For those of you who don’t know me, I’m James, otherwise known as FM Athlete. I’ve been playing Football Manager since the Championship Manager 00/01 edition and played EA Sports’ F.A. Premier League Manager for a number of years before that.

Last year I made my blogging debut, as I shared updates from my Journeyman save, Nordic Nights and Dutch Days. The series saw me start out as an unknown Manager with Sunday-League experience, and after a short period unemployed, I took the Nosaby IF job in the bottom tier of Swedish football. From Nosaby, I managed KuPS in Finland, FC Emmen in the Netherlands, Hibernian in Scotland, Wolves in England and then Villarreal in Spain. The goal of the save was to manage one of the so called “Big 6” teams in the Premier League and despite my best efforts, I failed to achieve my goal.

Despite not succeeding, it was still one of my most enjoyable saves to date and has given me some inspiration for what I'll be doing in FM20.

Background

As revealed on 9th October 2019, I’ll be blogging another Journeyman save for FM20, this time returning to my real life family origins along the River Danube, Europe’s second longest river, running through Central and Eastern Europe.

Once the frontier of the Roman Empire, the River Danube is 1,770 miles (2,850 km) long and runs through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Originating in Germany, it passes through (or borders) Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine before draining into the Black Sea.

The Danube features heavily in history, with it marking the site of many early human cultures, not to mention intertwining with other enormously significant historical figures, including Darius the Great and Alexander the Great (no relation). It’s also seen many battles and wars over the years, particularly as the Ottoman Empire looked to expand it’s reach between the 14th and 19th Centuries. In modern times, the river provides drinking water for in excess of 20 million people, and has become an essential transport route, connecting Western Europe to the Black Sea.

In real life, my family descended originally from Czech Republic, before moving to Germany and then more recently Austria, eventually arriving in England shortly after the Second World War. The River Danube presents a really interesting back story to my save, and I’m looking forward to learning more about these amazing countries where my ancestors grew up and lived for centuries before me.

Structuring the Game World

My FM game world will initially have 9 out of those 10 countries loaded, with Moldova being the only omission as they're not available out of the box. I may or may not add them in if I can find a good database to include, but otherwise I'll begin with all leagues from the other nine nations as playable. That said, I only expect interview offers from the lowest reputation leagues at the start, which are Romania's Liga III, Hungary's Division II and Slovakia's Second Division. I don’t plan on adding any other nations for this save.

Goals

I think it’s important to have a long-term vision for the save and so, with that in mind, my goals are as follows:

1. Attain my Continental Pro coaching licence

2. Win a nation’s top domestic league

3. Win a domestic league and cup double

4. Win either the Europa League or Champions League

For many reading this, those goals may seem easily achievable, however since I’m a big fan of LLM (lower league management), I’ll likely spend a considerable amount of time in the lower echelons of Europe’s football pyramid, just working on the first goal before being in a position to tackle some of the others.

In terms of setting up the game, I’ll be going for a simple Large database without any Advanced Options this time, giving me a pool of around 32,000 players loaded. I usually play with attribute masking enabled as well, however this year I'm going to experiment with it disabled during the Beta and will see how it goes.

Say Hi to Frank

As with previous versions of FM, I’ll be starting as unemployed in FM20, and will let the game hand me my first job in management as I apply and declare interest in any vacancies that present themselves. For this series, I’ll be playing as Frank M. Athlete (see what I did there?), my alter ego, with some, but not all, of the same personality traits as me IRL, along with a very similar personal history.

Biography

Born in September 1986 in England, but with Austrian heritage, Frank M. Athlete played football at an amateur level before stopping in his late 20’s. At the ripe old age of 33, Frank found himself unemployed and keen to find a new adventure. A lifelong passion for football left him seeking opportunities in the industry he loved, and with an offer to stay with a distant cousin in Vienna, he packed his belongings and went in search of a new start.

What happened next is quite an incredible story. This story in fact.

So, without further ado, get comfortable and strap yourself in, as we go… Down the Danube.

Thanks for reading the blog, I hope you enjoyed this update. You can follow me on Twitter @fm_athlete and in my FM Slack channel #fm_athlete for more updates in the near future.