Season 1 Finished and Promotion Secured

Well here is my long awaited update for the end of season 1 and what a finish to the season it was! I came 2nd in the league but finished on the same amount of points as Real Zaragoza only losing the Liga Adelante Championship on goal difference. This final push came as i managed to win 7 out of my final 8 league games but i was left to reflect on some very poor defeats which cost me dear. In my final game i knew a victory for me would mean Zaragoza would have to beat Xerez away from home but they did 2-0. I beat Castellon also by 2 goals to nil but wasnt enough to win. In reflection though my disappointment has gone and i'm now just delighted i got promoted!

My top scorer for the season was Darko Kovacevic and had a fitting send off scoring in his farewell game. I haven't renewed his contract as i feel at his age now he wouldn't make the required impact needed in the Liga BBVA. The player with the highest rating over the season was Xabi Prieto and will be trying to keep him with interest already from other clubs.

One thing i am absolutely delighted about is one of the players thats been promoted from the youth team - Iker Zelaia. At 16 years of age he looks like he will be a superb player so will be looking to play him next season to give him experience.

On the Kenan Kodro front i forgot to register him in the January window so he never played a first team game but next season i will definitely be giving him some chances.

I will update again once pre-season is over as i am planning to have a mass-clearout as most of my squad are not up to standard. Don't forget you can post your progress on the official Real Sociedad Thread over on FM Style. At the last count it has 569 posts and many people taking part so head over and get yourself registered.

Thanks for reading and adios for now.

Season 1 With Real Sociedad Started!!

Yesterday i officially started the FM2009 Real Sociedad Challenge so here is an update on how i got on.

After being really disappointed by the demo that was released i was more than a little nervous about how the main game would be but i have to admit - I LOVE IT!!!
I considered having a game first with another team to get used to it but then thought "what the hell" and jumped straight into the hotseat of Real Sociedad.

The first thing i checked before anything else was the transfer budget - 80k!! Not good so i immediately analysed the squad to see who i could sell for a quick buck as my assistant said the squad needed strengthened if we were to challenge for the title. I was then thrust into my first press conference which was much more enjoyable than i thought it would be.

I immediatley established i was lacking in the left back department so brought in a loan signing - Ravzan Rat from Shaktar. Next target was a striker as i felt if any of my current strikers got an injury, the backup was very poor and not ready for the big time yet. Out of curiosity i typed "Kovacevic" in the search box not really expecting Darko to be available from Olympiakos. To my amazement he was and for a knockdown 300k! Having sold one of my deadwood Markel to Reading for 1.4 million i snapped up Darko Kovacevic and had my first punch the air moment on FM2009! He has been by far my favourite player on the Football Manager/Championship Manager series of games and to have him again will make the game even more enjoyable - especially since he is still really good!! We have already had a minor disagreement however when i suggested he should try and place his shots in future (just wanted to see what he would say).

For my first friendly i chose to watch the 3D action and was really impressed! We won 7-0 and every goal was completely different. It did slow my computer down slightly so will watch in 2D from now on but watch the goal replays in 3D i think. The highlight of the friendlies was an 11-0 victory!

I played the first league game of the season at home to Huelga and managed a 1-0 victory although we created plenty chances and should have scored more.

As usual i will be trying my hardest to turn (the now 16 year old) Kenan Kodro into a superstar and will post my progress on that throughout the challenge.

Overall i'm quietly confident i can steer the club to promotion and i've decided i'm not gonna play any elaborate tactics, just a simple 4-4-2 just now.

Results
Transfers

2nd In League And UEFA Cup Retained

The Challenge is now officially over for me and season 5 ended with me finishing 2nd in the league and retaining the UEFA Cup with a 4-0 demolition of Reading. As you can see from the league table Real Madrid went the whole season unbeaten which was very disappointing as from very early on in the season i knew i wasn't going to win the league.
Bogdan Stancu was the hero again for me scoring an amazing 64 goals in 52 appearances. Thats 110 goals in 2 seasons!
Andrey Arshavin had another amazing season aswell getting 29 assists and 16 goals.
The other 2 players that stood out for me were Nortdveit and Kodro although the latters chances were severly limited by Stancu.

One of the disappointments of the challenge was the fact i played Real Madrid 10 times and never beat them once. My record over Barcelona however is much better. I also never made it past the Quarter Final Stages of the Spanish Cup. The finances at the moment are looking ok and the wage structure is well under control.

I have now officially resigned from the club and checkout this screenshot to see the Board pay tribute to me. I am also happy at my staff because 3 of them have left in the wake of me resigning including my first signing for the club Ray Wilkins and legend Darko Kovacevic.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my 5 seasons but like i said in my previous post i am now going to shelve the game and wait for FM2009 to be released. Thanks for reading and for those still taking the challenge on please keep me updated with how you get on. Adios amigos. Till next time....

UPDATE 27/08/08 - Being the sad individual that i am i couldn't help but let the game run on for a season while i "went on holiday" to see how Real Sociedad would get on without me. Avram Grant the former Chelsea Manager took over my position and by all accounts had a nightmare. He only managed to finish 9th in the League, got knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage, sold Stancu to Valencia and replaced him with Lavezzi from Napoli and to top it off has allowed my prodigy Kenan Kodro to join Roma for free! Bloody hopeless!

UEFA Cup Winners And Finished 6th

I am going to start this post with an explanation of something. At the end of the last post i was plodding along nicely in the League and still in the UEFA Cup. Then headshotbg won everything with Kimz tactics and it got me thinking.... For the 2nd half of season 4 should i give it a go and see how i get on or should i stick with my own? Well i changed it to Kimz and here is how i got on.....

I finished 6th in the League again and as you can see from the results in the 2nd half of the season they changed dramatically with high scoring games flowing!

After a dodgy start where i lost some stupid games i stuck with it and it brought some unbelievable results. Good examples would be the 8-5 victory over Betis and the semi-final 2nd leg againt Valencia. I got beat 3-1 away from home and in the home leg return i won 6-1!

The UEFA Cup final was an incredible match with Bogdan Stancu being the hero scoring the winner in the 90th minute to win 3-2. Another one for the "punch the air" hall of fame. Other highlights of season 4 are below:-

Bogdan Stancu scoring 46 goals in 50 appearances!
Marius Niculae having his best season yet with 25 goals and 14 assists!
Arshavin getting 13 goals and 34 assists!
Kenan Kodro improving again and getting a man of the match award after only 20 minutes on the pitch. (Never seen that before)
Riquelme in disbelief saying he doubted i could win the UEFA Cup.
Supporters saying the supporters club will be named after me. (A nice touch ha ha)
Nordtveit getting young player of the season ahead of Bojan.

I have made 3 bosman signings for season 5. Oscar from Fiorentina, Vasilis Tosoridis from Olympiakos and Celsinho from Sporting Lisbon.

So i'm left wondering what to do next. I have one season left of the challenge and i'm caught in 2 minds whether to continue with Kimz 8.0.2 no tweaking or not. If i hadn't changed the tactics i know i wouldn't have won the UEFA Cup. I suppose i still can't decide whether using someone else's tactics will give me any real sense of achievement because although i'm happy i won the UEFA Cup i know i would have been a million times happier if it was with my own tactic. Please feel free to leave a comment on your thought on the subject and whether i should go back to my own tactic for season 5. Adios for now and thanks for reading.

Halfway Through Season 4 Update...

Halfway through season 4 and things are going well in the league. I'm up to 7th after going on a great run of victories. I had a major slump where i went 6 games without a win and was listed on the "under pressure managers" list but have turned it around.

I managed to beat FC Zurich no probem in the first round of the UEFA Cup and got Shakhtar Donetsk, Borussia Dortmund, Dinamo Bucharest and Palermo in the groups. After an opening defeat to Shakhtar i managed to beat the rest of the teams and now have Panathinaikos in the 2nd knockout stage. I am also still in the Spanish Cup and look good to progress after a 4-1 first leg over Gimastic.

The stars of the show so far have been Bogdan Stancu, Andrey Arshavin, Leonardo (who was rubbish last season), Dorian Dervite and Marius Niculae. Stancu has justified my sale of Samaras with 20 goals in 20 appearances.

I am very happy as i managed to sell my striker Yildirim Serkan to Marseille for 4 million. I got him for free and he hardly played in 2 seasons. With the money i am hoping to sign Ilsinho from Shakhtar and Dimitar Makriev from Panathinaikos. Makriev is available for only 275k and i'm amazed at this considering his stats. He will be good backup to Stancu as Kenan Kodro is having another injury plagued season.

I had another "punch the air" moment when i was 2-0 down at home to Real Betis and we scored 4 in the last 13 minutes to win 4-2.

I will update again at the end of the season so for now adios.

Season 3 Over And Finished 6th

With season 3 now over i am surprised and delighted at how it went for me. I managed to finish 6th in the league and have secured European Football for next season. I managed to go on a decent run on the 2nd half of the season despite losing key players to injury and had a very strong finish to the season.

My best players this season were Samaras who came runner up in signing of the season and Niculae. Samaras unfortunately got injured for 3 months but Niculae hardly missed a game. Something else i was really happy with was the defensive partnership of Dorian Dervite and Håvard Nordtveit. I played Nordtveit for the first half of the season as a defensive midfielder but he wasn't that good but when i moved him to defence he was great. Those 2 will be my central defenders for next season.

I was disappointed when Kenan Kodro broke his leg and very concerned when he returned to training the physio suggested he may never realise his full potential because of the injury. Next season i will continue to give him chances in the team.

In the summer i am going to try and offload 2 of my higher paid players. Xabi Prieto and Riquelme. Prieto had a very poor season and with Bayern after him i think i will sell him. Riquelme had a good season with 17 assists to his name but at 32 i will try and get a younger AMC.

In my next update i will hopefully have strengthened my squad so i can make an impact in the UEFA Cup and have another fantastic season. Adios.

Take That Barcelona!

Every so often while playing Footbal Manager 2008 a moment will happen to most of us which i like to call the "punch the air moment"! By this i mean you will be sitting perfectly normal in your seat then without any warning you will jump up and throw your fist in the air like a lunatic. For the first time in a long time this happened to me and i felt it deserved to be documented because if i don't win anything with Real Sociedad this will be my crowning glory!

As i previously mentioned in my last update i drew Barcelona in the 5th round of the Spanish Cup. The first leg ended in a 3-3 thriller at home and my aim for the return leg was simply to keep the score down and avoid embarrasment.

The fans were fearing the worst and i dealt with this by trying to take the heat off my team by telling the press i was just looking for a good performance and played down our chances of beating them. I also singled out Iniesta as a dangerman which very interestingly led to them leaving him out of the team. Perhaps the pressure got to him ha ha.

The tactic i went for was one of caution with the hope of us being able to catch them on the counter-attack. Things started badly with Henry scoring after 6 minutes to put them 4-3 up on aggregate. Then for the next 84 minutes i sat in utter disbelief as my team played them off the park. The hero of the hour was Giorgos Samaras. He put Barca to the sword with a brilliant double and prompted my fist to hit the air! To rub it in they had a goal dissalowed for offside and when asked to comment i stuck the knife in even more by saying they were bitter! Genius!

If anyone else has any "punch the air moments" like this please feel free to leave a comment.

*UPDATE* To follow on from me boasting about beating Barcelona i thought i'd also share my pain. In the next round i played Sevilla. In the 1st leg i was beaten at home 4-1 and Samaras got injured and is out for 3 months then in the 2nd leg i was beaten 5-4 and Kodro broke his leg and is out for 5 months. I should have made the title of the post - How To Beat Barcelona Then Get Absolutely Thrashed From Sevilla!

I'm starting to get into this...

Hi folks i'm now halfway through season 3 and i'm delighted with the progress my team is making. I'm 8th in the league and still in the Spanish Cup after drawing 7-7 on aggregate with Almeria but going through on away goals. I have Barcelona in the fifth round so thats probably as far as i'll get. The league form started very poorly but we have went on a fantastic run which has seen us go 7 games unbeaten. The reult of the season so far was the 3-2 away victory over Sevilla. It was a very unexpected victory and was all the sweeter since it was the first of the season and got us off the foot of the table.

The stars of the show so far have been Giorgos Samaras and Marius Niculae who have been brilliant for me so far. If i want to maintain my challenge for a European place next season key to it will be keeping them fit. Keeping them on their toes though has been 17 year old Kenan Kodro. I said in my last post i was looking to give him a chance this year and i have. He has the potential to be brilliant in the game. A massive surprise and also key to my good fortunes has been the form of central defender Dorian Dervite. He was signed on a free for Spurs as one for the future but has been thrown in at the deep end. Due to the strikers great form poor old Morten Skoubo has been dumped in the B team where he will probably stay until he is sold.

I will update again at the end of the season when hopefully i will be looking forward to playing in Europe next season . Adios.

Season 3 Is Under Way

Hi folks season 3 is now under way and my expectations are that i will push for a European place but i think the reality may be i struggle in mid table again. In my last post i complained about being unable to sell anyone and this hit my pre-season preperations quite hard. At the time of writing i have played the first 3 league matches of the season and as you can see from the results so far my only win has came against our under 19s in a friendly. My first 2 league matches were away from home and both ended in 3-2 defeats to Espanyol and very painfully to Real Zaragoza where they won in the last minute!

The only player i got that wasn't a freebie was Bernard Mendy who i signed for 2.8 million as i was desperate for a right back. The best players i got for free were Greek forward Samaras, defensive midfielder Eduardo Costa and Gonzalo Garcia. For the rest of the tranfers you can view them by clicking here.

I have decided i am going to change my tactics for season 3. My home tactics will be much more attacking and key to it will be Riquelme who will hopefully pull the strings in the middle and create chances. My away tactics will be more defensive and will look to catch the opposition on the counter attack. I will also be looking to give my young striker Kenan Kodro some first team action this season as for the last 2 seasons he has been scoring an unbelievable amount of goals for the under 19's.

I will update again mid-season where i will be able to see if my poor pre-season of tranfer action has cost me.