Eskozia La Brava | El Fin

I've finished my sixth and final season at Eibar on FM20.

How did the season go and how would I summarise my time at the club? Read on to find out.

January to May 2024/25

LaLiga

A slow start to the second half of the season with two draws but that quickly turned into two months unbeaten, with three consecutive 1-0 victories which just look lovely.

The only disappointments in the league coming with those two 1-0 defeats against Barcelona and Real, a drab 0-0 against soon-to-be relegated Leganés and the fact I couldn't finish off my time at the club with a win on the final day against Getafe.

Those results look good though, how does the league table look?

My time at the club ends with our highest ever league finish, 3rd place. Barcelona win the title for the third season in a row and do it with the highest points total of a title winning team across the last six seasons.

With our highest league finish comes our highest points total as well as our most goals scored and least conceded for a league season. I'm actually delighted to have only conceded 23 goals across the season, one less than Real Madrid in 2nd. Don't underestimate the power of upgrading your goalkeeper, Alban Lafont kept 23 clean sheets in 34 league appearances. We only conceded nine goals across the second half of the season, a brilliant record.

Misfiring didn't matter at the halfway point of the season, did it continue in the league? Eddie's move out to the right hand side as an IF saw him finish the season on four league goals, a rise from zero while playing up front in the first half of the season, I'll take that. Amang only scored three while in the striker role across the second half of the season, but his general play was superb and he's been a joy to watch. He did score one goal in particular though which is yet to come...

Europa League

Fate would throw up a tie with an old friend when the 2nd knockout round was drawn.

Harry Sowden scored a vital away goal in a 1-1 first leg draw and a Jan Sobocinski header in the second leg saw us go through 2-1 on aggregate.

We unfortunately couldn't sneak past Manchester United in the quarter final. It was them that did the sneaking as they waited until the 91st minute of the second leg to score the goal that knocked us out.

A European trophy wasn't to be for Eibar, but the glory came from continually competing across the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League. A club this size should've been nowhere near those competitions.

Copa del Rey

Why can't I win progress further than the 4th round has been the question I've been asking myself for the past five seasons. Armed with my reasons as to why I thought I hadn't done well in the Copa del Rey so far, it was time to do better.

We cruised through against lower league opposition in the first couple of rounds, beating CD Toledo and Racing Club de Ferrol by a combined scored of 6-0. Rounds three and four were tougher on paper as we were drawn against LaLiga opposition in Levante and Osasuna. Osasuna had knocked us out in the 3rd round in the 2020/21 season so caution was needed. Luckily by this point at the end of January we were just starting to find our groove, and cruised through winning both rounds 3-1, with Thomas Amang scoring three of the six goals. We were into the 5th round for the first time.

For the past two seasons Real Valladolid in the second tier have knocked us out. Rayo Vallecano had the chance to repeat the feat in the 5th round, but again, a professional performance from us saw us win 2-0.

Harry Sowden didn't just pop up again in a game that mattered, he bloody owned it. A hattrick from him in the semi final first leg 5-2 win against Sevilla saw us all but qualify for the final. A snoozefest of a 0-0 in the second leg saw us go through to our first ever Copa del Rey final, or any final of anything.

Luckily, Barcelona and Real hadn't made it to be our opponents. Sevilla had actually beaten Barca in the 5th round to face us in the semis, while Atleti triumphed over Real to face up to the Furia in the final. We had a good record against Atleti so far in the save, going unbeaten against them across two seasons in 21/22 and 22/23. They always had potential to smash us though, with a 5-0 and 4-0 under their belts in 20/21 and 23/24.

As is now tradition, literal ones of people turned out to follow the match action of the final on Slack.

The first half was a tetchy affair until Hiroki Abe popped up unmarked at the back post atfer Jose Giménez had missed a headed clearance to fire us into the lead just before half time.

Then, with 25 minutes to go, Thomas Amang did this.

What. A. Goal.

It encompasses Furia and everything that Thomas Amang has been for this club since his £475k arrival back in the 2020/21 season. He's been our enigmatic talisman. What a player. Jose Giménez was somehow rated a 7 for the match despite his second error leading to a goal here. Amang steals the ball from him and just runs. He evades Saúl's tackle and fires past Jan Oblak to secure the club's first major trophy. We finally progressed past the 5th round, and only bloody won the thing.

The Copa del Rey final isn't an end of season showpiece, but it felt incredible to win a trophy to all but round off the save and my time at the club.

Summary

Can you spot when I took over?

We haven't done too badly for being the smallest club in the league. I've taken Eibar from being a mid-table side to one that consistently qualifies for continental competition and competes against the biggest sides in Europe.

The club has made huge strides off the pitch in my time at the club. I might not be sticking around to finally move in to el Nuevo Ipurua but it's on the way. In my introduction I mentioned the Modelo Eibar. It was all about being financially prudent, and the strides we made on the pitch enabled us to take further ones off it. The club is set up for continued levels of success with major improvements to the training and youth facilities along with the youth recruitment, competing in the fierce Basque region for young talent.

The Furia has been there for all to see along the way, culminating in Amang's incredible clincher in the Copa del Rey final. I've really enjoyed trying to implement a specific style of play and recruitment in my time at the club. We've changed formations over the years but the style always remained. We play aggressively in the opposition's faces, pressing them high and attacking them with fast-paced, direct football. It's been a joy to watch at times.

My players needed to be aggressive, determined and hard-working. There's been a lot of them over the years. Sergio Álvarez was with me for the entire time but eventually was overtaken in the pecking order by Agustin Baldi and Fede San Emetario. Jan Sobocinski and Taylor Harwood-Bellis were the best defensive partnership the club had ever seen, but Ryan Porteous and Paulo Oliveira were just as important in the earlier seasons. Thomas Amang was the embodiment of Furia and his partnership with Eddie Nketiah excited me and then frustrated me.

I've loved my time at little Eibar and I hope you've enjoyed following along too. Thanks for reading. See you for FM21.

Eskozia La Brava | Does Misfiring Matter?

We're the fourth top scorers in the league, that's not exactly misfiring is it? I'm not talking about the team overall, I'm talking about an individual.

Last summer, I was delighted to bring Eddie Nketiah to the club on a permanent deal. See, look how I excited I was.

Fast forward a half season from his arrival and he'd scored one goal in 15 appearances. The switch in tactic helped him in the second half of last season and he finished on eight overall. Moving into this season, he's made 17 league appearances and has scored zero goals. Yeah, that says zero. Across his two loan spells at the club he scored 40 goals in 63 appearances. Since his permanent arrival he's got nine in 65.

It looks so poor when you type it out.

Am I The Problem?

Maybe I'm just making Nketiah a bit of a scapegoat. Here's what I said in my post looking at the switch to the 4-1-2-3.

“I’m also still undecided on the role for my forward. I want him on the end of our chances, but I felt he’d be cutting a lonely figure if I picked an Advanced Forward or Poacher. Complete Forward feels like it should be the role. Getting on the end of chances and being involved in aspects of the build up play too. Support duty feels like it should be the setting too, with him dropping in a little bit more to create the space for the IFs to move forward but I’m not seeing it as much as I’d like to be.”

— FMSamo

I also said I would be patient and try and stick it out with the CF(S). I did... until this season where I've switched to a DLF(A). I want my forward role to do everything though. I want him contributing to build up play. I want him taking on players. I want him running on to through balls. I want him getting in front of defenders and on the end of crosses.

Am I being impatient? Am I expecting too much? Am I putting Nketiah under too much pressure? Am I forcing him to do something he can't? I'm arguably doing all of these things. I think I'm tweaking it too much.

(FM) Pressure

He's putting pressure on himself too...

I think pressure is expected here. I've already mentioned those 40 goals he scored across his two loan spells, he was brilliant in tandem with Amang. It led me to splash out £13m on him, which was, and still is, our record transfer fee. Huge for a club of our size.

What's also huge is his wage. I made him the highest paid player in club history when he joined, earning £65k a week. One good thing from his lack of goals is that I'm not spending £11k each time he scores and his bonuses of being top goalscorer in the league (£120k) or scoring 20 goals in a season (£160k). There's expectations on him to lead and be our star man. He isn't delivering on that. Is something underneath the surface affecting that?

Judging Ability

Thinking back to this brilliant post on coach reports from Ondrej/FMRensie, I thought I'd take a look at the opinion of my best coach for judging ability. It's not often I really seek the advice of my backroom staff for second opinions on players once they've been signed. Alberto Giráldez is my Head of Youth Development and has 18 for JPA. He's telling me that Eddie:

• Enjoys big matches

• Is fairly consistent

• Is considered a smart player

• Is currently playing close to his potential and is a decent player for most LaLiga sides

• Most suitable role is an Advanced Forward and is rated the third best striker at the club (behind Amang and Sowden, who've mainly been supporting Eddie from out wide so far this season)

Great, I'm not misjudging him. He's a good player and importantly he's considered consistent and doesn't shy away in important matches. The only negatives highlighted were around his poor crossing and being poor in the air. Does that tell me something? Lone strikers should probably be able to hold their own up there. Let's look at his attributes again but highlighting the ones relevant for a Complete Forward this time.

At 5'9" he's not exactly a commanding presence up top. We're not a long ball team though, we're direct. His speed and movement should suit our style. If you're thinking elite strikers then you'd maybe like to have the finishing, composure and technique up at least another one to 15, throw decisions in there as well. Like Giráldez says though, he's a decent LaLiga striker. I know there's goals in his game, but are goals the be all and end all?

The Decoy/Integral Cog

I think the biggest thing is getting over the expectation that strikers need to be the main goal threat. Strikers need to be the ones scoring, every single game. They don't if your system is good enough overall. I'm sitting here moaning about my striker when we've had the best first half of a season in my time at the club so far.

Nketiah, and the forward role, is the enabler. I'm not going to say it's like playing with 10 men because it's actually a vital part of the system. He is the system, much like Firmino at Liverpool, according to the coaching staff at Anfield. He got man of the match in a 2-2 draw away at Espanyol, laying on assists for both goals. He had the lowest number of touches throughout the side, but covered the third highest distance across the 90 minutes.

He shows strength beyond his 9 attribute here to shrug off Cedric Kipré (18 strength), move into the channel and play a lovely cross for Amang to do what Amang does best (defy his finishing attribute).

I love this little one-two touch to give it back to Sowden and then to occupy Kipré again to make the space for Sowden to come inside and delightfully finish past Axel Werner.

Nketiah is actually our top league assister (four) and to further highlight his role in the side our top scorers are Amang and Sowden, playing mainly in the wide forward roles. Amang has 11 goals while Sowden has eight, starting life at Eibar well after his superb season for Tenerife on loan last year.

What am I going to do?

I swapped Nketiah and Amang for the 5-2 Osasuna win. Eddie on the right, Amang up front. Eddie still played poorly, getting a 6.6 rating. Amang scored a hattrick up top. Two of his goals did come from instinctive play at set pieces, but still.

In the past I've moulded players around systems I've wanted to play. I think I've been quite guilty here of expecting too much of Nketiah on his own. While there was a poor spell on his return to the club permanently where we played two upfront, his goals across his loans came when he was partnered with Amang. Maybe he isn't suited to leading the line on his lonesome.

Amang's superior physical attributes suit him playing the lone striker role better. My starting forward line for the second half of the season will be Amang, supported by Sowden on the left and Nketiah on the right. I can't wait to see what impact it has.

My FM20 Tactic: 4-1-2-3

I initially planned a post focusing on my 3-5-2/5-3-2 tactic which had been part of our Furia identity for four and a half seasons. The key word there being "had". After a difficult first half of the season I came to the decision to move away from my trusted tactic.

It served me well and had troubled our LaLiga competitors but it was time for a change. Things had gotten a bit stale, I wanted to see us do something different going forward, to introduce a bit of variation in our attacking play. Enter a classic 4-1-2-3.

Shift to 4-1-2-3

If I was an actual Football Manager and not a virtual one, 4-1-2-3 would be the tactic I impose on my side. I think it's pretty perfect. You've got a solid defensive base, a midfielder screening that defence too to give the full-backs some license to go forward. There's a central midfield two that you can instruct to do anything you want them to and up top there's a range of options. Is it two wingers crossing for a big man? Does the striker drop in to lure opposing defenders out to create space for runners coming inside from wide? On Football Manager the opportunities aren't exactly endless, it's a game and we have to live within the confines of it, but there's still plenty of interpretations for you to put together.

Here's how my 4-1-2-3 currently looks after a few rounds of tinkering across the second half of the season.

A lot of my thinking when putting a new tactic together is about positioning. I think about the differences in positioning of the roles we can pick from and our expectations of what those roles should do on the pitch. How does the positioning of a Complete Forward on Support differ to that of an Advanced Forward? What about the movement that you can get from the midfield two, if the AP was on Attack would he support the forwards enough in comparison to a Central Midfielder on Attack?

This is how I see the movement and positions changing.

I'll walk through more of my thinking behind it and some of that tinkering in the sections below.

The Forward Line

Our topsy-turvy first half of the season led me to the tactical change and a big part of that was due to my strikers. Thomas Amang had scored seven goals while big money signing, Eddie Nketiah, had scored just one. We were still creating chances but it was all samey. I mentioned before I wanted to change things up and that involved moving away from two up front. It saddened me but going from two to one up front doesn't need to make us less effective going forward, as much as the football da's believe that and shout at their manager to put two up top.

It's only one but it's effectively three. Supporting the man leading the line I've gone for two Inside Forwards. This is for three main reasons:

• I'd usually try and vary the wide roles but I don't actually have any natural wingers

• Thinking ahead to the future, I've got a group of promising young forwards who could successfully play out wide cutting in

• Linking it back to thinking about the positioning of the players, getting the three close together.

Here's our average positions from our 2-0 win over Valencia in the last month of the season. You can clearly see the 4-1-2-3 structure with that three actually almost being three up top as opposed to one.

Width

In my previous formation, all the width came from the Wing-Backs. Looking at the formation here, we've also got two additional players out wide in the forward line, however taking their roles into account they vacate the wide areas for the Full-Backs to bomb on and support the attack.

With FMPressure's excellent posts on modern Full-Backs in mind, I tried out a couple of different roles and settled on FB(S) and FB(A) for now. I settled for those roles over others as with the change from five to four at the back we're losing a bit of defensive stability. Full-Back's primary function is to defend but also to provide that width and support going forward. I see that as important, especially with them being our only width but it's something I also see me continuing to try out and test as time with the tactic goes on.

One day I hope to see far less examples of this and more of them actually crossing the ball. Look at how much time and space Porro has to cross it here but he chooses to dally and lose the ball. So many examples of this every single match.

I do love that tiny delay from my three forward players when he receives the ball though. Like "oh, will we go into the box or not? Yup, let's go in." Does Porro really have anyone to aim at? No, he doesn't. Just get it fired across there though, I keep saying to the lads that anything can happen.

Midfield Mix

As part of my three-man midfield in the previous tactic I'd taken to playing two playmakers. This is maybe something you see often in tactics which claim to win all the things and have every single team instruction selected, but it's not something I see us FM bloggers incorporating into our tactics that often.

I've been a big fan of the DLP(D) role since FM18 where it featured in my Stirling 4-4-2 and was christened the Deep-Lying Destroyer. I've had that in my head since then and to this day continue to play a more defensively minded player in this role to screen the defence, assist in breaking opposition attacks down and then moving the ball forward to the our attacking players.

With the addition of a second playmaker, the AP(S), I often see the DLP(D) moving the ball on to him and in turn he'll then dictate the play further up the pitch. He makes things happen with our front three and the supporting midfielder alongside him, the CM(A). Just a classic role. Simple and occasionally effective. With the right player in there you've got yourself a goal threat from midfield. I'm not quite sure I've got the right player to be that yet but he gets in the right positions and that's reassuring.

Match Footage

I changed to the new tactic at the end of January. Two 2-0 wins were followed up by a 1-0 defeat away against Levante, who were languishing down in the lower end of the table. That result could've been the the trigger to throw in the towel for others and shift back to the trusted previous tactic. Signs were promising though, we created a lot of good chances and on another day would've clearly won it. I've seen Amang burst the net before from this kind of chance, though he maybe just reaches this cracking through ball from Burnic, playing AP(S), a little too late.

I'm yet to be sold on my Inside Forwards. They get into some great positions but seem to more often than not make the wrong decision. That could just be the players I have in these roles but it's blocked shots when patience was the preferred option or running into trouble when a simple pass would've sufficed.

Hiroki Abe ended the season with eight goals, but also with less than half of the shots he takes being on target. He runs with the ball often and cuts inside from the left, but as you can see above also just occasionally decides to take a shot at the legs of opposing defenders when he's in a great position one-on-one with them.

I'm also still undecided on the role for my forward. I want him on the end of our chances, but I felt he'd be cutting a lonely figure if I picked an Advanced Forward or Poacher. Complete Forward feels like it should be the role. Getting on the end of chances and being involved in aspects of the build up play too. Support duty feels like it should be the setting too, with him dropping in a little bit more to create the space for the IFs to move forward but I'm not seeing it as much as I'd like to be. Maybe I'm just being restless though as the return across the second half of the season from my forwards was much better in comparison to the first half of the season.

The aspects of Furia are still there in our team instructions and when it pays off and rewards us, it's beautiful.

Our aggressive pressing high up the pitch sees Luis win the ball from Rojas as Girona try and play out from the back. He plays a lovely pass, at the perfect time, to Amang for an easy finish.

There’s still work to do to perfect it, but early indications are it’s a positive tweak to our approach.

My FM20 Training Approach

“How do I want my team to play?”

It’s probably the most important question us Football Managers will ask ourselves. Some find it difficult to answer. We want to set out to win matches obviously but it’s getting to that point that is often tricky. Tactics are obviously vital, the quality of the players slotting in to each of those roles in the tactic are equally as important. What about the work on the training pitch?

The change to the way that training works on Football Manager was a welcome one for me and it was also often talked about and requested by so many other players of the game. Why then, into its second iteration on the game, do we still see so many not taking control of it themselves? I really think it could give you that additional percentage of performance that could lead to your side earning the win come matchday. That’s why I’ve decided to go through the reasons why I’ve set up training the way I have, to gear the sessions towards the type of players I want at the club and how we set up on the pitch come matchday.

Style of Play

I’ve dubbed my playing style on Football Manager 2020 “La Furia”. It’s a bold, brash and direct style of football that’s all about being aggressively in our opponent’s faces. We’re playing a high defensive line and a high line of engagement too, we press hard and we press high. When we lose the ball we try and win it back as quickly as possible and when we win it back we attack the opposition. I’m looking for aggressive, hard working players who’ll fight for the cause and give their all.

That’s how I want us to play. How does that go into the training schedule I’ve set up for my side?

Training to Win

Training is about players working hard to better themselves and preparing for that upcoming match. The beginning of our Monday to Sunday training plan is about recovery. La Liga matches are played out over Friday to Monday, but for the purpose of building my base plan, I’ve chosen Sunday as matchday so our Monday is about a recovery session and a match review session.

Recovery sessions are vital at the best of times but greatly reducing our injury risk, fatigue and improving the conditioning of our players after the effort they put into every match is hugely important. I’d like to hope everyone else does this already, but if you don’t, I would definitely recommend filling up the available spaces in your medical team with the best physios and sports scientists you can find. It’s bound to have a positive effect on your players.

As the seasons have gone on and more midweek European matches have come into play, the time between matches gets shorter and shorter. I’m not shy in scheduling double recovery sessions on a Friday after a Europa League Thursday night match to get the players in a good position and ready to go again for our league match on the Sunday.

You would like to think that all teams now review their previous match and discuss what was good and what wasn’t. I’ve only recently started scheduling in the match review session the day after a match. It’s dedicated to analytically reviewing the previous match (presumably with the data analysts employed at the club?) and it increases our team cohesion, which I’m a big believer in, while also working on our tactical familiarity going forward. It’s a great post-match session that still works on what you want to achieve going forward. It’s so important to get your players all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Once they’re rested and recuperated, the hard work starts all over again. I chose to start off with an overall session. I envisage this as the players coming together and just getting their week of training off to a good start, getting them moving. The description states that it’s a session “where the players put a small amount of work into every area of their game”. It’s good to get each unit together and have them generally working a little bit on each attribute area. It also increases our tactical familiarity, team cohesion and makes the players happier, while slightly increasing their risk of injury and fatigue. It’s a good warm up for them because the second session of the day is physical.

I could have the players doing one of the more specific physical sessions, such as endurance or resistance, but I opt for the general physical session as it works that range of attributes, a few of which are absolutely vital to the Furia style of play and my own personal favourite attributes. Stamina and work rate are so important to the system as I expect my players to be able to last the 90+ minutes in each match. We press hard and pressure the opposition into making mistakes. Players already capable of that are high up on my recruitment list, of course, but it needs to be worked on in training too to collectively make us even better at it.

Do you use that extra session available to you? I do, daily from Tuesday to Friday. I think our players can take it. Even with their intensity levels being set to double alongside their individual roles and additional focuses added on top of our daily sessions, their workloads are still only medium. The only day when our intensity goes into orange levels is on Tuesday’s with that previously mentioned physical session. The last session on that day is a ball distribution one. Would you believe me if I said the ball retention session doesn’t train passing? We aren’t known as a slick, short passing side, but the passing attribute covers all ranges of passing. While the defensive unit are defending against the attacking one and working on key attributes for that, the goalkeepers are also working on their distribution too, including their passing and kicking.

The next few days are dedicated to the four game situations that are a key component of Tactical Periodisation, the approach to training that I’ve written about previously. These are offensive and defensive organisation and the transition from defence to attack and vice versa. We aren’t a patient attacking side so we don’t train it nor do we play with any wingers so we don’t train overlaps. We do rely on our wing backs for width though so we train attacking down the wing and we’re unapologetically direct so we of course train that. Alongside training key aspects of our play such as off the ball movement, that (direct) passing again, crossing and finishing it also improves the familiarity with our creative freedom and passing style, plus improving our team cohesion and player happiness. Happy players working as a team is what I aim for.

Chance creation and conversion speak for themselves. We want to create chances and score goals so my players need to improve all attribute areas related to those two actions. Then it’s onto our transitions. Pressing is an absolutely vital part of our game, one of the main aims in our style of play is to be in the faces of our opponents. It works on our aggression, tackling, anticipation, teamwork and work rate, all key components of the press. Then we practice restricting the space our opponents can play in when we lose the ball by working on our concentration, marking and positioning, amongst other attributes.

The final aspect of our four game situations is defending. We aren’t the strongest team in the league so I put a bit more of a focus on defending in comparison to our attacking training, meaning there’s three defensive training sessions on Friday’s. Defending from the front is so important in football today and it’s no different in my side. The priority of that session is the forwards working on their tackling, marking, concentration and positioning however it also works on the team’s overall pressing intensity and marking in terms of tactical familiarity.

There’s five defensively focused sessions to choose from from the remainder of the options and there are two final sessions I’ve allocated for our week putting in hard work on the training ground. Firstly, I choose defending engaged over defending disengaged. It works the players in getting more aggressive, one of the key attributes for my style of play. Then I go for wide defending as opposed to ground or aerial defending. The formation we play is a 3-5-2 meaning that there’s only one line of defence out wide. My thought is we need to really put a focus on being strong at defending the opposition’s attacks from out wide, plus, again, it also sees us working on that all important tactical familiarity, team cohesion and happiness.

Preparing to Win

The eve of a match is all about those final preparations. Depending on whether we’re at home or away, there’s a slight difference in the amount of preparation we’re able to do. My priority is always a teamwork session. This stems from previous versions of the game and the previous way you could set up training. As you’ve seen throughout, I’m a big advocate of the team gelling and the teamwork match preparation session greatly improves our team cohesion.

Similar to our post-match session reviewing the match, we work with the analysts to preview the match. This increases our team cohesion, slightly increases our sharpness, works on our tactical familiarity and, in my head, enables our analysts to get the players completely up to speed with our opponents and how they play, devising ways for us to defeat them.

Then, depending on the time of the season and our upcoming opponents, I’ll choose between match tactics, attacking movement or defensive shape. These sessions give us a slight boost ahead of the upcoming match, alongside some additional benefits with tactical familiarity, team cohesion and certain attributes being worked on as well.

That’s how we prepare at our training ground to win our next match, to win three points every week, in order to finish as high up the table as we possibly can. Everyone is entitled to play Football Manager in any way they want, you might completely hand control of training to your coaching staff and still be doing incredibly well. I find I get a much more rewarding experience while I’m playing the game when I’m putting together my training session strategy. If you haven’t done it before, why not give it a try too?

Eskozia La Brava | The Three Pals

I mentioned in my introductory post that it's never a surprise to see tartan, Saltires and Lion Rampants on show when you're watching Eibar play. The ties to Scotland have strengthened since I joined the club. Rather than just loving the country from afar, the Eskozia La Brava fan group now have a number of Scottish players and staff members to adore, including me of course.

The first Scots to join me in Eibar were on my backroom team. It's always important to have staff members you trust that can speak your language. Billy Dodds, Duncan Shearer and one of the most talented Scottish players ever, John Collins, joined the club not long after me in the summer of 2019. Dodds is working with the first team squad, while Shearer and Collins are working with the Eibar youth players. Collins' managerial credentials have been questioned over the years but his experience in the game, and model professional attitude, means he's someone I want working with our players on a daily basis.

In my third season at the club, Grant Murray joined the u19 coaching team while ex-Hibs Director of Football and Celtic scout, Graeme Mathie, joined to be our UK scout.

His scout reports backed up my feelings when we were looking to bring Scottish players to the club. The first of those was Ryan Porteous from Hibs just a few weeks after Mathie's arrival.

This isn't the first time "Porto" has played under me on FM, he was the captain of my Stirling side on FM18. Remembering that my recruitment policy is looking at players capable of slotting into our Furia style of play, his aggressive and hard-working nature means he is the perfect fit for us.

If I was being fussy, I'd love his personality to be a bit more suited to Furia and he lacks concentration at times too, but his no-nonsense and tough-tackling performances saw him cement a spot in our three at the back formation last season and play regularly for Scotland too. His form has continued this season so far and he's been joined in the first team by two other pals this season.

I'd been tracking Porteous since I joined the club and while I had to pay slightly over the odds to sign him (a potential eventual fee of £7.5m), another player I'd been tracking for a long time that I didn't need to pay over the odds for is Ross McCrorie. He was inexplicably released by Rangers in the summer and I jumped at the opportunity to snap him up.

His versatility is something that attracted me to him, obviously alongside those key Furia attributes again. He hasn't quite been able to hold down a regular spot yet but he's been fine across his 10 appearances so far this season. He'll get there.

The final first team Scot is Allan Campbell. He also arrived in the summer on a free transfer from Motherwell. He faces a huge battle to break into the first team ahead of some of my regulars that've served me well so far, but he's a Furia warrior. He's almost perfect for that Deep Lying Destroyer role I've been a fan of incorporating into my sides over the years on the game.

Alongside the Three Pals in the first team, I've got a couple of younger Scottish players who are out on loan this season gaining vital first team experience. My coaches rate Nathan Cooney very highly. He joined for £300k from Dundee United but is spending this season on loan in the Segunda with Cultural Leonesa. If Stephen Jordan has a good season in the Segunda with Numancia, he could well break into the first team on his return next season. He joined for £350k from Graeme Mathie's old side, Hibs.

It might be a stupid thing to some or a small thing to others, but I see these little aspects you can bring into your save as the things that keep you going. Those role playing elements that whirl around your head as your clicking continue through the game.

Eskozia La Brava | What Kind of Club Are We?

Heading into my third season I began to question what kind of club we actually are?

What Kind of Club Are We?

We've got a defined and unique style of playing. La Furia has been embedded into the club culture, but when it comes to a recruitment plan, there isn't really a specific one in place yet. In the early years of a save, it's all about getting by and getting the best out of the talents at your disposal. As you establish yourself, and get a bit more money in the bank, it opens up avenues and opportunities to shape things the way you want them. What are Eibar's options when it comes to this?

Talent Production Line

We compete in a difficult region to identify and bring through our own promising young talent. Athletic Club are the biggest and best club in the Basque Country with their unique selling point of only playing Basque players. Their ability to produce talent is ridiculous.

Our standing in Spain, and Europe, means we can't expect to keep any exceptional talent that we do produce around for long, specifically young players if they show promise. This has already been the case. Carlos Calvo who came through in my first youth intake got snatched away for £1.2m by Sevilla.

Do you plough funds into improving the first team or do you spend money improving your facilities as a priority? So far, I've gone down the former route. We're currently not set up to successfully develop our own Eibar youth players. Our facilities aren't up to scratch, with average youth facilities, adequate academy coaching and good youth recruitment.

Am I planning to invest in improving our facilities in the next few seasons? There's money in the bank to (£44m at the time of writing) but developing homegrown Eibar talent won't become the focal point of my time at the club for now.

Sign to Sell

This approach to managing a club and signing players is ingrained into me, and a lot of other FM players, I think. Sign a player, usually on a low fee, give him a platform to play and perform, let him move on for a profit, rinse and repeat.

Luis' agent offered him to us after he'd been released by Brazilian Serie C side Sampaio Correa. He joined in January last season and spent some time in the u19s. Atletico Madrid had a £5m fee agreed with him in the summer before his step up to the first team, but he rejected that move and I was able to agree to increase his release clause up to £7.5m. He did make that step up to the first team and has appeared 13 times over the first half of the season.

Dzenis Burnic is a Dortmund youth product that never made the breakthrough at the Signal Iduna Park. His contract expired at the end of last season and he joined Eibar on a free over the summer.

Does the free transfer list get overlooked? It shouldn't. I was delighted to spot Dzenis on there and he's had a great first half of the season, scoring twice and laying on six assists in his 21 appearances.

For signing to sell, the nationalities are certainly something I'd factor in. Of course, if a player is hugely talented clubs will be interested regardless, but Luis and Burnic being Brazilian and German, two nations high up on the country coefficient list, should see them attract interest down the line and make us a good bit of money.

Talent Developers

The situation the club currently finds itself in means that there's a lot of excellent footballers out there who we currently can't afford to purchase. This is where building relationships with other clubs comes in, especially bigger clubs, and having them trust us to be the destination they want to send players to in order for them to get game time and develop.

Just £26.5k per week wages is no price to pay for someone so talented as Eddie Nketiah. He's got 13 goals in 18 La Liga appearances across the first half of this season. We had Konstantinos Mavropanos, a rock at the back, from Arsenal last season too. It benefits us, and it ultimately benefits their parent clubs too.

Across the last two seasons we've had players in on loan from Barcelona, Real and Atletico Madrid too. It's highly unlikely that we'll ever overtake these three clubs and they have a wealth of quality available to them. I'm not complaining if they're happy to provide some of that to us.

A Home for Experienced Talent

Alongside naturally gravitating towards signing players to sell them on, it's no secret I can usually be found purchasing younger players rather than chasing more experienced heads.

While the oldest permanent player I've signed so far in my time at the club might have been 25-years-old, that's not to say I don't have a bit of new found appreciation for an older player.

Gonzalo Escalante is in the peak of his career at 28. He's our captain and Furia warrior in the middle of the pitch. He's contracted for another couple of years yet and I can see him continuing beyond that to be the perfect tutor for some of the younger players to learn from.

Escalante is part of a group of cultural leaders at the club that includes Paulo Oliveira (30), Sergi Enrich (32), Marko Dmitrovic (30) and Sergio Álvarez (30).

So we're doing a bit of all four at the moment. It's never just one to be fair, a combination of a couple will probably be the route I eventually pick to go down. Are there any I've not considered? Let me know how you like to shape your recruitment.

Eskozia La Brava | The Jamie Vardy Problem

"The Jamie Vardy Problem"

"Why don't these things happen more often on Football Manager?" "There should be some kind of dynamic potential ability!" It's been a common discussion point since Jamie Vardy's rise through the English leagues to firing Leicester to their surprise Premier League title. Few saw Andy Robertson's meteoric rise from amateur at Queen's Park to Champions League winner with Liverpool coming, certainly not Rangers while playing against him in Scotland's fourth tier.

I'm not here to offer answers to those points, you can search on Google and the SI forums for the debates on them, I'm here to show you Thomas Amang.

How many of you would look at Amang and pass on him because he's barely got any technical ability or his composure and decisions is too low for a decent striker at LaLiga level or equivalent?

This is the beauty of focusing on a set of specific attributes you're looking for in each of your players. I saw Amang as my perfect Pressing Forward, harassing opposition defences with his 14, 16 and 17 for my La Furia attributes of Aggression, Determination and Work Rate. He's also a physical specimen with 16 strength at just 5'9" tall. What a guy.

Who could have predicted when I plucked him from Gimnastic in the third tier of Spanish football for £475k that he'd fire in 16 goals across his 38 appearances this season? He was our top league scorer with 12 but he finished just behind Sergi Enrich overall who once again top scored, this time hitting 18 in total. Only 11 of those came in the league though, six fewer than last season.

The difference in the second half of the season, where Amang amassed 13 of his 16 goals, was that I moved him away from his Pressing Forward role over to the Advanced Forward role, and did away with the PF completely, swapping it out for a Deep Lying Forward. I wanted to see more linking between the midfield and attack, but keeping it on an Attack duty sees him carving out opportunities for himself along with creating them for others. Similarly to the tweaks I made previously, I had Amang and Enrich swapping positions and roles during the matches too, again creating uncertainly for opposition defences.

Amang's speed and power makes him a frightening prospect, if he could improve his finishing ability (which I'm working on) he'd take himself to that next level up. Where Enrich got 55% of his shots on target this season, only 49% of Amang's did. We saw the best and worst of him in our 3-1 win against Zaragoza where he had a whopping 11 shots.

Here he is as our DLF using his physical attributes to good effect pouncing on a good ball in behind the defence from Alvaro Tejero. Just 10 for composure and 10 for finishing and he slots it past Zaragoza's goalkeeper, not bad. I love that extra touch to the left he takes. Then he missed all of these.

There's a lot of chat at the moment around strikers, one-on-ones and clear cut chances. Amang scored one in this match, he could've had another couple at least judging by a few of these above. I do think there's a lot of improvement to be made on this at the moment, it's surely got to be toning down the number of one-on-ones or clear cut chances because I don't see them making a tweak that'll have strikers scoring hattricks every match. I'm convinced SI are on it. I'm hoping so after this miss...

Eskozia La Brava | La Furia

It's time to get down to business in the Basque Country. I've reached the halfway point of my first season in charge of Eibar on FM20 but before I go into how we've done so far, I want to talk about the unique identity I'm looking to implement at the club from the get go.

Player Retention and Recruitment

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I want to bring "the rage" to Eibar. The first part of that is ensuring the players we have at the club, and future signings, fit La Furia style.

I'm looking for hard-working, aggressive players who are determined to do their all for the club. That sentence probably gives you an indication of the attributes I'll be looking at when it comes to the ideal type of player I want at Ipurua. Players getting stuck in, working at full capacity, going beyond the call of duty, that are committed to succeeding and doing their best.

Players like Pape Diop and Iván Ramis might not play every single minute of every single match, but they'll be important figures to have in and around the club. Players that I think will have a big impact on the pitch for us this season are Gonzalo Escalante and Sergio Álvarez. They're in the prime of their careers and they'll be vital if we're to achieve what's expected of us this season. All four are the types of personalities I want at the club too.

This all being said, I'm not going to completely restrict myself on these three key attributes. They'll certainly be preferred and if it's a choice between two players and one has the edge on them, I'll go with him. I'm not going to suddenly rip the squad apart and get rid of all the players who don't have a certain base level for their Furia. Sergi Enrich is nowhere near the type of forward I'd ideally like to have leading the line, but he's the most talented striker at the club right now.

Paulo Oliveira is another similar to Enrich. He's got a great personality, great determination and is pretty hard-working, but his aggression is low for what I'd ideally look for in my central defenders. This being said, he's currently the most valuable player at the club and he's certainly the most talented defender we have. I'd be crazy to cast him aside if I was regimentally sticking to looking at those attributes only.

Right now I don't have the financial freedom to be scouring the globe for players to fit this style or to completely overhaul the team. There's very little in the way of wriggle room in the budget. There might be £5m in the overall balance and the projection come the end of the season is that'll increase to £14m, but with how little we'll make off the pitch this season in terms of season ticket sales, match day income and sponsorship in comparison to some of the other clubs in the league, I need to approach our finances, recruitment and squad management in a much more sustainable way. There's no point going gung-ho.

On the pitch

Direct and aggressively in your face, here's my interpretation of La Furia tactic.

Firstly, the formation. On analysing the squad, I felt our wide options in midfield weren't quite up to my standards to merit playing with wide midfielders. Pedro León, Fabián Orellana and Pablo De Blasis are still good options to keep around the club initially as cover to slot in if needed but I won't be looking to renew their deals that are expiring at the end of the season as they all approach the twilight of their careers.

Our central midfield is strong, as I outlined with some of the players in the previous section, so having a three in there gives us a very solid core, especially so with those three central defenders behind them as well. The wing-backs are key to giving us width both offensively and defensively.

Then we come to my favourite role on the game this year, the Pressing Forward, who partners an Advanced Forward. It's key to the Gegenpress system, chasing down loose balls and harassing opposition defenders. The duty of my PF changes in different circumstances. More often than not he'll stay on attack and look to score himself too, but I have tweaked it to support or even defend too at times to get him closer to the supporting players to act as more of a link man.

The only change I've made to the Gegenpress preset tactical style is to have us playing slightly more direct in our passing. This, coupled with us passing into space, sees us taking the game to the opposition and getting their defence turned. From there, if we don't have control of the ball, we're engaging them as high up the pitch as possible and pressing them extremely urgently.

It's glorious to watch at times and when it works perfectly it's majorly satisfying. One of those instances happened when Real Madrid visited Ipurua.

We restricted them to over half of their shots being long, and blocked five of their 12 too. Luck was of course involved, with Dani Carvajal being sent off but it was seconds after our opener that the numbers on each side were leveled up. I didn't anticipate Thibaut Courtois would make such a big error for our second goal, but I like to think that our high energy pressing and preventing short goalkeeper distribution had an effect too.

We made a huge 24 interceptions during the match, with Pedro Bigas making eight himself. We attempted 31 more tackles than them and completed 205 less passes. In your face and direct, love it.

¡Aupa Eibar!

Eskozia La Brava

SD Eibar shouldn't be in LaLiga.

If we move the town's tiny 27,000 population and their tiny ~8,000 capacity Ipurua stadium to one side for a second, there are other reasons why they shouldn't be competing against Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain's top tier.

For most of the 21st century so far, Eibar were where they probably should be, yo-yoing between the Segunda División and Segunda División B. That was until the 2013/14 season where they achieved promotion to LaLiga, winning the Segunda, after having been promoted from Segunda B just the season prior. Never mind how they compared to their future LaLiga opponents, they managed to win the Segunda with the smallest budget in that league too.

So they were heading to LaLiga with a tiny stadium and not much money, but as it turned out due to an absurd piece of Spanish law, they needed more money and fast. In order to prevent relegation back to Segunda B they were required to raise €1,724,272.95, quadruple their capital at the time. This was despite the club being awarded for their Modelo Eibar, recognising superb financial management as one of the few Spanish teams not to be in any debt whatsoever.

Once the socios had had the chance to buy the first round of shares available, after which the club was 28% of the way to their overall social capital goal, the #DefiendeAlEibar marketing campaign began. This second round was available for anyone around the globe to purchase shares in the club and once their promotion to LaLiga was officially confirmed on the pitch, that's when the sale of shares started snowballing from over 50 countries. It wasn't Jota's goal in their 1-0 win against Alaves that officially sealed promotion though, it was the club's oldest socio, Luis María Cendoya, symbolically purchasing the last share required that confirmed their promotion to LaLiga.

They took the first half of that 2014/15 LaLiga season by storm and sat in the top half come the halfway point. The loss of rock at the back, Raúl Albentosa, to Derby County in January took the heart away from a defence which had stood so firm in that rise up the table in the first half of the season. They struggled to cope and slid down the table, eventually finishing in 18th place, the last relegation spot.

However, while financial issues were almost their downfall a year earlier, luck was on Eibar's side this time. Elche had finished 13th in the table but due to an unpaid tax bill were relegated to the Segunda and Eibar were miraculously saved from relegation.

Eibar were in the right place at the right time as luck and money came into play once again in the 2015/16 season. LaLiga changed the way they sold their TV rights and the distribution of the money from those rights became much fairer, following a similar model to the English Premier League. Spain's big clubs could no longer negotiate their own TV deals that were leaving the country's smaller clubs behind. The Modelo Eibar coupled with this change has seen the club comfortably maintain their top tier status since that lucky season, finishing as high as 9th in the 2017/18 season.

Euskal Herria

The Basque Country isn't all about Athletic Club and their cantera approach. Bilbao may be the most populous city in the region and Athletic's San Mamés may be a footballing cathedral where 53,000 Basques, who've been educated on the ways of the club and the region, go to worship, but the Basque characteristics stretch across its seven historical regions.

Basque clubs make up 25% of the 2019/20 LaLiga. Eibar are now muscling in on the traditional rivalries between Athletic, Real Sociedad, Alavés and Osasuna. While those rivalries exist, the atmosphere is friendlier, almost party-like, in nature rather than hatred. They're celebrations of their shared heritage. The four Spanish Basque regions plus the three French Basque regions all come together to make one Euskal Herria.

Politics is not my favourite topic of conversation, but it's prevalent here to mention the historic attitudes of the Basques, and many other regions of Spain, towards Madrid and General Franco's regime. To me, it looks as though being the underdog is a character trait of the Basque people, and that filters down even further to the people of Eibar and its football club. We'll need to punch well above our weight if we're to achieve anything at the club.

Eskozia La Brava

There's always a link to Scotland. Aside from the relationship between those fighting for Basque and Scottish independence (politics...), there's a very strong direct connection between Eibar and Scotland.

Eskozia La Brava, Scotland the Brave, are Eibar's principal fan group. It was alcohol, naturally, that led Eibar fans to seek a closer link to Scotland. La Bombonera, Eibar's previous main fan group, looked at where their whisky bottles originated from and from watching the Rugby Five/Six Nations on television saw how passionately Scottish sports fans turned out to support their teams win, lose or draw. They decided to adopt this same mentality and since the early 2000s it's been Eskozia La Brava who have taken up this responsibility. The group has attended matches all over Scotland over the years and Celtic were invited to play in the clubs 75th anniversary match in 2015 at Ipurua.

Tartan, Saltires, Lion Rampants, See You Jimmy hats and Scottish national team and club shirts are regular features across Ipurua and opposition stadiums when Eskozia La Brava are in town. Away supports are virtually non-existent in Spain, but when Eibar play away there are usually a few, but crazy fans in attendance.

I'll be looking to bring in some Scottish staff and players to keep this connection with the fanbase going.

Modelo Eibar eta La Furia

As I said earlier, the Modelo Eibar is the approach to financial management at the club which has been widely acknowledged as one of the best in the country. I'll be looking to continue this excellent work in-game. I'm going to be judged on it too as the expectation is that I work within the wage budget set out by the board. Even with the tweaks to the way the TV revenue is distributed there is still a huge gulf between the global behemoths in LaLiga and the rest of the league. Despite the loyal core of Eskozia La Brava members, the club still doesn't sell out Ipurua regularly meaning that the financial gulf remains, even to the clubs in mid-table on the LaLiga turnover table.

I'll be expanding the model beyond just our finances too as the board also expect us to sign players under the age of 23 for the first team. Looking at the current first team squad, I'm deeming this essential while the board are only favouring it. My signing policy normally naturally leans towards this anyway but our average age of 29 is currently the highest in LaLiga. An injection of youth is required.

That injection of youth might help when it comes to La Furia. "The rage" was a style of play synonymous with Athletic and Spain, influenced by the British game. It was direct and aggressively in-your-face. Even into the 1990s the Spanish national team still played along these lines with former Athletic man, Javier Clemente, in charge. I'm not saying I'll be thumping long balls up to a targetman throughout the save, but I'll be looking to continue José Luis Mendilibar's high pressing game, getting into the faces of our opponents. This requires a certain profile of player, of which I'll be incorporating some aspects around La Furia into when I'm identifying new signings.

To summarise:

• I'm managing SD Eibar on FM20.

• We've got the smallest stadium in the league and will massively struggle to compete financially against the rest of LaLiga.

• There's going to be a Scottish flavour, of course.

• Good financial management is high on the agenda to continue the Modelo Eibar.

• As is a player identification approach around La Furia.

¡Aupa Eibar!

---

As soon as I discovered Eskozia La Brava and their links to Scotland, I knew Eibar would be the next club I manage on the game. Thankfully Euan McTear wrote an excellent book, Eibar the Brave, on their first season of struggle in LaLiga which detailed many other aspects of the club too. Big thanks to Euan as well for answering a few more questions I had around the club and the league. I really appreciate Andrew Miller from LaLiga Lowdown helping to confirm a few points too. Oh and the Basque/Athletic Club chapter of that book I always talk about obviously had a big influence on my decision too.