Hello and welcome along to my save reveal post. I'm very excited to start sharing my plans for FM21!
As I mentioned in my previous update, I am trying something a bit different (for me at least) this year and will be embarking upon a one-club save, setting aside my usual temptation to begin as an unemployed journeyman. By my count, this is the first time in 12 years I'll be doing a save like this so let's hope it turns out to be an enjoyable experience, and not one where I end up unemployed after all.
A bit of background
I've really enjoyed exploring some new leagues in recent versions of FM. My Nordic Nights and Dutch Days save from FM19, along with my journey Down the Danube (which was really up the Danube) in FM20, gave me the chance to manage in Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Scotland, Romania and Bulgaria - all leagues I had yet to dabble in. That experience of researching and finding out about each of those nations, along with their leagues, teams and players, is one that I've found immensely enjoyable and so it got me thinking about where else I am yet to go exploring.
The team I've selected for FM21 currently play in a league that I've never managed in before, and in a nation that I know very little about. I've enjoyed conducting some research into the club and the country and, having been inspired by FM Grasshopper's save reveal last week, I've also looked into what the nation's footballing identity and playing style look like.
Drum roll please...
So without further ado, allow me to reveal that for FM21, I'll be taking charge of none other than Trabzonspor in Turkey's Süper Lig.
Why Turkey?
Let's start with this. I came upon the idea to manage in Turkey earlier this year, as I looked at some of the countries that were dotted around my Down the Danube save, and tried to find something that would offer a different experience to the likes of Romania and Bulgaria.
Greece and Turkey immediately jumped out as fitting the bill, but since I have family in Greece IRL, it didn't feel like this would be enough of a learning experience for me, which is what I was looking for. Turkey on the other hand, is a country I know very little about, and is one steeped in history that I am eager to explore.
In a footballing sense, there's actually been a fair amount of English influence on the Turkish game over the years. It was English residents who brought football to the region, and eventually to Istanbul in 1895, but it was another few years before Turks started getting in on the fun, with the Ottoman Empire prohibiting the sport until around 1904. In fact, legend has it that the first official match to be played in 1901 was broken up by a police raid as the officers attempted to arrest as many players as they could catch.
Fast forward a few decades and you'll see plenty of international imports coming to Turkey to play football, and many of whom have been English or come from English leagues. This has given Turkey a reputation for bringing in players past their best, but I'll explore that in a bit more detail later on.
More recently, Turkey enjoyed a relatively successful period on the international stage during the noughties, with semi-final appearances at the 2002 World Cup and at the 2008 European Championships. Since then, the last decade has proven to be a bit of a struggle, with Turkey's FIFA ranking having slipped from three top 10 appearances in 2002 (9th), 2003 (8th) and 2008 (10th), to a fairly average 33rd place in 2020.
I like the idea that a successful spell with Trabzonspor might in turn help the national side rise back to the heights they reached not so long ago.
So why the Süper Lig?
As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm a big fan of lower league management (LLM) and enjoy taking managers through a career that starts at the bottom and hopefully ends up at the top. However, since I'm not trying to do a journeyman save this time, I've opted to start a little higher up in the pyramid, in the hope I'll enjoy a different experience to one that I'm used to.
The Süper Lig is highly competitive, featuring 18 teams each season and has only ever had 6 winners in it's history. The league itself wasn't established until 1959, with it's predecessors being a series of smaller, regional leagues, with the Istanbul League probably being the most significant one.
In 1924, The Turkish Football Championship was established whereby each of the regional winners would contest a knockout competition to crown a Turkish Champion. This ran until 1951, and eventually was played alongside a newly established National Division between 1937 and 1950, where the three strongest regional leagues from Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir had merged together to create one joint league.
Over the next decade, the top tier of Turkish football would go through a few more iterations, including a Federation Cup that gave passage to the European Cup, before they eventually landed with the Süper Lig format at the end of the 1950's that we see today.
And so why Trabzonspor?
I wanted to take charge of a club that had perhaps fallen away from their glory days, or possibly were even yet to enjoy any meaningful success. Trabzonspor certainly met this criteria since, while they are considered to be one of the bigger teams in the country nowadays, they had not won the title since 1984.
Trabzonspor almost put that record to bed last year, after a successful 2019/20 campaign where they sat top of the league for long periods of the season, were very nearly crowned champions, but for an impressive run for eventual, and first time winners, İstanbul Başakşehir.
In fact, Trabzonspor missing out on the title last year wouldn't be the worst thing that happened to them as they were then handed a 1 year ban from continental competition owing to some irregularities with Financial Fair Play (FFP) in 2016. In many ways, this disappointment for the club plays into my hands a little from a Football Manager perspective, since they will not be able to rely on any revenue generated form European football next year. Their 2020/21 season has gotten off to a rocky start as well, which suggests they're feeling the strain of not having the Europa League as a means to entice players to the club.
As for other reasons that justify my selection, look no further than the fact that the club play in the world's favourite colour combination of claret and blue! Add to that the fact that Trabzon is a major port on the Black Sea, which adds a romantic note to the story as the River Danube empties into these waters and I can quite imagine Frank Athlete's eventual journey across the sea to the shoreline on the opposite side.
Trabzon's historical significance is quite remarkable and another reason for wanting to take over this club. I'll delve into this and the club's history in a bit more detail in a future post.
Gotta have a goal
I feel like this year more than ever, I'll be needing some goals and objectives to keep me inspired and on the path to success.
1/ Consolidate. By way of a short-term objective, I'll be looking to ensure we qualify for the Europa League by finishing in the top 5 in my first year. We'll take full advantage of not having as many games to play in the absence of European football for the first season, but will also look to provide a solid financial footing as we plan to work without that added revenue stream.
2/ Win the league (a lot). Beyond the first season, naturally I want us to win the league but I'm also keen to establish Trabzonspor as the biggest club in Turkey. Unsurprisingly, Istanbul's clubs have dominated for decades and so this will be no mean feat, but I'm confident we can string together some regular silverware and ensure we become the envy of the nation's greats.
3/ Identify an identity. FM Grasshopper's save reveal last week had me researching what Turkey's footballing DNA was made up of, and I was hopeful of working out a way to emulate that as well. In fact, what I really learnt is that they don't have one. Turkey's Süper Lig seems to be one of those footballing destinations that is tarnished with a reputation that it's where players go to retire, and as a result of so many foreign imports, their own football identity is lost in a mix of cultures and playing styles. Turkish football fans often cite a Brazilian style as what they like to see from their local teams, however from what I can gather, it's hard to see too many similarities. My goal here is to give the people what they want, with skillful, attacking play and resilient, smart defending that the fans can get excited about.
4/ Compete in Europe. This will most likely be the hardest thing to achieve, but there's no point in playing this game if you're not going to aim high! There's a distinct absence of success in Europe from Turkish clubs over the years. Galatasaray are the only club to have made a Europa League or Champions League final, and you'd have to go back to 2000 to find their penalty shootout win over Arsenal. I plan to remedy that by taking Trabzonspor out of the group stages on a regular basis, and to an eventual win of either competition within 10 years. Easy right?
5/ Raise the profile. As discussed earlier in the post, Turkey as a footballing nation are a world away from their success of the early 00's and it's my hope that by placing an emphasis on developing local talent, we can eventually see some more Trabzonspor academy graduates breaking into the national team. This, coupled with our ambitions in Europe at club level and our quest to develop a distinctive playing style, should help raise the profile and reputation of Turkish football the world over.
Tune in next time for a more comprehensive overview of the club and the great and historic trade city of Trabzon.
And that's it for another update from me. Thanks so much for reading down this far, I hope you enjoyed it. As ever your feedback is always welcome either here in the comments, on Twitter or on my Slack channel. If you're not already on Slack then you're missing out. It's free to join, there's no pressure to post anything, and you'll find there are some excellent people who you can chat to if you want.