Around the world in 80 years if i'm lucky! (Pentagon)

So another FM release means another pentagon attempt, i'm sure I don't need to go through what the pentagon is as it's probably the most attempted challenge in FM history every year! Started out unemployed in June and loaded up Chile, Colombia & Peru to get this going, 5 months down the line and just a week before Christmas my completely unknown and unqualified alias was given the chance to interview for a football management job, and to my surprise I was successful at the first attempt!

The club... Deportes Puerto Montt, a small club who won promotion to the Chilean 2nd tier just the season before last, it's a young club having been founded in 1983 and plays it's home games at the 10,000 all seater Regional de Chinquihue stadium in front of an average of around 3,500 fans, which is around the mid table mark in terms of attendances in the league however they do currently operate on the smallest budget in the league and are therefore in a good position financially, unusual for a small club and something i'm happy with.

The club have had a torrid time in the Opening Stage having failed to win any of the 15 games and picking up just 4 points, it looked like a mountain to climb and relegation looking nailed at the half way mark however, there were some decent stats around the squad so I had some hope. As you can see below the club sit 6 points adrift from Deportes Capiapo...

As mentioned in the opening post the squad had given me some hope and the change in manager seemed to have immediately lifted the mood so morale wasn't too much of an issue, below are the players I felt could make a big difference for us in our bid to escape relegation. For those not familiar with the Chilean leagues, the stages make no difference to the sides threatened by relegation as only 1 team goes down and this will be the worst team for the overall league, so i'm realistically chasing a 6 point gap straight away. One positive though is fi I have a good Closing Stage campaign and finish in the top 4 I can still challenge for promotion, that's a dream though!

Rodrigo Velez

27 year old playmaker who joined the club on a free at the start of the season, great amount of flair and natural fitness with decent teamwork and work rate some key attributes of a solid midfielder, missed much of the opening stage presumably due to injury but if kept fit could play a huge part for me.

Jonathan Nunez

Another player with a lot of flair, great vision too and by far my most creative player, the left winger could have played a big part for me but around a month into my reign he moved on loan to Olimpia in Paraguay with a view to a £150k deal at the end of it, this is why the stats at the bottom state very little, however he did bag a hat trick early on in my tenure. Shame to lose him but I was never going to keep him here and happy.

Manual Faundez

The best of my defensive players, great teamwork attribute and physically he is very good too, his mental stats are a bit less than i'd like to see but he is the best defender at the club and looks like a quality defender at this level.

Oliver Toledo

Versatile attacker who is pretty good all round albeit nothing special, my biggest issue here is that with my 4-3-3 wide formation I can't fit this guy in to his natural position and he also isn't naturally a winger when played wide, suits an inside forward more which I don't tend to use, just have to see how he develops or if we can adapt a system to fit him in. Looks decent enough though.

The rest of the squad is fairly solid at a glance and there is enough strength in depth to get through, ideally I would have liked to bring in another full back but I ran out of time to force through a loan move due to the time it took to scout someone good enough to make a move for, we didn't quite get the deal complete before the window slammed shut!

Story So Far

9 games in to my reign at Puerto Montt and so far it's gone quite well, especially compared to how they had performed in the opening stage! We opened with a thrilling 3-3 but much to my annoyance we paid the price for my attacking mentality having lead 3 times and thrown it away on each occasion, a hat trick from Nunez was the highlight! We then went on to beat an average Nublense side 3-2 at home to claim our first victory of the season, this game also proved to be Nunez's last for the season as he agreed his loan move to Olimpia. Goals continued to flow for my adventurous side with a 2-1 loss at Rangers followed by another home win 2-1 over Iberia and a 2-1 defeat at Magallanes, things were looking up with a return of 7 points from 5 games. A huge clash against La Serena who were our main rivals in the relegation battle so a 6 point in every sense, we deservedly snatched it thanks to a last minute goal from super sub Alvarado! Things looked really good when we cruised in to a 2-0 lead at home to Everton thanks to goals from Milian and again Alvarado only to see a poor few minutes cost us would have been a deserved victory, we were denied and had to settle for a 2-2 draw, an expected 2-0 loss at the leagues pace setters Barnechea followed. My final game for this update was an entertaining 0-0 that in truth we should probably have won 4-1 or something similar, but we just couldn't take our chances, the clean sheet and point are positives though. So how does that leave things...


Closing Stage Table

Fairly average in the Closing Stage table having taken 12 points from 9 games although a couple of wins could put us in the mix for a playoff place (Top 4), it's crazy to be able to think about having a chance at promotion with 5 games to go and yet be so perilously close to the drop, the revelation of staged leagues do intrigue me!

Overall Table

As I said, perilously close to the drop just 1 point ahead of La Serena, but this is a far improved picture from the one on show when I took over 6 points off the drop! The form books are in my favor and with just 5 games to play my rivals are going to need a huge turnaround in form to stay up, given that they've amassed just 3 points in the closing stage! The run in could be very very tense!

Performances
Not a great deal to get excited about really, team performances have been good and probably even better than results show, playing some lovely football at times, but it's hard to pick out stand out performers really. Faundez (Pic above) has been solid at the back and formed a good partnership with Leonardo Ruiz who has managed to force his way in to the side and keep hold of the place, but the best player so far for me has been Rodrigo Veliz, the creative spark in midfield has put in good performances in the 5 games he's played (Missed 4 through injury) averaging around 7.1 rating and playing a crucial part in our retention of the ball in midfield.

Stay tuned for what looks set to be a tense finish to the season! Thanks for reading up to now.

Just for the purposes of this being a pentagon challenge attempt, I only decided to post it on the forum after a couple months of gameplay but proof that I started with Sunday League Rep and No Coaching Badges, although the board are currently funding my first.

March 2016

3 more games played at the end of March and a further 4 points gained, not great but not too bad I guess, a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Closing Stage leaders Curico Unido was probably to be expected although it did flatter them, we then followed up with a comfortable 2-1 win over Santiago Morning who grabbed a last minute consolation in reply to first half strikes from both my wingers. The last game this month was a topsy turvy 2-2 draw against Coquimbo Unido, having taken an early lead through Jefferson Castillo we disappointingly conceded once in each half to go behind before Jorge Romo, our player of the month, grabbed a late equaliser. So 4 points picked up.



We have dropped down to 10th in the Closing Stage so Promotion is no longer even a dream, not that I had any eyes on it anyway! In the overall standings shown below we are deep in a relegation scrap with La Serena as predicted, Just 2 points ahead and a worse goal difference, only 3 to play, it's certainly squeaky bum time!!



Below is La Serena's last 3 games and the remaining 3 games, they have just picked up their first win of the closing stage which could give them a boost going in to the final 3 games, both of us have similar run ins in terms of the quality we will face and i'm fully expecting this to go to a last day decider.

Not going to bother with pictures, this team had no guts or determination, totally capitulated in the last 3 games losing 2-0, 4-1 & 3-0 respectively!!! Defence was a shambles throughout which I expected but going forward they were without doubt the biggest load of dross i've had to manage on FM! As you can tell, the side whimpered out of the league with just 1 win from the last 9 games, having worked so hard to put us in a fantastic position they've absolutely bottled it!

This career could well be over before it's begun!



Confirmation of my sacking, feel kind of hard done by given that my record with this side was easily good enough to stay in the division! Never mind, back to the job center!

The Next Chapter

Back in business, and guess where? Chilean First Division B, with the club that came up to replace my relegated side!! I've been given an opportunity at Naval, it's going to be another big ask but starting on a level playing field hopefully will make this easier for me, however it will not be helped by the fact that it's just 2 weeks until the league campaign stats, the squad is thread bare and there are literally no staff members but me!! The hard work well and truly starts now!!

The club has played 3 cup games this season and still have a chance of getting through the group stage with another 3 to play, although i'm not particularly interested in progressing.



A 3-0 defeat to open against top flight side Union La Celera and 2-1 defeat to another top flight side in O'Higgins got them off to a bad side but a glimmer of hope with a 1-0 win over fellow second tier outfit Everton de Vina leaves hope that the club can qualify through the group, although it is a tough group.



We travel to O'Higgins then face home ties against Everton & La Celera in my first 3 games in charge, will be a nice opportunity to get an early feel for the players currently at the club before the league begins.

I will need to get a decent look at the squad, find a whole backroom team to employ and have a think about tactics before I get moving on the games. The next update will focus on the players I have inherited.

Hopefully this season will end better than the last...

Bastian Arce is probably the best player in the squad right now, a versatile defender who can play anywhere across the backline has good stats for most mental attributes and is a decent physical presence too, should play a key part for us.



Jimmy Martinez, a 17 year old central midfielder is already good enough to be starting for the first team and has the potential to become by far the best player at the club as long as we can keep hold of him, hoping for a good season from him and a decent amount of improvement.



There isn't much else to shout about in the squad, i've only had 1 day before going in to my first match against O'Higgins but have managed to bring in a fitness coach and chief scout already with offers on the table for a complete backroom setup. A number of players have been offered trials and the scout is being put to work immediately! Need to move quickly with the league opener in just 2 weeks!

Unlucky with that ending from the first job, another tough ask, hopefully you can put something together this time around!

Thanks for the comment Dan, I think my naivety with refusing to move away from my attacking 4-3-3 formation hindered us once the bad form set in, having said that I tried to be more conservative in the last 2 games and got destroyed in both!!

I'm starting out at Naval with the intention of playing a 4-1-4-1 and looking to counter attack, so some pace on the flanks will need to be found among my signings.

Just been reading up on the history of the club that i've taken over, from my memory of what I have taken over on FM the club were founded in 1944 & their stadium has a capacity of around 7,000 which tallies up to the info about Naval de Talcahuano (Wiki Page), a club that was actually dissolved in 1991. The actual club now is known as Deportes Naval who were founded in 1972 as CD Los Nauticos, they then changed to Deportes Talcahuano in 1992 (Presumably when they merged with the dissolved club?), finally they became Deportes Naval in 2004 (Wiki Page), and their stadium has a capacity of just 3,000. However some of the players at the club are in my squad on FM even though I appear to have the facilities of the original, now dissolved, club! Very strange, although i'm not complaining as it means I have better facilities than I should have

Just realised the transfer window in Chile is pretty much non existent! Only open for 2 weeks in the summer which had passed before I joined the club, there are only 16 players on the clubs books meaning I can;t fill the bench even when I have a fully fit squad, also I can't comply to the league rule of having at least 2 U20 players in the squad as there's only 1 at the club!! Why would the club be in that position with the window shut, surely someone should have done something before I joined ... oh that's right there wasn't anyone there!! This career is over before it's begun!!