all league games and by some margin as well. Also managed to beat Bayern in the cup AND we are in with a real shot at making a fourth straight CL final. (Btw: the other CL semi final is between Bayern and RB Leipzig!) With the one game remaining, we still have Bayern right there with us. Once again it will come down to the last matchday. This time it won't be us, but Bayern who has to play Leipzig. We have it slightly easier with a home game against Frankurt. That should not pose too many problems

Thanks! We are certainly scoring insane amounts of goals but I remain wary until the last matchday with a rival like Bayern! Yeah Isci is amazing. I did pay almost 20M for him (including bonuses) but he is obviously more than worth that.

January - March 2034 While there have been a few draws, we are still doing really well overall. But Bayern looms large still.

Transfers & Intake 2034 A couple of further sales, now we have made about 500M in sales this season. Jokinen was among the rotation used for the AML position and doing well, but the bid from Man City was too good to reject. Musah had been a long time serving midfielder, but he was now fourth or fifth choice for the three CM positions I use. At 30 years old he was let go for a decent sum. Szalai and Salinas were recent purchases but didn't play that much so they were let go as well. I did spend some money. I signed one new talented young Brazilian in Lorran, an AML. (Part of the reason why I was fine with selling Jokinen). The other three are very experienced but still really strong players, who should hopefully be a real boon for us in the title and CL runs this season. They go a bit against the style of getting in younger players with a view of profits, but after selling worth half a billion this season, I let myself spend a bit without worrying about making further profits there. As it's probably the last half year here coming up, I really want to finish with a bang. Last intake seemingly the worst I've ever had, although of course the level of the squad is higher than ever so getting those high PA stars will be tougher than ever as well.