Rick87

An entertaining debut as Aurora manager, even if I feel we should have come away with the win considering we were very much the better team, bossing the play throughout most of the game, but twice we surrendered a two goal lead. frustrating but there were plenty of positives on show to make me optimistic going forward, controlling possession and creating lots of chances.

My preparations are complete! At least I hope they are. It was a good pre-season, the only defeat coming against Peruvian visitors Cienciano which I can excuse as they have a strong squad and it was only a narrow loss. In all the other games we pretty much blew the oppositions away, although they were all inferior in terms of stature to us, playing in the Segunda division or below. I have four signings in; Joel de Marco - Central midfielder Signed on free transfer after being let go by Argentine Premier side Aldosivi, Joel is only 19 and could still have a good career. Ignacio Poplawski - Another midfielder signed from Argentina; who is adept at defending or getting forward, Joel was born in Florida but has spent the formulative years of his career with Estudientes, before loan spells in his home state with Orlando City and Inter Miami. Upon his return to Argentina he failed to make a single appearance for Estudientes and was transfer listed. I splashed £96k on Ignacio, not an inconsiderable amount here in Bolivia so I hope he can live up to the price tag. Alain Nino de Guzman - My biggest and probably most exciting signing; from divisional rival Orliente Petrolero for £150k. Alain can play centrally or out on the left and I'll be expecting big things from him. Juan Gil - Promising young keeper, snapped up on free following his release from Colombian side Deportivo Pasto as backup initially, as there were only two other goalkeepers in the squad and hopefully to develop into competition for the other two stoppers. Going out I have sold central defender Ezequiel Michelli to Blooming for an initial £30k, potentially rising to £46k depending on appearances. So now you've met the newbies, here is my squad as a whole. I've included the reserves in the screenshots as well to give you a better idea of what I have to work with going forward as I'll be looking to develop them to gradually replace my elderly squad, which as I said in the previous post has an average age of nearly 31. Goalkeepers No worries here, all three are solid enough based on what I've seen in pre-season, I'll not be looking to replace any of them this season. Defense Plenty of options to chose from, Luis Barbosa is my captain and rock at the back, usually he will be partnered with Paraguayan Sebastian Zaracho. Brother Didi and Jair Tarrico could be important as they can play in defense or midfield. I will be trying to break in young prospects Carlos Sejas and Brian Barao over the course of the season. Midfield Tons of options here too, there wasn't much strength in the center on day one, so my three midfield signings have added bulk to this area. Several old heads need moving on in the near future, 38 year old winger Serginho surely will be retiring soon, although he did look good in preseason to be fair. Forwards We can easily play 4-4-2 or even a narrow 4-3-3 with a number of good forwards on the books, all of whom scored at least once in pre-season that was encouraging. Tactics I'm a great believer in keeping things as un-complicated as possible, a simple 4-4-2 keeps us defensively solid and gives us fire power up front in games where we will have to work hard for the points. I've gone for 4-2-3-1 when we are the favorites and will likely have a lot of possession of the ball. In both systems I've kept my default instructions to a minimum. I will tweak them on a game by game basis depending on the oppositions strengths and weaknesses and could easily switch to a 5-3-2 if we are up against a particularly tough opposition as we have a number of players who can play wingback effectively. OK, Now onto the first competitive game of my career! at home to Oriente Petrolero.

Excellent graphics mate, makes the stories stand out and nice and easy to read

Day One Welcome one and all to what I hope will be the meteoric rise to the summit of the footballing world - of Bolivian tactician Juan Cardozo. Cochamaba born Juan is an avatar I've used for years on FM and FIFA. He had a modest playing career in his youth, captaining several local amateur sides, but was hampered by a recurrent ACL injury that forced him to hang up his boots at the tender age of 25. Thankfully for Juan, his on field leadership had been noticed by scouts of Club Aurora who saw potential in the stricken striker. Aurora offered Juan the chance to coach their U16's, where he showed an immediate aptitude for coaching, winning the U16 league in this first season, leading to a promotion to under-18 level, where he again demonstrated his tactical acumen by finishing second. Now the club have given their rising star the ultimate show of trust and given him the reigns of the first team squad following the departure of Roberto Perez who only lasted 72 days in the role. Can he repay the faith Aurora have put on his young shoulders? Squad A very solid base to work from; Though being a youth favoring manager, I am taking note that the average age of the squad is over 30, something I will be looking to address over the coming seasons, I will be cautious about making too many changes too quickly though. Tactically I would like to play some high pressure attacking football, again though this will be a gradual change rather than completely ripping up what the players already know and risking causing dressing room discord. To begin with I set up with a fairly standard 4-4-2 which I will tweak and develop over time along with other systems. The League In this league, the top team is of course champions; the top three qualify for South America's elite competition - the Copa Libertadores. The teams from 4th-8th earn a place in the Copa Sudamericana. There is no automatic relegation here, the bottom team plays-off against the winner of Segunda division below to try and save themselves.

________________________________ Career Aims My initial goals with Aurora is to simply prove myself as a manager and build my reputation. There are a few things I would like to achieve though. Qualify for Copa Libertadores with Aurora Win Primera Division with Aurora Be the first Bolivian club to win Copa Libertadores Manage Bolivia Qualify for World Cup with Bolivia for the first time since USA 94 Win Bolivia's first Copa America since 1963 Manage Boca Juniors (My favorite South American club) Move to a big European club Win UEFA Champions League Cement my place in football history by being inducted into Worldwide hall of fame The story so far

@forzaformia Excellent work on creating all these countries mate! I downloaded all the continents and chose about 50 countries from it that I'm inclined to want to manage in rather than all 200 odd. however I have noticed that when trying to start a game, it gets stuck for a full 15-20 minutes between selecting the files and the screen where you select what leagues you want playable. Is there anyway speed this up?

Hi, Is there a Welsh expansion for FM24 anywhere? Can't seem to find one but perhaps somebody knows of one floating about.

Thank you for your hard work. I'm looking forward to the African countries.

After a number of reloads, I finally got my local club Workington to come up, so here we go on our epic quest to bring Champions League glory to West Cumbria!

Is there any rules regarding manager profile/experience etc?

Good idea, They used to do something similar over on Sortitioutsi , time based challenges with certain teams. I've just been sacked from my English non-league save so I'm looking for something new until I settle on a long term save, this certainly appeals.

Good luck, I did consider a career with Como myself after Cesc was appointed, it looks like a good club to manage. Enjoy!

Really good, well laid out and easy to read updates mate. Well done! Doing pretty well in the league too, better than real Chelsea. Also like your use of the classic team badges. Keep up the good work.

Shame mate, you were going well

Good luck with Man U

I'm doing youth academy challenge in my current save and have alot of 16/17 year olds promoted into my team already. So I'm definitely going to give this a try.

Good season, hopefully the new owners provide a bit of investment for you.

Excellent work mate. I look forward to starting a game with your files if I take a break from my current save in England. I'm looking forward to Africa in particular. I remember a very enjoyable save with Tiko United in Cameroon on a previous edition of FM.

Good start. I enjoy regional stories like this. I'm doing similar in my save. Looks like you could set up some success over the next few years with a promising youth intake. Keep it up 👌

Looks like your off to a good start. I like the way you do updates about Shetland as well. Keep it going 👌

Thank you all for your advice 👌

Make sure your opposition instructions don't have a slow moving defender trying to mark tightly the pacy forwards, else you will lose goals, particularly if said pacy forward has a good first touch and technique to lose the defenders.

I don't know about selecting the kit before each game, but the AI needs improving to avoid kit clashes. There's been a number of occasions on my current save where it's been difficult to tell the teams apart.

Let's face it, it's quite unrealistic for anyone to start out as a first team manager at any level that's playable in the game. I would really like to be able to manage say the U18's or U23's of a club and perhaps get promoted to first team manager should I do well enough or receive offers from elsewhere to have a satisfying and realistic career trajectory. I know you can manage B teams in some countries and there are numerous domestic and continental youth competitions already included in the database,so I can't see why it would be a difficult feature to implement.

Generally if your a big team, the board will insist on having youth teams. but if your playing as a non-league club for example who don't have any youth academy to speak of, you can choose not to. I think you save some money on matchday costs as well.