Football Manager 2015 - The Road to Success
Hello all and welcome to my newest Football Manager story, 'The Road to Success'.
Throughout this adventure I will be attempting to book my place in the Hall of Fame while trying to be successful at every club I manage, it will be somewhat of a journeyman save where I try to win as much silverware as I can across the world of Football.
(Hopefully I can bag more silverware here than on my Newcastle United save)
About Myself
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My name is Alexander C. Werrett and I'm 20 years old (Although look 12), I've grown up in a town near Norwich since I was 4 years old and have since played Sunday League Football for my local team, an avid Football fan I know personally that I'll never become a coach, player or manager in the real world of the Sport, but why not create myself as my in-game manager, right?
I've decided to start this save as a Sunday League Football (As I am in real life) but with a Continental A License, it's not the best but it's not the worst..I'm somewhat of a wannabe AVB!
These badges will give me stats that look a little bit like this (With the emphasis on Tracksuit manager)
But enough about me, it's time to introduce you to my first club!
Throughout this adventure I will be attempting to book my place in the Hall of Fame while trying to be successful at every club I manage, it will be somewhat of a journeyman save where I try to win as much silverware as I can across the world of Football.
(Hopefully I can bag more silverware here than on my Newcastle United save)
About Myself
View attachment 305806
My name is Alexander C. Werrett and I'm 20 years old (Although look 12), I've grown up in a town near Norwich since I was 4 years old and have since played Sunday League Football for my local team, an avid Football fan I know personally that I'll never become a coach, player or manager in the real world of the Sport, but why not create myself as my in-game manager, right?
I've decided to start this save as a Sunday League Football (As I am in real life) but with a Continental A License, it's not the best but it's not the worst..I'm somewhat of a wannabe AVB!
These badges will give me stats that look a little bit like this (With the emphasis on Tracksuit manager)
But enough about me, it's time to introduce you to my first club!
Hajduk Split - Croatia
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That's right, I'll be starting my journeyman career with Croatian side Hajduk Split!
But who exactly are Hajduk Split?
Hajduk Split are a Croatian side who were founded in 1911, known as 'Bili' the club are home to a 35,000 capacity stadium known as the Poljud.
Known as one of the biggest clubs in Croatia, Hajduk have lately dropped off their perch and are long behind the freight-train that is Dinamo Zagreb, it has now been 9 years since Hajduk last tasted Title success and with Europa League Football to play the challenge has never been greater.
Hajduk Split share a fierce rivalry with Dinamo, Red Star Belgrade and Partizan.
The rivalry with Dinamo is known as the 'Eternal Derby' and has been around since 1946, with 198 official meetings between the two clubs, of which Dinamo have won 84.
Club History
Hajduk have enjoyed a lot of success over the years, with a title of 15 league titles. 9 of these were back in the Yugoslavian First League while the previous 6 have been in the Croatian top division.
Bili have also celebrated cup success 15 times, again with 9 being the Yugoslavian cup and 6 being the Croatian Cup.
Along with 6 Croatian Super-Cups it's not hard to see why Hajduk are considered such a successful club in Croatia.
Club Legends
Frane Matošic is regarded as Hajduk Split's greatest player of all time, born in Split he went on to score 211 official goals throughout his 3 spells at the club.
Following his playing career Frane went on to manage Hajduk Split for 2 years before returning in 1965 for a second stint as manager of the Croatian side.
But can we find the next Frane Matošic?
Justifying my Decision
You may be thinking, why did I choose Hajduk Split? To which I have a couple of answers.
First of all it's been 9 years since Hajduk last won a league title in Croatia, so this already gives me a small challenge, to dethrone Dinamo once and for all!
I'd also like to see Hajduk be in a poisition to sign quality players from around the World, not many players are attracted to Croatia and it would be nice to raise the co-efficient of the league in order to attract some of the bigger names.
Finally, I need to start somewhere small, somewhere I can build up my reputation as I look to become a force in the world of Football management, so I figured Croatia would be a good place to start as it's a good little competition, but at the same time there's plenty to aim for in terms of heights.
That's why I've chosen to move forward as Hajduk Split.
Expectations
The board have set me the expectations of qualifying for Europe vie the league, reaching the semi-final of the Croatian Cup along with staying competitive in the Europa League. But what are my personal objectives?
I want to re-format the entire club, by which I mean I want to part way with the unbalanaced players while keeping hold of the ones who can take this club forward.
Upon re-formatting the squad I'd also like to make changes to my backroom staff, the backroom staff currently at the club is poor and I believe we need much better coaches if we are to succeed in the long-term.
Finally I want to ensure that we secure Europa League/Champions League qualification for next season to help maintain a steady stream of cash to help the club to develop during my term.
The Tactic (Only one so far)
So the basic aim here is to play an attacking formation while remaining defensively sound. A bit of possession play to help build up some momentum but I'm still coming to terms with my squad (Due to my limited knowledge of Croatian Football) so I'm still tweaking around with the roles and instructions. If there's anything amiss here feel free to let me know below!
Pre-Season
Pre-Season was varied, I took over following the Hoffenheim game so I only played 2 friendlies with my tactics and philosophies, but they went fairly well. We only conceded 2 in 2 games so that's pleasing, just need to be a bit more comfortable on the ball, but we'll see how it goes!
Europa League Qualifying Thus Far
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So I may have played a few matches before deciding to turn this into a story, I can only apologise about that but as you can see we progressed past Sligo Rovers.
A disappointing home leg in which we drew 1-1, but with a need to bag a goal away from home we managed a 6-2 victory in what was an extremely exciting game.
Defensively we weren't great over the two legs, but it's still a work in progress!
18 year old Bosnian midfielder Ismar Hairlahovic bagged a hat-trick in the 6-2 away win to secure our place in the 3rd round of qualifying, a great performance from the former Red Bull Academy prospect.
We've now been drawn against Ukrainian side Zorya in the 3rd round of the Europa League qualifying, hopefully we can bring the win and qualify for the next round.
The League So Far
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Our first game of the season and coincidently my first ever Eternal Derby went well, we were up against a very strong Dinamo side and we held our own to equal the dominant side, ultimately earning a 1-1 draw.
Dinamo were much quicker to move the ball which is why we fouled them so much, but we're still working on our approach and I didn't realise we'd be playing against them so soon. So I'm happy with the result!
The Eternal Derby is among the most fierce in Football and has an atmosphere very similar to that of the Belgrade Derby, the atmosphere certainly played a part in this match!
Despite only bagging the winner late on, we were thoroughly deserving of this victory. The game itself was very stop and start with a total of 39 fouls but we played some great attacking Football, 22 shots with 9 of those on target which when paired with our great spells of possession gives me no doubts that we deserved to win this game.
Former Dynamo Kyiv forward Artem Milevskyi seized on an error from the Split defence to bag the 3 points for his new side, proper #9 play from the 30 year old.
Early days of course but here's how the 1. HNL looks after 2 matches, Dinamo in 7th eh? Wouldn't mind it if they stayed there!
Who'd have thought it, my first two matches in charge of Hajduk have both been derby matches, one fierce and one local, but we bagged 4 points from a possible 6 so I'm delighted with how we've started the year.
Time to crack on with the rest of the campaign!
Please leave any feedback, advice or comments down below!
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