[FM20] - José de Sá. A journeyman's tale

[josel]

Hello everyone and welcome to my journeyman save.
As you seen, my name is José de Sá, a manager hailing from Portugal, and the objective is to go from zero to hero. To do that I started a save with no licences and previous footablling experience. I don't keep it realistic in the sense that some of the moves don't make sense, because a portuguese wouldn't go to some of the leagues I loaded (at least without a guaranteed "normal" job).
The main goal is to coach one of my top4 favourite teams, Arsenal, Athletic Bilbao, Benfica or Roma. That would be the endgame.

So before I post my first job, let me just post my profile in terms of stats.
So...this is me

And this are my stats

Lots of 1's, a few 2's and a few 3's. Not ideal, not ideal at all.
Not that you can recognize me, the next post will be the presentation to the team I am managing.
See you next episode.​

 

[josel]

Chapter 1. AFK Linköping

So. This is the first team of my experience. The board expectations were simple. Try to avoid relegation, which I said "Easy fam".
Although the board expectations where to avoid relegation, the media expectations where this.

Well...not ideal.
Still knowing there were difficulties I went to see the scheduling.

oof

I procedeed to take a look at the squad.

Balance? What is balance? With an exquisite 7 natural central defenders, 6 central midfielder, three strikers, and absolutely no one who can play on the wings (bar Hellman and Grändas who I promoted) I think the system will be pretty much obvious.
ENTER THE 5-3-2. Although the board wanted me to play in 4-2-3-1, ok.

The next post will bring the rest of July.​

 

[josel]

Chapter 1.1. AFK Linköping - July 2019

The rest of july brought us three games. Two at home and one away.
The first one would be the perfect one to try to turn this season around. We received the team immediately in front of us, Södertälje FK.

14/07/19 at 15:00

It wasn't just meant to be. Both teams played well, both teams had clear cut chances, send balls to the posts, but the luck of the game went to Södertälje, with Mattias Mete escaping one of our centre backs and slotting it into the bottom corner without chance to Ben Salah, our keeper. Until the end our team tried everything but couldn't score, with full time signaling 0-1 in favour of the visitors.

The next game was away against a team that was confortably mid table, Newroz FC.

20/07/2019 at 15:00

An easy win for Newroz, where we had a few chances to score but didn't and they started pretty well, kept control of possession and in the second half killed the game pretty quickly. Our tries to attack their goal didn't work aswell, consisting of long balls who were cleaned by their defense.

The last game of july and the last game of this post was against the leaders, Enskede IK. A must win game for both of us, but especially for us, who are desperate for a win.


27/07/2019 at 15:00

So... we got a draw. Against the league leaders. If it makes any sense. A good game at our stadium. A good defensive display of ours while Enskede offensive players where more dedicated to train their shooting habilities with our players bodies. Crazy. Still when they got in front I thought "Sh*t, we won't win". But Haider Ibrahim did a Luis Suárez and scored a header from the entrance of the box and we celebrated like we just won promotion. When full time happened, the 24 people in the stadium just celebrated like mad men. It was beautiful.

After our last game I went to the board and said that after the season ends I will be leaving.

This ends the month of july and tomorrow there will be the post with August, where we play the 12th place, 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th and 10th place.

​

 

[josel]

Chapter 1.2. AFK Linköping - August 2019

As we've seen last post we will have 5 games. 2 away and 3 at home. Let's do it.
We first started against the twelfth place Tiresö FF.

03/08/2019 at 15:00

Well, this doesn't help us. Tiresö wanted to settle the game early and they did it. We started to get more iniciative around the 30 minute mark, but after half time and at 54 minutes Hezha Agai took away any questions that could be about the result.

Next match brought us the second place Motala AIF. An home game would be the perfect way for us to try and make a surprise like against Enskede IK.

11/08/2019 at 15:00

Heartbreaking. We were playing extremely well, got a few chances but in the last 15 minutes we just capitulated. At 79 minutes our team just allowed a penalty and the next shot was a goal aswell. Motala got confortable and tried to hit us on the break and that's when Daud Dirie cleared the ball into our own goal. I consoled the boys and said that the first 78 minutes were perfect.


The next match was at home, again, this time against third place Stockholm Internazionale. Another shot to setback a promotion chaser.

18/08/2019 at 15:00

A very, very, very bad game from us. This would officially make us relegated at the end of season. A bad first half from us dictated the game. After the game there were rumours that I would be fired, so I decided to quit AFK Linköping saving precious wages to the board, making me unemployed just 42 days after I was employed.
Let's take a look at this 42 days I've managed AFK Linköping.

I wouldn't say it's good. 6 games, 1 scored, 13 conceded, 1 draw and 5 losses. Awful.
Next post I'll show you the team I am managing right now.

(P.S.: Sorry for some prints like table position when I arrived being missing but I decided to write the story after already being on the second job. From this moment on it will be more professional!)
​

 

[josel]

Chapter 2. Rynninge IK

My journey has now led me to Rynninge IK, a team in Örebro. So, still in Sweden and in a higher tier division (even if just by one tier, but hey, it's improvement).
The meeting with the board was very straight forward. They said "Avoid relegation", I said "Let's do it". The season preview said we should be in 15th our of 16 teams and when I arrived we were 14th.
The schedule greeted us like this.

Not good. Not bad and we are still in touching reach of staying in our division, and besides that we come of a victory that for sure has lifted some spirits.

Our schedule for spetember looks like this.

A visit to 15th place Nyköpings, one of the easiest games we could have, followed by a home against the league leaders, and then a visit to the 6th place Gefle and 12th place IF Sylvia.
Let's do this.​

 

[josel]

Chapter 2.1. Rynning IK - September 2019

As you seen in my last post, the schedule would take us to have three away games and an home game against the first place.

07/09/2019 at 15:00

I shaped in a 4-4-2 to take advantage our best players, despite having no real playmaker in the middle, but with good central defenders, wingers and three really good strikers I thought this should be the way. Anderson Ponciano, has been, right until this moment, our best scorer, so I decided to take the gamble as a starter on him despite our assistant manager said he would be better of the bench. He was wrong, I was right and we won. An excelent debut (and finally a win for me) and an excelent exhibition for the lads in a game where Nyköpings where no match to us.

Next game would be against league leaders FK Linköping City, previously rivals of mine.

14/09/2019 at 15:00

Despite the score I am really proud of the boys. We were the better side, outshot them 14-6, had more possession (60-40), and they had one clear cut chance while we had none.
The game would have a fairer result if it was a draw, but it wasn't to be and we lost 2-0. Better days will come.

Following up, we would visit 6th place Gelfe.

21/09/2019 at 15:00

By far, our best game until now. Their goal was a fluke goal after our central defender, Mattias Florén (who already has a deal with another team for next season), made two bad passes in quick sucession, giving them two clear cut chances. Julio Cesar missed the first one, but banged the second one. But a 3-1 score flatters them, really. We had 18 shots to them 12. 2 balls on the woodwork to them 0. 6 clear cut chances to their 2. 2 half chances to them 0 and 57% possession to their 43%. We were pleased and this made us climb up the table to 12th place, a safe spot.

Next game would see us make another trip to take on IF Sylvia, who were 12th place in the beginning of the month, but were now 13th, just right behind us.

28/08/2019 at 15:00

We were so, so, so lucky this game. Our first two shots connected with the back of the net and then tried to manage the game, but even that almost backfired in the final 10 minutes, with Sylvia pressuring us each time a lot more. Still, glad to get 3 points. Also, has a bonus, we just moved to 9th in the table.

Before we look at how the table is at the moment, and our schedule for our last two matches (in October) let's recap this month.

3 wins and a loss against the league leaders. That is a pretty positive balance. I said before taking on the lads for the first game that 9 points would for sure assure we would stay in Division 1 Norra and that should be attainable right now, and of course, this is our goal and task.

Let's take a look at the table.

Karlsrunds IF already are relegated. I don't think we will be directly relegated, but we are in danger to go to the playoffs in 13th place, the place our last opponents IF Sylvia are.
This is the schedule for October.

A home game against the 4th place and a trip to 5th place. Not ideal to face Karlstad BK who are still looking to get promotion, and we hope Umea FC won't fight hard because they can't move up or down the table.
Next post will be October, then a season review, and in a few days we'll see how the pre-season went.​

 

[josel]

Chapter 2.2 Rynninge IK - October 2019

The last month of the campaign saw us fighting not to relegate, with just two games until the end.
The first one would be an home game against Karlstad BK.

05/10/2019 at 15:00

Don't be fooled. A very bad game from us defensively, where they had 10 chances to score, but only scored half of them and a game where our striker Jonathan Lundberg decided he want to fail to score all 1 on 1's and tap ins. The man of the match was Victor Edvardsen who went almost full Lewandowski.

The standings that were relevant to us before the last match greeted us like this.

If we get a point we will be safe.

12/10/2019 at 15:00

When Anderson Ponciano scored I thought we would be winning. Wasn't meant to be with two brainfarts from our defence in quick sucession dictated two goals for Umea FC. We tried to fight back, they were better with more shots but all wide and we missed a few golden chances.

Although we achieved of goal. We will stay in Division 1 Norra.

The 9 points obtained in the first month would prove vital, and as I thought, 9 points would be enough to keep afloat. The fans were happy, the board aswell, and I am happy aswell.
The games I took in charge were this.

Despite the 3 losses, and some defensive problems, it is a much better sight than my first job.


Next post will be the end of season review. There will be a post of the pre season, with the transfers and some players highlighted.
The official games will be back in april, so, half a year.​