FM2022 The unknown footballer Journeyman

A fairly new entry to the FM world, this is my first post on the forum and with it comes a long term save plan. Inspired by quite a few stories that I have been reading over the past few weeks, this is our take at a journeyman save.

The unknown footballer is a story of the no badge, sunday league Indian footballer trying his luck at management.

Save Setup: Started with the asian, african and few of the smaller european nations where its easier for Indians to get a permit to work. Starting unemployed.

We have started in Indonesian 2nd div with Semen Padang FC, the team in 11th place out of 12 teams after 7 games. The transfer window is closed till end of season so it will be real hard to survive relegation and the job here. But what more can we expect at the beginning of our career.

The club staffroom seems okay but the recruitment and medical team is empty and that is my first priority. Budget wise our projections are horrible but we have decent attendance of about 4k.
Tactics: I have started with a 4-2-3-1 Wide with Wing play as my primary tactic.

3 games in the first week is a tough start but we have come back with a win vs fellow relegation candidates Badak Lamung and a draw vs 5th placed Sriwijaya FC and see us with 10 points from 10 games in 10th place(relegation spot). We ended July on a good positon of 8th with 14 points of 12 games though we crashed out on penalties in the Indonesian cup.

August began with the worst possible news, our best player Ricky Ohorella is out for the rest of the season with a broken ankle. This also means the tactic has to change just as the players were getting familiar with it. Going with a 4-4-2 diamond as it is the one with good depth in squad.

August 2021
We started off with a 0-1 loss vs Persekat followed by the a 1-4 hammering at home by Muba Babel Utd. In between we have also lost another key player to injury for 5 weeks.
We then lost 4-3 to Dewa United away but we were never in the game. Another 6 week injury for our striker and at this rate we will be in trouble to put a fit team on the ground.
We ended august with a 1-1 draw vs bottom places Tiga Naga. Just 1 point in 4 games in the month sees us a 10th place. Board Report - C+

September 2021
Tweaked the tactics and training a bit, we havent found goals from the strikers this season, so decided to play them in their best roles. We started with a lucky 2-0 win vs PSMS, then lost 0-1 and 1-2 vs the fellow releagation candidates Cilegon FC and Badak Lampung. We then drew 1-1 away to 2nd pace Perserang. With only 4 points from 4 games we ended September in 11th place and relegation seems the only result.
Board Report - C+

October 2021

We wona sensational 1-0 game vs table toppers Sriwijaya FC and we totally dominated the game. We lost the final game 2-0 away to Persis Solo, ending the seaon in 11th place and relegated from the league.

Result - Fired ( 16 games, 4 wins, 4 draws and 8 losses)

Got into the 2nd div Croatian league wirh NK OPATIJA now. They are 12th in the league in relegation spots.
Finance wise there is not much room here so will need to offload a few players before we can try to strengthen the team. Need 3 players playing in the starting 11 to be U21 and that is a big challenge with no good U21 players. Will try to get a few U21s in the January transfer windows.

We had 7 games in November/December and a decent start with 2 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw. Now the league goes into a break so we get the time to improve the squad.

January transfer window we managed to get 3 loans of U21 players giving us the much needed depth in the U21 levels to keep the squad performing. Most of our U21s are in defence though so we have a weak defence. Overall the squad size was 30 after the loans so there was enough to be able rotate. With this in mind we went to the 4-2-3-1 gagenpress system. While it took a bit of time to get started with but slowly we began to find a few results. We had 4 points from 3 games in February

Fixtures became sparse as we hit the home strech of the season. We had 4 games in march and we got 5 points from them. Our best striker was out for rest of the season and we had 22yr old Leon Petrovic step up with 3 goals from 2 games after failing to find the net the full season prior to that. We lost 1-3 to table toppers Rudes before we found the goals to beat Solin 4-1 away and end April with 36 points and 5 points clear of relegation with 3 games to go.

The last 3 games ended with 2 wins and a draw giving us a good 43 points and a 9th place finish.
The board was not willing to fund our coaching license for National C badge so we are really hard pressed here, but we signed a new contract anyway and now look forward to season 2

Really interesting playthrough going on here; you should try for some pictures. Grab an account on fmshots and you'll be able to embed screenshots from your game into the story, so we can see your tactics "on the page" and the specific attributes of your favourite players

@Harleygator thanks for your kind words. I will surely post a screenshots into this.

Season 2:

The main focus of the transfer window in the summer was to get U21 loans who are good enough to play at a decent level in the first team. We managed to get 4 decent loans and a couple of backup U21 players. We managed to offload a few players for free to free up wage budget for a 4.5 star Belgian in Chistophe Bertjens who should fill our Attacking Midfield role. The squad is still too large with 30 players and I will look to offload more players to help the wage budget more.

We also have got our Director of Football and he has bought in a physio and a head of youth development. More signing are expected in the staff department.

We started the season with a bang winning 5 in a row before being knocked out of the cup by Hajduk in the First round, they are the cup holders so shame there. But the board is unhappy with that result. We won the manager of the month in August and September.

We did well in October winning 2 games and drawing one to end october with 20 points in 8 games in first place. November had some tough fixtures but we ended November winning all 3 games. This gave us our 3rd Manager of the month in four months. We drew the last game before the winter break to be 1st place with 30 points in 12 games.
Tactics with best eleven


Signing of the season so far:

In the winter break we decided to try and keep the squad together and strengthen the staff, we got our scouting department filled with 2 new scouts bringing the recruitment team to size of 4. The return from break started with the terrible news of Barten out for 3 weeks with a pulled calf musle., though with our games starting 2 week later he might not miss too many crucial games. We got rid of Kristian Glavas who was 32 and had made only 1 sub appearance for the club this season. We used that wage to get Stipe Vulikic on loan till the end of the season. We lost Mihovil Klapan who is a star midfielder for us to an end of season contract with Istra 1961. He was on 11k per year with us and we could not match the 30k that was offered to him. Towards the end of the transfer window we also sold off Vito Hitesi who was only on 2.4k/yr but was turning 22 and was not good enough to warrant a place in the first team.

One big issue I was facing now was that I was unable to renew any contracts of my players as they refused to sign saying it would be on inferior terms to what he already has. I am not sure what the issue is so if anyone know please let me kow.

In February 2023 we won 2 games and drew 1 to win another manager of the month. Its been quite a season so far and if we can keep up the momentum should win the league though Dynomo's B team is right up there with only a point separating the two of us.

We started march with a 1-1 draw vs our rivals Rudes but with Dynamo II drawing as well it was all to play for in the game against them. We had a narrow 1-0 win vs Dynamo II so we ended march as table toppers with 41 points from 17 games.

We have secured promotion with a 5-1 win vs Seveste and a 3-2 win vs Cibalia with 3 games to go. We end the season with a 5-0 win vs Dugopolje, a 1-0 loss vs Osijek II and a huge 6-2 win vs Inter Zapresic. In all we scored 53 points from 22 games with 16 wins,5 draws and 1 loss.

Schedue:


Table:


Dispite the results the board doesnt want to give me the chance at a National C license.

Season 3:

In the Crotaian First League we get 1m as TV money so its a great boost to the finances. We have a wage budget of 443k/yr but we didnt sign too many players trying to keep the wage bill low. We only got a big signing in Spaniard Pol Balleste at 39k/yr


We had a real tough start to the season with 3 losses but we played well so I was not very worried. We opened the tally with 3-0 win away vs HNK Gorica and then followed by close 3-4 loss vs Sibenik. We ended August with 1-1 draw vs 2nd placed Hajduk.

The staff department has continued to be strengtened with a new Coach and a U19 Assistant Coach signed. We signed 26 yr old Nigerian Shuaibu Ibrahim on 30k/yr
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We had an excellent september going unbeaten through we played teams near the bottom of the table. Ofcourse that is very important if we want to survive in the league. This gave us 5th place on the table at the end of september with the first round of fixtures completed. We also won the Manager of the month. We could finally convince the board for our National C License.

October we had a decent run with 4 points in 4 games, with all fixures against the top 4 teams in the table. We had a sensational 2-0 win vs Dynamo Zagreb in the cup 2nd round though they played a rotated side. Take us lightly at your own peril. We continued the form through november and at the halfway stage in the league are in 4th place with 29 points from 18 games.

The performance was good enough to get our first job offer but we declined it as it was from 7th place Rijelk which didnt seem a good deal. I might regret it if we cant keep up the form and get relegated.

Post the winter break the team continued to be performing well with solid wins vs Osijek(4-2), HNK Gorica(2-1), Dugolije(3-1). Another sensational result came vs Hajduk(last 2 time league winner) with us winning at home(3-0). We ended the 3rd round of fixtures beating both Slaven Belupo and Lokomotiva with identical 5-0 margins to be on 49 points after 27 games in 3rd place. We took this opportunity for request for studing for National B License.

The final round of fixtures began with the tough home tie vs Dynamo and we won 2-1 giving Dynamo their first loss in the league. We have our captain Ivan Zagrabilic injured for 6 weeks though going into the business end of the season. Next up were 4th place Rijeka(won 1-0) and 5th place Osijek(lost 3-2). Our Youth intake was nothing to be excited about as we didnt have any good players. Picked up the Manager of the month for march 2024.

Started planning for next season with the signing of 24 yr old Argentinian Gonzalo Desio on 39k/yr for a transfer fee of 51k with 30k upfront and 21k in 2 installments. We won the next 2 games vs Sibenik and HNK Gorika with 2-0 margins to be confident before our Croation cup semi final vs Lokomotiva. We have beaten them all 3 times we played in the league so far so we are confident going into the game and the boys delivered with a 3-2 win with Stipe Vulikic grabbing the winner in the 94th minute. A 2 -0 win over Dugopolje secured European Cup II football next season. Absolutely delighted at being able to play in Europe next season.

We ended the season with 3-2 away win vs Hajduk, 3-1 away vs Slaven Bulepo and 2-2 draw vs Lokomotiva. 3rd place with 71 points is something we can be really proud of this season where relegation scrap was expected.

We won our first piece of silverware with a 2-1 win over HNK Gorcica. What a season this has been!!!

League Table:


As we are in Euro Cup due to our cup win the board has turned professional and also agreed to improve the training facilities.

Season 4:

For the new season we have a transfer budget of 1.4m and a wage budget of 1m/yr. With the club turning pro a few players wanted better contracts and we have already seen our wage bill ballon up with these contracts. Also our star loanee from last 2 seasons Gabrijel Rukavina was not willing to return so we had to look for a replacement. We bought 2 more of our loanees on full time basis but Stipe Vilikic is injured for 3 months the day he joined the club. A couple of more backup players have been signed and we are at 550k/yr already.

We opened the season with a Croatian Super Cup win over Dynamo Zagreb on penalties 4-2 after drawing 1-1. This allowed us to persuade the board for a National A license course.

The league started with a 1-1 draw vs Dynamo followed by a 6-0 demolition of Lokomotiva. We had a lot of games in August but we did decently to finish the month with 10 points from 6 games. Our losses coming against Hajduk(3-1) and Osijeck(2-1). We won the Euro Cup playoffs vs Rosenburg 6-1 on aggregate to make it to the Group stages of the Europa League.

We continued to be stable in the league with defeat coming only against Dynamo and Osijek (both 1-0) as we went into the winter break in 2nd place with 40 points from 20 games. Europe however was a tough proposition with us failing to win any game from our group stage as we lost to Sporting(2-3 home, 3-0 away), Borrusia Mongledach(3-3 home, 3-1 away) and Everton (0-0 home, 5-1 away). We managed to get the board to improve our youth facilities. We also got a lot of staff as we slowly moved from being worst in league to average in terms of staff. We have obtained our National A License and are now working towards the Continental C License.

It's interesting that you measure your finances by year, because I think that most players look at it on a weekly basis, especially for player wages. Is there a reason you do that specifically?

I find it easier to calculate on a yearly basis as I there is a easy comparison with the last season expenses plus the fact that the projections are on a yearly basis. Sponsorships etc. come every year so I find it simple to check if I am on track for the year.