Welcome along to a brand-new series for Football Manager 2023, entitled First Eleven. This year we’ll be leaving the calming waters of the River Rhine behind and travelling back to the River Danube for what I hope will be a one-club save at First Vienna. I’ve been wanting to do this save for a couple of years now and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in. Let’s just hope it’s not a total disaster and I don’t get sacked!
Background
If you’ve followed the blog in recent years, I’m sure it won’t come as a great surprise to learn that I enjoy layering geographical and historical narratives over my FM saves. In the last few editions of the game we’ve travelled across the Nordic region of Europe, been up and down two of Europe’s longest rivers in the Danube and the Rhine, and headed south to Turkey to manage the historic club of Trabzonspor.
This year’s project adopts a similar theme at First Vienna, with the club being the oldest side in Austria having been founded in 1894. They’re a member of the Club of Pioneers as well, a worldwide network of the oldest continuing association football clubs from each country. Vienna is also where my grandfather and great-grandparents descended from, and so it’s a city that’s very significant to me personally.
The club have endured hard times in recent years, and it’s my hope that, with the help of my alter-ego, Frank M. Athlete, we can restore the club to former glory and once again challenge for silverware on a regular basis.
About the Club
First Vienna, also known by their nickname, “Vienna”, play their home matches at the Hohe Warte Stadium in the 19th Vienesse district of Döbling. The side were formed as a result of English and Austrian gardeners playing football while working on Nathaniel Anselm von Rothschild’s estates in the 1890s. The story goes that Rothschild grew tired of his gardens being damaged by the ball and so he granted them a plot of land where they could play freely. The team’s blue and yellow colours are taken from their founder’s riding stable who’s jockey’s also wore blue and yellow on race day. The club crest features the triskelion which was incorprated into the design by Isle of Man descendant, William Beale who worked for Rothschild and played in the inaugural team.
Since their foundation the club have enjoyed some great success on the pitch, particularly during the late 1920s and into the 1930s where they secured two national titles and an Austrian Cup win. A decae later and they were at it again, this time securing three consecutive title wins between 1942 and 1944. In more recent years however, the club have gotten themsleves into a lot of off-field trouble. Licencing issues in the mid 2010s resulted in the club being docked significant points, and as such, faced relegation from the 2. Liga to Regionalliga Ost in 2014. Flash forward to 2017 where more trouble awaited as their main sponsor became insolvent, resulting in Vienna being declared bankrupt. Although they managed to stave off bankruptcy, their third tier title from the same season was witheld and instead the club were relegated to the fifth tier of Austrian football by court order.
Since their demise, the club have enjoyed back-to-back promotions, although the global pandemic did force them to remain in the fourth division for an extra season owing to the league being canclled in 2021. Now, Vienna have re-emerged from the lower leagues and are once again back in the 2. Liga and looking to restore themselves to the Austrian Bundesliga as soon as possible. Their real-world form at the time of writing puts them firmly in contention for promotion, which certainly bodes well for Frank if he can emulate their current success on the pitch. The challenge with this divisiion however, is that only the top team gains promotion and so there are no prizes for second place.
In terms of rivalries, Vienna is of course a city with football at it’s core, boasting the likes of Austrian Bundesliga heavy weights, Rapid Vienna and FK Austria, both of whom are a cut above First Vienna’s standard (for now at least). Their true city rival is Wiener Sport-Club, who alongside First Vienna, is considered a “small” club. In fact, the derby’s name is the “Small Vienna derby”, but since Sport-Club are in the division below at present, we’ll have to hope for a favourable cup draw if we’re too enjoy the magic of derby day once more.
Objectives
Something that really appeals about this save is just how difficult it will be to gain promotion to the Austrian Bundesliga. Only one team goes up each season which, as Wrexham are finding in the National League at the moment, basically means you need a flawless campaign to ensure you come out on top. Because of this, and because of how I like to play FM, I’m really reluctant to set myself too many goals or restrictions this year.
New Recruitment Focus feature (Credit: Sports Interactive)
I will be disabling the first transfer window, and I’ll also be enabling attribute masking which I find makes the experience slightly more authentic. I’ll avoid using the search function on the Scouting page, and instead rely on the recommendations of my staff, as you’d expect to happen in real world football management. The recent feature updates from SI suggest some tweaks and improvements to scouting and recruitment too and so I’m hopeful this will enhance the immersion as well.
Of course, as a football manager, my primary objective is to win things. We’ll start by winning the 2. Liga title, and then look to follow that up with a cup victory, and eventually will attempt to wrestle RB Salzburg’s hold over the Bundesliga off of them. They have now won the last nine titles and look set to add a tenth this yar as well so this will be no mean feat, much like Frank’s battle against Bayern Munich in Germany last year.
I don’t normally think too much about tactics before I start a save. I like to see what I’ve got in the squad first, and then try and get them playing in a manner that wins games. Whilst I won’t change my approach to begin with, I will look to implement a style of my own as my stock within the club increases. I like fast players, and so a style that allows teams to come on to us where we can then hit them on the break is always enjoyable to watch for me.
The only real restriction I will impose is time. I normally set out to play as many season’s as I possibly can, but the reality is that tends to be around 9 or 10 seasons. This year I’ll cap it at 11 seasons, and will attempt to win the Austrian Bundesliga within that time. I’m hoping that by having a final end date in mind, it might force me to take more risks and be more ruthless with who I sign, and who i cut from the team in the name of progress.
In case you weren’t sure, it’s the limitation of eleven seasons, coupled with the club that gives this series its name: First Eleven.
Game Set-up
One thing I regretted from last year’s Riding the Rhine series was that the English, Spanish and Italian leagues were never loaded. Of course, I had no intention of managing in those leagues which is why I left them out, but there is something to be said for having the league history from the big leagues kept up-to-date while you’re in the game. I enjoy looking across and seeing how things are developing in those legaues and so with that in mind, I’ll be loading a lot more leagues than necessary this year.
Since we’re going to be based in Austria’s second division, I’ll only load leagues that have the same or better reputation from each of the countries I’ve added. To begin with, I’ve included all neigbouring nations which are Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy. To supplement these, I’ll also add England, France and Spain so we get to see what’s going on elsewhere in the save universe.
I’ll be going for a Custom database, set to Large that includes ‘current internationals’ from each continent, plus ‘players from top division clubs’ for Europe and South America. For Europe, I’ll also include ‘players from top clubs’ and ‘players with continental experience’ as well, which will bring our player count up to around 100,000.
In terms of Frank’s manager profile, I’ll keep this as realistic as possible too. His qualifications and experience will be set one level below what the game suggests for First Vienna, and in terms of attribute distribution, i’ll opt for more experience with ‘mental coaching’ and ‘motivating players’ since these are where I think my strengths lie.
Around the Grounds
Here we share some of the other stories from elsewhere in the FM universe that have caught the eye this week…
HFC Haarlem Globetrotters - Madd FM resurrects a side from Dutch football folklore while the legendary Ruud Gullit is reunited with the club where it all began for him
Oaky Goes Dafuge - FM Oaky tells us of his plans to complete the Dafuge Challenge, beginning at the bottom of the English football pyramid with a newly promoted team and taking them all the way to the top!
Why AD Ceuta FC in #FM23? - FM Grasshopper reveals his plans for FM23 as he heads to Spain… sort of
An Idiot Abroad - Dan Gear announces his journeyman save as he plans to travel the length and breadth of Europe in FM23
Building tactics around one central defender with VVV-Venlo - FM Rensie shares his reasoning bheinf choosing VVV-Venlo for his FM23 adventure
Central America to the Arctic Circle - FM YouthIntake gives an update on his FM23 plans as he looks to nurture some of South America’s hidden gems in the far reaches of the Northern hemisphere.
Do you have a blog that’s missing from the above list? Please send me the link on Twitter so I can have a read.
Thanks for reading this update, I really hope you enjoyed it. You’ll find more updates from me, as well as blogs from some other fantastic writers at CoffeehouseFM so make sure you check them out. Feel free to leave a comment below, or you can message me @fm_athlete if you feel like getting in touch.
Thanks for coming. I've been FM Athlete. You've been ‘beta testing’. See you next time.