Finally, a blog post. It took a little while to get the save started, due to some issues with Football Manager at release, but eventually things appeared acceptable, and I got going. Here’s a link to the introductory post, in case you need a refresher on the brief mission statement.

If you had taken a peek or two behind the CHFM curtain over the last couple of weeks, you'd have seen that this post has gone through quite the evolution behind the scenes. Before the league campaign had started, I was going to focus on finding a role for a talented, yet also limited player. Six games in, I was mainly going to look at re-training players, and fitting square pegs in round holes. At the halfway stage, it was to be a generic, yet disbelieving, save update post. Now, I've concluded the season, and I'd say this blog "series" is very probably dead. How the fuck did I get here? I’ll start with the original prologue, before quickly summarising those not quite produced blog posts...

Prologue:

I mentioned release “issues” with FM at the start. I won’t dwell on them. There is a minor one I had to swallow to get underway, however. When you set up a game, you have the option to go with real fixtures or not. Turns out for my purposes, this does nothing, as Fénix’ Copa Sudamericana qualifying play-off seems to be guaranteed, not with the real fixture (against Montevideo City Torque), but instead left us facing the biggest club in Uruguay and number one seeds (in real life), Peñarol.

I estimated that this would reduce our chances of qualifying from something approaching a fifty-fifty shot, to perhaps as low as one in ten, if I was feeling pessimistic...which I was always am.

We did our best, but were deservedly beaten. Three injuries in the first leg, and a dodgy penalty in the second left a bit of a sour taste, but overall I was fairly happy that we didn’t get slaughtered. In some ways, it probably benefits the save that we’re out, as the potential prize money could have made things a little too easy.

I had started the save at the preposterously early starting point of January ‘21 (with the transfer window closed, obvs), so that I could prepare and play in those fixtures myself, rather than relying on RNG. As a result I had to deal with an extended pre-season in three parts, before league football got underway in mid-May.

Rodrigo Amaral:

No work ethic, poor physical abilities, but technical attributes to die for.

I considered making him an Enganche, but after getting diddly squat out of an AMC in the beta, and enjoying using a Trequartista in the front line at Milan for LQ, I opted for the latter. Other than scoring a goal in our first league game, he did absolutely nothing. Whilst I'm not a believer in average ratings, his 6.2s and 6.3s matched the eye test. His training efforts were terrible, he wouldn't accept criticism, and he reacted badly to team talks. As soon as the (second?) transfer window opened, I instructed my DoF to offload him at any costs. He went to divisional opponents Plazia Colonia for free, played against us twice, and did absolutely nothing. Squad happiness was instantly boosted. Good riddance to both him, and the potential blog post about him.

Square Pegs:

After six games, we had three wins, two draws and one hefty defeat. A great start, but we’d failed to score (or even look like doing so) in three matches. I’d started with a low tempo, low risk, possession-based 442. The possession part was working a treat. For example, at half time in the first leg against Peñarol, we’d had 72% of the ball. But as most of that (and in the subsequent games), was the back four passing between themselves, I made a change.

To start with, we only had two CMs in the entire squad, neither of whom I was a massive fan of. So naturally I trained a left back and a right winger to play in there instead.

It took a while for both of them to get going, but their performances got better and better as the season went on, particularly that Vega fella.

There was plenty more retraining to be had, especially in midfield, with all of our wide players initially more comfortable in the AM strata (@FMStag), but the above two were the most important examples.

Generic Half-Season Update:

The team meeting at the start of the season had been an eye-opener. I suggested we could achieve a mid-table position. I swear, if FM team meetings came with 3D facial reactions, there would have been actual tears. I consoled the lads with a healthy dose of “let’s try not to come last”, and they were happy.

After a mere handful of league games, a transfer window opened, and it must’ve been the second one of the save, as we were allowed to be involved. Along with the aforementioned Amaral, we also let a pair of superfluous strikers go, and a promising U19 left back was lost, as our DoF couldn’t get a new contract signed.

With our scouting department so small, and it being so early in the save, we hadn’t really found anyone worth chasing. However, they had found a few players, and as we were short in central midfield, and in need of a striker with pace, I sent the DoF after a 30 year-old free transfer, and a young loanee striker, both Argentinian, both limited.

We definitely weren’t the most exciting side in the opening stage. Our best performers were our goalkeeper and full backs. After changing to that 4141, we looked a lot better on the attack, but were repeatedly let down by some appalling finishing, from basically everyone. Our top scorer was Franco, with 6 goals, three of which were penalties and three open goals.

Our goal difference was heavily impacted by a pair of ugly 4-0 defeats, to Nacional and Torque.

We even got a victory against Peñarol. So why “disbelieving”? We had big flaws and some poor performers, yet finished the stage in third. Is potential continental qualification really the floor for a team that is not very good, and totally convinced they’re in a battle to avoid finishing at the foot of the table?

Tactical Interlude:

For the Closing Stage, I decided to make some changes to my tactics, and perhaps more importantly, to starting personnel. The idea of getting relegated in this FM when you’ve begun the save at the start of a season is totally laughable, and our 26 points in the Opening Stage probably saw us safe already. So I looked for a style of play I’d actually want to watch, and looked to players for the future, rather than the old boys who were haemorrhaging physical attribute points at a preposterous rate.

Tactically, I added the TI, “Be More Expressive”, and changed the attacking width to “Wide”, to give our midfield more space, and licence to create within that space.

I removed the “Lower Defensive Line”, and “Lower Line of Engagement” instructions, to try and get us further up the pitch, and attempt to stem the tide of 30 yard wonder goals.

Two of our veterans were yanked from the starting eleven. Maureen Franco was repeatedly anonymous, despite being our top scorer. Fabián Estoyanoff’s training performances had started to tank, and in game, he had recently done little, although he had scored a lovely free kick against his former club Peñarol.

So in came Bruno Scorza and Kevin Alaniz, who had been training superbly all season, and with pace attributes of 13 and 14, were much more my sort of players.

Perhaps the biggest impact was (indirectly) made by switching out Schetino for Puentes. Despite the rave reviews the CMA role has been getting (on Slack anyway), moving Vega to be a BBM saw his productivity explode. After playing 15 of 17 games in the first half of the season, he’d scored one, and assisted two. By the season’s end, he’d bagged six, and assisted ten.

The End:

Reader, we won the Closing Stage.

Our attack was much better, our defence tightened up, and the games against fellow mediocre sides with whom we had drawn (often 0-0) during the Opening Stage, we instead won. You’ll have to wait a bit for a league table, as I committed the cardinal sin for a blogger, failing to get a timely screenie, and providing you with what I do have, would lead to #SpOiLeRz

What happens next in Uruguay? The winners of each stage go into a playoff, a one-off tie. Peñarol were seeded at home, either because their Opening Stage record was better than our Closing Stage record (on goal difference), or because they finished higher in the overall table. I’m not sure, I couldn’t see it in the rules.

Our previous two matches at their place had finished in 1-0 defeats, but not this time. We were slightly the better team in a close game, with more of the ball, and the much better chances.

When the final whistle blew, I smirked. A title in season one ffs.

Except, no no, by defeating Peñarol in a playoff, we had merely qualified to play against Peñarol (winners of the overall table) in a Champions Playoff, this time over two legs. This feels wonky to me. But this is one of the reasons I embraced South America - the weirdness.

A week later, back at the Campeón del Siglio, we didn’t play quite as well, this time narrowly (but deservedly) defeated.

With the first leg deficit, and only three days between legs seeming like a tough prospect for our squad, I didn’t expect much. When an unfortunate ricochet led to Peñarol going 3-1 up on aggregate after 25 minutes, it looked like game over.

But this not very good looking squad of mine do not quit. With our tenth shot of the first half, we equalised on the night. Alaniz putting Scorza through, who calmly rounded the ‘keeper to score. Alaniz’ 8th assist of the season (all since the mid-season break), for Scorza’s 12th goal (his 10th since the break).

In the second half, we kept up our dominant statistical performance. In the 65th minute, we produced a lovely free kick routine, and Alaniz smashed home, 3-3 on aggregate.

In the 80th minute…

When the final whistle blew, I smirked. A title in season one ffs.

Here are the tables for you:

Now What?

Well, we’ve ticked off board targets for years one until five and likely well beyond. Any potential financial problems were mitigated by our “home” games against Nacional and Peñarol being played in the national team’s big old stadium (and there were three against Peñarol. A quick bit of maths shows that about 22% of my total fixtures this season were against them!). Seeing as eventually winning something was a sort of end goal…I think the “series” is done.

I don’t want to rain on anybody else’s parade, but it would personally feel a little silly to me, if I were to try and write about strategies for long term development. Here, a season of minimal changes to a basic squad, a far from innovative tactic, and bam! Top 3 team in Uruguay, and a freaking title.

I’ve not talked about DoF stuff much because a) it was scarcely relevant in season one, and b) the old bastard retired at the end of the year. By briefly dabbling with it, I can definitely see it being something I return to. He did a good job bringing in our limited signings, and shipped a couple of players off efficiently.

His contract renewal work was a bit hit and miss. The big downside to using him was that we lost a number of U19 prospects when he couldn’t agree extensions. I had to retain veto powers over staff acquisitions, otherwise there would’ve been an incredible amount of useless staff on the books, draining our limited funds. These issues may have been down to him not being a very good DoF.

Football Manager 22 is full of frustrations. Most of them were present in earlier editions, and I imagine will remain in future ones too. I could reel off a list of things, but really, what’s the point, and who wants to read a whine from somebody who has nonetheless ploughed hundreds of hours of their life into playing it anyway? Not you, I suspect.

I recently theorised that as more players do well in FM, the more players enjoy it (because who doesn’t like success), the more players share their happiness (whether in review, blog, YT, or Tweet form etc.) which leads to more sales, which perhaps leads to SI making a game in which more players do well, and starting the cycle all over again. Is this the paranoia of someone who’s been repeatedly trapped inside their own house of late? Perhaps. Or perhaps this is the game the FM Community deserves, but it's not the one I need right now.

I will return to FM22 at some point, because despite its flaws, there is plenty to like as well. However, I will have to find new ways of playing and new things to write about, because for me, long saves are dead.

Thanks for reading, stay safe, and enjoy your festive period