FC Ternopil - From Rags To Riches: Episode III

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TractorBoy7

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From Rags To Riches: Episode III

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FC Ternopil

Hi guys and welcome to my first story on FM16. If you don't know who I am, I am the creator of Szolnoki MÁV FC: From Rags To Riches for FM14 and a story of Spartak Varna on FM15.

I love building clubs from the ground up. I love building youth systems and succesfully bringing in homegrown talent and watching them succeed on the pitch.

This year I have selected FC Ternopil as my team that I seek to take through the ranks of domestic and european (hopefully) football. Ternopil are predicted 16th out of 16 in the First Division in Ukraine, which is the second and bottom playable league on FM. They play in yellow and blue which I thought fit well in the grand scheme of things when I plan on growing players for the Ukrainian national team.

About me and my style:

- I love to use youth and buy regens on the cheap
- I love the thought of building clubs from the ground up into big giants of football
- Building new stadiums and increasing the fan base of a club is one of my favourite aims

What to expect from the save and story:

- In the early days expect me to kinda rush through it until I get into the top league, and then I will start entering more detail as it gets more interesting!
- Expect me try to build home grown talent in a bid to increase the stature of the Ukrainian national team
- Interesting insight on Ukrainian football​


Ternopil are probably the worst playable Ukrainian team on the game and that's what makes it so enticing to me. They actually have a few decent players as you'll see in the forthcoming pre-season update, however their facilities are dire.

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We share the ground with Nyva Ternopil, who we'll surely be fighting for potential fans and hopefully potential promotions! Over 15000 capacity ground at this stage is great, however I'll be looking to move out and make our own place of residence to separate ourselves from our cross-town rivals!

Here's a little summary:

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Hopefully we can boost that reputation! But I love how much of a blank canvas this club is, open to me molding it however I please.

The club also has an U21s, U19s and a reserve team named DUSS-Ternopil. I'll use this infrastructure to my advantage whilst growing my youth players :)


So! Another year of FM kicks off and so does another story :p Hopefully this'll last a long as a long term save as it had the potential to be great. Next update will be pre-season...​
 
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FC Ternopil

Pre-season 15/16 Season

One of the first emails I received was ofcourse about season expectations for the months ahead. It's very clear cut how everyone sees this club, they all see us as going down, even our own board :p

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That budget is so poor but more or less expected as a club of our stature. The first thing I noticed was that the squad was very threadbare in some positions. I immediately hit the free transfer section of scouting and, with no scouts on the payroll, I had to use my personal opinion on whether the players attributes were good enough for the squad. I actually managed to find a few 3+ starred players so I'm very pleased with my dealings.

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Not a single penny spent! We also had no outs.

This is what the squad looked like by the end of pre-season.

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I was very happy with my end product. I had some above average players for the league, but still ended up quite thin at both full back and winger positions. Injuries could destroy any attempt of achieving above expectations.

Here's how the team performed during the friendlies. Not all transfer dealings were done before the start of the season.

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If pre-season suggests anything it's that we should look out for Igor Sorots'kyi throughout the season as he was absolutely on fire during the friendlies scoring 10 goals in 5 games!


We sell 600 season tickets for the season which shows there's definitely room for future growth...




​
 
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FC Ternopil

July and August 15/16

The season kicks off!

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The season started with a hard earned point away from home which I thought would set the tone for the rest of the season... boy was I wrong!
We then went onto a 7 game winning streak including a win coming from 1-0 down to score in the 83rd and 92nd minutes to win the game.
We then got knocked back down to Earth with a 3-0 loss and then knocked out the cup by a top 3 Ukrainian Premier side.
We then earn another hard earned point and then another 2-1 comeback win rounds up the update.

So after the unexpected string of results here's how the league looks:

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What a start! 6 points clear already, but I don't think we can be comfortable yet, especially with only one way of promotion to the Premier Division.


​
 
Sounds interesting mate, gonna be a long road to the top.
Good start to the season, fingers crossed you can keep it up.

Ill be following.
 
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FC Ternopil

September, October and November 15/16

So after our fast start, could we maintain the pace?

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We shot straight back down to earth after a 3-1 home loss to title challengers Zirka and followed that up with a disappointing collapse away from home.
These two results forced me into a tactical change from our original 4-4-2 into a 3-1-3-3 DM Asymmetric which showed instance results as we won two games and home and a grabbed a hard earned point away.
This new tactic isn't very defensively based already, let alone when a game comes along when all my players are tired, as was the case against Cherkaskyi leading to a horrible to watch 4-1 loss.
After that we then played high flyers Illichevets two days later and struggled to gain a point.
14 day rest after that and we grabbed an amazing point against Dynamo Kyiv's reserve team which is filled with players too good for the league.
The pre-winter break season was then topped off with a good home win and nicely earned point away from home.

A much more challenging and therefore enjoyable month!

Are we still 1st?

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Yes we are! As you can see by the previous positions stat though we did bounce around a bit. This league is so tight with four teams within one win of us! As well as the top being tight, so is the relegation battle! Wow, this league is fun to play, all the teams are so even!
​
 
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FC Ternopil

March, April and May 2016

The conclusion to the season

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So after the winter break we really re-found our early season form.
The league was incredibly tight with 5 teams viable to win the title within the last 3 games!
A 3-0 win of Girnyk Kryvyi Rih (who were 1st at the time) propelled us into first.
We then absolutely bottled jobbed it and drew and lost either side of a friendly that kept fitness.
Really disappointed to how we ended the season...

So...

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We won the ****** league!!!

I thought we'd surely lost the title when we lost on the last day but two teams lost and the other drew who were closely following me which meant we still won the title!
Predicted bottom at the start of the season we've overcome all expectations!

Couldn't be happier as our finances were so poor as we gambled on some players to get us promoted.

Woo!!!!!!!!!!!

More good news...

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Semenov broke into the first team after arriving in the intake in February, making 7 starts and acumalating 2 goals and 2 assists on the way to winning the title!

Can't believe we've already produced what could be a star in the future!

I'm hoping that playing him in the big league on a semi-frequent basis could really propel his development :)

Here's the end of season stats

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The stats speak for themselves and really show who our best players were with the exception of Vasyl Chornyi who didn't show too much skill

In other news our junior coaching budget was increased to an average level!​
 
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FC Ternopil

Pre-season 16/17

Pre-season fixtures

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We face our first non-Ukrainian team in AEK from Greece and earn a satisfying draw. Really proud of the team.
We then do what i do during pre-season and winter breaks and play all the local teams in an attempt to build the fan base. I used my contain tactic by accident hence why the scorelines are so low :p

Transfers! Busy busy busy...

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and here they are in order as seen in the screenshot!

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Summary: We really up scaled the engine room and wings with the transfer business. We basically upgraded every single position, and as I extended the first XI from last year, we now have two whole XI's that can be competitive.​
 
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FC Ternopil

July and August 2016

First couple of months in the big leagues, this is how they unfolded...

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A pretty tough fixture list to start our Premier League campaign. Metalist away is always gonna be a tough ask, and we collapsed as expected. However, we managed an amazing point against Zorya who had earned they're place in the Europa League so definitely one of Ukraine's top sides.
After those two games we faced 1st placed Stal Dn at home and put up a heroic performance but couldn't see it thorugh unfortunately. Shakhtar were up next, away, and again we put up a good fight but they scored right before half time and then again in extra time to give us that moral blow.
Against Volyn we should've got a point, but again we put in a good performance.
Then it was the cup against our old First Division adversaries, I played our old First Division XI and got a good 2-0 away win.
We carried that momentum into Vorskla away and earned our second point.

Here's the league

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As you can see there's only one relegation spot so all we have to do this season is not be the worst team :p
Zorya's Europa League qualifying campaign has really taken it's toll on there league form as they're even worse than us! I'd really love to get a win or two in the next couple of months...

More transfer news...

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Excited for this guy to come and join us in the winter transfer window... Has bags of pace and years to improve. He should be a nice coup for the club at £0 :p​
 
Love stories that are a challenge - and when you've built something you feel great. I really hope this proves successful, and I'm sure it will!
 
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FC Ternopil

Spetember, October and November 16/17
Did we improve our form?

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We really improved on our form through September! Winning three straight games in the league putting in really good counter-attacking performances. I thought it'd be a short stint of happiness after the 4-1 loss to Dnipro but we then went on to win another two which really helped our league position. An unfortunate loss in the cup devastated morale and this showed as we lost 4 games in a row, albeit to pretty tough opposition.

So after an up and down few months

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8 points clear of relegation is music to my ears at this point. With three teams below us it leaves us in a comfortable position with 10 games left. I think 3 more wins should keep us safe.


​
 
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FC Ternopil

Winter break 16/17

The friendlies

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Shocking results really, I have no idea what happened to our team. I mean we struggled to win against one youth setup and then lost to another...
On the bright side our new signing from Zambia scored in every single game! High hopes.

Youth intake

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Two players with pretty high potential, however their personalities indicate they won't amount to much so I don't expect anything from them. Disappointing :(​
 
Good story so far with some great success. Ukraine looks like a fun place to manage. Short season and only 1 relegated. Might give the league a try this year for an long term, small country save (did Maribor in Slovenia on 2014).

Get some tutors for those young guys and perhaps they will rub off on them. Show them how to be professionals so they can reach their potential.
 
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FC Ternopil

March, April and May 16/17

So the conclusion to our first season in the Premier League!

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We entered the winter break on a horrendous streak in the league and that looked set to continue as we lose our first two games.
We bounce back from that with back to back wins at home and then away against a bottom table side. Next we got a bore draw at home and then a worying barren spell where we scored no goals in 3 games and picked up one point.
However we did get the 3 wins which i suggested earlier would keep us safe...

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Wow! Tenth is an amazing finish to me as we were looked at as certainties to go down. We put up some good battles and executed a good counter attacking tactic throughout the season. Obviously there were ups and downs but in the end I'm delighted.

It's now been 25 years since someone other than Shakhtar or Dynamo Kyiv won the league and that doesn't look set to change... for now :p

Here's the highlighted stats.

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Quite shocking how our top assist man only had 4 assists... although a silver lining is that it's our homegrown product from last season. Still though, that is so so so so poor.

Looking forward to next season where I'll be looking to improve on our league position...​
 
Great first season in the top flight mate. Hopefully some additions in the summer and you can improve on tenth position. Good luck. :)
 
Great effort in your first season, surviving quite convincingly.
Good luck in the years to come, I can't wait to see you fighting it out with Shahkter and Dynamo Kyiv for the league title!
 
AndySams10 said:
Great first season in the top flight mate. Hopefully some additions in the summer and you can improve on tenth position. Good luck. :)
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Cheers! Yeah I'm really proud of getting tenth. As you'll see in the next update we make a few changes to the squad!

th3king said:
Great effort in your first season, surviving quite convincingly.
Good luck in the years to come, I can't wait to see you fighting it out with Shahkter and Dynamo Kyiv for the league title!
Click to expand...

Thanks for following! Yeah I'm looking forward to being contenders! Although i'm really loving battling it out in the lower part of the league, it's very satisfying
 
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