Becoming the Greatest: From Zero to Hero

Introduction

Hello all, this is a new story I am starting, where I begin unemployed and past experience set to Sunday League Footballer. I have the Korean and Chinese leagues active, along with English leagues down to levels 7 & 8. I know my past two stories have not gone well, but that shall be corrected here.

I hope you all enjoy this story as it progresses

Barber approached

After applying for every possible managerial job, I was approached by 10 clubs. I will consider each one carefully and decide soon.

Barber accepts role as Gangneung City manager!

Here's their squad, as you can see, some major work in the transfer market is going to have to be done.

Training in south korea, I have never seen a korean league :o.
Good luck in your travel through South Korea

You could check out my South Korean Story for any help as you start.
Good luck.

Current League Standings

This is currently how Gangneung are doing, I've set up two friendlies for the new tactic I've introduced to the lads and I'll post the results later but they should be clear wins.

Friendlies, Tactics and Transfers

Here is how the two friendlies went, as you can see a few shots off target, but after the players get familiar with the tactic I believe this problem will go away.




Tactics

I was looking to experiment with tactics a bit with Gangneung, so I came up with this. I will only be using 1 tactic for the remaining 9 games.




Transfers

I was certainly busy here, hopefully these players can bring success, the most promising has to be the Irish pair James Cronesberry and Jamil Adam.

Bullsh*t Strikes Again!

Unfortunately, for the second time my saves have become corrupted - which, marks the end of all stories of mine until I have access to my laptop.

What I can say is that in the remaining 9 , I managed to salvage enough points to put us 3rd, securing a play off place. I won the first round and just before the second is when the save corrupted. Kim Seong-Min, was also very good upfront, like in Akash's story.


EDIT: I have been graced upon by the FM Gods, I can now access my save, not sure how. But if history repeats itself, it will end up corrupted again.

Delight for Gangneung City!

With just 9 games left I had to make an impact, and I did just that, managing to take our team into 3rd place, allowing us to qualify for play offs. The first and second round of play offs we had to rely on penalties, luckily we won, the second round was a very tense game, especially in penalties where we won 11-10. After 2 very demanding games the boys were shattered and I knew the next was going to be a hard match. To my surprise it wasn't too difficult as we won 1-0. Then it was the final, at least this time we got 7 days rest, but we had suffered the set-back of 4 injuries, including our best defender, Shim Jae Won while against the top team in the league. Again, surprisingly the first league was a rather easy game were we should of won, but they held us to a 1-1 draw. In the 2nd leg I had to rely on penalties to take us through, but I did it, we were champions of the N-League!

Barber shocks Gangneung City!

On a foggy and miserable Sunday morning, J Barber called a press conference, no one knew much about it - not even the board, he claimed he had an announcement to make. After everyone sat down, he began.

"You're probably all wondering why I called a press conference.." he began

"Well, after a lot of thinking.. I have.." He hesitated.

A reporter quickly responded "You have...?"

Barber took a deep breath and drank a bit of his water

"I have decided I want to manage outside of Korea, the football here just isn't for me. I'm going to look for a job elsewhere, not sure where yet, just elsewhere."

Choi Myung-Hee, the chairman of Gangneung City was shocked, along with several press members who were furiously writing away on their notepads.

A press officer asked "You have just made 3 new signings for the season ahead, now you want to leave? What exactly is it that you dislike within the league?"

Barber reacted quickly " I know I made new signings, but this has been on my mind for a while, I kinda miss England, homesick, sort of. About the Korean League, it's the short seasons, only 26 games? The budgets here too at Gangneung, they've gotten worse since last season. To clear somethings up, if I can't find a job elsewhere, I'll remain here at Gangneung, but I refuse to sign a new contract. I hope you all respect my decision."

Barber quickly ushered out of the press room, followed by the shocked board members, who all wanted more answers.

Nice twist to your story...do you have another job offer in hand?

Not yet, a lot of people come close to being sacked, but then win a game, and it just repeats.

Pre-Season at Gangneung

Well I'm still at Gangneung, for now anyway, will see what the future holds but here's a biref review of pre-season.

Results&Performances


As you can see some very good results, not losing a single game, and a surprising win against Seongnam. Overall, the performances were very good, in every match, this gives me confidence that Gangneung will be able to do well in the league.

I haven't changed the tactics much, I'm still using the same formation but I've dropped the defense deeper and made some alterations to some player instructions, this tactic was used for 1382 minutes under my management and a goal was scored every 36 minutes, and a goal conceded every 72. So as you can see it is more of a tactic to try and out-score your opponent.

Transfers

The people who were released on a free were dead-wood and eating up the wage budget which is quite a problem considering the finances at this club are spiraling downhill but I was still able to bring in some players.

Do you not have Wang Haibo?

Season 2 at Gangneung

- I decided to stay at Gangneung for one last season, but this is the last one, here are the results of it.

Results & Performances

After last season, I had selected promotion for a higher budget (promotion is impossible in the N-League) and I was hoping for a good season, especially after the pre-season results.

At the start of the season we did alright, pretty average, but around middle of the season our slightly positive form carried on going downhill, at one point we lost 3 games in a row. From then it got even worse in the league. Towards the end of the season we had a absolutely shocking form that cost us a place in the play offs, not managing to win a game for 9 matches, which is something you can't afford to do in a 26 match season. In the cup we only reached the fourth round, to get there we had to do the impossible and beat a strong K-League side, which somehow we managed, and in the fourth round we got paired with another K-League side, in the end we got smashed 5-1. In the National League Cup we managed to reach the quarter final, where we lost to a better Ulsan HMD side, who somehow did very poor in the league.

Performance wise it followed the trend of our results, great at pre-season, dipped a little at the start and then just spiraled downwards, our defense was particularly unimpressive.