creative36

With the last season barely over, I had a look around for vacant jobs and found a suitable one in England, with League 1 side Walsall. I applied and they wasted little time in offering me the job.

Season 8 Part 1 (2015/2016): Walsall
The first job was to clear out £20k worth of wages per week. I didn't quite manage that, but the money from the clearout gave us some breathing room.
Played Triallist Lottery for the first time in a while and picked up a few reasonable players, only one of whom made any real impact on the first team. I paid small money for a young goalkeeper. An injury to him, a week before the opening game, had me scrabbling around my shortlist for a replacement. I also pinched a few players Naval had released.

League Cup: Second round. Yawn.
Vans Suck Ass Trophy: Second round. Yawn.
FA Cup: Beat Trafford 5-0 in the 1st round and Stockport 2-0 in the 2nd. We needed penalties to beat Chester in the 3rd, so it was a surprise to everyone when we beat Newcastle 2-1 in the 4th round. Charlton's keeper was the difference in the 5th as we lost 2-1.
U-18s Cup: Beat Arsenal 2-1 in the final at Underhill.

English League 1: Started off slowly but eventually settled into the 7th spot and stayed there or thereabouts from October to the New Year. Poor finances led to me cashing in on my top scorer in January and I brought in a couple more.
Our form was middling from then on in, but we didn't lose too many (our speciality was always in throwing away games) and, with 3 games to go, we snuck our way into 6th place...

... which was when I was offered the job at FC Kobenhavn. 9 games to go, they were 2 points from safety. The brief? Keep them up. A 'cursory' look at the wage budget on offer (£130k p/w) suggested this might be the place for me. I jumped.

Season 8, Part 2: FC Kobenhavn
We aquaplaned our way to relegation with some wholly undeserved results - of the 11 games we played, we deserved to win all but one of those. Superkeepers, idiotic defensive mistakes, rugby shots, penalties, red cards... This game really didn't want us to stay up. Seriously, SI, sort this **** out.
As if to add insult to injury, we lost 3 first-team players to international duty for the final game, where a win would have seen us safe. All this considered, though, I was offered a new contract.

retired_yolanda

KUTGJobHopping!

creative36

Ghana

World Cup Qualification hit an early obstacle when I was drawn in the same Second Round group at Senegal, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Morocco and Egypt.

Considering there is a group consisting of Guinea, Benin, Zambia, Central African Republic, Botswana and Gambia, I have to ask whether this game simply doesn't like me.

creative36

Season 9: FC Kobenhavn
I offloaded a few players in the summer. Mainly the ones who were bitching too much.
The money financed my usual flood of spotty kids. Notable exceptions included an Italian keeper picked up on a free from Chievo, a midfield compatriot of his from Milan for the same nice price and a Danish forward-type kid from AB. A 'virus' to my first-pick left-back necessitated a search for a replacement. El Nacional were kind enough to provide Ecuador's first choice for £140k. An unhappy Bosnian defender at Empoli also joined for just shy of £1m.

Danish 1st League:We started with a 0-0 draw away, but after that it was embarrassing. A 1-0 defeat aside (their only shot on target went in, our 18 were saved), our only trouble was teams being overly defensive against us. A 9-0 win over Lyngby sealed our achievement of having all the good records the league could offer. All in all, the dullest season of FM/CM I've ever managed through.
Final Position: W:24 D: 5 L:1 F: 84 A: 8 GD:+76 Pts:77 Pos: 1st

Danish Cup: If I was hoping for a challenge, I didn't find it here. We conceded no goals as my second-string side was forced to wait until the final to be tested, against fellow League 1 side AB. In a reasonably even game, we won 3-0, ensuring we have European action next season.

The B-team and the U-19s won their leagues easily.

The Italian keeper was good, although his record of 8 goals conceded in 34 games probably has as much to do with the defence in front of him than his own ability (and even that was spoiled by the already-promoted malaise that affects every team I manage).
My best players were on the left, with my Ecuadorian left back and Portuguese midfield
player both pushing an average rating of 8. My 2 main strikers bagged ~20 each; a midfielder and a back-up striker getting ~12 each in support. There are some good young players in both the reserves and the U-19s who I'm keeping a close eye on. I will, of course, be bringing in a stack of new kids in the summer.

Former clubs: Walsall finished 15th in League 1. Naval also finished 15th... out of 16, and were relegated.

creative36

Season 10: FC Kobenhavn
My whining Iranian DC and my Portguese winger left for £3.5m combined. Other leavers were less notable. We brought in the normal bunch of kids, some of whom are more impressive than the others. I also picked up an experienced keeper from Nantes, mainly as a goalkeeping coach, but his playing stats were still pretty awesome. Not that we needed him.

Danish Premier Division: We only occupied 2 places all season - 2nd and 1st. We hit first after our 7th game and kept it from then on in, eventually winning by 13 points. A few injuries towards the end of the season gave me some selection troubles, but even my reserves were better than what the opposition could offer.
Final Position: W:21 D:9 L:3 GD:+45 Pts: 72 Pos: 1st

My reserves had a much easier time of it: W:22 D:0 L:0 GD:+100

Danish Cup: I had a slightly tougher route this season, but it didn't make much difference. I didn't even realise we were playing the Final until the commentary came up at the end telling me we'd won. 3-1 over Esbjerg (who finished 2nd in the league) says it all. Easy.

UEFA Cup: IBV and Denizlispor were our formidable opponents in qualifying for the Group stage. 12 goals without reply later, we lined up against Hertha BSC, Levante, Academica and Mons in Group D. Only a GK MoM from Mons prevented us leaving with the full 12 points. Genclerbirligi were comfortably dispatched in the First Knockout Round, but Real Madrid's elderly keeper knocked us out (rather undeservedly) in the next round.

All in all, a bit of a work in progress season. The domestic competition was so limited it's a bit too hard to say how good we are, but the Reserves have a lot of players who look like they could be useful in future. Top marks to my striker who bagged 39 goals in all competitions, he was backed up by 23 other goalscorers. His strike partner had an expiring contract and I waited and waited before, eventually renewing it in April.
A couple of defenders are likely to be off-loaded for being miserable cnuts, but I'm pretty happy in that area. Roll on the Champions League.

retired_yolanda

Académica in the UEFA Cup \o/

KUTGW!

creative36

With my tenure as manager of Ghana long since consigned to the landfill site of international management, the former manager of Denmark can probably consider himself rather unfortunate to be replaced by yours truly, not a week after guiding Denmark to the World Cup Final.

Still, I'm not complaining.

creative36

Season 11: FC Kobenhavn
I decided on getting some Forward firepower and spent £6m (possibly rising to £11m eventually) on a striker from Real Madrid. A good move, as my 2nd-choice popped both his hamstring (pre-season) and then his cruciate ligaments (mid-season). I sold my Bosnian DRC for £1m and even though I renewed the Ecuadorian's contract, I sold him in January for the same amount.

Danish Premier Division: We hit first after a few games and, again, stayed there all season. Even the usual winter slump couldn't derail us as we went unbeaten in the league all season, finishing up with a record 45 games without a loss. Full marks to Esbjerg, who came closest to a win in what was probably the only 'even' match all season.
Final position: W:21 D:12 L:0 GD:+56 Pts:75 Pos:1st

Danish Cup: I didn't take it very seriously and we lost in our first match. Which was annoying, as my reserves could have done with the games.

European Cup: We qualified for the group stages comfortably and got through along with Liverpool () at the expense of Benfica and Fenerbahce. In the next round we got Valencia and went back to Spain 0-1 down after a lousy first leg. We scored twice in the first five minutes, but they pulled back with 2 goals before half-time (at least one of which was offside). The nail in the coffin was my best defender getting his marching orders. The flamenco on the grave was my RightBack going off injured shortly afterwards (with all subs used).

The £6m striker was the star buy. 35 goals in 42 games says a lot; his 15 assists does as well. With injuries biting hard (defenders mainly, although midfield suffered too) quite a few youngers got a run-out at some point. A GK, 2 DLs, 3 DCs and a DR will be pushing for a first-team place next season, along with an SC who's been attracting some hefty bids. I'm looking at getting a bit more defensive strength, though, to make a real push in Europe.

creative36

Oh yeah.
Forgot to mention I won the Royal League.
After being drawn in the toughest half and playing the toughest teams in the knockout phase, I played a very weak Valerenga team in the final and spanked them 5-1 easily.

I quit as manager of Denmark because they suck (and aquaplane too, for good measure). My next job hop is likely to be a downwards one.

retired_dvrsecuritylab

That's the spirit :thup:

KUTGW