Getting Back To The Top: Galatasaray

[goklemez]

The last time I played management game before FM 2011 was CM 01/02 3.9.68. If my mind doesn’t trick me, that was the last game before SI and Eidos broke up. After that game, I took a look at the new versions of the series, but never really enjoyed the play and inhumanly spent days before the computer. SI was definitely struggling, but it was not their fault all alone. I started University, had a social life, became a more outgoing person, etc.

In CM 01/02, I was playing with Lazio with a narrow 3-4-3 with a diamond midfield(Players I can still remember: Mihajlovic, Nesta, Ibrahim Said, Mendieta, Aimar, Crespo, Viduka). Back in the day, I had no such tactical insight, I was just speculating without much background info. The idea behind my choice of formation was simple. Eventually ball has to come to the middle of the pitch at either goal. Therefore, playing through the wings, or defending wings were a bit unnecessary. I wasn’t aware, but I believe ME was using wings without my consent(but in any case, I had no wide players). And maybe that is why my tactic worked. One weekend, we were playing (three high-school kids) in one computer; Lazio, Inter and Milan. I had a 25 game winning streak, in the process winning both the matches against human managers. At the end of the season, my DM(Ibrahim Said, he was my discovery) has been selected Player of the Year in Serie A. I am telling this to express how i really enjoyed the game before and hopefully make a comparison to the enjoyment i get today.

There are two reasons I started to play FM again. First was to have something to spend time in the wild unsocial lands of Germany, after my recent move to abroad for a Master study, and second was the fall of my favorite team IRL, Galatasaray, and a desire to get them back up. FM 11 helped me with these.

I found the game completely different. Years went by and the game took a huge leap since I last checked. I started playing, taking Galatasaray back to top. And in the process, I started reading forums, blogs, etc. to learn more about trainings, conferences, youth development, etc. I read how other build their tactics, their training schedules, how they tried to implement real life tactics to the FM. And that inspired me. I learned the history of football, the evolution of formations, how to read a game, etc. I am still learning, that is for sure, but I have much more insight now about the football. And that makes this FM experience much much better.

So first of all, this should be a thank you for the community, and the devoted contributors like Raikan07, INickStuff, TheBetterHalf(and others of course, these names are just from top of my head) for the spark of interest they caused.

I should come to the point right? Right.


FM 2012 holds the perfect situation to start a career with Galatasaray actually. Why?

1. First of all, the team really hit the bottom. We were 8th​ last year (that may be never happened). After the UEFA and European Super Cup trophies in 2000, the team lost its successful generation to european market. New team never built, because of the impatience of the boards, fans, etc. The team changed like 10 managers in 10 years and maybe like 50-60 players came and went without much contribution.

2. There has been a manager change again this summer, so it is a natural, realistic starting point. I mean, It is not like sitting on Ferguson’s on Wenger’s dugout, etc. Everyone IRL want to see some progress and open to something, someone new. In fact, the new board is a sign of this change(at least desire of change).

3. There is a huge trial going on in Turkey about match-fixing. Several top-tier teams are involved, including Fenerbahçe, our fierce rival. The reputation of the premier league is dropped. Add another tick to game difficulty.

Well I think that is it. Now we can start!


-- I plan to update this post as I play. I wasn't expecting such huge introduction.

Right now, I played my first friendly. Here is a screenshot.

View attachment 199569

One quick note: 9 of the first 11 and also 14 of the total 19 players that played in this match are playing for the first time with a galatasaray jersey.

---
More to Come:
First Day at the Office, Tactics, An Insight to Training(with an engineer's perspective), etc. I would appreciate any comment about my tactics, trainings etc. when i write about them.

But now i must rest or better go play some FM

 

[Flashdean]

Nice start mate! Ive been trying to get Juventus back to their former glory

 

[goklemez]

Thank you Flashdean! I hope you can achieve it. Media predicts 3rd spot for Juve, like Galatasaray.

And I continue with my story.


First Day At the Office:
I think, first day is the longest day of any FM game. I must be spending at least 3 hours before I hit Continue for the first time.
So what I do during these 3 hours:

1. Assess backroom staff, get rid of everyone who is –in FM terms- deadwood. That means most of them actually. I let all my staff leave, except Tugay Kerimoğlu, who I believe is gonna be a good coach. Not now, but in the future.

2. Talk with the board for youth facilities, junior coaching improvements and a feeder club with a good youth setup. Buying grown-up players is only second option for me. I want to develop my own players. I want to control their development. Their PPMs etc. That also sometimes mean, changing their playing position according to their attributes. Another aspect is the foreign player restrictions in Turkey Premier League. In 5 years a foreign player can play as a Turkish player(that means without occupying a valuable slot.) Therefore recruiting young, foreign players is also important.

3. Set up reminders. This is a useful trick I learned from here. Using Reminders in FM | Mantralux FM So take a look, it is quite helpful.

4. Find my backroom staff. There are lots of valuable info and shortlists around here. But personally I would consider man management and working with youngsters for first team and youth team coaches respectively. 2 fitness coaches, 2 gk coaches and one coach for each category. That is how I team. Also an extra coach to lighten up the workload. And 2-3 coaches for youth setup. At least two physios, and we need scouts, lots of scouts!

5. Try to assess the players. Their squad status. Their attributes, their personality, etc. Also how much wage do I pay to them? I get rid of everyone who is overpayed, who I believe doesn’t fit in to my gameplan, who despite his good attributes I think he will harm the team. I need to reduce the wage bill. I mean, there is over 180M loan to pay, and I must pay more than 1M a month for god knows how many years. So yes, salvaging a couple of millions is worth a lot. That means reducing the team size. In fact, I think that is a good think. Because by this way, everyone plays more minutes.

6. Training. Basically training for physical, and mental attributes. Strength, Aerobic and Tactics are highly loaded, others are loaded just one-two clicks according to playing position and duties. I would write more about on that.

7. Tactics. I use a 4-1-2-2-1 with inside forwards. In theory, this was theorized to play a possession football similar to barca. Not quite succeded with that though. Again, more on that later.

8. Match Prep to very high and teamwork.

9. Arrange friendlies. 4 match tour with smaller teams than 3 match at home for revenues. One should be against a top-notch team like Real Madrid, etc. Also before in FM 11, I arranged an annual Galatasaray Cup with the champs of Serie A, La Liga and English Premier League. But in this version, when I tried the revenues were less than what I payed to the teams. So I cancelled it. Strange!

I think that sums up my first day. Click Continue.


-----
The Pre-Season was good i think. Scores are not superb, but encouraging.

View attachment 199866

As you can see, I am now four games into season. First fixture was an away game against the champions the year before, Bursaspor. I managed a 0-1 win. Interestingly, in these four weeks i played two derbies with our fierce rivals. i managed 4 points! That is nice. That means, i played 3 games with strong opponents in 4 weeks and managed a precious 7 points.

Here are the match stats with these teams:
View attachment 199867View attachment 199868View attachment 199869

Also here is the information screen for Galatasaray. I think, I should have done that earlier.
View attachment 199870

------

Will continue with: How I train my team during Pre-season and Regular Season, My tactical setup, Players in and out(i should written about them already, but i do not plan what to write, therefore they have to wait for another post.)


I hope it is a good read for everyone.

 

[arsenalhogg]

Brilliantly updated lad

 

[goklemez]

Just a quick update on Players in and out:

View attachment 200033

I don't want to dwell too much on players out. Maybe later, for another transfer season i can do that. But let's look at the players i signed.

It is obvious but I must say, these players are not perfect. But i believe these were the best i can afford right now, and contribute right away to my cause, which is winning a double by the way.

Looking to the team, one thing was clear. I needed a left fullback. My two current players for this position really suck, i really should send them right away, but i must be patient and wait for the end of the season. and considering i let go albert riera; i also need a left winger. also there is a shortage in midfield, so i need a midfielder who can cover a dm, cm position

These are my answer to these problems.

Charlie Mulgrew:
View attachment 200059


Karim Ait Fana:
View attachment 200061


Mehmet Topal: was transfer listed. and also a former galatasaray player. good bargain.
View attachment 200063


Future Investments:

Vitinho:
View attachment 200041

Ivan:
View attachment 200042

 

[goklemez]

Well, I was performing really well last month. Three of my players occupied the player of the month list.

Also, a quick question: There are really lots of red cards in my games. Both for my team and for the other teams i play. Maybe half of the matches, i complete with 10 players. I changed my aggressive tackling to normal, but seems like it doesn't effect. Anyone experience this, is it some kind of bug?

 

[Kris]

Very in depth updates. Not as much a story but still interesting.

 

[goklemez]

Thanks!

The thing is, I think I preferred to spend quality time playing FM, and not writing about it. I was reluctant to take my time and write.

But I really wanna keep it interesting and good to read. Thanks again.

 

[goklemez]

Training:

How i make schedule, why i make them in a certain way?

It was not long ago i started using my own training schedules. Before that, i downloaded them. Used them without much insight. But after a while, i thought that is not the way how it should be. I needed to know why and how these schedules worked? what makes them good. Because believe it or not, every team, or even every player actually needs a special training schedule, because every has a different set of attributes.

That was when i started making individual training schedules. These schedules were the variations of what i downloaded and they varied according to two things: The players attributes and the position and duty he mostly plays.

This year i went my way. I wanted to have my own schedules, experiment with training and come up with something that suits my needs and my team's needs most. And i think that is what everyone should do. I mean generic schedules(and also tactics) shouldn't be the answer. If they should, then FM is not the game we think, that is deep and sophisticated. Every situation should/must require a different approach. I don't say they can't be similar, but if any manager out there wants to make the most of his team, he should understand and take actions that is just his team needs. Not more, not less. That is a much more effective and much more efficient approach. And in my opinion, using downloaded training schedules is not the most efficient way to deal with the training. It may show positive signs, it may help players to develop into better players; but i believe a special training schedule, that is tailored special for your team(according to a good understanding of your players) will work wonders.

Also just a quick note, I haven't done a youth schedule yet, and i am just using Dunc's Training schedules from last year for the youth players. But it is something i am definitely gonna do some time in near future.

So how i roll?

Pre-Season:

What do teams do in pre-season in real life? They try to build up their strength, they try to increase their physical qualities and get used to the tactical setup for the following season. This is well known for everyone. So for pre-season, important training categories are strength, aerobic, and tactics.

After that i give a nudge to other categories according to the position and role. I make training schedules for roles actually. A typical pre-season schedule of mine looks like this:
View attachment 200196

At the left, you can see i make schedules for every role i deploy(also it let me easily switch schedules from pre to regular)

One quick thinking: (A side Note maybe)
As you know, now a yth contracted player trains with first team if he is in first team squad. I think that is something we shouldn't overlook. That is much more realistic actually. If you are with the first team, you are with the first team. That means you are not with the youth team, therefore you cannot train with them. This is simple physics. You are at where you are. Must be sounding silly. But what i derive from this is important for me. Just like sharing the same team puts the players together; i presume sharing the same training puts player together too. Being together is spending time together and leads to more blending in, understanding each other, being a team. At least that is what i want to believe.

Let's say a tick in a training category means one hour of that training. So assume two players, a defender and a striker, who require different training schedules obviously; but both have in their tactics category 5 ticks. That means they spend 5 hours together when training for tactics. Or let's say defender has 7 ticks for tactics and striker has 5. Again that means 5 hours time spent together for training.

Anyway it is just a theory, I don't know how legit it is, but prove me wrong if you could.

Regular Season:

You know, FM tells you about important attributes for the roles. This is where i start for regular season schedules. As you know, most of the attributes are trained by a certain training category. So what i do is to write down these important attributes for a role on a notebook and note the corresponding category for each of them.

A typical list for Limited Defender(Cover) looks like this:

Marking(Defending)
Tackling(Defending)
---
Anticipation(Tactics)
Determination()
Positioning(Tactics)
---
Acceleration(Aerobic)
Jumping(Aerobic)
Strength(Strength)

I consider these are 1 tick for the training category they belong. e.g. 1 tick in tactics category for anticipation, etc.

Also there are important attributes for me(and my tactic) which i believe every player should have as high as possible. These are:

Anticipation(Tactics)
Off The Ball(Tactics)
Team Work(Tactics)
Workrate(Strength)
First Touch(Ball Control)
Pace(Aerobic)
Acceleration(Aerobic)

These are all we need to know. Now we can start constructing schedules.

I decided on a base training for every player. Considering what i speculated above, it means spending time together for every player in the team. Also it is obviously increasing chances for a rise for every attribute. The base training is as follows:

Strength 5 Ticks
Aerobic 5 Ticks
Tactics 2 Ticks
Ball Control 2 Ticks
Defending 2 Ticks
Attacking 2 Ticks
Shooting 2 Ticks

Addition to these, i set a base training load for every band. namely gks, defenders, midfielders, attackers. These are:

GK: 2 Ticks for Handling, 2 Ticks for Shot Stopping
Defenders: 3 Ticks for Defending
Midfielders: 1 Tick for Attacking, 1 Tick for Ball Control, 1 Tick for Defending
Attackers: 3 Ticks for Attacking

And addition to these, i set a base for every role. And these are:

SWK(Supp): 1T(Tactics), 1GS(Shot-Stopping
FB(Auto): 2A(Aerobic)
LD(Cover): 1D(Defending), 1B(Ball Control)
CD(Stopper): 2A
Anchor Man: 2At(Attacking), 1T
BTB(Supp): 1D, 2A
BWM(Supp): 2A, 1T, 1D
IF(Attacking): 1Sh(Shooting), 1D, 1B, 1A
Poacher: 1Sh, 1At, 1D, 1S(Strength)
AP(Attacking): 2At, 1B, 1Sh, 2T, 2A
DLP(Defend): 1B, 1S
BPD(Supp): 1T

These are all the parameters that i use to create a training schedule.

So, using the former example LD(Cover), these are the final numbers for the weight of the training categories:

Weights of Training Categories for LD(Cover)
Strength: 7 Ticks
Aerobic: 9 Ticks
Tactics: 7 Ticks
Ball Control: 4 Ticks
Defending: 8 Ticks
Attacking: 2 Ticks
Shooting: 2 Ticks

These are the weights of the training categories i design for LD(Cover). But we have a problem. A training category has a cap and therefore, i need to deviate from my calculated weights. I came up with a solution, which i think is an agreeable compromise.

I put 7 ticks to strength then move on to aerobics and so on. After putting 2 ticks for shooting, i start over and continue until my total workload reaches to a point i think is enough. During this process, if a fitness category(strength or aerobic) reaches to "high" level, i stop putting ticks in them. For the other categories, if a category reaches to "intensive" level, i stop putting ticks in them.

But of course that is not the end of it, during season i adjust my ticks according to the feedback from my coaches, my players and their general reaction to the trainings attributewise.

So right now, my regular training schedule for LD(Cover) looks like this. This is a little bit adjusted, therefore deviates from the formulation i described above. But apart from that, the logic behind is as above.

View attachment 200204

Thanks for reading!

 

[goklemez]

I'm in January right now; first in the league. Everything seems good, but Fenerbahçe is performing insanely well, I started to doubt that i can match their performance. Because as you can see below, i have lots of mediocre players, who are really over-payed. I couldn't sell them, so i can not free my wage budget and i don't want to sign anyone before that, because of financial stability. I have a facility upgrade in the summer and i don't want it to be canceled. So these are the news; here are a couple of screenshots. In the team comparison, you can see that my team is far from being the best. my gk and my midfield is better in comparison, but defence is really weak.

View attachment 200269View attachment 200270View attachment 200271View attachment 200272

 

[goklemez]

I want to update my game, since i finished my first season and in fact ended up at the top(also won the turkish cup), which was a lot easier than i expected. At the end of the first half of the season, i had 40 pts. I was at the top of the league, but Fenerbahçe was at the second place(with also 40 pts) and had no loses, where i had 2(or 3, i couldn't remember now.)

In January I made a couple of changes in the team, sold some highly payed players and bought some who play for much less.

Players out: Baros, Eboue. Total Wage i paid to them nearly 6 M € /a.

Players in: Kolbeinn, Prestia. What i pay? 1,5 M € /a.
View attachment 200814

I moved Ujfalusi to the DR position, and rotated my remaining defenders (including Prestia) in the 2 CB positions.

Kolbeinn replaced Baros.

But of course, there is always a regular rotation.
---

Anyway, that was the January transfer window. After that point, it was much smoother. I had a marvelous streak: 2 loses, 4 draws in 28 games.

View attachment 200817


Now is the time to reshape the team. Sign a couple of players. Get rid of most of the players, who are loaned away because nobody bought them.

And one other thing. I let Tugay Kerimoglu take control of Reserve team matches. This was him at the beginning(left) and at the end(right) of the season.

View attachment 200818View attachment 200819


In my next update; I plan to write about my off-season actions. Who i bought, who i sold, Tinkerings on tactics, etc. Since the players i choose for my team are strictly related to the tactical preferences; i also wanna talk about my tactics and hopefully tell the reasons about why each player(only first-11 obviously) is selected to play in my team.

Cheers,

--

ps. Honestly i expected a reaction to my thoughts about training, but none received. no heartbreaks or disappointments ; but just i was surprised to see nothing. anyway, see you in another post, brother!

 

[Hernanes]

Could you show me your tactic as I also started a Galatasaray save and I don't know which tactic suits them best. I tried a 4-2-4, but it was weak in the defense, so I decided to go back to my favourite tactic 4-1-2-2-1, but I don't know where I should use Elmander