Hey guys, brand new to FM and after a dozen saves of being sacked not even halfway into the season I think I'm getting the hang of it with a couple of decent seasons since then. Always love following stories on here and so decided to start my own. I'm doing this more for myself as I think it will help me analyse matches and see where I go wrong etc. Any and all feedback is welcome as I've never written a story and have literally had this game about two weeks. Started in a random league with an almost random team so we will see what happens!


With a name I can almost pronounce, excellent youth and great training facilities and no debt, French Ligue 2 side Le Havre seemed like as good a place as any to try my first long term career.

Ligue 2 Season Intro 2013/14
Media Prediction: 7th
Board Expectation: Respectable position
Budget: $500k Transfer, $140k Wage

Squad: Initial thoughts on the squad are good. With an average age of 21 and most guys about to head into their prime we have a very solid base to start from. The entire back line have 4CA and our only 'weak' position is the right wing with 22 year old Tristan Dignomé with 3CA/4.5PA. Depth is okay, most second string players having "would currently be a good player for CFA sides" which are the amateur tiers below us. Three of my best players (and Tristan) are all here on loan from Ligue 1 sides so that will be something to look into. I'm not the savviest with transfers and would love to keep the purse strings tight, so we will see how I go.

Tactics: Our strong back line coupled with wingers with decent pace and crossing, and midfielders comfortable in the BBM role, lends itself to a more fluid attacking oriented setup in which we will try to control the game. I have decided on a 4-2-3-1 after some trial and error in pre-season, where we had the most success playing wide at a lower tempo and really controlling the game. I haven’t been game enough to go with an attacking mentality yet, and am having great success simply switching to More Direct Passing and Higher Tempo when looking to go on the attack or break through a tight defence.

Transfers: From day one top attacking midfielder Walid Mesloub was unsettled and looking to leave the club for a bigger challenge. There was no consoling him so I end up letting him go for his $450k value, which took some much needed pressure off the wage budget. Neither the board nor the fans were happy with this and I’ve had it hanging over my head ever since. I set up an affiliation with Ligue 1 side A.S. Monaco and have a couple of good young loan players I am rotating through my first team. Looks promising. Also bought two below average guys in on free transfers as planned third strings just as a backup for excessive injuries and bans.

Thoughts: I’m not getting my hopes up simply because I am generally not great at this game, and would be delighted with the predicted 7th place. The skill of the team should outweigh my inadequacies. Half a dozen players PA actually puts them at "good" or "leading" for Ligue 1 sides! So I am looking forward to getting started!

NOTE: Sorry this end up being so long, wanted a decent intro and will try to compress the actual write-ups. Any issues with format or writing etc please feel free to point out or offer better solutions.

Preseason: Happy to not lose, although we should’ve won all of those draws. Some chopping and changing in tactics will do that. A solid win against Serie B side A.C. Siena gave a much need morale bump and confirmed the tactic we will run with.


Ligue 2 August – September 2013
League: 1st
Coupe de la Ligue: through to Third Round

Recap: Started the season off well with a couple of wins in the league against lesser teams and a cup win as underdogs over similarly skilled outfit Caen, who we have developed something of a rivalry with. An argument with my star striker meant he was out for a couple of games before he pulled his head in, but all it did was solidify that I can survive without him.

An away loss to Niort, which we should have won, was the only misstep and was a bit hard to take as I felt we were the better team. We went goal for goal and they end up on top.


Some tough games in there against top sides such as Lens and A.S. Nancy, but we always seemed to pull together and outplay them and I am stoked to have come this far. No huge tests though to be honest. Eight clean sheets from 11 competitive matches shows the strength of our backline, not to take anything away from our keeper who has already had a couple of very nice saves. So at the end of the two months this is how things are looking.


Extremely comfortable lead and I’m hoping this isn’t just a fluke run of form and we can continue to fight. I even got an email saying we had broken the Ligue 2 record for straight wins, with 6, but I feel like that can’t be real, surely it’s higher in real life?

Off The Field: I’ve had some issues off the field, with the media basically teasing me for the few transfers I got in and the board being cranky about that and letting Mesloub go. Grabbed some cheap guys as planned third strings but everybody seems to think they aren’t even good enough for that! End of month reports show that even though I haven’t touched the transfer budget and am several thousand under the wage budget, I’m leaking over $700k a month(!). I haven’t looked into this yet but it is definitely going to be an issue. Bragging about having Ligue 1 potential players has come back to bite me too, as I’ve had a few arguments with these players over them wanting to leave for bigger things. Starting to become a scary trend which my transfer market skills may not be up covering.

Players: Have had a couple of injury scares already, but luckily guys were only out for a week at a time max and we easily covered them. Top players for the period were all loans, which scares me. With my questionable dips into the transfer market so far, I’m worried about my ability to build a squad long term. Winger Hadi Sacko took both Player of the Month awards for the team with 8 app, 5 goals, 3 assists, 3 PoM and an avg rating of 7.65. Will show this with a screenshot from now on, just didn’t snap this one.

Thoughts: Coming into this league with no knowledge of it, I was unsure what to expect from the start of the season (So blind that I’m still getting media questions a month in along the lines of “You seem to have rested some star players, why was that?”, when I thought I was fielding my ‘A’ side…), but we’ve definitely done well and now I have a better feel for the league and what to expect from certain teams. Am definitely looking forward to the next few months.

Nice start to the story and league

2014-05-11 19:46#174322 Walter : Nice start to the story and league

Thanks mate really appreciate the encouragement!

Bonus trivia: I've just noticed my main GK has 3 goals conceded in 11 appearances, and my backup GK has 6 in 2 appearances!!