retired_angel949

So here goes, my first ever update.

FM2008 running all leagues from - England, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Italy, France, Sweden, Austria and quite possibly a few more (at work and cant remember exactly)

Frank sent me to Union Berlin of Germany and so there it begins.

Season 1 – Union Berlin - German Regional South

Media prediction 8th

Bought a few players, couldn’t sell anyone, massively over wage budget, massively in debt, ¾ of the way through the season I found myself sitting in 3rd, 20 points off 2nd place and 23 off top chasing an undefeated team and a team with 1 defeat who had conceded 5 goals all season. No real rapport with the club or players, never going to get promoted, ridiculous wage demands from ageing players, auf weidersehen Berlin.

Jobless for a month or 2 then offered the job at….

Season 1 – Rovigo - Italian C2/B

6 games to go, 1 place and 1 point above the relegation playout zone. P 6 W1 D1 L 4…… Survived! Just! Survival secured on the last day of the season. Well over my wage budget and with a squad average age of 32, there was a lot of work to be done. Roll on next season.

Top Goalscorer – Ageing club legend - 9
POTY – Ageing club legend
Fans POTY - Same
Highlight – Surviving!
Lowlight – Suddenly realising I could take Berlin no further and having to jump ship.


Season 2 – Rovigo – Italian C2/B

Media prediction 13th

A season of massive change at the club, an amazing start saw us top at the half way mark. Exciting Brazilian left winger found in reserves and classy Frenchman on the right firing on all cylinders, unfortunately its’ not enough as Reggina overtake us and are then unstoppable. We finish a point behind and are in the playoffs. Semi is coasted so through to the final against bogey team Teramo. Lose the home leg 1-0 so all on the second leg away. I win 2-1 and believing myself to be the victors proceed to dance around the room. My return to the machine provides a shock in the form of extra time. If we can hang on for 30 minutes I will be promoted on away goals and as the highest placed team. We don’t, 2 goals from them in extra time condemn me to another C2B season. My mouse breaks.

Cups – Beaten semi-finalists (Good Effort!)
Top Goalscorer – Young Belgian SC - 14
POTY – Exciting Brazilian winger – 10 goals and 14 assists
Fans POTY – Classy Frenchman on the right. – 8 goals and 16 assists.
Highlight – A great season overall, rise of my young Brazilian was particularly pleasing and finishing with 16 points more than last seasons winners shows how good a season it was. Pity I couldn’t claim top spot though.
Lowlight – Guess


Season 3 – Rovigo – Italian C2B

After last seasons close shave I expected big things. Then my promising young Brazilian was sold from under me to Serie B Livorno for 425k. The money put me 300k into the black but quite frankly he is going to be irreplaceable. Promoted Classy Frenchman to captain, released 11 reserves/ageing first teamers and signed a further 8 players including touch of class Slovakian right winger and French/Senegalese CB. Crap season, hated almost every minute of it….. Although I did win the league! Lowest ever points and goals tally for a league winning team but by far the best defence. No-one else wanted to win the league and thusly we did. Season summed up by a 6 game run of 1-0 victories for me. We were winning, but we were awful. We then went on to win the C2 Super Cup (winners of C2A,B&C in a 3 team league) by virtue of, you guessed it, two 1-0 victories.

Cups – Serie C Cup – out 3rd Round
Serie C Super Cup - Winners
Top Goalscorer – French winger and Afro/Franco striker – 7 goals apiece
POTY – 18 year old Swiss GK who completed his second full first team season conceding a mere 23 goals.
Fans POTY – Classy French club captain
Highlight – First silverware was nice, progress of my young GK and Bosnian CB signed in season 2 was also a particular highlight along with new Afro/French CB.
Lowlight – The boredom, all through the season.

retired_angel949

As a sidenote, thanks mostly to the effectiveness of my French scout, my team now more resembles an African team than an Italian team. A quick check reveals all the players to be dual nationality French/Africans but the names truly are African. There are a few Eastern Europeans in there for good measure as well and just 4 Italians.

Admittedly this is not what I expected when I started this save and I am amazed and, looking at it objectively, a little dissappointed at the range of countries to which I can send my scouts. I am an extremely small Italian club (Season 07/08 their first ever season in Serie C) and yet I can send my scouts to most of mainland Europe. Admittedly I can't scout as far as the British Isles and extreme Eastern Europe but while just ploughing through my 3 seasons I never stopped to reflect on this and I'm thinking it may be a tad unrealistic for a club who are now 250k in the red to be constantly sending scouts across Europe.

Any thoughts on this?

retired_frogs

I don't think anyone has taken issue with the scouting restrictions so far - of course I may be mistaken - but my reaction would be not to look a gift horse in the mouth. For all you know, your scout may be hitchhiking and couch-surfing.

Good luck with you virginal foray. I could tell you about my virginal foray, but I may be banned for overt explicitness...

retired_corbettk4

Scouting across borders will affect your budget...
Cannot say more, other than good luck! and KUTGW!

retired_mrsjb

My Celano side allow scouting to most of the "central" European nations. I've tended to use them sparingly; it's about what makes sense at the time. We had a large bank balance at one point so I felt it wasn't inappropriate to have a quick look into France or Switzerland.

Highlight was a one-off trip to Portugal I had a scout made after a (for us) big money sale. Scout found a decent looking 17yo midfielder for free. Signed him and AssMan reckons he's a first teamer already. Fortunately it was only then I realized I had signed him as a 19yo in my old corrupted Portugal save and he was class. Result \o/

KUTGW, Mark :thup:

retired_angel949

Ah, as long as my constant reckless scouting is having some kind of adverse effect on the budget (as it rightly should) I guess I don't mind! :cool:

Seems that the Italians are affected by the old English curse as well, Italian domestic players command massive wages for average players and I'm finding much cheaper imports (wage-wise) from the rest of Europe.

Just beginning my 4th season and sold 2,500 season tickets in a 3200 seater stadium, an improvement of 1,500(!) on last season. Finances still in the red but improving every month and I will be back in black soon. In saying that dont think I'll be winning any leagues (or matches) any time soon! :p

retired_angel949

Season 4 – Rovigo – Italian C1/A

Bought a lot, sold more, no real profit. Sold 2,500 season tickets in a 3,200 seat stadium. Good initial profit, pap ticket sales in the season proper. Brilliant season, in the playoff places all the way through thanks to my new striker, Congolese hitman affectionately known as “Tubbs”, and finally finished in 3rd. Modena walked the league with a record points tally, losing just 1 game and conceding just 15 goals. Robbed 2nd placed Treviso (2 disallowed goals, 2 penalties for me) in playoff final to shockingly earn promotion. Easy this management lark. £1million in debt!


Top Goalscorer – Tubbs - 34
POTY – Tubbs – 34 goals and 14 assists
Highlight – Tubbs was fantastic and obviously promotion was pretty nice. My personal highlight was not losing to runaway leaders Modena, 2 draws and we scored 1/5th of the goals they conceded all season. Filling the stadium every home game was also nice.
Lowlight – Paid the players 550k as a bonus for promotion. I’m now £1 million in debt. Also I now have just 2 Italians in the first team squad and resemble more of an African XI than an Italian team.

retired_nahed

TG!KUTGSPW! !

Smuggling Players

retired_nahed

(From Africa)

retired_nahed

Damn these people who blatantly potboost. :o