Keeping up with Shedender and Dan - If it's not to late!

Tempted by the stories of Shedender and Dan I decided to start a career like them. I have a few competitions to win before I am even near there successes but I want to give it a try.

Just like Dan I start a career "Around Europe" in FMC. I the weekend I have reasonable time to play. But on weekdays not, since I have a dayjob that takes a lot of time in the first quarter of the year. I start in Austria and hopefully I will finish in Wales!



So I start in Austria. I have 3 goals here. Promotion, League title and Austrian FA Cup are there for the taking.



I start with unemployed in Austria. There are no jobs for me to take. Below I will post my successes during my journey. At the moment the cabinet is empty.

Management History

Best of luck mate, glad me and Shedender have tempted yet another person to try this grueling adventure, think there are three or four other players than us two now!

Since there are no jobs for me I have to be unemployed until one manager gets sacked, There were 2 clubs earlier where the manager got sacked, but they didn't want me, since I didn't have any experience yet.



Finally there came a vacant seat. I have to take a look at the table if this job is possible. It is already 10 March 2013 and I don't want to start the job as I'm sure I don't have a chance to stay there at least a year.



8th position with 21 points in 21 matches and still 15 matches to get some results the rest of the season. Kapfenberger is a club with better expectations than the 8th position they are currently in.



I need to achieve a mid-table position with no transfer budget and no room in the wage budget. There is no transfer period so I need to do it with the players I have. So that's no problem.



I decided to take the job an try to get mid-table. This gives me a good position to strengthen my squad for the next season and try to get promotion.




It was a difficult start at the club. Bad morale and the best two center defenders were injured. I made a few good runs of two or three wins. This got me 21 points in 15 matches. The last two matches my morale was low since I lost the cup final.



Cup final

I am still a but upset about the lost cup final. Actually I won it on penalties with 2-1. My fifth penalty really was in the goal, but the ME tought it was saved. Not that it proves anything I will put a screenshot of the "Goal" in this message.



No silverware yet and a lot to do for the start of the second season. I still have good faith next season will be a succes. I have to unload some expensive contracts and get cheaper but decent replacements for them.

Thanks Dan. It is a fun career to do and since you two have some successes I want to do this too.

Unlucky in the final. Decent season though, good luck next year!

Good league form, very unlucky in the final there matey! always next year!

sure its not too late, good luck mate

Second season in Austria. And the first preseason I can use to prepare my squad for the expectations I have for this season. I think its time for promotion to the Premier League of Austria.

The board clearly has other expectations and want me to achieve a respectable league position. This is always a strange expectation to me. For some clubs is it respectable to become top half and for others its only respectable to win the league. I will follow the board in this. The extra budget is almost nihil and I don't want to risk my job if this season is a bit of a failure.

First I need to unload the dead wood. People who play low league clubs do recognize this. It's always important to do this with care. Don't unload players for free if fans see them as an icon of some hero. I unloaded 19 players for free and was lucky to get some cash for Zundel. Don't know why but I don't see his potential in the future.

I also sold Elsneg for € 1.200.000. This is a lot of money in Austria as you know. I didn't want to sell him but I couldn't refuse there offer. I will use the extra money not directly though.

To help me achieve my goals I brought in 7 players in the preseason. Shila is a young talented central defender; Cesnauskas is and old winger for both sides; Verpakovskis is an old striker; Guzman and Gsellmann are back-up players for several positions on the midfield and even front; Bonig is an old back-up leftback I needed and last Adjei is a talented left winger. This brings me to the following squad:

I am happy with my squad. Most positions with 3 - 4 stars also on the back-up. The squad is not to big but I can rotate with it. The only worry I have is that some players are above 30 and can become worse quickly. But it's good for this season.

The first half of the season was in one word great. Only one loss on 25 October for the league and one on 29 October for the Cup. Cup will be there when I am in the Premier League so it was not a big problem to lose here. I ended the first half of the season with a lot of friendlies in the almost 3 month winter break.


In the winter break I brought in 5 new players for the future and next season. Fraille is a talented rightback to replace my older player Standfest; Koblischeik is a talented centerback to replace older defenders; Hopfer is and addition to my defensive midfielders an Demirci to my offensive midfielders; Last one is Valladares; My scout spotted this old goalkeeper from Honduras and I could sign him for free with a wage beneath 2k per week. I hope he will bring me some points next season.

After the break I started with a loss. In total I lost 5 matches and had 5 draws the second half of the season. It was not a good half but I always was in control on the league table with 5 - 11 point in front of number 2.

The league is won and the fans are happy!


Now the first goal is achieved it tastes like more of it. I don't have the worst squad (I think) and can stay up at least the next season. I will stay at the club until some good job become available. I have four targets for it : RBS, Sturm Graz, Austria Wien and Rapid Wien. The other clubs are fun but not better than mine at the moment.


Thanks for all your repsonses.

Top work mate! One trophy down already, your flying through already!

First trophy! Well done.

well done on your first trophy pal

Thank you for all your responses

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After the promotion I had to prepare for my first season in the Premier League of Austria. The board didn't expect to much of it.

But I was sure I could stay clear of relegation. There were at least two clubs worse than me. And three other clubs were even. Like said before I don't expect to beat Salzburg, Graz, and the two clubs of Wien in this season. So if I get place 5 or 6 this season I am happy.

To achieve my goals I brought 3 additional players in my squad. Demirci I already signed at the end of last season as addition to my attacking midfield. Now I signed Helly (talented striker) and Maninho (Left midfield and Defensive midfield) for free. I took a big risk by buying € 1,2M for Mikulanin. He is already good enough for my squad and my best rightwinger, but it was a lot of money. And he was already 3 times injured in the first months of this season.

The first 3 matches were hard. I had to learn how to play at this level and with a start against RBS and Rapid Wien After that I had a good start of the season. The only problem was scoring goals. I had only 4 matches with 2 or more goals and a lot of boring 1-0 .

After 17 matches I was on the 6th place with a good view up the table. And there was not much danger for relegation.

What else happened meanwhile

I saw the manager of SK Sturm Graz was under fire. He was expected to become second on the league table but was below me and out of the cup already. I said I wanted the job. Not everyone was happy with that. Sturm Graz are the Rivals of Kapfenberger. I can't blame the fan for this.....

After a while the manager got sacked and I got the following message.

And of course I couldn't resist this offer and accepted it.


So I am now manager of SK Sturm Graz. I start just before the winter break and can prepare myself 3 months for a storming second half of the season. I will tell about that in my next update but for now I can say there is a lot of dead wood to cut before I can shape my squad how I like it. I got a good budget for this to do, so I am excited to start with this.

Wow thats a surprising switch after you done so well in your first half of the season in the top flight!

Supprising indeed yeah...... Maybe I am to focused by the 4 big clubs in Austria. And I got a bit frustrated by the lack of goals I scored the first half. I had to play quite defensive and got a lot of injuries the last two months. I hope I won't regret the switch.

As said I took the job and indeed it was a bit of a surprise for my readers. But Kapfenberger was overachieving and Sturm Graz was underachieving so I thought now is the time to step in the big club and leave the small one. When I looked at the squad I had already an idea why the club was underachieving. There are some good players but a player like Judt is best at three or more places and I can only select him once in my squad. First I had to cut some dead wood. Over 50 players I had and most of them where below my standard for this team. Some notable transfers are Guyon Fernandez, Wolf and Rusz. I also loaned Sulimani and Grgig for some cash. But most of them where free transfers to free wages and get some serious improvements And Improvements I brought in. For the first eleven I brought Mitrovic (GK still young and a lot of talent), Galindo (old but reliable), Tamasi (CM, young and can play also on DM and CAM) Naylor (RB actually back-up but played almost all matches) and Maierhoffer (ST long strong header who has to bring me goals)
The other players are for back-up and talented (Olinga ST, Obert DC/DM/MC, Mihart (MC, de Groot GK, Baroveanu AML and Demirci AMC from my old club) After this my squad was starting to become more the way I liked it. With the budget I had to spend I was happy with it. In the competition I played 19 matches and won 9 of them, 5 draws and 5 losses. A lot of these losses and draws I got the message Unlucky, failed to make chances and other messages like that. It was quite frustrating and the board almost sacked me due to bad results. I'm glad they didn't do that and have still some faith in my managing capabilities. Finished 6. Luckely one point short for EC. Didn't want to lose my focus next year with a lost campaign in Europe.

The team had to get used to my system and I got to some other conclussion I had to change to system so my team played better. I started to train a flat 4-4-2 in April and wanted to get some results with that next season.

Thanks for reading this update again. I will make a new update later today or tomorrow.

Update finished later than expected. A bit busy weekend I had and no time for writing my post.

Looks like it was a good turn around to the new club, busy transfer window but done well to finish higher than your previous side! good step forward mate! Sure it won't be too long left in austria!

After a promising end of last season I started the first complete season at Surm Graz. To strengthen my squad now and in the future I brought in some new faces. Erivaldo is a young talented striker that can fit into my squad directly; Vincius is a leftwinger/midfielder als young/talented and directly usable, Lukac is a talented back up for midfield-central, Tiago is the needed strenght for defence-central and Ivancea is another young goallie since my other back-up goallie was moaning and getting a loan (or some punches ) Some more dead wood was going out. Most for free and some on loan. Got some pocket money for Strobl, Kainz, Pinnitsch, Schmerböck and Okotie and I got a good offer for Klem from Bologna I couldn't refuse. He wasn't first choice for me anyway. After this I am happy with my squad. There is a good balance between talent and experience. I was hopefull for the start of the season and wanted to bring the title to Graz. Expected but still something to mention. My first 100 games are played in Austria. The first half of the season wasn't easy. With 4 losses and 5 draws I was way behind Rapid Wien. At one point I was only 2 points behind but Rapid Wien needed to play 3 matches more than me since they had an European campaign and had to skip some matches to waterlogged pitches. The second half of the season was better with only 1 loss match. Rapid Wien was my rival for the title the rest of the season. The semifinal of the FA Cup was made more exciting than it really was due to the precision of my strikers. Hitting woodwork can happen but 5 times in 1 match is a bit too much for me. As you could see in my fixtures I won the FA Cup this season. I was on top the whole match but my team scored just before time. Very happy with the win of the cup.

The last week of the season was a very hard time for my players. I had to play 4 matches in 7 days including the cup final and the away match against Rapid Wien. It was far in March when Rapid Wien lost his first match. They had a lot of draws but didn't lose before. After they lost one there came more and the margin was just 2 points when I had to play them away. First I scored 0-1 and then the made 1-1 and 2-1. At that time I got a red card and was down to ten men. Due to condition problem I had Maazou in my starting line up for the first time this season. He is a fast player with quite a good shot. I changed my formation to 3-4-1-1 with one three central defenders. I played attacking and luckely I scored two goals to bring me the win. After that I played subsituted the two most offensive players for defensive midfielders and killed the game. After this it brought me the title. Rapid Wien lost there last match too so my win was not needed anymore. I did it. The double. At least my players did it. I watched them an got frustrated a lot when there was another message like wastfull with chances, forgot to score, unlucky in defeat. But in the end there was only a big party!
Since there were no jobs available jet in Belarus I decided to stay at the club until the start of the season in Belarus (02.2017) I was in the qualifying round of the CL and had a good squad and wanted to see what next season would bring me.


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Thanks for your comments Dan ! Austria is behind me soon. I can leave after Belarus is loaded next season. Didn't see this title coming so I forgot/decided not to load Belarus. I will stay in Austria but will do a lot of Instant Results and only play CL matches myself.

nice story so far mate, you already have chalked off Austria. Are there any good jobs available in Belarus?

Good luck in Belarus! what a fantastic season you just strung together!

To bad there are no jobs available now. I will start in Belarus but it will take a year to find a job there. I will tell more in my next update.



Thanks again Dan!

Finished in Austria I am, but it came totaly unexpected to me. The league in Belarus has to be loaded in februari to receive a job application and at that point I was still more than 10 points behind Rapid Wien on the league table. So I didn't load Belarus yet. A said before I decided to stay with Sturm Graz for one more year. So I accepted this offer. Strasser and Suarez are there to strengthen my midfield, Molinaro is an experienced leftback, Guiberti is experienced on the rightwing, Dzyuba is an experienced striker and two talented defenders to refresh my squad Mancini and Kovacevic. Again I sold a lot of players to strenghten my squad and to refresh the age of my players. I got some good offers for Bodul, Janssen and Montana. Bodul and Janssen weren't first choice anymore and Montana was a good offer with Guiberti as a free signing to replace him. My top transfer was at the end of the season Erivaldo for 11.000.000. Simply couldn't refuse that offer. After the transfers my squad was looking like this. I am happy with it. CL was simply amazing this year. I don't know much about Israel soccer but didn't see the 5-0 and 9-0 wins coming. It was simply a goal galore. After that I won from Kopenhagen and qualified for the group stage. The group was easy with ManU, Schalke and Sporting as other teams. I was lucky to make a draw in this group. Still it was a good experience for my team. In the league I had decent results too. I had a busy program and some draws and losses after CL matches but with 3 losses and 2 draws I was top of the league and still in the cup. In second half of the season I had 5 draws and 2 losses. My season was just as good as last season but with less pressure. Rapid Wien couldn't keep pace with me this year. So I won the league with quite a big gap to Austria and RBS. Rapid wasn't even qualified for Europe. A double double for Sturm Graz ! (Don't know if this term is correct but it sounds got to me) Altough it was not part of the challenge it was not a complete lost year. Didn't I do anything in Belarus this year? Well not active but I decided to put some pressure on the trainer of Smorgon. The board wanted me to stay. Of course after winning al this silverware. After this season this are the all time best players at Graz. Good to see I brought 7 of the first eleven players to the club. They won't forgot me soon here. Some messages I received after this season. (sorry for bragging) Due to my CL run and the sale of Erivaldo I brought Graz back in black figures before I left the club. Finally there came this message : Finally a job availabe in Belarus. Not a great job but I wanted to start somewhere. I decided to leave the club 22.07.2017 to start a new job.

This are my results at the end of my job in Austria. I will look for the other screenshot too with more information about my stay in Austria. Happy with the win percentage. More happy with the goal difference. For every goal I concede I scored two goals.

This was it for Austria and for now. My next update will be short about the job hunt in Belarus. Thanks for reading !

Another fine season buddy, shame you didnt load belarus a little before, remember that next time! keep it going buddy

With this message I ended in Austria and started in Belarus. Smorgon a club never heard of but that counts for the most clubs in Belarus. Happy as I was I filled in some forms and waited for a reaction. Didn't see that coming...... a club from the second division that has problems with winning and scoring laughs me after winning the double two times in Austria. Never mind I will find another job. I wasn't sitting still. No successes here yet. Strange. This club is in the Higher league and they want me, where lower clubs don't want me. Never mind. This is a good club for me. I start at the top and later I will get the promotion I need to finish this country. So Gomel it is. Just a quick look at the squad to see what need to be done. I have 15 days in the transfer period left to do some improvements. This squad needs a complete reshape. I guess I am happy with 5 players or something. And one player I like is leaving for free in a few months. I consider taking a big risk. Do I change almost all the players or do I stick with this squad. In both ways I can have troubles. If I stick with this squad I get the same results that brought this team close to relegation (10th place). If I change all the players they need matches to get used with each other and of course with my system. This can cost me points too. Lots of thinking to do for me .

I will remember that Dan. Thanks for the advice. In FMC everything is faster anyway so I can load more leagues easily.

I promised to upload some statistics. You can see I have a very different approach than Dan.

Not strange that the former manager of Gomel got sacked. The results where bad the whole season but after the run of 5 losses the directors decided it was time for change. I decided that the material I had at Gomel wasn't good enough to complete my final goals to win the title, the cup and the supercup. So I decided to bring in a complete new team of players. Only a few former players are still in the first 24 of my team. For the other players I tried to find a (temporary) solution with a transfer or a loan. This is the squad I am working with now in a flat 4-4-2 system. I decided to keep things simple at this club. I changed a lot of players and didn't want to learn a complex system. Started with two matches against the teams in Minsk. I was very happy my team won right away. The second match was very lucky but I am happy with it. I am also happy with the run that is still running. No defeat ! I had 5 draws and was doing a good job I guess. Another century done. Nothing important but still fun. I think the board didn't expect this was still possible this year. Until the lost 4 or 5 matches I even considered the title as possible. The other teams on the top Minsk, Bate, Brest where fooling around and lost points almost every week. Very happy with the final league table and getting ready for the next season. I have a long break now until the end of March to get my team ready too.

Looking sharp, only a couple of countries behind Dan and Shedender. At this speed you will win it

Grea league finish, looks like you could catch us up at this rate! Especially with Shedender dawdling somewhere

Thanks for the comments Dan and Dyrim. Sure I can catch up with Shedender and (maybe) also with you Dan. England can be a long difficult country to win all promotions and trophies. I have to write some updates soon, but have trouble with internet connection now. I will write the updates as soon as its stable again.

England will be a huge country and there will be so many heart breaks there!