Welcome all - my name is Desmond, and for the first time in my long career as a dedicated FM player, I have decided to create a story. My plan was to take over Rio Ave and create a long legacy as the dominant team in Portugal. I picked them as I wanted to be a team that will destroy Porto, Benfica and Sporting, as they have won all but 2 titles in the history of the Primeira Liga.
I also was going to set a challenge for myself in another season in which I was to only sign teenagers, and decided I would do that here instead. I realised that this might be a good idea for a story, as this challenge may last a very long time due to the standing of my team against the "Big 3" and the quality of players I would be able to bring in. Unfortunately, being a fool, I realised this after I had completed a full season with this team, so here is a summary of how my season went, starting in July with my friendlies and Europa League qualifying rounds, all the way to where I am now.
Pre-season friendlies and transfers
Started the season with a very small budget of £200k and a wage bill of £68k per week, with only £3k available for new players. With that, I signed Gustav Isaksen from Midtjylland, who I am hoping may become a regular name in a couple of seasons time. Also signed were Stefan Dafovski and Andre Luiz on free transfers - both went into my under 19s team whilst Isaksen went into our under 23s, despite being the youngest of the trio.
Friendlies went well, losing to Monaco but winning against lower teams and also beating Krasnodar and Club Brugge, who were regarded as our equals when organising the friendlies. In total, we played 8 friendlies, of which we drew 1, lost 1 and won 6.
Primeira Liga
Started the season as 6th favourites for the title, with Vit. Guimaraes as 5th favourites - my opening day opponents. A dominant 5-0 win was followed by victories over 4th favourites Braga and lowly Santa Clara before the September international break. Unfortunately this is where things started to go downhill, with only 2 wins from my next 7, leaving me 5th after 10 games. Then December came and things went very well in all competitions (more on the cups later). 4 wins in 4 gave me my first Manager of the Month award, including a 3-2 win at home to leaders, and at that point unbeaten, Porto, despite being 2-0 down at half time. Another positive was the poor form of Sporting Lisbon, who after the turmoil that happened in the real life pre-season, had found themselves in midtable at the halfway point, whilst my Rio Ave took 3rd spot.
The new year did not carry on from the success of December, as i failed to win any league game in January. February improved with a 5-1 win away at Vit. Guimaraes, who must have been delighted that they didn't have to play me again after 2 demolitions. A fantastic league run started from that game where we didn't lose a single game between February and April, with 8 wins and 4 draws in those 12 league games.
May started with a defeat at already champions Porto, which followed by us consolidating 3rd spot with a win at home to Boavista. A draw and a defeat at Portimonense and Sporting completed a very successful league season where we finished 3 ahead of 4th but 18 behind 2nd placed Benfica. As a reward, we will go straight into the group stage of the Europa League next season without needing any qualifying rounds.
Europa League
Europa League campaign started at the end of July in the Best Placed 2nd Qualifying Round against Hacken. After comfortable wins in both legs, we were drawn against another Scandinavian side, Brondby, in the 3rd round. Despite being regarded as narrow outsiders for this tie, we went to the Brondby ground and put 7 past them in a hectic match in which it was only 2-0 at half time. This put us into the 4th and final qualifying round against Romanian side U Craiova. A pair of 2-0 wins were enough to put us into the Europa League group stage.
The draw for the groups were extremely unkind, as we were made to face Frankfurt, Besiktas and Milan due to our 4th seeding. Expecting a painful run, especially after a 3-0 home defeat to Frankfurt, we were surprised to win 4-2 away in Besiktas, after spending the vast majority of our game camped out inside our defensive third. A defeat in Milan was overturned with a 2-1 win at home to put us both level on 6 points with 2 games to go with only 1 space remaining to qualify for the knockout rounds due to Frankfurt winning all 4 and Besiktas losing all 4 at that point.
Another heavy defeat to Frankfurt was lifted by Milan failing to defeat Besiktas, leaving us again level with just 1 game to go. To continue our December form from the league, in the game of the season we came from behind to win 5-3 at home to Besiktas, and with Milan failing to win again, we finished in 2nd spot to go into the 1st knockout round of the Europa League for the first time in our history - this is where our run ends, however, as we were drawn against Chelsea, who defeated us by 1 goal in each leg. No complaints though, and hopefully we'll be drawn as 3rd seed next season.
Domestic Cups
Not much to say about the Taca de Portugal, except we were defeated on penalties in the first match we had by 2nd Division side Arouca. Poor performance in a poor run of form at that point, leaving us wonder what could have been.
The League Cup went much better, as a win in the 2nd Phase vs Mafra put us into the 3rd Phase which is a group stage for some reason. We were given another tricky group draw, as we had to face Moreirense, Nacional and Benfica. A defeat at Moreirense started the group, before a demolition of Nacional left us needing a win against Benfica to progress into the semi final stage. Our outstanding December form, which ended with 7 wins in 7 games in total, lead to us defeating Benfica 1-0 and putting us into the semi finals.
A nervy penalty shootout win over Braga in the semi finals put us into the final against Porto, where a 1-0 win meant we were able to lift our first trophy since the Segunda Liga title in 2003. This also meant we inflicted 2 defeats on Porto, who finished as title winners and Taca de Portugal winners - only Benfica were also able to defeat Porto in the domestic competitions, and they did so only after the title had already been decided.
All in all, a fantastic season, and we will start next season with a transfer budget of £3.56m and a weekly wage budget of £86k. One rather annoying blip is that due to the league coefficients of the Primeira Liga improving against the Russian Premier League, is that from next season, the 3rd placed team in Portugal will gain a Champions League qualifying spot....but only from the 3rd placed team next season, so we still have to play in the Europa League. We will see Rio Ave in the Champions League at some point - but not yet.
Top performers this season were striker Gelson Dala with 22 goals, with Galeno and Diego Lopes scoring 27 between them whilst also creating 23 goals from the wing positions. Also worthy of a mention were my outstanding defensive setup - goalkeeper Leo Jardim, protected by a mighty defence of Junio Rocha, Messias, Ruben Semedo and the legendary Fabio Coentrao. But anyone hoping of a repeat season might have to think again - of those 8 players above, only Coentrao and Lopes remain, as the other 6 return to their clubs on loan. And with none of them being teenagers anymore, we won't be trying to get them back.
Plenty of youth signings have come in, with Marvin (Real Madrid), Rui Rua (Academica) and Marko Bulat (Sibenik) as the most promising. From now on, I will try to update this monthly so there will be more detail but much fewer words hopefully. Plan next season is to finish in the Europa League spots, and hopefully we'll be able to replace the loanees that departed successfully enough to do that. Thanks for reading.
I also was going to set a challenge for myself in another season in which I was to only sign teenagers, and decided I would do that here instead. I realised that this might be a good idea for a story, as this challenge may last a very long time due to the standing of my team against the "Big 3" and the quality of players I would be able to bring in. Unfortunately, being a fool, I realised this after I had completed a full season with this team, so here is a summary of how my season went, starting in July with my friendlies and Europa League qualifying rounds, all the way to where I am now.
Pre-season friendlies and transfers
Started the season with a very small budget of £200k and a wage bill of £68k per week, with only £3k available for new players. With that, I signed Gustav Isaksen from Midtjylland, who I am hoping may become a regular name in a couple of seasons time. Also signed were Stefan Dafovski and Andre Luiz on free transfers - both went into my under 19s team whilst Isaksen went into our under 23s, despite being the youngest of the trio.
Friendlies went well, losing to Monaco but winning against lower teams and also beating Krasnodar and Club Brugge, who were regarded as our equals when organising the friendlies. In total, we played 8 friendlies, of which we drew 1, lost 1 and won 6.
Primeira Liga
Started the season as 6th favourites for the title, with Vit. Guimaraes as 5th favourites - my opening day opponents. A dominant 5-0 win was followed by victories over 4th favourites Braga and lowly Santa Clara before the September international break. Unfortunately this is where things started to go downhill, with only 2 wins from my next 7, leaving me 5th after 10 games. Then December came and things went very well in all competitions (more on the cups later). 4 wins in 4 gave me my first Manager of the Month award, including a 3-2 win at home to leaders, and at that point unbeaten, Porto, despite being 2-0 down at half time. Another positive was the poor form of Sporting Lisbon, who after the turmoil that happened in the real life pre-season, had found themselves in midtable at the halfway point, whilst my Rio Ave took 3rd spot.
The new year did not carry on from the success of December, as i failed to win any league game in January. February improved with a 5-1 win away at Vit. Guimaraes, who must have been delighted that they didn't have to play me again after 2 demolitions. A fantastic league run started from that game where we didn't lose a single game between February and April, with 8 wins and 4 draws in those 12 league games.
May started with a defeat at already champions Porto, which followed by us consolidating 3rd spot with a win at home to Boavista. A draw and a defeat at Portimonense and Sporting completed a very successful league season where we finished 3 ahead of 4th but 18 behind 2nd placed Benfica. As a reward, we will go straight into the group stage of the Europa League next season without needing any qualifying rounds.
Europa League
Europa League campaign started at the end of July in the Best Placed 2nd Qualifying Round against Hacken. After comfortable wins in both legs, we were drawn against another Scandinavian side, Brondby, in the 3rd round. Despite being regarded as narrow outsiders for this tie, we went to the Brondby ground and put 7 past them in a hectic match in which it was only 2-0 at half time. This put us into the 4th and final qualifying round against Romanian side U Craiova. A pair of 2-0 wins were enough to put us into the Europa League group stage.
The draw for the groups were extremely unkind, as we were made to face Frankfurt, Besiktas and Milan due to our 4th seeding. Expecting a painful run, especially after a 3-0 home defeat to Frankfurt, we were surprised to win 4-2 away in Besiktas, after spending the vast majority of our game camped out inside our defensive third. A defeat in Milan was overturned with a 2-1 win at home to put us both level on 6 points with 2 games to go with only 1 space remaining to qualify for the knockout rounds due to Frankfurt winning all 4 and Besiktas losing all 4 at that point.
Another heavy defeat to Frankfurt was lifted by Milan failing to defeat Besiktas, leaving us again level with just 1 game to go. To continue our December form from the league, in the game of the season we came from behind to win 5-3 at home to Besiktas, and with Milan failing to win again, we finished in 2nd spot to go into the 1st knockout round of the Europa League for the first time in our history - this is where our run ends, however, as we were drawn against Chelsea, who defeated us by 1 goal in each leg. No complaints though, and hopefully we'll be drawn as 3rd seed next season.
Domestic Cups
Not much to say about the Taca de Portugal, except we were defeated on penalties in the first match we had by 2nd Division side Arouca. Poor performance in a poor run of form at that point, leaving us wonder what could have been.
The League Cup went much better, as a win in the 2nd Phase vs Mafra put us into the 3rd Phase which is a group stage for some reason. We were given another tricky group draw, as we had to face Moreirense, Nacional and Benfica. A defeat at Moreirense started the group, before a demolition of Nacional left us needing a win against Benfica to progress into the semi final stage. Our outstanding December form, which ended with 7 wins in 7 games in total, lead to us defeating Benfica 1-0 and putting us into the semi finals.
A nervy penalty shootout win over Braga in the semi finals put us into the final against Porto, where a 1-0 win meant we were able to lift our first trophy since the Segunda Liga title in 2003. This also meant we inflicted 2 defeats on Porto, who finished as title winners and Taca de Portugal winners - only Benfica were also able to defeat Porto in the domestic competitions, and they did so only after the title had already been decided.
All in all, a fantastic season, and we will start next season with a transfer budget of £3.56m and a weekly wage budget of £86k. One rather annoying blip is that due to the league coefficients of the Primeira Liga improving against the Russian Premier League, is that from next season, the 3rd placed team in Portugal will gain a Champions League qualifying spot....but only from the 3rd placed team next season, so we still have to play in the Europa League. We will see Rio Ave in the Champions League at some point - but not yet.
Top performers this season were striker Gelson Dala with 22 goals, with Galeno and Diego Lopes scoring 27 between them whilst also creating 23 goals from the wing positions. Also worthy of a mention were my outstanding defensive setup - goalkeeper Leo Jardim, protected by a mighty defence of Junio Rocha, Messias, Ruben Semedo and the legendary Fabio Coentrao. But anyone hoping of a repeat season might have to think again - of those 8 players above, only Coentrao and Lopes remain, as the other 6 return to their clubs on loan. And with none of them being teenagers anymore, we won't be trying to get them back.
Plenty of youth signings have come in, with Marvin (Real Madrid), Rui Rua (Academica) and Marko Bulat (Sibenik) as the most promising. From now on, I will try to update this monthly so there will be more detail but much fewer words hopefully. Plan next season is to finish in the Europa League spots, and hopefully we'll be able to replace the loanees that departed successfully enough to do that. Thanks for reading.
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