FM22 Teaser | A Blank Slate

Frank Athlete stood at the window, looking out at the runway below and into the darkness beyond. There was little to see from this side of the airport in the early hours of the morning. No city scape or mountain ranges. No hustle and bustle of Trabzon's busy backstreets. Only black.

Frank breathed in deeply. He stared out at the Black Sea, feeling strangely comforted by the emptiness of it all. He smiled inwardly, remembering the little known fact he'd learnt that the sea's anoxic water makes marine life survival impossible here. While many consider the absence of life to be a despairing thought, Frank saw it as nature's blank slate. A place to start fresh and begin again.

As this thought crossed his mind he instinctively glanced away to his left. Although hard to discern in the darkness, just mere metres across the tarmac stood the silhouette of the Şenol Güneş Stadium, a coliseum rising up out of the ground. The city's new conservation project had insisted that all non-essential lights be turned off between 1.00 am and 5.00 am, and so he had a hard time identifying the important features of what had been his home for so many years. He squinted into the night, taking in the Trabzonspor stadium one last time.

He was sad to be leaving. For the first time in a long time, he'd found true happiness in Trabzon and had enjoyed the success he and his team had achieved. He was comfortable here and yet he also felt the hunger burning inside of him. He wanted more. To strip it all back and to start again, from the ground up.

Suddenly the airport public address system crackled into life, dragging Frank away from his thoughts and back to the sleepy airport terminal.

"This is a passenger announcement for Turkish Airlines flight TK 2823 to Schipol Airport via Istanbul. We would like to invite Business and First Class passengers to begin boarding the flight at Gate 107. Please have your passport and boarding card ready as you approach the desk."

Frank gathered his faux-leather carry-on bag and customarily patted his breast pocket to check once again that both passport and boarding card were still in place. He took one last look out at the runway and the blackness beyond, before turning towards the desk.

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Once onboard, Frank retrieved his laptop from his bag before stowing the rest of his luggage above his head. He took his seat in the aisle, nodding politely to the woman sat at the window who caught his eye. She smiled, kindly. "Are you excited to be going to Amsterdam?" she asked, in what Frank believed to be a Dutch accent.

Frank smiled. "Of course" he replied politely.

"I hate it there" she said, turning to look out of the window before continuing, "It's too busy with tourists. I'm from the South, I was born on the waterways. I can't wait to get home."

Frank grinned as he busily switched on the computer and entered his password. "If it helps, I won't be staying in Amsterdam either" he said, jovially, glancing at the back of her head as she continued to look out of the window. "I've taken a job in the South, very close to the waterways" he finished.

The woman snapped her head around, angry at the stranger's taunt. To her surprise however, his smile showed him to be genuine, and she softened. "Where will you be working?" she enquired, curiously.

Frank didn't answer immediately. He opened his email application with a knowing look in his eye and glanced sideways at her. "We have a few hours. Can I get you a drink?" he asked. "Perhaps you can coach me on how to avoid becoming a 'busy tourist' while I'm there."

The woman smiled warmly. "A drink would be great" she said, "but the flight won't be long enough to coach you I'm afraid, Englishman."

Frank laughed loudly. He pressed the call button above his head and leant back into his chair. His fresh start had already begun.

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I hope you enjoyed this update. Stay tuned for more details on Frank's next destination for FM22 coming very soon.

Thanks for reading. I've been FM Athlete. You've been "bamboozled". See you next time.

Running from FM: Picking up the Baton

If you saw the latest issue of Latte Quarterly, you'll know that FM Adventure partook in an exciting new fitness challenge that merged his FM21 save with a daily run where the distance varied based on results on the pitch. Inspired by his work, I decided to take up the mantle and have been running (literally) the same challenge throughout September.

If you're one of my 8 followers on Twitter, you'll have seen me posting daily updates on how things went, but I thought I'd add a blog update too in an effort to grow my audience to double figures.

The Format

Simply put, I played a match on FM21 every day and would then run a distance determined by the result on the pitch: 1 km for a win, 2 km for a draw and 3 km for a loss.

According to FM the rhyme, September has 30 days and so I looked at leagues with 16 teams who play each other in a simple home and away format each season, giving me 30 games to get through, one per day. Ultimately I settled on playing in the South African Premier League, somewhere I've often been curious about but never enough to start a save there.

Choosing a team was fairly straightforward since I wanted someone mid-table so I'd get a mixture of results and so I went with Maritzburg United, aptly nicknamed The Team of Choice, and predicted to finish 8th in the division. I left attribute masking disabled and I turned off the first transfer window so I wouldn't need to worry about keeping players or signing replacements.

Football Results

The Maritzburg Utd squad is fairly small, with a lot of depth in attack, and limited options at the back. The starting XI is fairly solid though, albeit with an ageing cast, but a few young prodigies help to redress the balance. We opted for a basic 4-2-3-1 formation with the intent of keeping possession and gently probing the opposition defence looking for an opening. Below was the starting set up, with a few tweaks made over the course of the season to a more Cautious mentality, a Higher Defensive Line and swapping one of the IWs for a W, the SS for an AM and CM for a BBM.

After a successful preseason and an early exit from one of the cup competitions, the season proper got under way with an away defeat to Sundowns, before back to back wins saw us looking like we might be competitive. In true FM fashion, we came back down to Earth with a bump as we lost to Amazulu and then Kaizer Chiefs (such a riot) before recovering with 7 points in our next 3 games, including a draw against South African giants, Orlando Pirates. Another two losses followed to see us sitting comfortably in 9th place after 10 games with a bang average 13 points to our name.

The winter transfer window provided an opportunity to bring in a few additions and with limited funds available, we looked to the free transfer market for decent backups. There's also a limit on foreign players which we'd already maxed out so we opted for new South African recruits at the back and in central midfield. We also upgraded our keeper since I'm sure we'd have had more success with a more prominent figure between the sticks.

As the window slammed shut, our rocky form continued, with every win seemingly followed by defeat. That is until we reached the mid-way point where we managed three consecutive wins on the bounce as the team finally started to gel. In our next two games we only managed a draw to Bloemfontein Celtic, before a resounding defeat to Amazulu away.

Next, a decent win against Chippa Utd in which we almost gave up our 3-goal lead at half time as Chippa started to fight back. We held on in the end though and saw out a 4-2 victory as we entered the final third of the season. This paved the way for an enormously satisfying 6-0 win against TS Galaxy, in which our forward man Meza managed 3 goals in the opening 21 minutes.

Sadly for us, we were unable to sustain this good run of form and would suffer defeats to Orlando Pirates and SuperSport Utd, with a 1-0 win against TTM sandwiched in between. A 93rd minute winner saved us against Stellenbosch FC next time out with that being the only goal of the match, before real disaster struck as we suffered three consecutive defeats to some of the leagues best teams in Kaizer Chiefs, Golden Arrows and Cape Town City.

Our last two games were both winnable ones, but we laboured to a 1-1 draw against Swallows FC which was disappointing after we battered them throughout. We picked up in our last outing though, a satisfying 3-2 victory away at Baroka (must have been those effervescent tablets we dished out at half time) and a pleasing end to the season for us and the fans.

All in all, I'd say the season went exactly as predicted. We sat in and around midtable for the entirety, venturing up as high as 7th at one point, and down as low as 10th at another. The board were neither impressed nor disappointed with my performance and so a very mediocre season draws to a close for a very mediocre Maritzburg Utd.

In terms of the competitiveness of the South African Premier League, I'd say there are 4-5 teams that have a realistic prospect of winning the title, and then the other 11 or 12 sides are fighting it out for the scraps. This would make it a very entertaining league to play in for anyone looking to build a dominant side that can routinely challenge for silverware. There are some rules in place on how many foreign players can be signed for the squad as well, and so developing domestic talent is key to success.

Running Results

Despite my online alias, it's been a very long time since I was anywhere near "athlete" status and although I have been running on a semi-regular basis in recent years, I've not been out since March 2021. The first run for this challenge was over 3 km which was as good a place as any to start and it felt good to put a marker down early and have something to improve on.

Usually the aching muscles after a run (even a relatively short 3 km) are enough to have me rest for a few days, but I quickly found that within a day or two I'd flushed out all the lactic acid and I just felt good, both physically and mentally. With the 1 km runs I really tried to go for it. At the back of my mind, I had FM Adventure's time of 4 mins 14 sec as the time to beat and that definitely helped spur me on, even if I knew it to be too quick for my speed.

I should also say that it did help to keep the distances realistic which is something FM Adventure advised me on too. By keeping them shorter it was easier to stay motivated, and crucially it made it possible to squeeze it round family life and work. That said, I did end up missing a few days which couldn't be helped, and so both times that happened I ended up playing catch up in the days that followed.

After around 10 days, I was able to really push myself to try and improve on my best times over each distance, but i also found it important to sometimes be able to just go for a gentle jog on the days where I was tired. I didn't want it to become a chore so I mixed it up when I could, and fitted it around 6-aside football twice a week as well. Despite sustaining minor injuries to my knee and shoulder, this is probably the fittest I've been in close to 20 years which is both satisfying and quite depressing in equal measure!

Below are my best times for each distance, along with my starting and ending weight which didn't change much, but considering I made no attempt to alter my diet, it does at least prove that some regular exercise can have a small impact (for me anyway).

1 km - 4:48 / 4:48 avg. (Run 2 saw me get round in 5:50, more than a minute slower!)
2 km - 10:19 / 5:10 avg. (Just four runs at this distance, with Run 8 my slowest at 11:24!)
3 km - 15:07 / 5:02 avg. (Run 1 took me just under 20 mins at an average of 6:34 per km!)
Weight - 11st 9lbs (74 kg) starting / 11st 5lbs (72 kg) finishing

The thing that's hard to measure is the positive impact this challenge has had on my mental health, which for me has been the most rewarding aspect to it all. For the most part, the global pandemic has had little affect on my life. I was lucky enough to keep my job, I still had my family at home (I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not), and I got to enjoy some unexpected perks, such as saving money on fuel costs and not having to entertain distant relatives over Christmas.

Despite without doubt being one of the more fortunate people to live through the last 18 months, I have still had days where I've struggled with anxiety, or felt lost without my usual routine and I think it's important for all of us not to judge each other's personal circumstances, but to simply recognise that none of us are immune to having dark days. As a result of the pandemic, I found myself paying much closer attention to an aspect of my health I hadn't been familiar with in the past: my mental fitness.

Not to be confused with my mental health, which I interpret as the current state of things in my head, my mental fitness is something that's more free moving, that can ebb and flow in the same way your weight might fluctuate at Christmas, or your muscle tone might drop off when you skip the gym a few times. I think of my mental fitness as something I can train and strengthen over time, but equally something that can become "injured" and in need of recovery as well, like any other muscle in my body.

For me, each daily run guaranteed me 5-15 minutes out of the house and away from any stresses and strains at work or at home. Sometimes I'd go early morning at sun rise, other times I'd go out at lunch or at dusk, all depending on what suited the rest of the day's activities. It was nice to unplug for a bit. On the days where I felt competitive, it was great to have that sense of achievement when I got round quickly, but it was equally nice to take it slow and not feel rushed when I was feeling lethargic or sluggish.

I'd say the biggest barrier to this new found freedom was getting started in the first place, hence why I'd not run since March of this year. The FM element gave me the push I needed to get going, and once I popped I just couldn't stop. Out of the 30 days, I only had 1 day where I didn't fancy it, but thankfully my wife gave me a shove out the door so I didn't end up giving it up all together!

My Verdict

Not to overstate it, but this has been absolutely brilliant for me and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone either looking to get physically or mentally fit, or who wants to add another layer to their FM save. Playing the game in short bursts like this meant it wasn't disruptive to other stuff going on at home, and as I mentioned above, because the runs were manageable distances, it meant I found motivation easy to come by too.

I'd also say that keeping a log on Twitter helped as well, and it made a big difference to know I had support from others in the FM community, in particular FM Adventure, FM Grasshopper and FM Rensie, all of whom were part of FM Adventure's original challenge.

I will be taking a short break from running to allow time for a few niggles to recover, but I have every intention of making this a regular thing from now on and will be back with a new save on the FM22 Beta in a few weeks time.

In the meantime, please let me know if you are thinking of doing something similar as I'd love to lend you my support and follow your progress.

Before I finish, I talked a little about my own experience with mental health and mental fitness in this blog and I thought it may be useful to share a couple of links to other resources, in case you or someone you know might find them useful. The Mental Health Foundation has an excellent whitepaper on "How to Look After Your Mental Health Using Exercise" while The Coaching Manual also have a great piece entitled "5 Ways Football Can Improve Your Mental Health". Both are worth checking out.

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Thanks for reading down this far, I really appreciate your support. I have a couple of FM22-related blog updates coming out in the next few weeks in which I will share what I'm planning to do for next year. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read more of last year's antics, you can find me at coffeehousefm.com/fmathlete, or as fm_athlete on Twitter and FM Slack.

For now though, it's a fond farewell. I've been FM Athlete, you've been "playing kiss chase in the playground". See you next time.

Mimicking Moyes: How to recreate 'Club Culture' in FM21

Hello and welcome along to this special edition of the blog. As we all gear up to the forthcoming release of FM22, I thought it might be interesting to have a look at how the world of Football Manager sometimes collides with the 3-dimensional world outside our bedroom windows, and the results are staggering (sorry for adding that last bit, I thought it might make the intro sound more click-baity).

Both in terms of Football Manager, and in the real-world clubs we all support around the globe, we're all ultimately in search of the same thing: success. What success looks like is different depending on your circumstances, but it still all boils down to winning football matches, whether that's to win a championship, to secure enough points to avoid relegation, or to navigate your way to a cup final.

Over the years we've seen an undeniable correlation between results on the pitch, and money into the club. In other words, usually more money equals more football matches won. Invariably, it's the richest clubs that secure all the silverware, and even at the other end of the scale, it's often the club's that have more financial backing than their opponents around them, that survive relegations.

Of course there are no hard and fast rules, and in the past few years we've seen some anomalies that have broken the mould. Leicester City winning the Premier League is an obvious example, as is LOSC Lille securing the Ligue 1 title last season. And, as you've probably guessed given the title of this blog, I'm throwing in West Ham's qualification for Europa League football as a bit of a shock as well. In all three of these cases, all three clubs went from a significant low point, to incredible success, within a single season.

Following Leicester's promotion to the Premier League in 2014, the club laboured to a 14th place finish in their first season back in the top flight, only to then be crowned champions a year later. LOSC Lille narrowly avoided relegation in 2018, to then go on and finish 2nd, 4th and 1st in the three seasons that followed. Meanwhile, West Ham United, having only managed one top-half finish in over a decade and who narrowly avoided relegation in 2020, went on to secure a place in the Europa League group stages for the first time in our history (and had a good go at trying for Champions League qualification in the process).

So how did they do it? At the time of their initial success, none of these clubs had what Football Manager would term "sugar daddy's" at the helm, and yet they overcame the vast financial muscle of the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris St. Germain and Arsenal to secure their success. They didn't have the best players, nor did they buy in expensive recruits, and many would argue they didn't have the biggest names in football management either. Yet somehow, they defied the odds and although it's too early to tell for West Ham, in the case of Leicester and Lille, they have continued to build on their success in the years that followed.

In an attempt to better understand their recipe for success, I want to drill down in to the key components that led them there, and for me, it all starts with the boss man.

FYI, since I'm far more knowledgeable on the subject of West Ham United, I'll be using them as my primary example from here on in, although I'll try and include other topical references where I can as well. Anyway, without further ado, let's chat more about East London's Moyesiah.

The Manager

David Moyes, a man on a mission and one with a point to prove. Probably best known for his time at Everton where he established them as a decent top half team on a low budget, his spells with Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland were unsuccessful to say the least. However, since his time with West Ham United, the man has seemingly reinvented himself and our club simultaneously, slowly rebuilding his reputation in the process.

One thing he has had to depend on is his own skillset. In the absence of big budgets for star names, instead he would need to rely on his own abilities to coach and man-manage his way to success.

For us FM players, this is where the Squad Dynamics tab comes into it's own, giving you instant feedback on how your relationships with the players are developing, what impact the inter-squad influencers are having, and what seems to be bothering the players at any given moment in the season. I think in the case of Moyes (and presumably Ranieri and Galtier), he must have spent a lot of time on this screen, painstakingly identifying exactly where the issues lie, and then subtly but systematically removing them from the squad.

Moyes seems to have a knack for getting more out of his players, even those whose ability had declined under previous managers (I'm thinking of Cresswell and Antonio for example). Instilling a desire and hunger for success, while also ensuring that that drive doesn't threaten the overall equilibrium of the squad's mentality is a balancing act that any circus performer would be proud of. And yet, far from West Ham looking like a circus (on the pitch at least), instead he's made it look like a well oiled machine.

My takeaway here is to spend less time on the scouting tab and more time on the welfare of the individuals I have at my disposal. Just like in any real-world business, that approach is guaranteed to create a workplace that anyone would thrive in, so I don't see why my Football Manager world would be any different.

Backroom Staff

One of the first things I do when I start at a new club on FM is to comb through the backroom staff and hire the best in the business I can afford. For me that usually consists of filtering by attributes first, and then casually looking at personality, and occasionally their preferred formation as well. Rarely do I consider attributes that are outside the scope of the role I'm hiring for, and when the personality isn't ideal, I'll happily sacrifice it if it means my Fitness Coach has an attribute rating of 20 for fitness.

Now, call me crazy, but I don't think Moyes has followed my approach when hiring his team at West Ham. That's not to say that he's not brought in some excellent coaching staff, but Paul Nevin, Stuart Pearce and Kevin Nolan aren't necessarily three names synonymous with technical prowess and attacking flair. From my perspective, what Moyes has done is genius. He's hired people that first and foremost adopt the same ethos and mentality as his own, but these are then also coaches that compliment the players already at the club.

Rather than blindly trying to hire the best people on paper, he's instead taken the time to build a team (emphasis on 'team') that fits what he's trying to do. I'm convinced this has been the biggest factor in West Ham's improvements of the last 18 months, and if you look at the prolonged success of Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester Utd), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) and even Eddie Howe (Bournemouth) over their respective tenures, they built exactly the same thing - a backroom team.

In contrast, a quick glance to the north of the capital will give you a very different picture, where it seems to me that Mikel Arteta casts a very lonely figure at Arsenal at the moment. He's definitely missing that team spirit on the touchline and while I don't believe for a second that the Gunner's poor form will continue for long, I do think he needs to take some time to create a backroom team that can inspire and motivate his side so he's not doing it all alone.

In conclusion, I'll be prioritising personality and mental attributes over anything else for my backroom team going forward, and if they're good at tactical coaching as well then that's a bonus.

Recruitment

Ok, I mentioned earlier that neither West Ham, nor the likes of Leicester or Lille, had big transfer kitty's to transform their poor form, and while this was absolutely true, of course none of them were completely penniless. After years of poor investment on the pitch, West Ham have found themselves with a manager with a polarising approach to recruitment, as David Moyes repeatedly states that he won't sign players to fill squad places just for the sake of it.

As a fan of the club, this is both refreshing and alarming in equal measure. On the one hand, he only wants to sign players that improve the side, and on the other that means that we're now into the 21/22 season and still only have one recognised striker on our books.

However, ignoring the short term implications an injury to Antonio would have on the squad's form, it also means that any remaining budget Moyes has from the Summer transfer window will be available to spend in January. Similarly, he's kept his wage bill down in the process, and perhaps even more important than both of those points, he's kept the squad small.

In FM, I often get carried away buying two players for every position, and then making half a dozen random swings at exciting young talent I find on Transfer Deadline Day. Most of the time these are flops and so leave on a free a couple of years later, and all the while my ballooning squad becomes disjointed and restless as I struggle to balance everyone's playing time.

Moyes' approach has it's risks, but if you're smart with who you buy, you can avoid those players with long-term injury concerns and can unearth some absolute gems in the process - and all for a low low price! When you think that the likes of Bowen, Benrahma, Coufal and Soucek were all relatively unknown to most Premier League football fans, and yet their impact on West Ham's fortunes has been immeasurable at times.

What's interesting about these signings, is that their work rate and determination in particular are standout qualities that have contributed to their own and to the collective team's success. When you couple it with the likes of Declan Rice, Angelo Ogbonna and Pablo Fornals, you start to see a pattern emerging, and then you start to see how that attitude has rubbed off on some of the club's longer serving players, such as Cresswell and Antonio.

In short, Moyes has built a team that mirrors the desire and drive of his back room staff on the pitch, and in club legend, Mark Noble, he's been able to instil a culture of hard work and determination across the whole squad that is now paying dividends.

At this point, it would be remiss of me to not also mention the coaching ability of Moyes and his backroom team as well. When you see how Rice, Benrahma, Fornals, Johnson and several others have continued to improve week-in, week-out, it's evident that in addition to their desire to improve as individuals, you've also got a collective of coaches that know how to get the best out of them and continue to enahnce their game.

Conclusion? As any self-respecting Football Manager will tell you, success in the transfer market is one area that can have the biggest impact on your journey to glory. Going forward, I'll again be looking much more closely at the mental side of the players I'm bringing in, and won't be afraid to sacrifice on technical ability if it means we get someone that fits the mould of the rest of the squad.

The System

Finally, the good stuff. Signing players and tweaking the training schedules is all well and good but what we all really enjoy is creating a tactic and watching it play out on screen in front of us. Amiright?! For me, this is by far and away the best and worst thing about my FM experience. On the one hand I enjoy creating a tactic and trying to get it working, but on the other, I always struggle to know how to improve and adapt it, especially when your opponents start to get wise to what you're doing.

Curiously, in the case of West Ham, Moyes has created a system that even I small footballing brain can understand, and yet he rarely adapts it, even though teams must know how he's going to play. Of course, that has led to some embarrassing results where our opponents have been able to anticipate exactly what we're trying to do, but for the most part, I think the key to his success with this approach has been in the work ethic of the players. When we lose the ball, you see the whole team working hard to win it back, and similarly when we're on the front foot, you see the whole team patiently working together to create an opening.

It's fair to say that we're also not short of creativity in the front four either, and here again I think Moyes has done well to use players that are capable of both creating and scoring goals. For many years now, West Ham fans have debated how much we need a "20-goal-a-season" striker, but with this system, the front four share the goals, making life very difficult for our opponents who can't work out who the main threat is.

In FM terms, and fairly obviously, I think the key to replicating this is in the roles and duties you assign, particularly for the three attacking midfielders who do so much work across the width of the final third to create chances. It can't be understated that having players with the right mentality in those roles is also important, but getting the balance in terms of player instructions is key.

Last season, we also scored a lot of goals from set pieces, and so Dawson, Ogbonna and Soucek were all able to contribute to our final tally as well. FM's set piece interface is desperately in need of an update, but FMer's with far more tactical nouse than me have still found some success from taking the time to set up a solid corner routine, or two.

In terms of takeaways from this section, I'd say Moyes's system is all about balance and so, while it may be tempting to create a system that demonstrates your sides full attacking prowess, ensuring you are solid in defence is equally as important and so a more patient approach to goal hunting may be the solution.

Limitations

This article has offered a lot by way of compliments for the transformation of West Ham United that David Moyes has overseen across two spells at the club in recent years. Despite the positives, there are of course several limitations to his approach which I also wanted to mention.

While I applaud the reluctance to waste our resources on poor recruitment, it is very concerning that we don't have a 'plan B' on the bench for when things aren't going as expected. In truth, that's less Moyes' fault and more the lack of strategy from the board, although that may well be changing soon as former Manchester City scout Rob Newman will be joining as our new Head of Recruitment.

A symptom of our lack of squad depth also leads me to my next criticism of Moyes, which is his reluctance towards making substitutes in a game. Whether the subs are made late, or there are too few of them, it's frustrating as a fan to watch when surely a fresh pair of legs, or a different type of player might mix things up a bit. It's clear that we don't have much quality outside of our first XI, but the counter to that is that they are more susceptible to injuries if they play too many games.

Finally, a word on the Academy of Football. While most football fans will have long forgotten West Ham's tradition when it comes to producing wonderkids, for Hammers fans it's a proud part of our history that we cling to with whatever we can find to hold on with! With the exception of Rice, it's been a while since we produced any noteworthy players, and you'd probably have to go back to the era of Ferdinand, Lampard, Carrick, Cole, De Foe and Glen Johnson to understand what I'm talking about.

I'm a firm believer that if you can give youngsters the playing time they need to develop, then you can unearth a potential gem in the process, while simultaneously offering some respite to your first team regulars as well. This is one area that is probably more easily done in Football Manager than in the real world, especially when you consider how it may disrupt the harmony of the group if you start dropping in a bunch of unknown 18 year olds into squad training. Still, hard not to when playing the game I think!

Conclusion

Despite some shortcomings within the game, Football Manager does in fact provide most of the tools you need to mimic David Moyes' success at West Ham and create a winning 'club culture'. When it comes to transfers and tactics, I suspect most players are well versed in these aspects of the game, however squad dynamics and a focus on mental attributes may be something that get's overlooked a little.

By way of an exit, I thought I'd distil my thoughts down into short form by channelling the poet in me and mimicking another great man, Rudyard Kipling:

If you can be a manager that can work with what he's got;
Who's a great man-motivator and is happy with his lot.
If you can build a backroom team, who believe in what you do;
And trust them to impart your work ethic in the players too.
If your new signings will always try their best and work hard;
Will run non-stop all game long, and even take a card.
If you can make a tactic that will focus on your strength;
But won't ignore your weaknesses by any stretch or length.
If you can fill the unforgiving match, with 90 minutes worth of distance run;
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.
And which is more, you'll be a Moyes, my son.

FM Athlete

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I hope you enjoyed this unscheduled update. The fact that you've read down this far would suggest you at least enjoyed it enough to want to make it stop by getting to the end. Thanks for that, I appreciate you. Timing is everything in this game and so I wanted to get this out there before West Ham's form capitulates into the anarchy we're used to seeing at the London Stadium. If you're reading this mid-way through the season with our form at rock bottom, try to imagine that I was right and Moyes really did know what he was doing at one point.

I'll be back in the not to distant future to share my plans for FM22, but in the meantime please feel free to check out other updates from my blog, or find me on FM Slack and Twitter by searching for FM_athlete. See ya!

Trabzon Times | #6

ATHLETE ENTERS TURKISH HALL OF FAME

Trabzonspor boss, Frank Athlete, has this week been inducted into Turkish football's Hall of Fame after his side secured their third consecutive league title after just four years in the job.

The news comes in the same week that Trabzonspor lost out to Besiktas in the Turkiye Kupasi Final as they failed to defend their title from last season. Although the side suffered defeat in the cup competition, Athlete can boast three Super Lig titles, one Turkiye Kupasi and one Super Kupa during his relatively short tenure, an impressive haul for someone who began his career in Turkish football as a bit of an unknown quantity.

Despite the deserved plaudits for his continued success, Athlete followed last season's domestic treble, with just the one trophy this term and will no doubt be feeling a sense of anti-climax after what many perceived would be another clean sweep of the silverware on offer.

Challenging season

The Black Sea Storm have grown significantly in stature in recent years, but suffered their worst start to a season during Athlete's reign, notching up a pitiful 8 points after their opening 7 games. They recovered well though, and regained top spot in November and held on to it until the end of the season.

Runners up Sivasspor can take heart from an impressive string of results that saw them beat Beşiktaş and Fenerbahçe to 2nd place and that much coveted second Champions League spot. Turkey's overall ranking on the European circuit means that both Trabzonspor and Sivasspor will need to navigate the qualification rounds before reaching the group stages in next year's competition.

An Eye on The Future

Athlete appears to be wasting no time in preparing for further success, with planning well under already for Trabzonspor's title defence next term, and there's clearly renewed hope among the fans that the side can keep pushing for continental success as well.

Analysis: Trabzonspor Continue to Defy Odds in Europe

As the 2023/24 season draws to a close, Trabzonspor will reflect on yet another successful campaign among Europe's elite as they bettered last season's record by qualifying for the Champions League Quarter Finals this term.

The team's performances in Europe have been impressive to say the least, as they looked to build on last season's exit at the First Knockout Round, despite their group consisting of Barcelona, Ajax and Celtic.

Trabzonspor finished as Group E winners, amassing a points haul of 16 from a possible 18, with their only draw coming against Ajax in Amsterdam.

To have qualified from the group once could be considered a fluke, but for Athlete and his men to now have managed the feat on two consecutive occasions surely shows the level of ambition this club has.

As group winners, Trabzonspor were handed Lazio in the First Knockout Round, who fought back from a 2-1 aggregate loss in the first leg, to draw 3-3 and force a penalty shootout. After a tense few minutes, Trabzonspor bagged a deserved victory and progressed to the Quarter Finals where Austrian outfit RB Salzburg would be their opponents.

Many among the fan base had hoped the fairy-tale would continue but it wasn't to be, with RB Salzburg winning 2-0 in the first leg, and then saw out a tense 2-2 draw in the tie at the Şenol Güneş Stadium.

This newfound form in continental football has given the fanbase even more to shout about as Trabzonspor continue to push the boundaries of success enjoyed by Turkish sides of the past.

The Peglow Phenomenon

It's no surprise to anyone who has been following Turkish football in recent years that Trabzonspor are now considered one of the biggest clubs in the country. The side have rediscovered their winning capability from years gone by, and have bagged silverware in almost routine fashion since Frank Athlete joined.

One of the key components of their success has been the shrewd investment in the playing squad as Athlete has carefully balanced youth development with both domestic imports and signings from abroad. One such signing has been none other than Peglow, a Brazilian forward who's development under Athlete's coaches has seen him become an invaluable member of the team.

Initially, Peglow was brought in as a back up to Ekuban but has proved since his arrival that his place in the starting XI is unquestionable. Signed from Brazilian club, Internacianol for an eye watering ₺150M (€14.85M), many fans questioned the decision to invest such a large portion of the transfer budget in a player who had never played in Europe before.

Fast forward a few years and Peglow is proving all the critics wrong with his consistent, high standard performances. After 100 games with the club, he's notched up 63 goals, 8 assists and 18 POM awards. His average rating over three seasons is 7.12, but this would be higher if you exclude his first season where he was still getting used to his new environment.

Many have queried his absence from the Brazilian national side, but at just 22 years old, it's clear his potential to continue to improve is significant. One thing is for certain however, no Tranzonspor fan is doubting his ability now and without the added pressure of international football, that just means he's fresher and fitter for this club instead.

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond the city of Trabzon in recent days.

AS Saint-Etienne Boss Returns for Squad Overhaul

After some time away from the prying eyes of the world, the St. Etienne manager has returned to the club in recent weeks and work is underway to overhaul the playing squad in preparation for further progress on the pitch. Read more.

GAIS Manager Reveals Secret to Corners Success

In a thrilling revelation, the manager of Swedish side GAIS has shared how he sets his side up for corners, and how he looks for specific attributes within the squad to maximise their goals haul from set pieces. Read more.

Royal Antwerp Make History

After a gripping season in the Jupiler Pro League, Royal Antwerp are enjoying some of their greatest success in recent times. Read more.

Internet Giant CoffeehouseFM Announce New Signing

This week saw another FM media outlet join forces with the hottest FM news website on the internet. With no subscription fees involved, you can get your daily fix of FM content from a plethora of industry experts, with news, views and updates from a wide range of clubs from across the football universe. Read more.

SC Verl Building From Ground Up

As SC Verl continue to do well and draw large crowds, the Board look to invest in the club's training and youth facilities. Read more.

Got a story to share? Contact us with a link to it here.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

Trabzon Times | #5

ATHLETE MAKES HISTORY IN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Trabzonspor have qualified for the First Knockout Round of the Champions League for the first time in their history. After impressing during the Group Stages, the Black Sea side finished second in Group G with a tally of 12 points. Trabzonspor will now play Portuguese side FC Porto across two legs, starting on 21st February 2023.

The team were initially drawn against Manchester City, Bayer Leverkusen and Krasnodar in the group in what many predicted to be a very difficult contest for the Turkish club. Those concerns looked to bear fruit in the opening match as Manchester City dispelled an early Trabzonspor goal to run out eventual 3-1 winners at the Şenol Güneş Stadium.

Frank Athlete and his men were not to be deterred however, and would go on to first defeat both Krasnodar and Bayer Leverkusen away, before completing the rout with wins in the reverse fixtures as well. A second gruelling 4-0 defeat to Manchester City meant the English side qualified as group winners with 15 points.

With the likes of Barcelona, Juventus, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich all still in the competition, many might argue that FC Porto pose a slightly more favourable challenge, with many Trabzonspor fans optimistic that the team could yet go even further.

Frank Athlete is choosing to take a more pragmatic approach however, saying "there's a lot of football still to be played so it's not really significant for me" when the question was put to him in Friday's press conference. Asked if he thought Trabzonspor could go all the way to the final, Athlete responded "we're just taking things one game at a time as always". A sensible, albeit reserved reply from the manager.

FC Porto were winners of Group E, having lost just once to Italian side Atalanta, and securing wins against Everton and PSV in the process. The match between Trabzonpsor and FC Porto will be the first since July 2010 when the Portuguese outfit emerged 1-0 winners in a friendly.

FC Porto famously won the Champions League in 2004 after an impressive run saw them defeat the likes of Manchester United and Lyon on the way to beating Monaco 3-0 in the final.

As the current Liga Nos champions, they're certainly a side capable of winning comfortably in this fixture, and will view Trabzonspor as a stepping stone into the Quarter Finals. Frank Athlete meanwhile, will be hoping it's his side that upset the odds and will no doubt be aiming to bring the team's league form in to the match with them, after his side remain unbeaten in the Süper Lig this term.

Trabzonspor are the lowest ranked team remaining in the competition, with a coefficient of just 6,580. By contrast, the next lowest is Atalanta with 64,500, while FC Porto have 80,000. The highest ranked team is Liverpool who have a coefficient of 139,000.

Familiar Faces

Trabzonspor and FC Porto are the only two teams to feature in the First Knockout Round outside of Europe's five big leagues. England's Premier League have the most teams still in the contest (4), with last years winners Liverpool featuring alongside Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City.

Meanwhile, the Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A each have three representative's left in the competition, with Germany's Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig, Spain's Athletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and Italy's Juventus, Napoli and Atalanta, all vying for a place in the Final. France's Ligue 1 side, PSG, are the other team through to the knockout stages.

Trabzonspor are the first Turkish team in recent years to get this far in the competition, while FC Porto have been knocked out at this stage twice in the last two years. They'll be hoping to right that record against the Turkish champions, while the Black Sea Storm will be looking to ensure their fairy tale continues into the next round.

Analysis: Black Sea Storm Begin Another Season Unbeaten

Trabzonspor are once again unbeaten in their opening 15 games of the Süper Lig this year, with the current champions amassing a haul of 39 points so far. Last season Trabzonspor managed a streak of 32 games unbeaten between 21st April 2021 and 4th March 2022.

This time around the team's last defeat came back in May 2022 when they played away against Kayserispor. Media pundits are predicting the team's streak could continue for a while yet. It's been a stop-start season so far, with the World Cup in November leading to a forced break to Süper Lig action.

Despite the disruption, Trabzonspor have been emphatic this season, with impressive wins at Fenerbahçe and Başakşehir, and they've continued that form after the break with another three straight wins at the end of December.

As the teams look to resume in the New Year, the Black Sea side are preparing to play 3rd placed Alanyaspor before another tricky game against Beşiktaş on 4th January 2023.

Athlete's biggest challenge however, is likely to come off the field this year, with interest in some of Trabzonspor's best players thought to be high. Chief among them is young attacking midfielder, Süleyman Cebeci, who has impressed in the first team this year, and is attracting some interest from Europe's other leagues.

Elsewhere, young Brazilian forward, Peglow, also looks to be in high demand, particularly following several club's pursuit of him in the Summer transfer window. Frank Athlete managed to keep hold of him then and will no doubt be hoping he can do the same throughout January.

One player looking likely to depart however is attacking midfielder, Igor Coronado who, while performing well for the side in recent weeks, has not recaptured his impressive form from at the start of his time with Trabzonspor.

It's rumoured that a bid from a Chinese Super League side is expected very soon, and with Süleyman Cebeci performing so well in attacking midfield this year, it's widely anticipated that a bid could be accepted, provided the fee is right.

Igor Coronado signed for Trabzonspor in 2021 for ₺20M (£1.9M).

Opinion: Süper Kupa Win Tees Up Domestic Treble

Athlete's quest for silverware has continued this term, as his side added the 2022 Süper Kupa to the trophy cabinet, alongside last season's Süper Lig title.

Trabzonspor were impressive in their victory against Galatasaray, although the match was tightly contested in the first half with Trabzonspor just edging their opponents 1-0. The second half was a different affair, with Trabzonspor bagging 5 more goals and Galatasaray only able to respond with one.

A 6-1 victory really highlighted Trabzonpsor's intent for this season and their current unbeaten run in the league along with their impressive run in the Champions League, is proof that this team is capable of great things, both domestically and internationally.

Athlete will be looking to continue the club's progress on the field, and will no doubt be eyeing a second league title and the Türkiye Kupası as yet more opportunities to secure some silverware.

Many would argue that the key to Trabzonspor's success so far has been down to their utilisation of their full playing squad. Frank Athlete has used 24 players across all competitions, totalling 22 games this season.

This approach has provided an opportunity for a number of young players to feature, while also managing to keep the more senior squad members feeling fresh.

Many fans have voiced their pleasure at seeing some of the stars of the future in action, and it looks likely that Athlete will continue with this approach in the upcoming league and cup games as well.

Trabzonspor kick off their Türkiye Kupası campaign against fourth tier side Turgutluspor on 11th January 2023.

Insider: Who is the Real Suleyman Cebeci?

New rules in the Super Lig's squad registration process has meant that the starting XI must feature at least one player under the age of 22, and who has been trained by the club between the ages of 15 and 21.

Anyone taking note of Frank Athlete's squad registration back in the Summer would have been shocked to see him name just two players that fit that criteria, with one of those a backup goalkeeper.

Many suggested at the time that perhaps the club had not realised there were changes to the rules, but that notion seems laughable of a professional football club.

It would appear that despite questions at the time from sections of the media, Frank Athlete had a plan all along with young and promising attacking midfielder, Süleyman Cebeci, proving more than capable of fulfilling the requirement.

Cebeci is one of a number of recent academy graduates to break into the first team, following in the footsteps of such players as Abdulkadir Ömür. At just 19 years of age, Süleyman is showing all the signs that he could even surpass the quality of Ömür, and has recently been likened to former Turkey international, Tümer Metin.

Süleyman has featured in 16 games so far this term, notching up 4 goals and an assist in the process, but his impressive work rate and pass completion are traits that fit very nicely into Frank Athlete's preferred playing style.

Often deployed as an Advanced Playmaker or simply as an Attacking Midfielder, Süleyman operates very well in the hole behind the forwards, linking the midfield with attack with intelligent passing and good movement.

Cebeci has attracted some interest from other European clubs, with the likes of Atalanta and SLB showing signs of potentially signing the youngster in the future.

Memory Lane: The Ottomans

In the last column of this recurring feature on the history of Trabzon, we explored the eventual rise of the Ottoman Empire as they conquered the city in the middle of the 15th Century.

For the next 150 years, Trabzon would remain the administrative hub for the region before eventually becoming the capital of it's own province in 1598.

In the centuries that followed, Trabzon would remain an integral part of the Ottoman Empire and it's significance with trade would lead many European nations to start opening their own consulates in the region, while simultaneously becoming Persia's main port for exports, before the opening of the Suez Canal changed that.

The city continued to house a culturally diverse population with many migrants moving in and out, and multiple religions practiced in the region as well during this period.

Trabzon would later see many Western technologies and innovations introduced, which in turn led to a surge in schools being constructed that would educate the youth of the migrants moving to the region. These ranged from Greek, Muslim and Armenian initially, to then also include international schools for American, French, Italian and Persian children as well.

This investment in education led to the the region having the highest literacy rate in the the Ottoman Empire.

At the heart of Trabzon's development over the course of the last several hundred years, had been the ever-present diversity of the people residing here, with the old Silk Road playing a significant role in bringing so many different people from all corners of the world to the city.

In fact as the end of the 19th Century drew nearer, it was also those travellers that would bring with them a pastime that was growing in popularity in other European countries and would soon become just as popular here as well: Football.

Germany Win World Cup

The Qatar 2022 World Cup has been concluded with Germany crowned the eventual winners of the competition. Since Turkey failed to qualify this year, there was little for Trabzonspor fans to be excited about, with Iranian central defender, Majid Hosseini, the sole representative from the side. Unfortunately Iran were unable to secure a single point in their three group games and so failed to qualify for the knockout rounds.

Perhaps the biggest shock of the contest was Croatia's failure to qualify at all. The 2018 Runners Up were beaten by the Netherlands in the final of the qualification rounds. Elsewhere, the other big shock was Euro 2020 winners, Italy's, early departure from the group stages, notching up 3 draws and missing out on qualification to Denmark and Brazil.

As we reached the knockout stages, Switzerland were the standout side of the Second Round, dispatching Argentina 1-0 to qualify for the Quarter Finals. Their dream run was ended by Portugal who would go on to reach the Final for the first time in their history, defeating Spain on penalties in the process. Reigning Champions, France, suffered a Quarter Final exit to England who's Semi-Final appearance was their second in two World Cups.

England's loss to Germany set up an all-European Final for the second consecutive World Cup, and the match proved to be a thrilling spectacle, with Germany taking an early two goal lead inside 10 minutes through goals from Leroy Sane and Timo Werner. Led by 37-year-old captain, Christiano Ronaldo, Portugal snatched one back with a German own goal, before Jonathan Tah added Germany's third before Half Time. Portugal's second came through Andre Horta in the 71st minute and despite a strong showing at the end of the match, they never really looked like equalising, leaving Germany to run out as deserved champions.

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond the city of Trabzon in recent days.

Rotation Rotation Rotation

It was another great season for Toulouse, with many praising the club's Director of Football for the squad depth he has brought to the side. Some consistent performances and a solid rotation policy saw the team continue their drive towards the top. Read more.

Rayo Vallecano Undergo Tough Test

Before this season, Rayo had enjoyed promotion as champions of LaLiga 2 followed by 6th, 7th and 2nd placed finishes in the top flight under Teixidó. Now he undergoes his greatest test in this season's opening 10 games of the season. Read more.

La Dea Optimistic for Season Ahead

Following back to back seasons of progress in the league and a decent showing in the Champions League group stages, this time Atalanta will look to start closing the gap on the title race and chasing silverware in the Coppa Italia. Read more.

Initial Difficulties for Les Thoniers

A very poor start to the 2025/26 league campaign saw French side U.S. Concarneau slip to bottom of the division with just one point secured from their opening six games. Read more.

AS Saint-Etienne Boss Seeks New Keeper

Saint-Etienne headed into the new season with no recognised number 1 goalkeeper, and although the youngster did well, the hunt was on for a new shot stopper. Read more.

Royal Antwerp in Hunt for Europe

Royal Antwerp have qualified for the Championship Group in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League, and now face the prospect of just 6 more games as they vie for qualification to Europe's elite competitions next year. Read more.

Got a story to share? Contact us with a link to it here.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

Trabzon Times | #4

TRABZONSPOR WIN SÜPER LIG

Trabzonspor have secured their first Süper Lig title since 1984, as the club celebrate an impressive season that will live long in the memory of its fans. The club's overall dominance in the league was a particular highlight, after the side initially went 32 games and 45 weeks without defeat, eventually losing their first game since 21st April 2021 to 7th placed Beşiktaş.

Manager Frank Athlete has cast a divisive shadow on the touchline this season, with many of the Trabzonspor faithful still angered at his decision to sell fan favourites Omur and Djaniny last Summer. It was Athlete's dealings in the transfer market however, that proved to be the difference this term, with new recruits Igor Coranado and Metehan Altunbaş among the side's top performers.

Trabzonspor's impressive defensive record saw the club break the record for the number of clean sheets (22) and fewest goals conceded (24) in the league, while their attacking prowess was also noteworthy as they ranked second in the division for goals scored (83) behind eventual runners-up, Başakşehir (87).

Despite a strong showing in the league throughout most of the season, there were murmurs among the fan base that the team's mentality might let them down in the latter stages of the campaign, with the Trabzonspor side seemingly doing all they could to throw away their title hopes as they entered the last few weeks of the campaign.

Having opened up an 8 point lead over second placed Başakşehir, that gap was closed to just 3 points when the two teams met in the penultimate game of the season, with the 1-1 score a fair reflection of these two sides' abilities this season. The gulf between the top 2 and the other early-season title challengers was quite incredible, with many shocked at the likes of Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş all finishing outside of the top 4 this year.

Trabzonspor could have had the title sewn up much earlier in the season, but for their abysmal form in the final eight games, collecting just 10 points from a possible 24. This poor run was in stark contrast to their scintillating form in the first half of the season, with notable losses away to Alanyaspor and Kayserispor, not to mention points dropped at the likes of Kasımpaşa and İstanbulspor.

Key Injuries

Major injuries sustained in a number of training sessions, saw key personnel side-lined for several weeks at the turn of the year. Starting central defender, Vukasin Jovanovic, young Advanced Playmaker, Suleyman Cebeci, veteran striker, Tony Nwakaeme, and Süper Lig Yılın Oyuncusu (Player of the Year) winner, Anders Trondsen, all being out injured at the same time.

In the wake of such absences, opportunities arose for the likes of Tuğbey Akgün and Hüseyin Türkmen to stake their claim for a regular starting place in the side, with solid performances helping the team to stay in title contention and giving manager Frank Athlete plenty to think about in terms of his best XI.

Athlete has signed a new contract in November 2021 which will keep him at the club until June 2024, and with so many talented footballers doing well this year, he's sure to have his work cut out to find space for everyone when he begins his title defence next season.

Analysis: Black Sea Storm Rue Cup Final Slip

Trabzonspor's impressive form that was witnessed in the league, was also evident in the Türkiye Kupası this year as the side attempted to make it a league and cup double come season's end. Successive wins over newly promoted Samsunspor, Kayserispor, Fenerbahçe and Alanyaspor, saw the Black Sea Storm team make it through to the Türkiye Kupası Final where they would play last season's Runner Up, Galatasaray.

This was Trabzonpsor's first cup final since 2020, when they ran out winners over this season's Semi-Final opposition, Alanyaspor. Sadly, the feat would not be repeated, with Galatasaray comfortably dispatching Frank Athlete's men 3-0, taking their total cup final wins to 19 - the Turkish record.

Trabzonspor's performance on the day was lacklustre at best, with the side seemingly forsaking their early season form and having little by way of response, even when their Istanbul-based opponents had a man sent off in the 70th minute. Despite a disappointing end to a strong campaign, Trabzonspor can take heart from their run to the final, and no doubt fans across the region are already eagerly anticipating the prospect of more silverware next year after the club bagged their first league title in 38 years.

Club Captain, Uğurcan Çakır, seemed in optimistic mood on reflection of a decent season, remarking "we were disappointed to lose the cup final but we're obviously thrilled to secure the league title. We knew we were capable of challenging for trophies, and we've confirmed that this year. We want to keep winning and will set our sights firmly on attaining more silverware next year."

In terms of the Türkiye Kupası, Uğurcan was probably Trabzonspor's top performer, often being the difference when the team were struggling to score at the other end. His season statistics across all competitions suggest as much too:

Meanwhile, Trabzonspor will kick off their hunt for more silverware with a Süper Kupa appearance in August with their opponent once again being Galatasaray.

Trabzonspor were Süper Kupa winners in 2021, while Galatasaray have won the trophy on 17 occasions. They will be determined to spoil Trabzonspor's party, particularly after they lost to the Black Sea coast team on the first day of last season.

Meanwhile, with no time to rest on his laurels, Athlete will already have started his planning, and will be looking to use this traditional curtain raiser to demonstrate his intent for the season ahead.

Opinion: Trabzonspor Win Individual Plaudits

Frank Athlete's men were deserved champions this term, after a long and arduous campaign saw them clinch the title on the penultimate game of the season. In addition to the team winning their first trophy under Athlete's leadership, Trabzonspor also topped the charts with individual awards won this year.

Athlete himself bagged the Manager of the Season Award after significant improvement on his first season in charge. Club captain, Uğurcan Çakır, collected the honour of Süper Lig Goalkeeper of the Season Award after some impressive performances between the sticks, and not to mention his clean sheet record that was broken this year.

Elsewhere, Norwegian international Anders Trondsen collected the awards for the Süper Lig Midfielder of the Season, and Süper Lig Yılın Oyuncusu (Player of the Year), after playing some inspiring football this year.

Fond Farewell

Trondsen will be departing Trabzonpsor in January 2023, having agreed terms to join Chinese Super League outfit, Shanghai Greenland Shenua, for a reported ₺200M (£19.8M).

Athlete has wasted no time at all in identifying his replacement, with İrfan Kehvici picked out as the man to do the job. İrfan signs from this season's runners up, Baseksehir for a fee believed to be in the region of ₺110M (£10.9M). He has also already agreed personal terms with the club, and will link up with the team at the start of preseason on 1st July 2022.

Fans of the club will be hoping that İrfan can hit the ground running, and showcase some decent performances to rival Trondsen's sensational play this year.

Insider: Fans Eye Champions League Return

Trabzonspor make a hotly anticipated return to Champions League football next season, having qualified for the Group Stages after their title winning campaign. This is the first time the club will feature in the Champions League since the 2011/12 season. Owing to recent changes in the coefficient model, Turkey's top team now go straight through to the Group Stages, while the team in second place will begin in the Third Qualifying Round.

Black Sea Storm fans are understandably excited at the prospect of seeing their players line up against some of Europe's biggest teams, and will be eagerly anticipating the Group Stage draw which will take place in August. Among the other contenders are last seasons Champions League winners, Liverpool, along with Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, each of whom it is expected will reach the latter stages of the contest.

Despite their excitement, it would seem that most fans of the club are trying to be realistic with Trabzonspor's prospects in the competition. It's unlikely they will progress beyond the group, but none of that will matter to Frank Athlete, who will be seeing this as an opportunity to build a solid foundation for his team's success in the future.

Asked about his side's return to Champions League action, Athlete said, "it's a fantastic achievement for the club, but it's just the start of what I think this team can do. It won't matter to me if we exit the competition at the group stage because I know we'll be back. I want to build long lasting success here, and prove to the doubters that last season's title win wasn't just a flash in the pan." Fans will no doubt be delighted at Athlete's comments, and what many believe could be the start of an exciting time at the club.

Memory Lane: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

Previously, this column looked at the Roman and Byzantine occupations of Trabzon, taking us up to the turn of the 12th Century, and the establishment of the Empire of Trebizond (Trabzon). In terms of geography, the Trebizond Empire was made up of nothing more than a thin strip of land along the southern coast of the Black Sea. With the Pontic mountains to the South of the province, it was largely protected from challengers from elsewhere, and as a result of this and it's thriving trade route, it's wealth and importance far surpassed its size and population.

In the mid-13th Century, the Mongol's capture of Baghdad meant increased trade for Trebizond. Many travelled here, including Italian ships from Genoa and Venice, but no travellers were more famous than Marco Polo, who ended his overland journey along the Silk Road in city in the latter part of the 13th Century.

In 1347, the Black Death arrived at the city and, alongside the Empire's engagement in the Trapezuntine Civil War, this would lead to the eventual demise of the Empire itself over the next 100 years, as the Ottoman's would stake their eventual claim on the region in the centuries to come. At that time, Constantinople remained the Byzantine capital and it was here that the Ottoman's struck first, taking the city in 1453 before moving along the coast to conquer Trebizond 8 years later, after Emperor David surrendered.

By now, the city's population of around 4,000 people was very diverse, with large communities of Greek, Laz and Armenian people calling Trabzon their home, and with multiple faiths practiced throughout the city as well. This demographic would survive for several centuries under Ottoman rule, despite many Turkish settlers sent into the region shortly after taking control.

Academy Gets Overdue Upgrade

Trabzonspor's youth facilities will receive a long overdue upgrade this Autumn, when works at the Academy are concluded in October. Athlete submitted his request back in December of last year, and with the Board of Directors keen to keep progressing the club forward, they were quick to accept his request.

A recent survey of the club's youth facilities labelled them as "Average", which is in stark contrast to divisional rivals Başakşehir and Fenerbahçe whose facilities have been described as "Great" and "Good" in the past.

The work began in May 2022 and is expected to take 6 months to complete. At a total outlay of ₺1.9M (£190K), it's evident that the Trabzonspor Board of Directors are intent on investing some of the transfer revenue generated last season into the club's future prospects, which will no doubt be a welcome sentiment among the fan base.

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond the city of Trabzon in recent days.

Junior Boss Sticks to Youth Development

From the Italian immigrants who formed ‘Juventus’ to the Spanish form of ‘Juventud Infantil’ in the early days of it history, through to ‘Juventud Junior’, ‘Atlético Junior’, ‘Junior de Barranquilla’, ‘Junior Club’ and simply ‘Junior’ in more modern years. One theme remains largely consistent in its names: Youth. Read more.

Early Transfer Business Key for La Dea

After last season's cautionary tale of not acting in the January transfer window, this time the Atalanta boss sought to have his incoming business completed early. Read more.

Royal Antwerp on Course for Success

Belgian side Royal Antwerp are undergoing a rebuild under their new manager, whose shrewd recruitment on and off the pitch seems to be reaping the desired results in his first season in charge. Read more.

Sporting Cristal Boss Eyes Next Chapter

After several years in the job, Sporting Cristal's Head Coach is looking to his next challenge after enjoying relative success at the club, but can his final season in charge prove tp be his best yet? Read more.

Teixidó Shifts Club Philosophy

Football news and analysis website, theangrylinesmen, once referred to the Rayo Vallecano's approach to transfers as the “sustainable revolving door”, referring to the delicate and perilous financial balancing act of the club’s continuous recruitment cycle. Recent success and LaLiga stability under Fernando Teixidó over the last four years may have changed this for good. Read more.

Toulouse Look to Build for Future on Tight Budget

With the side destined to play Champions League football this term, Toulouse are faced with the prospect of strengthening the squad on a shoestring budget. The club's Director of Football has previously worked wonders in the transfer market, but will need to be at his best to ensure the club continue their on-field success. Read more.

SC Verl Boss Aims for Bundesliga 2 Survival

SC Verl have undergone a massive overhaul of their playing staff this term, bringing in no less than 13 players, but with the media predicting an immediate return to the 3. Liga, can they survive? Read more.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

Trabzon Times | #3

TRABZONSPOR CASH IN ON TOP TALENT

Trabzonspor have raked in a club record of ₺440M (£43.5M) over the Summer transfer window, with the bulk of that coming from just two player sales as Frank Athlete sought to reshape his squad for the 2021/22 season.

Having ended last season's campaign strongly with a 4th placed finish and qualification into the Europa Conference League, it was expected that the club would come under pressure to sell some of their top talent.

After a number of impressive performances for the Black Sea Storm, local lad and talisman, Abdülkadir Ömür, was the first to come under offer with a number of Premier League clubs chasing his signature. London-based Fulham made the first formal bid, which was instantly refused by Athlete, much to the joy of the fans.

Fulham were not deterred however, submitting subsequent bids and attracting the interest of fellow Premier League side Newcastle United in the process. Newcastle's first bid was a reported ₺260M (£25.7M), a staggering sum and evidently too much for Trabzonspor President, Ahmet Ali Ağaoğlu, to pass up.

An insider at the club revealed Athlete's fury at having the decision taken out of his hands, but in the end Ömür agreed terms with the Tyneside club and Trabzonspor's financial troubles were swiftly righted in the process.

Unfortunately for Athlete there would be more transfer drama to deal with before the window closed with last season's eventual "Gol Kralı" (Goal King) winner, Djaniny being the subject of much speculation.

Djaniny bagged a total of 32 league goals last term, one shy of the Trabzonspor record for a season, but still plenty to attract many European clubs to his talents.

FC Porto submitted a decent offer and with Djaniny's head turned, a source at the club told us that this time Athlete took control of the situation, identifying a suitable replacement before accepting the bid of around ₺140M (£13.9M).

With the fan base understandably disappointed at having shipped off two of it's best performers from last season, Athlete set about replenishing the squad with suitable replacements. Igor Coranado joins from UAE club Sharjah for ₺20M (£2M) to take Ömür's place as an Advanced Playmaker, while young Brazilian, Peglow, signs from Brazilian outfit Internacional for ₺150M (£14.8M) and will replace the departing Djaniny up front.

Athlete also took the opportunity to strengthen the squad in depth, with left wing back Umut Meraş signing from Le Havre and West Ham legend Mark Noble joining as well, both for a mere ₺10M (£1M) each.

Elsewhere, Vukasin Jovanovic signed for Trabzonspor on a free transfer from Bordeaux, while a number of young prospects have also joined the club and will be hoping to push for a first team place. Chief among them is 18 year old Metehan Altunbaş who signs from Eskişehirspor who were recently relegated from the 1. Lig.

Squad rule changes

This year sees a further restructuring to the Süper Lig with the number of teams reduced to 20, one less than last year but still two more than what we have become accustomed to in to the top flight of Turkish football.

Additional restrictions on foreign player have also been introduced with each club permitted a maximum of 14 non-Turkish players with just 8 of them allowed in the playing XI at one time. The Turkish FA hopes these new restrictions will encourage home grown talent to develop to a higher standard, and therefore will help the National team to compete in the years ahead.

Next season these restrictions will go one step further, reducing the total number of foreign players to 13 and only 7 permitted in the playing XI at one time.

With that in mind, many would say that the Trabzonpor manager has had these rule changes in mind this year as he has brought in a number of highly rated young Turkish players who will no doubt play a significant role in the club in the years ahead.

Athlete has already built a reputation for favouring younger players and as the new season has gotten underway, we've seen no less than ten players under the age of 23 who have made an appearance this season. The fans will hope that approach remains the same as the club continue to produce excellent academy prospects.

Analysis: Can Trabzonspor Remain Unbeaten This Season?

Trabzonspor's 2021/22 campaign has gotten off to a flyer, with the side remaining unbeaten in the league this term, after twelve matches played.

Sitting atop the Süper Lig on an incredible 34 points, the team also have the best attack with 32 goals and the tightest defence having conceded just three so far.

2019/20 Süper Lig winners Başakşehir remain level on points, but their inferior goal difference keeps them in 2nd place.

Many had predicted another fairly average campaign for Frank Athlete's men, especially following the departure of two of last season's top performers in Abdülkadir Ömür and Djaniny. The media had predicted the side would finish in 5th place with the bookies putting them at 9-1 odds to win the championship.

Now however, as we head into December, the team are in red-hot form, their last defeat coming on the 21st of April to last year's eventual winners, Galatasaray.

Trabzonspor took their revenge against them in their opening game this season though, with a convincing 2-0 win against the current holders, and have been in scintillating form ever since, only dropping points away at Konyaspor and beating the likes of Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş in the process.

Key Performers

With a change in playing personnel this year, it's been a mix of the old guard and some of the Summer's new signings who have lined up to appease the fans with attractive and exciting football.

Notable performances include that of club captain Uğurcan Çakır with 9 clean sheets, Tony Nwakaeme, who has 9 goals and an assist from his 11 appearances, and his youthful understudy, Metehan Altunbaş, who has collected 5 goals and 3 assists from his 11 appearances this season.

Perhaps the most exciting action to witness though, has come in the form of the sides more creative players, with Igor Coranado and Anders Trondsen both supplying 6 assists each, as well as another 7 goals between them.

One thing is certain, the future is bright.

Opinion: Shock Exit in Europe Needs Addressing

Trabzonspor's exceptional form in the league has masked their failings in Europe, but many won't have forgotten the disappointment of an early exit from the Europa Conference League back in August.

Entering the competition at the Third Qualifying Round, Trabzonspor's first challenge came in the form of Cypriot side AEK Larnakas, who they comfortably dispatched 2-0 over the two legs, setting up a Fourth Qualifying Round tie against Greek Super League outfit, AEK, who had just finished their season in third place.

With qualification to the group stages predicted to be a fairly straightforward affair, it came as quite a shock when in the first leg, AEK held Trabzonspor to a draw at home, setting up a highly competitive match in the reverse fixture.

Trabzonspor's 100% record in the league after their opening two games was evident when they kicked off against AEK, bagging an early goal in the 6th minute.

AEK equalised a short while later but as the sides reemerged for the second half, it looked certain that Trabzonspor would be taking home the points as their excellent play deserved another goal.

AEK had other plans however and were more than happy to spoil the party with the winner in the 69th minute.

The expected goals statistic for the match (pictured above) tells another story though, with Trabzonspor registering 2.7 xG against AEK's 0.43 xG.

Ultimately what matters though, is the number of goals scored, and perhaps this upset will serve as a lesson for the Black Sea Storm players that no match should be considered a walk in the park.

Insider: Cup Final is Minimum Expectation

As we reach the end of November, Trabzonspor will take a break from Süper Lig action this week as their Türkiye Kupası camapign gets under way. Last season's Semi-Final defeat to eventual winners Başakşehir is still a painful memory, particualrly as the performance was very disapponting on the day.

This year, fans are optimistic once again of attaining some silverware, and will no doubt expect a place in the Final as a minimum. Trabzonspor enter the competition in the Fifth Round and have been drawn against 1.Lig side Samsunspor. Samsunspor have already progressed a step further than last year's effort of the Fourth Round, where they went out to recently relegated Altınordu. Fans of the seaside club will no doubt be hoping for a giant killing this Wednesday evening, especially given their dramatic fall from grace over the past 15 years.

Once a stable Süper Lig side, Samsunspor were relegated from the top flight in 2006 and have stayed there for the most part, with the exception of a single season back in the Süper Lig in 2011/12, and even a dip into the 2. Lig for two seasons. Their first season back in 1. Lig earnt them a mid-table finish last year, and their current form has them doing well in 3rd place.

Frank Athlete will need to ensure his team guard against complacency this week, while Samsunspor will be hoping to catch the Black Sea Storm players on an off-day. 5,000 Samsunspor fans are reported to be making the 325 Km journey along the coast to Trabzon for the first leg this week, with 35,500 tickets sold in total.

Memory Lane: A Glance at Trabzon’s Ancient History

In our previous edition, this column looked at how Roman occupation changed the city of Trabzon, setting it up to become the thriving trade route we know it for today. It was during Diocletian's reign towards the end of the third century that the city began to recover from the previously mentioned civil war and pillaging. Christianity also arrived at this time, and the faith grew in prominence after Diocletian ordered the death of the martyr Eugenius after he demolished the Mithras statue.

Over the course of the next few hundred years, the region would become part of the Byzantine Empire and under the Roman ruler Justinian, Trabzon's stature and wealth grew substantially, owing to it's strategic significance during the 6th Century Persian Wars. Later, the renewed importance placed on Trabzon as a trading post on the Silk Road, led to further prosperity being bestowed upon the city, and to it being named the capital of Chaldea, the 8th newly created theme (administrative division) in the region.

The seaport became a major hub connecting Europe and Asia, with Italian maritime republics and other seafarers able to buy goods from trade caravans travelling the Silk Road, and take them back to Europe. The city of Trabzon greatly benefited in return through revenue generated in customs duty. In 1071, the Byzantine were defeated at the Battle of Manzikert and Trabzon fell initially under Seljuk rule, before being taken back and "saved" by Theodore Gabras, a local leader who ruled until his death in 1098. His family continued his independent rule into the next century.

Backroom Restructure at Trabzonspor

A number of the club's coaching staff have not had their contracts renewed as Frank Athlete took the opportunity to freshen up his backroom team.

Chief among the changes was the replacement of outgoing Assistant Manager, Orhan Ak, with Athlete opting to appoint Özhan Pulat in his place. Pulat moves to the club from previous employer Hatayspor and his eye for judging player's ability and potential will no doubt be a welcome addition to the team.

Elsewhere, Selçuk Erdoğan, Nicola Legrottaglie and John Metgod join Athlete and Pulat on the coaching staff, while Ardit Haxha takes on the role of Head of Youth Development.

While many questioned Athlete's move to overhaul his coaching staff in such a radical fashion, the decision is clearly paying dividends for the club, with Trabzonspor currently sat in 1st place in the Süper Lig with 11 wins and a draw from their opening 12 games.

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond the city of Trabzon in recent days.

Future's Bright for Cash-Strapped SC Verl

The German side's form has been impressive this season, despite originally being billed as favourites for relegation. The question remains, can success on the pitch bring the financial backing needed off of it? Read more.

Rayo Vallecano Out to Cause Upset

Football news and analysis website, theangrylinesmen, have been tracking the progress of Spanish side Rayo Vallecano in their bid to cause an upset in La Liga this year. Read more.

GAIS Impress in Rensie's First Season

Despite early predictions of a mid-table finish, Göteburgs AIS have surpassed all expectation this year, finishing strongly in the Swedish Superettan and demonstrating impressive defensive work throughout the season. Read more.

Dinamo Bucaresti Add to Silverware Haul

Dinamo Bucaresti remain dominant in Romania's Liga I as the manager continues to build on their 2019/20 narrow escape from relegation. Read more.

BC Madeira Boss Looks to Youth

Having had 11 players from the U23s out on loan last season, this year BC Madeira would give them a chance in the first team with the aim of them proving their worth and strengthening the depth of the squad. Read more.

Nothing Toulouse

The French side continue their drive toward European football next term with talk of a possible trophy on the cards as well. Read more.

Got a story to share? Contact us with a link to it here.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

Trabzon Times | #2

JURY STILL OUT FOR TRABZONSPOR BOSS

Frank Athlete's position as Trabzonspor manager may yet be under threat just nine months into his tenure. The manager began a 2 year contract with the club last Summer, but after a tricky start to his first campaign in Turkish football, many are left wondering whether the Board's patience will last much longer, with some factions of the fan base already calling for a change.

Trabzonspor finished last season in 2nd place after an impressive title chase saw them fall just short to eventual winners Başakşehir. Despite a few departures of key players over the Summer, many fans had expected the team to challenge again but it's been a very different experience with Athlete at the helm this term.

After a long and arduous pre-season, Athlete oversaw back to back defeats in the club's opening two games, first at home to bitter rivals Fehnerbache before an away trip to surprise outfit Goztepe. Following this disappointing start, we saw glimmers of what we had hoped the new man would bring to the club, with a 10 game unbeaten streak that saw the Black Sea Storm rapidly climb the table to sit 2nd after the first 12 games.

This relative success was short-lived however, as another run ensued, this time a 5 game streak without a win, including three back to back home defeats to Sivasspor, Rizespor and Yeni Malatyaspor. This left the team outside of the top 6 and struggling for form with just the league's top scorer Djaniny seemingly the only one capable of finding the back of the net.

The catalyst for a recovery proved to be a 6th Round Turkish Cup win against lower league side Adana D.S. in mid-January. Trabzonspor would then manage a further five wins and two draws in the league, seeing them climb to 5th, just inside the European places, after twenty-five games.

The latest twist in the tale has seen the side's form slump once again, this time with a disappointing defeat to Hatayaspor before a damning draw against Konyaspor at home. This blip has at least been recovered somewhat through the back to back wins against Gaziantep and Antalyaspor in recent weeks.

This leaves the side in 5th place, but with every chance of the chasing pack catching them if their inconsistent form continues. Athlete will have his work cut out if he's to ensure his side stay in the European places after the final 10 games of the season.

Among those final fixtures are home ties against Başakşehir and Galatasaray, as well as an away fixture against Yeni Malatyaspor. Trabzonspor managed 4 points from those games in the reverse fixtures.

The manager will be looking for the likes of Marlon, Flavio and Djaniny to continue their good form right through to the end of the season, and bring his side some much needed stability and a few more goals.

If they can keep their place at 5th then they'll have got the job done, but barely. Black Sea fans will show patience for a short while, but they'll be fully expecting their team to be much more competitive next year, and Athlete will be fully aware of the expectation resting on his shoulders.

European qualification awaits all the teams in top five, with the top two reserved for Champions League, 3rd for the Europa League, and 4th and 5th place for qualification to the Europa Conference League.

One thing is certain, Athlete has left a lot to be desired and will need a strong finish to appease the fans, let alone the Board of Directors, who will be expecting a Süper Lig title within the next three years.

Analysis: Djaniny set to Eclipse Burak Yilmaz's Süper Lig Goals Record

Nomadic striker Djaniny is set to break the Trabzonspor league goals record as his current haul of 27 goals this season sits just 6 short of the club record of 33, held by Burak Yilmaz.

Stat Attack

With 10 games remaining of the season, Cape Verde international Djaniny will need to find an average of 0.6 goals per game. His current return is 0.87 goals per 90 minutes against an expected 0.67 goals (xG) per 90 minutes, making him odds on favourite to achieve the feat.

Djaniny arrived at Trabazonspor on a free transfer this season, joining from Saudi Arabian side Al-Ahli. His impressive form in front of goal has been a welcome addition to the side, after the likes of Alexander Sørloth left the club for RB Leipzig last term.

Sørloth's return of 24 goals last season was enough to earn him his move to the German Bundesliga, as well as the Süper Lig's Gol Kralı (Goal King) Award.

Djaniny is on track to win the Gol Krali himself, as he also hunts down the Trabzonspor goals record which has been in place since the close of the 2011/12 season, prior to Yilmaz's move to divisional rivals Galatasaray.

What we really want is trophies.

Djaniny

Frank Athlete should certainly take some credit for Djaniny's form this season. Abandoning the side's tried and tested 4-3-3, Athlete has favoured a 5-3-2 approach with Djaniny just one player enjoying the spoils of the new system.

Athlete was full of praise for the front man, saying "Djaniny has really hit the ground running this year. He's been a consistent performer for us and I expect to see more of the same."

Asked about his prospects of breaking the record, Djanany said "I'm just delighted to have made an impact. The gaffer's tactics have helped me massively, and i'm just focussed on scoring goals for the team. The records are nice but what we really want is trophies."

Djaniny, who turned 30 last week, has two years left to run on a 3-year deal and will hope that this season's form would be enough to earn him a contract extension through to the end of his career.

Insider: Trabzonspor U19 Set for Elite League Group A Title Win

While all eyes have been on the first team's performances this season, the U19 side have been quietly going about their business, and look good value to secure the Elite League Group A title this year.

Despite having a relatively depleted squad, many of Trabzonspor's academy players have found fine form this season and will give first team manager Frank Athlete something to think about when he looks ahead to plan for the next campaign.

Their season didn't start quite as well as it looks to be finishing though. Taking just 5 points from their opening 5 games, many presumed there would be little to cheer this year back in September.

However, a run of 14 games without losing was enough to see the team climb swiftly up the table, and despite a momentary blip with a home defeat to Kayserispor, they quickly got their season back on course with a further run of 7 games without defeat.

Now, with just 7 games remaining, and despite competition from Galatasaray U19 and Bursaspor U19, Trabzonspor U19 find themselves heavy favourites to win the division.

Among the young players that are making a name for themselves this year is 19 year old striker Salih Kavrazli, who's attacking prowess has already bagged him 6 goals in the league this season.

His eye for the target has been a joy to watch and has highlighted the team's positive style that has become a staple throughout the club's entire structure under Athlete's tenure.

Opinion: Cup Slip Highlights Athlete’s Shortcomings

Few have forgotten the celebrations of last Summer as Trabzonspor ran out Turkish Cup winners on a warm evening in the capital.

They looked good money to win it again this year too, after early victories against lower league sides Hekimoğlu Trabzon and Adana D.S. saw them through to the Quarter Finals.

Ankaragücü were the opponents and while the game was far from being a classic, an emphatic 3-0 win was enough to see them through to the next round.

Fast forward another few weeks and the team found themselves just one win away from their second consecutive cup final, with old nemesis Başakşehir the only team in their way.

Once again Athlete set up in the now familiar 5-3-2 formation, but his men hardly got going, conceding within the first 30 minutes and never looking like they were in the game.

A disappointing exit all things considered, and the side may well be made to rue a missed opportunity if they can't recover some decent form in their remaining league fixtures.

As for hopes of reclaiming the cup, that will have to wait until next season.

Memory Lane: A Glance at Trabzon’s Ancient History

In our previous edition, this column looked at the early establishment of Trabzon, right up to the arrival of the Roman's in 64 BC.

Roman occupation in this region was unlike any other, in fact it was almost non-existent in the traditional sense, and the city was eventually granted the status of civitus liberas (a free city), even gaining the right to mint its own coins.

Trabzon's stock grew through it's access to major roads that led through the Zigana Pass into Armenia and the upper Euphrates Valley. From here, new roads were then constructed out of Trabzon and into Persia and Mesopotamia, leading to it becoming a major trade route.

In the early part of the 2nd Century AD, the Roman emperor Hadrian commissioned further work to be carried out in the city, this time giving the city a more structured harbour.

Over the course of the next 200 years, Trabzon fell victim to a Roman civil war between Septimius Severus and Pescennius Niger that saw parts of the city reduced to rubble.

In 257 AD, further misfortune befell the city as it was pillaged by Goths, and a year later the Persians took a turn as well. Despite the city undergoing several rebuilds, it's recovery did not begin until the reign of Diocletian towards the end of the 3rd century...

Tactical Analysis

Athlete's famed 5-3-2 setup has now been used across 34 games in all competitions this season, with a record of 19 wins, 8 draws and 7 losses. His unique playing style has already earned the nickname "Athlete-ball" from sections of the press as he strives to reinvent Turkey's reputation for attractive football.

His wing backs are constantly finding themselves in acres of space when they receive the ball, giving them time to whip in a cross for the punchy 3-man attack to nod in. The team have netted 65 times already this season.

Defensively, the set up is fairly solid, with both wing backs and the defensive central midfielder able to get back behind the ball when needed. Trabzonspor have conceded just 26 times so far this season.

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond Trabzon in recent days.

BC Madeira Boss Blames Injuries for Poor Form

After a fairly successful first season in the second tier of Portuguese football, the small band of BC Madeira fans were looking ahead to the 2022/2023 season with a lot of optimism. The club had lost a few key players but by retaining Yakubu, Yago and Penetra on loan deals, the future looked fairly solid. Read more.

Velez Sarsfield Continue March on Silverware

Velez Sarsfield boss, Callum Curtis, takes the plaudits for his possession based style of football with continued success seemingly on the cards as his side look to progress in the Copa Libertadores. Read more.

Ojeda Gets Junior Firing

On 17 July 2021, the Football (Manager) Gods decided that El Toque would come home to Hugo Ojeda’s Junior Club. It signalled the start of a good domestic run for Barranquilla‘s best club side. But was it enough to earn some silverware? Read more.

Tactical Overhaul Sends Cristal Clear

Sporting Cristal boss has injected an air of calm into his side this season with his renewed tactical approach proving too much for many opponents. The big question on everyone's lips though, is whether or not the search for the next Nobby Solano is at an end. Read more.

Pellissard Key to Future Success at US Concarneau

Club record signing Jessim Pellissard (signed for 475K€) joined two seasons ago when still in Ligue 2 but rarely got a look in because of Rutter's fine form. Now with Rutter no longer first choice, Pellissard is his natural successor as Concarneau's number one striker. Read more.

January Window Shows Promise for Toulouse

Under studious management, the purple demons have defied their own expectations, and sit in 2nd place in Ligue Un. Another January, another set of fixtures to navigate, and an attempt to ensure the manager has enough depth and quality for the remainder of the season, to keep this overachievement going. Read more.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

Trabzon Times | #1

ATHLETE IS NEW TRABZONSPOR BOSS

Trabzonspor announced Frank Athlete as their new manager this week, after the dismissal of fellow Englishman, Eddie Newton, left the side without a head coach. Newton's departure was considered premature among some of the fanbase after he led the team to a Turkish Cup win in the Summer, Trabzonspor's first piece of silverware in 7 years.

Athlete is the club's fourth managerial appointment in less than 12 months, and follows the announcement of the Super Lig side's 1-year ban from European football due to financial irregularities and FFP breaches in 2016.

Club President, Ahmet Ali Ağaoğlu, was all smiles as he unveiled his latest selection for the head coach role, citing Athlete's ability to" work within tight financial constraints" and his capacity for "motivating an abject playing staff and fan-base".

Many Black Sea Storm fans can be forgiven for not having heard of Frank Athlete before. His impact on the footballing landscape has been relatively low key, holding positions in the lower divisions of Romania's Liga 1 and Bulgaria's First League prior to arriving in Turkey.

It's widely reported that he makes up for his relative lack of experience with his impressive knowledge and understanding of the technical side of the game, proclaiming himself as a student of how statistical analysis can prove to be the key ingredient in modern success.

Ambition

Athlete's ambition looks to at least match, if not surpass, that of the club, with European football a short-term target once the ban is lifted for the 2021/22 campaign.

Perhaps more excitingly is the renewed focus on young players. For many, it's pleasing to see that both the manager and the club are committed to bringing new talent through the academy system, with the aim of having some of those graduate to the first team.

The combination of raw, youthful talent with some of the wiser, more experienced heads in the squad is considered a mouth-watering prospect by large sections of the fan base, and bodes well for the future of the club.

Challenging Season

The mood around the Trabzonspor camp is one of great optimism, with many citing their forced absence from European football as a potential blessing in disguise.

A season where the focus is purely on domestic competitions, could mean a free hit in terms of bedding in new players, and bringing through any hot youth prospects.

The challenge will undoubtedly be at the other end of the scale where holding on to the best players is going to be tougher than ever, especially without the promise of testing yourself against the world's best players in continental competition.

As with any other year, the pre-season optimism among the fans is rife, but perhaps this year, the Trabzonspor faithful have some genuine cause to be hopeful of what could become a very successful period of the club's history.

Under the stewardship of Frank Athlete and this crop of young, hungry players, are we to witness the return if consistent silverware to the Black Sea coast? Maybe. Just maybe.

Analysis: Can Black Sea Storm retrace past success?

It's been over 30 years since Trabzonspor, known locally as the Black Sea Storm, last lifted a domestic title back in 1984. Club legends Ahmet Suat Ozyazici and Ozkan Sumer oversaw six title winning campaigns, three Turkish Cups and five Super Cups between them during their tenure at the club, that spanned a relatively short 11 seasons.

Since then, Trabzonspor's accolades on the pitch have seldom held the same significance, scooping up 6 more Turkish Cups and and another two Super Cups in the 36-years that have followed.

Newly appointed manager Frank Athlete knows he has his work cut out if he's to see his side return to their former glory.

"It starts today, now, in this very moment." Frank offered. " Every conversation, every interaction, every facial expression will affect the culture at this club. We have to begin immediately, retraining and reenergizing the minds of our players, and proving to them that inside each one of them is a born winner."

Football matches are won in the mind

- Frank Athlete

He continued, "Football is a simple game, and yet too often we get swept along by the hype of who the best players are, or who the best team is. We need to realise that they are just men like we are, they have the same physical limitations we do. But football matches are won in the mind, and we have to be mentally stronger to win."

To many Trabzonspor fans, that sentiment will be music to their ears. For too long now Trabzon has had to watch from the sidelines as other cities like Istanbul and Bursa have dominated our national sport. Now they will be eagerly watching to see if Athlete can restore the club to the upper echelons of Turkish fame.

Opinion: Silverware Essential to Winning Fan’s Hearts

Last season's Turkish Cup win is still fresh in the minds of fans across the region, and many will be hoping it's the start of a new era of success. They'll have to start that new era under Frank Athlete without any aspirations for European success after the club were banned from continental football for the 2020/21 season. Instead, attention will be turned to domestic activities, with the Turkish Cup and the Süper Lig both being top of the priority list.

Trabzonspor won't enter the cup until the Fifth Round, scheduled to take place in mid-December, so the more pressing focus will be on the league initially, with the opening fixtures coming against Kasımpaşa, Alanyaspor and Denizlispor. Alanyaspor are probably the more dangerous opponent in those opening games, but Black Sea Storm fans will be hoping to net all 9 points on offer, especially after last season's impressive showing at 2nd place.

Athlete will believe they can do it and will be looking to club captain Uğurcan Çakır to rally the troops as well. Çakır's calm demeanor and presence between the sticks has been an ever-present influence on the side in recent years.

Insider: Ömür Offers Hope for Next Generation Rebuild

New manager, Frank Athlete, will begin the arduous task of assessing his squad ahead of pre-season this week as he looks to identify his sides strengths and weaknesses. One thing he'll no doubt already be aware of is the abundant talent of attacking midfielder Abdülkadir Ömür.

Academy graduate Ömür has already bagged 74 appearances at the club since breaking into the first team in 2017, and added 4 international caps to his name following his debut against Greece in May 2019. But what makes those statistics even more remarkable is that Ömür only turned 21 in June of this year, leaving many to argue that his best years are still ahead of him.

Athlete will be hoping to hold on to such a prospective talent for as long as possible and will no doubt be assessing how he can rebuild what many perceive to be an aging squad around this impressive young man. The real question though, is whether other academy starlets can step up to the plate as well. Athlete has assured them they'll get their chance to impress, but we'll just have to wait and see with bated breath as to who can make a significant impact.

Memory Lane: A Glance at Trabzon’s Ancient History

The city of Trabzon as we know it today has endured a fascinating history that stretches back over 2,750 years to it's early foundation as an Eastern settlement of the ancient Greeks. For centuries it has remained a significant and important trade post and port, offering a gateway from Europe into Persia, and now the Middle East and Asia.

Despite it's recorded establishment in the middle of the 7th Century BC, there were indigenous people from the Persian Empire in the region before that time. No evidence remains of these early settlements unfortunately, with the Black Sea having risen several metres since that time, meaning the foundations are likely buried and lost beneath the modern day city forever.

The Trabzon region in those formative years then referred to as East Pontos. It had remained too remote to have been conquered, and even Alexander the Great didn't bother to march north of Ankara when he defeated the Persian King Darius III.

So, in 302 BC, following Alexander's death, Mithradites I would declare the region as the Kingdom of Pontos and it remained so until 64 BC when the Roman's started to arrive. We'll continue from there next time...

Facilities Fact File

• Stadium Name: Senol Günes Stadium

• Opened: 2016

• Capacity: 40,782

• Record Attendance: 38,477 (vs. Fenerbahçe, Jan 2018)

• Training Facilities: Great training facilities

• Youth Set-up: Average facilities / Basic recruitment

Around the Grounds

In this regular feature, we take a look at some of the other news stories from around the world that have captured our attention beyond Trabzon in recent days.

Vålerenga Boss Claims Title Win Was Accidental

Kristoffer Samstrøm took over Vålerenga on the 18th of May 2020. Around 200 days later, they were crowned champions of Norway for the first time since 2005. Read more.

"Allez Les Thoniers"

US Concarneaus look forward to their first season in Ligue 2 following last year's promotion to the division. Read more.

BC Madeira Get Baptism of Fire

It is one year since the conglomerate ‘Black Crow’ swooped into the Island of Madeira and claimed that here is where they would take their next step into the world of football ownership but with odds of 10,000/1 to win the league, it would be a tough road ahead. Read more.

Dinamo Bucaresti "Complete" Romania

Dinamo Bucaresti's new charismatic boss says he's focussed on training more than ever before, with a particular view to developing youth. Read more.

Huber Aims High with Hamburg

With the first target being a return to the Bundesliga, Huber could be pleased with his side's opening games going in their favour. Read more.

Rensie Eyes Swedish Return

Swedish Second Division outfit's search for a new manager is over as Gais hire Rensie to take the club forward. Read more.

Major Rebuild Underway at A.S. Saint-Etienne

Saint-Etienne Head Coach set his team up to sit deep, be direct and get bodies forward on the counter, but what started well for the side, turned sour quickly with the team unable to take their chances. Read more.

Statistics and Analytics Will be Key to Success

Toulouse are considered strong favourites for an immediate return to Ligue 1 with the French Club's board expecting promotion. The new man in the hot seat believes his side could be lacking in some areas though and will look to utilise statistical analysis as he begins to reshape his team. Read more.

Velez Sarsfield Chase Continental Success

Despite significant financial constraints, Velez Sarsfield boss is building a team for the future, capable of challenging for continental honours. Read more.

Former Podcast Star Tries Hand at Football Management

After a rollercoaster of a first season in charge of a title winning Bodø/Glimt side, would his second season in charge be more straightforward or tougher than expected? Read more.

Atalanta Seek Attacking Style

The Atalanta board have outlined high-tempo pressing and attacking football as their preferred playing style, alongside the vague description of ‘entertaining’ as a favoured importance. Read more.

Got a story to share? Contact us with a link to it here.

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Thank you for subscribing to the Trabzon Times, your support of our fictional newspaper is greatly appreciated. Over the course of the next year we will be documenting the successes and failures of Frank M. Athlete in his own fictional universe within Football Manager 2021. If you would like to read any previous issues of the Trabzon Times, please visit our dedicated web page. You can also chat with other subscribers via our exclusive chat function on Slack.

FM21 Training Planner

Welcome in to a quick update on the new and improved FM Training Planner tool that I've updated for FM21 (download link below).

N.B. This tool was initially created for FM19 (read the original blog post here) and was updated by fellow content creator Pedroig for FM20.

As I mentioned above, I originally created the tool for FM19 when the Football Manager series saw a significant overhaul to the Training module in the game. It's fair to say that while the changes to Training in FM were very welcome, they were also a little daunting and I found myself struggling to work out which sessions I should be scheduling for my players.

Aside from the obvious impacts on their health and happiness, I was also finding it hard to keep track of which attributes were being worked on in each session and I realised how much easier it would be to understand, if I could distil everything down to numbers. And so that's what I did.

The Training Planner Tool is housed in an Excel Workbook and includes a replica Schedule template, similar to what you'll find in the game. The difference though, is that as you add the various training sessions into the planner, you'll see a readout below it of which attributes and other impacts are being affected.

Training Schedule Template

Training Planner Impact Overview

Using the on-screen feedback, and through a bit of tinkering with your schedule, you should be able to create a plan that meets your criteria. Whether there are specific attributes you want your team to work on, or you're taking a more holistic view and are trying to cram as many attributes in as you can, hopefully this tool will be a help to you.

What's New

The biggest change to this version is the inclusion of the Set Piece training which I omitted from the FM19 version and then never got round to adding it in. I know that Pedroig had a bash at adding the Set Pieces in for FM20 but for the sake of making all the maths consistent, I ended up starting again on that section.

Elsewhere, I've corrected a few errors and bugs that I found and I hope everything is now working as it should be.

More Information

If you're interested in how the workbook actually works and what it's calculating, please read my original blog post on this from FM19. In the meantime, I'd like to reiterate that this tool has been prepared independently of SI and FM and it is entirely my own interpretation of how I understand the training modules to work. Therefore, I could very well be completely wrong so please use your own judgement as well.

As always, please share your feedback here, on Twitter, or on Slack, especially if you notice anything that seems wrong or needs recalculating.

DOWNLOAD THE FM21 TRAINING PLANNER TOOL HERE

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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.

Trabzon Times | Save Reveal

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.

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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.

Down the Danube | #12 - News, Social and the Not-so-Never-Ending Story

Welcome back to the River Danube, where after a successful spell with Bulgaria's CSKA Sofia, Frank M. Athlete is now on the hunt for his third job as he continues his pursuit for greatness as a Football Manager.

In this episode, we'll find out how Frank got on finding new employment, plus I'll discuss my least favourite aspect of FM, the news and social screens, and how I've tried to make them more interesting to me.

This will be my last update from the Down the Danube series as I look ahead to the release of FM21 and my plans for next year. Before we go any further, I just want to say thanks for reading the blog this year and I look forward to continuing with it next year as well.

Save Update

To say I'm thrilled to be here is an understatement. This is a dream come true for me, and I cannot wait to get started.

An extract from Frank M. Athlete's first press conference at the club, 7th February 2031

As we discussed in the last update, Frank has now conquered two of the nine playable countries (Moldova isn't available in FM20) that the River Danube travels through, or borders, with spells at Farul Constanta in Romania and CSKA Sofia in Bulgaria.

In terms of his next job, Frank was looking to take a step up to a higher reputation club, however having taken CSKA Sofia and the Bulgarian first league to a much higher standard, this left much fewer options if he was going to continue progressing his career.

His other challenge was identifying a club that was a little closer to the Danube, since that is what had drawn him to this part of the world in the first place, and with Sofia being 150 km away from the river at it's nearest point, he'd grown to miss it again.

Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia all had good options in terms of proximity to the Danube with the river weaving through Belgrade, Budapest and Bratislava, but none of the clubs operating in their top leagues had anywhere near a high enough reputation level to tempt Frank.

Ukraine had both Shatkar Donetsk and Dynamo Kiev as high enough reputation clubs, but neither are near to where the Danube runs between Ukraine and Moldova, nor are they close to the Black Sea, so they were discounted as well.

This leaves the top leagues in Austria, Croatia and Germany as Frank's most likely destination. The Austrian Bundesliga presented FK Austria Vienna and Rapid Vienna with high enough reputations and situated on the Danube, while in Croatia the only real option would be NK Osijek as they met all the criteria.

In Germany, the likes of Augsburg, Freiburg, Stuttgart and Bayern Munich are all close enough to the Danube, but Frank felt the German Bundesliga was likely to be a step too far at this stage of his career.

As the months dwindled on, Frank watched each of these clubs with interest, waiting for a position to become available that he could apply for. Other clubs based along the Danube showed some interest in him, with LASK (Austria), FCSB (Romania) and Ferencvárosi (Hungary) all offering interviews, while Dinamo and Hajduk did the same but their distance from the Danube meant Frank rejected the offers.

It took until the turn of the year before movement started to happen, with the manager at Osijek becoming Very Insecure and the role at Stuttgart becoming available too towards the end of January 2031. Frank duly applied for both, hoping for some interview practice if the Osijek role became available or Stuttgart were kind enough to oblige.

What happened next was most unexpected.

Frank really thought this would be too big a jump, but when a club of Stuttgart's stature come knocking, it's hard to ignore and so as of 7th February 2031, Frank M. Athlete is the manager of VfB Stuttgart.

Stuttgart lays on the banks of the Neckar valley and is around 80 km North West of the Danube at it's nearest passing in Ulm. The city is also just 120 km North of the source of the river, and 80 km East of the River Rhine. It's Germany's 6th largest city and has been a major hub since the 7th Century when Roman occupation saw huge development in the region.

VfB Stuttgart was founded in 1912 after the merging of two local clubs, and they currently play their home games at the Mercedes-Benz Arena which was originally built in 1933. Stuttgart have a total of 5 Bundesliga titles to their name, the last one coming in 2007, however in recent year's they've finished 2nd in 2025 and 2027 and were 3rd in the 2024 campaign. They were also last year's runners up in the DFB-Pokal.

Frank's arrival at he club was met with the usual amount of scepticism from the players that had followed him throughout his career. A quick look through the playing staff and it was clear the club had hit a rut. Very few young players had graduated from the academy which was ranked as Superb with Excellent Youth Recruitment. The exception here is Wonderkid Serdar Saral who is quite simply the best player Frank has had the chance to manage so far.

Most of the players that have been a regular feature of the 2030/31 season are 29 or older and should be in their prime, but too many have under-performed, leaving the club languishing in mid-table and in danger of finishing in the bottom half of the league.

Just six league wins and five draws to their name from their opening twenty fixtures, plus an early second round cup exit, meant Stuttgart's season was going any way except to plan.

Frank's first test would be Schalke 04 the day after he started, and so with little time to influence training, he opted for a simple 4-4-2 set up that would utilise most of our better players. They held out well but in the end, succumbed to a 1-0 defeat. The tactic looked ok, and Frank stuck with it for the next couple of games against Wolfsburg and Augsburg, securing another loss, followed by a draw respectively.

A slight tweak to the tactic saw one of our strikers drop in as an Enganche in the AMC slot, while our two wide men pushed forward into the attacking strata as well. Frank didn't given any specific instructions for when the lads had possession, encouraging them to trust there instincts while maintaining a defensive mentality.

Frank was impressed with how quickly they grasped the new system in training and as we headed into March, we picked up a first win for Frank against bottom of the league SC Paderborn, with another five points coming from our next three games. We continued that vein of form with another win and a draw against Bayer Leverkuesen and Borussia Dortmund respectively, both clubs now shadows of their former selves of ten years prior.

Stuttgart would go on to secure just one more win against Freiburg from our remaining five games, with four losses to Frankfurt, RB Leipzig, FC Bayern and St. Pauli to add to our tally. Frank's first 14 league games saw him record 4 wins, 4 draws and 6 losses. It was evident that we couldn't close out the wins against teams around us, and we were currently no match for any of the league's big hitters.

Despite a disappointing league season, we still scraped into the top half of the table and so we at least met the Board's minimum requirements. Additionally, Stuttgart's placement in the Europa Conference League meant there was still a chance of some silverware too.

Having qualified as Group H winners, they entered the Second Knockout Stage where a tie against Turkish side Besiktas awaited them and we comfortably beat them with a 4-0 aggregate win to set up a Quarter Final tie against Sion. Another clean sheet here over both games, winning 5-0 across both legs.

Hungary's Ferencvaros awaited us in the Semi Final with another comfortable performance in both games, winning 3-0 at home and then 1-0 away to set up a Final against Basel.

Confidence was high and the lads duly delivered, running out 3-0 winners and claiming Frank's first trophy from Europe in the process. The Board were delighted and it set the tone for what will hopefully be a successful spell with the club going forward.

Perhaps most pleasing about the campaign though was the fact we didn't concede a single goal over all seven games.

In all the excitement of winning the trophy, it had even escaped Frank that this would mean qualification for Europe next year as well. We'll be entering the Europa League at the group stages next term and can hopefully do just as well as we test ourselves against better opposition.

As you'll see from the final league table, the gulf between 7th and 8th equates to a massive 16 points and so we'll have our work cut out to drastically improve next year.

Now that Frank had had a chance to review the squad in more detail, he would be using his time over the Summer to move on a number of expensive under-performing players, with the hope of bringing in hungrier talent that can take the club to new heights.

News & Social

This has arguably become one of the least useful features for me over the years. It's one of the first screens I disable from my flow and i'll only jump into it when I want to see something specific.

However, in FM20 I've found myself trying to get more from this part of the game and have invested some time into changing my settings. I think I have it working the way I want it to now and have shared my ideas below:

1. Ignore the Advice

Part of the problem for me is there's so much news that's not relevant, so the first thing I did was ignored all the advice from my Personal Assistant, and unsubscribed from the various leagues and cups that he'd suggested i follow.

2. Be selective

With a blank slate, I set about building in the topics that would be interesting to me, and this differs depending on where I am in the game. For example, during spells of unemployment, I'll follow clubs that I'd like to manage or leagues that I'd like to manage in, where as when at a job i'll follow the competitions we're in, along with players i want to track.

3. Add in the detail

With every item I subscribe to, I'll be sure to go in to the settings and change both the content level and the individual line items. From here you can decide which items you're interested in, and how you'd like to receive them.

4. Make the most of the split between News and Social

If it's vital I read it, I make sure it's on the social feed and if it's just a "nice to know" then it goes into News. This turns my social page into essential info only so I'm very selective about what appears here.

5. Keep on top of it

Sounds obvious, but it's easy for this to become outdated so I've tried to be as diligent about this as I would be about player contracts or scouting assignments. So far, it's paying off as well, with less clutter and what feels like more relevant information appearing for me.

Content Corner

Usually in this section I'd be highlighting some of the content I've been consuming of late, however since this is the last in the series, I thought I'd talk more about my own experience of content creation this year and my plans for FM21. Before that though, let me first point out that there are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

So, it's fair to say that my Down the Danube series didn't quite go the way I thought it would. By that, I mean that I didn't get anywhere near as much game time as I expected, and as such I was someway off ending the series at a high profile club and a Champions league title or two. I still had a great time discovering new leagues, nations and clubs and I feel like the concept of managing clubs along the Danube is something I may revisit in the future.

A change in real life job for 2020 also meant that as the year's drawn on, I've had less time to write updates for the blog, hence why its been three months since the last one got posted! This has definitely got me thinking about FM21, and while it's true that I really only write this blog for myself, I've been conscious of wanting to keep it semi-regular too. Next year I'll most likely be posting updates as and when i feel like it, rather than at the end of each in-game season and I'm hoping that this approach will strike the right balance for me.

In terms of where I'll be managing, I'm going to save that reveal for the next blog post. However, I will reveal that for the first time since 2007, I will not be doing a journeyman save this year (insert audible gasp here). As I've documented many times, I absolutely love journeyman saves, but I feel like I need a change for this year and I'm very excited about the project I'll be working on in FM21.

I've also reverted back to placing FM on my Christmas list, rather than being a grown up about it and just buying it when it drops. I'm sure many of you will think I'm mad for this, but it's been a tradition that goes back over 20 years where come Christmas Night/Boxing Day, after months of suspense, I finally get to start playing. I missed that last year, plus in addition, there were a few potential teething problems at the start of FM20 that may or may not have impacted my save and led me to hold off starting it until well into December anyway, so what's another few weeks wait?

In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy your beta saves, and I shall be eagerly reading as many blog posts as I can find as more and more of you start revealing what you'll be up to in FM21.

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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.

I'll be back soon with my save reveal for FM21!

Down the Danube | #11 - League Reviews

Welcome back to Sofia where after three consecutive league titles, CSKA Sofia will do battle and attempt a fourth championship while furthering their standing in the Champions League.

As we enter Frank's fifth year in Bulgaria, we'll also take a look at the leagues we've played in so far and I'll share my thoughts on each of them.

Save Update

Without a doubt, this has been our toughest challenge to date, but we're not out yet. All we can do is keep going and try to turn this run around.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 24th February 2030

As another new season beckoned, Frank looked to the future in his summer transfers, with a number of youngsters joining as he looked to use up some budget.

In terms of first team recruits, only two are worth a mention. John Martin joined on a free from Liverpool and would bring us enormous strength in defensive midfield, essential for our more conservative approach in Europe, while Czech international Pavel Popisil joins for £7.75M from Slavia Prague and will feature at the heart of central defence this year.

The new campaign kicked off with another Super Cup win, although it took Frank's men a penalty shootout to overcome Ludogorets. Thankfully, things improved in our opening few league games, taking 15 points from our first five games and only conceding one goal in the process.

It would be another 6 weeks before we recorded another win, with three draws and a disappointing home defeat to CSKA 1948 in our next league games. This downturn in form saw the team slip to 3rd in the table, with Botev Plovdiv and Levski both edging ahead of us.

Frank began to wonder whether he should have moved on from CSKA Sofia before the season had begun. With three consecutive titles under his belt, there was an overwhelming feeling of "what next?" about the club. He had hoped the answer would lie in Europe, where we would start in the Champions League Group D, and after a few near misses in recent years, would hope to qualify from the group this time, despite some tough opponents.

Wolfsburg at home were first, and our defensive tactic couldn't hold them as they left with all the points and a 1-0 victory. September's very average performances were joined by an early exit from the Kupa Bulgariya, as second division side Lokomotiv Sofia knocked us out. The board were not happy.

As we headed into October, it was clear something needed to be done to get the side back to winning ways. Consecutive losses only added to our woes, with Inter Milan smashing us 4-1 and then Arda taking all the points in the league four days later.

This would be the last defeat for a while, but points dropped in both Champions League games against CSKA Moscow meant our European adventure was already all but over. We'd go on to lose both of our next group games to leave us flailing at the bottom of the group with a -10 goal difference, and ensure we wouldn't even have enough about us to drop into the Europa League knockout stages.

With just the domestic league left to contest, things had certainly improved and the side secured five more wins as we ran into the Christmas period. Despite a few wins, we still managed to lose valuable points as we drew to the likes of Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Ludogorets and CSKA 1948, and became firmly rooted to 4th position.

After the winter break, we had two essential fixtures lined up. Levski and Botev Plovdiv were above us in the league and winning against both would help restore us to first place and provide the footing for our title defence. What Frank didn't anticipate was losing both games, with the latter coming particularly hard as we led with 5 minutes to go and conceded twice late on.

Ten points from twelve in our remaining games was enough to have us in third as we split into the Champions Group. There was a lot of ground to make up as we trailed league leaders Levski by 7 points, but Frank still had belief we could recover.

From ten Champions Group games, Frank only suffered one defeat, with Beroe beating us at home on the last day of the season. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done at this point. Despite an absence of defeats, we also only managed three wins as the Curse of the Draws reached the Bulgarian capital.

With so many points dropped, it won't come as a surprise to you that our title defence proved laughable. In fact, we were lucky that Botev Plovdiv's form turned out to be more dire than our own as they slipped to 4th place and finished a full ten points behind us.

In the end, both Ludogorets and Levski were too strong for us and this season would definitely go down as one to forget.

In fact, Frank's early-season wonderings of whether or not he should move on, resurfaced as the season neared its end and as the final whistle was blown against Beroe, he immediately went to the Board to tender his resignation. He felt he'd taken CSKA Sofia as far as he could and in truth, he probably should have left last season and moved on to a new challenge sooner.

In terms of what's next, Frank has some ideas on where he'd like to venture to, but having spoken to him, he'd like to reveal those ideas in the next update. Until then...

League Reviews

Part of my interest in doing this Down the Danube series, was the prospect of managing in some leagues that I'd not played in yet during my FM career. As Frank's time with CSKA Sofia draws to a close, I thought i'd take the chance to write a short review of Romania's Liga I and Bulgaria's First League, now that I've had the chance to manage there.

Structure

In many ways, both leagues are very similar in terms of their structure. Both have 14 sides with everyone playing each other twice, before the league splits into two groups. The top six sides after 26 matches enter the Championship Group while the bottom 8 sides all contest the Relegation Group in the fight for survival.

Each group plays another home and away fixture so the Championship Group play another 10 games while the Relegation Group play 14 more. In both leagues, the team bottom after the Relegation Group games is relegated while 7th place will contest a playoff with whoever placed second in the second division.

Whoever is top after the Championship Group games is declared the winner, while 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th all claim places in the various European competitions. Finally, the bottom side in the Championship Group will play against the top side of the Relegation Group for one final European place, a worthy prize for those teams scrabbling in mid-table.

The significant difference between the leagues is the points allocation after the league splits. In Romania, teams take half their points from the first stage of the season with them into closing stages, while in Bulgaria, all the teams keep all the points they've earnt to date.

This means, if a side has built up a significant points lead before the split, then that gap will be cut in half for Romania's Championship Group, whereas in Bulgaria the gap would be kept intact.

Wealth

Both these leagues are certainly at the lower end of the reputation spectrum, meaning the prize money for domestic success is almost non-existent. Most of the money that successful clubs in these divisions earn comes from participating on the European circuit, and unsurprisingly it's the same teams that are making those appearances each year.

The money they earn from wins and draws in Europe, can then be used to buy more expensive players, which then gives them a better chance of qualifying for Europe next year, and so the cycle repeats.

Despite that challenge, with Farul Constanta I was able to stay in the top division after promotion, and because even the Relegation Group includes a chance of qualifying for Europe, it's quite plausible that after a few successful seasons domestically, you can start to earn some of that much needed cash.

A decent recruitment network is key to that and at Farul, we had a great one which i think is what helped us to do so well.

Ultimately though it's hard to build up enough cash reserves that you can compete with clubs in Germany or France. Even with CSKA Sofia repeatedly coming out on top domestically, we were still at their mercy when it came to our players getting poached for a lot less than their true worth. To that end, squad building is essential if you're going to enjoy long-term success.

Teams

Both leagues have 3 or 4 clubs that can realistically compete for domestic honours each year, with another 3 or 4 capable of challenging for the European places.

In Romania, FCSB were certainly the most dominant side in Liga I, but struggled to claim back to back titles as FC Viitorul and Universitatea Craiova shared the honours over the years. The likes of Dinamo Bucaresti and CFR Cluj were also regular features in the top half and were rarely replaced by lesser opposition.

In Bulgaria, Ludogorets dominated the First League for over 10 years in my save, with CSKA Sofia, Botev Plovdiv and Levski all sharing 2nd, 3rd and 4th between them over the years. What I liked most about the league though, was the occasional assault from some of the lower league sides as they attempted to raid the top 4. Dunav and Beroe were effective at this to begin with, with Arda and eventually CSKA 1948 managing to do this very effectively as well.

Conclusion

I can't recommend these two leagues enough. For me, they have everything that you'd come to want in an FM save, whether you're looking to take a club from the bottom up, or you want to topple one of the dominant sides and stake a claim as the greatest of all time.

In Romania, it's very open and there's a great chance to make your mark with one of the smaller clubs. I'd say the way the points are halved after the preliminary phase of the season will also help your chances here too.

Bulgaria is crying out for someone to usurp Ludogorets, and with plenty of sides that are capable of doing it, there's a lot of choice for you to pick the club that matches your ambition. I'd also add, i think Bulgaria is the better choice if you harbour ambitions to do well in Europe, particularly because the other top sides in the league will also do well in Europe, which in turn will help the league's reputation to grow.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: The FM blogging scene continues to be stronger than ever with plenty of updates posted to keep us entertained. This week I read up on From Eleven, One's adventures in Serbia as he has a big decision to make with FK Mačva Šabac.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: Hard to pick just one this week, since some great content creators have written some excellent pieces along a similar theme of late: tactics! Catch up on FM Samo's post on his 4-1-2-3 tactic, Oliver Jensen's post on Pep's 4-3-3 tactic, and FM Rensie's post on his 4-1-4-1 DM Wide system.

• Best Audio/Video: The GrassNGear podcast returned this week after Covid-19 forced an entirely unnecessary hiatus. Nonetheless, it's good to hear the dulcet tones of FM Grasshopper and DGear86 of Boliva Bolton fame again and I suggest you give it a listen if you haven't already!

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #10 - Squad Rotation

Welcome back to Bulgaria where two time First League champions CSKA Sofia begin the defence of their title, while also looking to go one step further on last year in their campaign for a first League Cup win under Frank's leadership.

I'll also discuss my approach to squad rotation as the games continue to come think and fast, and every player wants a slice of the action.

Save Update

What a performance! I'm so pleased for the lad, and yet I also know that the sharks will now be circling. We'll just have to enjoy him in a CSKA Sofia shirt while we can.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 18th April 2029

With such a young side that are still improving, Frank struggled to identify where best to strengthen as he planned for the 2028/29. Full back is one position that could probably be improved but finding players better than what we have has proved impossible.

Instead, the only two signings he made were Bulgarian, Lachezar Georgiev, a 20yo DC who could be rotated in and keep our back line strong, plus a long term investment in Maikon, an 18yo winger who we can develop for the future.

Elsewhere, academy starlet Borislav Velev cements his place in our 25-man squad after impressive form on loan last season, while Ivan Peychev returns from his own loan spell to provide cover in central midfield.

As was becoming an annual tradition, our first fixture was the Superkupa where we were comfortable winners against Lokomotiv Plovdiv and guaranteed our first piece of silverware for the season.

As is also becoming something of a tradition, we then lost our opening league game to Botev Plovdiv, letting a 2-1 lead slip in the process. A run of 8 league games followed where we racked up 6 wins and two draws, the latter results coming against the newly promoted sides where they seemed to play without fear against us, and we didn't know how to respond.

This year's Champions League group pitted us against Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea and Juventus, otherwise known as the Group of Death! Dortmund were up first and our now famous 4-1-4-1 Cautious tactic saw us soak up oodles of pressure, while hitting them on the break. A scrappy 1-0 away win was a our reward in this game before playing the same trick on Juventus at the end of the month. We struggled to create but a 0-0 home draw was still a good result as far as Frank was concerned.

In between our two Champions League encounters, we secured two more league wins against mid-table regulars Septemvri Sofia and Etar, with our only other September fixture coming in the first round of the Kupa Bulgariya. No upsets for us this year as we despatched Hebar in 2-0 win.

As we rolled into October, CSKA Sofia had now not conceded a goal in 6 games across all competitions. Perhaps evidence that Frank's decision not to bring in too many new faces was paying off.

The natural order of things was restored in the next tie though, as local rival Slavia Sofia beat us on our own patch 1-0, which led us into the next game against Chelsea in the CL, where we were overpowered 3-2 by a much stronger side.

A win in the next round of the league cup saw us through to the Quarter Finals next month, while we managed a win and a draw in our other two league games for the month. Top of the table in the league at the end of October, and holding our own in the Champions League as well.

On the 1st November we travelled to Chelsea and our trusty cautious approach paid dividends again with another 1-0 win against much stronger opposition. Unfortunately this would prove the only high of the month, as despite a scrappy 1-0 win against newly promoted Tsarko selo, we were trumped 3-0 at home to Ludogorets, lost to Dortmund at home in the Champions League and then had to rescue a draw against Beroe.

We even made our league cup Quarter Final as difficult as possible, taking it all the way to penalties against Tsarko selo, where we eventually won to go through to the final four.

December would see us recapture some of our league form, collecting seven from a possible nine points, but defeat at Juventus saw us thrown out of the Champions League as we finished bottom of the group, level on points with Juventus and a point shy of 2nd placed Dortmund. Could we take solace in the fact we were attained the most points of any side that finished bottom of their group? Not really.

As the league split and we took up our familiar place in the Champions Group, confidence of securing another league title was high in Frank's camp. They say that overconfidence leads to complacency and we didn't disappoint with consecutive losses to Arda and then Ludogorets, seeing the chasing pack catch up with us in the league.

With the first leg of the League Cup semi-final to follow, we went ahead and made it three losses from three, making things twice as tough when we'd meet up with Botev Plovdiv in a couple of weeks time.

Before that, we got back on form with a handy 2-0 defeat of our rivals CSKA 1948, which stood us in good stead as we lined up for the second leg of the Semi-Final in the cup. What followed is quite simply the best individual performance I've witnessed in a competitive game on Football Manager, EVER!

You may recognise Velev from my Youth Development experiment in the last post. He's a player that has gone from strength to strength, now pinning down a starting place in our first XI.

In this game, Velev almost single handedly recovered our 1 goal deficit in the first leg with a masterclass in the reverse fixture. 5 goals, 87% shots on target and a stunning perfect 10 rating. What a player!

With a place in the cup final assured, we just had the small matter of the league run-in to contend with.

Botev Plovdiv were our opponents in the next game as well, this time keeping us at bay with a 2-2 draw. Two wins and two draws in our next four league matches was enough to see us stay top of the table, and put us within touching distance of a third successive title with just one more win needed.

Before that, we had a League Cup final to contest. Having been defeated in last year's final, Frank had every intention of winning this one. Our opponents would be long-time rivals Ludogorets and they started the game with the intensity we expected as we headed in at half time with the score tied at 0-0.

In the second half we blew them away, going 2-0 up before they pinched one back. With minutes left we put it beyond them with Morales grabbing our third and securing our first cup win under Frank's tenure.

Back to the league where we were one win from bagging the title. Ludogorets were our opponents again and we expected a response having beaten them in the cup. We left it late but broke the deadlock on 76 minutes with a converted penalty, and doubled our lead on 84 minutes. No response from Ludogorets, and we closed out the game to clinch the title.

A domestic treble is no mean feat, especially given how competitive Bulgaria's First League is, and Frank was still smiling at the success of the side in the Champions League.

A tremendous season, all things considered. We were not as convincing in the league as in previous championships but we did enough and grabbing all three was a fantastic achievement.

In addition to Frank's induction into Bulgaria's Hall of Fame, our success coupled with Ludogoret's and Levski's performances in Europe also saw the Bulgarian First League rise to 9th place in the European rankings, quite an achievement when you consider how competitive many of the other leagues are.

Having won it all domestically this season, Frank will be trying to do it all again next year with the added incentive of trying to go beyond the group stages in the Champions League. Tune in next time and see how he fared.

Squad Rotation

In FM20, the way we manage a player's game time got a huge upgrade, with individual players now expecting a certain amount of minutes on the pitch as part of their contractual negotiations and their squad status.

If I'm honest, I've almost completely ignored what squad status players are signing as when I bring them in, but so far in this save I haven't had to worry too much.

At Farul Constanta, we had a relatively small squad to begin with and I managed to keep it small by only replacing outgoing players, or selling who we had when I could upgrade with better quality. This meant that managing playing time was relatively straightforward, since most of our players outside of the first eleven were young backups with low expectations anyway, and so there was no pressure to keep swapping my first team around.

Fast forward to CSKA Sofia and it's a different story. Firstly, we're participating in three competitions each year, and depending on how well we do in the league cup, and in Europe, we can end up playing anywhere north of 50 games a season.

Squad rotation has been crucial to our success in Bulgaria, particularly as some of the shambolic scheduling has had us play 4 games within an 8 day period on a couple of occasions over the years.

My way to combat this still doesn't really take into consideration the new structure to playing time, at least not directly. What I've tried to do with the side is what I imagine most FMers try and do. I've identified a few key positions where i'm likely to want to rotate, and then looked for solid backups in those roles who can come in and do a job for the first team. I then populate the other backup positions with either raw youngsters who are just starting out, or a more seasoned professional who doesn't have the same physical attributes he used to.

As an example, my Advanced Playmaker and Advanced Forward are essential to our creative play and tend to stay fit throughout the season, therefore their understudies are unlikely to feature more than a few times. Meanwhile, our wingers and our BBM do so much running that having good options that can come in with fresh legs is really important.

In fact I've been using around 22-25 players each season in order to get through all the games so I've come unstuck with the above approach on a few occasions, since many of our backups aren't up to standard.

I've also had a to deal with a few disgruntled players that aren't getting the time they're expecting and so I've ended up promising them a few more games when what I really want to do is stick with the players that are winning. I can't be dealing with the tantrums though and so more often than not, I'll just agree to give them a run in the side.

The solution here is simple. It's time to start paying closer attention to who's been promised what playing time. Going forward, I'll be trying to be more selective with my signings and contract renewals, and will be considering what role I expect them to play in the squad in the short term.

It's worth noting that I could take a much longer view of this, and look to bolster our youth setup with future stars that I can bring through in my own time. However, since this is intended to be a journeyman save, in which Frank attempts to reach the top of Europe's footballing elite, I won't be staying with any club for long enough to see this through.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on squad rotation. Do you ignore the playing time feature of player contracts, or are you a stickler for only recruiting the exact players you need?

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: Another week of great content, but I wanted to highlight FM Eadster's latest post from his series, The Rebuilders of Pripyat. Another great update and a nice little crossover with another creator. I love the story telling element, you can't help but get sucked in!

• Best Advice Blog/Article: This week I ended up down a rabbit warren of posts on SI's forum for FM. One piece I did read in detail was Llama3's article on Pairs & Combinations - The Ultimate Guide which was released earlier this year. Of course, Llama's thoughts on building a team are very interesting, but in fact I think the most useful aspect of this piece is simply having all the information in one place, as opposed to navigating to each individual tactical element and reading the tool tip. Worth a read if you haven't already.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #9 - Youth Development (Part II)

Welcome back to the second part of this update, as we find out how the 2027/28 season concluded in Bulgaria's First League, plus we'll see how Frank's CSKA Sofia side fared in the League Cup and the Europa Conference League competitions as well.

Later on, I'll also reveal the results from my Youth Development experiment as I attempt to find out what works best when developing young talent.

Save Update

I actually think we can go all the way here. We've a chance to really put this club on the map, and what a chance it is. I hope we grab it with both hands.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 26th April 2028

In the last update we left CSKA Sofia midway through the 2027/28 season, where they sat at the summit of the Bulgarian First League, in the Semi Final of the League Cup and were about to venture into their third European competition of the season.

Frank's side had been drawn against Dutch outfit Feyonoord in the Europa Conference League's 1st Knockout Round, but before the first leg in that tie, we rescued a late draw from arch-rivals Ludogorets in our first league game back after the Winter break.

The first leg against Feyenoord was away, and despite being billed as heavy underdogs, we demonstrated a masterclass and ran out 2-0 winners, following this up with a 3-0 league win against Etar to make it two consecutive clean sheets.

The home tie against Feyenoord was somewhat harder, but we managed a draw and progressed to the second round where we'd meet Getafe next month.

Before that, three more league games saw us take a mere 4 points, succumbing to a 2-0 loss to Dunav in the process, but ending with a decent win against Botev Vratsa meaning we would play the first leg against Getafe on the back of a victory. It turned out that form was essential as we beat the Spaniards 1-0 at home and then drew 1-1 away with a nice league win sandwiched in the middle to end the preliminary stage of the season.

We topped the table by three points as we headed into the final stage of the league season. Meanwhile, our 2-1 aggregate win over Getafe set up a Europe Conference League Quarter-Final with none other than our divisional rivals, Ludogorets!

Before the two legs of the Quarter Finals, we had the small matter of playing them in the league first, where we really showed them our true colours and comfortably beat them 3-0.

Next up was the League Cup semi-final against Lokomotiv Sofia and a another 3-0 win gave us one foot in the final.

In the next game we fell to a 1-0 defeat to Ludogorets in the Europa Conference League, meaning we had our work cut out for us in the next round at home. It took until the second half but eventually we broke the deadlock and followed up with a second goal, enough to send us into the Europa Conference league Semi-Final against Croatian side, Dinamo.

Back in the league, and a win in the Eternal Derby against Levski was followed by a disappointing defeat to Dunav (again!), and we followed that with a draw to Ludogorets which saw us clinging to top spot, just.

The Europa league Semi Final was upon us with an away tie to Dinamo in the first leg, ending in a crushing 3-1 defeat. Frank's lads had a mountain to climb in the second leg, but did so with style, taking a 3-0 lead after two first half goals and a third on 70 minutes. Disaster struck in the final 20 minutes of the game though, as Dinamo hit back with a goal which would take us to extra time, but before we got there, they dealt us a sickening blow in the 95th minute with a second goal of the game, and a result that would see them into the final in our place. So close but not close enough.

Frank dusted himself down and attempted to finish the league in style, which he managed with 4 wins and a draw in the final five games, and securing our second consecutive title to add to the Super Cup win at the start of the season.

This left the small matter of the League Cup Final that would take this season's trophy haul to three if we could get past Lokomotiv Plovdiv. We made the critical mistake of underestimating our opposition, and we turned up for an average league game, not the cup final.

They demolished us 2-0 and were worthy winners. Frank was devastated, this was the silverware he'd been really keen to win this year after failing so miserably last season. Now we'd have to wait again.

All told, an incredible season really. From the dizzy heights of Champions League football, to a Europa Conference League Semi-Final and a League Cup Final, Frank could be pleased with the progress the club were making under his stewardship. Another league title in the bag, and a Super Cup win as well.

The side are still very young and are only improving as they get older and more experienced. Let's hope next season we can better this year's performance. Until then...

Youth Development (Part II)

In the last update I gave a short introduction into a Youth Development experiment I wanted to run. You'll recall that I don't have much experience in this aspect of Football Manager, and so i wanted to try a few different things to see if i could glean some "best practices" to apply for now and in the future.

This test began in January 2028 and the conclusion I'm showing you is actually from June 2029 so we can review a full 18 months of development. To give you an overview, here's what we laid out in the last update:

• Kurt Moe, 18 yo GK - 6 month loan to First League side Lokomotiv Plovdiv, followed by a year as reserve GK in the first team

• Borislav Velev, 18yo ST - 6 month loan to First League side Slavia Sofia, followed by a year as reserve ST/impact sub in the first team

• Sladjan Pavkovic, 19yo MC - 18 months on loan to First League side Cherno more

• Zarko Stevanovic, 22yo MC -starting BBM for first team

• Grigor Rangelov, 17yo MC - 12 months with the U19s, 6 months training with the first team

I was fortunate enough to read FM Futbol Manager's latest post on Youth Development, prior to me publishing this one, and he talked in detail about the significance of facilities and staff as a key contributor to developing young talent. With that in mind, it's worth noting that at CSKA Sofia, we have Great training facilities, Excellent youth facilities, Excellent academy coaching and Exceptional youth recrutiment.

And so, without further ado, here's how they all got on...

Kurt Moe

As you'll see form the screenshots below, Moe made huge gains across the board, and in particular with his Determination, First Touch and Passing. An improved personality as well as he switches to Fairly Determined.

Borislav Velev

Easily our hottest prospect, his development was incredible, with gains everywhere and especially across his physicals and mentals. Note his personality shift from Fairly Determined to Driven too.

Sladjan Pavkovic

Out of all of the players in the test, Pavkovic spent the most amount of time away from the club, with back to back loans at Cherno more. That said, he also played regular football at the club with 42 appearances over two seasons. In terms of development, it's been a little underwhelming with almost no technical improvements, and just small changes in his mentals and physicals.

Zarko Stevanovic

Zarko is our oldest test subject, and has already established himself as a regular starter, but for balance i wanted to include someone that still had a lot of potential to reach, but was a little older than the others. His development has continued nicely, in particular with his mentals and physicals, although nothing off the charts.

Grigor Rangelov

Finally, we have our youngest starlet, fresh for CSKA Sofia's academy, Grigor Rangelov. Grigor's development at the club has been pleasing, but probably not what i'd hoped for in that time. His physicals have come on and his mentals too to some degree, but he's not really challenging for a starting place in the same way the likes of Velev and Moe are at he moment.

Conclusions

I'd say the first thing I've noticed here is that 18 months isn't very long in a players development to judge his progress. That being said, the biggest take away for me is that splitting time evenly between training with the club and spending time out on loan at a good level is definitely the way to go.

Pavkovic's stunted development tells me that too much time away from our superior facilities and coaching staff hasn't done him any favours, while Rangelov's lack of playing time has slowed his development too.

Moe's loan to Lokomotiv Plovdiv was for a whole season, but in hindsight, I think two 6 month loans might have been better, with time spent at the club in between.

Velev was easily our best performer in terms of development and he's the only player who got a bit of everything - time with the U19s, time on loan. and time with the first team. I think this balance is what's required across the board to make it successful and repeatable.

That said, I'm sure other factors, like players hidden attributes, injuries and their personalities, will also play a part here, but I've seen enough to at least have a plan of where to start.

For many of you, I doubt anything here can be deemed as ground-breaking but I've found it useful to come up with a systematic approach to player development. Even if this approach turns out to be wrong, I find it's always best to start somewhere, and then make small incremental changes to improve.

Please feel free to share your own approaches to youth development either here in the comments or drop me a message on Twitter or in my Slack channel.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: this week I caught up on NestorFM's blog, as he shares his progress across South America having gained success in Spain early on in the save. Read all about it here.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: I mentioned earlier that FM Futbol Manager's Youth Development Update is well worth a read, but FM Rensie also shared some of his experiences on youth development which you'll find here.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #8 - Youth Development (Part I)

Welcome back to Bulgaria where First League winners CSKA Sofia are preparing to defend their title in the upcoming 2027/28 season, plus there's Frank's first foray into Champions League football. Since the season I'm updating you on here turned out to be quite a long one, I've split the Save Update in to two blog posts, which keeps the word count manageable, while also adding to the suspense!

In this update I'll also talk through a small experiment I've been running as I attempt to learn the best way to develop the stars of the future. I've split this into two as well so plenty to look forward to next time as well.

Save Update

What a day, what a result! The tides are finally turning, we're becoming a dominant force at last. I love it that we beat them. Love it!

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 19th September 2027

As May wrapped up, Frank had already identified one or two areas of the squad that needed strengthening. The priority was a new Box to Box midfielder who could offer more going forward than our current options. Frank had been admiring Partizan's Serbian startlet, Zarko Stevanovic, and we were able to secure him for £950K - a good price for a quality player.

Our options on the wings were also limited, so in came Giuliany Ben-David dos Santos on a free transfer from Feyenoord, along with Daniel Silhavy from Slavia Prague for £700K, who at just 18 was considered to be a prospect for the future. Although we weren't short of forwards, Renat Dadasov was also available on a free and would be an excellent upgrade as our target man and so he was signed to provide competition for Gioacchini.

Zarko Stevanovic (BBM-S)

Giuliany Ben-David dos Santos (MR)

Elsewhere, long-time servant Bradley Mazikou was in search of a new challenge and so was sent out on a paid loan to Dunajska Streda, leaving a gap at DL. Finding a full back who could also cross a ball was proving difficult, and so in the end, Frank opted for Gabriel Schur who was a natural DM but with the right attributes and a good left foot. The hope was he could be retrained to play at full back and give Matic competition for a starting place.

Our academy graduate Tsvetan Georgiev (DR) returned from his loan spell and went straight into the first team, while we also raked in £1.9M in sales for players that I knew wouldn't get any game time. Two of those departing were last year's box to box midfielders, who were replaced by Stevanovic, with Peychev deputising for him.

Despite Bulgaria's transfer window running from June until September, the season routinely starts in the first week of July and so Frank really didn't have much time to get everything in order. With the squad in place though, we kicked off with a Super-kupa tie against local rivals Levski in what's known locally as the Eternal Derby each time these two teams feature.

Despite the hype, the game never lived up to it and a bore draw was settled by penalties, with CSKA Sofia running out winners and securing our first piece of silverware for the season. As we headed into the league season, Frank's men suffered a disappointing home defeat at the hands of title challengers Botev Plovdiv. A minor blip as it turned out, with the side returning three wins from three in their remaining July fixtures.

As last year's First League winners, CSKA Sofia entered the Champions League at the 2nd Qualifying stage where they smashed Astana 5-1 away and then 6-4 at home to set up a tie against Anderlecht in the next round. Here we also ran out winners with two 3-2 wins, taking them into the Champions Playoff where we'd meet Shakhtar Donetsk later in August.

Meanwhile, our good league form continued, beating Levski and then Beroe before our form stalled with consecutive draws at home to Lokomotiv Plovidv, and then away at Etar - both teams we should be beating comfortably. Back to the Champions League action and despite a 2-0 defeat in the first leg, we started brightly in the return fixture, taking the lead in the first half and doubling it just after the hour mark. As it stood we were well within a chance of beating Shakhtar and progressing to the group stages, but unfortunately this was the moment they chose to wake up. 2 goals in quick succession dashed our hopes before they took the lead with a third. Stevanovic scores in the 96th minute but it's only a consolation prize as the lads were well beaten really.

An early exit from the Champions League meant we qualified for the group stages of the Europa League, with the draw proving challenging to say the least.

As we nudged into September, we returned to form in the league with a win away at Cherno more, and followed it with two 4-0 wins, one of which was against long-time league winners Ludogorets. A third 4-0 win was secured in the first round of the Cup as we progressed further than we'd managed last year. Four clean sheets in the league and cup did wonders for our morale as we neared the halfway stage of the season.

Two fixtures in the Europa League, with French titans Monaco up first on home soil. Frank expected a loss, but hoped for a draw and so was pleasantly surprised with three points following goals in the 78th and 86th minute. Norway's Rosenborg were up next and were arguably the weaker of the three teams we were up against. That said, CSKA Sofia had limited experience at this level and so we prepared for a tough fixture. Another surprise for Frank and his players though, running out comfortable 2-1 winners away form home to give us six points in the group.

Suddenly, qualifying from the group didn't seem so impossible, although we were yet to test our nerve against group favourites Chelsea so time would tell if we had the mettle to compete.

A return to First League fixtures saw us secure two away wins and two clean sheets with them as we headed into October, before our second defeat of the season to Botev Plovdiv (again!) ended our unbeaten run of thirteen league games. Despite the loss, this left us in top spot as we passed the half way stage, 2 points ahead of Ludogorets and Botev Plovdiv.

Our first game against Chelsea in the Europa League came just before that Botev Plovdiv defeat, and despite holding our own for large spells of the game, we lost 1-0 which sent Chelsea top of the group with three wins from three. In the League Cup 2nd Round we drew Ludogorets II from the division below and comfortably beat them 3-0 on the night to progress to the quarter finals against another lower-league opposition, Spartak Varna which won't be played until December.

November kicked off with the away tie against Chelsea and despite taking a 2-0 lead inside the first half an hour, they came back with full force and beat us 3-2. Rosenborg were yet to register a win after Monaco beat them twice, but their loss to Chelsea meant we were on level points with Monaco, and two group games remaining. Assuming Chelsea could beat them again and we could beat hapless Rosenborg, the deciding fixture would be our away tie against Monaco.

Before that we had two more away fixtures in the league, comfortably winning both and continuing to take strides at the top of the table. The Monaco game arrived and unfortunately, despite it being such a huge affair, we just didn't show up. Three goals from them and all we could manage in reply was a 91st minute effort that was recorded as an own goal anyway.

Three more league games to contest before the Winter break and we managed two wins and a draw with Levski holding us to another 0-0 after the Super Cup game at the start of the campaign. There was a tidy Quarter Final win in the League Cup at the start of December which set us up with our first Semi-Final in four years, this time against another Sofia-based team in the form of Lokomotiv Sofia.

Our final Europa League tie was at home to Rosenborg, ending in a 2-1 win and ensuring our total points haul reached nine. Frank hadn't expected much from the group, perhaps a win and a draw or two, so to have done so well was pleasing, albeit bittersweet when you consider how we finished. In the end Monaco secured a draw against Chelsea so it didn't matter, but had we both finished with nine points then they would still have progressed owing to their superior goal difference in the head to head.

Despite this being our second exit from a European competition this year, we were flung rather unceremoniously into a third one - the Europa Conference League. Here we would enter the competition at the Knockout Rounds, and would be joined by two other Bulgarian sides as we each vye for glory on the European stage.

Meanwhile, our title defence remains on track and our run in the League Cup means we're in good standing across three competitions as we enter the Winter break. Tune in next time to see how we got on as the season concludes...

Youth Development (Part I)

Of all the aspects of Football Manager, developing young talent has always been something I've been abysmal at. Barring the occasional success story, such as one graduate in my FM17 save with Fiorentina or Brian Eadie at Wolves in FM19, I routinely watch as hot prospects emerge from my academy and go on to achieve nothing more than a transfer to another club.

The reason for my failings is quite simply that I've never paid enough attention to this part of the game. Instead, I'll opt to scour the market for a ready-to-go bargain and bring them in, at the expense of my own young prospect's development. Whilst there's nothing wrong with this approach, it got me thinking about why i don't put as much effort in to this side of things and frankly, I couldn't think of a good enough reason to keep ignoring it.

Part of the problem for me is my lack of a structured approach. I don't really know how best to develop a player and so I decided to try a few different things to see what worked for me. I didn't want to do anything that would require huge amounts of my time in order to maintain it, so i stuck to some simple ideas that i could easily implement at CSKA Sofia and at clubs in the future.

I know that age and personality are big contributors in terms of how much a young player can be developed, so for the sake of this experiment, I've focused on a mixture and have tried to ensure a few different positions and roles are included too.

Kurt Moe (GK)

First up we have Kurt Moe, an 18yo Goalkeeper with 4.5 star potential. His personality is realist and he has a fairly average 12 for his Determination attribute.

Moe joined our U19 squad two years ago and in addition to the standard U19 training has also had his Individual Training set as a Sweeper Keeper on Defend and his Individual Focus on GK Distibution (short), working on First Touch, Passing and Vision.

As you'll notice from the screen shot, I decided to loan Moe out to fellow First Division side Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the hope that some first team experience at this level will help him push on in terms of development.

Borislav Velev (ST)

Next up we have Borislav Velev, an Advanced Forward who joined the U19s three seasons ago but began breaking into the first team squad last season.

His development has taken place mainly at U19 level, with 5 first team appearances last season and 8 appearances in the first half of this season, most of those from the bench.

His Individual Training has been as an Advanced Forward with Individual Focus set to Endurance to improve his Work Rate and Stamina.

For the second half of this season, he's been sent on loan to Slavia Sofia where he's likely to get more regular first team football.

Sladjan Pavkovic (MC)

Sladjan Pavkovic is my next prospect, joining us on a free transfer at the start of this year.

Unlike the others, Pavkovic has spent no time at all with our U19s coaches and was immediately sent out on loan to Cherno more for what I hoped would be regular first team football.

He has a lot to work on in terms of his physical and technical attributes, but his high technique, composure and teamwork should put him in good stead for the future.

He's a little older than Moe and Velev and since he'shad no time with our coaching staff, it will be interesting to see how much that matters compared to regular game time.

Zarko Stevanovic (MC)

My fourth pick is our new signing, Zarko Stevanovic. I'm interested to see how much Zarko can continue his development, despite being much older than the others at 22.

He joins from Partizan who are obviosuly a reputable club in Serbia and as such has likely had some decent coaching already.

His attributes are significantly more developed and he's the furthest along in terms of reaching his potential, but since he'll be a regular starter in our first team, i'm hopeful he can continue to improve.

He's also the only player I've picked out that will play European football and so it will be interesting to see how he does against much bigger teams than Bulgaria's First league can offer.

Grigor Rangelov (MC)

Finally, we have Grigor Rangelov, our youngest prospect in this test at just 17, and also the only one to have been directly recruited into our youth set-up (as opposed to be bought for a transfer fee).

Rangelov is training to become a Box to Box Midfielder, with his Individual Training set to Quickness to work on his pace and acceleration.

My plan for him is to keep him at the club for at least the next year or so, and then perhaps loan him out for regular playing time once he's a bit older.

The fact that his mental attributes are already at a good base level gives me hope that he'll be a regular first teamer in the future.

In summary, I've introduced you to five players here, with a mixture of ages, positions, abilities and their length of time at the club. In terms of development, players will either play at U19 level, in CSKA Sofia' first team, on loan at another club, or a mixture of all of these.

In the next update, I'll report back on what I found in terms of who developed the most and hopefully I can share my thoughts on some basic principles that I'll adopt for developing prospects in the future.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: this week I caught up on From Eleven One's FK Macva Sabac series in Serbia. Not one but two blog posts this week, check them out here.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: I suspect you all saw it but the Football Manager Byline this week featured FM Grasshopper talking about balancing your squad with older and more experienced players, something I can definitely improve on. If you missed it, you can read it here.

• Best Video/Audio: FM Rensie did a piece this week on squad numbering, which, as an avid fan fo the subject matter, I enjoyed immensely. Featured in the article was a great video on the history of squad numbering and how it differs by country. Watch it here.

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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #7 - Core Attributes

Welcome back to Bulgaria where we'll be joining Frank Athlete for an update on how his first full season in charge of CSKA Sofia went. Since recruitment was front and centre for Frank over pre-season, I'll also cover what I look for in a new player, and in particular what my personal focus is on in terms of player attributes.

Save Update

It's unforgiveable. To lose like that, to a team like that. I'm so angry. Where are our leaders on the pitch? Where are you?!

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 23rd September 2026

Having secured 2nd place at the end of last season, CSKA Sofia qualified for the Second Qualifying round of the Europa Conference League in the process. That would mean a fair few extra games in the upcoming campaign, assuming the side didn't stumble at the first hurdle.

To that end, Frank sought to strengthen the squad's depth, opting to bring players in that would suit the roles in his favourable 4-4-2 set-up. Viktor Rogan joins as only one of two right full backs now at the club, while Martin Baturina replaces our outgoing Advanced Playmaker, Kaloyan Petrov. Frank had intended to build the team around Petrov, but he found the lure of Partizan too great to pass up. In Baturina, we have a more rounded player and at £1.7M, we have £800K change from Petrov's sale.

The team were desperately short of Target Men as well, or in fact any tall forwards with a heading ability above 9. Ivica Vidakov joins on loan while we secure America Nicholas Gioacchini on a free transfer. Gioacchini has all the right attributes we've been looking for, with Heading, Bravery and Strength all decent, but the scouts rated him poorly. Frank signed him anyway, seeing him for the true value he would bring to the side.

Two more loans rounded off the Summer business, with Brazilian Wellisson and Spaniard Eququiel Picon coming in to bolster the right midfield position.

The campaign kicked off with an excellent season opener, The Eternal Derby, which is contested by CSKA Sofia and city rivals Levski, and saw us claim first blood with a 2-1 win. This settled the team nicely with two more league wins in July, while we also comfortably dispatched Fehervar in the home and away fixture in our Europa Conference League qualifier, setting us up with Shamrock Rovers in the next round.

Our form continued into August, seeing us secure four more wins in the league, one of which was against title holders Ludogorets, although we also suffered a disappointing defeat to title challengers Botev Plovdiv. Our Europa Conference League campaign continued on course as well, despite a nervy home draw with Shamrock, we'd go on to beat them in the next game, and then also quash our old Romanian Liga I foes FCSB, winning 4-0 on aggregate and seeing us through to the group stages.

Frank found the group quite palpable. Despite Borussia Dortmund being a tough opponent, he saw both AGF and Dunajska Streda as beatable competition and so was optimistic about emerging from the group stages, an incredible feat if he could pull it off.

As Transfer Deadline Day approached, our top centre back decided he'd had enough and forced a move away from the club. We brought in the very promising Markovic as his replacement and didn't look back as we headed in to September. Things continued to go well as we opened with a 4-0 thumping of First League new boys Hebar.

Next up was our first Europa Conference group game against AGF where we took an early lead, before succumbing to a disappointing defeat at home. This seemed to hit our form badly, as we drew 0-0 in the next league game against relegation contenders Litex, before a crushing first round cup exit to lower league side Botev Galabovo. We'd earmarked the cup as a good chance of silverware and Frank had told the board as much in their last meeting. Needless to say, our early departure didn't go down too well.

Despite our recent dip in form, we were sat in top spot as we headed into October, where we'd meet Borussia Dortmund for the first time. Dortmund are a shadow of their former selves, they've not challenged for the Bundesliga title in 8 years now and have routinely finished outside of the top 4 in recent years. Nonetheless, they were the biggest test Frank's men had faced to date and showed their superiority with an easy 3-0 win.

With that fixture out of the way, the side went on a 5 game unbeaten run, including a pleasing 3-0 demolition of Europa Conference League contenders Dunajska Streda and four clean sheets in the process.

This was followed by two draws and two losses in all competitions, all but sealing our exit from the Europa Conference League whilst dropping five valuable league points as well.

Frank was relishing the Winter break, citing it as an opportunity for the lads to recuperate, and impatiently played through the last four fixtures of the calendar year. A decent win against Botev Plovdiv and another victory against newly promoted Dunav assured our top spot status in the league, despite a devastating 4-0 loss to Ludogorets in the last game before the break. It's hard to lose to your rivals but to get annihilated by them was a bitter pill to take.

Just prior to that, we played our final Europa Conference League game against group leaders and eventual competition winners Borussia Dortmund. Despite the gulf in quality between the two sides, we took an early lead and followed up with a second just after half time. They got one back but as we entered injury time we looked set to beat them, until a penalty was awarded in the 95th minute to give them a point. Frank is still fuming after the result, but he can take some pride in the fact his is the only team to have taken any points from Dortmund throughout the entirety of the competition thus year.

Bulgaria's league rules state that no players can be registered until the Summer Transfer Window opens, so the Winter Transfer Window is something of a farce, whereby you must cling to your best players as eager-eyed competitors attempt to pry them away, meanwhile any replacements or improvements you bring in are ineligible to play until next season. It's not a total disaster, in that they can bed in and work on the team building side of things before hitting the ground running in July, but it's certainly less than ideal.

We neither lost anyone, nor brought anyone in and so we played out the remaining 6 fixtures of the standard season throughout February and March, A clean sweep of wins and not one goal conceded made for a pleasing couple of months.

With the league now split for our final ten games in the Championship group, we had the arduous task of keeping hold of our lead as we played against those teams closest to us. From our three league losses, two of them had come at the hands of fellow title challengers Botev Plovdiv and Ludogorets, and we were joined in the group by Beroe, Levski and Lokomotiv Plovdiv.

Last season we didn't do very well at this stage of the season, managing just 15 points form a possible 30. That said, we kicked off with a comfortable win against Levski in our third Eternal Derby of the season so far. Up next were three tricky away fixtures, where we managed a bore draw against second placed Botev Plovdiv, before disappointing defeats to Beroe and Ludogorets.

Despite the loss, Ludogorets had been a shadow of the team that won the division and the Europa Conference League last season. This left Botev Plovidv and Levski as the only team that could realistically catch us as we headed into the final six games. In fact though, we found our form again and went undefeated for the remainder of the season, scooping 14 points from a possible 18.

We'd done it, and a season earlier than Frank had promised to the Board. CSKA Sofia were crowned First league Champions with two games of the season remaining, and the fans were ecstatic at our league record 33rd title alongside qualification to the Champions League qualifying rounds next term.

Frank could be justifiably proud of what he and his lads had achieved. This side were still young, and in some areas, were in desperate need of more quality and greater squad depth, especially with the prospect of a hectic European schedule in the season ahead. Tune in next time to find out who came in and how we fared in our title defence, and Frank's first foray into Champions league football.

Core Attributes

When it comes to scouting and assessing players, many FMer's have developed their own means of judging how good someone is, in terms of their role, their attributes and their form and statistics. One of the first things I do when I start a new game is to create my own screen view, so I can hone in on what really matters to me as i assess the squad I have and contemplate where we need to strengthen. Part of this analysis is looking at ten core attributes, that I personally like to see in my players.

Of course, each role and duty designates certain attributes as primary (green) and secondary (blue) so you can see how well suited a player is to a specific role, but I like to look beyond that in the hope of building a squad of well-rounded athletes, capable of performing to a similar standard, wherever they are on the pitch. I've seen many FMer's adopt the same approach in their saves, and here is my take on what every footballer should have:

• First Touch - the player's ability to control the ball immediately as it is passed into feet. If he can't control the ball, then his passing, crossing or finishing ability is wasted.

• Technique - the aesthetic quality of a player's technical game; how refined they are with the ball at their feet. Technique is important in being able to pull off a tricky pass or cross field ball. Granted, it's often harder to find defenders with good technique, but a higher rating here ensures all the players are capable of playing a quality ball.

• Composure - the player's steadiness of mind and ability to make intelligent decisions with and without the ball. Being level-headed, even when under pressure is essential for a decent footballer, ad this partners nicely with the next attribute.

• Decisions - the player's ability to make the correct choice both with and without the ball. Another important attribute, which can affect things like who they pass to or when/where they make their run

• Determination - the player's commitment to succeed and do his very best on and off the pitch. Another obvious one, and I assume it's on everyone's list. If want to breed a team of winners then they need to be determined to win in the first place.

• Off the Ball - the player's ability to move when not in possession of the ball, making themselves available to receive a pass in a dangerous position. Admittedly, this is one attribute i might sacrifice in favour if i need to, but it makes my top 10 as most players are only as good as what they can do without the ball.

• Teamwork - the player's ability to follow tactical instructions whilst working for and alongside his team mates. A winning team needs strong unity and spirit, plus a willingness to fight for one another.

• Work Rate - the player's willingness to work to his full capacity, going above and beyond the call of duty. This is probably the number one attribute I look for and is often the differentiator if i'm choosing between two players.

• Balance - how well a player can stay on his feet, both on and off the ball. As i regularly tell my 7yo son, if you're lying on the floor then you're no good to anyone. Good balance ensures you're ready to receive that pass, or are able to ride that challenge.

• Natural Fitness - reflects how well a player stays fit when injured or not in training. It is also used to determine how well they maintain their physical attributes past their peak and maintain fitness between matches. As i mentioned, playing at lower reputation clubs often means managing a smaller squad with tighter budget constraints, and so having players that maintain good fitness between games, and can play into their 30's is often the difference between good and great.

With these core attributes added to my screen view, i can quickly determine who fits the mold in terms of the type of player I like to manage. I'v also often found that using these attributes to refine your search for a player, can lead you to someone who is undervalued at another club, or has even been given a poor rating by your scouts.

The beauty of Football Manager is that everyone has their own way of playing the game, and to that end, there's no right or wrong way to play it either. Some choose to comb the database in search of hidden gems while others will opt to lean heavily on the Recruitment team to make recommendations and bring players in. For me, I'll go as far as hiring the best scouts available, and i'll also set their assignments up so any recommendations that do come in will already meet some of my criteria. Beyond that though, I like to control who we sign and over the course of each season I'll constantly review our current crop of players to identify areas of weakness, and then use these ten core attributes as part of my process to unearth the next diamond.

I'd love to know what other players do, and whether you adopt the same system or use different core attributes to judge a player's ability. Leave a comment below or drop me a message on Twitter or in my Slack channel and let me know what you do.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: This week I caught up on Oaky_FM's Dutch Dreams series in which his FC Volendam side are a force to be reckoned with. Catch up on the series here.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: Another week of great content but my top pick was Oliver Jensen/FM Futbol Manager's latest piece on his approach to retraining Players. This was really insightful and has helped me as I plan to retrain a couple of my players at CSKA Sofia. Check it out here.

• Best Audio/Video: Since I've been working from home during the lockdown, I've lost my 3 hours of daily commute time to listen to podcasts. I did however come across a new one which i think is well worth a listen, called Well Done Michael, He's 13. Before you wonder what I'm talking about, it's definitely a football podcast and even includes a few FM mentions as well. I'm yet to find out the meaning of the name but apparently that will be covered in an upcoming episode.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #6 - Setting Up at a New Club

Welcome in to a farewell edition as Frank Athlete begins his final campaign with Farul Constanta in the Romanian Liga I. In this update I'll cover how his last year at the club went along with his job hunt for a new challenge. I'll also give you a run through of my approach to the subsequent overhaul of his new club.

Save Update

Bloody typical! Now they back me?! As much as it doesn't change anything for me, I'll miss this club, this city, the people. My first foray into management, what a time it's been.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 22nd June 2025

At the end of last season, Frank made the decision that this would be his final year at Farul Constanta. Either he'd see out the remainder of his contract through to next June, or if the right opportunity should come along beforehand then he'd be applying for the role accordingly.

Despite that sentiment as our backdrop, Frank worked through Farul Constanta's preseason with the same enthusiasm as any other year. Given the clubs prolonged stay of three seasons in the top flight, they gave virtually our entire back balance over as a transfer kitty. £2M to spend compared to £100K for the last two years!

This enabled Frank to bring in some classier recruits, starting with upgrades to our GK (Belmin Dizdarevic), DR (Florin Borja), DL (Ales Svaboda) and ML (Zejko Gavric). Elsewhere, Srdjan Krstovic and superstar of the future Lerato Da Gama both joined to gives us new options in the Advanced Playmaker role, leaving over £1M in the bank should we need it.

With the side in good shape, the season got underway and Frank got the team playing quite well with a draw and a win in our opening fixture, before an inevitable loss to current champions FC Viitorul. August saw us pick up a win followed by three draws, one of which coming at the expense if FCSB and our ability to avoid defeat kept us in mid-table mediocrity.

Just a solitary win in September and a 5th Round Cup exit was enough to see us start to get dragged down in the league, before a sudden resurgence had us score a draw followed by three back-to-back wins as we headed into November.

We weren't setting the world on fire, but comfortably holding our own in the league, with a top half finish beginning to look like a real prospect come the half way stage. Farul sat in 5th place, albeit 8 points adrift of 4th yet 7 points ahead of 7th.

Despite things going so well with Farul Constanta, it still felt that in the grand scheme of things the team were a long way short of the top 4 or 5 sides in this league. Even if they could keep their form for the remainder of the season, and scrape into the Champions group, they'd be hard pushed to get anything from it and are still probably several years away from being able to compete financially with the likes of FCSB and FC Viitorul.

With that in mind, Frank had been frequenting the Job Centre a little more often lately, wanting to be sure that should the right opportunity arise, he is ready to apply. In terms of his next post, he'd be looking to take a step up in terms of his new club's reputation, although with his qualifications stuck at Continental C licence, it's unlikely to be any of the bigger footballing nations like Germany or Ukraine.

He'd already ruled out a move to any other Romanian clubs, and discounted any jobs in Hungary or Slovakia as well due to their top league's reputations being ranked at the lower end of the spectrum. This left top division clubs in Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Austria to consider for his next move. He didn't want a club that routinely won silverware, instead he was looking for a team that were on the cusp of success but had never quite made it, somewhere he could ply his trade and build a club to the top.

Dynamo Kyiv fit that description having come 2nd place in the Ukrainian Premier League 9 out of the last 10 times. Osijek in Croatia are another that routinely come 2nd or 3rd but are yet to secure a title, while Partizan hadn't won a Serbian Super Liga title in 10 years and their fellow challengers Vojvodina had placed 3rd in all but two of those campaigns. Elsewhere, LASK were a regular top 4 side in the Austrian Bundesliga but given Frank's heritage descending from Vienna, he couldn't imagine managing a club outside of the capital there.

All these options would be great, but all are probably a step too far Frank at this stage in his career. They're big clubs, steeped in history and have been regular features in the annual European competitions, meaning Frank's lowly stature in the game might not be appealing enough for them.

Besides, with the exception of LASK and Kyiv, none of the manager's at those clubs, or any similar contenders, were listed as insecure, but as Farul reached the half way stage of their season, Frank spotted a club who were starting to grow impatient with their current boss. It took until mid-November for him to be sacked and another week for Frank to be offered an interview, an opportunity which he leapt at.

Aside from their title winning season of 21/22, this team had not won the league since 07/08, finishing in the top 3 on 13 out of 18 occasions. They currently sat in 2nd place with an 8 point gap behind the league leaders, who'd won 13 of the last 14 titles. Someone needed to disrupt the status quo, and restore this historic club to former glory.

Enter Frank M. Athlete.

To say Frank (and I) was delighted with this appointment is a huge understatement, it's an absolute perfect fit for him at this stage in his career. Not only does it provide a great opportunity to grab some silverware, but he'll also have the pleasure of toppling the Bulgarian First League's long-time title winners Ludogorets.

If you're not overly familiar with CSKA Sofia, they're one of 5 other First Division teams that call the capital city of Sofia home, which is situated 150 km south of the River Danube. Despite having a record 32 First League titles to their name, the team have only won the division once in the last 22 years and so it's high-tide they staked a claim for 1st place. They play their home games at the 23,000 capacity Bulgarian Army Stadium and are affectionately known as "The Reds" or "The Armymen"

However, before we could go on a charge towards untold success, we still had the remainder of the current season to navigate. In his haste to impress the board, Frank promised he could win the title this year, only discovering the side were 8 points adrift after he'd taken the job. Although not impossible, Ludogorets were yet to lose a game and weren't showing any signs of letting points slip away.

Frank's initial assessment of the squad found an abundance of attacking midfielders and so he set the team up with four at the back, two in the middle, three attacking midfielders and a lone striker. The full backs were both more accustomed to playing in a wingback role and so, sensing that CSKA Sofia had the muscle to be aggressive, he opted to tweak the roles and duties to more readily display their attacking prowess.

The setup showed signs of working in the first game, a comfortable win at home to Botev Plovdiv, but they beat us three days later in the Quarter Final of the cup and the tactic looked largely to blame for our demise. The wingbacks were far too aggressive, leaving us exposed at the back to counter attacks, and we were giving the ball away a little too easily. Frank stuck with it in the next game against Arda but we nearly threw that game away too, scraping a 2-1 win.

With Ludogorets up next, Frank reverted to the 4-4-2 system he'd employed at Farul. The AMC dropped into MC with an AP-A role and we went with a TM and an AF up front. We kept the ball well this time. although our attacking transition needed a little work as we laboured to a 1-1 draw. Another draw followed before we really got into a rhythm, knocking out 4 consecutive 1-0 wins in our next 5 games as we ended the first stage of the league in 2nd place, but still 8 points adrift of Ludogorets.

Into the Champions Group now and unlike in the Romanian Liga I where your points tally is halved, the Bulgarian First League rules state you keep all your points after the league is split. This meant we'd need Ludogorets to lose twice and draw twice more than us if we had any chance of winning the title this year.

Our first game made that quest all the harder as we lost to Beroe, and despite a win in the next game we took just two points from the three fixtures that followed. Ludogorets also managed to lose at last, but we never looked like catching them. More inconsistency followed with back-to-back wins, followed by another loss and a draw before we rounded off the season with a win in the Eternal Derby against Levski.

Whilst second place was comfortably ours, a 16 point gap between us and Ludogorets suggested there was a huge amount of work to be done if this team were going to be challenging for titles any time soon.

As the season ended, the Board's appraisal of Frank had him down at an "E", with his stay at CSKA Sofia looking more and more likely to be a short lived affair. However, there were no calls for his head in the press, nor did the Board want to discuss anything as the campaign wrapped up and so Frank began the arduous task of rebuilding this team ready for a title challenge in the season ahead.

Tune in next time and find out how he got on.

Setting Up at a New Club

There's nothing more exciting to me than the first day in a new job. As much as there are so many things to sort out and to organise, I enjoy the prospect of getting setup and having everything work the way I like it. That said, it can be an overwhelming process, and is especially dependent on the club you're taking over and how they're doing compared to how they thought they'd be doing. If you're taking over in preseason, then there's less "on-the-pitch" controversy to sort out, but you'll have outgoing players or prearranged transfers in that you'll have to contend with instead.

The relative wealth of the club can also have a big impact on the scope of changes you can or want to implement, but broadly speaking it's the same process, whether your Cheltenham or Chelsea. I always follow the same steps to overhauling a new club and I never deviate from the order in which I do things. I've developed this process over the years, and stolen ideas and tips from other players as I've gone. Here's my routine for getting set up at a club, and all before you click "continue":

1. Your staff - get this sorted first so you know you can rely on the validity of their reports and advice. Comb through the current team and highlight the key roles that need filling or replacing. When looking at new recruits, remember to consider their personality and adaptability as well as their role-specific attributes. I'll often hire the key roles and then place adverts for the less important ones, allowing me to get on with other things. You can also lean on your DoF to do the hiring for you but be prepared for some very average hires as his attention to detail is no where near as sharp as yours.

2. Responsibilities - with your backroom team in place, or at least on the verge of signing, take a minute to decide who's doing what so you don't forget to do it later. For example, I always delegate my tactical briefings and tunnel interviews to my assistant, plus I'll let my DoF handle contract renewals for my staff going forward.

3. Situational analysis - have a look at the clubs stature, it's history and their current placing in any competitions. How are the finances looking now and in the short-term future? Are they performing above or below expectations? Is this a blip or have they been declining for a few years? What's the recent form like? Have a look at the facilities available, as well as any affiliates associated with the club too. All this will help you get into the mindset of the club, allowing you to gauge their reality vs expectations, and setting you up nicely for the next step

4. Tactical setup - before you delve straight in to importing your favoured tactic, have a look at the way the team set up in the last few games first. You'll be able to get a sense of team shape and, depending on the result, whether there's a particular formation that worked better than others. Setting up your tactic needs to strike a balance between the way you want to play, and what's suitable for the players you have available to you right now. There'll be time to shape the squad to your liking later so for now, find something that works and go with it.

5. Squad assessment - attributes are naturally an essential factor when weighing up your starting XI, but when you take on a club mid-way through a season, often the player's match stats are more useful. If you're 3rd choice centre back has an average rating of 7.5 after 10 games then he could be worth a punt. Similarly, is there an unproven 17yo desperate to make a name for himself that you could throw in to the side? Other things to consider are the team's morale, their dynamics and social groups. In the early days, these can be more important to success than playing your most highly rated starlet.

6. Selling up - now you have a handle on your key players, you might also have unearthed a few names that are surplus to requirements. Now's a good chance to offer them out to clubs and rake in some extra transfer funds, or reduce the wage bill. A word of warning though, don't be too hasty to ship out everyone who plays a position that you don't favour, just in case things backfire and that 33yo Anchor Man turns out to be exactly what's required to get you out of a slump.

7. Set-pieces, takers and captains - Take time to set up your set pieces, or if you're using the defaults, then at least make sure you have the right players taking your set pieces, and especially if you're about to sell off the current free kick expert, or you want someone with better technique to deliver your corners for you. Now's also a good time to review your options for captain as well. I tend to leave it as is until the end of the season but if you feel a change is needed, then now's the time.

8. Training - head over to the training pitch and have a look at the schedules for the coming weeks. If this isn't your bag, feel free to leave it to your staff, or just take over a few of your players individual regimes to get you started. Especially important is any young prospects coming through that might need a guiding hand to reach their potential.

9. Planning - one of the last things I like to do before clicking "continue" is make a short-term plan for the club. If i'm joining midway through the season then i'll assess our upcoming fixtures and identify the most crucial games for us. I'll also start requesting scout reports for any players i think could do a job for us, based on my previous role and what I've come to learn in my short time here. Another thing worth considering is getting reports on any players the club has out on loan. Could they be useful additions to the side for next year maybe?

10. Reminders - last, but by no means least, set reminders! I rarely see people utilising this in-game feature, but it will save you a lot of trouble in the long-run if you make the most of it. Under the "History" tab on any player or member of staff you can choose "Create note" and assign a reminder date to it. The reminder will appear as an email item in your inbox so, whether you want to remember to give your 17yo wonderkid a run out against the bottom team in 3 weeks time, or you don't want to forget to check what effects your new training schedule is having on the team, or you're waiting for your top transfer target's contract to expire, then use the notes and reminders and never forget again!

And now you've done all that, please click "Continue".

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: this week's spotlight is on Gaffer Graemo's FM20 series. His writing style sucks you right in, and it's well worth a delve into his website, The Technical Area, for some additional gold nuggets!

• Best Advice Blog/Article: FM Pressure released the second part of his piece on Full Backs. Hard not to learn a lot from every one of this guy's posts, check it out here.

• Another Best Advice Blog/Article: Another week with not much audio or video consumed so instead I will plug SOGG's piece from the latest issue of Latte Quarterly. He's done a brilliant deep-dive into his "Striker problem" and gives an excellent illustration of his process for handling the issue.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #5 - Troubleshooting a Tactic

Hello again, and welcome back to Constanta. You join us at the start of our second season in Liga I, after we miraculously survived the last campaign. In this update we'll find out how Frank Athlete's men got on this time, plus I'll share my process for troubleshooting my tactic when things haven't gone well.

Save Update

I'm still shocked that we got him. What a player he is! I'm starting to feel this is the beginning of the next level now. The only way is up from here.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 19th August 2024

Having survived relegation last year, Frank set about bringing in some new and improved recruits that would hopefully help ease the struggle of fighting relegation this time around. A budget of £150k, combined with some player sales enabled us to bring in Raul Macea from Liga I opposition CFR Cluj as our marquee signing. He'll play as a Deep Lying Playmaker on Support duty and will look to orchestrate our creative play.

Up top, Montosori (TM-S) and Expedito (AF-A) came in on free transfers as huge upgrades to our current front line, while Italian Davide Riccardi is brought in as DC along with his experience of 28 years. Additonally, Cifor (FB-S) comes in to challenge for a starting place at DL and Tataru will backup our reglar starter Mutiu in goal.

With the team in place, and the season only a few games old, the side were struck down by several long term injuries to key players and so Frank brought in Pesic on loan to provide cover in central midfield, while Cheick Sylla replaces new signing Riccardi who broke his leg in training and was ruled out for half a season. Sylla is actually a huge upgrade on Riccardi and is now easily our best player so maybe things have worked out for the better. Time will tell.

As seems to be the custom now we're in Liga I, the season got off to a rocky start, drawing away to newly promoted FC Voluntari before successive defeats to FCSB and Hermannstadt.

A win in our next outing brought some security, and although our form didn't dramatically improve, we were comfortably placed in the league as we reached the mid-way point with a few more wins under our belt.

As 2024 drew to a close, we endured heavy, yet predictable defeats to FCSB and FC Viitorul, as well as losses to CFR Cluj and FC Rapid, picking up 7 points from our other fixtures as we headed into Christmas and the Winter break.

Form didn't really improve as the season resumed in February, with the team securing more losses than draws or wins, but there was a pleasing 4-3 victory over Dinamo Bucarestu on the last day of the season which brought hope for our Relegation Group games.

Our mediocre league campaign meant we'd take 13 points with us into the Relegation Group. Last season, 26 points was enough to secure our safety, but owing to the fact the competition isn't as fierce this time around, plenty of teams were able to steal points from newly promoted Academica Clinceni and FC Voluntari, meaning we'd need points from the other teams to survive a second consecutive relegation scrap.

We started poorly, 1 point from our first 3 games, prompting Frank to rethink his tactics after a torrid season of lacklustre performances. His magic touch worked, as the the boys were able to secure back to back wins for the first time this year in the next games, and would go on to secure another 4 wins to accompany 4 draws from the remaining 10 fixtures.

All told, a points haul of 35 was enough to secure our safety for another year, with the side finishing 4th in the group overall. It still took until the last day to confirm our Liga I status, but Frank was pleased on an improved points tally from last year.

Having secured a third season of Liga I football, Frank has been considering his future as he revisits his long-term career goals. His contract doesn't expire until the end of next season (June 2026), however it's clear that given the competitive nature of this division, it's hard to ever see Farul competing for European football anytime soon.

As such, the 2025/26 campaign will be Frank's final season at Constanta, and from here on in he'll be keeping an eye out for any exciting job opportunities that pop up before the season ends. The time feels right to move on, and start challenging for silverware elsewhere, having gotten Farul Constanta to their highest ever league finish and to some level of Liga I stability.

Troubleshooting a Tactic

As I alluded to in the save update above, we had to reassess our tactical approach midway through the season after under performing for too long beforehand.

There comes a point where every tactic needs a tweak or a freshen up, or in some cases a complete overhaul. With that in mind, i thought I'd share my process for how i go about evaluating my tactic, and making necessary changes when it's not working quite right.

Let me state from the outset, I'm not an expert on tactics - far from it in fact - but I have picked up a few tips and tricks from other players (Cleon, FM Pressure, FMRensie, DGear86 and fmFutbolManager to name a few) and my own experience over the years and so that's what I'm sharing here. If you're looking for some advice from people far more qualified than me to help, I suggest you dip into the #fmtactics-chat channel on FM Slack where there's a ton of people who can give you some pointers and constructive feedback.

But for now, here's my process to troubleshooting my tactic:

1. Leave it alone! The first step on the road to enlightenment is to stop changing your tactic. No more tweaks to player roles or team instructions. Do this for at least three games, no matter who the opposition is.

2. Switch to Comprehensive. Forget text only commentary, you need to start watching your game highlights in comprehensive mode, at least for the next few games anyway. Pay attention to player positions, their movement, and what they do when you're attacking and when you're defending. Hit pause at random times during the match and see where you're players are positioned.

3. Post-match party. While you're still at the match, or from the Tactics screen under the Analysis tab, have a look at any key statistics or match stats from each game. Think about possession, shots taken vs. shots on target, missed passes etc.

4. Write that down. Take some notes from your analysis and during each game, either when you see something that looks good or, even better, when you see something going wrong.

5. A bit of self reflection. After a few games of monitoring your performance, start thinking about what you're actually trying to achieve with your tactic. Saying "i want to win games" is an end result, not a strategy. Instead, ask yourself "how will we attempt to win games". Think about a real-life example of the style of football you're trying to emulate. Maybe it's Klopp's gegenpress or Pulis's long-ball routine, or simply pace down the wings vs. long-range thunderbolts? It's important to be realistic with your approach, and consider all the factors, such as the level your team are playing at and their ability compared to your divisional rivals.

6. Mind the Trade-offs. For every tactical instruction or setting you implement, there's likely a negative affect or risk that you add in to your playing style each time. For example, switching passing style to "Shorter" will reduce the risk of misplacing your passes, but you'll also likely be limiting the team's passing range in the process. Invariably, it's these trade-offs that can often lead to your team giving possession away with wayward passes, or being dispossessed as a result of dawdling on the ball. Be sure to consider the cause and effect of your tactic as you analyse the games. Aside from team instructions, think about the formation and the team mentality too as these also have positive and negative implications on your tactic.

7. Consider the evidence. How does what you've seen in your last few games compare to what you're actually trying to achieve? For example, if you want your big Target Man to score with his head, but he's goalless in 5 games, then check he's receiving crosses from out wide to knock in. What about on the defensive? Is there a particular type of goal you concede often? Or a particular area of the pitch you always lose the ball.

8. Get to the root of the problem. Before you wade in and make changes left right and centre, be systematic in your approach. Consider what other impact your changes might have, both in terms of Team Instructions as well as formation. Maybe the reason your Target Man can't score with his head has more to do with his poor Jumping attribute, than it does your wingers crossing ability.

9. Make that Change. Okay, you've got half a dozen pages of scribbled notes so you're ready to start making changes. But before you do, make sure you read the tool tips and descriptions that are built into the game. For example, you might think of your midfield maestro as a Ball Winning Midfielder, but actually when you read the description, a Defensive Midfielder better describes what you want him to do. Similarly, your Cautious team mentality might make sense to you, but in fact a Balanced approach is what will actually work here. If you're not sure what something does, then try it out. It's a game remember, and it's also highly unlikely that you'll suddenly start losing every match 8-0, so you've very little to lose in the grand scheme of things.

10. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Keep your game highlights on Comprehensive for a few more matches and see what difference your changes have made. Have any of your problems been fixed, or do you now have new problems to consider? Try and avoid making tiny changes on a regular basis, or you'll find yourself a long way from where you set out, and with no clue how to get back to your preferred style.

As you'll have noted from our form in February, we didn't score a goal for four consecutive games which prompted me to review our tactic using the steps above. The 4-3 win at Dinamo Bucaresti was a one-off so i ignored it and used the next 4 games to review our performances in detail.

Here's how we were set up:

Here's what I observed from those four games:

• Our defensive play was fairly strong. Most of the goals we conceded were from exceptional build-up play or long-range screamers

• 1 or 2 neat passes were often followed by a 25 yard long-ball that almost always ended up with the opposition

• My goal keeper liked to often try long range passes that would result in us losing possession

• Our build up play was really great to watch. Nice passing in the middle, finding our wide options who could run forward with pace and cross the ball

• Almost all our crosses were finding our target man or our poacher

• Our TM would routinely header over the bar or straight at the goalkeeper

• Our Poacher would often shoot straight at the goal keeper

• Our full backs were having almost no impact on the game in terms of attack. I'd previously opted for a defensive mentality for fear of being left exposed at the back

• Our midfield pair were often seen some way outside of the box and rarely attacking any poor opposition clearances, leaving all of the goal scoring responsibilities to our forwards

And as a result, here are the changes I made:

• Switched the goalkeeper's distribution to short kicks

• Changed the right full back to an Attack duty and the left full back to Support - this should mean the DR gets further forward and overlaps with the left Winger, while the DL also gets forward but not too far to expose us

• Changed the Central Midfield role to an Attack duty with the intent he'll get in the box more often and hoover up chances on the edge of the area

• Switched crosses from Mixed to Low. Since my TM was getting on the end of most of them, but was heading over, i thought lower crosses might give him more chance of hitting the target

And it worked a treat!

• Form: Played 10, Won 5, Drew 3, Lost 2

• Goals: 16 for, 13 against (7 in one dreadful game where we were out played all over)

• Scorers: ST (TM-S) = 5, ST (P-A) = 2, ML (W-S) = 2, MR (W-A) = 4, Other = 3

So there you have it, on this occasion I felt satisfied the changes to the tactic had worked. We still had a couple of seriously bad days at the office, but that's something I hope we can improve on in the future.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you to join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: this week I caught up on FM Grasshopper's exploits in Mexico, with the tale ending with an unexpected twist. Catch up the story here.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: Tough to choose just one this week, loads of good stuff out there, but FM Samo's piece on his approach to training was the pick of the bunch for me. I enjoyed learning about his setup and it's given me some inspiration to make a few tweaks to my schedules too.

• Best Audio/Video: Prince William took part in a new BBC documentary that aired this week, about football and mental health featuring interviews with people involved at grassroots level up to professional. Check it out here.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.

Down the Danube | #4 - Mapping a Path to Success

Welcome along to another update from the Black Sea coast. Following Constanta's promotion to Liga I last time out, we'll see how they fared in their first season back among the big boys, with Frank still at the helm.

In this update I'll also cover how I strategise our path to success each season with a run through my forecasting model, plus i've got some highlights from my favourite content this week.

Save Update

Liga I's rules differ slightly from Liga II, but I think this works in our favour. We now need two U22 players in our starting XI (was two U19s in Liga II), and only 6 of our match day squad need to have been trained in Romania (was 10 in Liga II).

There's also a change in league format, with all 14 teams contesting a standard league with home and away fixtures, before being split into two groups depending on where you finish. The top 6 then play home and away to decide the league winners and European football qualification in the Champions Group, while the bottom 8 play home and away to decide who will suffer relegation in the Relegation Group. The bottom two teams automatically drop while the 3rd bottom side contest a playoff against Liga II's 3rd place team.

I can feel the pressure mounting now, I can only hope they remain patient with me. Thank goodness for my back room team, I'd be lost without them. At least I know I'm not alone in this.

An extract from the diary of Frank M. Athlete, 13th February 2024

The prospect of playing football in Romania's top division was one that brought both excitement and dread for Frank Athlete. While this had been the goal all along, now the team would have to fight against all odds to stay up. The media predicted Farul would finish bottom of the league, but Frank felt confident that the bulk of his squad, with one or two additions, could do the business.

The main areas of weakness were in both full back positions, in the middle of the park and up top. We lacked strength in depth and crucially, we needed someone talismanic who could create from central midfield. The budget well was dry so Frank turned to free transfers, signing Alexandru Sirbu (DR) from Liga I rivals Universitatea Craiova and Matteo Pranic from Croation side Sibenik, both on frees to reinforce our back four.

Elsewhere, Marko Roginic came in as cover for our Target Man while Mihai Capatina was brought in for his creative mind, able to play as a central playmaker or even out wide if necessary. In terms of outgoings, there weren't any departures outside of the U19s, most of which were loans or youngsters with no future at the club.

With the squad assembled, the season got underway and things couldn't have gone any worse. Five straight defeats and only two goals scored, saw the media's pre-season prediction look more like a prophecy, although it's worth mentioning that four of those sides were expected to feature in the Champions Group come the end of February. An up-turn in our fortunes saw Frank's side go unbeaten in the next 6 though, as the team grew in confidence, and as we reached the half way stage, we found ourselves holding our own in 11th place.

In to the last few games before the winter break and while we struggled for goals, we did manage to earn a win and four draws before Christmas.

Frank left the squad intact through the transfer window, and instantly regretted his complacency. Five straight defeats in our last five games saw us drop to 12th, six points off 11th placed Sepsi, with an 8-0 hammering away to FC Rapid being particularly hard to take.

From here, the table is split into a Champions Group, made up of the top six teams, and a Relegation Group, made up of the remaining 8 sides, of which we were obviously one.

In line with the league rules, we took half our points from the first 26 games with us into the Relegation Group, meaning we began the campaign with 11 points and sat in 6th place. With 14 of our original 26 points coming from other teams in the Relegation Group, Frank had good cause to be confident of escaping the drop.

A very mixed bag of results saw us pick up a few wins and a couple of draws when we need them most, and for the most part we kept our head above the water. A win in our penultimate game kept us 1 point clear of the relegation places with one game to go.

By a strange coincidence, the final day of the season would see the top 4 teams play the bottom four teams, with Farul away to 3rd placed Sepsi. We'd need to match or better everyone else's results with literally any of the bottom 4 capable of escaping the drop.

The moment arrived, the final day was upon us, and it seemed we barely turned up. Sepsi were all over us for the entirety of the match, scoring a goal in each half and comfortably beating us 2-0. Surely that was it? Our fate awaited us as we headed in to tunnel to find out the latest scores.

In a strange turn of events, it seemed that none of the bottom teams were particularly keen on staying up, having all done our level best to throw our Liga I status away. All four sides lost their last games and so by proxy, we stayed in 5th place and would get to do it all again next year.

As first seasons back in the big time go, Frank seemed quite content that we'd done ok. We'd not set the world alight, but we'd secured our Liga I status and earnt some good points against the bigger teams. There's plenty here to build on for next year, and another year of consolidation is inevitably what awaits us before we can start challenging for a top half finish in a few years time.

Let's hope Frank can keep the good times rolling with another season of success next year.

Mapping a Path to Success

So we survived, just! And it was hardly by our own hand, in fact we really only stayed up as a bi-product of the teams around us doing slightly worse than we did. But, in terms of how I anticipated this season would play out, we weren't far off where I thought we'd be.

At the start of each season I look through our fixtures and attempt to work out where we'll accumulate points. I consider a number of factors for each fixture, as follows:

• the venue - we might have a great away record against the big sides, but be dreadful at home against the teams around us

• our head-to-head history - is there a bogey team among those we should be beating?

• last season's finish - a good indicator of whether they've been consistent, or they're overachievers/underachievers

• the media's prediction - this considers recent signings and comparisons with other teams in the league

• fixture congestion or the order in which they're played - playing the bottom side two days after we played the league leaders might impact on our success

• previous successes and failures - are they 3 time league champions or the latest yo-yo club?

With all that considered, I enter the predictions into my spreadsheet prior to the season starting:

The left hand column is the media's predicted finish, then we have the team and then how many points i expect us to get, home and away. This acts as a quick reference guide before each game, giving me an indication of how tough an opponent I thought each team would be at the start of the season. I can then factor in their recent form prior to the match to see whether they're doing better or worse than expected.

In the example above, I'm a newly promoted team expected to finish bottom, and I haven't played most of the teams before so there's no historical data I can look at. I find it highly improbably i'll take any points from the predicted top 6, and will be lucky to nick a draw or two from the mid-table sides. My best chance of points will be at home to the teams around me, and i will also hope to steal a draw at the away tie too.

As the season progresses, I fill in the spreadsheet and then reevaluate where I might need to get additional points from. For example, if we draw instead of win against a relegation rival, then I'll need to look at where else I can get the points to make up the difference, from an underachiever for example.

Adjacent to the Actual Results section, you'll see how we compared to what was predicted at the start of the season in terms of points attained and then where we finished. 22 points versus 18 predicted, and a 12th place finish versus an expected 14th place - enough to land us in the Relegation Group for Liga I.

The table above tells me we performed better than expected against the likes of CSM Poli Iasi and Dinamo Bucaresti, while we massively under achieved against Petrolul Ploiesti. In the last column, you'll see how each team did in reality versus the pre-season prediction. Although we were poor against Petrolul Ploiesti having lost both games, we can see they finished 5 places above their predicted 13th, with CSM Poli Iasi taking their place 5 places lower than expected.

Over the course of future seasons, i'll be able to collate the average points earned against each team and identify patterns in our results. Here's a look at the cumulative table after I repeated the above process for the Relegation Group games as well.

You can see in the top left corner, we average 0.8 points per game at the moment (after 1 season). I can also see that we do surprisingly well against U Cluj, averaging 2.3 points per game from them, while we've never won a point from relegation rivals Petrolul Ploiesti.

From here, I can apply some historical data to my individual team assessment for the season ahead as I map out where those points are going to come from and work towards consolidating our stay in the top flight.

So there you have it, my approach to strategic planning: FM style! To be clear, this process doesn't mean i don't try and win every game, that's a given. Instead, I get to take a season-long view of where we can accumulate points, and can track whether we're doing better or worse than planned as the season progresses. I won't sweat the losses if they were part of the plan anyway, and equally I can celebrate twice as hard when we nick those unexpected wins that can be the difference between a good season and a great one.

Content Corner

In this section I've highlighted some of the content I've been consuming of late. There are some excellent content creators out there, some old and some new, and the vast majority of which are all on Slack so I strongly advise you to join that community and check them out here.

• Best Save Update Blog: this week I've been catching up on TedRedwood's exploits with St. Pauli in his series Der Kult. Check out his progress here.

• Best Advice Blog/Article: As ever, Oliver Jensen (A.K.A. fmFutbolManager) has been pumping out some quality FM tools and guides lately, but his latest one tops the lot for me. Take a look at his Player Mentality Calculator to see a visual representation of how your players are affected by changes to your team mentality and approach play. Brilliant.

• Another Best Advice Blog/Article: I didn't consume much audio/visual content this week (unless you include That Peter Crouch Podcast #PassthePod) so I'm including another best advice blog, this time from FMPressure, who shared a piece on modern full backs which highlights some important takeaways in getting the most out of your full backs, plus some insight into the value of retraining players to suit other positions. Enjoy!

Mental Health Awareness Week

Before I leave you, I wanted to take a minute to highlight an important message. This week we've been observing Mental Health Awareness Week and you may have noticed Frank's usual diary excerpt (above) was more in line with battling his inner demons than usual.

I'm not a trained mental health professional, but I do know that in my own small way I sometimes struggle with life's daily pressures. Some days I handle it better than others but on the whole, I know I'm lucky to have a strong network of friends and family that I can speak to.

Sometimes just venting to a group of trusted compatriots (you know who you are) is all you need, so I can thoroughly recommend talking about what might be bothering you. More often than not, you don't need someone to fix it, but just sharing your thoughts can help you to process it. It does for me anyway.

Let's keep mental health at the top of the conversation and make sure it continues to become a normal thing to talk about.

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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.

I'll be back as soon as I can with another update from Frank as he continues to take us Down the Danube.