Full Time

[TheWriter]

Ok guys, I have started a few (probably too many) new saves of late, I've basically been playing FM most of my days (I've had a few issues, no detail required) and I've now decided I'm bored of that. It's time to have one save and to go full out on trying to go as far as I can on it. As a result, I've loaded up FMC and I'm going to first attempt the pentagon challenge.

The only 2 leagues I have loaded at the start are South Africa and Indonesia and I have been given a cracking opportunity for my first job!

Persiba Bantul

So having started unemployed, I applied for all of the jobs. Amazingly, despite my sunday league reputation, a Super League team came along. The Indonesia Super League is the top tier in Indonesia so that's why I feel it's such a fantastic opportunity. Sure, I won't get the fulfilment of getting a team from the bottom to the top and then winning the continental competition, but I find this route far more interesting and I think it's more realistic personally. The team is pretty poor and they're predicted 20th of 22 teams. The bottom 4 go down so this could be quite the difficult challenge in keeping them up, at least on paper.

So, the journey starts here! I'm excited!

 

[TheWriter]

Season #001
Persiba Bantul


Media Prediction: 20th
Operating Status: Semi-Professional


Transfers:

With a squad predicted to finish in the relegation places, and one which was very thin on numbers (15), I knew that I had to bring in a lot of knew players, both young and old. I am fairly content with all of the acquisitions as they all played pretty **** well over the season and those brought in for cover meant that we rarely had to play anyone out of position.


Competitions:


League Table

Survival turned out to be quite a bit easier than had been expected by all parties. We were pretty strong and had a solid start to the season just after an early blip. We dropped off of the pace a bit towards the end and I put that mainly down to the away form. As you can see by the "combined" table (I used this to show my point so I apologise if it's a tad confusing) our away form was pretty dire and if we had performed better on the road we'd probably be talking about a miraculous season. I'm pretty impressed with how close the league was too, with us finishing halfway down the table but only 11 points from the summit, it's very encouraging for me as that's not too large a gap to bridge, that's why I wish to get the away form running better in my second season.


Indonesian Cup

Third Round

I apologise for no screenshot here but there's just far too many teams in the first round to show as a tree which is the least convoluted way to portray it. We ended up being knocked out in the third round by Persiba who were in turn knocked out by the finalists, so I'm fairly happy but will be looking to progress further next year as long as we do not come up against any big sides on our way there, but the saying goes, after all, "you have to beat the best to be the best".



End of Season Confidence:

The board, as you can see, where very happy with the season and the profit the club has made is pretty significant, with us turning over around ?950k in one year! I'm pretty pleased with that to be honest and hopefully the board will consider turning the club professional in the coming seasons.


Overall Summary:

I'm happy with the season and how it went. I made about 6-7 tactical changes throughout the year, some tinkers, some reformats, but I just couldn't quite get the right one working for long enough to get a really good run going after our first one in the early stages of the season. I'm hoping next year we will be both more consistent as well as improving our pretty appalling away form. Onwards and upwards (I hope)!
​

 

[TheWriter]

Season #002
Persiba Bantul


Media Prediction: 16th
Operating Status: Semi-Professional


News:

Ok, so the second season was pretty poor, and when I say that, I mean we were floating in the relegation places. To my surprise, the league was cut to 20 teams but still maintained 4 relegation spots. We were struggling to find any sort of form and the board were growing impatient. As a result, I took a look at some available jobs elsewhere and saw one that was not in the lower Singaporean tiers, Golden Arrows who had just finished their domestic season. Now before I go into depth with them, here is the table at the end of my Persiba Bantul career.


League Table:

The New Job:

So I have already revealed that I shall be joining Golden Arrows but it was actually a little bit of an odd one to get. At first I applied and was given an ultimatum. I read the article talking about my interest, which said I was not considered an option for the job and apologised to my board. I then just continued on as though nothing would come of it, that is until a couple of days later I find an email saying that the team are in fact flattered by my interest, the only thing stopping them would be the compensation. Immediately, I eliminated that factor, resigned, and continued. Sure enough, they offered me the job on the same day and I am now off to South Africa! Now I'm not expecting an easy journey here, especially with the team sitting in the second tier, however I've had a save recently in South Africa and I loved it. Here is the table for the end of the second season in SA!


South African National First Division League Table:

The Task:

So it seems the board won't take failure to be promoted lightly, and I'm more than ok with that, that shows ambition and determination to get the right man in to do the job. I've only been offered a 1 year deal which is a concern but I'm fairly sure that I can at least grab a play-off spot. Again, the league looks very tight so every match and every game matters, hopefully we'll be able to find and maintain some form, one of the golden issues of this installation of FM for me thus far. The second season didn't exactly go to plan, but I'm here in a different climate ready for a new beginning in Africa!
​

 

[TheWriter]

Season #003
Golden Arrows


Media Prediction: 2nd
Operating Status: Professional


Youth Candidates:
Danie Mzimela

This lad was said to be one of the best to have come through the youth ranks in quite some time and my God is he! His stats were pretty **** high for the league and club and with 16 determination I just knew what I had to do. So immediately, he was placed into the first team and I did not regret that decision for a moment!

As you can see, a fantastic record of assists for a 16/17 year old in their first season. At one point he was on 18 in 16 but in the second half of the season he became a bit different and instead started hitting the goals for himself, I'm not overly concerned. Now obviously, this kind of form and this kind of player was going to draw attention...

This, I had hoped, would stop bids, but one Qatari team didn't know their limit and went for a ?2.4m bid (clauses included). Now, we're not in a fit financial state as a club, in fact we're in the red, so it's a pretty nervy time to have such a prospect and such bids coming in for him. I am hoping the board stay on side and keep him here, I want a lot for him as he's been simply instrumental thus far. I'm hoping, really, that I can keep him here for all of my time here, building him into somewhat of an icon for both South Africa and the club, 1,000 games would be pretty satisfying to see a player hit, 500 goals, 500 assists, all within the question in my honest opinion. I just hope he stays fit and on course to be a quality player!


Andile Gaxa

I'll be honest, I didn't actually find this guy until I just so happened to see him called up to replace an injured squad member for the SA youths. I clicked on him and my reaction was to immediately place him in the first team too. Only a few games remained in the season though and all had been decided, so I opted to save him for next season, I don't want too much interest to be raised in another top talent!



A Happy Moment

Well, halfway through the season I got this little message, one which I hope to be the first landmark of many during this save! 100 games is a pretty nice feat in my opinion.



League Table

Whoever predicted us second I apologise, what a cracking season it was for us. We started incredibly and going into the half-season break were 13-0-1 in form and cruising to the title. Despite picking up a couple of losses and a draw, a very satisfying first trophy coming in the shape of the South African First Division title, a 20 point advantage over second.


Cup

I seem to have some kind of unlucky misfortune spell upon myself in the Cup, we were knocked out 1-0 by Dynamos in the preliminary round. Next year I'm going to be focusing on having a good Cup run to aid the financial situation and to see how far we can go!



End of Season Confidence

A good season all in all and the board are pretty happy with most of the aspects of our season. My wage control has been a little out of hand, ?600 over our budgeted ?18,000 but I feel that it was necessary for this season for numerous reasons. Next year we have a couple of players leaving on frees unfortunately, but none of them are irreplaceable and nor do I think that it could stop us from performing well next year. We won't have much of a budget but I am fairly sure that the team from this year is already good enough to be putting in good performances in the top tier of South Africa next term. As I mentioned above, I'll be hoping for a decent Cup run next year to aid the financial situation and I'll also be hoping to finish around 8-10th in the League, both of which I feel are challenging but definitely doable. One trophy down, a whole lot more to come I'd like to think! ​

 

[TheWriter]

Season #004
Golden Arrows


Media Prediction: 13th


Transfers:

With the finances as woeful as I have been explaining, I had no room to make any signings. We managed to stay below our wage bill though this season thanks to a few players not wanting to sign deals, this meant we finished the season with quite a nice profit! I had numerous offers for Mzimela, the most PSV would offer though was ?4,700,000 and I wanted around ?6-7.5 so I didn't let them get the better of me. If I do sell up now though I'll definitely be looking for more in the region of ?7.5M as he has had another good season.


Cups:

Our second piece of silverware came in the form of the Knockout Cup, surprise winners I must say, but we didn't face too many of the bigger sides so a fairly comfortable cup win. Unfortunately we couldn't really do much in the Cup that offers a continental place, the South African Cup. We were knocked out in the first round in disappointing circumstances. Hopefully next year that'll be the cup we do well in, although any good cup run is a good thing for us.


A New Job?

I'm starting to think I put my reputation to automatic as I've managed to seal myself a national job. Which one you ask?

That's right. With the strike force of Dongou I couldn't resist, they also have the likes of Bassong, Song, N'Koulou to mention just a few more. Here's how we're getting on (I've played 3 of the games) in the World Cup Qualifiers!

So we're qualified for the knockout play-off, who we'll face we'll find out soon, in the next update I may well have a World Cup to give you details on!! Exciting times!


League Table

As you can see, we finished around about where I was expecting us to, without signing a single player. Our away form is still woeful but through the new pre-season I'm working hard on trying to find a solution to that issue. It seems we just falter far too easily, and we've started to drop a few home points too against the big teams so I'm taking a look into that as well. Hopefully next year we can be pushing for a top half position, I'm hoping around 6-8th will be possible. We probably won't have much money but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the players I currently have stick around for the ride.


Mzimela - Player of the Season (Again)

As I mentioned earlier I have had to turn away quite a few reputable European teams but he's still happy and he's still putting in some quite magnificent performances. I'm very happy with his progress too, some of his stats increasing by as much as 3 and his overall attributes just looking like he's going to be the next big African star. I hope to keep hold of him for at least the upcoming season, though if my ?7,500,000 valuation of him is met, I will let him go, though will look for some clauses such as a loan back and maybe even some profit off of the next sale.


End of Season Confidence Review

We have ourselves a new chairman! He first wanted to get rid of me, but one game (a 0-0 draw) later, he decided I was good enough and a few days later offered me a 2-year contract which I accepted. They're not too disheartened by the finances but I really should be looking to take better care of them now.



Summary

Well it has been a quite incredible year with my grabbing the Cameroon job and quite possibly off to the World Cup in Russia in 2018. On the domestic front we had a pretty good year, living up to my standards. I'm hoping that next year we can build on these set foundations and look to start moving up the table, with hopefully some tactical adjustments paying dividends and pushing us up the table.
​

 

[Athe~]

I can't believe there's a football team named "***** Padang". Sounds like cheap ****.

 

[Maximus94]

Love the really obscure teams. How can you play 4 seasons in a day!?

 

[RaeHurlock]

good story man

 

[TheWriter]

I can't believe there's a football team named "***** Padang". Sounds like cheap ****.

Practically what I thought when I saw their name haha! Fantastic eh?!

Love the really obscure teams. How can you play 4 seasons in a day!?

Well I had finished the first season already but I like playing at a fast rate, keeps me interested, I usually do a season every sit in, perhaps one maybe two breaks for a cuppa. I just don't have much else on my plate right now (apart from Uni, training and whole other stuff that I should be doing but can't be bothered)

good story man

Thanks Glad you're enjoying!

 

[stokecfc10]

this is class