Great post. Nice to see you involved back at Spartans in some capacity!
Really exciting to see you buy your way back into the club, good to see some loyalty left in football
#104 - Athletic Club Bilbao
16/07/2037 -- What is the most worse thing you could possibly do after you are complaining year after year about the terrible youth intakes every time? Right, joining the only club in the whole fucking world which is completely dependent on their own youth academy... Truly logic! But I just couldn’t resist the call. This is my club. My favourite club in real life and the one and only club I need to play with in every version of Football Manager. I can dream this club. It’s just unique. As you probably be aware of they have a club policy which is quite remarkable. Even more in this modern times. Only players from the Basque country are allowed to play for Athletic Bilbao. It contains an area with roughly 2,500,000 million people. That is just as big as Lithuania for instance. Did you ever hear of a player from Lithuania before? No, you don’t. So now you know immediately how extremely hard it will be to attract enough good players for staying in the Spanish top flight of football as long as this club exists. Not even spoken about winning silverwork at some point. It’s a huge challenge. But I just had to do it when this job came available when my future at Tottenham wasn’t looking so bright anymore…
As you can see Athletic performed quite stable throughout the years. Ending within the first three in four consecutive years in the period from 2029 till 2033 is a huge achievement I would say. Sean Dyche did a hell of a job for sure. In this period he handled to reach into the final of the Copa Del Rey for three seasons in a row as well, from which he managed to win one! But thereafter the performances steadily declined, with finishing eleventh last year as the most worse result since the 2017/2018 season. The club has some fantastic facilities with a beautiful stadium (I have stand next to it in real life!), and probably having the best youth system in the world just because that’s the only way for generating enough good players for the main squad. A lot of famous Basque players have played for Athletic in the past, but sadly they can’t compete with the money the big clubs can spend, and so losing their best players quite frequently.
So yeah, there is a big challenge ahead of me for sure. But I like challenges! Although there is a lot of money over here you can’t splash it around instantly. The best Basque players are probably playing for the best clubs all over Europe, so attract them to join Athletic again will be nearly impossible. Maybe we can buy a couple of left-overs or transfer-listed players, but don’t expect world-class players for sure! On top of that the current squad contains seven or eight players who are over thirty years old already, with a couple of them reaching even 33 or 34. It isn’t making things more easier. It’s me who needs to decide if we go on with this oldies and I have to tell them at a certain point they are not good enough anymore.
But there are a lot of talents as well of course. The only problem is that the managers before me didn’t make use of them very often (or even sold them, which is a shame…). They relied to much and to long on the older players and that affected the development of the youngsters. You have to make sure there’s a natural flow of players at this club. I think it’s the most important thing to keep the club a float at a certain level for the long term. If you don’t then you can be very successful for a couple of years (like the 2029-2033 period for instance), but thereafter you have to pay the bill, and that’s exactly what is going on currently. I have to renew the squad but at the same time the board expects me to finish within the first six and so qualifying ourselves for European football next season. Not really a great combination I would say, it’s pretty much the same when I joined Hearts… First we have to lay down a whole new base, which will take some time of course. But, we shall see how things sorts out. It’s not entirely impossible to finish sixth if everything felt into place, but you shouldn’t be surprised either if we only finish ninth or so.
The main goal is to win silverwork at some point of course, but I’m not truly disappointed if that is not going to happen. I’m not sure how long I will stay, at least I want to see some progress every year, otherwise it might be a very short term project. Or maybe the board isn’t as patience as I am and will sack me after I can’t fulfill their wishes soon enough. But that’s not the case right now. First I have to learn the players capabilities, figuring out which tactic might be working and what we can do on the transfer market. Next update I will tell you everything about it.
An interesting new challenge but one you seem excited to take on. Find it very funny that of all people Sean Dyche is a former manager 
Sean Dyche managing Bilbao, you couldn't make that up! An incredibly difficult challenge, but one that will be so satisfying if you get things sorted 
An exciting move for sure!
Time to go for the best Basque players from eternal rivals Real Sociedad
Is Iker Muniain still around?
Time to go for the best Basque players from eternal rivals Real Sociedad
Is Iker Muniain still around?
#105 - Are we ready for it? We should so!
13/09/2037 -- There we are. Prepare yourself for a big update! After a very busy period, the season has finally started. I played the first three matches in the league already because the transfer window isn’t closed in Spain before the first league match will be played (like England) and I wanted to complete the transfer-window first before doing this update. Although I was busy with transfers as well, my main concern was the search for good staff members. I didn’t succeed completely because sometimes the right person isn’t available yet, but I’m quite satisfied so far. Having a good backroom staff (also for the B-, C- and under-19 squads) is one of the most important things at this club to put the maximum out of the talents potential. The circumstances should be as good as possible and that costs me a lot of time for doing so.
But of course I did some transfers as well. As you can see this club isn’t really busy for doing transfers over the last decade, but the year before I joined the club that changed dramatically. They sold their best two players, although most likely because of their new clubs paid the release-clause for those players. Having a release clause is a compulsory for signing a La Liga players contract as you probably know. Losing this two players affected the overall quality of the squad for sure, which explained to me why last season wasn’t as good as expected. I sold a couple of players as well, but not because of those clubs were able to pay their release-clause. No, I just want to get rid of them!
Although that’s not the only reason. Both Fran and Rubén Sanz wanted to leave the club anyway because we don’t play European football. I was completely fine with it. They are both 33-years old already, having a contract for only one year left and on top of that they receive a ridiculous amount of wage money every week. AS Roma and Udinese helped me to get rid of them, although we didn’t receive that much money for them. Only £12,500,000 but I’ll take it. Both were heavily complaining (which affected the other players as well), are not getting better anymore and I have some decent youngster to replace them. So at the end a win-win situation I suppose.
There was also one very good player (probably even the best one) who left the club as a free agent and I couldn’t do anything about it… Pretty much the same like the Fernando Llorente issue all the way back in the 2012/2013 season who didn’t want to extend his contract. So we lost 29-year old striker Iván Ojeda to Paris Saint Germain sadly. This is an example for one of the most important things at this club: make sure none of the key players are running out of their contract, or just sell them one year earlier if so. That’s exactly what I did with Juan Esparza. 30-years old, he didn’t want to extend his contract and we have some decent back-up players for him as well. Chinese side SIPG was ready to pay nearly £40,000,000 for him. We wish him all the best in the beautiful Chinese competition were he can swim in his £300,000 weekly wage. Just insane. And this club has even four other 32-year old long forgotten European superstars on a wage like that…
There was some interest for a couple of other players as well, but they are not allowed to go. If I did so we need to prepare ourselves for a relegation battle I guess! The very first thing I did was assign the players at this club to the squad they belong. The B-team at this club will be very important for me. It allows me to switch players easily between, following their performances and development very close and they are playing on a very decent level of football as well. Although Bilbao Athletic, as the B-team is named, relegated last season from the Segunda Division. Which is a bit disappointingly. I immediately bought some decent players as well to improve the level for the B-team, I want them back in the Segunda Division as soon as possible.
Okay, our signings then! The first thing I did was search for free agents, which is nearly never the case, but surprisingly their was one really good player available! He was one of our talents a couple of years ago before they sold this guy to Juventus… That’s another thing we should be very very carefull with; avoiding to sell talented players to early when they seemed not good enough. Just keep them in the B-squad a little while longer… Anyway, we picked up Igor Gurrutxaga. A very decent defensive midfielder who is nearly a starting player. I’m happy with him for sure. Before I joined the club they signed another player who was running out of his contract. Believe it or not, this is one of my own created players! Ramon Handía Lopez. I know what I said in the very early days of this career: I’m not allowed at all to involve myself into their careers. But you have to believe me I didn’t noticed Athletic signed him already before I actually joined the club… It’s a bizarre coincidence to be honest. I created this guy with the intendency that he could join Athletic Bilbao someday and now he did, just at the exact same moment as me… Crazy huh? Not the way as I was supposed to do with this own created players, but it’s probably his last achievement as a player anyway, so I’ll take it. He is (or maybe was) a brilliant player, although his physicals are not really great anymore. He is 34-years old already, but maybe we can make use of him for one or two seasons more before he is definitely written off.
The other six players we signed we had to pay for, although not as much as you could expect. The two players we bought from Atletico Madrid and Barcelona didn’t make it into their first squad, so we were able to buy them for a relative small amount of money. Iñigo Galdós is a 21-year old central midfielder. His attributes look great and if he can develop himself just a little bit more he is definitely capable for replacing Handía Lopez in the next two years. Although Mikel López from Barcelona is heavily injured right now unfortunately, he didn’t look very great at first sight. But we barely have decent centre backs at the club currently so it was the best we could get. He has some qualities for sure, but if we want to win some silverwork at some point I think we need better than him.
I also signed two youngsters for the B-squad. Aitor Bengoetxea from Osasuna and French guy Alberto De Paula from Eibar. As you probably know there is a small area in French that also belongs to the Basque country. That’s why Antoine Griezmann is a Basque as well and players from this area are also allowed to play for Athletic Bilbao. Remember Aymeric Laporte for instance. By the way: actually Laporte was a terrible defender in his vry early years whilst at Athletic! I’m quite surprised and impressed he did develop himself into the world-class player he currently is in real life (yep, I am following this club for decades already, to give you an idea how much I love this club!) Anyway, De Paula is a talented left-winger and only 18-years old. We send him on loan immediately, because playing with the B-squad in the third tier of Spanish football is below his level I think. He joined Espanyol for the rest of the season, where he is pronounced as an important player.
But the biggest problem this club has to deal with are goalkeepers. There are just so less proper goalkeepers all around the world… So having one at Athletic is some kind of wishful thinking. We have to accept we are not going to have a good goalkeeper. Kepa Arrizabalaga was probably just a once-in-a-lifetime wonder (although he is sitting on the bench at City in real life currently…) and which is most likely never going to happen again. Current first goalkeeper Matteo isn’t that bad, but definitely not great either. On top of that he is already 33-years old. So we need some fresh blood and spreading our possibilities as much as we can. That’s why I bought Raúl Aizpurua. He has some decent figures all around, is just tall enough (1.85 m, which is even taller than the two other goalkeepers in the squad) and can compete with Matteo if he fails. I also moved 19-year old talent Juan Bengoetxea into the squad, he is the only promising youngster at the club currently.
Our only major signing this year is Julen Calderón from Inter Milan. Actually we have enough right full-backs in the squad already, but if you can do better you have to go for it. It might be possible a new chance isn’t passing by in the next few years. That’s why we have a decent amount of transfer money in the bank. Without much doubt we can go for it. He was transfer-listed, but for us he is a major upgrade. He is only 22-years old, so there is some room for further development as well. Currently Calderón is already valued as twice as much we paid for him (£19,500,00), so I think we did a great job. We also signed another guy in advance. A striker who has become superfluous at Real Madrid. Sadly he chose for a hiring period at Angers in France, but thereafter I did a second attempt to sign him for next season. Real Madrid accepted my offer of around £26,000,000 and we agreed a contract with him as well. I was hoping we could bring him in immediately because we have only one proper striker currently, but we just have to wait another year. He is a very promising talent which I’m very pleased with already. I will show him later on when he actually joins us. I need to be patient I guess!
Start of the season
After a somewhat doubtful pre-season period our very first match of the season was immediately against the toughest one you could possible get. Real Madrid away… At least we have passed this particular match then! We played not that bad, but at the end they handled to win easily: 4-1. We should accept it, these kind of results will happening more often for sure throughout this season. This is not a world-class club like Tottenham Hotspur remember! Against Getafe we performed way better, but forgot to score a goal. The third match wasn’t much easier: Atlético Madrid. But they are not as great anymore in the game. Real Madrid and Barcelona are dividing all the prizes, Atlético is just one of the followers, like some other six or seven clubs in Spain, including us. We played a very good game; Atlético didn’t perform at their best obvious and so we could win this match with a solid 2-0 as a result. Which I’m very pleased with!
I’m not really sure were we are currently. We are predicted to finish sixth, but I’m not so sure. There are around seven or eight very decent clubs (beside Real Madrid and Barcelona) who are all capable for ending within the first six. It’s a very thin line we balancing on, a couple of bad results could be devastating immediately. Well, we shall see how things are sorting out, this first year is definitely a building one for me for which I didn’t expect to much. Reaching into European football next season is a bonus to me already and the same counts for the semi-final or so for the Copa del Rey, wherefor we need some luck with the draws as well. Hopefully the board is just as patient as I am!
Note: Wow, big support now! Thanks guys. Sean Dyche is a really succesfull manager in this game actually. After Athletic he joined Manchester City, were he did win the league at some point as well and has won many other trophies. Muniain is out of the game. Just as almost everybody else who is playing at the club currently in real life. I only could find Beñat, who I have signed as my under-18 manager now. He is pretty good actually.
Losing great players on free transfers is one of the biggest heartbreaks you can have, personally. I know your pain!
The rebuild begins! It’s a monumental challenge to work with the Bilbao transfer policy of only Basque players, but hopefully that shouldn’t hinder you too much if the talent is there.
Its certainly been a mixed start to the season so far, which is expected with the large turnover. Hopefully the team will begin to gel and we can see some improved results.
A very tricky job being the manager of a club that relies solely on their academy of Basque only players. A solid start from you. Looking forward to seeing how you get to grips with the objective of finishing in the top 6.
#106 - Not great at all…
24/11/2037 -- Oh dear, where did I stepped into? This is not looking great at all. When I joined Athletic I didn’t looked in detail at the players qualities in advance, but I think that was some kind of a mistake. This squad is not great at all. On top of that, the old guys who are still here are performing terrible. I suppose you can expect some good field play and leadership from those experienced players far more often, but they do just nothing. So since now I made the decision to get rid of all the oldies who are still here and I am going to fully concentrate myself for developing the youngsters. It’s the only possible way we might get back on track with this club within a few years.
So with the oldies in the squad it isn’t going great currently, although the lack of having a solid striker isn’t helping me either. But I have to deal with him for the time being, there is just no proper second striker at this club, so I guess we have to wait till next summer when my new signing finally will arrive. In the meantime I tried the wingers as a striker sometimes, but that isn’t very successful either. The only thing I can do is hoping that the board will give me some time to renew the squad and get the players familiar with each other and the tactic. The tactic I use is not really bad, although it doesn’t look like that given the results. Most of the time our fieldplay looks quite solid, we don’t allow our opponents for creating many chances, but they almost score every match because of some terrible personal mistakes. At least half of the goals we concede so far is because of that… Although we had some bad luck as well in a couple of matches with some very late against goals. On top of that, my goalkeeper isn’t as good as I was hoping for either. He is one of the oldies who I’m done with, from now one I will make use of the young goalkeepers. They are taller as well, which is an upgrade in the first place and not significantly weaker in terms of their attributes.
We are eleventh in the league currently, but there is already quite a big gap with the seventh position, which will give you entrance to European football if the results from the other clubs acting in Europe currently and the outcome of the Copa del Rey are helping. Of course it’s better finishing sixth, then European football is secured anyway. But that position is already 8 points away from us now… It’s not helping us either that there are not a few clubs who are considerably better than others. They are dividing the points too equally, which is a big disadvantage for us… I hope we can do better from now on with the youngsters, although we will be smashed for sure sometimes, but I need to do something. I don’t want to get sacked with saying that I have done nothing, although my job is still stable currently, so no worries yet! Of course our eyes are shut wide open every second of the day to search for youngsters and my scouts are doing a really great job I must say. They are searching in every possible league in Spain, a couple of major competitions in Europa and of course our dozens of affiliated clubs in the nearby surroundings of Bilbao. So it might be possible we are going to splash some cash again in the winter transfer window!
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