Taking Dragons to Fly

My FC Porto Challenge

Hi there, first of all thank you for taking the time to read my story. As is my custom, when I first get my hands of FM I like to take FC Porto, my favorite team, back to Champions League glory of 2004. This story will briefly accompany my adventure.

I am international legend, filling the shoes of Andre Villas Boas, who left for Chelsea, and trying follow a marvelous treble 2010/11 campaign. The team is okay in terms of squad level but missing a pure forward due to the departure of Falcao to Atl. Madrid.

I plan on using a deformed 4-4-2, Zero Sea tactic from last year which I found suited my FM style perfectly and had better results than I did with my tactics. I also turned off the first transfer window in an attempt to make my run a little more realistic.


My team is as follows:

GK:
Helton- A veteran, the captain, eccentric but brilliant at times.
Bracalli- A reliable backup at any time.

RB:
Fucile- An all-around option. Lackluster but effective.
Sapunaru- More of a physical right back, however somewhat lethargic.

LB:
A. Pereira- A tireless left wingback, often giving offensive support.
Alex Sandro- A young, speedy left back, with a lot to offer in the future.

CB:
Rolando- A very sturdy reliable anchor in the back four.
Otamendi- Aggressive young centerback with a lot of promise about him.
Maicon- The main aerial threat, promising, but very error prone.
Mangala- A future star for sure. Very physical and smart and able to play anywhere on the defensive side of the pitch.

DM:
Fernando- A very underrated player in my opinion. Very reliable and a great anchor man. If you don’t know him, he can play at any major team.
Defour- An defensive playmaker able to take the game forward from the back.
Souza- Young defensive midfield yet lacks any major key attribute.

MC:
Moutinho- The smart one. What he lacks physically, he makes up for mentally.
Guarin- A physical, technical player, yet somewhat slow, but has a great long shot.
Belluschi- A pure attacking midfielder. Very technical, put little physicality.

AMRL:
Hulk- Team star. Physical and with great technical prowess, a danger to any defense in Europe.
J. Rodriguez- A speedy technical player, with great agility and the ability to play anywhere in the midfield.
Varela- A solid winger with good pace and technique.
C. Rodriguez- Good technically, but doesn’t quite fit in into the team, and his wages are 2nd highest when he is far from the 2nd best.
Iturbe- A young version of Messi, just not as polished. Yet.

ST:
Kleber- An atypical targetman, good with his feet with good mobility as well.
Walter- A lackluster forward that seems to always come up short.

I feel as if my team is a little short in the striker department, and could use an extra fullback. Danilo makes his way from Santos in the January transfer window, but I’ll look to unload C. Rodriguez and Belluschi in an attempt to find myself an extra forward.

Stay tuned for preseason friendlies, Champions League action as well as an exciting season start!

Good luck!

So as we take the first step into the season my woes become apparent. Below are my matches and the respective results in August and September.

My friendlies went okay, with a loss to Flamengo where the team didn’t really gel well yet and it showed.

The rest of the preseason went well with no major hiccups. A problem in the beginning was the U20 World Cup where is lost Alex Sandro, Mangala, and Iturbe until late August. The season began well, with us winning the Supertaca 2-1 against Guimaraes, and demolishing them 7-1 in the first league match.

Our first official loss came against Barcelona, in a match where our lack of quality showed played well enough and I thought 3-1 was a decent result.


The quality remained poor in the next game vs. Gil Vicente going down 2-0, only to tie 2-2 with 20 minutes left, and losing in the 88th 3-2. however we bounced back the next week with a solid 3-0 win vs. Nacional.

With the champions league looming I was afraid of what could become of our group and my feelings were right as we were drawn into by far the hardest group.

Our first match vs. Man City proved to be our best team match thus far. A great 3-1 comeback away against City was the best result I could ask for and I was elated.

However, I lost my starting rightback Fucile for a month in the match which could prove to be costly. Good league formed followed with comfortable wins against Beira-mar and Leiria which leads us to our final match in September, a home tie vs. Valencia for the Champions League which we came away from with a solid 2-0 win.

Overall I’m happy with the results so far. We’re first in the league with a 1 point advantage over Benfica. Since my goal is the title challenge I feel we are where we should be. Besides the 3-2 loss to Gil Vicente, our defense has been good, but can still improve.

And I come into October thinking I need 4 points from 4 matches in order to progress from our Champions League group. Not an easy task, but feasible. So far our key player has to be Hulk, he’s been scoring left and right, when he’s not scoring, he’s providing assists, and if he was a little more accurate, would easily have doubled his goal tally. But I can’t ask for more. The rest of the group is as I thought it would be; Kleber has been a pleasant surprise, often linking up with Hulk to provide and score, but Walter has got to contribute more if he’s going to stay in my squad. I’ll look to update my story in 2 months time with the matches from October and November.

Hey there,

Good to see someone picking up FC Porto, now all we need is someone playing Sporting to have a real portuguese war going on in the forums

Kléber actually can perform pretty well; in my save he has 15 goals in 25 league games but if you have the money, I would suggest Leandro Damião for the immediate goal scoring needs. Good luck!

# mr_hughes : Hey there,

Good to see someone picking up FC Porto, now all we need is someone playing Sporting to have a real portuguese war going on in the forums

Kléber actually can perform pretty well; in my save he has 15 goals in 25 league games but if you have the money, I would suggest Leandro Damião for the immediate goal scoring needs. Good luck!

Yeah, sorry I had deleted the pics by accident, he's been a pleasant surprise. As far as Leandro Damiao, he's very expensive in my game. 18.5M!!! about to put up my next segment but thanks for the feedback! BIBO Porto haha!

# 6294 : Good luck!

Thanks!

My FC Porto Challenge

Welcome back! Again thanks for taking the time to read my story! Our season has been way above my expectations and in October and November things went very well. Below are my fixtures from these past 2 months.



As you can see, a single tie against Manchester City when we had already assured the first place qualifying spot from our Champions League group. But one game at a time.

Our positive league form continued with a 3-0 win versus Rio Ave and then came the first match against Borussia Dortmund. I expected this to be a little harder match than it actually was and the final 5-1 score was a total surprise.



The result left us in a commanding position in the group, with 9 points, Dortmund with 6, and City and Valencia 1 each after their draw, which meant, I needed 1 point to secure my qualification.

Positive form continued with the 2-1 over Pacos de Ferreira, the 3-0 win vs. Penafiel in the cup tie and the 5-1 win over last place Feirense which came at price. We lost Keleber our second forward, but Walter finally decided to show up and play well during the following games. At this point in time, due to a solid financial position, the board granted me with 6.25 million Euros for the winter transfer market, which I quickly put to use. My first signing was to get a third GK, to secure a positive prospect and I landed Luis Guilherme from Botafogo for 4 million Euros.



My second signing is Carlos Fierro, a young and talented forward from Mexico who was playing in Chivas still under a youth contract. He signed his first professional contract with Porto with a surprising low sum of 1.5 Million being owed to Chivas for one of the best looking prospects in the game.



There were other attempts to sign players including Ante Vukusic, whose wage demands forced Porto to look elsewhere, as well as Vitinho, a young Brazilian forward who proved to be too expensive for this transfer window for Porto and I ended up settling for Fierro instead.

But going forward with more football, our next big match was the home leg vs. Dortmund in the group stage in which we needed one point to qualify for the next round. This is what happened.



I never expected the match go as well as it did. Our chances happened to go in and theirs just didn’t. The margin while significantly inflated, left me astounded but my team’s ability so far to come up in the big matches is thoroughly amazing. With this we clinched our qualification and first place in our group. Which meant the match against City and Valencia were now meaning less and we could turn our focus to the league and other competitions.

After a league match when we demolished Vit. Setubal 7-0 came the toughest part of the schedule during these 2 months. 7 days separated 3 matches, the first a cup tie with Sporting (in the third round!), the second match against Man. City which albeit meaningless, I still wanted for the satisfaction, and the third a rematch against Sporting away in Lisbon for the league.

The cup tie was a frustrating affair. Jump down to see the story.



After dominating play for the entire game, to lose it in the final 10 minutes was frustrating and had it not been for Hulk’s cheeky finish 5 minutes from penalties. To add to all this my team was very tired and even after resting the squad we got to the City match still fatigued.



Again speechless following a brilliant performance; in a match where I fielded a nursing side full of substitutes, going up 2-0 only to tie 2-2 was somewhat disheartening, but given the circumstances, I was very pleased. I managed to keep the squad fresh and fit enough to take on Sporting the right way in a few days time.



The proper match I had been expecting the first time around. A dominant performance from top to bottom, leaving me very little to complain about. Honestly I couldn’t get over the fact we were trampling our main opponents.



This is how things are looking at the moment. We are in a good position in the league given our cushion against second place Benfica. I am not too worried about the team, my thoughts of buying a third forward were only reminded when a transfer request arrived from Souza. He was quickly dispatched due to the overwhelming amount of midfield quality on the squad and the 5 million will be quickly put to use. Hulk continues his rampage and unless he is somehow slowed down or injured, I see us performing very well. I look forward to hearing from you until the next part arrives, with the close of the group stage, the holiday break and hopefully some new signings! Thanks!