D.Woodgate
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'Athletic are not allowed to sign non basque players'
I have realised the transfer system on FM11 is rather flawed, frequently allowing fantastic players to leave on free transfer (my house mate signed C.Ronaldo aged 29 on free transfer, to wolves..) So I decided it was about time to stop relying on clicking 'contract status expires in 6 months' on the transfer centre filter every season. Enter, Athletic Bilbao, or Athletic Bubble as renamed by my not so funny housemates. I also noticed not many people have persisted with this challenge in the past, or if they have, have neglected the opportunity to document their successes.
I will apologise now that I am new to forums and therefore my presentation will be nothing like as fantastic as some of the FM Stories i have browsed! But bare with me, I have attached thumbnails which i hope work which I will refer too, to avoid spoiling 'the story' avoid looking at these until mentioned! Thanks guys. Here we go:
Season 2010-11
I started the season with the hope of Qualifying for the European Cup, and opted for my personal favourite 4, 2, 3, 1 tactic with the key man, Fernando Llorente spearheading the attack with his 20 jumping and 18 heading, making full use of the wide men for supply.
Although I was given a reasonable budget of 5million, the key basque players, Xabi Alonso, Ander, Almunia, Xabi Prieto, Mikael Arteta and the likes were well out of my reach, so instead I decided to work with the resources and fantastic youth setup in Bilbao with the most promising being the young Iker Muniain the forward and Mikel San Jose at centre back who failed to make the cut at Liverpool (oh how wrong they turn out to be).
Although the season started slowly, Markel Susaeta and Fernando Llorente began to link up fantastically, with Susaeta finishing the season with 20 assists and Llorente with a crucial 15 league goals. As you can see from the 2010-11 season thumbnail we scored 59 goals, meaning goals were flying in from all over the pitch. Even more impressively however was that we surpassed our goal of Europa League football and managed to achieve 4th place, setting ourselves up for a chance to compete in the Champions League group stages. This was sealed by only 1 point ahead of Sevilla, making the double over sevilla that season a crucial part of the teams success! Another positive for the season was that my Goalkeeper, Iraizoz was named spainish keeper of the year, ahead of Casillas and Valdes, well done pal!
Season 2011-12
The boardroom were delighted with Woodgate's boys efforts in the first season and backed their man with a 10m transfer kitty. This in turn allowed me to sign Ander, a player I had been admiring and attempting to lure to Bilbao all of last season to no avail. Zaragoza could not resist the 9m transfer offer and soon the young creative midfielder was on his way to Bilbao. (Although I have red some other Bilbao stories of him being signed for 5m on transfer list, I could simply not afford to loose out on a player of his calibre to bigger european clubs if they occurred so i took the plunge!)
The next step was getting into the Champions League group stages which would greatly benefit the already stable financial position potentially boosting transfer budgets for the next season as the team attempts to come to pace with the 3 top teams, R.Madrid, Barca and Athletico. I got drawn Schalke, who boast the attacking presence of Rakitic and Huntelaar which made me slump down a little in my seat..
But no, Athletic Bilbao were having none of their managers pre match nerves, they went out and beat Schalke in Bilbao 7-2! Unbelievable scenes with Llorente scoring 4. This sealed my progression into the group stages of the Champions league even though i lost 2-0 in Germany on the return leg. I was grouped with CSKA Moscow, AC Milan and some other swag team, Red Star i do believe! This pumped a warmly welcomed extra 7million into the bank with at least 15m more in TV rights at the end of the season.
As far as the League went, this was an exciting year, once again starting slowly, finding myself in 16th position by early November, but February I was climbing higher up the table into 6th position, back to where i wanted to be. What was more, I was still in the Spainish Cup, which was an absolute nightmare the year before. I drew R.Madrid in the semi final and beat them 3-2 on aggregate and then went on to face Athletico Madrid in the final at the Nou Camp with 98000 fans all armed with vuvuzuelas... This was not a game for the light hearted with Madrid taking the lead early in the game by none other than Diego Forlan, Althetic then pulled themselves back into the game through a towering Llorente header only to be pegged back once again by Madrid as they went in at half time 2-1 up. After g'ing the lads up at half time giving them an emotional speech about making the Basque region of Spain proud and reminding them about how much they were all being paid, it was back into the fray. My faith in the youngster Muniain was repaid and the ref signalled extra time after a hard fought 90 minutes in which Forlan could easily have had a hatrick if he'd remembered to put his hairband back on at half time. The lads came back out and clinched the victory through a fluid counter attack, only after Iraizoz made a number of world class stops. Trophy Number 1, Secured. COYB.. I was going to have Paella for dinner to celebrate, but then i realised it was 4am..
The champions league wasnt quite as successful, with CSKA and AC milan pulling Athletic apart both home and away However, 3rd place was secured and the lads went on to beat Koln 2-1 on aggregate in the first knockout round. Typically, the draw went against Athletic and Liverpool outclassed the Basque Boy's 7-2 on aggregate, Now i know how Schalke felt...
The league became rather tedious in the last few games as you can see from the League 2011-12 because the 3 top teams were so far out in front and I had secured 4th position again quite comfortably, time for another shot at the champions league! Ander had a fantastic season, scoring 15 and assisting a further 16 goals, meanwhile Llorente picked up his scoring to 25 in all competitions.
Thanks to all the TV rights and prize money from the European football played by the lads this season, the bank was looking very healthy and this allowed me to finish the season in style, signing Felipe, a 16 year old regen from Athletico Madrid for 8.5 million (Athletic can sign spainish youngsters 16 or younger) and his stats can be seen in the thumbnail. He looks like he's going to be the next fernando torres, nevermind fernando llorente. An exciting prospect for Bilbao which left the supporters dancing in the streets of Bilbao.
Season 2012-2013
Newsflash: Woodgate handed 21m warchest by president in a hope to cement the teams top 4 credentials. By now i have secured Ander and Felipe, both amazing players. And now had the chance to buy Monreal from osasuna, a fantastic Left Back for 4.5 million. I also signed Azpilicueta from OM for 12m, who is possibly the best Right back on the game. On top of that i managed to buy poor transfer listed Raul Garcia for 500k from Athletico Madrid, a utility man for the middle of the park. Needless to say, after bolstering my defence by a good 17m, I was quietly confident this could be a season to catch up with the top 3, even if only by a few points as my youngsters develop more and more each season, my hypothesis was that by 3 seasons from now the young players will be ready to tackle to big guns and the older experienced players will be peaking.. But when does FM EVER go to plan? After all it is only a glorified excel spreadsheet with pictures and colours! (which we all love, dont get me wrong) Anyway:
That confidence nearly got flushed down the toilet as we were drawn CSKA Moscow for the qualifier, the team which ruined the teams dreams of securing knockround football last season. The lads managed to get an away goal in russia loosing 2-1 and then brought the Russians back to the Brand New 53,000 seater stadium in Bilbao and cained them 4-0, stealing all their vodka for celebration in the process. Champions League football secured for the second season running against all the odds! COYB.
The lads are now well into February of 2013 so a whole season update for the 2012-13 season will be up shortly as long as people are actually interested to see how the team continues to develop! The final thumbnail shows how well the lads have been playing up to now, with the Spainish Manager keeping an eye on more than HALF of the first 11.
Thanks for reading, look forward to replying to any questions and would love to know if there are any Basque gems anyone has found (non-regen) which I may have missed because last time i looked i could only choose to sign from 481 well known players in the region (hardly the biggest player pool ever!)
I have realised the transfer system on FM11 is rather flawed, frequently allowing fantastic players to leave on free transfer (my house mate signed C.Ronaldo aged 29 on free transfer, to wolves..) So I decided it was about time to stop relying on clicking 'contract status expires in 6 months' on the transfer centre filter every season. Enter, Athletic Bilbao, or Athletic Bubble as renamed by my not so funny housemates. I also noticed not many people have persisted with this challenge in the past, or if they have, have neglected the opportunity to document their successes.
I will apologise now that I am new to forums and therefore my presentation will be nothing like as fantastic as some of the FM Stories i have browsed! But bare with me, I have attached thumbnails which i hope work which I will refer too, to avoid spoiling 'the story' avoid looking at these until mentioned! Thanks guys. Here we go:
Season 2010-11
I started the season with the hope of Qualifying for the European Cup, and opted for my personal favourite 4, 2, 3, 1 tactic with the key man, Fernando Llorente spearheading the attack with his 20 jumping and 18 heading, making full use of the wide men for supply.
Although I was given a reasonable budget of 5million, the key basque players, Xabi Alonso, Ander, Almunia, Xabi Prieto, Mikael Arteta and the likes were well out of my reach, so instead I decided to work with the resources and fantastic youth setup in Bilbao with the most promising being the young Iker Muniain the forward and Mikel San Jose at centre back who failed to make the cut at Liverpool (oh how wrong they turn out to be).
Although the season started slowly, Markel Susaeta and Fernando Llorente began to link up fantastically, with Susaeta finishing the season with 20 assists and Llorente with a crucial 15 league goals. As you can see from the 2010-11 season thumbnail we scored 59 goals, meaning goals were flying in from all over the pitch. Even more impressively however was that we surpassed our goal of Europa League football and managed to achieve 4th place, setting ourselves up for a chance to compete in the Champions League group stages. This was sealed by only 1 point ahead of Sevilla, making the double over sevilla that season a crucial part of the teams success! Another positive for the season was that my Goalkeeper, Iraizoz was named spainish keeper of the year, ahead of Casillas and Valdes, well done pal!
Season 2011-12
The boardroom were delighted with Woodgate's boys efforts in the first season and backed their man with a 10m transfer kitty. This in turn allowed me to sign Ander, a player I had been admiring and attempting to lure to Bilbao all of last season to no avail. Zaragoza could not resist the 9m transfer offer and soon the young creative midfielder was on his way to Bilbao. (Although I have red some other Bilbao stories of him being signed for 5m on transfer list, I could simply not afford to loose out on a player of his calibre to bigger european clubs if they occurred so i took the plunge!)
The next step was getting into the Champions League group stages which would greatly benefit the already stable financial position potentially boosting transfer budgets for the next season as the team attempts to come to pace with the 3 top teams, R.Madrid, Barca and Athletico. I got drawn Schalke, who boast the attacking presence of Rakitic and Huntelaar which made me slump down a little in my seat..
But no, Athletic Bilbao were having none of their managers pre match nerves, they went out and beat Schalke in Bilbao 7-2! Unbelievable scenes with Llorente scoring 4. This sealed my progression into the group stages of the Champions league even though i lost 2-0 in Germany on the return leg. I was grouped with CSKA Moscow, AC Milan and some other swag team, Red Star i do believe! This pumped a warmly welcomed extra 7million into the bank with at least 15m more in TV rights at the end of the season.
As far as the League went, this was an exciting year, once again starting slowly, finding myself in 16th position by early November, but February I was climbing higher up the table into 6th position, back to where i wanted to be. What was more, I was still in the Spainish Cup, which was an absolute nightmare the year before. I drew R.Madrid in the semi final and beat them 3-2 on aggregate and then went on to face Athletico Madrid in the final at the Nou Camp with 98000 fans all armed with vuvuzuelas... This was not a game for the light hearted with Madrid taking the lead early in the game by none other than Diego Forlan, Althetic then pulled themselves back into the game through a towering Llorente header only to be pegged back once again by Madrid as they went in at half time 2-1 up. After g'ing the lads up at half time giving them an emotional speech about making the Basque region of Spain proud and reminding them about how much they were all being paid, it was back into the fray. My faith in the youngster Muniain was repaid and the ref signalled extra time after a hard fought 90 minutes in which Forlan could easily have had a hatrick if he'd remembered to put his hairband back on at half time. The lads came back out and clinched the victory through a fluid counter attack, only after Iraizoz made a number of world class stops. Trophy Number 1, Secured. COYB.. I was going to have Paella for dinner to celebrate, but then i realised it was 4am..
The champions league wasnt quite as successful, with CSKA and AC milan pulling Athletic apart both home and away However, 3rd place was secured and the lads went on to beat Koln 2-1 on aggregate in the first knockout round. Typically, the draw went against Athletic and Liverpool outclassed the Basque Boy's 7-2 on aggregate, Now i know how Schalke felt...
The league became rather tedious in the last few games as you can see from the League 2011-12 because the 3 top teams were so far out in front and I had secured 4th position again quite comfortably, time for another shot at the champions league! Ander had a fantastic season, scoring 15 and assisting a further 16 goals, meanwhile Llorente picked up his scoring to 25 in all competitions.
Thanks to all the TV rights and prize money from the European football played by the lads this season, the bank was looking very healthy and this allowed me to finish the season in style, signing Felipe, a 16 year old regen from Athletico Madrid for 8.5 million (Athletic can sign spainish youngsters 16 or younger) and his stats can be seen in the thumbnail. He looks like he's going to be the next fernando torres, nevermind fernando llorente. An exciting prospect for Bilbao which left the supporters dancing in the streets of Bilbao.
Season 2012-2013
Newsflash: Woodgate handed 21m warchest by president in a hope to cement the teams top 4 credentials. By now i have secured Ander and Felipe, both amazing players. And now had the chance to buy Monreal from osasuna, a fantastic Left Back for 4.5 million. I also signed Azpilicueta from OM for 12m, who is possibly the best Right back on the game. On top of that i managed to buy poor transfer listed Raul Garcia for 500k from Athletico Madrid, a utility man for the middle of the park. Needless to say, after bolstering my defence by a good 17m, I was quietly confident this could be a season to catch up with the top 3, even if only by a few points as my youngsters develop more and more each season, my hypothesis was that by 3 seasons from now the young players will be ready to tackle to big guns and the older experienced players will be peaking.. But when does FM EVER go to plan? After all it is only a glorified excel spreadsheet with pictures and colours! (which we all love, dont get me wrong) Anyway:
That confidence nearly got flushed down the toilet as we were drawn CSKA Moscow for the qualifier, the team which ruined the teams dreams of securing knockround football last season. The lads managed to get an away goal in russia loosing 2-1 and then brought the Russians back to the Brand New 53,000 seater stadium in Bilbao and cained them 4-0, stealing all their vodka for celebration in the process. Champions League football secured for the second season running against all the odds! COYB.
The lads are now well into February of 2013 so a whole season update for the 2012-13 season will be up shortly as long as people are actually interested to see how the team continues to develop! The final thumbnail shows how well the lads have been playing up to now, with the Spainish Manager keeping an eye on more than HALF of the first 11.
Thanks for reading, look forward to replying to any questions and would love to know if there are any Basque gems anyone has found (non-regen) which I may have missed because last time i looked i could only choose to sign from 481 well known players in the region (hardly the biggest player pool ever!)
