Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

Hampus Silverholt

Hampus Silverholt

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Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

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Welcome to my second Football Manager story on FM Base. After guiding Berwick Rangers from the fourth tier in Scotland to two Champions League finals on FM18, this year I will be taking charge of Sligo Rovers in Ireland.

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I’m not expecting Champions League finals this time round but I do have a few targets for the save:

​
  1. Win the League with Sligo
  2. Get Sligo into the Champions League Group Stage
  3. Improve the reputation of the Airtricity Premier League (currently 57th​) and the European coefficient ranking of Ireland (currently 39th​) as much as possible
  4. Lead the Irish national team into a World Cup

It may take a while to achieve some of those…

But for now all I have to do is make Sligo the best team in Ireland and then get them into the Champions League Group stage whilst boosting the reputation and coefficients of Irish football and hoping that the national team considerably improves.

What could possibly go wrong?​
 
Loved your Berwick adventure last year and looking forward to this! Something tells me this will be tougher! Good luck!
 
Excellent mate been waiting for your story this year
 
Pre Season

With the Irish season running from February to November I will be starting the save in January 2018. In real life Sligo finished 7th​ and to be honest I’d take that this year.

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My first problem was that we had no budget, no staff and no left wingers. With £391 wage budget and no assistant manager or scouts, there was quite a lot of work to do.

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But after hours of searching I managed to get some staff and some decent recruits on loan. I won’t go through them all, but 4 are from Premier League clubs and one is from the SPL.

According to my assistant manager, the 5 loan players are amongst the best at the club.

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I’ve also decided on a tactic. 5-3-2 served me well in the lower leagues in Scotland on FM18 so we’ll see how it goes this time round.

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And without playing a game I already have a favourite player. Raffaele Cretaro is a 36-year-old target man… who is 5’5”

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Before I made the loans we were predicted to finish 7th​ but now we’re predicted to finish this season in 5th​. The teams that finish in 2nd​-4th​ earn a place in the Europa League.

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Our first game is against newly promoted Waterford who, for some reason, are predicted to finish in fourth.

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I really have no idea what’s in store this year. All part of the fun I suppose…​
 
Steady Start

Our first ever game in charge of Sligo Rovers was a home match versus Waterford. We went 3 up in 30 minutes, but in true Hampus Silverholt style we did out best to bottlejob the first game.

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However we didn’t cave in and actually hung on, hopefully that’s a sign of things to come from the save!

Former Villa man Mikey Drennan was the hero and his goals could be crucial for us this year and beyond.

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Whereas the Waterford result was quite a lucky one, our next game was a much more convincing performance.

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We completely dominated and had 17 shots to Limericks 4. Captain Rhys McCabe has scored two long shots in two games, which makes it very easy to like him already.

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But nothing will beat 5’5” Rafaelle Cretaro rising like a salmon to put us in the lead against Limerick. He’s already a legend of the save.

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This is what the table looks like after two games.

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I have no idea why some teams have played 3 games whereas others have played 0.

But aside from that… this manager malarkey is easy isn’t it?​
 
9 Games In - So Far So Good!

In our third game of the season we got a point away from home against title favourites Dundalk.

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It capped off a great first month for us, which saw me win my first manager of the month award in my first month in charge.

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And the good form continued in our next few league games. We’ve only lost one game after playing a quarter of our league matches!

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2 games stick out in those fixtures. The first was a 4-2 away win at Shamrock Rovers.

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Raffaele Cretaro scored four in that game. I don’t think I can ever overstate that Cretaro is a 5’5’ target man and he literally cannot play in another role.

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And then there was just the casual 4-1 win over title favourites Dundalk.

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And we’re just casually top after 9 games.

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And Raffaele Cretaro is just casually top scorer in the league.

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He is so superior to the rest that he is the only team leader and he is so much a team leader that there are no highly influential players at Sligo.

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Have I mentioned that he’s a 5’5” target man?​
 
We're Rather Good At Football

Emm.. so… I don’t really know how or why, but we’ve won our last 8 games in all competitions.

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Because of that we’ve extended our lead at the top of the table to 6 points. Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk should easily be finishing 1st​ and 2nd​ but are both recovering from bad starts so we’ve fully took advantage.

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Part of the reason why we’re top is because we seem to have a very solid tactic. The players are familiar with one another and we have had vey few injuries. I rotate the full backs frequently but they always seem to average over 7.

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Central midfielders Rhys McCabe and Lee Lynch have both been awesome.

Club captain McCabe averages 7.30 and has 3 goals and 4 assists in 14 games.

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Lynch has 4 goals and 6 assists in 15 games and was player of the month for April.

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18 year old centre back John Mahon has also been brilliant and will hopefully be a mainstay in my team for years to come.

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But it’s not hard to guess who our best player has been. Let me tell you about a 5’5” target man who has the most goals and the most assists in the Airtricity Premier League.

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Raffaele Cretaro is the main reason why I’m starting to believe that we could win the league in our first season at Sligo!​
 
Would you say one player in particular has been your favourite so far?

Really good job so far, hopefully you can stay top of the table
 
ninjaskill said:
Would you say one player in particular has been your favourite so far?

Really good job so far, hopefully you can stay top of the table
Click to expand...

Tough call but I'd have to say Cretaro haha. Always love players that perform above their star level on FM and it makes it better when they're the shortest target man in the world scoring bullet headers every week...

TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Smashing it mate!!
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Cheers mate, can't quite believe how well we're doing!
 
Unbeaten Away Record

In our next game we were knocked out of the EA Sports Cup on penalties, which in all honesty probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

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I don’t want to undermine the EA Sports Cup but it is slightly less reputable than the Icelandic League Cup C…

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But other than that it’s still looking good. We’ve played 5 more games in the league and haven’t lost any.

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That means we’re still top and have extended our lead to 8 points

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The fact we have only lost one game in the league all season is ridiculous. We’ve also only failed to score in one game and the board have recognised the success by offering me a new contract.

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I’m going to say it…

The league title is looking realistic.

Nothing can go wrong from here…​
 
Squeaky *** Time

In our very first game after my last post we suffered a home defeat to Waterford.

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Both of our league defeas have been 1-0 at home and the Waterford game ended a 12 game unbeaten run.

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Then we got hit with devastating news. Our lord and saviour was injured for 3 weeks.

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So what happened because of that injury?

Well… nothing really. We’re still doing really well.

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And Cretaro returned in our game against Shamrock Rovers.

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A 3-1 win though was insignificant, the day was all about Raffaele Cretaro becoming even more of a Sligo legend.

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Nobody has ever made more appearance for Sligo than him!

And he could very win the league for a second time with Sligo (as he was part of the side that won in 2012).

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Only Cork and St Pats can catch us now. We are 10 points ahead with two games left and two of those are against Cork.

Surely we can’t **** it up from here?​
 
Two More Cretaro's

In what could be a blessing in disguise we were drawn against Shamrock Rovers in the cup and lost to them in the first round.

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That left us with the league and, for some reason, the Scottish Challenge Cup to contend in.

We of course played Welsh side Gap Connah's Quay FC in the 1st​ round of the SCOTTISH Challenge Cup and comfortably won.

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We’ve also had our youth intake, which was underwhelming.

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But two players stuck out for reasons other than their ability…

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There are two Cretaro’s in the youth intake! Needless to say both of them have been offered contracts.

Also, remember a couple of games ago when we were 10 points ahead in the league?

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We have a game in hand but it is well and truly squeaky *** time for the last 7 matches as Cork and St Pats are closing the gap on us.

We’re not in the best form and got a lucky draw against Cork in our last game, which could’ve seen them leapfrog us into first.

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And we still have to play both sides in our last few games.

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What seemed like a formality could be turning into the ultimate bottlejob. We’ve been top since the 7th​ game of the season.

Please Sligo, not like this!​
 
Operation: Don’t Bottle The League

Operation: Don’t Bottle The League got under way with a win away against Waterford.

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If we end up not winning the league then it’ll be because of our defending. We’ve kept 4 clean sheets in 30 games this season. 4!!!

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In our next league game we got a point against Bohemian.

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That point was all the more important because both Cork and St Pats lost, meaning our lead was 5 points with 5 games left.

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And in our next game we did the business against Derry.

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That win meant we were guaranteed the top 3 and will play in the Europa League next season. I personally cannot wait for the 1st​ Qualifying Round against some Andorran farmers.

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We then beat bottom side Bray Wanderers 3-1.

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So, we have just 3 games to go and still have to play St Pats and Cork.

However both of those sides haven’t been doing too well…

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Suddenly we’re 10 points clear again!

If we draw against Cork in our next match, we will be champions of Ireland…​
 
Looks like you might face a harder task in Europe than some farmers from Andorra. Good luck against Cork
 
Haven't been on the site in a while, so imagine my delight at coming back to discover a Sligo Rovers story - the same Sligo Rovers that produced my favourite-ever regen on FM14, a lad named Damien McClements, who signed for my Stockport side in League Two and went on to fire the club right up the leagues and even scored a goal in the Champions League final. He ended up scoring over 300 goals for the club in every competition available, including one majestic season where he got 34 Premiership goals in 33 games. A legitimate hero.

I loved my boy McClements so **** much that Sligo have earned a special place in my heart. Interested to see how far you can take them.
 
ninjaskill said:
Looks like you might face a harder task in Europe than some farmers from Andorra. Good luck against Cork
Click to expand...

I know... we might actually have to play professional teams in Europe now!

Sammuthegreat said:
Haven't been on the site in a while, so imagine my delight at coming back to discover a Sligo Rovers story - the same Sligo Rovers that produced my favourite-ever regen on FM14, a lad named Damien McClements, who signed for my Stockport side in League Two and went on to fire the club right up the leagues and even scored a goal in the Champions League final. He ended up scoring over 300 goals for the club in every competition available, including one majestic season where he got 34 Premiership goals in 33 games. A legitimate hero.

I loved my boy McClements so **** much that Sligo have earned a special place in my heart. Interested to see how far you can take them.
Click to expand...

I'd love it if we could produce someone that's good enough to score in a Champions League final! Hopefully they can do it with Sligo but we'll see how far I can go... not started too badly though!
 
And Now You're Gonna Believe Us

This is what the table looked like going into our crunch match with Cork, where all we needed was a draw. Elsewhere St Pats were at home to pre-season favourites Dundalk.

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In the game against Cork we went behind…

But come on, was it ever really in doubt?

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On loan Aberdeen striker Connor McLennan and 5th​ best centre back at the club Patrick McClean scored the goals to seal the title for us.

Winning the league also means Champions League football baby.

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Not bad for the side predicted to finish 5th​ at the start of the season!​
 
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