Football Manager 2020

[CosbehFox]

On 22/09/2020 at 21:04, Walkers said:

Left Krsko at the end of the season. Finished 4th which is a drop from 2nd last season, had a stronger squad this season but it just stunk for some reason. Transfer budget significantly increased though i'm not too sure why. That bollocks next European competition called "Euro Cup II" was my reward for finishing 2nd. The 2nd qualifying round at that. So no Europa League places for any Slovenian sides, what a ****ing joke. Made my mind up I was going to leave anyway and wanted a job in Austria, 8 months out of the game and i've nabbed the job at Rapid Vienna just in time for the start of their relegation group campaign. They seem to really have fallen, competing in the league seems enough for the board. Will continue to build here and look to move to Germany (probably to another team in green)

Cup Winners get the Europa League spot

[Stinkenzo]

9 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Cup Winners get the Europa League spot

Hmmmm, meh

[Stinkenzo]

Anybody remember that time in real life where a player joined a new club, and then wanted to leave a few weeks later because the manager didn't strengthen in a position we were already strong? No? Same

[Stinkenzo]

There isn't much better in life than when your youth player makes it. Out on loan as an 18yo in the Austrian 2nd tier, top goalscorer. Next season find him a club in the top tier, finishes 3rd top goalscorer behind Brewster and Greenwood in a team that finished bottom half. Scored 4 goals in the first 3 games of pre-season now

 

Scored a 35min perfect hat-trick on his competitive debut too, even if it was to a minnow Austrian side in the cup.

Now England have offered me the managers job ffs Also spotted the Red Bull job has become available for the first time, tempting

Edited 2 October 2020 by Walkers

[Stinkenzo]

.

Edited 2 October 2020 by Walkers

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Not sure if its just because I got an illegal patch or whatever but the Bosnian league schedule is, quite frankly, ****ing absurd.

 

League of 12 teams, each plays the other three times. 33 games in all, two go down, two up - standard stuff.

 

The league starts right at the end of July and finishes in early March after a break mid December - mid Feb. But 31 of the games are played before Christmas, you come back after joyeux noel for two ****ing games. I've been playing three times a week for as long as I can remember - Europe will cripple me.

[CosbehFox]

HAJDUKBOT won the league. 19 year wait over. Totally smashed. 
 

Now it’s time for Rapid or to make a club in Serbia challenge their big two 

[Stinkenzo]

55 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

HAJDUKBOT won the league. 19 year wait over. Totally smashed. 
 

Now it’s time for Rapid or to make a club in Serbia challenge their big two 

What sort of club in Serbia?

[CosbehFox]

27 minutes ago, Walkers said:

What sort of club in Serbia?

Thinking Vojvodina or Radnicki Nis

[Stinkenzo]

55 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Thinking Vojvodina or Radnicki Nis

Trying to topple the top two by taking over at a team one level below them.. wheres the challenge in that

[Stinkenzo]

On 02/10/2020 at 21:43, Walkers said:

There isn't much better in life than when your youth player makes it. Out on loan as an 18yo in the Austrian 2nd tier, top goalscorer. Next season find him a club in the top tier, finishes 3rd top goalscorer behind Brewster and Greenwood in a team that finished bottom half. Scored 4 goals in the first 3 games of pre-season now

 

Scored a 35min perfect hat-trick on his competitive debut too, even if it was to a minnow Austrian side in the cup.

Now England have offered me the managers job ffs Also spotted the Red Bull job has become available for the first time, tempting

Departed Rapid Vienna a hero after 5 and a bit years, bowing out with a shithouse victory on penalties against Wolfsburg in the Euro Cup eye eye. After 2nd place finishes in my first two seasons, I slipped to 3rd and 4th in then returned to 2nd in the fifth season, Red Bull are just daft. Disappointed I never really ever came close to pushing them off their perch, but two Austrian Cup wins and a Euro Cup II, joining the list of prestigious teams such as Dynamo Kiev, Anderlecht and Leicester to win the competition represents a pretty good spell (I'm no god at this game), especially when I joined they had became a mid-table at best team who were in the relegation group. Balance has risen from about 6m to 54m, transfer budget from 2m to 30m. 2 academy products featured in the final, while another finished top scorer in the tournament, 7 made the best team of the tournament. My captain Alexander Fuchs, signed a few months after I joined, bit of a Wes Morgan character in the way that he barely plays anymore, I brought him on when we were 2-1 up in the 90th min and we went and conceded.. he scored the winning penalty which was a nice touch. I've left Rapid Vienna is a bloody healthy place with no obvious areas to improve in, just a case of adding any available quality to add depth.

 

I've left to hop over the border to join Bayer Leverkusen (straight swap, no resignation or whatever) who paid 700k for me which was flattering. Mid-table finish last season, I was after something a little more.... average, I was tempted by the Stuttgart job a year ago but wasn't ready to leave Rapid yet. Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen, Schalke would have been ideal. But I didn't wanna pass up this opportunity.

 

FTR Hertha Berlin were CL winners 2028 and Mainz EL winners 2029.

[Stinkenzo]

Had a decent start at Leverkusen being a few pts off Bayern at about the 1/3 stage, then after a run of 5 straight wins we win one of our next 10 or so. Sacked at the start of Feb, not because of poor results (although I had many threats) but because I didn't play my 3rd best striker in my lone striker role They've gone and hired the Stuttgart manager so i've gone for that but I wouldn't mind something a bit smaller. I don't wanna manage in the 2nd tier but there are some nice clubs like Bochum/Kaiserslautern near the top

 

Stuttgart took the Union Berlin manager so i've bagged that job, 8 games left and they're sat in 3rd in the 2nd tier, occupying a play off spot. Very close behind and 2nd infront, was winning in my first game after dominating until a 90th minute equaliser which about sums this game up for me over the last few seasons, so I think the decline in interest in FM has begun

Edited 14 October 2020 by Walkers

[Stinkenzo]

Well I didn't get promoted in my first 10 games for Union Berlin, form was a bit indifferent. Went up very easily in my first full season, promotion confirmed with 7 games remaining which signalled the start of a shit run of form allowing Paderborn to close right in. Went into the final game level on points, I drew and they lost.

My main focus for the last 10-15 games though was getting my striker Tobias Schroder up to 34 league goals for the season (34 games in total), ridiculous figures he had 20 from 22 before a crazy run of form saw him have 31 from about 28. He ended up with 33 and I am overly ****ed off with him for not hitting 34 I got him on a free from Chelsea, he was with me at Rapid Vienna on loan for about 18 months and he scored the goals in my Euro Cup II final win.

 

I really don't have much depth in my squad so I relied on a very consistent team for the season, probably not a bad thing. Also have a shit hot 15 year old in my academy, attracted bids of 10+m throughout the season

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Got Velez Mostar into a Europa League group with AC Milan, Besiktas and Anderlecht. My best players are loanees from the ressies of Ligue 2 Metz, Bosnia have quite tight rules on foreigners (only four allowed per matchday squad) and the budget pre making that group was tight so I was getting by with young Bosnian freebies, academy products and the aforementioned loanees, top earner on about 250 quid a week.

 

Lost twice to AC Milan, 1-0 and 3-0 respectively, lost 1-0 and 2-1 to Besiktas, lost 2-0 to Anderlecht but with my last ****ing kick in the groups, scraped a draw with them at home, 1-1. Went out with a bit of a whimper but very proud, and pocketed about 3 million nicker from it. Immediately asked the board for a transfer budget that wasn't ZERO and started making moves on three or four promising young Bosnians and had enough to make a couple of FK Sarajevo loans permanent for relatively cheap. Have absolutely blitzed the league in my second season by virtue of padding out the squad with 'backup' loans just in case of fatigue.

 

Gonna see how the youngsters come on next season but think it'll be my last before I jump to another country, likely a middling ish Croatian side, maybe Serbian.

[Stinkenzo]

On 18/10/2020 at 22:59, Walkers said:

Well I didn't get promoted in my first 10 games for Union Berlin, form was a bit indifferent. Went up very easily in my first full season, promotion confirmed with 7 games remaining which signalled the start of a shit run of form allowing Paderborn to close right in. Went into the final game level on points, I drew and they lost.

My main focus for the last 10-15 games though was getting my striker Tobias Schroder up to 34 league goals for the season (34 games in total), ridiculous figures he had 20 from 22 before a crazy run of form saw him have 31 from about 28. He ended up with 33 and I am overly ****ed off with him for not hitting 34 I got him on a free from Chelsea, he was with me at Rapid Vienna on loan for about 18 months and he scored the goals in my Euro Cup II final win.

 

I really don't have much depth in my squad so I relied on a very consistent team for the season, probably not a bad thing. Also have a shit hot 15 year old in my academy, attracted bids of 10+m throughout the season

Ridiculously tricky season with a decent first XI but no depth, finished 13th and I'm bloody chuffed with it. Think only Dortmund did the double over me, spend the season having to be so defensive minded and probably managed to concede under 1 per game and still ended with a minus GD. Was clinical when I needed to be, a season like none I've done before. I was able to make a few signings but with 2 or 3 players still needed I had no transfer budget and no room on the wage budget, so I went into the season with a LM who was in the reserves last season and had never played for me 😂 Got 10m to spend and 200k space on the wage budget so something to play with atleast. Target again will be to stay up but will be a challenge with our formation/style to know how to try and progress and not just be a side that plays for draws away from home 😂 strangely our form away from home was good, finished 8th in the away table I think finishing with a bizarre and fully deserved 4-0 win away to 4th placed Leipzig 

[Dan LCFC]

Just ended Real Madrid's 96 game unbeaten run. Might put it on my actual CV.

[CollinsLCFC]

The year is 2026; Lisburn Distillery who I have had the pleasure to manager for nearly 7 years, have came from the slums of Northern Irish football to absolutely dominate the land and are finally making their mark in Europe, by beating Juventus in the 2nd knockout round of the Europa League.  

 

I started as an ex-Sunday league player and now a club and Northern Ireland legend.  Now with the club finances in excess of £11m and a transfer budget of £3.5m, a 35 year old Riyad Mahrez seeing out his retirement in Sunny old Lisburn and accompanied by a slower than a tortoise 33 year old Mario Gotze, both who cant even make the bench, my own contract ends at the end of the current season.  I am unsure if I should keep on or to take a new challenge  I feel that I have taken the Whites as far as I can, I am now skipping domestic games and only attending the ones in Europe.  It's been an absolute blast and has given me a keen distraction from my secondary job for which I actually get paid. 

 

 

 

[Stinkenzo]

Does match fitness increase slower when you play rubbish sides in friendlies? I'm noticing some summers/winters where it just barely goes up and thats the only thing I can think of it being

 

That said i'm a little more confused now... in my first two pre-season games I usually fully rotate my squad for each game giving everybody playing time. First game I played Parma and everyones fitness went up really well. I then play SPAL with a rotated side and it hasn't gone up anywhere near as much.. Parma and SPAL aren't exactly worlds apart

[Stinkenzo]

This game really struggles to keep up doesn't it.

 

Finished 13th in my first season in the Bundesliga which was higher than expected. Favourites for relegation the next season, I somehow manage to finish 4th although I did have a good summer transfer window. I request something from the board to which they say no, I then start to pester them and they tell me basically that I haven't done a good enough job this season for them to think I know best (at the same time my job status is "Untouchable"). I'm then joint favourites to be relegated again

[casablancas]

I’m unable to load a custom database for updates post window. I have downloaded a few from steam workshop but when I try to load one on the right hand side (database) whenever I start the game there’s no changes. Ie no Fofs or under. 
 

anyone able to assist?

[Stinkenzo]

Union Berlin adventure is over having agreed with four games left of the season to join Schalke (who are probably on average the 3rd best team despite finishing 9th this season, they were Champions 3 of 4 years ago) I will join a week after the end of the season so I can concentrate on saving us from relegation after a pretty dismal year. That said despite the promise of Champions League money and a bank balance of 80m I received a 3rd division transfer budget meaning very little was done to improve the squad. I expected mid-table but we really went backwards, if it wasn't for winning our final two games of the season, the last of which was a memorable 2-0 win away at surprise champions Bayern, i'd have had a points tally lower than my first season back after promotion. So we finished 14th, did surprisingly very well in the CL comfortably qualifying from our group with Man City, Sevilla and Lyon (12pts from the latter two) but got dicked 8-1 on agg by Real Madrid which was absolutely beyond flattering for Madrid. Both games were bizarrely even. Some of my players just really struggled for form all season, I mean REALLY struggled, it was dreadful at times, stood out like a sore thumb.

 

This job is make or break anyway, I don't see any other clubs that I'd want to manage from here, especially without loading any more leagues (Austria/Poland/Slovenia currently on it). Have been tempted for something a bit more far fetched like an Asian country but that would be a new game. I did go for the Dortmund job a few weeks before I got the Schalke job as they moved Antonio Conte upstairs to Director of Football after a shocking season. Union Berlin's transfer budget rose from 3m to 30m and wage budget from 700k to 1m. My budgets at Schalke are eye watering really, 283m transfer budget and 3m wage budget and a balance of 480m. I really prefer managing at the level of clubs like Union Berlin as it's fun to search for and possible to attract really good players, whereas here (and was the case at Leverkusen) I can only sign world class players and that will cost dosh, which admittedly I do have. It was cool to find odd starlets from Poland/Austria, for example there was this really good looking CAM that I tried to sign for a year that I eventually got wrapped up for him to join at the end of this season from Grazer in Austria, now I won't get to see him play   Also never noticed how many young players I used to sign, I had a 32 and 30 year old, the next highest was 27 and over half of the squad were 25 or under.

 

A few firsts I had at Berlin - I was given the opportunity to decide whether we should create a B team - I said yes

I lost 3-0 at Real Madrid, think I had about 11 shots to their 15. Had a bit of news saying our players had agreed to refund the fans tickets because of the performance. We've had many worse results than that let alone performances, I was pretty chuffed tbh

 

I also had to play at bloody Hertha Berlins stadium in the CL as my stadium didn't meet UEFAs standards which puzzled me. Its 20k capacity but only 3k were seated, I imagine thats the problem? They have also decided to expand the stadium and are moving in permanetly to the Olympiastadion for a year

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Got a bit tired in Mostar in my third season, navigated UCL quals and got drawn a Gazprom group with Man City, Dortmund and Copenhagen but just wasn't buzzing to play through it and the league became a procession. Europe made more difficult by Bosnia's stricter rules on foreigners, got very lucky in Georgia before with the fact after two or so seasons my Ivorian and Egyptian wonderkids counted as club trained domestically and could phase out domestic talent with ease and I could become a superclub. I used my previous Europa group money to hoover up young Bosnian talent but this is a football club not a goddam creche, I'm not waiting for these guys to mature, some of them were pure shite.

 

Instead, started one with Llanelli because I liked their Kappa kits. Managed to win the Cymru South and MG Nathaniel League Cup in my first season - had absolute heartbreak v TNS in the Welsh Cup quarters though, was leading and ended up going out to a 93rd minute belter. They're the side to overthrow, the only professional outfit in the Welsh pyramid and won the Premier League without losing the season before I came up. I'm weirdly absolutely cruising it at the moment with a load of rejects from Liverpool / West Ham / Leicester, smashed Connor's Quay 7-0 and managed to get revenge on TNS in the league with a 3-0 win. As the popular saying goes, revenge is a dish best served in the JD Cymru Premier and now I know why.

Will be gutted if I don't manage to win the league from here, five points ahead going into Christmas – the plan is to try and get this lot professional, I think it'll take a while but I'm enjoying the fact there's a genuine 'powerhouse' in a different bracket to the rest of the league to try and see off. 

[Stinkenzo]

Nigel Pearson's 16 year stint at Watford has just came to an end Silly game

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

On 07/11/2020 at 08:59, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

Got a bit tired in Mostar in my third season, navigated UCL quals and got drawn a Gazprom group with Man City, Dortmund and Copenhagen but just wasn't buzzing to play through it and the league became a procession. Europe made more difficult by Bosnia's stricter rules on foreigners, got very lucky in Georgia before with the fact after two or so seasons my Ivorian and Egyptian wonderkids counted as club trained domestically and could phase out domestic talent with ease and I could become a superclub. I used my previous Europa group money to hoover up young Bosnian talent but this is a football club not a goddam creche, I'm not waiting for these guys to mature, some of them were pure shite.

 

Instead, started one with Llanelli because I liked their Kappa kits. Managed to win the Cymru South and MG Nathaniel League Cup in my first season - had absolute heartbreak v TNS in the Welsh Cup quarters though, was leading and ended up going out to a 93rd minute belter. They're the side to overthrow, the only professional outfit in the Welsh pyramid and won the Premier League without losing the season before I came up. I'm weirdly absolutely cruising it at the moment with a load of rejects from Liverpool / West Ham / Leicester, smashed Connor's Quay 7-0 and managed to get revenge on TNS in the league with a 3-0 win. As the popular saying goes, revenge is a dish best served in the JD Cymru Premier and now I know why.

Will be gutted if I don't manage to win the league from here, five points ahead going into Christmas – the plan is to try and get this lot professional, I think it'll take a while but I'm enjoying the fact there's a genuine 'powerhouse' in a different bracket to the rest of the league to try and see off. 

 

Wobbled a bit towards the end and went into the final game level on points with TNS but with a far better GD - managed to beat Bala while they went down to Penybont, the league sewn up (just). Managed to overcome TNS in the FA Cup semis too, beating Bala (again) in the final. I seem to have developed a squad far better than anyone else's in the division without too much tweaking, just a case of avoiding TNS as much as possible - there was a 30+ point gap between 3rd and 2nd in the table, so keeping out their way in the cups makes it relatively easy.

 

Picked up some great out of contract kids from United / Liverpool / Leicester - all on weird 5 quid a week part time contracts which I'm not moaning about, wage bill is lower than last season and the squad is better. Loaned a lot of them out but kept the ones more first team ready to help pad the squad out.

 

Played the first round of Gazprom against Partizani of Albania and humped them, drew Dinamo Zagreb and weirdly commanded the tie, went through 2-1 on aggregate. Next up in the 3rd qualifying round is Red Star, I don't think I'll see them off but I believe if I lose I go into the final round of Europa qualifying which I'm now fairly confident I could navigate, but obviously depends on the draw - Europa group stages would be obscene and earlier than anticipated, I'd get humped but the money would mean professional status and the opportunity to build up the training facilities which, as it stands, is a field and some cones.

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

Got hammered by Res Star, dropped into a play off against Dinamo Minsk for Europa groups and sneaked through on away goals. Napoli, AZ and Hoffenheim in the group, the latter at the Liberty in Swansea first up. I don't think I've ever shithoused so badly in my time on this game. Look at the state of this lads.