The first two opening seasons leading Warta Poznan in Poland were funny. And if I will ignore the fact that I finished both seasons among top clubs instead of being relegated in the opening season, it also met my expectations.
There are many talented players but I am far from being able to sign them because of my own personal financial strictness. My favourite part of the save so far 100% was clearing the squad from players who were not good enough and overpaid. I like the club is now more stable after two seasons despite no big outgoing transfers in comparison with other clubs.
Another thing is that I like the fact my pre-save tactical plans are working almost exactly as I wanted. My plan, no matter where the FM22 save will be held, was to play with two central defenders, half back and two wing backs. The idea also included using the option to distribute the ball to a specific teammate aimed to half back. I think the fact we finished 4th and 2nd in the Ekstraklasa speaks for itself. But this is not a tactical post. Maybe later in the future if I will have enough time to put something together.
Until that moment, feel free to read about the first two seasons in Poland…
The main aim - make it stable
When I opened the squad screen for the first time, I found out the senior squad contained 46 players. Twenty four of these 46 mentioned players were 19 years old or younger. Our U18s team contained other 19 players with 7 of them were already loaned out. Thank God for it. If I remember it right I narrowed it down to 30 players in the senior squad before the end of August 2021 when the opening season was already underway. At the end of the second season 27 active players in the senior squad before changes. It’s still a lot but it won’t be less if I will want to give 16 years old newgens some playing time and the first team development.
If the headline above stands “make it stable”, the main point of this was also to narrow down the wage budget in terms of how much we spend. The three highest-paid players at the beginning of the save were three foreign players (France, Belgium and Spain) with all of them having more than €10k per month. But the most important thing was that either of these players would even play in the starting XI.
I was able to send them on-loan for the first season to cover their wages partially. And they left the club permanently before the 2nd season and I saved a lot of money. When the save started, the wage budget was €168,080 p/m and we were spending €159,638 p/m. So, only €8.5K p/m was available. Both for new players and renewing contracts. I have to say that the €6.5k p/m available was painful sometimes during the first season and I had to be very patient to wait for improving the budget to be able to offer more money. But it didn’t mean I would change how I like to work within the FM in terms of wages and I would be wasting money. All players with a wage higher than €10k per month left the club during the two opening seasons and their squad status/importance didn’t matter.
I think the very basic Finances & Salary comparison is a perfect example of how I like to work. The wage budget was increased by around €18k in total to make it €186,068 per month at the end of the second season. But the main difference is that we spend €127,308 p/m and the available budget is €62k. And that’s even after the fact that key players like Musiolik, Czyz, Sopocko or Chelmecki signed new improved deals. Plus, that’s another thing to consider, our coaching & recruitment teams were improved and their wages went up in comparison with the start of the save. But we still are able to be down under the wage budget with a big reserve.
Most of the outgoing transfers were loans or free transfers to mainly save money within wages. Only a couple of players moved away for some money. No wonder the transfer of Adam Zrelak to Legia Warszawa for €240k is a new in-game record fee received.
The average of the senior squad is different too. We started with the average age of 24 and at the end of the second season, it was 22 while the Ekstraklasa average age remained the same at 26. And I’m sure it will be under 22 for the third season as one 34-year-old player will retire and the most experienced Lukasz Tralka will move elsewhere in his 39 years old or he will retire too.
Finances in August 2021 vs. Finances in June 2023
Gerard Williams development
I mentioned staff improvement in the previous part in combination with wages. I would like to mention one new staff member. His name is Gerard Williams and I signed him before the second season as my new assistant manager. You can see his profile just before he signed for us in May 2022 and what his attributes looked like.
It was also in a similar time when @Fuller_FM wrote his post about how to improve your own coaches. The way it’s very simple as he followed how his coaches improved thanks to gaining coaching badges. I know I always tried to do it but the truth is that I probably never paid too much attention to it and I didn’t follow the development too closely. But I decided Gerard will be some kind of my own experiment.
He came to our club with the National A Licence. He gained two badges during the season - Continental C and Continental B Licenses. His attributes, mainly coaching, were improved rapidly in my eyes. When the information about him completing the Continental B Licence appeared in the inbox at the end of the second season, I was really impressed. In combination with a limited number of coaches allowed in the club, his coaching attributes will be really helpful. And yes, I sent him immediately to another course.
It’s easy to just find someone new and replace the current staff member. But this way is also very interesting. I’m doing the same with other coaches, also with these in the U18s team so will take a look when their courses will be over to check if they also improved and how much.
I, for example, hired Marek Matejovsky as our new U18s team manager in summer 2022. He also had just the National A Licence. The same as Williams, Matejovsky earned the Continental C and Continental B Licenses and his attributes got a really big boost. For example defending went from 4 to 8, mental from 6 to 10, motivating from 11 to 13 or people management from 10 to 14. All in a year. Perfect. Just take a look if you want.
2021/2022 Summary
Predicted media finish: 17th (from 18)
How does it end? 4th position.
The beauty of the first season was that I just wanted to see if the formation with two central defenders & half back & WBR/WBL will work. And how it will work. We were between 2nd and 5th place during the first ten rounds before we spent eleven rounds at third place in the table. The last part of the league was affected by several injuries and I also gave quite a lot of playing time to some young players. That meant we dropped down to fifth but finished 4th after two wins in the last two rounds.
We overachieved a lot. We beat Górnik Zabrze 4:1 away from home in the last league round. It was some kind of revenge to Górnik as they won the domestic cup and they earned the Europa Conference League spot despite they finished 10th in the league table. Btw. we lost to GKS Belchatow in the semi final - they finished 17th in the 3rd tier and were relegated (insert rolling eyes emoji).
While Adam Zrelak ended the season with 14 league goals in 29(1) appearances, that meant tied 3rd place in the goalscorers table, the best-rated player of our team and also the league was our central defender Aleks Lawniczak with 7.42.
2022/2023 Summary
Predicted media finish: 11th
How does it end? 2nd position.
The second season was even better in terms of the final league position as we finished 2nd behind Legia Warszawa. We were first in the league between the 23rd and 31st round but we lost the top spot in the finish of the league campaign. It was mainly between us and our biggest rival Lech Poznan as we were swapping first place between each other. In the end, we finished 2nd and they finished 3rd. Legia won the title despite they made it to the top spot in the 32nd round for the first time in the season. A great comeback by them.
If I didn’t like something during the second season, it has to be the number of goals we conceded. Our goal difference was just +20 as we scored 67 goals and conceded 47. It’s stupid we conceded 6 goals in two matches from Arka Gdynia as they were fighting about survival in the league for most of the campaign or three goals from the bottom Odra Opole. It’s something that I would like to improve in the third season.
The second season was also affected by great performances by Sebastian Musiolik, the striker we signed for free from Rakow Czestochowa as he scored 33 league goals in 34 matches. I wrote more about him here.
Important thing is that we earned the Europa Conference League spot thanks to the 2nd place in the table - we will start in the 2nd qualifying round and we got Sparta Moscow. That means I think I won’t please the club board with the early end in this competition as they want to reach the third qualifying round.
Twin cities update
The main point of setting the affiliate clubs was to have the option to send players on loan or take some players on loan. And also to have some newgens from these countries/clubs thanks to affiliations.
We had 2 incoming loans so far. Young Bosnian striker from Hannover for the second part of the first season (8 league appearances - 2 goals) and Togolese right defender as a backup for the WBR position as he came from Rennes. He made 15 league appearances without scoring or assisting. Disappointing
In the first season, 4 players went on loan to SK Lisen to play in the Czech 2nd tier including Finnish central defender Robert Ivanov. I didn’t send him to Lisen by myself as it would mean no wage saving but they were interested in him and they paid 100% of his €6k p/m for the whole season.
The important thing also is that SK Lisen won the Czech 2nd tier in the 2021/2022 season and they moved to the top tier. And they finished 12th in the 2022/2023 season, which means they will remain in the top tier. Two players went here for this season but they played mainly for their B team in the 3rd tier.
Three players went on loan to JJK Jyväskylä for 2022 but I’m not sure if this Finnish club will ever enter the playable league. That means these players made only non-competitive appearances.
The young keeper Kacper Geier also spent the year 2022 with Torpedo Kutaisi and got some league chances here.
Polonia Poznan, our only domestic affiliate club is starting to produce some decent newgens. I already decided to sign one of them - Bartlomiej Falinski - just to try to develop him as possible. It’s under a youth contract so there is no risk.
Our own youth intakes didn’t produce some foreign player connected to our affiliates so far.
Youth Intakes
As I already mentioned, our two youth intakes didn’t include some foreign player so far with the connection to one of our affiliate clubs. I already promoted a couple of newgens to the first team squad and they also got some playing time already. It’s not an exception doing this and I think it would be much more strange if I wouldn’t do it. The board is not willing to upgrade the training/youth facilities (both average) or junior coaching budget (adequate) or youth recruitment (average). But I’m used to it and it’s probably realistic in some way.
(I can’t believe I’m using something related to the word realistic in a combination with the video game).
The club is overachieving in terms of results and final league positions. “We believe the club’s youth recruitment is already good enough for a club our size.” And yes, I agree this time. We have to (read = I have to) be more patient. Maybe we will win the league title in the future and our stature will be higher and our club board will decide to invest in the future. Maybe.
Two examples from our intakes. Kacper Grabowski appeared in the youth intake with the value of 1 for both Jumping Reach and Strength attributes. It was obvious to try to work on his physical attributes and in some limited way, it works well as he already gained something but he probably won’t have issues with his head later in his life due to heading the ball too much. The second one, Karol Leopold, will probably cause me some trauma because I want to continue using TF(S) role but he is probably going to be a great DLF player. I’m currently torn if using him as a striker or as CM(A) or to use some playmaker role within the flat midfield trio. The time will tell.
