We will bury you - Zenit takes over football

[Perun]

First of all, a quick foreword:

This is my very first post in this forum. I'm fairly new to FM, having played FM12 as my first game. But with over 4000 hours since then, I believe I have amassed quite a fair amount of experience. I was looking a place to talk with fellow addi--I mean fellow gamers, so I had the brilliant idea to share my new save with you guys, since it represents the majority of what I do in FM saves. If you like it, I'd love to become a regular member of the forum.

Anyway, onwards:

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The idea behind what I'm doing is that I was sitting around, wanting to do a home-grown CL/WC win save, but I couldn't be bothered with the 15 years of building a youth setup before it can get rolling along. Then again, I also don't want a top team that already has a built youth setup and I really couldn't choose a nation. So I did what I always do when I want to play but can't decide on a save - I started a 1 year CL challenge. It's what it sounds, take a club that qualified for the CL in the first season and win it within the first season. Checking out the clubs, I stumbled onto something very interesting -

FC Zenit Saint Petersburg.

Qualified in the Champions League, a big club, yet practically no youth setup. Tons of money, but an aging squad on huge wages that can barely be paid. Decent youth ratings in Russia, so I thought why the **** not give it a shot? They also seemed fairly average, so it would be a challenge to do the CL in the first season and if I didn't make it, I might as well continue for a home-grown CL/WC win.

Also I've always kind of liked Zenit, even if one of my least favorite players plays there - Hulk. I think it was cowardly of him to go to the easier Russian league rather than the bigger central European ones...but that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that as you'll see, he's a pretty central figure to the whole plot.

So, goal 1: Champions League in my first season.

Goal 2: Win the Champions League with only players raised in the club at MOST after the age of 17 and then a World Cup with Russia, using at least 8 players from my team in the first 11.


(By the way, I'm halfway through the season, so don't be confused if screenshots are from far along the line)

Anyway, wall of text over, so let's get it on. Give me Roman Shirokov, one of supposedly the best attacking midfielders in the world!

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Wait...what? But...he's not very good, is he? He's class, but certainly not world class. Well this is a shocker, maybe they just messed it up.

Ah well, I suppose Denisov can't be that bad. Remember him at the world cup? He was a pretty solid midfielder!

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Ok this is wrong, you can't tell me this is a champions league winning team captain.

Kerzhakov, please don't suck and make me rely on Hulk...

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Oh boy. Quite a decent striker. FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM. Christ.

Well, Hulk it is I suppose. No other players (besides Criscito) in the team to make a difference. So what the **** can I do...

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Right, I'm going to turn Hulk into a superweapon. Focus my every game plan on getting the most out of him. Rely on him to win me the matches.

I mean, I could rely on Shirokov to long throw the ball into goal or Denisov to Mark the opposition to death, but this is about as good.

So, Is anyone at all interested in this save and challenge? Should I continue?

 

[Bigbadtone78]

I am interested.

 

[Perun]

Well 1 person to entertain is enough for me!

Anyway, for those who haven't played the Russian leagues, they drop you right into the action and as much as I love tweaking around teams before I start, Zenit has an over-the-top payroll and little transfer budget at the start, so I begged a training ground/youth ground upgrade, rolled up my sleeves and got to action.

....10 matches in and a lot of tweaking around to squeeze the last radiation out of Hulk:

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I'll have to admit, destroying CSKA (Moscow) and taking top of the league was a lot of fun, but the match I got the most satisfaction out of was the first one where I managed to get the Hulkster to take out a team by himself:

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I saw a weakness in their leftback - he had low concentration and strength. So I set Hulk to inside forward, target man with run onto ball, do nothing but cut inside and shoot and had Shirokov as a playmaker, instructed to do nothing but through ball.

Worked like a charm. Once he scored the second goal I think the AI tried focusing onto him, because Criscito made some blistering runs that no one tried to stop.

Anyways, the league was fun, but I have to admit I got lucky with my Champions League draw. FCP are very overrated on FM, but Celtic aren't that hard. Plus Hooper was injured.

As I was getting settled in, I noticed after these starting matches that Danny was about to return from injury

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Great stats, adds an attacking option should Hulk fail. However, as you can see from the match performances, he's struggling to become a proper starter again. I've been tweaking around with his instructions to no avail. I even tried getting the AI to focus on Hulk and then directing my entire attack through Danny, but it didn't work.

Oh well, this is supposed to be a home-grown save, so he's booted out in a season anyway, but I thought he would be a great addition to the CL campaign.

Anyway, CL campaign going fine.

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1 match left and the only way I get knocked out of groups is if I lose and they draw.

I expected to breeze through the groups, but unfortunately it seems if the opposing team has no weaknesses in its defense from wingers, I'm really fresh out of luck.

I gotta figure some way to add a third dimension to my attack besides Criscito's runs and Hulk.....

 

[Perun]

Right this isn't going terribly well. Got that match out of the way - View attachment 472513 With a juicy performance from the Hulkster.

The league is going perfectly fine, but then again that's not my priority. Especially since this

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Terrible draw. I knew I'd have to face a tough team eventually, but I was hoping I'd get lucky until the semi-final at least not to get relegated.

Oh well А дело бывало -- и коза волка съедала.

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Great physicals but not so good concentration. Could I abuse that to throw a cheeky pass behind the defense and pray Hulk hits the target for once? Doubt it, but might as well try.

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.....no.

Sigh I'm gonna embarrass myself, aren't I?

I thought premature failure was only kept to my bedroom and saved in hooker tears, not FM files.

 

[Perun]

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Hulk keeps this up virtually and I might start liking him in real life as well.

Anyway, at least I can go out with dignity when Real Madrid or something slaps me silly next round.

Will continue tomorrow or something if you folks want me to.

 

[JCMUtdfan1]

Looks good so far mate, I'll be following

 

[MrStu01]

Brilliant post mate. Will help out if i can if you need any advice. Loving the post though and hope it goes the distance

 

[Perun]

Glad to see people liking it!

Anyway, I was at the quarter-final draw, clicking the draw next team button like a poker player about to bet his wife on the next hand, when suddenly...

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BRAGA!

Braga who somehow managed to scrape together reaching this stage!


No way I could choke this.

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Right...well...erm...Hulk wasn't angry enough. Shut up.


Round two...

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Shirokov saved the day. We're through to the semis!....where an imminent collision with a speeding train awaits us. Joy of joys.

In the meantime, I kind of choked the league away I think.

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...and my luck also ran out

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Well no time to whine, gotta figure out what the **** I'm supposed to do. So anyway, I have a massive issue
. I'm at my wits end with Danny boy over here - View attachment 472395.

I tried him in the center, on the left wing, even a try on the right. As an attacking midfielder, a winger, an advanced playmaker on both places, a treq, whatever.

Nothing works. Danny keeps sucking and sucking harder. It looks like a no-brainer - slap him on the wing, let him throw a few through-balls to the striker and lay-off to my long shot takers and watch the magic work. But it didn't work. So....now what?

 

[Perun]

Oh by the way, youth update.

I bought a couple of cheesy Russians for too much money -View attachment 472394 andView attachment 472393.

Feels pretty stupid replacing one of the best known cheesy wonderkids Luka Djordjevic with Serderovic, but....gotta keep em home-grown.

And I got a decent DM regen in my youth intake.

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Too short for my liking, but I might be able to mold him into a passable DLP or some such.

Also as I was making passes at Alan Dzagoev and he was refusing my furious love gestures, I was wondering where all the good regens went.

Turns out Spartak Moscow got almost all of them.

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Hope I can get them as soon as possible, but until then I gotta keep brown-nosing Dzagoev and Afinkeev.