With Athletic Bilbao being the FM-base go to Basque team i decided to make a story out of my Real Sociedad save. Initially i was going to attempt the small country big club challenge but like an idiot i chose a team that produces exclusively Basque regens. However by the time i reached the first youth intake and discovered this, I was completely engrossed and decided to continue with the save.
AIMS 1. Establish Sociedad as a top 4 team
2. Finish above Bilbao every season
3. Split the top two
4. Eclipse Bilbao's record of 8 la liga's(currently 2)
5. Integrate as many youngsters from the academy into the first team as possible
i will update the seasons i have already completed and the season i am currently coming to the end of in the next few posts and then post quarterly updates as i continue the save
2012/13- A good start with a decent 4th place finish meaning champions league football for the first time in 9 years.A decent showing in the copa del rey saw us lose 6-1 to Barca in the quarter final. star player:- Xabi Prieto 15 goals
2013/14- Pure disappointment with the team leading the table going into the last 3 games and then eventually bottling it and finishing 3rd. Another copa del rey quarter final was reached but a 3-2 defeat to Bilbao finished our challenge. The champions league play-off ended in a 4-1 defeat to Lyon and our Europa league challenge ended in the first knock-out round with a 3-1 defeat to Ajax. star player:- Facundo Ferreyra 18 goals after a 7.75 million move from PSG in january
2014/15- A 5th placed finish wasn't great but it allowed us to stay in Europe another season. Copa del rey was a complete washout with a loss on penalties to malaga in the 5th round. We managed to come through our champions league group but were defeated 9-4 on aggregate by Milan in the knock-out rounds. star player:- Stefan de Vrij, my best ever free transfer
2015/16- Another 3rd place finish got us back into the champions league and helped achieve my aim of being a top 4 team. Copa del rey ended with a 5-1 defeat to Valencia in the 4th round, Europa league ended with a penalties defeat to Bursaspor to continue the theme of been knocked out at the first step after the group. star player:- will hughes, how i got him for free i'll never know
2016/17- An absolute embarassment with a 7th place finish which just scraped us into europe, must have used 7 tactics to try and arrest the slump my team endured all season. An away goals loss to Bilbao in the copa del rey 5th round was painful, as was the 5-1 mauling i received by man city in the knock-out round of the champions league. star player:- Emiliano Viviano, the only player who knew how to defend
2017/18- We bounced back amazingly well and managed to split the big two with a second placed finish. A fantastic run to the copa del rey final, even beating Madrid 4-0 at home in the semi final was culminated in a fantastic 1-0 win over barca in the final. another 1st knock-out round defeat to Hamburg in the europa league was frustrating. star player:- facundo ferreyra 45 goals(31 in la liga), won himself the European golden boot and how he wasn't named in the shortlist for world player of the year i will never know
A catastrophic dip in form during January and early February completely took the wind out of our sails and we ended up finishing 5th.. meaning another step back has been taken and to make things worse we finished behind Bilbao for the first time.
Roussillion had a ridiculously low release clause, my own fault. Illarramendi had outlived his usefulness and Griezmann was a whining little *****.. Of the players brought in only Marcos Antonio was for the first team.
Signed for 600k 2 seasons ago, nowhere near fully developed but banging goals in for fun, single handedly demolished Man City in the semis of the Europa league
Next season i will do quarterly and more detailed updates
All been well this is how i intend the team to line up this season with attack been by far the best form of defence
View attachment 368280
And finally this is how the defence of my maiden European trophy will play out. Shall hopefully allow me to blood my fantastic group of youngsters on the cusp of breaking into the first team