Career Mr.manager Takes On The Bradley Wiggins Challenge

[Mr.Manager]

The Bradley Wiggins Challenge

Thanks to @danovic78 for coming up with this brilliant career idea. For anyone who hasn't seen the original post, here's a link: 

So without further ado, let's get on with the challenge!

The League

The first stop of our journey takes us to the Pro League in Belgium, a country I've never played in before.

Famous for chocolates and waffles, and being the birthplace of Audrey Hepburn and Dr Evil (no, really!), it should be a fascinating trial to take on the small nation's best.

There's only the League and cup to fight for this season, and it looks like we'll have to go into a second season to retain the Belgian super cup as we're not in it this season.

The Team

At the start of this career, I found out two things I'd never known before:

1) Wiggo is from Belgium! Who knew?! I thought he was the most British athlete out there

2) Gent's team is actually of a decent standard.

You'll note that I've called them Gent there. Weirdly, the team seems to change names in the game between KAA Gent and AA Gent. 

The K stands for Koninklijke (you already knew that didn't you?), which is Royal in English. I think I'd want to be known as Royal all the time.

Anyway, as I said, the team is of a decent standard. The board did have some pretty high expectations...

...but a young squad with plenty of potential gives me hope. I've even heard of a few of their players, including this young winger:

Transfers

I've brought in a bunch of free transfers and loan deals to pad out the squad. There were funds available to spend a bit of money, and I'm not making this challenge any harder by only getting freebies, but I couldn't see anyone on my budget that would significantly strengthen the squad.

And Finally...

It only occurred to me after I'd passed the transfer window but surely there's a way to make this even more about the cycling legend Sir Bradley Wiggins...

I doubt you could afford buying them both in your first season, but maybe some sort of squad editor could be done...?

Anyway, I'll wrap that up there. I'm already halfway through the first season so will post an update again soon.

[danovic78]

Good to see someone have a bash at this.

Nice find with those two players, like @Ashez"Hulk Hogan" Story.

Gent do have some nice little players. You have made some good loan signings. Akpom and Mandragora are perfect for that league.

[Ashez]

Good luck mate  

[Mr.Manager]

2 hours ago, danovic78 said:

Good to see someone have a bash at this.

Nice find with those two players, like @Ashez"Hulk Hogan" Story.

Gent do have some nice little players. You have made some good loan signings. Akpom and Mandragora are perfect for that league.

Thanks for the idea mate, I really like it.

I know, I was thinking of the Hulk Hogan one when I spotted it. They're both good enough to do well in the Pro League although I imagine Wiggins would struggle at United or City in that stage of the career!

You're right about Akpom and Mandragora. More on Akpom in my next update.

added 0 minutes later

1 hour ago, Ashez said:

Good luck mate

Thanks mate!

[Mr.Manager]

Mid season(ish) update

I'm not entirely au fait with how the Belgian league works, but, from what I can gather, there's a 30 game main season (with each of the 16 teams playing each other home and away), after which the league splits in two. The top six go into a Championship group, the teams in 7th to 15th go into a European Places Playoff (knockouts?), and the bottom team is relegated.

Is that right? That's crazy! I know the Scottish, Polish and Welsh leagues do the split thing but I've never seen such a convoluted league system before.

Anyway, I'm posting this update at the midpoint of the main season. So I've now played 15 league games.

The League

After a slightly shaky start, we've found our rhythm on the domestic front; winning our last 7 games in a row and not even conceded a goal in that time. Barring a Keegan's Newcastle capitulation, we look well on course to win the league and tick off our first trophy of the challenge.

The Cups

It may only be late November, but the Belgian cup is already into it's seventh round. There's 16 teams left at that stage (including us), which should mean that the competition lasts for a nice whole 10 rounds. Still a way to go yet then.

Unfortunately, things weren't looking quite so pretty in the Euro Cup.

We overcame Cukaricki in the third qualifying round but crashed out on penalties in the playoffs. In fairness, I was still getting to know my team and we did dominate over the two legs but not even managing a goal was fairly embarrassing.

I know that winning a European trophy was only a bonus to the challenge but I really would like to tick that off with each team too if I can.

The Tactics

Nothing revolutionary in the tactics I've used, where I generally rotate between a 4-1-2-2-1 and a 4-2-3-1.

You can see from our league form that we've been extremely difficult to break down. All credit goes to our DMC for that, who is a bit of a beast:

We've also started to find the back of the net in recent months, which is all down to our superstar loanee. Check out the development of Akpom:

And Finally...

All is going well in the early months of this career and so I'm feeling confident that I can complete the first leg fairly swiftly. Which has me thinking about the next part of my journey. Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho remain the present incumbents at City and United. Neither of them are doing particularly well in the league, but neither of them are looking insecure on the job front yet either. And even if they do get sacked, why would either of those giants take a punt on a relatively unknown manager like me? I have a feeling that I might be stuck in Belgium for a while...

[BatiGoal]

Very solid start, mate! Esiti does look great. KIU!

[Mr.Manager]

End of Season 1 Update

So during my last half season update, we'd taken an early lead in the league and had been awarded the footballing equivalent of the yellow jersey. Would we keep up that pace and bring it home? Let's find out

The League

Thankfully we continued to chug along comfortably in the league, putting together the odd long winning streak and enjoying the odd freak result like this:

At the end of the regular season, we'd built up a nice healthy lead:

And so we began the championship group stage. Which halved all of our points totals. Which meant my lead was also halved. What the hell?!

I also found out that we play each team in this group twice, which meant that there was still another 10 games to go. Could we hang on?

Of course we could! We dropped more points then I would like but a solid league win in my first season felt like a good start to this challenge

The Cups

We'd already crashed out of the Euro Cup and we weren't in the Belgian Super Cup, so all we had left to battle for was the Belgian Cup. How did we do?

Another victory! The first double in Belgian football since Club Brugge back in 1995/96, and in our first season to boot.

That leaves us with just the Belgian Super Cup to win before we can look to move on to the next stage of the challenge.

The Players

A wildly successful debut season wasn't enough for me to win the Manager of the Season award (obviously), but we did see Akpom and Mandagora win the player of the season and young player of the season awards respectively:

That wasn't the only honour bestowed upon Akpom in fact, as his top scoring season led to an international call up:

Congrats Chuba!

I also just wanted to give a shout out to one of the free transfers we picked up. I'm sure a lot of you have seen this guy when looking for good cheap players at the start of the game...

Deployed in an inside forward role, Koc absolutely rocked his first season in the Pro League.

And Finally...

With a lot of members of this community taking on the 1k challenge in recent weeks, I'd like to suggest the Belgian league as a possible destination for it. 40 league games and two legged semi finals in the cup, means you should be able to rack up the games. If you manage a decent run in Europe, you should be able to get around or about 60 games in total. A team like Anderlecht should have a large enough budget to pick up a good teenage striker, and with players like Tielemans in their squad there's plenty of creativity there already. Worth a shot maybe?

 

 

 

[Mr.Manager]

Season 2

So with the league and Cup double achieved in our first season, there was only the Belgian Super Cup left for us to complete the first stage of this challenge. The game, against erstwhile giants of the domestic scene Anderlecht, was set for late July, which meant that I could be ready for a move to Manchester before the BPL season even started. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have to win this one first...

Comprehensive!

Stage 1 Complete.

Stage 2

Stage 2 will take us to Manchester, to take over at either the Etihad or Old Trafford. We won't be able to do that though until the jobs become available, so how's it looking?

The Arsenal job is available! But nothing in Manchester. Hmm... how did they do last season?

The double for Mourinho! Oh. He's going nowhere. How about Pep?

3rd in the Prem. Not too shabby. Doesn't look like either of the jobs will become available anytime soon. Damn!

The squad

Following the same formula as last season, we bolstered our squad with mostly loan signings and cheap acquisitions:

Whilst we turned over a nice profit from our transfers out:

You might have spotted that we managed to bring Akpom back to our team after a successful first season (and he even picked up a half trick in the super cup). 

It was another glorious season for him, finishing as league player of the year again and runner up for world player of the year.

Completely unexpected for a Belgian league player.

The rest of the season

We won the league at a canter...

...but failed to defend the Belgian Cup, losing out in the seventh round to Club Brugge.

In Europe, we progressed through a reasonably tricky group:

And were awarded a tie against Manchester United in the first knockout round. 

Here I spied an opportunity! Perhaps I can knock Mourinho down to size here. If we can dump them out of the Cup, perhaps that will set the wheels in motion for a slump in form and his inevitable sacking. This is it!

The bookies thought it'd be a close one:

And that proved to be correct, as the first leg finished in a draw:

One feature of the game that I was astounded by was their use of Mkhitaryan:

Playing one of your most attacking players as a sweeper?! Who is this joker Mourinho?? Sack him now!

Surely I could demonstrate my managerial superiority to the Manchester United hierarchy in the second leg.

Woops! We got a pasting. The press were unusually forgiving though:

A narrow 4-1 loss!

End of season 

The rest of the season was a bit of a churn as we only had the league to concentrate on. I kept glancing over the English leagues to take note of any slip up in Manchester but neither club would oblige.

And Finally...

Our exploits in the Champions League have whetted my appetite for winning the competition with Gent. The original challenge had success in Europe with each club only as a bonus but I would love to do that too. However, I do plan to return to Gent as part of the sixth and final stage of the challenge, and so I wonder if I'll have to wait until then to get my hands on European silverware. Only time will tell...

[BatiGoal]

Mourinho's sacking will come eventually. Especially if he keeps playing his strikers as defenders

Keep up the good work!

[Mr.Manager]

Season 3

 

With each domestic trophy in Belgian football sitting pretty in our trophy cabinet, the basic aim of season 3 was simply to move on. Unfortunately, that remained easier said than done.

 

Guardiola and Mourinho remained at the helm in both Manchester jobs, and, whilst Manchester United had performed better than Manchester City since then, neither looked in danger at the start of the season.

 

However, as the season progressed, there were signs that all was not well at the Etihad. The first I noticed was during one of my routine checks of the job market in December…

 

Pep was looking insecure. Interesting. Then, a week later, the Spaniard received an ominous message from his board…

 

Surely that makes him a dead man walking. 

 

3 days later, the board were on his back again.

And again in another 2 days. 

Jeez, guys, ever heard of subtlety?! I was starting to feel sorry for the guy. A fourth message would arrive a week later:

 

And then…

 

…Nothing. For almost the whole of January, the club did nothing. Had Pep begun to turn it around? Or were the board all talk?

 

Finally, at the end of the month, Pep's contract was terminated.

 

I didn't hesitate to jump in to his grave and applied for the job that very same day. I didn't feature on the list of potential candidates worryingly, but I hoped that my triumphs with Gent would make me the obvious choice.

 

I waited patiently, checking and double checking my mail every day to see if that little note confirming me as the next Manchester City manager had arrived. I couldn't wait to start the next step of my journey and to finally escape from the cursed hellhole that is Belgium (sorry Belgium).

 

Noooo! They've gone for the Northern Irishman! What were they thinking? I mean, yes, he has more experience than me, and yes he has managed in the Premier League before. And yes, he did a pretty good job at Liverpool and then Celtic. And yes, I was still little known outside of Belgium... 

 

On reflection, I can see why they plumped for the more experienced man. It can't have been an easy decision for them - they'd left me hanging for two weeks. But there was nothing I could do but pick myself up and resolve to increase my standing in the global arena.

 

The rest of the season

 

I won't go into too much detail with regards to the squad and how we fared domestically. Needless to say, I brought in another host of talented loanees and cheap signings, and we swept all before us on the domestic front.

125 goals in the league might be the most I've ever managed.

"And how about in Europe?", I hear you ask.

 

Well, after last season's ruminations about whether I might get to win a European trophy before departing Gent, things went remarkably well.

 

We scrambled through a group containing Arsenal and Bayern…

Beat Atletico 5-2 on aggregate in the first knockout round…

Beat Spurs 5-0 on aggregate in the quarters (I forgot to take a screenshot), before facing Barcelona in the semis:

 

A very tight contest but we managed to squeeze through!

 

In the final, we were set up to meet Bayern Munich. We had already faced them twice in the group stages, and they had just about had the edge over us…

 

But we'd come on leaps and bounds since then.

 

Champions of Europe after just 3 seasons, I'm very proud of that. I bet Manchester City wish they'd hired me now…

 

And Finally…

 

A lot of my success in the last three seasons has been down to the incredible quality that I've been able to pick up on loan. In previous seasons, the likes of Akpom, Mandragora, Suso and Grujic have been immense for me and this season has offered more of the same. A look at the average ratings for my squad shows three loanees with extremely high scores:

Roberts and Kenedy in particular had stunning seasons, and it's not hard to see why:

Part of me does feel that it is unrealistic that a team like Gent can pick up players of that quality for free. I'm not really sure how to fix it though, as the players obviously have the potential, and all I'm doing is offering them regular playing time. Has anyone else found that it has been easy to pick up a large number of brilliant loanees for inferior clubs?

 

Edited February 25, 2017 by Mr.Manager

[Mr.Manager]

16 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Mourinho's sacking will come eventually. Especially if he keeps playing his strikers as defenders

Keep up the good work!

Haha thanks BG! Maybe it's Mourinho's take on the Ronald Koeman challenge...! I'm enjoying that one, Bazoer looks incredible at this stage.

[Mr.Manager]

Seasons 4 & 5

We can work our way through this update quite quickly because the only thing I'm really interested in are the jobs at Manchester United and Manchester City.

Over at the Theatre of Dreams, Mourinho was still in charge and enjoying himself. Having finished runner up in the league for the previous 2 seasons, United romped to the title in the 2020/21 season, finishing 7 points clear of Spurs in second, and picking up an (ingame) record number of points and goals in the process.

They also managed to finish runners up in the EFL cup this season.

The winners of that particular trophy, incidentally, were Manchester City. Despite interviewing me for the Manchester City job in January 2019, the board plumped for Brendan Rodgers instead. Rodgers has had a bit of a topsy-turvy time of it over at Eastlands since then, winning the Euro Cup in that first season, and trumping that by winning the league in his second. But in this last season they've had a bit of a nightmare, struggling to even qualify for Europe before stuttering in at fifth.  Rodgers' personal profile has his job status as insecure but he remains in charge there for the time being.

I did get a job offer from Chelsea, but that came around just a little too soon on our journey. Hard as it was to turn down all that money, I had to reject it.

So, as far as this challenge goes, I remain in limbo. I am still stuck in Belgium, patiently waiting for the opportunity to board a plane to Manchester. The idea of this challenge was to follow the path of Sir Bradley Wiggins and stop at all the significant junctures of his career. I note that it took him 22 years to get from Gent to Manchester. I hope to god it doesn't take me that long!

Gent

The last few seasons at Gent have been as trophy laden as ever, with two domestic trebles to go with our European Super Cup and Club World Championship.

The only blemishes on the record really were consecutive defeats at the semi final stage of the European Cup. In the most recent case, we were dumped out due to an away goal we conceded in injury time in the first leg, so that was something of a sickener.

 And Finally...

After signing the brilliant Timo Horn in net, our defence has become close to impenetrable. So much so that I noticed that we went through a spell from October 2020 to January 2021 where we didn't concede a single goal. That's fully 15 games without Timo Horn having to pick the ball out of the net.

Assuming there's an average of 3 minutes extra time in each game, that's 93 x 15 = 1,395 minutes without conceding a goal.

The current world record for games without conceding was also set in the Belgian Pro League, by Danny Verlinden for Club Brugge. Between March and September 1990, Verlinden remained unbeaten in the Belgian league for... 1,390 minutes. 5 minutes less than Horn. That's another record broken by us!

[Mr.Manager]

Seasons 6 & 7    

Name: Bradley Wiggins

Age: 52

Occupation: Football manager

Area: Belgium

Looking for: "A Manchester football club for short term relationship"

In his own words: "Successful English manager seeks a northern powerhouse to take the next step with. Passionate, fun-loving and exciting and looking for the same in a club."

 

Things are getting desperate.     

                

Unfortunately, both Manchester United and Manchester City remain in long term relationships. Come on guys, ditch those boring old sods and try out a newer model!        

                

I have to admit I may have thought twice about starting this challenge had I known how difficult it'd be to land a job in Manchester…   

                

Gent      

                

Things keep ticking over at Gent. 2 more league titles, 4 more cups, yadda yadda yadda…            

                

We did make another European Cup final in 2021/22, but were beaten in extra time by Barcelona. I failed to take a screenshot, sorry about that.    

                

We were there again though in 2022/23 and this time… 

               

And Finally…     

The wait for a job in Manchester is killing me. I know as soon as I've got over this hurdle this challenge will be a doddle but it is driving me crazy waiting for the opportunity to arise. 

Have any of you guys been in a similar position before? What did you do to keep it interesting?

[BatiGoal]

Quote

Have any of you guys been in a similar position before? What did you do to keep it interesting?

I have actually. Was waiting for my main striker to age so I could sign him with a smaller team and continue the challenge

Just keep doing your thing, perhaps test or experiment with a couple of new things that you might need/meet along the way at a further stage in the challenge. Patience, you'll get there. Goodluck!

[Mr.Manager]

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Just keep doing your thing, perhaps test or experiment with a couple of new things that you might need/meet along the way at a further stage in the challenge. Patience, you'll get there. Goodluck!

Thanks BG, that's the pep talk I need.

[Mr.Manager]

Seasons 8 & 9

For almost a decade I laboured away in Belgium, waiting for the opportunity to seize a job in Manchester.

Once before an opening had become available, but I was beaten to it by a perma-tanned Northern Irishman. From the day forth, I vowed to never miss out again.

 

Seasons came and went, and my stock and reputation in world football grew. But my lot was not to stay with KAA Gent forever. I had a destiny to fulfil.

 

I watched from afar as United and City battled for top honours in England. For 5 consecutive seasons the title was won by one of the two clubs, and Mourinho and Rodgers became legends of the game.

 

But all the while, I was there. Waiting and watching. Waiting. Waiting.

 

…

 

And then one day, Rodgers got fired!

This was my chance.  Although I wasn't considered amongst the bookies favourites for the jobs, I wasn't going to let this one slip by.

Thankfully, City knew a good thing when they saw one, and I was duly offered the job.

 

At last!

KAA Gent

Although I was desperate to get out of Belgium and get on with the challenge, it was with a heavy heart that I left the club.

I'd won virtually every trophy available multiple times, and our win record had been unreal.

 

 

We even had the honour of holding the reigning world player of the year (and the runner up).

There were a lot of players in that squad that I had grown attached to, and it was rough to say goodbye to them. But say goodbye I must.

Who knows, maybe I'll return to Gent one day…

Manchester City

It was raining when I arrived in Manchester, and my mood was not lifted when I assessed the team I had inherited.

The club was sitting in 8th place in the Premier League - just ahead of QPR, but behind Stoke - after a woeful run of form, and had been unceremoniously dumped out of all cup competitions.

 

 

Rodgers had recruited terribly, leaving me with a team featuring no full backs at all and very few central midfielders. There were a number of quality players, but, for the most part, it was a squad full of over-the-hill and overpaid mediocrity.

               

 

The size of the task in front of me was highlighted by a draw away at Stoke in my first game. But, gradually, my idea began to take hold. We finished the season with an impressive winning streak, and squeaked in to the European places ahead of Arsenal on the final week of the season.

 

 

 

The summer is going to see of a massive overhaul of the team, as we make a push to win all competitions. Bring it on.

 

The Challenge

Stage 1 - Gent √

Stage 2 - Manchester (current)

Stage 3 - Germany x

Stage 4 - France x

Stage 5 - London x

Bonus Stage - Gent x

 

Edited March 7, 2017 by Mr.Manager
Formatting!

[BatiGoal]

Finally a Manchester job!! 'bout time. The table looks terrible on my phone btw so I'll have a better look at your progress on my PC.

Goodluck guiding the citizens to success.

[Mr.Manager]

52 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Finally a Manchester job!! 'bout time. The table looks terrible on my phone btw so I'll have a better look at your progress on my PC.

Goodluck guiding the citizens to success.

Haha tell me about it!

Thanks BG! I think you're right about the table, I'll see if I can sort it out.

[Ashez]

Congrats on finally getting the job  

[Mr.Manager]

19 hours ago, Ashez said:

Congrats on finally getting the job

Thanks Ashez!

[Mr.Manager]

Season 10

 

After such a long delay in Belgium, I wasted no time in getting stuck in to the second leg of this challenge.

 

The Manchester City squad I inherited was completely gutted, as I bashed the team into something more suited to my requirements. I brought 3 of my comrades over from Gent (with a fourth to follow in January), and wasn't afraid of spending big on the best talent out there.

 

 

 

There were three domestic trophies available this season - the league, the FA cup and the league cup. There was also the slog of the Europa League, something I'd never won with Gent.

 

With the squad I had built, the aim had to be to win them all.

 

The League

 

We were undefeated until May, and I genuinely thought we were going to last the whole season. Unfortunately a close battle against Liverpool saw us finally succumb in the 35th game of the season.

 

Still, we absolutely smashed the league, picking up 103 points and scoring 108 goals in the process.

 

 

The Cups

 

Our first piece of silverware arrived a little earlier in the season, with our boys overcoming the other Manchester club 1-0 in the final.

 

 

Mourinho remains in charge there. Looks like he's aiming to be the next Busby or Ferguson.

 

We had a very comfortable run in the FA Cup, facing lower league opposition in almost every round until the final.

 

There we met Spurs, who put up a good fight before going down 2-1

 

 

And last but not least, we also triumphed in the Europa League, beating Dortmund 3-0 in the final.

 

 

A clean sweep of trophies.

 

I'd also like to give a shout out to Iheanacho, who claimed the World Player of the Year award in December. For the second season in a row, both the winner and runner up came from my club.

 

 

And Finally…

 

A fantastic first season with City resulted in us winning every trophy available to us.

 

I'm getting ready to don my lederhosen and chomp on a bratwurst as the next step of the challenge takes us to Germany.

 

However, I can't move on just yet. The rules of the challenge stated that "At each stage you must win all domestic trophies available before you can move to the next stage."

 

I've taken that to include the community shield, even though technically that domestic trophy wasn't available to us last season. I'm unsure whether the original challenge meant to include it or not, but for the sake of completeness I may as well go for it.

 

Also, there aren't any Bundesliga jobs available to us yet anyway…

 

 

Thanks for reading, all comments welcome!

 

[Mr.Manager]

Season 11

 

Now we're building up a head of steam. Last season's successes mean that only the Community Shield stands between us and a move to Germany for the Stage 3 of this challenge.

 

Given that the Community Shield is the first game of the English season, I decided to stick with what I've got and not spend any of the huge transfer kitty available to me. After all, I might be pinching players from my prospective German employers if all goes to plan...

 

That tie was to be against Liverpool on the 8th August. Just in case, I checked when the German Super Cup was scheduled. 20th August- Wolfsburg vs Gelsenkirchen. If I'm very lucky I might even get to win both…

 

But first, to the task at hand:

 

 

 

Oh they won't be singing my name when I leave them in a lurch just before the season starts.

 

And that's Stage 2 complete!

 

Stage 3 - Germany

 

The stars aligned with this one, as the Wolfsburg job was sitting there waiting for me. I applied and got the job within a week, barely enough time to pack my bags.

 

 

 

Although Wolfsburg had won the league the previous season, I wasn't impressed with their squad. They had no wide players whatsoever, which meant I had to do a fair amount of wheeling and dealing to build a squad capable of playing in my preferred formation.

 

My luck continued to be in though, as we pulled off a 2-0 victory over Leverkusen in the German Super Cup.

 

 

 

With that one down, it was time to set our sights on the remaining cups available. With no league cup equivalent, there was only the league and the German Cup to compete for domestically. We were also in the Champions League, but that doesn't count towards the main challenge here and given my squad's limitations I couldn't see us going far in that.

 

 

The League

 

Bayern remain the team to beat in Germany, having won 8 of the last 10 titles since my save begun.

 

But, as the season drew to a close, we were still right up there with them, trading places at the pinnacle of the Bundesliga.

 

 

 

We had a slightly trickier (and busier) run in to the end of the season, but luck had been on my side so far….

 

On the final day of the season, we needed to beat Hoffenheim and we needed Bayern to stumble against RBL.

 

We kept up our end of the bargain, and Bayern did fall behind to RBL. But it wasn't to be, as Bayern triumphed 4-2 in the end and reclaimed their league title.

 

 

 

That means I'll be staying in Germany for at least one more season.

 

The Cups

 

With the German Super Cup already sitting proudly in my trophy cabinet, we were hoping to pair that with the German Cup.

 

As you might have noticed from the fixtures earlier, we had managed to book our place in the final against Leverkusen.

 

 

 

We were tired after a long season, but we managed to hold on to beat them 1-0.

 

Even more impressive, we somehow scraped through to the Champions League final. Alas, we were outclassed in the final, beaten 3-1 by Atletico Madrid. We will be back!

 

 

 

Challenge Progress

 

Stage 1: Gent, Belgium - Complete

Stage 2: Manchester, England - Complete

Stage 3: Germany - Active

Stage 4: France - Not yet started

Stage 5: London, England - Not yet started

Bonus stage: Gent, Belgium - Not yet started

 

Thanks for reading, all comments welcome!

[BatiGoal]

Doing great man. Wolfsburg is a nice team to manage. Love the club colors too. Long road ahead still but keep going!

[Mr.Manager]

Season 12

 

A cup double in my debut season in Germany meant that only the league stood between me and Stage 4 of this challenge.

 

Winning that, though, would be easier said than done. Bayern stood in my way, and they had shown last season that they weren't going to be cowed by our upstarts from Saxony.

 

I had identified two possible areas for improvement to help us claim the title:

 

a) Score more goals - our miserly defence had only conceded 9 league goals all season but with only 51 goals scored we were seriously lacking firepower.

 

b) Manage the fixtures better - we had been top until the penultimate game of the season but draws against Augsburg and Frankfurt were signs that our thin squad had been stretched too far.

 

The plan then was to strengthen our options up front, which would hopefully help us bag more goals and rotate players more effectively.

 

The League

 

Things didn't really go to plan however…

 

 

Despite an opening day 6-0 win, by week 8 we'd already lost more games and conceded as many goals as in the entirety of last season.

 

Thankfully, my ideas gradually took hold, and we went the rest of the season unbeaten, eventually finishing 8 points clear of Bayern.

 

 

The Cups

 

In order to compete in the league, I decided to sacrifice the cups. It was a tricky decision, as I really wanted to win a European trophy with each club, but in the end completing the challenge had to take priority.

 

Fielding second string teams, I was dumped out of the German Cup on penalties by Bayern and beaten in the quarter finals of the Champions League by my old club, Man City. Ah well.

 

I did win the German Super Cup again though!

 

And Finally…

 

I just wanted to flag up the exploits of my star striker, Victor Osimhen.

 

Some of you may have used him already, as he's a free transfer at the beginning of the game. At only 17, he has bags of potential but is probably not ready for first team action at most clubs that can afford his wages.

 

Way back in this career I snapped him up for Gent and, a few seasons later, sold him on to Wolfsburg for a tidy £6.75m.

 

Since then, he's grown into a real stalwart for the team, scoring a monstrous amount of goals in the process. He was crowned player of the year in both my seasons with him and was even runner up for world player of the year.

 

 

Not bad for a lad you can get on a free on day 1.

 

Challenge Progress

 

Stage 1: Gent, Belgium - Complete

Stage 2: Manchester, England - Complete

Stage 3: Germany - Complete

Stage 4: France - Not yet started

Stage 5: London, England - Not yet started

Bonus stage: Gent, Belgium - Not yet started

 

Join me next time as I have a crack at a job in France! Sacre bleu!

 

Thanks for reading, all comments welcome!

[mcandrew003]

Absoloutely fantastic mate, almost there now! France should be easy if you get the right team, good luck!

[Mr.Manager]

35 minutes ago, mcandrew003 said:

Absoloutely fantastic mate, almost there now! France should be easy if you get the right team, good luck!

Thanks pal! France has been ok, although the team I went for isn't the strongest...

[BatiGoal]

You Wolfed it in the Bundesliga. And Osimhen looks badass. Nice work! Stage 4 next? You got this.

[Mr.Manager]

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

You Wolfed it in the Bundesliga. And Osimhen looks badass. Nice work! Stage 4 next? You got this.

Haha, wolfed it! I really like Osimhen. I tend to pick him up whatever career I'm doing as I like the way he develops. Cheers mate

[Taff]

Just caught up on all of this and it's a great read and you are doing amazingly well, shame about having to sit in Belgium for so long but after My stint with them in one of my earlier careers on FMM17 I too have developed a soft spot for (K)AA Gent

[Mr.Manager]

23 hours ago, Taff said:

Just caught up on all of this and it's a great read and you are doing amazingly well, shame about having to sit in Belgium for so long but after My stint with them in one of my earlier careers on FMM17 I too have developed a soft spot for (K)AA Gent

Thanks Taff! It's been good to get out and try new leagues. Ha being stuck in Belgium for so long was beginning to drive me crazy but I do kind of miss them now