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Hello everyone. This is my first kick at the can on a story, and it's been one I decided to pursue after getting about 2/3 through my first season. So...some of the details are lacking, or have been fabricated a bit. Once I catch up, I'll be able to provide prints of the tables and player stats...things like that.
Also, as I began writing the story, I noticed one or two others that began with a similar idea for how to start out as a manager. I apologize to those of you that this applies to, and assure you I have no intent of plagarizing your story ideas.
With that said, I'm running 6.0.2 and have a whole load of leagues running, with all their divisions. I believe 16 countries in all, all in normal level. I have also included the all the Canadian players from the database. Hope you enjoy!
Life can be cruel, there is no question of that. The world was at my fingertips, and no doubt, a great career in professional soccer. I had always dreamed of making it to the big time, and for many years, I felt that this dream would become a reality. I worked hard. Damn hard. Maybe too hard. But I didn’t really have a choice. Canada wasn’t exactly the breeding ground for fine soccer players, and I knew that I would have to dedicate my life to bettering my skills if I ever wanted to make it.
Having grown up in Saskatchewan, the chances of me getting noticed were so slim, that I had to leave the country to get better training, and better opportunities. That is when I experienced my cruel twist of fate. I assembled a team of local players and entered a cash tournament. The team knew of my plans to travel and to try and get the exposure I needed to progress to the next level, so we had agreed that if we won, the prize money would go to my travel funds. As this was Saskatchewan, the competition was weak, and we rolled through pretty much into the final. In the final, we were comfortably in front and looking clear to victory, when I went to gather up a high ball in the 18 yard box. While in the air, an opposing striker ran through me at the knees, sending me into a tailspin. I landed awkwardly, and everything went numb.
The details are really a formality. My playing career was over. A broken neck will often do that to you. At the time, I was devastated. Soccer was my life, and I didn’t know much beyond that. The thought of having to turn to my academic record was rather frightening. I hadn’t even graduated high school, and truth be told, nothing interested me besides soccer. So I was determined to find a way to keep soccer as a major part of my life.
That was when I decided coaching was my next calling. I was only 21 years old at the time, so my options were limited. Starting with local youth teams, I coached as best I could. Still not really able to run around, I had to focus my skills on tactical plans. When you are coaching 11 and 12 year olds, it can be trying, but once they understood the systems I was implementing, success was quick to follow. After winning city and provincial championships with these teams, I was encouraged to look towards higher levels. I decided to pursue the proper avenues and be recognized by FIFA…
…And here we stand. Now fully accredited by FIFA, I was ready to try and make a living out of managing. Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting to garner any interest anytime soon, but if anything were to ever come my way, I wouldn’t care where it was, I would jump at it.
Vacancies were plenty around the world for coaching positions, but I knew that I would have difficulty landing anything due to my background, and my language restrictions.
English was my only fluent language, so that was going to limit my options immediately. I decided I would try to focus on countries that I knew were fluent in English.
I decided to focus in England first, and while there were a few vacancies, they were League One and up, and although I put in an application, I knew my experience would guarantee me rejection. I noticed a couple vacancies in lower leagues in Sweden, so I dropped my application in there. Although I knew no Swedish, I figured there would be enough people on the respective squads that spoke English to get by. They must have thought otherwise though, as they were quick to reject my application.
I noticed a position open up at Bury. Being a League Two team, I thought there might be potential there, so I applied. At the same time, I noticed a position in the Portuguese Division B with a semi-pro club by the name of Pampilhosa. More for amusement sake, I decided to apply there as well.
Imagine my surprise when I received not one but two responses from my applications. Bury had offered me a two-year contract worth 3K/month. That was a lot of money for me, but I noticed their financial instabilities and was quite concerned. They offered me no transfer funds to work with, and expected me to slash the wage bill significantly as it was currently at 70K/month. Trying to put a positive spin on things, they urged me to look at this as a great challenge. Obviously, the financial concerns had scared off other potential managers, so I wasn’t entirely convinced that this was where I wanted to begin my managerial career.
The second offer was the shocking offer from the lowly Portuguese Division B team, Pampilhosa. This offer was much less prestigious (425/month), as the majority of the team was comprised of part-time players. However, financially they seemed to be fairly stable, and guaranteed me a transfer budget of 30K for the year.
In hindsight, my decision should have been easy. The money was definitely better with Bury, as was the lack of language barrier. But I was concerned that too many drastic changes would have to take place, and that the team wouldn’t be able to be competitive. So…I said thanks but no thanks to Bury, and accepted the contract with Pampilhosa.
This is FM06 - I've included the lower leagues from all the countries I could, and for the Portuguese Leagues, they default a level higher than this, so I had to select the leagues drop down and go one level lower, so this would be similar I guess to a Conference team in England.
“As senhoras e Cavalheiros de imprensa. Sou agradado anunciar o novo gerente de nossa esquadra de futebol, Sr. Chomos de Geoff.”
A muffled applause fills the room, but mostly bewilderment and confusion. Immediately a barrage of questions fills the room, and not a single one of them can I understand. I just smile at the small throng of reporters while some order gets restored in a chaotic beginning to my reign as manager.
I decide to issue a standard statement about the challenges that lay ahead.
“Good afternoon everyone. First off, I would like to thank the board of directors for giving me this opportunity. Managing a professional club has always been a dream of mine, and I intend to do everything I can to make Pampilhosa succeed. I am looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead, and I assure you that we will field a competitive squad this season. Thank you.”
Short and sweet, but I couldn’t really think of what else to say. My mind was wandering some as I was thinking about what I was getting myself into. My statement was very quickly translated for the reporters, and I quickly left the room before anyone could further question me and my appointment as manager of the club. I was beginning to think that the Bury position wasn’t looking all that bad after all.
The big day…time to meet the boss and the board. I had no idea what to expect, what kind of welcome I would receive, and quite frankly, why they hired me, but I was determined to make a strong first impression to put some of their doubts to rest. The Chairman of the Board is a gentleman by the name of Guillherme Duarte. His reputation is quite obscure, so I had a feeling that he was feeling as nervous as I was about the team we had and the hiring they had just made. The managing director is a man known only as Gila. Again, trying to find out some history on this man, it sounded like he hasn’t been on the job for very long. Heck, I didn't even know what a managing director did. Meeting these people definitely put me at ease knowing that I wasn’t the only one coming here that wasn’t feeling too confident.
After the introductions were made, I was brought over to the ground to meet the staff. I was quite anxious to find out what caliber of people I was working with, and was looking forward to getting on the same page with them immediately. When we arrived, I was greeted by three gentlemen. They all shook my hand and told me their names. First was Pedro Maia, then Nelson Santos and finally Jose Manuel Castro. I politely introduced myself back to them, but judging by their appearances, I took them to be nothing more than the groundskeepers. Well, it turned out that this was my staff. I was shocked to be honest with you. One coach, one physiotherapist, and a scout respectively. This simply was not going to do. I made a note to myself that we were going to have to overhaul the staffing at the club, and that I would make that priority number one.
Diary Entry – July 27, 2005
I’m exhausted, but I doubt I will get much sleep tonight. I got the opportunity to meet my staff and the key members of the board, and I don’t know about this job. I have to remind myself that this is a part-time team, and probably results in part-time commitment from everyone involved. This isn’t really what I envisioned of my first managerial position, but I guess I signed the contract.
First things first, straight away tomorrow I need to place some ads for staffing. We are currently without an assistant manager, and that is going to be crucial for us. I want to be very involved in every aspect of the team, but in order to get around to all areas, I will need an assistant to cover while I am dealing with other things. That, and the fact that I could use someone who has a solid knowledge of the Portuguese style of football.
Our current scout doesn’t seem very bright, and I don’t know what kind of confidence I can put into his abilities to find me some players, so I need to get searching fast. In any case I will have to bring in at least two more scouts to adequately find the diamonds in the rough that will help us win. I really didn’t want to come in here and have to deal with staffing issues this much. I want to bring in another coach or two as well. Having one coach running all the training is not effective, so we will see who I can bring in to help share some of the workload. Given the wage budget I have been given, the additional staffing I want to fill will probably take care of the rest of that budget.
I managed to get the coach to pull some data (although its pretty rough) on the players on the squad. We don’t even have a senior keeper right now?!?!? It’s somebody we have on a loan, but I can’t stick with that. I need to find us a goalie and fast. From what I can tell, we have good depth in our front and mid positions, but I have no idea as to the skill of these players. Looks like we could use a little more help on the defensive front, but there is enough there for now to make things work. It might be meaning we lean towards a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2, but we’ll wait and see what we get on the pitch.
I am planning on meeting with the players tomorrow. I’m not going to run any sessions, but just observe and try to get an idea of who I should be watching out for. We have 45 days until we kick off our first league match, but we have no friendlies scheduled at this point, so that is also on the slate tomorrow. I would love to have 4 or 5 matches lined up before we open league play.
Well, need to get some sleep, or try anyway. Lets hope tomorrow sees a lot of progress.
It was time to see what I had to work with this season. I was at a real disadvantage not having seen Portuguese Division 2 football before, so I had nothing to gauge my expectations against. I watched a training session, and from what I could see, this was a raw group but one that had excellent potential. I had hardly slept the night before already trying to come up with something that the opposition might not have seen before tactically. After seeing the squad perform, I was able to fine tune my plans a little more. Here is a basic overview of the senior squad:
Keepers
Bruno Sousa(25 years old) – Sousa is a very agile keeper, and one who has quite solid skills. The only problem with this is that he is a loan player, and we will be without his services come January. He will be the undisputed starter for the time being, but as soon as I am able to sign another keeper, his role will diminish.
Assessment
Immediate attention is required to add depth to this position. I have a few keepers on the reserve squad, but they are not anywhere near being ready for 1st team play. I would expect my first signing to be at this position, and hopefully someone who can take the bulk of the load off of Sousa.
Defense
Nuno Carvalheira(18 years old – Left side) – Being only 18, I would prefer to have Nuno on the reserve squad, or sign a loan deal with another team to gain experience. Unless injuries pile up, his action will be very limited.
Vinagre(30 years old – Left and Right side) – A little older in age, he is going to be seeing a lot of 1st team football. More than likely to start the season on the left side, although I would like to sign someone at the left back position and spell him over to his more natural right side. He is a well rounded player, and should be a cornerstone on the defensive back four.
Diogo(17 years old – Right Side) – Another youngster, I can definitely see the potential in this player. I don’t think he is ready for a regular place in the starting eleven, but I would hope that I can get him out on a loan contract to gain first team experience. Depending on how the season progresses as well, he may be able to feature every now and then.
Taio(24 years old – Middle) – Taio is a solid marker and has good aerial ability, both traits that I need in a central defender. He does lack speed and seems to be a little slow on decision making, so he will likely be in a dogfight to win a place in the starting eleven.
Marco Bras(24 years old – Middle) – I can see the potential in this player, and while he already shows a solid game, he has the ability to get better. Definitely a candidate for the starting squad, he will still have to show me consistency to keep a regular place in the squad.
Joao Pinto(25 years old – Middle) – Unimpressed with this player, I don’t see him sticking around on this squad for much longer. He will get an opportunity in the preseason matches, but there are too many other talented players on this team for him to land a regular spot.
Vicente(26 year old – Middle) – Similar in makeup to Marco Bras, I was quite impressed with what I saw. One weakness he possesses is his desire to do more than he needs to with the ball. Maybe he was just trying to impress me, but showboating like that in game situations will land you on the bench. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to seeing what he can produce throughout the season.
Luis Miguel(23 years old – Middle) – Solid player. Most impressive seems to be his ability from the penalty spot. All around developed for his age, and I would expect him to play as no less than a rotation member if not a regular on the first team.
Assessment
The centre backs are solid. I have little concern about the middle of my back four. The outside positions though are in need of a little help. Both the left and right side could use a little more depth, and I hope to address those issues in fairly short order.
Midfielders
Pazito I(29 years old – AM - Left, Right, Middle) – I love players like this. He’s capable on all areas of the midfield, and that versatility will likely mean he will see regular time in the starting eleven. He’s probably right around his peak as far as progressing on a skill level, so his contributions will have to come now.
Carlos Miguel(20 years old – AM – Centre) – Very creative on the pitch, and he has a solid first touch, but still lacks the experience to warrant a regular spot on the first team. I am hoping he is willing to develop over another year or two because I can see good things coming out of this player when he is 22 or 23.
Vitor Corvilha(33 years old – AM – Centre) - This is the leader of my midfield. It is hard to believe he was not playing professional ball for the past four years as he is an all around skilled player. I’m a little concerned about his fitness and durability having been idle for so long, but from what I can tell, he will be the catalyst for many a goal scoring opportunity this season.
Miguel Tomas(28 years old – AM – Centre) – Another solid player with a lot of offensive talent. He could probably double as a striker as well, but he will more than likely feature in the midfield. Excellent technique, and a solid playmaker, he should team very well with Corvilha this season.
Bebe(26 years old – AM – Right, Centre) – Nothing special, but possesses good creativity and strong passing skills, so I can forsee him sending numerous balls this season across the box to our strikers (I hope!). He will likely fit in as a rotation player.
Sergio Grilo(22 years old – AM – Right, Centre) – Good young player with a lot of potential. Good pace and possesses a very aggressive attitude on the pitch. I am hoping he can be consistent on the pitch as he has the opportunity to take over the job on the right side. In any case, he could be a player to watch in the coming years.
Hugo Paulo(24 years old – AM – Right, Centre) – Nothing really jumps out at me with this player, but he does have good skills crossing the ball. I don’t know if he has developed enough all around to warrant a spot on the first team, but I will not be hesitant to bring him in when the need arises.
Rui Almedia(21 years old – M – Right) - With the strength I have at the right side of the midfield, it is very unlikely he will crack even the bench, so it is likely he will go on the transfer list.
Assessment
I am lacking depth on the left side, and this is something I am hoping to address in short order. As far as the current squad goes, I am happy to see some established players in the lineup who can really lead this team. I am hoping that the creativity some of these players possess is going to lead to many opportunities for my strikers to pot goals.
Attackers
Toninho(23 year old – Middle) – I definitely like what I see of this player. Quite mature for his age, and is excellent off the ball. Above average ball control and finishing should make him a staple in the starting eleven, and a likely source of many goals.
David(26 years old – Middle) – A puzzling player. He shows excellent touch and is a strong finisher, but seems to lack in the ball control skills. Perhaps his greatest strength is his determination on the pitch, and if he can show effort such as what he is showing in training, he should do just fine.
Helder Garcia [I}(29 years old – Middle)[/I] – An average player who will fill in nicely when either Toninho or David is not fit enough to feature. Very agile, and has a solid head on his shoulders. If the crosses come his way, he should be able to knock a few into the goal.
Ricardo Queiros(26 years old – Middle) – Purely a depth player, should any injuries come to my feature frontmen, he will be an adequate replacement. Very good finishing skills are his biggest asset, and he possesses a lot of pace, so hopefully we can find him some open space to show his stuff.
Jaimito, Alex, and Felix are all strikers who I don’t see fitting into the plans this season and beyond. They are both past the ‘prospect’ stage, and they seem to be one or two steps behind the rest of the squad, so they are likely to be placed on the transfer list.
Assessment
I like what I see here. Definitely two solid strikers, and two more than adequate players to come in when required. Given my midfield group, I don’t expect any difficulties getting these guys the ball, and when they get hold of it, I expect a lot of goals to come our way. Definitely the biggest strength of this squad.
The Life of a Young Canadian 
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