Career My 1st career: an attempt at Continental Conquerors

[PoulShell]

Hi guys, this is my first ever career (and challenge) for me here. I'm not the best FMM player out there to say the least, so don't expect incredibile results, for me the goal is to have fun and create somewhat of a story. I'm not a native english speaker so I apologise for the mistakes.

After finishing my longest career so far at FMM21 (Dulwich Hamlet from non league football to winning the treble, it took 14 years), I wanted to start a new career, but this time I didn't want to stay at a club for a long time. As I was scrolling through the challenges, I found one that fit what I want to achieve in this new save: managing teams outside the top 5 leagues, and moving from one club to another (after 14 years at the same club, I want some fresh air).

The challenge is : Continental Conquerors 2021 by Kanegan

I picked these leagues:

• Asian stage: China is boring IMHO, Australia is interesting but I ended up choosing South Korea.
• North American Stage: USA, because I never tried an MLS team and I'm curious about the format.
• UK Stage: Scotland, because the others are too difficult 😛.
• European Stage: all the options are interesting, I was torn between Russia and Turkey, but at the end the warm mediterranean winds prevailed over the icy Russian moors.

I'm going to start in South Korea, and the team I picked is...

Suwon Samsung Bluewings

A relatively young club born in 1995, the Bluewings are based in Suwon, the capital of Gyeonggi-do province, 30 km south of Seoul, also known as "The City of Filial Piety". It's the only complete walled city in South Korea, and its walls are a popular tourist destination. It's the home of Samsung headquarters and R&D facilities.

The team has a prestigious history, having won the Korean championship four times and the AFC Champions league twice.
The last ten years however have not brought great success for the Suwon-based team, who have watched helplessly as Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors dominated, scraping together only a second place finish in the years 2014 and 2015.

Will we able to bring back the trophy inside the walls of Suwon?

 

 

 

So we begin our adventure in Suwon. The save begins in April 2021, the transfermarket is closed (not that we really have money to spend) and we are in the middle of the AFC round, but we're dead last and mathematically eliminated. 

The Team

The team is not bad for the level of competition, but it needs depth as there are quite a few players well beyond their prime.

The best players are:

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

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The Korean League runs from May to October, the transfer windows are 1 month in June and 3 months from January to March.

I think I'll make an update in July, after the first transfer window, and then another one at the end of the first season.

I still have to choose the national hero, but since I'll not play AFC Champions League this season, there's no hurry (even though I have some ideas).

I hope this career will be interesting to follow, see you next time.

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by PoulShell

[Rich]

Very nice write up mate, I like the leagues chosen, good luck 😁

[hhooo]

Same team I started with! Different other nations though. Some of your best players are in your reserves, so make sure to check in there! 

Kim-Gun Hee is a decent choice for hero, there's aren't many good Korean strikers at the start of the game. 

[Ian]

I think your English is better than mine so no problems there.

Good luck, should be an interesting one to follow this.

[broodje kip]

Nice choices mate. I like to play in South Korea it’s a very interesting league.

7 hours ago, hhooo said:

Same team I started with! Different other nations though. Some of your best players are in your reserves, so make sure to check in there! 

Kim-Gun Hee is a decent choice for hero, there's aren't many good Korean strikers at the start of the game. 

If I remember correctly the best guy I saw in the first season is the 19 years old striker from Jeonbuk Hyundai. There’s also Jeon Se-Jin who’s already have decent pace to start with.

[Kanegan]

Great write up and best of luck for this. 

[PoulShell]

First, let me thank all of you guys who posted a comment, it feels good to be welcomed like this. I made a typo on my first post and wrote that I started in 2021, well that's wrong I started in 2020.

July 2020 Update

The Transfers

We run really short of cash, so I decided to go exclusively after free transfers, and I poured all my budget onto the wages.

There were three areas of the field that needed to be addresses: a central defender, a central midfielder and a right inside forward.

With that in mind, these are the new players in:

Sardor Rashidov

Spoiler

A decent Uzbek winger, he's fast for the Korean league and is a regular on my team.

Marlon Hairston

Spoiler

An american (not werewolf hopefully)in Korea, we really needed a central midfielder and he is doing good.

Raul Rodriguez

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Apart from the canadian one, I don't like any of my Korean central defenders, so I brought in mr. Rodriguez with a 1 year contract.
Not my first choice honestly, but the other ones just asked for too much money, especially signing bonus.

With these signings, the funds are totally depleted, we are over the wages budget.

 

The Season, so far

Well, what can I say? I never thought, neither in my most optimistic dreams, to be where I am at this stage. Still unbeaten, a very prolific attack, with 6 points over the Jeonbuk rivals.

The fixtures:

Spoiler

I'm very proud of the back-to-back-high-scoring-games against Daegu and Sangju, and also of the 3-4 win against Pohang, a game that we could have easily lost or drawn.

The Players:

Spoiler

Uros Deric is clearly above this league level, scoring like a madman and reaching an amazing 8.05 avg vote.

Kim-Min-Woo is an assist machine and dominates on his left wing.

Rashidov and Kim-Gun-Hee are getting their job done.

The Tactic

To be completely honest, tactic is my least favourite part of the game. I love buying and selling players, I like being the manager and making adjustements over what's going on in the field. I decided to use one of the tactics provided here by a fellow Vibe user, @AndersJ, so credits to his The Inverted King of Wingbacks tactic.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ok guys that's all for today, see you with the end of Season 1 update.

Edited February 28, 2021 by PoulShell

[broodje kip]

That’s a nice start mate. Keep going.

[Rich]

Well done that’s a great start mate 👍

[hhooo]

Who is your hero? Nice start you've made! 

[PoulShell]

6 minutes ago, hhooo said:

Who is your hero? Nice start you've made! 

I have not made a decision yet because I'm not playing AFC Champions League this year.

However, my main options are two: Kim Gun-Hee and Jun Se-Jin.

[hhooo]

9 minutes ago, PoulShell said:

I have not made a decision yet because I'm not playing AFC Champions League this year.

However, my main options are two: Kim Gun-Hee and Jun Se-Jin.

Oooooh, alright - that must have changed in the winter update. When I started I had ACL matches before the regular season started. 

Both of them are good options though. Kim Gun Hee is very consistent and reliable in my experience, although he could also be a good DLF next to JSJ with his solid creativity and passing. 

[PoulShell]

3 minutes ago, hhooo said:

Oooooh, alright - that must have changed in the winter update. When I started I had ACL matches before the regular season started. 

Both of them are good options though. Kim Gun Hee is very consistent and reliable in my experience, although he could also be a good DLF next to JSJ with his solid creativity and passing. 

It didn't change, I also played two games in ACL round(a loss against Beijing and a draw against Melbourne), but I had 0 points to start with and got eliminated right away (the games before those were already played and Suwan lost all of them unfortunately).

[KickbackFootball]

17 hours ago, PoulShell said:

Hi guys, this is my first ever career (and challenge) for me here. I'm not the best FMM player out there to say the least, so don't expect incredibile results, for me the goal is to have fun and create somewhat of a story. I'm not a native english speaker so I apologise for the mistakes.

After finishing my longest career so far at FMM21 (Dulwich Hamlet from non league football to winning the treble, it took 14 years), I wanted to start a new career, but this time I didn't want to stay at a club for a long time. As I was scrolling through the challenges, I found one that fit what I want to achieve in this new save: managing teams outside the top 5 leagues, and moving from one club to another (after 14 years at the same club, I want some fresh air).

The challenge is : Continental Conquerors 2021 by Kanegan

I picked these leagues:

• Asian stage: China is boring IMHO, Australia is interesting but I ended up choosing South Korea.
• North American Stage: USA, because I never tried an MLS team and I'm curious about the format.
• UK Stage: Scotland, because the others are too difficult 😛.
• European Stage: all the options are interesting, I was torn between Russia and Turkey, but at the end the warm mediterranean winds prevailed over the icy Russian moors.

I'm going to start in South Korea, and the team I picked is...

Suwon Samsung Bluewings

A relatively young club born in 1995, the Bluewings are based in Suwon, the capital of Gyeonggi-do province, 30 km south of Seoul, also known as "The City of Filial Piety". It's the only complete walled city in South Korea, and its walls are a popular tourist destination. It's the home of Samsung headquarters and R&D facilities.

The team has a prestigious history, having won the Korean championship four times and the AFC Champions league twice.
The last ten years however have not brought great success for the Suwon-based team, who have watched helplessly as Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors dominated, scraping together only a second place finish in the years 2014 and 2015.

Will we able to bring back the trophy inside the walls of Suwon?

 

 

 

So we begin our adventure in Suwon. The save begins in April 2021, the transfermarket is closed (not that we really have money to spend) and we are in the middle of the AFC round, but we're dead last and mathematically eliminated. 

The Team

The team is not bad for the level of competition, but it needs depth as there are quite a few players well beyond their prime.

The best players are:

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

The Korean League runs from May to October, the transfer windows are 1 month in June and 3 months from January to March.

I think I'll make an update in July, after the first transfer window, and then another one at the end of the first season.

I still have to choose the national hero, but since I'll not play AFC Champions League this season, there's no hurry (even though I have some ideas).

I hope this career will be interesting to follow, see you next time.

 

Wow 14 years at Dulwich? Noice. I'm in my 5th season there. It's a pain hahaha cause all my young guns wanna leave as they're entering their prime 🤦🏼‍♂️

[PoulShell]

End of the 1st Season Update - January 2021

WE WON!!!Honestly I never expected to win the league at the first season, but here we are, we stopped the Jeonbuk streak and we brought home the national trophy.

Oh, and before I forget, we also won the national FA Cup, making it a double in the first season!

The Awards:

Spoiler

Coach of the Year

Top goalscorer

Team of the year

Young Player of the Year
 

 

The Fixtures:

Spoiler

 

Player Stats:

Spoiler

 

Now it's time to think about next season, in which finally we will play the ACL (basically the challenge begins now)

Stage group is this:

The sorting was unlucky, as we will clash against Beijing Guoan, one of the best teams in the competition, and only one team can go to the next round. We'll see how it goes.

The competition begins in February, right before the start of the national league.

Last but not least, now it's time to pick my national hero. As I said before, I was torn between two player: my starting striker, Kim Gun-Hee, and my backup young striker, Jun Se-Jin, who almost stole the starting position from Gun-Hee scoring 10 goals and 10 assists in just 17 games. By the way, I decided to go with my man Gun-Hee for this year, I think he's readier than his young partner, who might be the pick for next year (I highly doubt I'll finish Asian Stage this season).

Thanks for the nice comments, keep them coming as they're always really appreciated, I'll make a mid season update when we'll have a few games of ACL and national league under the belt.

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by PoulShell

[hhooo]

Don't change your hero unless it's a big, big upgrade, since you only keep the goals from one player per nation. If you think you can win the CWC inside 5 years, then KGH is probably the safer route. Kim Tae Hwan is going to be difficult to keep at the club, he's very ambitious and very good and RB Leipzig will be hot on his tail when he starts performing consistently! 

[PoulShell]

7 minutes ago, hhooo said:

Don't change your hero unless it's a big, big upgrade, since you only keep the goals from one player per nation. If you think you can win the CWC inside 5 years, then KGH is probably the safer route. Kim Tae Hwan is going to be difficult to keep at the club, he's very ambitious and very good and RB Leipzig will be hot on his tail when he starts performing consistently! 

Thanks a lot for the clarification, I thought you could change the hero and the goals would add up.
As for winning CWC, I have no idea honestly, I don't have direct informations on how tight is the competition (aka how I'm faring against other asian teams), and most importantly, I don't know how much money I will be able to spend (so far the budget in Korea seem very very low).

Edited February 28, 2021 by PoulShell

[Rich]

Great first season that mate, keep it up, I’m sure next season will be even better 👍

[AndersJ]

Gooo Bluewings! I hope the tactic brings you fortunes and glory :)! I have never heard of this challenge - i feel like and old dinosaur that keeps on reading the same news in my old paper :)! Best of luck

[Ian]

A very nice first season and Kim Gun-Hee looks very good so good luck going forward with him. I am familiar with Jun Se-Jin, well if it’s the same one anyway. He turned into a very good player on the game a couple of years ago so it’ll be interesting to see how he develops for you. 

[broodje kip]

Going good mate, Keep it up.

6 hours ago, PoulShell said:

Thanks a lot for the clarification, I thought you could change the hero and the goals would add up.
As for winning CWC, I have no idea honestly, I don't have direct informations on how tight is the competition (aka how I'm faring against other asian teams), and most importantly, I don't know how much money I will be able to spend (so far the budget in Korea seem very very low).

I think Jeonbuk have the highest amount of transfer budget with £5M in the first season. Maybe you’d get £2M-£3M after winning the league?

[Kanegan]

A very good first season. Keep it up and your national hero looks good. 

[PoulShell]

July 2021 Update

The Season so Far

With 14 games to go, we sit at the top of the table with a 6 pt lead over Ulsan. This season the first three teams left the adversaries in the dust, so it will be a three-way race to the finish. Games have been tighter than last year, whether it's because the higher number of games we're playing or because the other teams bought good players. Still, we're doing good.

Unexpectedly we won the round, playing solid football and bringing home important victories.
We also managed, as underdogs, to pass the round against Jiangsu, and now we will play the quarter-finals of the Asian champions league in August against japanese team Nagoya Grampus.

The Fixtures:

Spoiler

The Transfer Market

The good news is that, after last season's double, we ended up with a budget of around €7m.
The "bad" news is that I spent very little of it, as I couldn't find players that really convinced me.
Buying foreign players is a double-edged strategy, as they are better in some cases than their South Korean counterparts, but they struggle to integrate into the group and above all none of them want to learn the language.
There is a lack of a bridge player, a foreigner who has learned Korean, who can help the newcomers learn the language. As things stand at the moment, Korean and foreign players are like water and oil, they don't mix even if you shake them.
I don't  want to buy too many foreign players until the problem is solved.

Ro-Shaun Williams

Spoiler

A fairly well-known defender for anyone who has played in the English lower leagues, he is young and can improve, plus he has good pace, an attribute my defence lacked.

Cristian Lema

Spoiler

Veteran defender, solid, quite reliable, good in aerial attributes.

Misc:

European teams started to aim at my players, so far I've been lucky because none of them asked me to leave or became upset after denying a trade.

I'm also starting to receive the first job offers, it flatters me but the times are not ready for me to leave Suwon.

[broodje kip]

Great going so far. Some great signings either and that RBNY job looks very tempting but I understand why you rejected them.

[hhooo]

Sounds like you need an emulsifier! Try buying someone from Dijon. 

Edited March 3, 2021 by hhooo

[Rich]

Well done mate, great start to this 👍

[PoulShell]

January 2022 Update - End of Season 2

Second national league in a row, good season and consistent performance throughout the year.

As to ACL, we managed to reach the final, but sadly we got defeated by Qatari team Al-Sadd. Honestly, I think that we could have won the title, but we played poorly and got a bit unlucky in the double matchup against the winners. Still, it's not a bad result for our first run in the cup. My national hero Kim Gun-Hee didn't perform as good as I expected from him, he got into a bit of a slump during the whole season, performing below his abilities. 

Team Stats:

Spoiler

Awards:

Spoiler

Coach of the Year

Player of the Year

Young Player of the Year

Top Scorer

Team of the Year

The first offers from Europe, the Fener one was really tempting, but my job here is not done yet.

Spoiler

Now it's time for transfer market: we have a bit of money to spend and I'm looking to improve my team, I really want that ACL title as soon as possibile.

I'll do a quick update in March when the market window closes, so I can show you who's coming and who's leaving.

As to the challenge, correct me if I'm mistaken, I got 5 points.

2021: 5 points

Edited March 4, 2021 by PoulShell

[Rich]

Well done mate, great going so far. Good luck next season 👍

[PoulShell]

As promised, here it is the update on the Winter 2022 transfermarket.

The Transfers

This was definitely a more lively session than last one, both in terms of ins and outs.

We got our first big sell, Jun Se-Jin wanted to leave so there was no point in refusing the €7m offer by MLS team Columbus Crew. I would have loved to keep him, he's very good and actually I was thinking of making him my new national hero, but he wanted to play at an higher level.

Spoiler

Our starting right wing, the Uzbek Rashidov, is declining, so I got a replacement who's both younger and better than him.

From Fenerbahce, joins Suwon...

Barış Alıcı

Spoiler

Our backup striker, Nicolao, left for Heerenveen, so I had to find a replacement. I managed to find one that's probably better than my starting player Uros Deric, so this year I have two target man that I can switch pretty safely.

Carlos Strandberg

Spoiler

The next two players both came from Crewe Alexandria, they were transfer listed so I managed to snatch them at a bargain price, adding depth to my roster.

Rio Adebisi

Spoiler

Will Jaaskelainen

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The next signing is another Turkish winger, this time from Galatasaray, he's the first backup as left winger at the moment, but Kim Min-Woo who's starting is 32, so I guess the turkish will have his moments to shine.

Muhammed Kerem Aktürkoğlu

Spoiler

The last three players arrived at the end of 2021, they were without a contract and I couldn't resist bringing them here in Suwon.

One of them is an old acquaintance of European football, a former wonderkid who never fulfilled his potential, he's now 29 but still a very solid and classy central midfielder.

Marco Van Ginkel

Spoiler

The other one is a young offensive midfielder, he has the potential to become a starting player in my team.

Meritan Shabani

Spoiler

The last player for today is a former City player, he arrived in Manchester in 2016 and since then he was loaned out for 5 years without ever playing in the first team. I'm offering him a chance for redemption, hoping he'll show what once was true potential.

Marlos Moreno

Spoiler

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by PoulShell

[Rich]

Some nice signings there mate, good job, good lucky for the season 😁