Searching, deciding and selecting a nation & club for my Football Manager saves is harder and harder for me. It’s not about selecting something ‘extra-super-exciting-challenging’ with many restrictions (I also feel many people have to create their own restrictions more and more frequently to enjoy the long-term saves rather than just playing the game).

And I’m the same. It was already prior to FM18 when I created the “Around The Lake” transfer/recruitment strategy in my save in Hungary. And I feel it’s still the same - I have to have some rules for every save every year. Sometimes there are more rules and restrictions, sometimes fewer.

BACKGROUND I - WHY VVV VENLO?

And ahead of the Football Manager 2023, I decided the main point of the save will be to challenge myself tactically while using one central defender no matter the nation or club I will play in/with.

But that didn’t mean my ‘issue’ was resolved. I still had to choose some club :)

• The reason number 1

I remember how I was pleased ahead of my FM21 save with GAIS when I found some connections to my country during searching for some background info to make it more or less narrative in my head.

For example, when I found (randomly) the lovely old school picture of the Czech midfielder Pavel Zavadil (one of my favourite midfielders in the last 15-20 years because of his dedication and devotion to the game and also fighting spirit) while he was playing for Örgryte against GAIS.

So, instead of researching for too long, I had four clubs in my mind almost immediately with some specific connection to several players I know from the past watching them play regularly when they were younger. One of them is Richard Sedlacek. He is 23 years old midfielder whose development I followed when he was a captain of almost all youth AC Sparta Prague teams until the Under-19s team. He left Sparta in the summer of 2018 when he signed for AZ Alkmaar and he played for their ‘Jong’ team with a few fleeting flirtations with the AZ senior squad.

But several injuries limited him and stopped him in the progress, and he moved to the VVV-Venlo in January 2022, and he is trying to get back to his best currently during the 2022/2023 season after another injury. This not-so-tall midfielder who hates defeats and failures was one of two main reasons in deciding about playing in the Netherlands 2nd division with VVV-Venlo.

Venlose Voetbal Vereniging, or VVV as they are more commonly known, were founded in 1903 and have built a reputation for being a yo-yo team, flitting between the first and second tiers ever since.

Nevertheless, VVV-Venlo essentially define their city. “The club is the city”, Dutch football expert James Rowe explains. There is a notion that Venlo’s culture can be seen through the lens of its charming club. De Koel, their stadium, was built in 1972 and houses 8,000 fans who have always been loyal and continue to play an enormous role in the club’s fortunes.

— These Football Times

• The reason number 2

The second reason why I had no problem selecting VVV-Venlo is hidden in the above quote. I prefer smaller clubs with a small or very limited budget. I like clubs with smaller and cosy stadiums. I like clubs that prefer tradition over money, tv rights and their own identity are more important than the number of shirts sold. I always prefer clubs with some relationship with their fans.

I don’t know the relationship between the club & fans 100% detail but most VVV is able to fulfil all my preferences and expectations from what I read via several resources. I’m also interested in how the new Supporter Confidence/Supporter Profile feature can affect the relationship with the club vs. fans vs. manager in the new game. If the club is labelled as a family club and fans should be very loyal and supportive, will it be affected somehow in the game?

I’m currently not sure if it will be different in some way in comparison with previous editions or if the new Supporter Confidence/Profile is only another renamed part of the game that developers only moved from one screen to another. It will be a surprise. Or maybe not if it won’t work or if it won’t have an impact.

VVV-Venlo is the traditional, connecting family club that everyone is proud of and feels at home. Our hospitality and Limburg conviviality are indispensable in our sporting achievements, events and (social) projects. In this way we create memories with our supporters and make connections with each other, through all layers of society. We are sportingly and socially intertwined with Venlo, Limburg and the (Eu)region.

Together we are VVV!

— From the club’s Culture and values

De Koel stadium. As was mentioned in the quote above, the capacity is 8k. You can see in the pictures that it’s not some modern stadium with a shiny retractable roof, heated seats and personal service. It’s a nice old stadium. The club swapped from the grass to artificial grass and back to the ‘natural’ grass again. That’s a bonus point for me artificial grass is not a thing anymore.

There were plans for reconstruction and modernising some parts of the stadium but the same in many other areas of our lives, the COVID-19 pandemic affected these plans a lot. But when you consider I had 4k and 6k capacity in FM22 while playing with Warta Poznan and the club board never answered my stadium expansion requests for 5 seasons in a row, everything will be an improvement.

And I have to say I love that the players have to make it down the stairs to reach the tunnel to enter the pitch. That looks really nice.

BACKGROUND II - TACTICS/FORMATION

The playing style I prefer in real life or in the Football Manager is not complicated. That applies to whole my real life and more and more to the Football Manager in recent years while I was learning more and more things within the game.

I spent the most recent years/save using systems with three central defenders and wing-backs while the rest of the formation was variable and usually depended on my current taste and mood. I also tried using just two central defenders in combination with the half back role while using WBR/L in the opening seasons of my FM22 save with Warta Poznan. And the save’s final seasons were played with the flat 5 defensive line using one of my favourite roles - central defender with the stopper duty.

The closer the end of FM22 was, the more I knew I will have to think about and create some new tactical challenges for myself because I knew it was the one and only way how I can enjoy the new game. And that was the moment when I decided about using just one central defender and trying to create a formation/tactic around the one central defender and two defensive midfielders.

Will there be half back role? One? Or two? How will the defensive line work with the gaps between the central defender and wide defenders? Can I use some central defenders as defensive midfielders? Where the midfielders will push and move? How will it affect my set piece routines?

There are too many questions to answer while I will be testing this formation, team instructions and player roles.

As the game developers announced already, the Out of Possession instructions were changed/tweaked (or renamed, we will see). The line of engagement instruction was renamed to low/mid-block and high press. Other instructions were renamed or separated so we will have a pressing trap, cross engagement, defensive line and tackling all divided.

Defensive width has been replaced by the pressing trap for example. That can be a very crucial part of the tactics tweaking for me with the already mentioned question of how players will cope with the gaps between central and wide positions.

It almost looks like someone wants to challenge me and these changes within the out-of-possession instructions are coming at the right time for me. As I wrote on Twitter recently, I already tried this kind of formation within the FM22 and it worked very well. But will it work in the game? Especially if the defensive instructions were changed. We will see…

The second tier in the Netherlands, Eerste Divisie, has a bonus point connected to this tactical testing - there are 20 teams in the competition so I will have enough matches to spot mistakes and all the issues.

I know I would be able to put together a well-working 4-1-4-1 formation with the same solid principles as in the many editions before, and just hit the spacebar and win trophies. But I know I would be bored…

• What next?

Well, it all depends on how and when I will start the save. But I already have some ideas about what will one or two next blog posts include. One of many parts will be of course dedicated to the main point - how to choose the best possible central defender considering he is the only central defender on the pitch.

There will be also a part called ‘Create the perfect roof’ as it will be dedicated to the cooperation between the central defender, RB/LB and defensive midfielders. And many more.

One thing is certain. I don’t know how the VVV squad will look in the game and it will take some time to make it work. One of my aims will be to win promotion to the Dutch top flight for sure and make the club a regular team of the Eredivisie to stop the mentioned yo-yo effect.

I would also like to make Richard Sedlacek one of the main/key midfielders of my team so I will probably also dedicate some parts of my blogs to his development despite he is already 23 years old.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the new game.