after playing mostly the same leagues, (Europe and the Americas) over and over since i first started playing football manager games back in the late 90s, i decided to take myself out of my comfort zone and try some leagues that i have never played before. I loaded up all of the Asian leagues that are in the game (China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea) to play in and learn about a part of the football world that i know nothing about. Here is my story:
Having started unemployed i quickly found there to be more job openings then i could count. over thirty. seems like manager turnover might be rather high here in this part of the world. i applyied to several jobs that interested me in the different leagues available. basicly i picked teams that had team colors i liked
. i quickly got back 3 offers. since i figured i would be getting some more offers (i applied to at least 20 clubs) i delayed them a week. but sadly after the week was up all the other jobs had been filled and i was left with just the three original offers:'( of the 3 teams only one really stood out for me. I found the job at Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota FC to be very intriguing and not just for its awesomely long name. They are a team in the top Singaporean League but don't have any Singaporeans on their roster. The team isn't located in Singapore but in capital of Brunei Darussalam, a country which i must admit i've never heard of, but check out their cool flag:
with a quick visit to Wikipedia i was able to learn all i needed to know about the country i was going to be traveling too.
Location: it is a tiny country on the north coast of Borneo Malaysia
Language: Malay but English is also widely spoken (nice, language shouldn't be a problem then)
Government: Islamic Absolute Monarchy (mental note: don't say anything bad about the government or the Sultan)
Climate: Average annual temperature is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (nice! no more shoveling snow!(H))
With my research done i was off to meet my new team! DPMMFC a background. Founded in 2000, DPMMFC are a professional Bruneian club currently playing in the Singaporean Leauge. The Club play their home games at Negara Hassanal Bolkah (also the national team's stadium, seats 30,000) and possess fairly basic training facilities and a very basic youth setup. With no real competition history of note, DPMM are a club with a trophy cabinet waiting to be filled. (nice! i like a clean slate to work with)
my first thoughts on my new team:
Squad: with the exception of 4 forign players (the rest of the squad are all Bruneians) my squad is very week. The center of my defense is extremely weak as it is made up of a 35 y/o and a bunch of kids (all under 5'9XD) the foreign players are going to be the key players on my team. league rules limit me to 6 and only 4 for match day squads. luckily Singapore players don't count as foreign. one of my foreigners looks to be one of the best players in the league (why is he here? it cant be fore the money)
for comparison here is the best of my local Bruneian players:
not quite on the same level lolXD
Coaching staff: not good. terminated my assistant immediately (other then that it involved feet and a ball i don't think he knew much else about the game) Hired 3 new coaches to help out. they are better then what was here but still not that good. (at least now i don't train every thing at a less then 2 stars)
Scouting: I'm not sure they even know where Brunei is. hired 2 more to help out.
Finances: i knew it wasn't a good sign when i asked the club secretary for the finance info and she handed me a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper. i have almost no money.
the best thing about managing this team is the sweet chairs i get to sit in on the side lines during games. here is a pic of the manager in real life during a game (i love his shirt!)
Now that i had given the club a good looking over from top to bottom it was time to get to work. The first area of concern was the center of my defense. one of my staff informed me of a quality CD that was available for free. i was skeptical but when the rest of my staff strongly agreed i singed him immediately. expecting to see a big strapping CD arrive at the training ground i was a little surprised when a 5'6 132lb guy jogged onto the pitch. oh and he can't jump. I'm serious, his jumping is a 3XD. apparently me and my staff have a different definition of 'quality'. but i guess he is still better then what i already had. my other notable signings were a Brazilian amc/fc who is mediocre and a Bruneian CD who looks to be the best CD on my team (not that it is something he should be proud of). an exhaustive search to find a better goalie resulted in nothing. so I'm stuck with the really bad ones i already have. (bad goalies and CDs, i might let up a few goals this season). The fans were a little upset when i signed the brazilian as he is a player they thought to be a trouble maker. i wasn't too worried about him and since he is better then most of the forwards on the team i didn't really care. that was until my press conference when i answered 'no comment' to being asked if his inability to speak english would cause problems. apparently he didn't like my answer (he doesn't speak english how did he no what i said?oO)) he was enraged by my response and stormed out of the dressing room. (ok so i guess I'm going to have to break out the kid gloves when dealing with himXD)
after breezing through my pre-season games (3 wins. 10 goals scored, 3 allowed) i was confident my team would get off to a good start in the league. My confidence was quickly knocked down a few pegs as my team struggled in back to back home games, getting a loss and draw. fallowed by and away draw and i only had 2 points after the first 3 games. maybe i should have worked more on my tactics instead of spending so much time trying to find players. After putting in some overtime with my staff to get our tactics right we were able to win 5 of our next 6 games.
the MVP of the team so far has to be the young Bruneian FC Mohd Shahrazen Said. even though he has only started two games he leads my team in scoring with 5 goals. 3 of them being game winning goals from coming off the bench. Drazen Govic has of course been a key part of our success too. with 3 goals, 4 assists, and a 7.35 match rating in 8 games. One problem that i did for see was players getting called up to national teams. Being the only fully professional Bruneian team when the international break rolled around i had 22 of my players called up to the Bruneian teamXD. (so basically my team is the Bruneian team(H)) its 8 games into the season and I'm in 4th place, only 3 points back, with a game at hand. I'm pretty happy with the start my team has gotten off to and i am confident that my team can challenge for the title (as long as my foreign players stay healthy)
Having started unemployed i quickly found there to be more job openings then i could count. over thirty. seems like manager turnover might be rather high here in this part of the world. i applyied to several jobs that interested me in the different leagues available. basicly i picked teams that had team colors i liked
. i quickly got back 3 offers. since i figured i would be getting some more offers (i applied to at least 20 clubs) i delayed them a week. but sadly after the week was up all the other jobs had been filled and i was left with just the three original offers:'( of the 3 teams only one really stood out for me. I found the job at Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota FC to be very intriguing and not just for its awesomely long name. They are a team in the top Singaporean League but don't have any Singaporeans on their roster. The team isn't located in Singapore but in capital of Brunei Darussalam, a country which i must admit i've never heard of, but check out their cool flag:
with a quick visit to Wikipedia i was able to learn all i needed to know about the country i was going to be traveling too.
Location: it is a tiny country on the north coast of Borneo Malaysia
Language: Malay but English is also widely spoken (nice, language shouldn't be a problem then)
Government: Islamic Absolute Monarchy (mental note: don't say anything bad about the government or the Sultan)
Climate: Average annual temperature is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (nice! no more shoveling snow!(H))
With my research done i was off to meet my new team! DPMMFC a background. Founded in 2000, DPMMFC are a professional Bruneian club currently playing in the Singaporean Leauge. The Club play their home games at Negara Hassanal Bolkah (also the national team's stadium, seats 30,000) and possess fairly basic training facilities and a very basic youth setup. With no real competition history of note, DPMM are a club with a trophy cabinet waiting to be filled. (nice! i like a clean slate to work with
)my first thoughts on my new team:
Squad: with the exception of 4 forign players (the rest of the squad are all Bruneians) my squad is very week. The center of my defense is extremely weak as it is made up of a 35 y/o and a bunch of kids (all under 5'9XD) the foreign players are going to be the key players on my team. league rules limit me to 6 and only 4 for match day squads. luckily Singapore players don't count as foreign. one of my foreigners looks to be one of the best players in the league (why is he here? it cant be fore the money)
for comparison here is the best of my local Bruneian players:
not quite on the same level lolXD
Coaching staff: not good. terminated my assistant immediately (other then that it involved feet and a ball i don't think he knew much else about the game) Hired 3 new coaches to help out. they are better then what was here but still not that good. (at least now i don't train every thing at a less then 2 stars
)Scouting: I'm not sure they even know where Brunei is. hired 2 more to help out.
Finances: i knew it wasn't a good sign when i asked the club secretary for the finance info and she handed me a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper. i have almost no money.
the best thing about managing this team is the sweet chairs i get to sit in on the side lines during games. here is a pic of the manager in real life during a game (i love his shirt!)
Now that i had given the club a good looking over from top to bottom it was time to get to work. The first area of concern was the center of my defense. one of my staff informed me of a quality CD that was available for free. i was skeptical but when the rest of my staff strongly agreed i singed him immediately. expecting to see a big strapping CD arrive at the training ground i was a little surprised when a 5'6 132lb guy jogged onto the pitch. oh and he can't jump. I'm serious, his jumping is a 3XD. apparently me and my staff have a different definition of 'quality'. but i guess he is still better then what i already had. my other notable signings were a Brazilian amc/fc who is mediocre and a Bruneian CD who looks to be the best CD on my team (not that it is something he should be proud of). an exhaustive search to find a better goalie resulted in nothing. so I'm stuck with the really bad ones i already have. (bad goalies and CDs, i might let up a few goals this season
). The fans were a little upset when i signed the brazilian as he is a player they thought to be a trouble maker. i wasn't too worried about him and since he is better then most of the forwards on the team i didn't really care. that was until my press conference when i answered 'no comment' to being asked if his inability to speak english would cause problems. apparently he didn't like my answer (he doesn't speak english how did he no what i said?oO)) he was enraged by my response and stormed out of the dressing room. (ok so i guess I'm going to have to break out the kid gloves when dealing with himXD)after breezing through my pre-season games (3 wins. 10 goals scored, 3 allowed) i was confident my team would get off to a good start in the league. My confidence was quickly knocked down a few pegs as my team struggled in back to back home games, getting a loss and draw. fallowed by and away draw and i only had 2 points after the first 3 games. maybe i should have worked more on my tactics instead of spending so much time trying to find players. After putting in some overtime with my staff to get our tactics right we were able to win 5 of our next 6 games.
the MVP of the team so far has to be the young Bruneian FC Mohd Shahrazen Said. even though he has only started two games he leads my team in scoring with 5 goals. 3 of them being game winning goals from coming off the bench. Drazen Govic has of course been a key part of our success too. with 3 goals, 4 assists, and a 7.35 match rating in 8 games. One problem that i did for see was players getting called up to national teams. Being the only fully professional Bruneian team when the international break rolled around i had 22 of my players called up to the Bruneian teamXD. (so basically my team is the Bruneian team(H)) its 8 games into the season and I'm in 4th place, only 3 points back, with a game at hand. I'm pretty happy with the start my team has gotten off to and i am confident that my team can challenge for the title (as long as my foreign players stay healthy
)
