This is the story of NK Krsko - a small team in south-east Slovenia
For starters I love managing in obscure European countries, i've managed in most of them, most recently in Serbia with Trayal Krusevac (European and World Champions 2031..). I then went on to manage the Serbian national team and enjoyed great success as they continually produce some brilliant players. I usually need to really sell the idea of a club to take over if i'm going to make it work, I can't just jump on FM one day and pick a country and team at random and have it go anywhere. However here I loaded up FM planning on managing in Romania but ended up plumping for Slovenia, a country i've not *seriously* managed in before. I picked Krsko because of their peculiar name (to an English person...), and also they were one of only a few sides i'd heard of in the 2nd tier. I like to play the game realistically, signing players from the country i'm managing in instead of going for cheap South Americans and Africans. I'm also very tight on finances and don't spend more than I can afford.
So Krsko had just been relegated to the 2nd tier of Slovenia when I took over. I didn't actually realise this as they were only predicted to finish 10th in our 16 team league. I was led to believe from that that maybe there were underlying problems with the club but that wasn't the case. The target was a top half finish which I was more than happy to try to achieve, just to get my feet under the carpet and really push towards promotion in the 2nd season. The Nuklearci are a non-professional club who play in the 1470 capacity Matije Gubca stadium. They have a few rivalries, but are fierce rivals with The Farmacevti (NK Krka). Farmacevti is Slovenian for The Pharmacists, and if it wasn't obvious, Nuklearci is Slovenian for The Nuclear Boys. This is because there is a nuclear power plant in the town. I find these little facts fascinating to be honest and it helps draw me into the team i'm managing. Their average wage is about £150p/w, with a budget of £4k p/w.
The Slovenian league schedule is very simple. The First Division is a 10 team league, 36 games where everybody plays each other 4 times, 2 home and 2 away. The bottom team gets relegated, and 9th places goes into a play off with the team in 2nd in the Second Division. The Second Division is a 16 team league (30 games facing each other twice) with 2 relegation spots, with the Champions going straight up and 2nd place going into the play off with the First Division side. The Cup format is a little different. There is a qualifying round, which includes all 2nd tier sides and below. I'm still trying to get my head around this but there has also been 1 First Division side appear in the qualifying round. After this, there's two rounds, then a quarter final, semi final and final. The quarter and semi final are two legged affairs. In line with other European countries, there is a winter break which typically lasts around 10 weeks, returning mid-February. Strangely though (in the 2nd tier) 21 games are played before the winter break, with the remaining 9 played in a 3 month period post-break, meaning there are a good 4 or 5 weekends with no games. It reached a point where I was having to organise friendlies on these weekends off to try and keep match fitness up. There's only one mid-week game played in the league season, around matchday 3 or 4.
When I first joined I inherited the most inbalanced side i'd ever seen. The squad size was fine, however I had 3 defenders in total, with the squad littered with wingers and central midfielders. There were also only two or three active u19 players. When walking into a club of this size I prefer to make as few changes as possible, giving everybody a chance but I needed to get active in the transfer market. I sold/loaned out about four players, and got to work strengthening the defence with a few players on non-contracts. In fact one of these players ended up being most suited to becoming my captain for my first season. There seemed to be some decent quality in the squad but it remained to be seen whether this was my coaches' over-enthusiastic opinions. I made use of the very handy affiliation I already had with NK Maribor, the most successful side in Slovenia, by signing a star centre back on loan. Besides this it was just free transfers. Despite my preference for home grown players, 75% of my squad were actually Croatian, with only about half a dozen Slovenians. I also already had THREE Dinamo Zagreb players on loan despite no affiliation, however geographically the two clubs are very close. On this game I loaded the Austrian and Italian leagues, although I dropped Italy for Croatia after the first season.
So after a succesful pre-season where i'd won 5 out of 6 games, attention turned to the start of the league season. An opening day 2-0 defeat at Drava was followed with a convincing 3-0 home win against pre-season title favourites Koper. This was to be one of only two defeats for Koper as they won the league with ease. This season we joined the Slovenian Cup in the 1st round, beating a non-league side 3-1. That is as far as our cup journey went, as fancied Second Division side Gorica won in extra time at the Matije Gubca stadium in the second round. From then on the rest of the season was very inconsistent. We went into the winter break in 5th position, 7 points behind Fuzinar who occupied 2nd spot. By the end of the season we held 5th place but had fallen 19pts behind 2nd, and a whopping 31 behind champions Koper. We didn't score enough goals but defensively we were solid, conceding less than a goal a game. W11, D10, L9. A successful season in terms of achieving our target of a top half finish but a lot of work to be done next season.
One of the bigger headaches of my first season was the league rule in which only one non-EU player was allowed to be named in the matchday squad, so that incldues the bench. I'd (very randomly) inherited an Argentinian striker on loan who in fairness looked a brilliant player, but it didn't work out at all. I'd also had a Serbian CB, and rather foolishly signed a Nigerian CB (went against my ethos here admittedly). These two were also very good players, the former being an u21 international, so there was a lot of rotation going on but usually favouring the Argentinian. Halfway through the season I felt it just wasn't working out and wanted to terminate his loan, but couldn't. At this point I was horrified to find that we were paying his £1,300 wages, 33% of our wage bill. I had no choice but to keep him on the books, but my attention turned to my Serbian CB Domic, who was out of contract at the end of the season. Predictably at this level a good 80% of my players were out of contract at the end of the season, and the majority of those, while admitting they were happy to stay at the club, also didn't want to enter talks as they felt we didn't have the finances to give them what they wanted, which was wrong. I'd noted down a total of 9 players that I wanted to keep hold of for next season, in the end I was only able to hold on to about 5 of them. A big rebuild was needed.
I was able to find 2 or 3 good players in the 2nd half of the season who would join me for the start of season 2. I made a lot more use of the loan market with 6 players coming in, a few of which had been with me the previous season. From memory if anything, the tables had turned this season and I found myself short in midfield and very comfortable with my defensive options. All of my staff were out of contract which gave me my first opportunity to bring in some of my own people. Sadly there's not too much quality out there, so most stayed put except for a few improvements made with physios and scouts. The target from the board this season was again a top half finish, but I was hoping for more.
We had a potentially difficult start to the season, travelling to Gorica first up, Koper in the qualifying round of the Slovenian Cup with our 3rd game of the league season being away to relegated Domzale. We drew, won and won those games respectively which saw us setting the pace early on. We exited the Cup in the 1st round with a 4-0 defeat at top flight Olimpija. Things slowed down again with many draws and uninspiring attacking performances. We managed to hold on to a final game showdown. After 29 games Triglav topped the table with 59pts, Gorica 58pts, and the Nuklearci 55pts. This league is sorted by H2H record, and I edged that on Gorica, who happened to be hosting Triglav on the final day. We were away to mid-table Dravograd, having just beaten our pharmacist rivals 4-2 the game before to keep our hopes alive. Simply I needed to win and hope Gorica lose. Unfortunately despite playing against 10 men for an hour, we took the lead and then dominated our way to a 1-1 draw, summing up our lack of cutting edge in front of goal. Us taking the lead in that game coincided with Triglav scoring two quick goals against Gorica, with 2-0 being how it finished. Again another season of struggling to score goals (36) but even tighter in defence (19)
For starters I love managing in obscure European countries, i've managed in most of them, most recently in Serbia with Trayal Krusevac (European and World Champions 2031..). I then went on to manage the Serbian national team and enjoyed great success as they continually produce some brilliant players. I usually need to really sell the idea of a club to take over if i'm going to make it work, I can't just jump on FM one day and pick a country and team at random and have it go anywhere. However here I loaded up FM planning on managing in Romania but ended up plumping for Slovenia, a country i've not *seriously* managed in before. I picked Krsko because of their peculiar name (to an English person...), and also they were one of only a few sides i'd heard of in the 2nd tier. I like to play the game realistically, signing players from the country i'm managing in instead of going for cheap South Americans and Africans. I'm also very tight on finances and don't spend more than I can afford.
So Krsko had just been relegated to the 2nd tier of Slovenia when I took over. I didn't actually realise this as they were only predicted to finish 10th in our 16 team league. I was led to believe from that that maybe there were underlying problems with the club but that wasn't the case. The target was a top half finish which I was more than happy to try to achieve, just to get my feet under the carpet and really push towards promotion in the 2nd season. The Nuklearci are a non-professional club who play in the 1470 capacity Matije Gubca stadium. They have a few rivalries, but are fierce rivals with The Farmacevti (NK Krka). Farmacevti is Slovenian for The Pharmacists, and if it wasn't obvious, Nuklearci is Slovenian for The Nuclear Boys. This is because there is a nuclear power plant in the town. I find these little facts fascinating to be honest and it helps draw me into the team i'm managing. Their average wage is about £150p/w, with a budget of £4k p/w.
The Slovenian league schedule is very simple. The First Division is a 10 team league, 36 games where everybody plays each other 4 times, 2 home and 2 away. The bottom team gets relegated, and 9th places goes into a play off with the team in 2nd in the Second Division. The Second Division is a 16 team league (30 games facing each other twice) with 2 relegation spots, with the Champions going straight up and 2nd place going into the play off with the First Division side. The Cup format is a little different. There is a qualifying round, which includes all 2nd tier sides and below. I'm still trying to get my head around this but there has also been 1 First Division side appear in the qualifying round. After this, there's two rounds, then a quarter final, semi final and final. The quarter and semi final are two legged affairs. In line with other European countries, there is a winter break which typically lasts around 10 weeks, returning mid-February. Strangely though (in the 2nd tier) 21 games are played before the winter break, with the remaining 9 played in a 3 month period post-break, meaning there are a good 4 or 5 weekends with no games. It reached a point where I was having to organise friendlies on these weekends off to try and keep match fitness up. There's only one mid-week game played in the league season, around matchday 3 or 4.
When I first joined I inherited the most inbalanced side i'd ever seen. The squad size was fine, however I had 3 defenders in total, with the squad littered with wingers and central midfielders. There were also only two or three active u19 players. When walking into a club of this size I prefer to make as few changes as possible, giving everybody a chance but I needed to get active in the transfer market. I sold/loaned out about four players, and got to work strengthening the defence with a few players on non-contracts. In fact one of these players ended up being most suited to becoming my captain for my first season. There seemed to be some decent quality in the squad but it remained to be seen whether this was my coaches' over-enthusiastic opinions. I made use of the very handy affiliation I already had with NK Maribor, the most successful side in Slovenia, by signing a star centre back on loan. Besides this it was just free transfers. Despite my preference for home grown players, 75% of my squad were actually Croatian, with only about half a dozen Slovenians. I also already had THREE Dinamo Zagreb players on loan despite no affiliation, however geographically the two clubs are very close. On this game I loaded the Austrian and Italian leagues, although I dropped Italy for Croatia after the first season.
So after a succesful pre-season where i'd won 5 out of 6 games, attention turned to the start of the league season. An opening day 2-0 defeat at Drava was followed with a convincing 3-0 home win against pre-season title favourites Koper. This was to be one of only two defeats for Koper as they won the league with ease. This season we joined the Slovenian Cup in the 1st round, beating a non-league side 3-1. That is as far as our cup journey went, as fancied Second Division side Gorica won in extra time at the Matije Gubca stadium in the second round. From then on the rest of the season was very inconsistent. We went into the winter break in 5th position, 7 points behind Fuzinar who occupied 2nd spot. By the end of the season we held 5th place but had fallen 19pts behind 2nd, and a whopping 31 behind champions Koper. We didn't score enough goals but defensively we were solid, conceding less than a goal a game. W11, D10, L9. A successful season in terms of achieving our target of a top half finish but a lot of work to be done next season.
One of the bigger headaches of my first season was the league rule in which only one non-EU player was allowed to be named in the matchday squad, so that incldues the bench. I'd (very randomly) inherited an Argentinian striker on loan who in fairness looked a brilliant player, but it didn't work out at all. I'd also had a Serbian CB, and rather foolishly signed a Nigerian CB (went against my ethos here admittedly). These two were also very good players, the former being an u21 international, so there was a lot of rotation going on but usually favouring the Argentinian. Halfway through the season I felt it just wasn't working out and wanted to terminate his loan, but couldn't. At this point I was horrified to find that we were paying his £1,300 wages, 33% of our wage bill. I had no choice but to keep him on the books, but my attention turned to my Serbian CB Domic, who was out of contract at the end of the season. Predictably at this level a good 80% of my players were out of contract at the end of the season, and the majority of those, while admitting they were happy to stay at the club, also didn't want to enter talks as they felt we didn't have the finances to give them what they wanted, which was wrong. I'd noted down a total of 9 players that I wanted to keep hold of for next season, in the end I was only able to hold on to about 5 of them. A big rebuild was needed.
I was able to find 2 or 3 good players in the 2nd half of the season who would join me for the start of season 2. I made a lot more use of the loan market with 6 players coming in, a few of which had been with me the previous season. From memory if anything, the tables had turned this season and I found myself short in midfield and very comfortable with my defensive options. All of my staff were out of contract which gave me my first opportunity to bring in some of my own people. Sadly there's not too much quality out there, so most stayed put except for a few improvements made with physios and scouts. The target from the board this season was again a top half finish, but I was hoping for more.
We had a potentially difficult start to the season, travelling to Gorica first up, Koper in the qualifying round of the Slovenian Cup with our 3rd game of the league season being away to relegated Domzale. We drew, won and won those games respectively which saw us setting the pace early on. We exited the Cup in the 1st round with a 4-0 defeat at top flight Olimpija. Things slowed down again with many draws and uninspiring attacking performances. We managed to hold on to a final game showdown. After 29 games Triglav topped the table with 59pts, Gorica 58pts, and the Nuklearci 55pts. This league is sorted by H2H record, and I edged that on Gorica, who happened to be hosting Triglav on the final day. We were away to mid-table Dravograd, having just beaten our pharmacist rivals 4-2 the game before to keep our hopes alive. Simply I needed to win and hope Gorica lose. Unfortunately despite playing against 10 men for an hour, we took the lead and then dominated our way to a 1-1 draw, summing up our lack of cutting edge in front of goal. Us taking the lead in that game coincided with Triglav scoring two quick goals against Gorica, with 2-0 being how it finished. Again another season of struggling to score goals (36) but even tighter in defence (19)
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