Ostbahner - Austrian Road to Glory

We're not a very successful team, in terms of the trophy cabinet, which I will obviously be looking to fill over the years

Finally, We're predicted to finish dead-centre of the table, and I am not sure I will be able to get promotion immediately but, maybe within 3 years, or hopefully, anyway.

USV Allerheiligen have been made favourites for the league. We are predicted to, if we perform well enough, to be around the promotion places, which is good. I am not necessarily aiming to be promoted straight away, but I will more than take it.

One of the main problems with the team is squad depth. And without the sufficient finance to help us, it will be tough holding on to players and also signing new ones.

This is our best player. A 6'3", 28 year old centre back. He has one U21 cap for Austria, however his wages are high for this level. I also tried renewing his contract and he doesn't think the club matches his ambitions, unfortunately.

I have made 2 signing so far and this is definitely the better of the two. He was released by PSV and is only 18. He is on £200 p/week and his only downsides are his height and strength. Standing at only 5'3" and a measly 3 strength, he will most likely get bullied, but he is great on the ball and also fast, so hopefully it wont happen to often.

I have already stumbled across a major problem. Everyone's contract is expiring but almost all the amateur contracted players want full time contracts. But more disappointingly, the top three on the list are all key players, but none of which want to sign new deals.

The minimum expectation for the Landesliga season, is that we finish mid-table. I feel we should be able to do better than that, and the Samsung Cup; they expect us to reach the sixth round which is realistic

Wow. Didn't expect this. My first game in charge, and we play Lafnitz who are predicted to come 3rd, and we won 3-1. We dominated the first half, and 8 minutes in, new signing, Youandi Renfurm, scored. Didn't expect to win, but the team really performed.

A few people made their debuts...

The Samsung Cup draw today, and there was a small amount of 2049 teams in the draw...

But we got SVG Mayrhofen who are two divisions below us.

With aims of promotion, we begin the season.

After the Lafnitz game I already showed you unfortunately, form has slightly dropped off. SC Kaisdorf, who are predicted to come towards the top of the table, beat us 2-0. We deserved something, but unfortunately couldn't take our chances. But after that, we drew 3 games against three teams who are meant to finish below us. SB Absams are meant to finish rock bottom, and thats where they were when we played them. We dominated Gaflenz but they played on the counter attack, and executed it perfectly and came back right at the end. Axams played well and deserved a draw, but we need to capitalise on the easy run of fixtures.

And with all the slip-ups we are in 11th. Although we are one place above the initial expectation, I feel we can finish a lot higher than that. If we had of won the three game that we should have, then we would be top of the league. We will continue on, but it's going to be difficult. After 6 games, I am predicting a 5th/6th placed finish.

Finally, Benjamin Koglbauer is only 19 and starting for us. He is a good player but, unfortunately, he is another one who won't sign a new deal. But the team is very youthful, with both wings having a combined age of 39

Murat Safin is the number 1, but will probably leave at the end of his contract as he is 35. Is also eligible for Austria, but I don't see an international call-up coming anytime soon. Our second choice is just a young 17 year old.

Daniel Gramman is obviously the best defender, however he is most likely leaving at the end of the year. The next 3 defenders have an average age of 21, which reiterates my point about the youthful look of the team. We have 4 left backs, two of which have contract offers from other teams. I wan't to keep at least one of them, but I would prefer not to offer them full time contracts. Havlik is a backup right back, and is 17, so should have a good future here.

However the youthful nature of the squad goes out the window slightly, as two of the three midfielder are over 30. Yuksel Sariyar is 36 and the starting DM. Kayhan and Turkmen are the two advanced playmakers, but Turkmen is only 19. Can play left wing as well. Michael Reeh and Tolga Yilmaz are both teenagers, and backups. Yilmaz will most likely operate as a left wing, but can also do a job in centre midfielder.

The two starting wingers are teenagers, Youandi Renfurm and Benjamin Koglbauer are the two starters however Turkmen can also play left wing. We have a 17 year old Afghani called Ziajan Sharifi who can play anywhere across the wings and also up front

Roman Makarevych is the starting striker. The Ukrainian will operate as a false nine, but he can't play there confidently so I will train him there. The other two are Borja Kappel and Dalibor Stokic. Kappel is more likely to play than Stokic, but they're both on amateur contracts so its not too important how much they play.

This is starting to get frustrating. We lost 3-0 at home to a team who should be finishing mid-table as well. But more so the fact that they only had 5 shots and scored 3 of them. But these things happen, however, it has happened in 4 of the last 5 games I have played. Also it happens a lot in FM for me, that whenever I use a new tactic, it generally starts off well and as soon as we lose one game, the form just becomes none existent.

Form has to turn round, otherwise my promotion ambitions are out of the window, but also the possibility of finishing below mid-table, and getting the sack. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen though

The transfer window has just slammed shut, and these are all of the dealing I have made

We have another lower league team in the shape of ATSV Sattledt, which should mean progression to the next round

11 games into my first season in Austria, and so far, we are having a slow start by my intentionally high standards

However, form has thankfully picked up, down to a few factors: Tightening up the defence - We had an obvious weakness, and that was in defence. We lacked depth and even our starting players weren't great, but signings have changed that, I think; A change of tactic - I decided to try a new tactic, and I went for 2 up front in a 4-2-2-2 formation and it seems to be working well; finally, the form of Benjamin Koglbauer - He was initially out on the wing, but I moved him into a central position, and his form has drastically improved. Since the tactic change, he has scored 11 goals in 7 games, including one hat trick! He is also the second top goalscorer in the league We are also through to the fourth round after winning the previous two

The last time I showed the league table, we were below where I wanted and hoped we'd be, and it was leading me to think "am I overestimating how good the team actually is...?"

...But those concerns have been answered as we have rocketed up the table, and we're now in 5th. Kaisdorf are having a really disappointing season, and are down in 17th, and their win against us was their last to date. On the other end of the spectrum, Union Gurten are having a great season, and are in second. But the reason I bring them up is we play them next, and they have just lost their second of the season against 12th placed Retz, so we have a real chance against them, which could potentially see us move up into 4th spot, if results go our way! I will post the game on here once I have played it

Well, it's not the game I hoped for, nor expected given the fact that we have the top two goalscorers in the league, however, theirs did get a 2 month injury during the game, so that played it's part. We performed valiantly against a team who had been winning every game for a period, however, instead of consolidating 5th spot, we have dropped to 8th. Still decent but not what I want. Also, I have just checked the promotion and relegation rules (probably should have done that earlier) and the top 4 get automatic promotion, and 5th goes into a promotion play-off, presumably against one of the relegated teams from the division above. Also the bottom 6 go down automatically, which seems pretty harsh. However, the promotion rules have only fueled my hunger for promotion this year as it is now a lot more attainable than I initially envisaged

With high hopes of achieving promtion, I hoped that these games would solidify the team's position in or around the promotion/play-off spots

We are now 20 games in, and sit in 8th, with promotion looking more and more unlikely. But it's our own fault, we lose and draw against teams we should be beating, but manage to do well against most of the better sides. A great example of this is how we beat Donaufeld, who have been towards the top for most of the season, 3-2, but then immediately afterwards, we lose 2-0 at home to a team two divisions below us. However the second leg was incredible. They scored early on, and it was 3-0 to them. I thought the tie was over as I couldn't see us scoring 4 goals, but an inspired performance from Youandi Renfurm got us the win. Dalibor Stokic got his first goal for the club. Also, the league is so tight at the moment, one convincing win, and we could be in 5th, however a crushing defeat and we can fall to 13th, and it's looking even more likely, as Benjamin Koglbauer's goals are slowly drying up The two most disappointing games were the 1-0 defeat to FavAC. We completely trampled all over them for the whole game, and in the 91st minute they scored a breakaway goal, which also meant I didn't do an update yesterday night because I just wasn't in the mood after that. However we came back with 3 consecutive wins, but then we were destroyed by Voitsberg and then only managed a draw against relegation threatened Neuberg.

However the goalscorer in that game, Ziajan Sharifi, has really hit some good form. He scored a brace early on in the games, but then was out for a month and a half. He came back, and on his first start, he scored another brace. He's only 17 and for some reason, still doesn't have any caps for Afghanistan, even though he'd go straight into their first team

Unfortunately, I don't see us getting promotion this year. We're just too inconsistent, and most of our players are not good enough at the moment, anyway, for the step up. Allerheilligen are running away with the league now, as they were predicted to do at the start of the season. Union Gurten are slowly slipping away and their promotion spot is looking ever more in danger. Something I'd like to bring up is the form against the poorer sides in the league. We drew against bottom side, Absam, only just beat Wiener Linien, drew against Neuberg, lost to FavAC and lost to Gaflenz. We have Kundl next, and it'll be interesting to see what happens. These are the teams we have to beat if we want to improve.

As you probably noticed, we made it through both 4th and 5th rounds of the cup. The board wanted us to reach the 6th round which we have managed, although lucky at times

However I do not see us being as lucky, and winning this time around. We got RB Salzburg... Thankfully it is in the 6th round so it doesn't matter too much, but I think we're going to get trounced.

The run-in is not kind either. We host Allerheiligen to begin with, and then two games back-to-back, against the current holders of the top division and the cup... Not good news

...and we drew, 0-0. Definitely deserved to win, but nobody could finish. So that makes it 1 win against the bottom 6 sides, which is really, really poor. Next up - Allerheiligen and Salzburg! Yay...

They sacked their manager... bit harsh

Not sure how to react... We went ahead, and were in the game all the way through, but just didn't create anywhere enough goalscoring opportunities.They had 4 proper chances to score, and did. In a way, I'm happy that we were in the game but I'm left in a situation because, we need to score more, but we don't have players who can finish, so we need to be more attacking, but we will concede more than we do already then. I'm just stuck, but we're doing better than the media, predicted, but it's going to be hard to get promotion when we can't afford our own players wages, let alone bringing in more. We slip down to 11th, and lose grip on any hope of promotion. .

We went to Salzburg, and only lost 3-1. We actually took the lead but then we lost it completely of our own doing. We were at 1-0, defending incredibly, then Berghold decided to shove someone in the back from a cross, and they got a penalty. Then the substitute Marcus Lebinger, gave the ball away and they scored again. However we did have the ball in the back of the net again from a corner, however it was disallowed for a foul, and then immediately afterwards, they scored again. Slightly disappointed, but what was I expecting. They're up there with the best team in Austria, and we're a mid-table 4th division side, so the team did very well.

...and I was going to upload the second leg as well, however it was postponed. We now have to wait a week and a half for the second leg, which does no favours for our fixture congestion. However I went with a 5 at the back for that game, and we performed well, so I will probably try it against Grieskirchen, who we have next and are in 3rd, to see what happens. But our form at the moment is winless in 5 and the squads morale in plummeting, so we need to turn it around quickly. Not to mention we are in 11th and could fall even further down.

Well we couldn't do it, we are out. It was always going to happen, realistically, but 7-1 was too much. We deserved a goal or two more in my opinion

This loss also means we are 6 games without a win. This is slightly frustrating considering 2, maybe 3, of those games were games we were expected to lose.

Finally, our assistant manager has been linked with a club called FC Mader. Don't want him to go there but won't be surprised if he does

These two are loans. Umprecht will be a backup centre midfielder as our two starting centre midfielders have been out for around a month - 2 months each (Don't have any physios so I can't show screenshots of injuries. Muharemovic will probably start most games, until the two centre midfielders come back. The new formation I have made has an attacking midfielder, and Sharifi was the only option to play there, but he isn't a natural.

The next two are permanent, but only for 6 months

The new formation also has wing backs and a DM. Zilavec is only a backup as we didn't have any comfortable left wing backs, and Loohuis is also a backup except for DM. Both come in on 6 month deals

The next update will be the results, and things have picked up, presumably to the new tactic

After the two legs in the cup, we went on a 8 game unbeaten streak, the formation, I think, has had a great effect on the squad. In December, we beat 2 teams in the top 5 - Kalsdorf, and Grieskirchen. However we drew to Gaflenz and Axams, who we should be beating. However we did draw to Lafnitz who we were 2-0 up against and they equalized in the 91st minute. After we won Kottingbrunn, we lost two in a row, one to Stadlau, and Hohenems. We have to cut out the poor draws and losses against teams who are worse than us. But on the upside, Benjamin Koglbauer's goals have returned

We have gone back up to 5th but we can easily slip down to 11th, again. We have a game against Feldkirchen next and this could be a crucial game. Lose - we lose our play-off spot. Win - we close the gap, and consolidate 5th place. A prime example of what could happen to us is Union Gurten. They were top for a large portion of the first half of the season, and now occupy 11th spot where we once were

The chances have also been reduced as one spot has been taken....

...by USV Allerheiligen, who have been promoted. It was always going to happen as they are 20+ points clear at the top. Going to win the league too, but we have to concentrate and we can finish 4th/5th. 4th would be ideal, as that would mean no play-off either way, we have done well to get as high as we have. If we do finish up there, that is. The league is incredibly tight and a poor run of form could mean we slip to 11th or lower.

Just had the youth candidates squad brought to me..

However none of them are any good, so we return our focus back to the league

It may actually be happening... We played the counter attacking tactic and it worked. We scored early on, and limited any chances to a minimum. Our main two strikers were injured so Renfurm and Danneboom had to play, neither of which are prolific goalscorers. Back up right wing back, Yusuf Sayin scored a cross in the 5th minute, and moved us into 5th position; 2 points clear of 6th and 2 points behind 4th.

...Back down to earth again, with earth being 7th place. We are winless in 3 against 3 poor sides, and FavAC in 21st place scoring in the last few minutes; I don't know how to improve consistency, on minute we beat promotion rivals and go on a good run, the next we don't win in 3 against relegation threatened sides. Our keeper is at fault for a lot of the goals, getting a 5.7 match rating in one of the games...

Again, our form has been inconsistent. Lose to a team below us, then win two, lose another game to a team below us, beat a team who are challenging for promotion, lose 3 against relegation threatened sides, win 2 and then lose another one. So frustrating, any sort of momentum goes out of the window when we play the smaller teams which is ridiculous. Something I have noticed with the league is a lot of crosses are scored; we scored 3 in these games. But 43 games in, we can finish as low as 13th, but also as high as 4th, which is a big swing considering there are only 3 games left. The 3 games are not kind though...

As I said there, we can finish in 4th and be automatically promoted, or in 13th and be below expectations. I realistically hoping for 5th, as we have been there recently for prolonged stints, but keep falling away with shock defeats. However the last three games are as follows: 18th placed Kundl at home - We have to win this, if we dont, the promotion push is all but over. 1st placed USV Allerheiligen away - They have crushed the league, with 105 aat the moment. They have only lost 4 times so I doubt we can get anything from this one unfortunately. That leave the final game of the season. 4th placed Grieskirchen, at home - could be the biggest game of both of our seasons; if we win, we could possibly get play-offs or even automatic promotion and they may lose out. If they win, we could fall even further down the table, and they can get promotion. It's a massive game but we beat them at their place, 2-0, so it is possible. It's so tense now.

We won 4-1, Koglbauer scored 2 and assisted 1, Renfurm also scored as well as Turkmen. Grieskirchen lost to 12th placed Lengenrohr, so we move up into 4th! But, possibly the worst news we could have received at this point in time, Koglbauer is injured and will miss the last two games of the season with a gashed leg. Not only that, but he will probably never play for the club again, as he doesn't want to discuss a new contract He has scored 27 goals this season, and is only 20. I know he is too good for this level, but it's just sad to see him leave on a free. We'll have to travel to Allerheiligen without him

As expected, we lost. Only 2-0, but could have been worse. We remained 5th, despite this, until the 79th minute when Grieskirchen decided to score. Also the striker situation is getting worse. We have two amateurs, who are awful, Koglbauer, who is injured, Renfurm and Makarevych, who are more supporting strikers than goalscorers, and a former Netherlands international striker, who doesn't do scoring. So we are in 6th, and it all comes down to the final game vs Grieskirchen.

I also signed a new contract (don't ask about the name, I don't know either). I also asked for the minimum wage possible so I can help out the finances and cos I am a good guy