Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

Kerching


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

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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.

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God bless the away goal rule.

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Look. At. The. Money.

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Needless to say we have upgraded facilities where possible.

And we have the current holders in our group.

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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.

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-

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.

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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

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

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

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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.

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Can you be in two places at once on Football Manager? We’re about to find out.​
 
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
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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.
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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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!!
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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.

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But you’ll never guess who scored first.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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Then he scored in his second appearance against Cyprus.

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

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Nearly every member of our squad averaged over 7.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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This is an example of one of the players.

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

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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

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

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.
 
Yeti01 said:
Glad to see this back ^^)

hopefully that is the last of the peculiarities as a result of the World Cup staying in Qatar.
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Cheers mate, and I hope so! Just typical that it had to happen in the season where we could've got into the last 16 of the Champions League, it might be a while until we get that chance again!
 
Formation Change

Last year we lost 1 and drew 1 in the entire league campaign yet we've already done worse than that this year with 13 games still to play!

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But to be honest there’s no way that we’re not going to win the league and we’re still on course to win every domestic honour. The 2 losses did, however, prompt a formation change to a good old 4-2-3-1.

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Despite getting to the group stage last season, we have to start our Champions League campaign in the 1st​ qualifying round. Our opponents were the champions of San Marino!

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We obviously comfortably won those two games and faced the champions of Belarus, Dinamo Brest, in the second round. We also beat them easily.

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In case you've forgotten (sometimes i do) I'm the manager of the Irish national team. With them, we’ve played 4 EURO 2024 qualifiers and our fate already looks to have been sealed.

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Poland and Slovenia look like they’ll finish in the top two. In all honesty I’m not enjoying international management as much as I thought I would. We played well in our two losses but it’s results that matter and unless a miracle occurs we won’t be qualifying for the EUROs.

One player that could be making his Ireland debut very soon is Sligo produced Steve Keady.

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He’s first choice at the club despite only being 18 and looks like he’s going to be a huge player for club and country.​
 
Too Many Ferreira's

With the month of July comes the crazy part of our season as we juggle playing two games a week whilst dealing with transfers.

The first transfer out was centre back Paul Douglas, who said he wanted to go and set his own price tag at £1m. I managed to negotiate that to £1m plus a sell on fee and a loan back to us for a year from Arsenal.

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To be honest I’m not sure I rate him that much despite him being one of Ireland’s best centre backs if the star ratings are anything to go by.

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I thought Douglas would go permanently so to replace I bought in Tanguy Nianzou-Kouassi on loan from PSG. He’s a quality centre back for this level and we’re contributing exactly £0 to his wages.

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Another centre back, Japhet Tanganga, has joined Ipswich for £500k after 3 and a half years at the club.

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One more departure is that of Gustavo Ferreira to Porto for £4.5m.

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£4.5m is a Sligo record and is an excellent deal for someone we got on a free and is only worth £2.6m at Porto.

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It was especially good considering that his replacement was bought from Porto and is also named Ferreira. However, Vitor Ferreira cost us just £775,000.

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We’ve also signed goalkeeper Marcin Bulka after his contract at Chelsea expired. He is the highest paid player at the club but we needed a better goalkeeper and he will do for now.

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All of those new signings were introduced into the team in time for our Champions League Third Qualifying Round clash with Qarabag, who we beat in the first round 2 seasons ago.

We absolutely destroyed them in the first leg.

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Steve Keady is turning into a monster. He’s wanted by Arsenal and was not happy that I turned down a bid from them… but I’m doing whatever I can to keep him here.

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He was rested for the second leg but our backup team still comfortably won.

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Next up for us is Ajax in the Champions League Playoff Round.

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We’re just 2 games away from the group stage again!​
 
Looks like a great switch of Ferreira's there - you got the better end of those deals
 
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