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Switzerland (all)
England (all)
Scotland (all)
France (all)
Italy (all)
Netherlands (all)
As a slight twist, I decided to play out my managerial career as Etienne Verveer - a moderatly succesful dutchman who lit up the Den in his oh-too-short-career in England.
Thus my (very loose) career ambitions were to mirror his playing career and move on to better management opportunities in England, Italy, the Netherlands and Scotland.
Unfortunatly I grossly underestimated the reputation of the Swiss leagues.
We wre a part-time club in the Challenge League - 1 level below the top flight - and were favorities to fill one of the 2 relegation spots. This despite having one of the largest grounds in Switzerland with a capacity of about 12,500 - second only to Basel I believe.
We were big in the sixties apparantly winning cups and leagues like they were going out of fashion.
Anyway - enough background -we had a large wage budget about 10k for part timers, and about 100k to spend, which I went through a bit to eagerly.
Desperatly needed some new faces. The only decent players were the Swiss centre back, the full backs and the strikers ( although I criminally overlooked one player for the first 8 games or so who turned out to be a great support striker to are Morrocan striker - twice fans player of the season).
Everything seemed to be going well at the half way point, after a few games to find our feet a nd we found ourselves second to BS Concordia by 3 points.
After the break it took us just 2 wins into the second 18 game spell to overtake BSC, and although the lead changed hands throughout the season, we secured the title with a 2-0 win at home to BSC on the last day of the season, when we only needed a draw, winning the league by 6 points.
Made my first big mistake. SOld star centre back for a good offer, but couldnt replace him. WE were scoring freely but couldnt keep them out at the back.
Went a bit mad with my new money - but in my defence they were mostly youth players.
Season started badly after a couple of good results - due to the defending crisis.
Finally managed to sign a very good right back from Africa (playing at annother swiss club) who could also play in the middle, and seemed to solve my problems for a bit.
Also bought a young Itallian goalie, a Cameroonian attacking midfielder and a great Belgian left winger. I became a bit obsessed with wingers, as we didnt have very good ones and over the coming seasons signed far to many of them.
After our right back settled things down, we started to climb away from the relegation zone and finished the first half of the season with a 4-4-10 record, which wasnt as bad as it sounds and found ourselves in 6th place (out of 10)
Having not learned from my mistakes I sold the right back to Utrect for 750k.
In coaching news I signed ex Wales and Southampton goalie as my defensive coach, and ex Millwall/Middlesborough centre back as my attacking coach. ALmost signed sicknote as player/fitness coach, but he wanted too much money - and LLMs supposted to be about realism!
Anyway signed a very good Aussie youth goalie who went straight into the first team and was supurb. Too bad he missed the start of the season through injury, and it was a Olympic qualifying year. Also signed long term target winger "Steeve" (sorry if thats player naming but its just such a great first name). And a great eye-tie DMC. All 3 of which tied for players of the season (in my eyes anyway).
Players in: 13 1.2M
Players out: 18 1.6M
I thought we were on to something this year, but our start of the season ruined that:
LLLLLWL.
It took a 6-0 win in the cup to kick start our season and by the half way mark we wer challenging for Europe - Basel were once again running away with the league.
p18 w7 d3 l8 24pts
In the break we signed a new back 4 a new French right winger (for 1.6M!!) and teh overweight Aussie and ex-Leeds striker from Middlesborough. He came proclaiming he was going to show the fans how football should be played, and then did nothing except score one 25yd screamer for the next 18 games. i wasnt happy - especcially given the wages he was on.
Players in (Jan): 6 (2M)
Players out (Jan): 5 (1.2M)
Sold my star cameroonian AMC for a cool million to Basel, and then after a good start the wheels totally came off my season. (Personaaly I blame aforementioned fat lazy Aussie striker - although maybe playing with an entirely new back 4 wasnt the best option?).
WE went 8games without a win (0-3-5) (almost a 1/4 season) and dropped like a stone -although we werent in danger of going down at least.
Partially recovered to finish 7th (with more points than last year)
La Chaux de Fonds 
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