DaneBramage

In FM20 it took me seven years to get out of Serie C. The play-offs were an absolute nightmare, lost in them six years in a row. Glad to be starting in the division above this time.

Nice start with Lechia. Winning the title just a few months after joining would be pretty good going.

September 2022 Results Another loss, and I was starting to think this might be a pretty short-lived career. We did battle back from 2-0 down to 2-2 (including a first All-American goal, Tanner Tessmann setting-up Gianluca Busio), but conceded the deciding goal in the 88th minute. We went back to the drawing board and with a revamped line-up performed much better against Cittadella, Domen Crnigoj announcing himself with a double. He then followed this up with another at Benevento. American goals: 1 American assists: 1 (3 for the season) ------------------------------------- Serie B Nothing special at the moment, we've lost more than we've won, but the final two results of the month felt better and like we were going in the right direction. ------------------------------------- Formation I started the season with a 4-4-2 gegenpressing line-up, but it wasn't working and we were conceding a lot of goals (15 in 6 games). With the AssMan's guidance I've switched it up to a 4-5-1 vertical passing formation instead. There's a lot of in possession instructions, it looks a little cluttered but nothing seems to contradict itself, so we'll see how it goes. ------------------------------------- USA Senior: 4-3 v Panama (North American Nations League Group Stage, finished in 1st place), 0-2 v South Korea (friendly) -------------------------------------

Enjoying this so far. Fun seeing the names being ticked off the list. Still hoping for a hilarious unexpected loss to some minnow nation though... come on Malawi!

August 2022 Results Nope, this is not the start I had in mind. Being drawn against a Serie A side in the Coppa Italia was unfortunate. We could have done with drawing easier opposition to gain some more games and thus more opportunities to use more of the squad, but it wasn't to be. Torino sent us packing sharpish. Getting hammered 3-0 by Pisa on the opening day of the Serie B season was less than ideal too, and I have no idea how we conceded four times at home against Perugia, from an xGA of just 0.89. Still, at least Aaron Connolly is filling his boots. And Andrija Novakovic and Gianluca Busio both helped contribute to this with an assist each. American goals: zero American assists: 2 -------------------------------------

@Branst23 @Tommo_ @DomD Appreciate it, thanks. The next thread is up and running.

Expectations The board want us to finish in the top-half, and the supporters want the same. The top two get promoted, while 3rd-8th go into a play-off (unless 3rd finishes 14 points ahead of 4th, in which case they go up automatically). So I'd like to aim for the top 8. ------------------------------------- Rivals The supporters have a lot of enemies. Unfortunately, none of these clubs are in the same division as us. Padova, Vicenza, and Triestina are in Serie C, Mestre in Serie D, and Treviso in the fifth tier (that's a fall from grace - Wiki says they've had the same kind of bankruptcy and re-founding issues). So hopefully one or two of these teams can get their act together and get promoted into the same tier as us, or a cup draw will be kind. ------------------------------------- Facilities + Finances Very average, though the youth training could do with being brought up to scratch sooner rather than later. Finances will of course be the issue, I assume that money will trickle away pretty quickly. ------------------------------------- Departure We had one departure before the season started with 37 year old goalie Niki Maenpaa leaving for Real Sociedad. The transfer fee was negligible, but getting his £7.25k weekly wage off the books will save around £350k over the course of the season. -------------------------------------

The Squad I've inherited a massive senior squad, with 30 players in it currently. I'll go with it for now, and by January should start seeing who fits in to my plans and who has played themselves out of the club. There's a few names I recognise here - Denis Cheryshev from previously being on the books at Real Madrid, Aaron Connolly is here on loan from Brighton, and Andrija Novakovic came through the ranks at the club I support, Reading. The good levels of determination make me happy, as does the huge array of nationalities. One alarming point is the wages of Luca Ceppitelli and Michael Cuisance. Both are on more than £30k a week, double the amount of anyone else. They better perform well to justify these figures, otherwise they could be prime candidates for an early exit.

Recruitment The board culture has four points, and I will focus on two of them. Sign American players - This is the key one. At present our scouting is limited to South Europe, so a couple of scouts have been sent out to find any Americans in the region. Sign players from the lower levels of the domestic game - This will also be followed. The remaining scouts have been sent out to look over Serie C. Sign high-reputation players - We're in Serie B, I don't think signing high-profile players is a particularly realistic proposition right now. So this isn't a main focus, but hopefully down the line we'll be able to pick up some big name Americans. Sign players under the age of 23 for the first-team - This won't be strictly followed. I'd assume any Serie C signings would likely fall into this category anyway, but established Americans may not. In addition to the above, there will be a couple more routes for players to join us. The youth intake - Obviously. We all look forward to this each year, and we all like seeing graduates break through and become part of the team. Feeder clubs - I think this is something that probably isn't utilised enough, so I want to look into it a bit more. At present we have 11 affiliated clubs, nine from the Italian lower leagues and two from the Slovenian lower leagues. They all have greyed-out squads so aren't much use at the moment, but I'll keep an eye on them when the youth intakes come around to see if there's anyone worth snapping up. And once I'm more established in my role, will be looking to add more feeder clubs of a better standard.

The Aim To win things, obviously. Namely Serie B, then the Coppa Italia, Serie A, and the Champions League. And the intention will be to do this using as many Americans as possible (second nationality also counts). There will be at least one American in every starting line-up. I would also like to take over the US national team at some point, and then flip things around - try to win as much as possible with as many Venezia players as possible in the team.

The Americans In addition to the owner, there are also a couple of Americans as part of the board as directors. The influence isn't just in the boardroom though, it's also on the pitch. The senior squad includes four American players, the highlight being club record signing Gianluca Busio, who cost $6.5 million from Sporting Kansas City. There's also a Polish-American and a Portuguese-American in the under-20 squad. This is a key part of the club's culture, as signing of American players is something they would prefer.

VENEZIA FC The last 22 years have been pretty chaotic at Venezia. The 21st century started with a celebration, finishing 4th in Serie B and clinching promotion to the Italian top flight. But their time at the top only lasted one year, as relegation immediately followed in 2001/02. Worse was to come, as the owner sold up in July 2002 to buy Palermo instead, taking 13 players with him. Venezia struggled on but were plunged into financial difficulties and suffered another relegation in 2004/05. But again, there was more bad news to come. After relegation they were declared bankrupt and demoted another division. The club re-formed in 2005/06 and won promotion from Serie C2 at the first time of asking. But they found life in Serie C difficult and after three years at this level, went bankrupt again. The club re-formed again in 2009/10, and were demoted into Serie D. It took three years this time to get back up to Serie C, and guess what happened next? Yes, bankruptcy again! Once more, Venezia were placed back into Serie D for the 2015/16 season. But there was good news this time. A takeover by American investors saved the club and they were promoted immediately. A second consecutive promotion followed, and Venezia started the 2017/18 season in Serie B. After narrowly avoiding relegation in 2018/19 when Palermo were demoted due to 'administrative non-compliance', the club was taken over by Duncan Niederauer, the American former CEO of the NYSE. With the club now in a much better financial situation improvements were swift, and in 2020/21 promotion out of Serie B was confirmed. There's always a disaster around the corner for Venezia though, and they finished bottom of the 2021/22 Serie A, once again being relegated.

Thanks. Bit of a bummer, once we started aquaplaning we just couldn't pull out of it. Maybe youth only isn't for me. No rest for the wicked though, I'm already planning for what's next. I didn't go with my original plan for FM23 as the club in question had folded and a couple of people had similar ideas anyway, but now I think I've found a suitable alternative I'm happy with.

May 2025 Here it comes... I tried blaming an injury crisis, but they weren't having it. It's all over. History

March + April + May 2025 2. SNL B2 Peter Trdin grabbing a 93rd minute was a great way to mark his debut, and three more goals within the month continued his cracking introduction to the first-team. That's about the only good news in this update though, as we went on a miserable 10 game run without winning. It looked like we'd get back to winning ways against Vipava when we led 3-0 at half-time, but somehow managed to conceded five times in the second-half. At least we ended the season with a win, and B1 Nejc Ceh scored his first. This isn't very good. I think I'm going to get fired.

2024 Youth Intake >>>>>>>>>> I didn't get my hopes up, and yet somehow I'm still disappointed. Terrible all round. Only a few players with much potential, and the awful personalities will prevent them amounting to anything. C3 Andrej Levacic is probably the only one with any chance of making the first-team, and even then he's a bit short for a centre-back. My senior coaching team have an average determination attribute of 12. My youth coaching team have an average determination attribute of 8.75 (Kristijan Brumen will be replaced when his contract runs out in the summer. As a whole, the coaching team has an average determination attribute of 10.7. Yet the intake has an average determination attribute of just 6.75.

October + November + December 2024 In Demand I believe this is the first interview I've been invited to. Declined it of course as the intention is for this to a one club save. Mura are currently bottom of the 1. SNL, 8 points adrift. Youth Preview Probably shouldn't get my hopes up for anything worthwhile from this. 2. SNL October (and the opening game of November) was miserable. Terrible performances, a lot of dropped points and fines. In November I changed the formation, dropping back the AMC to DMC instead. I also decided to start picking a few less academy players for now, just going with the strongest XI each time out. I know that their development will take a hit, but we needed to get some points on the table, and arrest our slump down the rankings. Luckily, it worked, and we picked up 10 points from the next 12 available. A5 Lukasz Fedoruk has been the only academy graduate starting, and he's hit a bit of a purple patch. The winter break has come at the wrong time for him. It's pretty similar so far to my first season. We either win or we lose, with not many draws. We've got a decent buffer over the relegation places so should be okay.

August + September 2024 Departure One additional player left over the summer. I didn't want to let Omar Kocar go, but once the offer came in he wanted to leave and wouldn't talk about a new contract, so it made sense to take the money for him now. If he makes at least 50 appearances for Radnik Surdulica (Serbia) the total fee will be £134k. Expectations I think we'll be trying to integrate more youth academy players this year, so I don't have high hopes for the season. Midtable will do. Slovenian Cup Out of the cup at the earliest stage possible. I thought it was to a non-league, but it wasn't quite that bad; Vipava are now in the same league as us after being promoted. 2. SNL We're either good, or we're bad. No middle ground. Nik Omladic is the main man as always, he's directly contributed to 60% of our league goals so far. A2 Marko Kozar is now 17 and eligible for the first-team, and he picked up his first goal in the big win over Dob. We've been up and down the table over the opening months, but as things start to stabilise we sit bang in the middle. I'd be happy with this come the end of the year.

2022/23 Season Review Players Annoyingly, Scumbag Vinko Bicanic was voted player of the season by the fans, who evidently aren't bothered about contract tampering. In fairness, he was pretty good, picking up 7 MOTM awards throughout the season and having an average rating of 7.42, much higher than anyone else. He probably deserves a shot at the 1. SNL with Domzale. At the other end of the pitch Nik Omladic was again the star man, outdoing his contributions from last year with 17 goals and 13 assists this time around. Scumbag Vinko Bicanic and Duje Biuk both made the 2. SNL team of the season. Giuseppe Barone will be the other departure this summer, off to America with Indy Eleven. Not as big a loss, and his contributions have been underwhelming, but we can't keep losing senior players at this rate. I need to get better at renewing contracts earlier. History + Facilities This failure hurt. I never thought it would be possible at the start of the season, but when we stayed near the top and became real contenders I got my hopes up. Feels like that was probably our big chance, could be a while before we get up there again. We received £252k through investments during the season, and another £43k for the final league position, but our bank balance still ended up down on last year. At the end of the season requests were submitted to improve youth training and youth recruitment, but both were rejected.

May 2023 Play-Off - First Leg Yes boys! Around about 80 minutes I was thinking 'This 1-0 lead is great, but we've had 15 shots with only 3 on target and just the 1 goal. Could do with another or we'll regret it." Then we scored again a minute later. Play-Off - Second Leg Ah, ****. **** **** ****. At half-time we were 1-0 down, and it was one-way traffic. We'd barely gotten out of our half. We improved after the break, but even so our first shot didn't come until the 70th minute. We were then making more chances in the final 20 minutes, but our attack was utterly woeful. And we were punished. Somehow Mura broke away with a three-on-one attack in the 89th minute, and bagged an equaliser. The game went to extra-time and it looked like we'd hold out for penalties until the 121st minute, when Duje Biuk saved from close range, only for the rebound to fall for their other striker to poke into the net. The dream is over.

April + May 2023 2. SNL We started April with a couple of tough games, against the sides in 4th and 1st at the time. Getting just the one point from these ties certainly wasn't the worst outcome, but it did allow Rogaska to pull three points clear of us. Our next few games were a bit kinder, with a midtable side and two relegation threatened teams. We did what we needed to and took the full nine points available. Meanwhile Rogaska earned only a single point in this spell, and we leaped above them and created a five point advantage of our own. Getting smashed by Ilirija wasn't part of the plan, but Rogaska lost at the same time. This left us five points ahead of Rogaska, with two games to play. And the next match was away at their place. We should have battered Rogaska. We led 1-0, 2-1, and 3-1 but somehow conceded three times from an xGA of just 0.69 to finish the game 3-3. The berate team button took a pounding throughout the 90 minutes, but looking on the bright side it was enough to ensure that they couldn't overtake us. 2nd place in the table was confirmed. Could we prepare for the play-offs with a win on the final day? No, we were bloody awful. The one upside was that both strikes came from academy graduates, and A13 Dejan Jurisic notched his first goal for the club. Wahey! We'll be taking on Mura in the play-off after they finished 9th in the 1. SNL. The first leg will be at our place, second leg at theirs. Ominously our ex-striker Sandro Jovanovic is on their books. He only has 1 goal in 14 games for them, so he'll have something to prove. Probably shouldn't have typed that. I can feel the FM Gods awakening...

2024 Youth Intake >>>>>>> The quality dropped a little between the preview and the intake, but luckily not by too much. The nationalities are boring, all 16 players being Slovenian. And you have to look pretty hard to find any decent personalities. But the bright side is that we did have one player listed as a top talent, and another as an elite talent, so they should hopefully be able to make an impact whey they turn 17. Nik Omladic is our current AMC, but at the age of 34 he won't be around forever. The low determination will probably prevent B1 Nejc Ceh from developing too much to ever be as good, but he definitely has something about him. I'd like to see a better finishing attribute, but once he's old enough B2 Peter Trdin will be a contender for the lone striker role. Or maybe we'd even be able to go two upfront. Both of these two scored in the trial game, as the Youth Candidates beat the Under 19s 4-2.

February 2023 2. SNL We've had a bit of any injury crisis this month, so it's lucky that a few more of our first intake are now 17. Seven of them have now made their debuts. A5 Lukasz Fedoruk is the main contender so far, and he was one of few players to come out of the Dravinja Kostroj match with any credit. We led 2-0 at half-time, but somehow conceded three times from an xGA of just 0.64, including the goal that condemned us to a loss in the 95th minute. A13 Dejan Jurisic got the chance to show off against Dob with a hat-trick of assists, earning himself the MOTM award. We were on top all game, but we really put the hammer down with a blitz just after the interval. Scumbag Vinko Bicanic has scored in each of the last two games, temporarily putting himself back in my good books. Triglav Kranj have pulled away at the top, but we remain behind Rogaska on goal difference.

January 2023 Intake Preview I know that the general consensus is that the previews don't mean much, but even so, I'm glad that this is better than last year's 0.5 star preview. Still not good mind, but at least it's not the worst possible rating. Traitor A few months back I offered Vinko Bicanic a new deal, but he said he wanted to wait until the end of his contract and then explore his options. Turned out it was a total lie. As soon as his contract was within six months of expiry Domzale (6th in 1. SNL) swooped in, and he signed a pre-contract agreement with them as quickly as he could. Henceforth, he will now be known as Scumbag Vinko Bicanic.

Nicely done, congrats. That prize money at the next tier will be a big help.