From Bagan to Bergkamp: 1.01: Hail Mary

Fuck me this has been a difficult version of FM to get into. I’ve tried many things, and ain’t none of them stuck with me for more than a season. You’ve read about Fénix here on CHFM. If you’re a member of my Slack channel, you’ve seen me flounder with attempted saves, and various ideas, the two most “serious” of which saw me manage at Lucchese and Austria Wien, but tap out after about a year (again).

In a last ditch attempt to salvage something from this particular Football Manager, I’m throwing caution to the wind, putting the cart before the horse, and torturing other metaphors as well. By which I mean, I’m writing the first part of this “series”, having not pressed :continue: even a single time. Rash? If there’s no part two, then definitely yes.

I miss writing more than I miss FM, and I’m hoping that putting words onto virtual paper and pressing “publish”, will help me to stay on target, and get beyond the promised land of July ‘23 in game. If not, it’s at least been a nice hour or so typing up some thoughts.

So who the bloody hell is Bagan? And why should anyone care?

Joel Bagan, complete with highlighted Shadow Striker attributes.

A pretty tasty left back, and only 19. In all my failed attempts to start a save, this fella seemed to make an appearance early doors, whether on the player search, or via a scout’s recommendation.

So what the hell has this got to do with Dennis Bergkamp? I have recently read and enjoyed the Bergkamp autobiography “Stillness and Speed”, and started thinking about his player roles, particularly from earlier in his career when he was very much a Shadow Striker. I’ve not had much success using any sort of central attacking midfield role in Football Manager of late, and thought this a chance to give it a proper bash.

I loaded up a failed save and did a player search for players under 21, with at least a 12 for the Shadow Striker’s attributes (plus Determination), asking to match 16 out of 17. And wouldn’t you fucking know it, there was bloody Joel Bagan again! That level of fate, combined with the always attractive alliterative alternatives, meant I couldn’t say no. I sure do love an opportunity to take two different ideas and smash them together, regardless of their compatibility.

And if there’s one thing that we can all be sure of, it’s that a young left back from a celtic nation, who has come through the Southampton youth system, has never, ever been converted into one of the best forwards in the world. Could not happen. No sir. Im-possible. :eyes:

Taking inspiration from both Diego Mendoza’s recent Luis Vazquez focus on Twitter, and TedRedwood’s less recent attempted revival of Ravel Morrison, my playing of this particular save will theoretically be far less about the club that I (and Bagan) happen to be at, and all about the player. If Joel wants to leave Cardiff, then so shall I. I did consider going in to the pre-game editor (now that I’m aware of its existence smh ffs wtf) and adding a couple of years to his contract length, but nah, I’ll just move myself if necessary.

The first look around at Cardiff suggests a bit of a weird squad. Four players who can only play at centre back, all regular starters, three players who can only play as a striker, all important players, and an almost total absence of wide attackers. Removing Bagan from the LB/LWB spot certainly makes things a little more difficult too. Still, as I attempted to form a tactic to make our boy the focal point, a shape seemed obvious considering the players on hand:

An early to-do list then:

  1. Get Joel Bagan trained as an AMC.

  2. Figure out a way of playing that gets Joel heavily involved.

  3. Get the #10 shirt into the correct hands.

  4. Sort out a first team role for the talented M(LC), Joe Ralls. Perhaps as a replacement at left wing-back?

  5. Improve the coaching staff for the sole purpose of developing Bagan.

  6. Try and enjoy myself and get to a second blog post…

There’s one good thing about being at Cardiff. If this attempt at converting a left back fails quickly and spectacularly, then at least from a Shadow Striker perspective…there is another…

Fénix 1.01: The Beginning, the End

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

FM22: Centro Atlético Fénix

Welcome to a brief intro to the start of a new series, as I abandon UEFA for the first time, and head south of the Equator. I’ve been close to doing a save in South America in the past, but what pushed me over the edge this time was UEFA adopting the “Swiss Model” for continental club tournaments. IRL, this change will come in for the 24/25 season, and I assume that will be true in FM22 also.

I detest the idea. Almost as much, but not quite, as having three team groups at the World Cup. Football seems determined to make itself unpalatable right now…or maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy (I definitely am).

FM has six leagues in South America, let’s knock them down until only one remains. Argentina? No thanks, on a completely different schedule to the rest of the continent? Get in the bin. Brazil and Colombia? How many games?! Absolutely not. Chile? Too European, thanks. Peru? No second tier? Pfft. Uruguay it is then. Hope you enjoyed my South American League guide, for a better one, try this from FM Grasshopper.

There are a couple of perfect looking potential starts in Uruguay, with two big clubs relegated into the second tier last season. Both Danubio and Defensor Sporting are down there. However, I’m not choosing either of them, as I see them as too similar a save to what I’ve just done with Toulouse. I also don’t want to manage any favourites, so Peñarol and Nacional are out too (between them, winners of a mere 98 of 117 overall titles), and you can strike City Group’s Torque off the list too.

Enough about what I don’t want, and more about what I’m actually after. A team that resides in to the “Goldilocks zone”, somewhere between piece of cake, and piece of shit. Fair facilities so I don’t have to start from scratch, a small ground so money’s tight (I’m told by FM Grasshopper that this won’t be an issue in Uruguay), and a team likely to finish in mid-table.

One team caught my eye pretty early on, and that was the former home of my Toulouse captain Manuel Ugarte, a club with an easily punnable name, and fortunately they also fit the above criteria. It’s Centro Atlético Fénix for the win.

Other things that appeal; good club badge, purple (again), they’ve never won a major honour, and accordingto my pre-beta research, they’ve got some old hands on board, and at least one pretty promising youngster.

Save Style:

Well, if there has been one pretty obvious undercurrent to my FMing during the last edition or two, it’s that I’ve been finding it all a bit repetitive. Getting TedRedwoodGamingInternational involved as DoF last year was great fun, adding a much needed change to my play style, although if anything, his considerable abilities in the transfer market only hastened our inevitable success.

So it’s time for me to go one step further. Encouraged by Dan Gear (of Bolivia fame), and heavily influenced by this great post on FM20 by Oliver Jensen, I’ll be giving a lot of power to staff for this edition, in particular, in the area of recruitment. I have no idea how this is going to go, I’ve not run any sort of test, and Fénix’ recruitment team at the start consists of a solitary loan manager, but I’m hoping it will be fun finding out how to set-up a new way (for me) of playing.

I’ll go into more detail about my set-up and stuff, once I’ve actually set it up!

Save Aims:

  1. Try some new things, both in terms of gameplay, and writing.

  2. Have our youth academy produce five players who go on to be senior internationals, even if they are somewhere else when capped.

  3. Eventually win something.

  4. Have fun.

Since acquiring the beta, and diving in for a look, I feel quite optimistic about some of the young players already here, although on the other hand, the first team squad looks a little imbalanced to me. They are also not quite as good as I had expected. There will be plenty to do.

Kevin Alaniz is the young player at Fénix that I have the highest hopes for, although he’s by no means the only prospect. His contract being up at the end of 2021 is a bit of a concern, and one that will become a familiar refrain, as about 90% of the players are in the same boat.

If you’ve heard of one player from this squad, it’s likely to be former Uruguayan international, Fabián Estoyanoff. He’s been around almost as long as I’ve been playing football management games, and had a couple of seasons playing in La Liga in his prime.

He’s not the only proper veteran at Fénix, with a pair of 37 year-olds close on his tail. My initial thoughts are that all three will be first team choices, which is very unlike me.

Referring back to the squad imbalance I mentioned earlier, I think the team will be pretty well off for attacking midfielders and forwards to begin with (although there’s a bit of a dearth of pace up top), but there isn’t much in the way of depth either in central midfield or defence. I anticipate a bit of positional retraining in my near future, and coming up with a tactic to work around what we don’t have.

TL;DR? Well, this ain’t gonna be the blog for you, pal. This is as brief as I get!

Centro Atlético Fénix are the 12th best club in terms of both reputation and finances in Uruguay. The top flight is made up of 16 teams, two of whom historically stand head and shoulders above the rest. I’m hoping that this save will feature gradual growth towards an eventual trophy, through the canny use of crafty tactics and intelligent player development, whilst running a recruitment team through AI staff power. Hold on to your butts.

Thanks for reading, stay safe x