Good luck with this save! Thanks for linking that avatar website btw! 
I should see about doing an unemployment save with all leagues loaded! Of course, not now, I still got some winning to do at Everton!
There are some stories that make me think - "I should've done this", and yours is one of them. Love it, even at this early stage. Keep it up!
2013-08-24 19:46#131168 Nathaniel : Great start to your first ever story mate! However half star game speed is crap! You do realise you don't need to add all the leagues at the start? That you can add and remove leagues in game?
Haha half a star is the most I can have on my computer
This is a really great start mate. I hope you keep it up for a long long time
Half star speed is bad?
My computer has HALF STAR RATING...
My computer has HALF STAR RATING...
Chapter 2: First day at Egersund!
At least the view is nice
First day in the club is always very hard, but it's a lot more harder if it's your first ever as a manager. "What should I do first?", Smith asked himself. Fortunately for him, assistant manager helped him a lot during this first day. Firstly, they talked together with chairman about club's ambitions and goals for current season. The goal is simple - don't get relegated.
After this meeting, it was time to meet the staff. Everyone gave Smith short report covering his area of interest.
Last thing which Smith did was showing up on team's training. He tried to learn quickly about each player's skills, but this task is really difficult. Some players on the pitch tried to impress new manager from first day, others were looking on him unsure if he can teach them anything.
After all those events the time has come to summarize observations. First good thing is that team has really good financial position if they want to hire new players - most of the wage budget is not being used.
Squad depth, on the other hand, is very poor. Smith immediately decided to move 2 players from reserves to first squad, but even after this there are only 17 players in first team. You can't play season with only 17 players! A few injuries will come and you can find yourself stuck with only 12-13 players. Quick look at youth squad didn't help either. There is literally no player worth looking at in youth team... So how should Smith use club's youth system?!
After looking closer at first team, some conclusions came to Smith's mind:
- many players are on amateur contracts so they have to be renewed ASAP to not weaken squad even more
- team has only 1 goalkeeper
- DCs are generally very weak
- CM/AMCs are OK (and some even better than OK), but there should be more of them
- there are no natural wingers in the team, so it seems that narrow formation is the only option
- there are 5 STs in the team and they all look at least decent
Below you can see our 3 best players:
Stokkeland is team's most experienced player and captain. Despite his age he is the best player in the team and squad will for sure be built around him. Just look at his mental stats and stamina!
Nyborg is another good midfielder we have. A lot younger and more creative than Stokkeland. They can create lethal partnership in midfield!
All Egersunds' strikers are decent, but Perttamo is the youngest one. Smith hopes that he will develop quickly and score lots of goals for the club!
The day was coming to an end but there was one more thing that just had to be done. Match will take place on the next day so tactic has to be created for the team. Below you can see first version of the tactic:
Tactic has no wingers because there are none at the club. Instead, we have very strong midfield through which attacks will be formed. FBs will just sit in the defense and support CBs. There is no fluidity and roaming because Smith wants to have control over his players' behavior on the pitch (and he doesn't believe that they can make better decisions and still keep team's defensive integrity themselves).
Tactic is created, search for new players has begun. It was really exhausting day. But the real challenge starts tomorrow!
2013-08-25 15:20#131350 Seni : Nice update but check out the codingManaged to fix it
Great update mate!
Also you have revolutionized this site by linking to the create an avatar website!
Also you have revolutionized this site by linking to the create an avatar website!
Chapter 3: Tigers on hunt!
Debuts are never easy, but they are especially difficult if you have to play first non-friendly game with your team 2 days after taking over. At least being nervous is not an issue - you just have no time for that.
Smiths situation was even tougher. Egersunds IK was supposed to play Vard away. And so far Vard were one of the top teams of the league, so he was a bit worried. Tactic was set, players got their roles and instructions, and referee blew the whistle. Game begun - first game in Smith's career as manager! After about 90 minutes match ended and...
... Egersunds won! Smith's team wasn't playing very impressive. They also weren't better team than Vard. But they were just lucky. Single shot from Haland after terrible error of Vard's defense was decisive and Egersunds snatched 3 points! You can see this first Egersund's goal under Smith's reign below:
It also appears that it was first Haland's goal in a looooong time:
After this game there was long 18-day break before another one. This was perfect opportunity to go for a hunt for players (of course only those out of contract). The hunt was successful and Egersunds signed 9 players. You can see each of them below (in order of signing):
First signing will increase our number of options in center of midfield. He looks classy!
Walde is great DC who is complete bargain for team such as Egersunds. He is especially strong in the air.
Duus is yet another all-round solid CM!
Ellefsen will become good partner of Walde. He is a little worse in the air but faster DC than Walde, so their partnership should work fine.
Henriksen is another CM but this time with more defensive capabilities. And each team needs at least one good defensive midfielder.
Berg will be our first choice for DL from now on, and also only natural DL in the club.
Boe will make competition on position of AMC a lot harder. He may not be the fittest guy, but his technique and mentality are things from which Egersunds will benefit for sure!
Fredriksen will be our first choice goalkeeper from now on. Maybe he is not that great but should be enough for 3rd tier of Norwegian football leagues.
Another DC is Egersunds' last signing. He will be 3rd choice for DC position.
With all those signings there are now 25 players in first team. Smith is glad with new players but he knows that time is needed for them to blend into team. And time was not something that Egersunds had, because 18 days passed soon and another game had to be played, this time home game against Brann 2.
Some of the new signings even started in first eleven in this match and they made huge difference! Match was entirely after Egersunds' control and they snatched 3 points 2nd time in a row! And Boe even scored goal in his debut. Unfortunately this game also brought one sad thing for the team. Captain got seriously injured and he will be out for a long time...
This is not good for the team at all... Fortunately there are many more players that can play in midfield now so they will have more chances to play. Also, they will have to take more responsibility. We played one more game since last update:
Statistics may tell you that Odd 2 was a better team, but both score and what people on stadium saw proved otherwise. Odd 2 had few chances, they shot mainly from distance, and Egersunds succeeded in taking over the middle of the pitch. Scoring 5 goals was far more than Smith expected so he can only be delighted after such result. This means that Egersunds snatch 9 points in last 3 matches! Let's have a look at league table:
We are now on 10th place, so 2 places higher than we were when this career begun. It's only 1 point above relegation zone though, so now the big trick will be to maintain our good form!
A great update. I love the way you use the highlights and pictures to break up the text. I am loving this story keep it up.
Chapter 4: It's gonna be tough!
First few games have been very good for Egersunds so Smith quickly became popular in eyes of supporters. But can he maintain this good form?
This match was not fun to watch. Egersunds were better team so 1:0 victory somehow seems fair, but it's also a bit lucky (only goal was scored after corner kick). 4th win in a row!
Here we have it - Smith's first loss. It had to happen someday, but in reality game was very even and most of the time both teams struggled for possession in the middle. Fortunate goal gave Asane precious victory...
This match was really good and entertaining. Both teams wanted to win and finally Floy managed to grab a draw after scoring late 2 goals. Smith wanted to defend 2-goal advantage and ordered team to play more defensively in last 20 minutes but it didn't work out at all, so Egersunds got only 1 point. Haland scored hat-trick though, so there are some good news.
This was the worst match of Smith's career so far. Vidar were a better team and deserve the win. 0 shots on target - that explains it all...
Another time the team played badly. Smith is unsure what's going on. Another time most of the time of the match is spent on fight in the middle of the pitch and lack of concentration costs Egersunds 3 points... Something has to change soon because it's getting worse...
Despite some weaker results Egersunds IK are still on 10th place in league but team has to improve because 12th team is only 2 points behind. Can Smith figure out how to improve team's performance?
You are reading "From zero to hero - around the world".
