Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

Great story and will get even better if you get the national team! Here's hoping
 
No interview was required; as soon as we applied to be Ireland manager the Irish FA offered us the job

View attachment 18159

View attachment 18158

Our first game is a must win against Romania in 60 days in our Nations League group but for now the focus is on Sligo. However I am slightly concerned about what happens if we qualify for the 2024 World Cup as it is going to take place at the same time as the Irish league season…

View attachment 18157

In our last match before playing Zeljeznicar Sarajevo in the Champions League 1st​ qualifying round we surrendered our 100% winning record in the league to Shamrock Rovers.

View attachment 18156

We didn’t deserve to lose but I’m not really too bothered about an unbeaten season, I’d rather do well in the Champions League. The loss was our first in 51 league matches. 51!

View attachment 18155

We made up for that loss with a crushing win against Sarajevo in the first leg.

View attachment 18154

New signing Gustavo Ferreira made his debut in that game… and got injured of course.

View attachment 18153

But we made easy work in the next leg and were paired with Armenian champions FC Banants in the second round.

View attachment 18152

View attachment 18151

Once again we comfortably won both legs.

View attachment 18150 View attachment 18149

Next up for us is Lech Poznan in the 3rd​ qualifying round, the stage where we’ve lost at twice before.

View attachment 18148

Finally, we have let right back Gary Boylan go to Cork as his contract was up at the end of the season.

View attachment 18161

View attachment 18160

He’s been with us since the start and it’s sad to see him go, but he was no longer needed and will be the first choice right back at Cork.​
 
Last edited:
Three in a Row

I’m concentrating so much on Europe that I almost forgot about winning the league. An unconvincing 4-3 win over bottom of the table Drogheda confirmed our third in a row with 9 matches remaining.

View attachment 18074

View attachment 18073

But my attention was firmly on the Champions League Third Qualifying Round, our Achilles heel. In 2019 PSV beat us at this stage and last season Basel somehow beat us 1-0 on aggregate despite us dominating both games.

Polish champions Lech Poznan stood in our way this time. Thankfully we produced a heroic performance in the first leg

View attachment 18072

Soon after that we signed Josh Cullen on a free who I think could be a tidy signing.

View attachment 18071

He wasn’t registered for the second leg against Poznan, which turned out to be probably the greatest Sligo performance yet.

View attachment 18070

We absolutely battered them so much so that 6-0 was kind.

That 8-0 aggregate win puts us in the playoff round. Two games against Olympiakos stand between the Champions League group stage and us.

View attachment 18069

Before then we have the 1st​ round of the cup against amateur side Fermoy.

View attachment 18068

I absolutely love the fact they’re sandwiched between Lech Poznan and Olympiakos in our schedule!​
 
Kerching


Off it was to Athens for the first leg of our Champions League playoff.

View attachment 17860

A draw in the first leg is a good result, but oh if we could defend.

It meant that we were one win away from the Champions League group stage. The second leg against the champions of Greece was undoubtedly the biggest game of the save yet.

View attachment 17859

God bless the away goal rule.

View attachment 17858

Look. At. The. Money.

View attachment 17857

Needless to say we have upgraded facilities where possible.

And we have the current holders in our group.

View attachment 17856

Man City won the competition last season and they will be in our group along with Valencia and RB Salzburg. The aim is third place and Europa League Knockout Rounds, simple as that.

It will honestly be a pleasure to get thrashed by Man City but I am sure they are petrified of Kelechi Nwakali, who is the top scorer in the competition.

View attachment 17855

View attachment 17854

-

The Champions League exploits put aside the fact that we’re now Ireland manager. Here’s my first squad I picked for the Nations League game against Romania and friendly against Australia.

View attachment 17853

Conor Masterson is the only Sligo player in the squad and we are blessed with not one, but two wonderkid goalkeepers. Both Gavin Bazunu and John O’Neil are the second choice keepers at Spurs and Man City

View attachment 17852 View attachment 17851

For the game against Romania I went with a tactic similar to the one at Sligo.

View attachment 17850

We were much the better team but couldn’t get a winner.

View attachment 17849

But I’m not going to lie, the thing that is on my mind most is that the friendly with Australia and our league game against St Pats kick off on the same day, 15 minutes apart.

View attachment 17848

Can you be in two places at once on Football Manager? We’re about to find out.​
 
Amazing to finally make the group stages. Certainly going to be interesting with that group though
 
Interested to see how the game manages that situation with the two games at one time , I have a feeling that you'll be able to manage both games, I've seen some weird things in this years game.
 
leckuno said:
Amazing to finally make the group stages. Certainly going to be interesting with that group though
Click to expand...

Even more interesting with the World Cup in Qatar messing everything up!

Cahoon said:
Interested to see how the game manages that situation with the two games at one time , I have a feeling that you'll be able to manage both games, I've seen some weird things in this years game.
Click to expand...

Turns out you were right! I have no idea how frequently it happens but I'm pretty sure that the World Cup/EUROs are going to clash with domestic fixtures in the future if I qualify for those tournaments with Ireland
 
Time Travel


So the tale of two games at once started with our friendly with Ireland versus Australia, which kicked off at 19:30.

I submitted my Ireland team but instead of going to the game it took me to the Sligo team and asked me to submit that too.

View attachment 17615

Which match would I proceed to? The tension was killing me

View attachment 17614

It was the Ireland one and we won comfortably thanks to a first half red card.

View attachment 17613

I gave my full time team talk as usual but then a miraculous thing happened, we time travelled in FM.

View attachment 17612

It took me straight to the Sligo match, meaning that Hampus O’Silverholt was in Dublin and Sligo at the exact same time managing two different games.

The league games never normally clash with the international break but the fixture schedule is a complete clusterfuck because of our prolonged run in Europe, the fact the Irish season runs from March to November and the small issue of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

View attachment 17611

It means we’ll play Man City in our first two group games, just one week apart and our final group stage match will be in January against RB Salzburg.

But more significantly, we have 13 games in the space of 23 games.

View attachment 17610

We’re used to rotating but this is going to take it to another level, cheers Qatar!

Finally, Adrian Mutu is now manager of Derry, because why not?

View attachment 17609​
 
Good to see you taking up a second job as a professional magician there mate! A tough Champions League draw as well which will be really tough to qualify from, but at least you will see the benefits of all the cash for years to come no matter what happens!!
 
TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Good to see you taking up a second job as a professional magician there mate! A tough Champions League draw as well which will be really tough to qualify from, but at least you will see the benefits of all the cash for years to come no matter what happens!!
Click to expand...

Can't believe how money there is in the Champions League compared to the Europa League, it's ridiculous! I almost don't know what to do with it all.
 
Champions League


There could not have been a harder match than Manchester City away for our first ever Champions League group stage game. It didn’t help that our top scorer got injured one day before the game either.

View attachment 16857

But you’ll never guess who scored first.

View attachment 16856

The biggest upset in the Champions League was in motion. But it ended pretty swiftly.

View attachment 16855

I mean what are we supposed to do against a side like this?

View attachment 16854

It was even worse in the next game against them, which was our second group stage game.

View attachment 16853

There’s literally nothing we can do. There’s also apparently nothing you can do about conceding from direct freekicks in FM19 as Dybala scored a hattrick of 30 yard free kicks.

It was beginning to dawn on me that we were slightly out of our depth in the group stages… until we smashed RB Salzburg in our next match.

View attachment 16852

The money that a group stage win gives you is ridiculous.

View attachment 16851

It means we’re third in the group at the halfway stage.

View attachment 16850

What a strange Champions League campaign it’s turning into. We could lose 6-1 and 8-1 and still finish second in the group!​
 
Sheridan for Ireland

We just about managed to get through our 13 games in 23 days and won our last two league games of the season 8-0 and 5-0.

View attachment 16755

It meant that we ended the league campaign with a goal difference of +100 having drawn 1 and lost 1 match all season.

View attachment 16754

It shows how easy it is that we can win the league by that margin when half of the season is played with our backup squad.

Once that was over it was back to the Champions League. Valencia were our next opponents and although they were bottom of the group, they finished third in La Liga last year and had a stupidly good squad.

View attachment 16753

So a 2-0 win at the Mestalla was honestly ridiculous. We shouldn’t be winning games like this but somehow we are! We were even down to ten men for all of the second half.

Straight after that we won the FAI Cup for the first time meaning that this season we have completed a domestic quadruple.

View attachment 16752

View attachment 16751

Our final game of the 2022 season was our 5th​ group stage match at home to Valencia.

View attachment 16750

A last minute equaliser prevented us from qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League. I can’t believe we’re that close!

View attachment 16749

Our final group stage game will be our first game of the 2023 season at the start of January because of the Qatar World Cup… that brings us to our other job.

Eoin Sheridan has 17 goals and 16 assists for Sligo this season so I just had to call him up to the Ireland squad for the friendly matches in November.

View attachment 16748

And on his debut he scored a 20 yard screamer in the last minute to win the game, as you do.

View attachment 16747

Then he scored in his second appearance against Cyprus.

View attachment 16746

That was our last game of an incredibly long season. We played 67 GAMES for Sligo and 4 games for Ireland in 2022

View attachment 16745

Nearly every member of our squad averaged over 7.

View attachment 16744
View attachment 16743

Next up is our pivotal final group stage game against RB Salzburg in just under 2 months time at the start of January.

Irish Football Summary – 2022

National Team Ranking: 58th (was 60th​ in 2021)
Nation Coefficient Ranking: 29th (was 32nd in 2021)
Airtricity Premier League Players in Ireland Squad: 5

Irish Teams in Europe
Shamrock Rovers: Europa League 2nd​ Qualifying Round
Limerick and Derry: Europa 1st Round.​
 
I am done

I cannot believe that I am posting this.

So, the Irish season runs from February to November meaning that every pre-season starts in early January. These are the options I had for scheduling pre-season.

View attachment 16689

Notice how the earliest I can schedule pre-season for this year is the 5th​ January because that date is very important.

However, as I’ve already mentioned on this story, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has messed up fixture schedules, particularly in the Champions League.

Now, just to take a step back. We had done remarkably well with Sligo in our first ever time in the Champions League group stage. We were second in the group going into the final match against RB Salzburg.

View attachment 16688

That match would decide it all because it was between them and us as to who would qualify for the last 16. We had the upper hand because of our head-to-head record as we beat them 4-1 last time out.

View attachment 16687

As I understood it, we could lose by two goals and still qualify. Basically Sligo would get to the last 16 of the Champions League providing that we did not lose this game by more than 2 goals.

Because of the World Cup, our final group stage match was scheduled for the start of January. The 4th​ of January to be exact.

View attachment 16686

I am not making this up. The game was on the 4th​ January and the players were on holiday until the 5th​ January.

View attachment 16685

None of my squad were available to play against Salzburg. Not even the under 19s. None.

View attachment 16684

For the most important game in the save there was literally no choice other than to put out a team of players that did not exist.

View attachment 16683

This is an example of one of the players.

View attachment 16682

So, obviously, we lost 9-0 and finished third in the group.

View attachment 16681

What an absolute joke.

I know Football Manager is just a game but I actually cannot believe it. How can something like that be allowed to happen?​
 
My goodness that is ridiculous. Selfishly, I would really like to see this continue though!!! Would it only be that season with the Qatar world cup messing things up where that could happen?
 
That's an absolute disaster but with results they way they have been so far a real tilt at the Europa league could possibly be on the cards. Keep up the good work.
 
Back For More

Guess who’s back?

After that ridiculous situation a break from FM was needed.

I returned believing that we could have a real go at the Europa League. FC Copenhagen were our opponents in the first knockout round

View attachment 13853

Thankfully the players were actually available this time. The first leg was our first match of the 2023 season.

View attachment 13852

It was a terrible result but they only had two chances all game so there was always a chance that we could overturn things in the second leg.

However, that’s where the problem lied.

There was no second leg!

View attachment 13851

The Qatar World Cup strikes again... the Europa League 1st​ Knockout Round was just one leg! Of course it was.

At this point I’m done being annoyed. Let’s just get the majority of our league games done and then onto the Champions League Qualifying Rounds.

-

2023 Season Preview

I still can’t believe that the Qatar World Cup has almost ruined this save for me.

We’ve got a lot more money and our reputation is improving but we’re still struggling to attract players to improve the squad, especially from countries where you can get regens for cheap like Colombia, Serbia etc.

However, this season we’ve made two loan signings: Simon Paterson from Liverpool and Mohamed Karamoko from PSG. We’ve got Karamoko for 2 seasons and he looks insane!

View attachment 13850 View attachment 13849

We also signed Sean Travers from Cork and loaned him back to them for the season. This time next year both he and Alan McCabe will return from their loan spells at other Irish clubs to be firmly part of the Sligo first team.

View attachment 13848 View attachment 13847

Thankfully none of our key players have left in the January transfer window. The only sad departure is of left back Regan Donelon who has been with us since the start of the save.

View attachment 13846

It means Mitchell Beeney and John Mahon are the only two players left at the club who have been here since our first season. Beeney is still first choice keeper but I will be looking for an upgrade soon.

View attachment 13845

View attachment 13844

As usual we’ll have about 25 domestic games to get through before the fun starts with the Champions League qualifying rounds in June.
​
 
Glad to see this back ^^)

hopefully that is the last of the peculiarities as a result of the World Cup staying in Qatar.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Top