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Before we begin our adventure, I'd just like to tell you details about the game I'm running.
Every South American league is running as is are Mexican leagues and the M.L.S.
My nationality is English and the favourite club on my profile is the Brazilian First Division club Internacional, whom I follow irl too.
One key thing about my story where it will differ to most others is that I've spend alot of time using the editor.
Player/Club data and finances remain completly untouched but on the chairman's attributes I've edited the patience attribute. This is because I feel in South America there are FAR more managerial changes irl and I don't feel this represented very well in the game. I've edited every chairman from each playable South American nation and in Mexico to have a minimum patience of 1 and a maximum patience of 4.
This will make the game quite interesting as clubs will often change managers 3/4 times a season (as in real life).
As far as a career game goes, as a manager you are under pressure from day one, and although opportunities to manage bigger clubs may come around more often, staying in the job once your there is very challenging.
This is the first time I've attempted to do a story the same time as playing so if it's not too good then just let me know. My aim is to try and become a successful manager in South America and I hope to get the chance to manage some of the biggest clubs on the continent such as the big Rio, Sao Paulo clubs and the likes of River, Boca etc.
The club I've decided to take over are the managerless Union San Felipe from Chile and they compete in the First Division.
As with most South America leagues the season run's yearly not from Aug-May as in Europe. So the game starts in January 2006.
Union San Felipe are from... San Felipe which is just North East from the capital Santiago, from looking at my atlas I'm guessing it's about an hour and a half drive. They play their home matches at the 13,500 capacity Municipal de San Felipe.
Their most noteable years appear to be the early 70's where upon winning First Division B in 1970 they went up and won the First Division the following year. Other than winning the First Division B in 1988 and 2000 the San Felipe residents have very little to shout about.
My time working for Internacional had come to an end. The club had taken me on as a coach working with the Under 20's set-up for 6 months. As an eager to learn coach, it had been an invaluable experience to work with the club and my appetite to coach and manage had grown even more. To be honest, I was disappointed to be finishing.
In my last week with the club, I spoke to Vitorio Piffero, the General Manager of Inter. I expressed the thanks for their kind gesture in allowing me to work with their youth players and for the experience that I had gained. I also mentioned it was difficult for me to leave as I had settled in at the club and city and that it was going to be difficult for me to find another club to coach or manage.
Vitorio told me that I needn't worry and just to keep trying and sooner or later something would come up. He also said he knew an agent who had many contacts not just in Brazil but across South America and that I should contact him.
I had few options other than to contact the agent I'd been told of, so I decided to contact him. He was based in Sao Paulo. WhenI told him about my circumstances he was already aware! He mentioned that his good friend Vitorio Piffero had spoke highly of me and that he would be more than happy to assist - for a small fee, of course! It was a pretty big gamble but I agreed and he said he'd be in touch in a few days.
Four days later....
I was leaving Brazil for UK tomorrow and was packing my things to leave. I'd contacted that agent several times but had been unable to contact him. I felt that I would be returning back to the UK without anything and that I would have to start from scratch getting back into football in England again. Not only that, the agent had taken my money and had appeared to of vanished from the face of the earth. I was questioning what I had done coming all the way to South America in the first place then my phone rang.
It was the agent, "I have some news for you", he said. "We have opportunity.... There is an opportunity for you... you must come here at once!" I tried to explain that I'd been in trying to contact him for nearly a week without hearing anything and that my flight was leaving tomorrow to return to UK. "It is up to you, but I think I have found something for you, meet me in Santiago Airport tomorrow, there isn't much time."
I'd never been to Chile before, I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't have a great deal of knowledge about the Chilean game and didn't really know what the agent had in store for me. I was half expecting him to offer me a place, coaching on some soccer camp. Something I had no desire to do. All I knew is that I'd paid a considerable amount of money for his services and they'd better be good!!
I touched down in Santiago and the first thing which hit me was the intense heat, it got hot in Porto Alegre, incredibly hot but nothing like this.
I followed the agents instructions and met him in a cafeteria in the airport near the terminal I had arrived in. I was half expecting him not to turn up so the fact I'd met him was a bonus! We sat down and I asked him about the 'opportunity' he had mentioned.
He asked me if I felt I could live here and that I could be succesful here and that Chile is a developing country. I didn't know where he was leading so I asked him outright what did he have to tell me which was so important for me to fly across South America to meet him.
He explained that there was a club not to far away from here competing in the Chilean First Division and they'd approached the agent to find suitable candiates for their manager vacancy. The club wanted to act quicky as they had just four weeks until their league campaign begins.
The offer sounded to good to be true and I was rather sceptical over the whole issue.
I felt any club which offered such a position without even meeting the candiate must be so poorly run that I wouldn't go near them but the agent reassured me by telling me that I'm not being offered the job, I've being offered the opportunity to talk to the club. He also added that I must act immeadiatly if I want to the chairman of the club.
I agreed to speak to him and sat in the searing heat as I watched the agent frantically dialling numbers and speaking spanish, he finished his call and said me must leave straight away. The chairman will meet us in two hours.
We were to meet the chairman in a city called Vina del Mar, just north from where we were in Santiago. We travelled in taxi and whilest driving, the agent to me of the city and the club I soon to be spending every working hour over... Union San Felipe!!
We finally arrived a plush looking hotel right by the sea, the city was beautiful and if San Felipe was to be anything like Vina del Mar I was going to be more than happy!
It was at the hotel where we were to meet the Union San Felipe Chaiman, Rodrigo Oliver. Myself, the agent and Mr Oliver sat down in a quite room. We were each poured a class of wine and were then left alone.
The agent was to be translating for both us so I was hoping he would just stick to the one glass!! He introduced ourselves to each other and then began talking to Mr Oliver, I didn't understand a word he was saying but I heard the words 'Internacional' and 'Porto Alegere' being mentioned so I knew he was explaining my history. This continued for a few minutes and it was getting difficult to look interested as I didn't know what the hell was being said.
The agent turned to me and said, "Senior Oliver has somethings to say to you", Mr Oliver started speaking and immediatley the agent began translating.
"You see, we are a small club... it's difficult, the money.. the best players... they don't stay in Chile.. but when they do, they go to Santiago.. To be in San Felipe, it's difficult.. every club in Chile struggles now, but for us outside Santiago it is becoming impossible.."
I started to feel like he was putting me off being interested in working with him! He continued, "Union is a proud club but we must have new idea's.. we need to be original.. we want other clubs to look at Union San Felipe and say why didn't we do that.. why didn't we think of this... For Union, it is the only way we can build for the future and to stay competitive.. if not... then we must look at playing in First Division B..."
The agent looked at me nodding his head as Rodrigo Oliver took a sip of his wine before continuing, "We need someone with fresh ideas, someone who can put pride into the club and make the people of San Felipe happy... I think that someone like yourself could do a very good job at a club like mine..."
My eyes nearly popped out, he was basically offering me the managerial job. "You can work for Union San Felipe... but you don't take from me... if you want this position then you must work with what I offer or I will find somebody else...", lectured Oliver, with that he began scribbling on paper.
£220 each week for 12 months, read the paper as he lay it down on the table with his arms folded. "That is it, if you say 'no', then you leave now...if you say 'yes' then we meet tomorrow in San Felipe and begin..."
I looked at the agent and nodded agreeingly but said I'm not signing anything until I speak further to the club and visit San Felipe. The agent explained this to Mr Oliver, "Very well... we meet at Municpal de San Felipe tomorrow at 11am", the agent translated to me. Rodrigo Oliver shook hands with us and walked out of the room. The agent looked at me, I couldn't belive it. In just 15 mins I'd agreed to manage Rodrigo Oliver's club.
I was half excited at the prospect and half thinking, what have I done?!?
We left Vina del Mar and it's views of the pacific ocean early on New Years Day, myself and the agent had a few drinks to celebrate yesterday's meeting and the start of 2006 but nothing as major as some of the parties which kept me awake half the night.
We travelled to San Felipe and arrive at half 9 in good time for our meeting with Rodrigo Oliver. I found a nice hotel in the centre of the city and for the first time since arriving in Chile contemplated making myself at 'home'.
We arrived at Municipal de San Felipe in time for our 11am meeting with club chairman Rodrigo Oliver.
I could see the ground wasn't in too bad condidtion and the pitch looked quite good.
We met in Mr Oliver's office and discussed further details of the club and city. The club had 28 contracted players, the club had players on both full and part time contracts. I was to have £156,000 made available for transfer funds and the £9,500 wage budget was currently £3,000 a week under, so at did I have room to bring in players externally if need be.
Argentine, Luis Maselli was currently employed as a coach but had basically run the playing side of things since the club had been without a manager. Pablo Contreras was the club's physio. I felt that the level of coaching staff at the club was something which would need urgent attention.
I was happy with what I had seen and signed my 1 year contract, this was to be quite an opportunity and one which I certainly wasn't expecting.
I had three weeks from which to prepare my squad for the start of the First Division.
The First Division is Chile's top domestic league, out of the 20 clubs the main clubs are Colo Colo, Unversidad de Chile and Universidad Catolica. Rangers and Union Espanola both have good support and generally do well.
The league runs in two sections, Opening and Closing where each section has each team play each other once. The bottom two from both leagues are relegated whiles each club is placed into a sub-group of 5 clubs. The top two from each section's sub group go through to two legged play off's to establish the champion.
The chairman and fans both expect us to avoid relegation this season but from what I see on the training ground I think we should be fine. My players looked in good shape, we had plently of pace, they had a good touch and good all get the ball down and pass it about.
I felt we could definatly bring in a few fresh faces and ear-marked the left and right wing areas as areas for strengthening. Off the pitch things were going well, with the help of my agent I'd managed to speak to 5 different coaches and had offered them deals to come and work at the club, I also spoke to a couple of Brazilian scouts about the possibilty of doing some work for us.
Fortunately every coach I approached agreed to join as did the two scouts.
I'd also approached Colo Colo about the prospect of bringing in 2 of their youth players in on loan for the season, Juan Pablo Arenas an 18 year old AMR/C who'd been capped at U21 level and Gonzalo Fierro who is a 22 year old winger who can play either side. Fierro in particular looked like a player who could really do a job for us.
Colo Colo and both players agreed to the deal so we I'd added to what needed urgent attention fairly quickly, I also felt we could do with another quality centre half and spoke to Universidad Catolica about bringing in Claudio Munoz on loan. They too seemed happy to let us work with their player and Claudio signed within a few days.
I allowed a few players to leave too, a 40 year old centre half joined First Division B side, Arica and I allowed a half decent right midfielder to join another First Division B club, Magallanes. 32 year old second choice keeper was also allowed to leave the club, dropping down a level to join Fernandez Vial.
With my backroom staff all in place and my having shuffled up my squad a little I was able to sit back and settle into San Felipe whilest preparing for our low key pre season programme.
Our pre-season fixtures consisted of the following 3 away games with non-league opposition -
07/01 - San Antonio Unido
10/01 - Trasandino
21/01 - Municipal Nogales
We took the games very seriously, our objectives were to get the players match fit, have a look at how the players can fit in, try out some tatics and hopefully to score a few goals and get a winning mentality installed into my players.
We managed to achieve all these by winning 7-0, 4-0 and 5-0. We were playing quite a slow game and getting the ball down on the ground and passing our way through teams, we hammered some of the teams we played against but I kept stressing to the players that against stronger opposition we must be able to do the same.
I was also concerned about the lack of depth we had up front, we were generally playing a 4-5-1 because of this but I felt we may find ourselves short of goals. We had players but I felt one or two of them weren't good enough or ready for this level. I had a good look around to see what was available in the transfer market but didn't see anyone who had what I was looking for. The transfer window was to close soon so I needed to make a decision either way.
The fixtures had us home for our/my first game, just what I'd wanted, these three games would hopefully give me a good idea of how we stood with other clubs at our level and hopefully be a good indication of what we're capable of.
First match of the season, we faced Concepcion. All our hard work/all I'd done to get this far was for this...
Just over 1,500 supporters were at Municipal de San Felipe for the opening game of the season. The players were fit, we had a long meeting before the game where I just asked to do what we'd done through the pre season games. We started well and got a goal through our lone striker Patrico Reyes to give us the lead.
Reyes managed to score again only to find himself offside whilest Fierro also managed to have a goal disallowed for the same reason. Concepcion managed to equalise in the 39th min. We went in at half time knowing we shouldn't be 1-1, I told the players to keep it up and to work for the second goal.
The second goal did come but it was for Concepcion, they managed to score from a defensive error in the 63rd min and despite us huffing and puffing our way towards their goal then clung on and finished victorious.
It was so disappointing to lose in the way we did but I felt other than the result everything else was fine. We played well, worked hard and created. I was quite sure we would play much worse throughout the season but still manage to win.
This was to make the midweek game at Cobreola even more testing.
South American Career... 
Linear Mode
