Finland; Nordic Failures To Nordic Force

[FM_TNSSO]

The opening fixtures for the new season are announced and playing KuPS and HJK away from home in the opening 3 games is the toughest start we've had in the 3 seasons I've been here!

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The draw for the group stage of the Finnish Cup is also made! The competition will again kick off in January!

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Wow...the Directors must love me here! They've taken a cool £4 million for themselves as a bonus!!

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With our stature in the game rising, the commercial summary makes for good reading with all avenues of income into the club on the rise!

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I took some money off the transfer budget to enable me to increase the scouting budget for the upcoming season. Up until now, my scouts have only had authorisation to scout throughout Finland only, but now the money is there to look anywhere in Europe for new players!

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Tobias Molgaard will likely play a big part in our midfield next season after signing for £220k! His all round stats make him better than our current crop of players and he is a significant step up on our options available in the centre of the park! His work rate and teamwork stats stand out immediately, and he adds a bit of aggression to the side as well...I think I might have just signed our midfield hard man!

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My next signing will be a familiar name to most English football fans! Marvin Emnes had spells with Middlesbrough, Swansea and Blackburn before going out to play in the MLS. I've forked out £500k to bring him to Finland and he becomes our highest paid player on £4k per week, but this is a coup for the club and I'm hoping he can lead the line for us next season! He has the potential to rip this league apart and at the age of 31, we can still get a couple of solid seasons out of him yet!

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Next, I raided one of my Finnish Premier League rivals, RoPS, for one of their talented Finnish youngsters! I've spent £325k bringing 19 year old full back, Juho Hyvarinen, to the club and he'll predominantly play a backup role for now but could improve into a decent player over the next couple of seasons!

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Bolstering the centre back position was absolutely essential after losing Eero-Matti Auvinen at the end of the season. The man coming in to replace him is 24 year old Swede, Anton Liljenback! Looks solid enough to me!!

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My final transfer (for now) is a free bit of business. Versatile midfielder, Remi Johansen, will join and can play in the centre or down the right and will give us essential cover in both roles! Again, he has some great all round stats and could easily become a key member of our team!

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Bit of a summary now on my transfer business so far. I've tried to add a mix of players to the squad...We've gone for some real quality with the likes of Emnes and Saxman signing, whilst we have some good youth coming in with Konan and Hyvarinen! I've also made a concious effort to add Finnish players to the squad as I want to focus with the home grown talent as well! I've spent less than £2 million so far and for now there won't be anymore signings. I may bring in one or two more players before the league campaign kicks off in April, but for now I want to let these new crop of players bed into the squad and settle and take it from there! It still leaves me well over £7 million to spend and I still have £13k available in the wage budget as well!

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Unless CSKA Moscow could pull off a shock result against Juventus, then even a loss in our final Champions League group game would probably see us finish 3rd and make the Europa League knockout stages! Our game was at home to Portuguese giants, Benfica! And we gave them a really good game, as the stats suggest!

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And WE WON!!! This is by far and away my biggest achievement in a single game since I took over at the club and ensures we go into the Europa League, no matter what CSKA did against Juventus!

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CSKA did manage a draw against Juve in their final game, but our win over Benfica sees us finish ahead of them in 3rd! Europa League here we come!

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We get a massive tie in the Europa League and will play AS Roma! Probably going out, but it should be another great source of revenue for the club!

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[dporter8999]

Fantastic achievement winning the league AND making it into the Europa League! Some astute signings made there, hoping for another title win next season.

 

[NashBigginss]

QUALITY! Well done on back to back titles although getting into the Europa League is the biggest achievement! Unfourtunately I dont see you getting past Roma but at least youll get a healthy paycheck! Some good signings in there as well, i think the pick of the bunch is that Thierry Koffi Konan, looks an absolute steal

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

That Champions League money is mental!

 

[Brane_Orsou]

Congrats mate! Great result against Benfica as well! Contract not being extended seeing as keep only offering you 1 year deals??? Have you had any interest from other teams?

 

[FM_TNSSO]

dporter8999 - "Cheers mate...it would be great if we can complete 3 league titles in a row"

NashBigginss - "You was right about Roma mate. Haven't had a chance to have a look at young Koffi Konan in action just yet as he has been injured since joining the club, but I'm hoping he can go on to do big things here"

Hampus Silverholt - "I know right!!"

neavie pops23 - "The Benfica results has definitely been the best result of my career to date...totally unexpected! Contract news in this update mate...hadn't really thought about other teams but no there hasn't been any interest at all which (when I think about it) is quite surprising based on what I've achieved, but maybe it's confirmation of how far down the pecking order the Finnish leagues really are"

A new contract was put on the table for me and for once it's not a crappy 1 year deal! Considering the board gave themselves a £4 million bonus last month, it would have been nice to be given a hefty pay rise but I'm just glad to commit my future to the club for another 3 years!

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So now that all the new signings have joined, this is the squad I'm now playing with! I have sorted them in order of their ability rating just to justify my signings really...most of them appear in the top half of the list as the best players at the club!

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Our first game in the Finnish Cup saw 6 players make their debut and get off to a winning start! It was a perfect debut for Marvin Emnes who put in a man of the match performance with a goal and an assist!

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Two more wins in the Finnish Cup and although the team's football is not free flowing as they continue to settle in, we are getting the results which is the main thing!

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After 3 group games, we have already qualified for the knockout stages of the Finnish Cup! I now have a run of 20 games in the competition without defeat!

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I didn't realise that I have no real cover in the squad for left winger, Juha Hakola, so have moved to bring someone in! 23 year old Swedish winger, Andre Osterholm, joins us on loan for the season from Atletico Madrid.

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Roma were up next in the home leg of our Europa League tie. I really wanted us to just keep ourselves in the tie and at least give a glimmer of hope for the away leg in Italy. A big ask I know, but I had faith in my squad! 20 minutes in and we were playing well, dominating the possession against our superior opponents...

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By half time, Roma had started to dominate the game and shortly after the break, they broke the deadlock. Now please don't crumble lads...

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And they didn't and whilst we lost this game 1-0, there is absolutely no shame in this defeat at all!

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Unfortunately, the 2nd leg in Italy was a lot more comprehensive for Roma and they easily overcome us!

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One final cash windfall caps off a wonderful adventure this past 7 months in the European competitions. I'm so proud of my team and we've done ourselves so much justice and with an even better squad this season there's no reason why we can't qualify again this year!

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Even with the club forking out money to improve the facilities, the money I've spent on transfers and wages, increasing the scouting budget and not to mention the £4 million the board helped themselves to, we still have over £10 million left in the bank!!

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Two more wins in the cup and Samu Alanko and Marvin Emnes seem to be developing a decent partnership up front!

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We **** our group with a perfect record, whilst Keith '********' Armstrong's SJK fail to even qualify!

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And we'll take on the same side we beat on penalties in the semi final last year, in the next round!

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[FM_TNSSO]

Morning!! Bit of an update...I'm going to put this save on hold for a while. I'm keeping it on my PC and might come back to it at some point in which case I'll pick up this story again. However, I've completely lost all enthusiasm for it at the moment and there's several reasons why...

1. The league in Finland runs from April to October, meaning you have a 5 month gap every year to get through, where you might play a few cup games and a **** load of friendlies, but that period is so tedious to get through! Now that my board apparently see the cup as not important as well, it almost makes those games pretty pointless.

2. It's all been far too easy on the domestic side ever since I started the game. Winning back to back doubles in my first two seasons was totally unexpected but very easy! It takes the fun out of it when you literally never expect to lose and don't even really have to try to win....same formation, same tactic, no tinkering, nothing has been required really for me to win those titles...

3. Based on point number 2, I now feel like I am literally playing a whole year just to get to the Champions League games....so I'm playing about 50 games a season, but only really interested in about 12 (if we make the group stages that is).

4. I miss English football where I know a lot of players, all the clubs and playing in multiple competitions as well. And some of the lads on here are making me jealous with their lower league side stories, so I want to go back and give that another go!

5. I tried a different writing style here with less of a format to my usual structured game by game, month by month approach. I want to go back to the way I like to write as the writing side of this story has been less fun for me...I wanted to give something different a go and I'm glad I did, but I'm going to go back to my previous style.

If anyone would like my save file for this game, then I'm more than happy to upload it for someone to continue it! Just let me know! Like I said, I'm not deleting it and may come back to it at some point, but for now I'm returning to my home country of England to start a new journey with a National League South/North team in an attempt to take them to the top of the English game!

Finally, I hope I haven't let anyone down by stopping this story for now and I appreciate everyone that has followed and commented along the way. I hope you will continue to follow my new story!