Fo' ma homies

As I was looking for a challenge that will take some of my time during these hot days of summer I was thinking to try the Pentagon Challenge or the San Marino one, but it was missing that "something", so I decided to try "fix" the only attribute that I never managed to max out in the manager profile, that being Domestic Player Bias.

After a quick tour of Brazilian football club, and their stupid schedule, of having international call ups, cup and league games within 2 days I decided to try another League in Europe that I never really explored. So this is how the idea was born. My first choice was Olympique Lyon, because I have a decent knowledge of the squad, but then it just seemed too easy, as their squad is currently the strongest in the league in my opinion. There were 2 other options left, 1 was Rennes, because of the youth facilities, which would've helped growing french players and the other one was Montpellier, who had a great first season after being promoted into League 1. After google-ing the clubs and comparing the facilities there was definitely one club that could make this challenge more interesting:


What could anyone in the Football world want more than a bunch of crazy fans?!

Looking at the squad, media prediction of 7th place seems quite realistic, as there is no transfer budget available, the squad isn't large enough to be able to sell some players, the staff needs to be changed, so probably for the first season I'll try to get the best out of these players, as some of them are quite old and will probably be released at the end of the season.


Looking at the teams strengths and weaknesses will probably play a counter attacking style, due to having quick players, and having low determination would be best if we don't get a goal behind.



Key Players.




All in all the team looks good, considering it just finished it's first year in Ligue 1, the defense seems to be the strong part of the team, and even tough I had other plans for the attack, the wingers have quite low crossing, so I'll have to wait and see what suits the team best.

We are also playing in Europa League, and it remains to see if we can compete on all fronts, my main target is undoubtedly a strong position in the league, but maybe we can win some money by playing in Europe. I already put my eyes on some possible targets for the next season, but it remains to see how much money you can earn in France :).

This is my first attempt of a story and some feedback would be more than welcomed :).

My targets and self imposed rules for this savegame are:
~Only sign french players.
~Make Montpellier the best team in Europe.
~Get the facilities maxed out.
~Play attractive football.
~Try to promote own players - Similar to Barcelona.

I'll reserve this, just in case.

French teams usually possess quality material. I like the local bias approach and it would interesting to see your results.

By the way, you might want to have a look at our FM screenshots tutorial to replace those nasty big PNG with web optimized JPG.

Sounds like your on for a good challenge. I have often thought about trying something like this but never really got round to it. I will read your story and see how you get on, might get some inspiration to do it myself!! haha. Good luck!!!

Good start to your story, I'll be following. Loved the video, makes me want to start one with Montpellier now.

Well the preseason ended okay, with some encouraging results in the last few games, as expected there have been no transfers, but I managed to sort out the backroom staff, even with the limitations of coaches managed to get nice ratings for all training categories.


We also managed to qualify for Europa League group stage without any real fuss, but maybe with the exception of having Man City as the second seated team we got the hardest group possible.



As before the season I don't expect much from this year's European campaign and will use it as a learning experience for the young players at the club.

Half of the season is done, and we exceeded all expectations, including mine's to be honest :D. As in the first games we were leaking a lot of goals due to individual errors I thought this will continue and we'll loose a lot of points because of this, but when I decided to stick with a formation and play safer, the team gelled in faster and the number of individual errors declined considerably.


As you can see we actually managed to finish second in our Europa League group and qualified for the First Knockout Round, where we got Aston Villa, who won a group with Juventus . But as always we'll take it one game at a time, and if we play like I know we can, we can get a big result.


Our key player for this first part of the season was undoubtedly the goalkeeper. He definitely deserved more man of the match awards in my opinion, but as always the goalscorers get the credits. He has also attracted interest from some clubs such as Zenit but there is no way I am letting him out in near future, it just feels good to know you can count on the man between the sticks.

The best game in this save was undoubtedly the one against Olympique Lyon, the match pretty much started just as one that the "game" wants you to loose for sure, and that being the opposition superstars scoring from any position. Lyon had 2-0 in the 27th minute and we were looking like we'll concede more, but then Cris, their captain and central defender got a red card in his face!! Made some changed and the team played wonderfully. Here is the footage from the match.


It is really wonderful, and probably the best thing about the first season at a team, to see them growing in form in front of your eyes, to see them working theirs socks off and putting everything on the table for the team. Usually when playing with mid-table teams, and especially when not knowing the league I have problems in the approach, as I don't know when to be more offensive and when to stay back and grind a result, however "better safer than sorry" seemed to work, I decided to stick with a counter-attacking tactic, and we showed Ligue 1 how to counter ;). The defense also seems more solid, managing more interceptions, and if it wouldn't be our weakness at defending set-pieces... well nothing is perfect. Here you can see the difference between the interceptions made in one of the first games of the season, and an average one closely to the end of the first half.

Oh, oh, almost forgot: I LOVE FRANCE AND LIGUE 1 !! Soooo many gentlemen around here, who know when to admit that you were better, even if you beat them, I've absolutely never seen this before, in almost all my saves I had 1-2 managers friends and others were hating me, or anyway, never admitted they failed.

Breaking NEWS!!! After buying a new Mercedes-Benz bus, and parking it in front of goal, Montpellier have done the impossible and defeated Aston Villa in their UEFA Europa League clash, and not only once, but twice!!!
If needed, we showed once more what can some good luck + hard work do in the football world. I really doubted our chances before this double because, as just before our game, they beat Arsenal 3-2 at Villa Park, Arsenal standing 2nd in Premier League. Luckily for us our main keeper just came back from an injury and didn't let it see in the game, as he made some good interceptions and showed good composure. As you can see from the screenshots they dominated the games, but it didn't really matter as they didn't really have any clear chances, we managed to block them well, and they didn't use the chances they created on individual actions. And bloody hell, guess who we got next... Liverpool, they beat us twice in the group, but I think I learned from my mistakes and will try a new approach this time... we'll see what happens .

To speak a bit of recent good performances, here you can see our main goalscorer, and only looking at his finishing for the position he plays you can imagine how many times I put my hands on my head during games, as he misses like a blind pigeon !! His off the ball movement is also crappy and I really hope I can get a decent price for him during the summer transfer window... but who knows what can change till then


We've had other important games during this time,on the one hand we managed to reach the final of Coupe de la League, after beating Lyon on penalties, they had some young players on the field, especially attackers, but the rest of the team was the usual 11, so it's another great achievement, and hopefully we'll get some decent prize from the final. On the other hand we were knocked out of the French cup by Nancy, which is a much more important competition, and then lost against them in the league as well, I just couldn't find a way to beat them , had some bad luck as well an oh well... some emo moments, nonetheless I encouraged my players and we managed to avoid going too much backwards.


The most important game of these I consider to be the one against Lille, the leaders at the moment. In our first meeting, in the first part of the season they beat us really bad, we didn't really have any goalscoring chances, but it seems that our fans helped us do a much better game at home, we looked tidy in the back and managed to score from a counter attack and a corner, and I couldn't wish for more, that victory put us on the top spot. Again I don't expect us to stay too much there, but it's giving me hopes that we can finish in top 3 and play in Champions League for the next season.


What I did for these tough games was setting match preparation on defense positioning and putting it to Very High, I will try this more often, but it might be an idea for the games where you really need that boost in attack/defense.

tomy this story is awesome keep up the outstanding work and good luck,look foward to reading more updates.

# BenLFC88 : tomy this story is awesome keep up the outstanding work and good luck,look foward to reading more updates.

Thank you very much
Although I originally planned to make only 2 updates for the first season, things have gone “out of control” and I just couldn’t resist not sharing these with you. During this month we managed to win the first trophy with me at the helm of the club, and oh well, as I don’t think you actually get a trophy for winning the second league this is the first one for the club as well . Looking back we had some very difficult games and it would have been a shame not to win the final against a weaker opponent such as Brest. We controlled the game from the beginning to the end and Brest just couldn’t cope with us .
These have been busy days, we had some though games in the league, the Europa League games with Liverpool, and … we just complicated it for ourselves, and by that I mean… oh well see for yourselves:
After playing OK in the away game against the Cormorants, but loosing pretty much as expected I decided to go all out on attack at home, and maybe as an inspiration from my assistant I decided to give Bakambu a chance, he is currently on loan from Man Utd who snapped him at the beginning of the season . When I took the job I already had a few targets on my mind, and he was one of them, as I’ve seen him becoming a quality player on another saves. Back to our things now… he did a very good game and showed his great potential, hopefully I can build a good relationship with him and if he can’t break through at Man Utd… who knows.
We got Leverkusen next, and I decided to play a bit more offensive at home, and it proved to be a very good decision. Once again we proved that we are almost impossible to be beaten at home, we didn’t dominate the game, but we used our chances wise, compared to Dortmund. For the away game, again they were largely wasteful and we easily managed to draw.

The joke was starting to get serious now, and we were about to be put with our feet on the ground by Man City, our next opponent. During most of my games in FM 2011 they were winning Europa League and they were on their way to do it another time. They had some injured players such as Tevez but they have such a strong squad, with backups such as Dzeko, who could complain? :| But still…
I don’t know what was more surprising during this time, the mircales that we did in Europe or the fact that we kept the pace in the league; we are leaders and having 1 less game played that Lyon… I’m starting to believe that we can finish in the top 3 and play in Champions League for the next season, and no matter how the game with City ends, it’s been a great adventure in Europe, and I can say I really felt how the players fought hard, there have been dramatic late goals, equalisers, misses… this has been by far the most chalenging and satisfying game I have played in FM 2011 so far, and I guess that it’s the attention to details that really matters, and oh… never yell at your players when they concede late/loose .

The game against Man City ended way better than I had expected, and luckily for us Dzeko had another very bad day. He could hit spectators with his shots, he was poor in the air, their wingers were nulified by ours coming deeper than usually, oh well you would've said we were an Italian team :D. This makes it the 3rd english team that we knocked out of Europa League, by a team that finished 7th last season in Ligue 1...

For the first time in history, the club was in an European final, where we got Napoli. I actually considered this game to be easier than the one with City, and in some way it was...
Unfortunately they scored from a free-kick, and from then on I changed the style of play to a more attacking minded formation, but we weren't able to break down their defense, and they scored again in the end of the match from a corner. I must say I was a little bit disappointed, as I felt we could've done more, but it just wasn't our day . At the press conference I thanked the lads for the effort they put into this competition, and declared the overall performance very pleasing.
After that game we could turn our full attention to the league, as it was in our hands if we win it or not, we needed 7 points from the last 3 games, and with a bit of luck we managed to get 6 out of the first 2, the last game of the campaign will decide where the title goes, so I decided to take a break, analyze some matches and wait for some inspiration before going into this game .

We are the CHAMPIONS my friend, and we'll keep on fighting 'till the end!

This last game of the season really reflected most of our season: organized defense,hard work, thrilling comeback! I decided to play a counter-attacking game as we only needed 1 point from this game and there was no reason to risk anything, but when they scored I was really... ... I paused the game and watched:
That video always gives me chills down my spine, and even though not in such a heroic mode, we managed to make a comeback and draw a 1-1!!

This season was more than incredible for the club, and even though usually my first season at a club is pretty difficult if I don't know the league or the opposition this one ended far beyond my wildest dreams, I must say that I was hoping for wonders and finish in top 3, but never believed we could be champions until Camara scored in the 84th minute...
I'm very eager to see the budget that I'll be receiving for the next season, as I know the squad will need massive improvements if we are to defend our title and make a good impression in Champions League, especially midfield and attack. I have a few targets in mind, and an idea for a different approach next season, when I'll want to play a more beautiful, attacking football.

Also, as for the next season I'm planning on updating the story more often than I did this one, I'm waiting for feedback as should I do it for every month, or when something "interesting" happens, or I get a big result etc. Looking forward to hearing from you Tomy out, going to enjoy a cold beer, I deserve it!