turnip

Had a go at a Swedish team full of 'Greys'. That went as well as could be expected (as in I lost all but 3 of the 15 games I played) but when I quit, I couldn't get another job ANYWHERE, for about 18 months. So I retired and created a new manager. Picked at random from the available jobs and found myself at Naval, who were in the Portuguese 2nd Division - C.

Season 1 (2008/2009): Naval
Took over at the turn of the year with the club lying in 5th and out of the cup. Lost 2 of my first 3 games due to a few injuries and trying to work out who the best players were. From there on in it was pretty easy going. We were unbeaten in the last 11 games, winning 8, including a 7-1 spanking of Desportiva Beja.
The final game of the season was a little tense, though. Being 1 point clear of the team in second (who were losing) and 2 points clear of the team in 3rd (who were winning), my fingernails were vanishing until the 87th minute when we got (and scored) a penalty. Another goal a couple of minutes later sealed promotion.

2nd Div - C : W:14 D:7 L:5 GD:+22 Pts:49 Final Position: 1st


Season 2 (2009/2010): Naval
Released a few players and flogged a couple for a pittance to finance my usual flood of underpaid spotty kids. Unfortunately, this left me short of decent players in quite a few areas. A couple of last-minute signings at least gave me some cover in central defence.

Portuguese 2nd League: A good start left us top after 7 games, but reality kicked in with the inevitable injuries and we started sliding down the table. We had a horrible November/December, but our form picked up and
with players recovering from injury we started climbing back up the table.
A good run from January left us in with a chance of promotion with 2 games to go. The players bottled it, though, and we lost them both. Badly.

2nd League: W:14 D:5 L:11 GD:+5 Pts:47 Final Position: 6th

Portuguese Cup: The reserves got through to the 5th Round and then got beat.

My star striker was the reason for the slump - when he was injured we never looked like scoring. Which explains why I turned down so many offers for him. Otherwise, a Turkish DM I brought in looked good until he too got injured. He celebrated his return to fitness by requesting a transfer. My DL went from 'could be good' to 'is good' over the season, as did a Danish AM/FC I got on a free. At the suggestion of one of my scouts I picked up an Italian DM who got my Ass Man very excited. A well-known Argentinian AML joined as player-coach but retired at the end of the season leaving me with a hefty wage bill for a mediocre coach.

turnip

Season 3 (2010/2011): Naval
Released half of my staff and replaced them with lower-paid minions. Brought in a stack more youngsters including a DR (thank God) and a SC - both Italian - for the 1st team. A pre-season injury to the SC forced my hand and I signed a Guinean just before the league campaign started.

Portuguese 2nd League: It only took 4 games for us to rack up enough injuries to key players to send us into free-fall again, not helped by some miraculous goalkeeping from my opponents and the exact opposite from my own. By the time we could get a strong team together, it was too late for any promotion hopes, but we hammered a few teams for good measure anyway as we finished strongly.

2nd League: W:12 D:9 L:9 GD:+14 Pts:45 Final Position: 8th

Portuguese Cup: We went in where we went out - 3rd Round, losing to our bogey team Farense for the first of 3 times during the season.

The Guinean striker was definitely the pick of the signings, notching 12 goals and combining well with my star striker. Elsewhere, the Italian DR looks a good prospect and his fellow countryman, the DM, was made captain at the start of the season and played well throughout. My scouts recommended a few players signed in January, including a Ukrainian DC who will be handy next season and a Georgian AM/F RLC who got 3 goals and assists.


Season 4 (2011/2012): Naval
Five high-earners left to ease the wages, including my best DC (not really my choice). I also released a stack of kids. In an attempt to keep the wages down, I kept signings to a minimum, only bringing 9 players in, including a Portuguese U-21 DM (I should have enough of these for a full team soon) and a couple more strikers than I really needed :kostis:

Portuguese 2nd League: A good start to the season, helped by a general lack of injuries gave us a decent position heading into December. The 5 games either side of the winter break weren't great, but we rallied impressively leaving us 2nd before a crunch game against leaders Braga going into the final third of the season. We won that and despite the injuries beginning to rack up (Goalkeeper out for a month; Defence and Midfield missing key players), we found ourselves 5 points from promotion with 4 games left. We won the next 2 matches 5-0 (Away and Home) to clinch promotion with room to spare.

2nd League: W:20 D:3 L:7 GD:+42 Pts:63 Final Position: 1st

Portuguese Cup: We got lucky with the draws and the back-ups thrashed some lower clubs on the way to a Q/F win over top-flight Rio Ave in which I hesitantly played a handful of first-teamers (none of whom got injured, thankfully). The Semi-Final against Nacional da Madeira was a game I won't remember fondly as we played out our worst 90 minutes of the season and lost 3-1. Prize money: nil. Bah!

My DL is now excellent (he didn't miss a league game and picked up 6 MoMs) and a few paltry bids were turned down. Italian DM Captain was the subject of the most tempting bid: £900k from a Serie B outfit. Glad I turned it down - after the league success, I'm now one of his Favourite Staff. Elsewhere... only central defence is a problem area.

With the bank balance at -£1m, a new board stepped in, cleared debts and offered me £4m to play with.

jcb23

Impressive. Portugal is usually pretty tough. :thup:

How are Maia getting on?

Gillmacs

If that's who I think it is you must have payed him an absolute fortune to get him to join you there!!!

KUTGInjuringyourbestplayers :thup:

Gillmacs

Gillmacs in spelling shocker :eek:

wewak

GL in the top flight. Europe beckons. IIRC there are 3 CL and 3 UEFA spots from Portugal out of 18 teams. I stand to be corrected though

Gillmacs

I think you're right, owing almost entirely to Porto's two wins a couple of years ago, and Sporting's UEFA final last year.

Guinness79

You guys do realize that changes in the game, right? By 2012, things could very well be different in terms of the coefficient.

wewak

Good point :o

UELLfan

Indeed.

By 2011 my poor Imortal side found themselves finishing 3rd but going to UEFA Qualifying round. So lucky I had already quitted them

Oh and Portugal is lots of fun :thup: A 30 matchdays league and a 35 matches season is a definite plus in terms of speed. I found myself having played that number of matches by the end of december in my following season in Poofland :eek: