Death Ball

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Presentation.

While I was thinking on going back to a club save for FM18, something which I don't remember what is anymore, made me think this is even more a journeyman kind of edition. Also I've enjoyed the past journeyman saves quite a bit, so I'm making yet another journeyman save.

As I made tradition, journeyman save means female manager. Aleyna Demirel:

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I chose the recommended licenses and past experience instead of setting it down to minimum because of a thought: In the past two editions I started my manager with no licenses with the idea it would make it more challenging. Indeed it would in terms of players respecting her, however I wouldn't say my managers had much of a problem with that. At the same time, each new license earned means 5% reputation, which means starting with the least licenses, none, may instead be a way to reduce the challenge by giving you potential for a bigger reputation increase without needing results in the picth.

No extra languages. Only one favourite team: Fenerbahçe, because in reality my favourite (well, second after Aíto García Reneses) and best manager of basketball is currently managing Fenerbahçe (as many Euroleague titles to his name as the most awarded team, Real Madrid, with nine).

Turkish because in beta I got job offers from Indian and Turkish clubs and the pic I use to create her appearance makes her more likely to be Turkish than Indian.

No favourite formations, Aleyna will be a pragmatist that will never care to try steer a team to her preferred formation, not that my past managers were much of the mind of doing that. But I always tended to gravitate towards the 4-1-2-2-1 wide and this time I will try to not go so much to that.

This time there won't be special rules about not searching players by attributes or only hiring staff through job announcements if I have that responsibility. This doesn't necessarily mean I won't use adverts. I may use adverts as first attempt and if none is acceptable then use the staff search. Maybe if I were to carry a second save for a single club then I'd do that with this save not to play both in the same way.

She has high work with youngsters and adaptability because those never increase. Determination to represent her will to get to the top aside from gender roles when born in a country that sounds like one to be harder for women, I think I've seen somewhere Turkey having quite a poor score about that. I left level of discipline at 1, despite that not growing, because I'm going to have her take to heart, maybe too much, my idea from basketball that when players have to be giving a lot of effort, that means the tactical system isn't working right. Specially in defence. A good tactic must have the players take positions that will allow them to deal with threats with the least effort possible. This reminds me I should have not gone with the Demirel surname, which is the first Turkish player to come to mind, but Solort, after the something something Alderamin series main character, Ikta Solork (one of the good points of that series is they present you with a tactical genius that isn't portrayed as such by contrasting him to everyone else being moronic buffoons. There's only one incompetent general, who's not moronic and his incompetence isn't there to make Ikta look genius but for other story reasons).

This save should be a FM18 long one, to see how far she goes. Finishing earlier would be only by winning every top competition of the season (cups may be excluded). Though stablishing herself as top division team in a top league is to be considered a successful career.

I may add a club only save, as I said above, but I consider that highly unlikely.
 
Presentation.

I got several interviews, all asking why I've not managed any team yet. How would I if I just finished my coaching course before starting to seek jobs. And why I'm running for several jobs. Like I could tell which one of the many would be willing to take a first timer for head manager. I got an offer from Solihull Moors in the Vananarama, which I delayed as it was not the most interesting of all available jobs.
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A few days later I received one from Australia Under 23 and took it, then Solihull backed down. Like the Australia job would take too much of job with just two or three match days.
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More interviews come to manage clubs, I'm said to be favourite for the FC United of Manchester. To be honest, I'm not sold on the idea a Vananarama team would be the best choice.
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My first match is against East Timor U23 and it proves as easy as predicted. We win comfortably with a simple 4-3-3 and excellent performances by almost everybody, with the core of the defence not rating highly simply because of how little they had to work.

So much for saying I was the lead candidate, United went for another manager.
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The second match, against Mongolia, is even more comfortable win, so much it's a new record.
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The last match starts with our creative player in the middle to pass less direct after he was losing a lot of the ball in the previous matches, it doesn't seem to go wrong, though Hong Kong's 3-5-2 proves harder to crack we go to another 3-0 wiin, though not as clear as the first.

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(*Player selection isn't the strongest side as I had to rest some players)
This is the system, with Kalik and from now McGree to pass less direct than the rest of the team.

A long time passes without vacancies I can take and a new set of matches come, this time it's friendlies. It starts with the first respectable opposition, Japan U23, they beat us but we had our chances to win as well.

After a long while and some more friendlies, I finally get an offer from Bromley!
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I know I said I'd try not to fall on to the 4-1-2-2-1 system, but there is a very limited pool of players I could choose from (the third centreback choice is a striker, Folani) and I thought the 4-3-3 fits the best. I hope that with Bromley it will be more towards a different type of formation.
 
Until January 2017

My assistant says there's some players who don't want me in the team and that it will be hard, but when I talk to them for introductions they seemed at least polite, I think they even listened and got cheered.
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Looking at the reports, the conclusion is that not only Bromley doesn't score, but lets a lot of goals in. Therefore, my focus for the system will be not conceding any goal. As a test, I will start trying to fix both by a very defensive formation with a very offensive mentality.
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The players even listened and reacted well to my first team talk despite looking like they weren't there.

The first game wasn't bad, the system shows it can work, but it was undone by ridiculousness of rebounds and one unlucky corner. At least we got a goal and one or two chances to have scored more, so I'm not unhappy.

The second match is better than the first but at the same time more annoying. We receive the seventh placed team, we draw to one goal, but we do missing two great chances and having first conceded another goal by unlucky rebound. It doesn't help preventing me being as happy as I should with how we did against one of the strong sides that nobody around us lost.

The FA cup match against Gloucester is a blasted disgrace from the players. They just don't even try. There is focusing on having a good defensive position, then there is just letting the balls go past them. Having a heavily rotated team isn't excuse.

Finally got my first win in the fourth league match, after two terrible games, one in the FA Trophy. It was with a change to a 4-4-2 in which Maynard is dropped in front of Johnson to protect him due to Johnson's lack of pace and Rees a bit further up. A little tweak from the 4-2-3-1 I started with.

That is followed by matches like the previous. Defensively things look tight until players lose concentration, gift a goal and then they just give up and give more goals, so when our goal arrives it doesn't serve anything.

The break of the league happens at the same time as the Asian U23 cup, which means to go back to Australia U23, where players are competent, such a nice rest to see players making interceptions, knowing how to position themselves and pass and shoot. We get past the group stages very comfortable as the opposition is as bad as Bromley, but it's not the big wins but how the players do that makes me happy.

Quarter finals of the Asian cup prove to be the first non comfortable win, in which we had to come from behind due to a corner, but created more than enough to be confident of a win. Nonetheless, they got close to our area more than any other rival to date.

Bromley is getting beyond frustrating. The one time a player moves to search the ball is the one time the ball was going to fall at his feet with nobody close to challenge so just he goes to try jump where the ball is ten meters high.
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At least with Australia we get to the final, where it's penalty shoot out after giving up two goals advantage to good rival play to get us off the trophy.
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Borrello got the MVP award of the tournament and no doubt his injury hurt us in the last two matches. Juric got as many goals as the player with the top goalscorer award. But somehow only Mabli is in the all star XI.
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Back at Bromley, the Asian U23 performance seems to have helped raise my reputation and improved the squad respect of me. I no longer have player against me.
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Reputation raised to 10%, which I noticed at the end of the Asian U23 group phase.
 
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We almost beat the second top team, got ahead until the last minutes when yet again a lucky rebound sets them for a goal to take two points again. We finally broke the streak of games without a win against Woking with another solid performance that isn't accompanied by freak bounces or lapses of concentration.

We have some good youth players in this year's intake, with a few that will make appearances in the first team.
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I also brought a new player that came into the side since the Hartlepool game we lost at the last moment, worth it due to his speed, by far our fastest defender.
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With the finances deteriorating, the money we keep from sales is reduced, not that I expect to get anything worth mentioning.
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We finally got two wins in a row and then the press start to talk about sacking me. So they didn't like to win? But then matches against mid and top table teams come, silly mistake gets Guiseley ahead and then we concede more in the chase for our goal and Maidstone we almost got something from due to them being too good mostly and then the board does ask a meeting.
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With some matches against bottom teams close, a clash with the first placed team in between, I ask for one month to improve things and they concede it.

And then the players come complaining they're not all good friends and Sutherlands wants out. That's fine, if I'm here he's not staying.

You've got to be kidding me. Now we lose our only decent leftback (the other we need in midfield) on international duty.

Deadline has passed at the end of March. Nobody has notified me of it.

We had our first chance to move up, but a poor display defending an indirect free kick gives them the lead and the hunt for the win only produces an equalizer, outstanding shot by Porter, but not enough. With other teams ahead winning and making it so we need to win all the five remaining matches, I'm not standing the frustration of managing this bunch of incompetents.
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The worst part of it is that at least half of the games were actually decent performances that should have given us even wins, but every time a switch off in concentration threw the match away. The other half were just like watching a bunch of headless chickens running when they need to stand to get the ball to them or standing when they needed to run to get to the ball.
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Wait for the new job

Once again I was said to be the favourite to land a job, ZTE, but in the end they don't offer the job to me. Instead it's the team one point behind them, MTE.
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We have only two injuries, only one of which is still a way off.
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A quick look at the team report says we have lots of negative points, but at least also as many positives.
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I think I'll have to plan around the fact nobody likes me.
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With the finances, I end the loan of Tòth, who doesn't look like what we need him and is costing us money.
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I have the first eleven chosen as shown with the system I will be using, made just for the sake of getting the players where they seem to prefer. Not that they listen to most of what I tell them. We'll not be tackling hard but stay on feet and back as this team is the worst tackling and one of the slower defences. We have, however, the fastest attack so we'll be pumping the ball behind their defence.
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I have the report of unhappy players. Boros may be in the way to have playing time with Laki needing rest but I don't see Koszas getting much time.
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We're only scouting our league. I'm offering free trials to the bunch of players we know aren't attached, minus the 27 year old one.
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This club is on positive balance, so I ask for a coaching course and I get it conceded!
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I think Man management and motivating have already gone up.
 
To the end of the season.

Boros was the one who wanted more first team football, the goalkeeper, not Bartos who's injured. He's our second best goalkeeper, but he's barely better than a young goalkeeper so he's not in my plans. I tell him so and he accepts it.
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First match is a defeat from a lucky rebound and a great cross from the opposition that shouldn't have been allowed with our system. Despite that, we scored and the system has worked mostly as desired.

Koszas complains like Boros and is dealt with in the same way with the same result. Both end their contracts this summer.

Lorinczy came back to training, next day he gets an hernia and will be out for a month and a half, missing the remainder of the season.
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Laki asks to leave to a bigger club. Between him having much influence on a squad that doesn't like me and his contract being out in a month, there's no reason not to give him what he wants.

With four games to go, we're the team in the best position to avoid the drop, needing four points from four matches if the other three were to win everything, which I don't think any will do.
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We go first to give the bottom team their first win with some stupid plays by defense. At least this defeat comes from errors to be expected at this level, not like previous ones in which my defenders did all right but the crappy opposition pulled off moves and shots that would be tough for Ronaldo.

For the last few matches we have two new players available, signed mainly for their speed.
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They don't play much due to extremely low match sharpness, defensive mistakes and mainly worldlie moves and shots prevent us from picking a win but we just avoid relegation with a come back in the last match.
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The bonuses to be paid off are small, not making any problem for the club.
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Board is not dissatisfied.
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Meh, I got a flu that lasted over two weeks and had my head unable to concentrate on anything, then between this and that couldn't get to the game and then preseason has been a bit longer than usual. Some screenshots got corrupted :(

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Summer 2018

Adam Nagy's loan is asked to be renewed for the next season with no cost. Young Bence Abert is brought it on account of his potential according to the scouts and he would be a better backup than the player who's leaving at the end of the contract.
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Preseason is set to the longest possible, five weeks.
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Initial budget are set. I can't reduce the scouting one so the rest remains as they are.
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Nagy rejected the loan. Another young player joins our side, because of his versatility.
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I'm asked about the possibility of having a second team in a lower division. I don't think the move would be economically beneficial, so I'll decline.
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As for rules, which I didn't mention, no more than three non-EU players, two under 21 and one under 20 must be in the field.
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Kapacina is a traitorous snake. He goes on whining to the media about a meeting with me when he's never come to talk about anything.
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Next I receive an offer for him, so I accept it. I don't need his kind here.
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We sign Thiago Régis to replace Tarczy between the sticks as the later was not renewing his contract due to his huge demands.
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As July arrives, we get some nice bump to the financial situation. We get to almost half a million euros from practically nothing.
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With the tiny budget we have and the few players worth bringing I can find, there's no sense into adding pressure increasing the expectations asked by the board.
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We get a left side player for the team who can play defence or midfield.
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I will keep the pitch at the same size, since we can't have a long design that's not also wide.
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Squad bonuses is something that I will ask to spend more on, to get the squad better motivated. It's not like we are likely to sign many more.
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Well, this isn't good. We're tipped for last position.
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We get in two new players who should be a vast improvement. Nicorec, who's weak but is so much braver than anybody else in the squad and generall y much better mentally. Hugo Rodrigues perhaps doesn't look as good but does bring something more in the build ups.
***Nicorec corrupted screenshot***
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There is also a centreback coming shortly after to give us some speed at the back.
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Hajos gets injured for a month and a half right in the last friendly.

I'd say the preseason has gone well, with the new 4-4-1-1 system appearing to develop well, while I left for too late starting a 4-1-3-2 that got us a win but doesn't seem ready for competitive matches at all.
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Finances have had a bump that sets the club at a healthy position.
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Board is still content, though fans don't like the 4-4-2 tactic we abandoned right at the start of preseason.
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Player support for Areyna are improving quite a bit with the preseason performances.
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Her English got to a good level and is yet to be able to speak Hungarian.

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You see I tried some other skins. In the end I'm setting for Milla.
 
Still going very slow with little time for the game, I'm not having issues: neither of the two image host sites I find good enough to use are working. The uploading here seems cumbersome, though I may try to use it later today. Alternatively I can ditch most of the images to capture and make a text only upload, or keep playing and make a longer update.

EDIT: I was going to make the post, but got some games updating with big patch that will make impossible to get any decent upload speed with my old, ****** connection. So, it's postponed to tomorrow.
 
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First, I found the two images, it was xnview failing to show them, rather than them not being taken.
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Starting several preseason friendlies and the first league match, that ended with a comfortable 2-0 win over Gyor, Kapacina no longer wants to leave.
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With the season started, the signings didn't stop and Adám Horváth, who had done preseason on trial, joins to give us an option in the right side of the defence with ability to do something offensively.
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Fenyofalvi, however, was not going to be a part of our first part of the season, due to injury.
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Lorinczy would be another loss for the team, though it had a good side in that I would not have the problems of what first teamer I leave in the bench to accomodate for two U21 players when we have just three worthy of playing first team, as two I had marked as such, don't qualify. He got his first injury in training just at the start of the season, then in the first match he played after returning, within the first fifteen minutes.
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Shortly after the start of the season, I got my new coaching license and I immediately was paid to study for the next.
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Just as the season started we received our last reinforcement. The player I wanted to be second centreback choice, Thomas Winkler.
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He was happy enough as back up and so I didn't offer him the first team status I hoped him to fill. Luckily for us, as following our first match win, his two appearances were two defeats from mistakes originated at him, and since then he's not played outside the cup.

Bartos was then satisfied with the signings we made and he droped his concerns, as did Darazs about Rodrigues taking his place after starting a bunch of games in the right wing.
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The later came days after a group of players came knocking expressing their discontent with the dressing room atmosphere, which wasn't good. I also knew few players liked me in the club. I promised them I would do something. After that we had our cup match against a lower league team and won it. A second win that turned things around. After following the run of good results, including a dominating draw against top of the table team and now the atmosphere seems quite healthy and many players are now happy to have me as their manager. Nobody seems to want me out anymore.
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That sends us at the end of October 2018 to a top half finish, way above our expected bottom position.
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Another very good piece to look at for the future of the club is that finances are going up. We're getting farther from the negative balance the club had two years ago and had barely left when I arrived. Board must definitely be pleased.
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The key to this turn around was a few tweaks to the 4-4-1-1 system I was using. I started with it being basically the same 4-4-2 that I used past season but with one striker dropped to midfield; but with team instructions the same, seeking a fast transition style of football with long balls over the defence. But that could work before, now was not as we had just one man up front and the other often helped defending the midfield. Simply the shape was not in accord with the instructions I was giving. Also the wide players were set too aggressively and pumping from too far ahead and then seeking to put balls in the area when there was only one player attacking it. I dropped the long passing, the fast tempo and I changed the wingers. The left has been asked to simply ba bit more conservative (from W-A to W-S with run forward whenever possible) and the right one changed to operate more like an inside forward (WM-S with run forward and cut inside). We now keep the ball much better, move it better and get in better positions, with the wide midfielders helping a bit better in defence.

Regarding the international job, I just had a friendly and soon another. Nothing really worth reporting, save for the loss of some players to age.
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Actually, using the forum's upload system is not bad, specially when writing the update on the fly instead of having all written as I play with placeholders for each screenshot bbcode link. I may even forget about using external sites, unless a mod tells me it's better if I use links to other sites to ease traffic here.
 
I'm going to change ISP company because of **** done by old one, so in the next days I may go without internet for an undefined amount of time.
 
My apologies. I got the 300Mbps connection, but between another cold and other stuff I've barely been able to advance.
 

After a start that was just a bit above press' expectations, we got to start an unbeaten run that kept us in the top half of the table and within touch of promotion places. After eleven matches, the team statistics had some interesting things to see:

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First is that, despite being of the teams with the worst shots on target ratio, we get to be up there in the table because we are the best at creating chances, so our SoTR applies to a bigger amount of shots. Second is that we are the team that makes the least tackles, but we are also the team, along with Gyor, with the best success rate in tackling. I like that, it means my players don't rush to try impossible tackles and that helps the string of clean sheets I kept on doing for a while.

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Juhazs finally drops his concerns over the dressing room atmosphere, but that's just after a poot run in which we throw up four points with late goals and then start losing with poor attacking play, as rivals start to play more cautiously against us.

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It sets us in the middle, as close or far from promotion as from relegation and making clear some changes must be done, some of which were used in the cup match, though that's not a meaningful case for the changes, as it was a completely rotated team with most of the worse players: being a team considered favourite from relegation in the second tier of Hungarian football, it would be stupid to hold any hopes of going much far into the cup. The tactic tweaks will be evaluated in the coming two months of winter break with friendlies that won't be all against much weaker teams, if we get enough time to play them.

Changes won't be only tactical, the team needs some strengthening and some cuttong of deadwood. Winkler should be leaving, among some other poor players that don't play and are only waiting to start disrupting the team with their complaints for lack of playing time, like midfielder Szmola, midfielder/fullback Odorg, plus we have perhaps too many players for the striker/advanced midfield positions.

With the recent lack of wins, the dressing room atmosphere has suffered, though I still have a majority of players in my side and none against.

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Finances keep on a slow decline in the balance, but it's slow and we should see another increase at the end of the season, as I don't plan to spend anything significant in the transfer window, not that I could even if I wanted.

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Board confidence is no longer as high as it got during the winning streak as we lost touch from promotion places, but it's still good.

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Meh, getting barely any time for FM.
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I manage to get rid of Winkler, not so of Hajos. The former I want out due to his poor performance, the later just because I have too many players there.

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Juhazs renews his contract, Zsigmond makes a deal to leave at the end of his contract and so does Katona. The only I'm not too happy with is the departure of Katona, who is a promising youngster, though he's not yet an important piece of the team, so it's not a big deal anyway.

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Three players come in. Two young centerbacks, one is quite fast and good in the air to take Winkler's place as third or fourth choice, the other brought by the head of youth development, the last player is a midfielder who can tackle I want as back up in case.

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Expectations are reviewed and increased a bit thinking on giving the players some morale rather than pressure.
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The winter friendlies are used to test a new tactic, more aggressive, moving the wingers forward, as the later results I think come from rivals starting to take us more seriously and giving us more trouble getting forward. After a bad first match it gives some good plays and results, though I think it's clear the system still needs some work.
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The club looks healthy with only a small loss each month and though later results weren't very good and we dropped to mid table, I still have a good deal of support.
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No friendlies with Australia U23, but we got the Asian cup U23 qualification group, which looks easy.
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Meh, this format sucks. Not only, trying to follow some blogs with stories in this kind that are well done felt boring, it just gets me to feel like there is so much to upload, even if there really isn't, that it discourages me from updating and that in turn discourages me from continuing the save. Let's get on with the new update and hopefully I'll start to play more and keep this story up.


One good and one bad thing happened at the start of this segment of play. The Bad was Vadas picking an injury for a long time, meaning we were going to miss one of the two starting centerbacks until close to ending the season perhaps. The other is that I got a new course funded to get the next level of qualifications.
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Youth intake for the club is rather poor, with only one player with a shadow of a chance to be a player we'd want to keep in the future.
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Bartos and Kapacina dropped their concerns with their lack of playing time after starting for several matches in a row and, to be honest, they earned those starts with assists, goals and general good play. Bartos has had a new contract offered and signed.
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Just recently, though, the team has got two bad news. Cabango, who's earned starting status thanks to his amazing speed will be missing a month of games. The other is that just as I was considering starting Fenyofalvi in our last game, he got a grave injury in training before the match and will be out for a year. In the less disastrous side, Vadas recovered from his injury sooner than expected and he's available, though he's been poor in the two games he's played.
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That said, our run of results have been splendid with only one defeat a long while ago, which has us climb up to fourth place, only two points behind the second place, though they have a game in hand, so most likely that should be said to be five points behind.
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The statistics that are giving us those results and place in the league contain some interesting facts. We're the team that has scored the most, being average in the rate of shots on target (which has improved in the latest games) due to being the team that creates the most chances. But the one I like the most is the one that proves my philosophy right that you don't need to work like a donkey and can get things done with smart application of effort: instead of what people ask of doing a lot of tackling to recover the ball and mouthing off against the players that don't go down as "weak" and "softies", we are being more cautions, doing less running to get to the tackles and more to do them in the better moment. That leads us to be the team that has the least tackles done but the most rate of successful tackles. That gives us the third defensive position shared with ZTE with 31 goals scored, only improved by the team at the top and sixth. What I hoped would be better was the amount of yellow cards and fouls. Looking at the wages we're overachieving as much as the press expectations say.
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Regarding the rest of the club's situation, finances are as healthy as ever, with a balance that decreases slowly enough to expect to have an even better balance next season, with the board completely happy.
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Now, moving to the Australian U23 team, news aren't good. We went into the Asian Cup Qualifiers finding that most of the players I had have outgrown the category and with only just enough players to bring, of which at least half the final team are rubbish compared to the players that left. Still, the group was easy and we managed to win all games and qualify for the Cup. Or perhaps the next phase. I'm thinking on leaving the Australian side, but we'll see.
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Indeed, in the Australian U23 side I have every player that can be chosen because there's not a single one more player in the National pool. That also leaves me restricted to four defenders in the whole squad.
 
I thought I would pick it pace, but got with two other saves, one for Youtube to talk English and another for some show of what happens signing like fans work, plus trying to level a character for Battle for Azeroth...

End of season 18/19
With plenty to go to the end of the season, the board offer me a new contract. I negotiate it to something a bit better and sign it. ((No reputation boost from it))

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That's not so much a surprise, as since the winter break the wins have been following one after another, despite some injuries to Kapacina, who took his chance starting matches getting up to be one of our top scorers, and Darazs who was taking his chance as well but picked and injury to miss the last two months of competition.

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During the run we beat two club records: unbeaten run and wins in a season, as well as the points record when there's still more than ten matches to end.

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Two matches before Szonok finishes our unbeaten run we manage an incredible 3-0 win against leaders Csakvar! They lose their next match as well and begin to drop points left, right and center. It's two consecutive defeats in two poor matches that feel like the start of a bad slump in form, including a defeat to Dunaujvaros that sees them getting eight points ahead and end the already dim hopes to reach promotion, not that it was an objective seeing we were favourites to end bottom and we didn't improve the squad that much in summer.

But it's not a slump, after the second defeat we recover and begin a run of wins. We win and win and win and win and win again... after the fifth from last match... Csakvar drop three more points and... we are there, by taking one match at a time, just doing what's needed to get this match's win.

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And we may have the easier run of matches coming. Or we would if the last three weren't the three teams we couldn't beat in this second half of the season with that many wins. One point of possible nine.

Everybody in the top three wins the next match. The second match, Csakvar draws and both us and Dunajvaros loses.

We're four points ahead of second and five of third. If we draw Csakvar needs to win by a combined 13 goals advantage including our deficit in a defeat to remove us from direct promotion and Dunajvaros would be out if they fail to win even if we lose as a draw in points would be with one more win for us which is the first criteria: matches won, goal difference, goals scored, result between teams. Csakvar lose! We're promoted! WOOOOO!!! Dunaujvaros wins... and we WIN! WE'RE THE CHAMPIONS!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! We were predicted last and I was aiming to at least avoid relegation with midtable finish as great success!

Fortunately the squad is so happy with me they kept shut about me passing out from drinking too much in the ensuing party. Then they made a professional display winning the last match of the season, which made me happy. I was told we might beat the goals record with three matches to go, but we were five away from matching the old and we scored just that many.

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One other matters, we paid the bonuses when in March we ensured not going down and now we paid the bonuses for the result and received the league prize. We also got the initial budgets which hopefully will allow to bring some key players to improve the squad.

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One thing regarding the squad happened already, apart from the already reported agreement to let Katona and Zsigmond to leave: Vajdal, the back up keeper is leaving. He was unhappy with his lack of playing team and he was making a ruckus in the press.

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Obviously with that result the board is ecstatic and I will remain to try keep the team in the top division. No jobs have opened in international management so I'm not resigning from Australia U23 team.
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Winning the league bumped her personal reputation as soon as it was confirmed with extra 10%.
 
Summer of 2019

That great season has meant that the team breaks its record for least defeats, best position. Also Nicorec got recognized as making the best goal. And I won the manager of the year award!

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Team awards are also given. Looking back I'm still amazed we won the title from so low position after a handful of matches. The board are obviously chuffed to bits.

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Financially it's been quite a good year, with plenty of profits, we almost doubled the balance. It is crowned by some new sponsorship deals. It makes me decide to accept this time to create a second team, which signings I delegate to the director of football.

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I don't quite find anyone to replace or improve the squad. The few who would improve didn't want to come or were way too expensive, so we're going to be in for a tough ride this season. Certicky and Sasdi are two examples of the players that the DoF is signing for the second team. They may see some time in the first team.

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Obviously I'm not the only one, as we're given the best odds to be at the bottom. It was the same past season, but we were one level below. I'm obviously not pushing promises with the season targets.

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Our scouting range has been increased to Europe. UK has gone through Brexit so that's an EU country less.

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Preseason has been very short because the new season starts so soon after the last ended, which means we could only make four friendlies, which went fine, but nothing great and including a very disappointing defeat. On the bright side the players barely dropped any match sharpness so I'm hoping for a less disastrous start than it could have been otherwise. Oh wait, our first match is against the current title holders.

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Take a look and how nice the finances look, though the board seems like they're already forgetting what we did past season.

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The individual award as Manager of the Year hasn't improved the reputation. Also, with new season comes competitions restart and competition faith reset, hence the lowering of confidence.

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Ok. so the half or so season updates has been extremely bad idea and has been part for being so scarce with the updates and the playing of this save. So for what remains until FM19 I'm going to bimonthly updates. Monthly ones were past year perhaps too frequent, which meant a lot of routine posting. The problem is that after so slow and so little played, I'm not sure how much of FM18 mood I'll have.

It's an annoying thing because FM18 is in my opinion the best FM yet, though it has the worst GUI yet as well.
 
Well, I found Pathfinder: Kingmaker which is an excellent RPG and in the end I only played the opening match of the season. A 3-1 thanks to yet another match with two penalties; but the team played quite well and left the feeling keeping the category won't be a hard task.
There were also some international jobs openings, I picked Morocco, which was the highest I thought I had a chance for, and Guinea that looked more realistic. I got offered both, I picked Morocco and got disappointed I didn't try the highest job available too, which was Egypt.
I guess this is the end of the series. For FM19 I won't try the long periods updates as it has clearly not worked.
 
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