misterioBean
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- Feb 19, 2015
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Hello everyone!
Recently my computer suffered some big damage in some of its components and I basically had to replace pretty much everything. I had my second computer in hand but unfortunately my Pentagon Challenge had to come to an end because I lost all the progress I made since the last udpate a few weeks ago. I also had an increase in my work schedule so I was not able to start a new save properly. Now I have more time again and am ready to give it another go.
Youth to Gold
As I stated before, this is my favourite save to do in FM but I was avoiding it because there's only one team in the game in which I have fun while doing it and it's the team I support: Vitória SC.
After a lot of thought, I decided to do it again and share it just because I really enjoy doing this type of save and sharing my progress with everyone.
I hope you can enjoy it.
The Good
Even though I shared it before, this time I want to change some aspects of my approach.
This time, I'll add a bit of realism to it. What does that mean exactly? Well I'll have to dig into some season stats to explain it.
Firstly, Vitória is doing an exceptional season this year.
When you look at the league table it doesn't seem that impressive, but if you follow the Portuguese League you probably know this is a lot different than any other recent year.
Vitória SC currently sits in 5th place with 60 points and 2 games left in the season just 5 points behind 4th place and fierce rivals SC Braga and already qualified for the Conference League. However, just last season for instance we finished 6th with a 21 point gap to the 4th place and it doesn't really look better when you look at previous seasons.
We are also only 3 points away of having our best season ever, our current record is 62 points.
However, this is probably the only good thing going for us at the moment.
The Bad
Well where should I start...
The current board had a signed agreement with VSports, the same company who owns Aston Vila, in which they bouth 46% of the club's actions for 5,5m€ and an extra 2m investment to improve the club's infrastructures. It also included the possibility to make a 20m loan if the club needed it.
It looks like a pretty great deal on paper right? And it actually is... or at least would be if UEFA didn't freeze the funds and basically put a hold on the whole deal.
In addition to that, the club's finances are not doing great as well, as the board publically announced multiple times throughout the season and enphasizing the need to sell players every window to balance out the budgets.
When the winter transfer window opened, the president António Miguel Cardoso said the club had to sell players on that window to ensure the future success.
We sold André Silva to São Paulo for 4m, Dani Silva to Hellas Verona for around 1.7m, Alisson Safira to Santa Clara for 500k and Hélder Sá to Rio Ave on a free transfer. It was also confirmed Matheus Indio was leaving the club at the end of the season and stay at the club he was loaned at and Nélson da Luz was loaned out to China where he will also stay at the end of that deal.
Of all the business there were only 2 transfers that really upset the supporters. The first one was selling Dani Silva, a 23 year old midfielder who showed a lot of quality and potential for a small fee. But the worst was definitely André Silva. Let me explain: he was our top scorer in the league, having scored 13 goals before eventually moving out the club, but the main reason everyone was upset was also the transfer fee. André Silva was signed last season for 2m€ + 2m€ after a few games and scoring his first goal, so basically 4m€ for 70% or 80% of the player if I'm not mistaken.
This was also on a time the club, according to the board, needed money and couldn't spend it to ensure the club's future.
We then sell him for the exact same amount of money and didn't even get it all because we didn't own the full rights of the player, so we ended up losing money on him.
Does it make sense to you?
The Ugly
One of the reasons for the amazing season we are having is the club manager Álvaro Pacheco, who joined the club in October as the 3rd manager of the season... yes, 3rd in just 2 months. When he signed his contract, the club only had 3 wins in 7 games, counting with 3 defeats and a draw.
After that, everything changed. The players looked different and started playing like they were supposed to. He didn't change the tactics, he just knew how to speak and explain the players what he wanted to see on the pitch and it really showed good signs. We even went 9 games with no losses from November to January.
Unfortunately, things started to go downhill in the last month.
In the last 8 games we only won 3. Don't get me wrong, this was not an easy month by any means. I mean facing Porto 3 times in 2 weeks and straight after that facing Sporting who were later crowned Portuguese Champions is harsh, specially when there was a chance for the team to accomplish the 3rd place if we won all our games after the Sporting fixture.
Furthermore, it was made public that Álvaro Pacheco travelled to Lisbon and had a meeting with a Brazilian team to evaluate the possibility of a move there, which was later confirmed by him and the board, who both told different stories:
According to the manager, he had already said no to the Brazilian side but they insisted on at least proposing a deal, so he warned the president and attended the meeting, to which he said no.
On the other hand, the board claims they were not aware of this meeting and were very upset with the Portuguese manager. A couple of days later, it was announced that the board decided Álvaro Pacheco won't be the club's manager next season.
As if that wasn't enough to take a beating on the team's morale, the Portuguese press is known for trying to cause instability on the "smaller" clubs and this year was not an exception. There started to be rumours about players causing trouble during training (which was denied by the club very quickly) and of players being scouted by other teams.
It all culminated on a very poor performance against Rio Ave and another loss for the team, which kil*ed every dream of finishing 3rd and complicated the fight for the 4th place.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there's a lot of instability at the club right now.
Yes we already guaranteed a place in an European competition, but next season the need to sell players will still exist and everyone knows who the main targets to sell are.
I'll be going into more detail about players and tactics in the first in-game post.
This was purely an introduction to the save and I'll explain the main objectives and how I'll try to keep the save a bit more realistic.
Recently my computer suffered some big damage in some of its components and I basically had to replace pretty much everything. I had my second computer in hand but unfortunately my Pentagon Challenge had to come to an end because I lost all the progress I made since the last udpate a few weeks ago. I also had an increase in my work schedule so I was not able to start a new save properly. Now I have more time again and am ready to give it another go.
Youth to Gold
As I stated before, this is my favourite save to do in FM but I was avoiding it because there's only one team in the game in which I have fun while doing it and it's the team I support: Vitória SC.
After a lot of thought, I decided to do it again and share it just because I really enjoy doing this type of save and sharing my progress with everyone.
I hope you can enjoy it.
The Good
Even though I shared it before, this time I want to change some aspects of my approach.
This time, I'll add a bit of realism to it. What does that mean exactly? Well I'll have to dig into some season stats to explain it.
Firstly, Vitória is doing an exceptional season this year.
When you look at the league table it doesn't seem that impressive, but if you follow the Portuguese League you probably know this is a lot different than any other recent year.
Vitória SC currently sits in 5th place with 60 points and 2 games left in the season just 5 points behind 4th place and fierce rivals SC Braga and already qualified for the Conference League. However, just last season for instance we finished 6th with a 21 point gap to the 4th place and it doesn't really look better when you look at previous seasons.
We are also only 3 points away of having our best season ever, our current record is 62 points.
However, this is probably the only good thing going for us at the moment.
The Bad
Well where should I start...
The current board had a signed agreement with VSports, the same company who owns Aston Vila, in which they bouth 46% of the club's actions for 5,5m€ and an extra 2m investment to improve the club's infrastructures. It also included the possibility to make a 20m loan if the club needed it.
It looks like a pretty great deal on paper right? And it actually is... or at least would be if UEFA didn't freeze the funds and basically put a hold on the whole deal.
In addition to that, the club's finances are not doing great as well, as the board publically announced multiple times throughout the season and enphasizing the need to sell players every window to balance out the budgets.
When the winter transfer window opened, the president António Miguel Cardoso said the club had to sell players on that window to ensure the future success.
We sold André Silva to São Paulo for 4m, Dani Silva to Hellas Verona for around 1.7m, Alisson Safira to Santa Clara for 500k and Hélder Sá to Rio Ave on a free transfer. It was also confirmed Matheus Indio was leaving the club at the end of the season and stay at the club he was loaned at and Nélson da Luz was loaned out to China where he will also stay at the end of that deal.
Of all the business there were only 2 transfers that really upset the supporters. The first one was selling Dani Silva, a 23 year old midfielder who showed a lot of quality and potential for a small fee. But the worst was definitely André Silva. Let me explain: he was our top scorer in the league, having scored 13 goals before eventually moving out the club, but the main reason everyone was upset was also the transfer fee. André Silva was signed last season for 2m€ + 2m€ after a few games and scoring his first goal, so basically 4m€ for 70% or 80% of the player if I'm not mistaken.
This was also on a time the club, according to the board, needed money and couldn't spend it to ensure the club's future.
We then sell him for the exact same amount of money and didn't even get it all because we didn't own the full rights of the player, so we ended up losing money on him.
Does it make sense to you?
The Ugly
One of the reasons for the amazing season we are having is the club manager Álvaro Pacheco, who joined the club in October as the 3rd manager of the season... yes, 3rd in just 2 months. When he signed his contract, the club only had 3 wins in 7 games, counting with 3 defeats and a draw.
After that, everything changed. The players looked different and started playing like they were supposed to. He didn't change the tactics, he just knew how to speak and explain the players what he wanted to see on the pitch and it really showed good signs. We even went 9 games with no losses from November to January.
Unfortunately, things started to go downhill in the last month.
In the last 8 games we only won 3. Don't get me wrong, this was not an easy month by any means. I mean facing Porto 3 times in 2 weeks and straight after that facing Sporting who were later crowned Portuguese Champions is harsh, specially when there was a chance for the team to accomplish the 3rd place if we won all our games after the Sporting fixture.
Furthermore, it was made public that Álvaro Pacheco travelled to Lisbon and had a meeting with a Brazilian team to evaluate the possibility of a move there, which was later confirmed by him and the board, who both told different stories:
According to the manager, he had already said no to the Brazilian side but they insisted on at least proposing a deal, so he warned the president and attended the meeting, to which he said no.
On the other hand, the board claims they were not aware of this meeting and were very upset with the Portuguese manager. A couple of days later, it was announced that the board decided Álvaro Pacheco won't be the club's manager next season.
As if that wasn't enough to take a beating on the team's morale, the Portuguese press is known for trying to cause instability on the "smaller" clubs and this year was not an exception. There started to be rumours about players causing trouble during training (which was denied by the club very quickly) and of players being scouted by other teams.
It all culminated on a very poor performance against Rio Ave and another loss for the team, which kil*ed every dream of finishing 3rd and complicated the fight for the 4th place.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there's a lot of instability at the club right now.
Yes we already guaranteed a place in an European competition, but next season the need to sell players will still exist and everyone knows who the main targets to sell are.
I'll be going into more detail about players and tactics in the first in-game post.
This was purely an introduction to the save and I'll explain the main objectives and how I'll try to keep the save a bit more realistic.
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