Hey community, my name’s Dom and this is my first time writing an FM story (please go easy on me). Quick background about myself, I’m Aussie, I’ve played every FM since FM11, and I support Melbourne Victory, Southampton and PSG. I’d consider myself average at the game.
The team I have chosen for this story is FC Vaduz of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is the only European country with no league system, since there are only seven teams in the country. As a result, all clubs from the country play in nearby Switzerland, competing in the various tiers of Swiss football. These 7 teams and some of their reserve sides play in the Liechtenstein Cup, in which the winner qualifies for the Europa League 1st qualifying round.
Formed in 1932, Vaduz currently play in the Swiss Challenge League (the 2nd tier of Swiss football) and are one of only a handful of clubs who play in a professional league outside their nation. FC Vaduz were first promoted to the Swiss Super League in 2007-08 season, by winning the 2nd division. They went straight back down the following season, but in the 2013-14 season again got promoted by winning the league, and this time stayed in the league for three seasons finishing 9th, 8th and then 10th (getting relegated) and have remained in the second division ever since, last season finishing 4th.
Apart from winning the Swiss Challenge League on 2 occasions, they have won the Liechtenstein Cup a whopping 46 times, including 20 in the last 21 seasons. This means Vaduz are basically guaranteed European football every season. However, because of the lack of a league system, even if Vaduz won the Super League title, they cannot take the Swiss Champions league places. Even if they were to win the Europa League, they cannot get a place in either the Champions League or Europa League group stages, instead can only qualify through winning the Liechtenstein Cup and getting through all the qualifying rounds. To my knowledge these stipulations have been coded into FM.
Therefore, the main aim of this series is to win the Europa League and European Super Cup with Vaduz.
INTRODUCTION:
You join us on the 22nd of September 2018. (All photos taken from this date)
Vaduz play in the 7838 capacity Rheinpark Stadion (grass surface, no roof or undersoil heating) and have fairly basic corporate facilities, average training facilities, adequate youth facilities and no data analysis facilities. They also have average junior coaching and fairly basic youth recruitment.
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I set the board expectations to finish in the top half of the Challenge League (out of 10 teams) and reach the 3rd qualifying round of the Europa League. They didn’t care about the Lichtenstein Cup. To do this the board gave me a transfer budget of around 60K and a wage budget of 42K (leaving about 3K spare). At the start of the season we were predicted to finish 4th.
TRANSFERS:
To help achieve these goals we made a few additions in the transfer market. First signing Arxhend Cani. A young Kosovan attacking midfielder, who will play mainly as a backup/rotation option and will hopefully grow with the club.
On the same day we also signed Baris Ozbek, a German defensive midfielder, who will also play as a rotational option.
I also signed 3 players on loan for a year from Bayern Munich- goalkeeper Christian Fruchtl, centreback Lukas Mai and striker Okyere Wriedt. All 3 of whom will slot straight into the first team and have the ability to play at a higher level. Fruchtl and Mai, required no wage contribution and we are only paying 800 a week for Wriedt’s wages.
Also to provide some squad depth I signed on loan: backup rightback Noah Uche from Thun and backup leftback Bruno Morgado from Sion from the division above and are paying a combined 875 p/w.
Leaving the club was a bunch of youngsters from the reserves sent out on loan to hopefully get first team football, they weren’t going to get under me this season.
I also revamped most of the staff, bringing in more staff to fill vacancies we had. (I can include a photo of them if wanted). The only real thing of note here, is that I signed former Chelsea manager Avram Grant to be my new assistant manager, who is quality for this level.
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Our key players (I’m excluding loanees) will be:
Leftback Maximillian Goppel. CA 3 ½ stars, PA 4 ½ stars. 21y.o. Liechtenstein international who has Super League potential. For this level is good going forward and defensively and has incredible acceleration.
Defensive midfielder Sandro Wieser. CA 3 ½ stars, PA 3 ½ stars. 25y.o. veteran of the Liechtenstein national team closing in on 50 caps. One of the best Liechtenstein players around, and a very well-rounded midfielder.
Attacker Mohamed Coulibaly, CA 4 stars, PA 4 stars. 29y.o. who prefers to play striker but can play anywhere across the front line, will mostly be playing on the left wing as an inside forward. Should be playing in the Super League.
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TACTICS:
The tactics I’m going to use this season is a 4-2-3-1 with DMs, custom tiki-taka, instructions as shown below. The only changes I’ve made so far was to switch from a positive mentality to an attacking mentality, whilst dropping the supporting wingbacks to supporting fullbacks and to stop looking for the overlap. These changes were made from the Europa league 2nd leg against Rio Ave onwards. I don’t really mess with individual instructions and prefer to use simpler tactics with few instructions.
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FIXTURES (so far):
We started the season with 2 friendlies against our affiliates, resulting in 2 comfortable wins (I let my AssMan take charge of friendlies) before starting our first European journey. We were in Slovenia to play Rudar Velenje. A test we passed comfortably with a 3-1 away win and a 1-0 home win going through 4-1 aggregate winners. In the 2nd qualifying round we were drawn to Hungarian side Honved. The first leg we played well enough to secure a 2-1 win. Annoyingly, 2 days later we had our opening game of the league season. I played a heavily rotated side and got a 0-0 bore draw against Schaffhausen-a team of similar quality.
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The second leg against Honved was similar to the first, were we ran out 2-1 winners at home, (4-2 on aggregate). For the 3rd qualifying round we were drawn against Portuguese side Rio Ave. We’d hit our targets and I wasn’t expecting to get past them and are the much better team. More on that later. Again, 2 days after the second leg we had our second league game against Winterthur. Our heavily rotated team were easily outclassed, and we lost 3-0. The first leg against Rio Ave was quite a dull 0-0 affair (not that I minded) with few chances, although I think we were the better team during the game, having double the amount of shots and shots on target. I decided to now give the starters a 1 day rest inbetween the Europa league and league matches, and it made a surprising difference I was able to play half the starting team, and it made a difference as we were able to get a 2-1 win against Aarau.
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THE CURIOUS CASE OF OKYERE WRIEDT:
Up to this point in time, I had been playing Wriedt as an Advanced forward, but he had perfect role suitability in the advanced forward and pressing forward roles. From previous experience in last year’s FM and a couple games this year, where I found it quite ineffective, I was tentative to use it. However, the fact that our star striker had only scored 1 goal so far in all competitions, it forced my hand. So, I thought the perfect time to experiment was the crucial second leg game against Rio Ave.
Now in the home leg against Rio Ave, we played like a house on fire. I made some subtle tactical tweaks, to try take advantage of the more possession and shots we had in both games, whilst remaining secure on the back. Okyere Wriedt in his new pressing forward attack role, scored a HATTRICK. The only downside was a 3 week injury to our first team RW Maurice Brunner. In the final qualifying round we were drawn to Turkish side Basaksehir. Again, I went in expecting nothing. As expected we lost the first leg away 2-1 despite having the better of the game. But we got a crucial away goal courtesy of Wriedt. 2 days later we played league favourites FC Lausanne in an end-to-end affair, we ended up losing 4-3, but we put in a decent performance, another 2 goals for Wriedt, but I was worrying more about the 2nd leg against Basaksehir 5 days after.
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In front of 3400 home fans, we pulled one of the best results in Vaduz’s history, considering they’d never made it past the 3rd qualifying round before. A 2-0 win, the man of the hour Wriedt with another 2 goals, one in the 8th minute to get us off to the perfect start, and one in the 90th minute as Basaksehir pushed for an equaliser and to secure the result. By qualifying for the group stage we had gone from around 6-700K to over 4million moneys in the bank. Which hopefully the board will allow me to upgrade facilities and youth recruitment with. In the group stage we were obviously 4th seeds, and got drawn against Bayer Leverkusen, Burnley and Legia Warsaw. My hopes for the group stage is to not be outclassed and maybe push Legia for third place in the group.
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2 days later, on the 1st of September, we played Wil. We disappointingly only came away with a 2-2 draw, considering we had a 2-0 halftime lead, and conceded our second in the 81st minute (another goal for Wriedt btw). I think it was the tired legs and hangovers from the constant partying since qualifying for the group stage. Following the international break we played Chiasso (the game had been rescheduled 4 times cause of our EL run and the International call ups), who were struggling towards the bottom of the league. We put them to the sword in a 4-0 win, with an Okyere Wriedt hattrick. About a week later we had our first Europa League group game, at home to Legia Warsaw. A fantastic performance got us the win going 2-0 up (both goals by you know who), before they pegged one back, but we held out for the win. In the following days we played Servette FC, who at the time were top of the league. Giving the starters a 1 day break after the Legia match about half were fit enough to be playing. We produced again another insane performance (I can’t decide if this result or the Basaksehir 2nd leg is the better game). Where we won 6-1, YES 6 F****** 1, with 5 goals, YES 5 F****** goals from Okyere Wriedt.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, from someone who was missing one-on-ones consistently to having a record of 20 goals in all competitions from 13 starts (2 sub appearances), With 11 of those goals in 6 games in the league. He is maybe one of the best signings I’ve ever made based on his performances in the first 15 games. After his hattrick against Chiasso I extended his loan contract by an extra year so it’s now expiring in 2020, also the same year his Bayern contract expires.
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I know this post doesn’t go into a lot of details (squads, matches, etc), I’m just trying to catch everyone up to where I am currently. If there’s any match info, or anything else that you’d want to see, let me know and I’ll try include it, or show a screenshot. From here on I’ll probably make posts every month or two in-game. And try to include more squad details, match details, transfer targets, anything else that people may want to see.
*Quick Nb. I nearly forgot a pic or any mention of the league table, but we are currently in 4th, with 11 points from 7 games and are 5 points off first place Wil.
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Happy FM-ing and I’ll hopefully update you all soon.
Dom
The team I have chosen for this story is FC Vaduz of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is the only European country with no league system, since there are only seven teams in the country. As a result, all clubs from the country play in nearby Switzerland, competing in the various tiers of Swiss football. These 7 teams and some of their reserve sides play in the Liechtenstein Cup, in which the winner qualifies for the Europa League 1st qualifying round.
Formed in 1932, Vaduz currently play in the Swiss Challenge League (the 2nd tier of Swiss football) and are one of only a handful of clubs who play in a professional league outside their nation. FC Vaduz were first promoted to the Swiss Super League in 2007-08 season, by winning the 2nd division. They went straight back down the following season, but in the 2013-14 season again got promoted by winning the league, and this time stayed in the league for three seasons finishing 9th, 8th and then 10th (getting relegated) and have remained in the second division ever since, last season finishing 4th.
Apart from winning the Swiss Challenge League on 2 occasions, they have won the Liechtenstein Cup a whopping 46 times, including 20 in the last 21 seasons. This means Vaduz are basically guaranteed European football every season. However, because of the lack of a league system, even if Vaduz won the Super League title, they cannot take the Swiss Champions league places. Even if they were to win the Europa League, they cannot get a place in either the Champions League or Europa League group stages, instead can only qualify through winning the Liechtenstein Cup and getting through all the qualifying rounds. To my knowledge these stipulations have been coded into FM.
Therefore, the main aim of this series is to win the Europa League and European Super Cup with Vaduz.
INTRODUCTION:
You join us on the 22nd of September 2018. (All photos taken from this date)
Vaduz play in the 7838 capacity Rheinpark Stadion (grass surface, no roof or undersoil heating) and have fairly basic corporate facilities, average training facilities, adequate youth facilities and no data analysis facilities. They also have average junior coaching and fairly basic youth recruitment.
I set the board expectations to finish in the top half of the Challenge League (out of 10 teams) and reach the 3rd qualifying round of the Europa League. They didn’t care about the Lichtenstein Cup. To do this the board gave me a transfer budget of around 60K and a wage budget of 42K (leaving about 3K spare). At the start of the season we were predicted to finish 4th.
TRANSFERS:
To help achieve these goals we made a few additions in the transfer market. First signing Arxhend Cani. A young Kosovan attacking midfielder, who will play mainly as a backup/rotation option and will hopefully grow with the club.
On the same day we also signed Baris Ozbek, a German defensive midfielder, who will also play as a rotational option.
I also signed 3 players on loan for a year from Bayern Munich- goalkeeper Christian Fruchtl, centreback Lukas Mai and striker Okyere Wriedt. All 3 of whom will slot straight into the first team and have the ability to play at a higher level. Fruchtl and Mai, required no wage contribution and we are only paying 800 a week for Wriedt’s wages.
Also to provide some squad depth I signed on loan: backup rightback Noah Uche from Thun and backup leftback Bruno Morgado from Sion from the division above and are paying a combined 875 p/w.
Leaving the club was a bunch of youngsters from the reserves sent out on loan to hopefully get first team football, they weren’t going to get under me this season.
I also revamped most of the staff, bringing in more staff to fill vacancies we had. (I can include a photo of them if wanted). The only real thing of note here, is that I signed former Chelsea manager Avram Grant to be my new assistant manager, who is quality for this level.
Our key players (I’m excluding loanees) will be:
Leftback Maximillian Goppel. CA 3 ½ stars, PA 4 ½ stars. 21y.o. Liechtenstein international who has Super League potential. For this level is good going forward and defensively and has incredible acceleration.
Defensive midfielder Sandro Wieser. CA 3 ½ stars, PA 3 ½ stars. 25y.o. veteran of the Liechtenstein national team closing in on 50 caps. One of the best Liechtenstein players around, and a very well-rounded midfielder.
Attacker Mohamed Coulibaly, CA 4 stars, PA 4 stars. 29y.o. who prefers to play striker but can play anywhere across the front line, will mostly be playing on the left wing as an inside forward. Should be playing in the Super League.
TACTICS:
The tactics I’m going to use this season is a 4-2-3-1 with DMs, custom tiki-taka, instructions as shown below. The only changes I’ve made so far was to switch from a positive mentality to an attacking mentality, whilst dropping the supporting wingbacks to supporting fullbacks and to stop looking for the overlap. These changes were made from the Europa league 2nd leg against Rio Ave onwards. I don’t really mess with individual instructions and prefer to use simpler tactics with few instructions.
FIXTURES (so far):
We started the season with 2 friendlies against our affiliates, resulting in 2 comfortable wins (I let my AssMan take charge of friendlies) before starting our first European journey. We were in Slovenia to play Rudar Velenje. A test we passed comfortably with a 3-1 away win and a 1-0 home win going through 4-1 aggregate winners. In the 2nd qualifying round we were drawn to Hungarian side Honved. The first leg we played well enough to secure a 2-1 win. Annoyingly, 2 days later we had our opening game of the league season. I played a heavily rotated side and got a 0-0 bore draw against Schaffhausen-a team of similar quality.
The second leg against Honved was similar to the first, were we ran out 2-1 winners at home, (4-2 on aggregate). For the 3rd qualifying round we were drawn against Portuguese side Rio Ave. We’d hit our targets and I wasn’t expecting to get past them and are the much better team. More on that later. Again, 2 days after the second leg we had our second league game against Winterthur. Our heavily rotated team were easily outclassed, and we lost 3-0. The first leg against Rio Ave was quite a dull 0-0 affair (not that I minded) with few chances, although I think we were the better team during the game, having double the amount of shots and shots on target. I decided to now give the starters a 1 day rest inbetween the Europa league and league matches, and it made a surprising difference I was able to play half the starting team, and it made a difference as we were able to get a 2-1 win against Aarau.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF OKYERE WRIEDT:
Up to this point in time, I had been playing Wriedt as an Advanced forward, but he had perfect role suitability in the advanced forward and pressing forward roles. From previous experience in last year’s FM and a couple games this year, where I found it quite ineffective, I was tentative to use it. However, the fact that our star striker had only scored 1 goal so far in all competitions, it forced my hand. So, I thought the perfect time to experiment was the crucial second leg game against Rio Ave.
Now in the home leg against Rio Ave, we played like a house on fire. I made some subtle tactical tweaks, to try take advantage of the more possession and shots we had in both games, whilst remaining secure on the back. Okyere Wriedt in his new pressing forward attack role, scored a HATTRICK. The only downside was a 3 week injury to our first team RW Maurice Brunner. In the final qualifying round we were drawn to Turkish side Basaksehir. Again, I went in expecting nothing. As expected we lost the first leg away 2-1 despite having the better of the game. But we got a crucial away goal courtesy of Wriedt. 2 days later we played league favourites FC Lausanne in an end-to-end affair, we ended up losing 4-3, but we put in a decent performance, another 2 goals for Wriedt, but I was worrying more about the 2nd leg against Basaksehir 5 days after.
In front of 3400 home fans, we pulled one of the best results in Vaduz’s history, considering they’d never made it past the 3rd qualifying round before. A 2-0 win, the man of the hour Wriedt with another 2 goals, one in the 8th minute to get us off to the perfect start, and one in the 90th minute as Basaksehir pushed for an equaliser and to secure the result. By qualifying for the group stage we had gone from around 6-700K to over 4million moneys in the bank. Which hopefully the board will allow me to upgrade facilities and youth recruitment with. In the group stage we were obviously 4th seeds, and got drawn against Bayer Leverkusen, Burnley and Legia Warsaw. My hopes for the group stage is to not be outclassed and maybe push Legia for third place in the group.
2 days later, on the 1st of September, we played Wil. We disappointingly only came away with a 2-2 draw, considering we had a 2-0 halftime lead, and conceded our second in the 81st minute (another goal for Wriedt btw). I think it was the tired legs and hangovers from the constant partying since qualifying for the group stage. Following the international break we played Chiasso (the game had been rescheduled 4 times cause of our EL run and the International call ups), who were struggling towards the bottom of the league. We put them to the sword in a 4-0 win, with an Okyere Wriedt hattrick. About a week later we had our first Europa League group game, at home to Legia Warsaw. A fantastic performance got us the win going 2-0 up (both goals by you know who), before they pegged one back, but we held out for the win. In the following days we played Servette FC, who at the time were top of the league. Giving the starters a 1 day break after the Legia match about half were fit enough to be playing. We produced again another insane performance (I can’t decide if this result or the Basaksehir 2nd leg is the better game). Where we won 6-1, YES 6 F****** 1, with 5 goals, YES 5 F****** goals from Okyere Wriedt.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, from someone who was missing one-on-ones consistently to having a record of 20 goals in all competitions from 13 starts (2 sub appearances), With 11 of those goals in 6 games in the league. He is maybe one of the best signings I’ve ever made based on his performances in the first 15 games. After his hattrick against Chiasso I extended his loan contract by an extra year so it’s now expiring in 2020, also the same year his Bayern contract expires.
I know this post doesn’t go into a lot of details (squads, matches, etc), I’m just trying to catch everyone up to where I am currently. If there’s any match info, or anything else that you’d want to see, let me know and I’ll try include it, or show a screenshot. From here on I’ll probably make posts every month or two in-game. And try to include more squad details, match details, transfer targets, anything else that people may want to see.
*Quick Nb. I nearly forgot a pic or any mention of the league table, but we are currently in 4th, with 11 points from 7 games and are 5 points off first place Wil.
Happy FM-ing and I’ll hopefully update you all soon.
Dom
