[FM18] Around the World in 19 levels

It was time to look for a job again. I could pretty early rule out Kuwait as a priority as only jobs at relegation candidates were available. The leagues in Brunei and East Timor had already started and the job at the league leaders were not available, so I did not think they were the best options either.
I had one semi-professional league left which was Bangladesh. I applied for 3 jobs but unfortunately 3 weeks passed without hearing anything from the clubs.
I had a look into some jobs in Samoa which seemed to be the strongest Amateur league among the rest. The same thing happened there.

Next I tried my luck in Guam. Finally, two interviews for the top teams Guam Shipyard and Strykers. The job interviews resulted in two job offers. Both unpaid. I was truly back at amateur level.
But I wanted to get on with my career so I accepted the Guam Shipyard offer.


So I was hoping to take the next step in my career managing in a slightly better league than Sri Lanka. Instead I will now head to a league where one of the teams is called Beercelona.
But it should be an interesting challenge and an exciting new place to visit. Also the league is only 16 games long which is nice after the 34 game season in Sri Lanka.

My new job was again unpaid so I would have to live on savings for a while.
It was quite a long trip to my new home with stops in Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Guam is a territory of the USA and the biggest and most southern of the Mariana Islands.


It has a population of around 160,000 people and the economy mainly relies on tourism and United States Armed Forces who have both Air Force and Naval bases on the island.
The island has an eventful history first being settled by the indigenous Chamorro people, before being colonized by Spain, then captured by the United Stated and later by Japan before being recaptured by the US again in 1944.
As a result the population is also quite diverse with Chamorros and Filipinos being the biggest ethnic group but many inhabitants also having American, Japanese or Korean heritage among others.

I was going to be based in the Northern town of Dededo which with 45,000 inhabitants is the biggest in Guam. The town is nothing special except being known for a weekend flea market that attracts large crowds. But most of the football in Guam seems to be played here as the Guam Football Association National Training Center, which has a capacity of around 1,000 is located here.



The league in Guam is fully amateur. There seems to be a fairly big amount of teams however for an island of its size with the top division holding 17 teams and there being several lower divisions as well.
Traditionally Guam Shipyard and Rovers are the dominating teams both having won 9 league titles. The last win for Guam Shipyard however came in 2006 (at least in the game), while Rovers have won the last 6 seasons.
Guam Shipyard has however won the cup the last two seasons.
Despite this recent advantage for the Rovers, Guam Shipyard is predicted to finish first, Strykers 2nd and Rovers 3rd. The boards expectation is also that we win both the league and the cup.
The league only consists of 16 games so it is important we find our form early to meet these expectations.

I started to get to know my squad and the league and to be honest I am not sure why we are predicted to finish 1st. The Rovers have won the last 6 seasons and seem to have a significantly stronger squad than us.
Our strength lies mainly in attack where we have quite a lot of depth and our best player by far in Guam International Choi Min-Sung.


Midfield is our weak part while our second international Micah Paulino can be found in central defense.


Some signings were definitely needed. As there were no restrictions on foreign players I looked into signing some of my former players, but no one seemed interested in moving to Guam.
Not even Jacques Barnabo who is already at his third club in Martinique after not getting any playing time at US Marinoise. While he scores the occasional goal he has not really got his career started yet.


I managed however to pick up some players on positions where I definitely needed to strengthen. Right-back Christian Schweizer and right-midfielder Justin Abril both come from fellow title contenders Strykers, which is nice as we weaken our opposition a bit. Both should go into the starting eleven. Justin Abril mainly though as I my current options are so weak.


Third player to arrive is attacking midfielder Marcus Paulino who is one of very few players from Rovers who was interested in joining us. Mainly because he is not good enough to get any playing time there while he goes straight into the starting 11 for us, which is slightly worrying.


I planned a pretty short pre-season exclusively against lower division teams.

The results were not the most convincing, but that was the case in Sri Lanka as well, so I am not worrying too much about it. I played around quite a bit with the tactics but in the end settled on a 4-4-2 Diamond-wide where we would play a quite direct game, playing balls into space for our strikers to run at.


Last some good news in the club paying for my next coaching qualifacation.

I was not 100% optimistic heading into the start of the season. But what followed was a bit of a deja-vu from the previous season in Sri Lanka.
After a somewhat unconvincing pre-season we had no problem winning our league games fairly comfortably:

Unsurprisingly Choi Min-Sung is the big star so far with 4 goals.
The problem however is that Rovers seem as unstoppable as us and are also winning their games without too much trouble. I already have a feeling our game against them in March will be decisive for the title.


After the first 5 games there was a bit of a winter break with the next game being played on the 12th of January. The transfer window opened again on the 1st of January, so I decided to strengthen my squad a bit to prepare for the upcoming battle against Rovers.
First in was Strykers central defender Isiah Lagutang. He will be the first backup for now but has the potential to become my best centerback in the future. I will also try to retrain him as a defensive midfielder as I am short on options there and players in that position don't seem to exist in Guam.

Second signing is right winger Shaun Spindel from Rovers. He has been great so far this season with 4 assists and an average rating of 7.42 for Rovers. He will take Justin Abril's spot in right midfield.

Last we signed left-back Donovan Manibusan from Quality Distributors. He should already take the starting position ahead of Camden Aguon, but is anyway a necessary signing as Aguon will retire at the end of the season.

It has been a great start to the season at Guam Shipyard, but we need to make sure we keep the focus as we probably can't afford to lose too many points with Rovers looking very strong so far this season.
January and February would give us 7 more league games before we would face Rovers on the 1st of March.


The first three games we managed to win without much problems. Then our international defender Micah Paulino got injured missing the next two games. I thought we would be able to handle that but our defense clearly struggled. First conceding two goals against Tritons who are a team close to the bottom of the table. Luckily we managed to score enough to still win the game.
After that we faced Disasters though which are a decent team by Guam standards and it was an overall poor performance as we lost 3:1.
We showed a good reaction against Family but then struggled again as we just could not find a way to score against Sidekicks meaning the game ended in a 1:1 draw.

Luckily Rovers have also struggled a bit. However Strykers and Quality Distributers have seriously picked up pace which means we might actually have an exciting title race coming up with several teams involved.
Strykers particularly impressed beating Rovers 3:1. They are still unbeaten this season.


The most impressive player during these two months has been young winger Jake Gonzalez who has managed 4 goals and 5 assists. Good to see some of the younger players showing good potential.


Meanwhile I finished my Continental B coaching qualification:


4 games left of the season, starting with a game against Rovers and finishing with the Strykers. Will we be able to do enough to get my 3rd League title in 3 seasons?

It was time for the big game against Rovers. Before the game I was quite nervous not really knowing what to expect.

We had the chance to take home the title with a win against Beercelona, providing Rovers would also lose their game.


Our game was not a big problem. The team was motivated and knew how important this game was. But what about Rovers?

Time to move on to the 4th level. That means I had the following countries to choose from:
St. Lucia
Kosovo
Aruba
Cuba
Laos
Bermuda
Malta
Macau
Mongolia
Bhutan

That the level is getting higher was clear as now most top tier teams actually had managers and there were fewer jobs available.
However in Malta there were some interesting options and I got offers from two different clubs:

Boooooooooooo...nah, good luck in Malta. Strange league from experience.

Not regretting my decision to move here. Probably the most enjoyable season in this career so far.





There were definitely some quality players available. However I had to let a few players go immediately. Most notably the Austrian left-back Martin Kreuzriegler who left to play in Austria's second tier and Maltese midfielder Bjorn Kristensen who did not find a new club despite leaving to play for a better team. Both would have been among the best players in the team.
This left me with a few good players available but very limited depth:
Experienced Maltese national team Goalkeeper Andrew Hogg would be my biggest star:

Up front I had my second Maltese national team player in Jurgen Degabriele. Unfortunately he also wanted to leave the club.

There would have been a steep drop off in quality after that if I hadn't been lucky enough to find this 16-year old gem in my youth team:


We had time for one friendly before being thrown into Champions League action. We managed to win against second tier team Zabbar SP, but it was hardly convincing.

The only goal was scored from a freekick by young midfielderJonathan Degiorgio who would also take a starting place this season:


After that it was time for the Champions League qualifying first round draw:

A trip to Azerbaijan and probably an impossible task to be honest.


It was impossible. Not too much to say about it. They were clearly a few levels above us and we did not manage to create anything.
It still meant some money in the bank and allowed us to continue in the Europa League.


A much friendlier draw that should allow us to make it to the next round.

For the first game we traveled to Andorra and despite not yet being fully convinced by our attacking play our centre-back pairing of old Brazilian captain Rodolfo Soares and young Stefano Baldacchino looked good.
Stefano Baldacchino got the winning goal after a corner in the 15th minute:



We just needed a decent performance at home to ensure qualification to the next round. And it turned out to be no problem with striker Degabriele stepping up and scoring a hat-trick.

In the next round of the Europa League we would travel to Kazakhstan and take on Kairat Almaty. Again a pretty difficult task:


We started at home but again struggled to create anything losing 1:0 after a goal in the 25th minute:


From the away game I did not expect much but I was happy at least that we managed to keep the score to 0:0 until the 79th minute. But we only managed to have one shot on target:


This meant the European adventure was over and it was time to start focusing on the League.
I spend most of the transfer money on strengthening the center-back position, signing Ukrainean Semen Datsenko from the Maltese second tier club Mosta. He would be forming the centre-back pairing together with Rodolfo Soares.



The first game was going to be against predicted champions Hamrun Spartans. My tactic was going to be a 4-2-3-1 wide where much of the attacking would go through wingers Joseph Mbong and Marco Mifsud:



So far I thought our defense was our strength but we were struggling going forward so it took me by surprise how the game played out:

It started terrible with us being down 2:0 after 25 minutes. Going all out attacking we managed to get back into the game through Owen Magro and Rodolfo Soares. Right after half-time Hamrun scored again however, but almost instantly there was a reaction with Marco Mifsud scoring the equalizer.
In the 69th minute Degabriele stepped up again and gave us the lead which we kept till the end of the game. Not sure what happened to our defense but I was happy to get the win against a predicted top team. It was also nice to see young Andreas Cauchi getting two assists.

A great start of the season but I still felt I needed to strengthen the squad a bit to be competitive. Most urgently a right back was needed as two right backs had left the club and the only option left was young and fairly limited Mark Debono.


On deadline day we found a good option for free. Experienced Jonathan Pearson who actually has spent most of his career at Hibernians except for his last three seasons where he played for Sliema Wanderers. Although he is naturally a defensive midfielder I feel that he will significantly strengthen the right back position this season.


In the second game of the season we faced Qormi who are predicted to relegate away.

It turned out to be a comfortable win with goals by Degabriele and Mbong.

Game three was going to be a bigger challenge at home against Valletta who are predicted to fight for the continental qualification spots.

And this was a very different story. We struggled to create anything and should really have lost by more.

The weekend after we traveled to Mqabba and although we still did not create too much we were very efficient with Degabriele grabbing another goal and impressive signing Datsenko scoring a header.


After that waited a tough home game against predicted top team Birkirkara. It was a pretty even and unexciting game and I had already accepted the thought of getting one point out of the game when suddenly after a corner in the last seconds of the game Rodolfo Soares got us the winner.


Overall a fantastic start to the season which puts us in 2nd position just one point behind Valletta. Still we are lacking a lot of depth and I am more or less playing with the same starting 11 every game. So any injuries or fatigue might mean we can't keep this up.

Next on the schedule was an away game against Senglea Athletic. A manageable task considering our recent good form.

This was a game we truly dominated and the attacking three Mifsud, Degabriele and Mbong are starting to show great chemistry.

Naxxar Lions waited next in another away game.

Another great game by Degabriele and young Cauchi also continues to impress. I am starting to get some worries about the defense though.
Despite winning most games Rodolfo Soares has been a liability due to his limited pace. Playing long balls through the middle always seems to work against him and quite a few goals have been conceded as a result of that.
Also Jonathan Pearson has been increasingly inconsistent.

For the next game against Lija Athletic the defense looked better but we failed to create enough chances. A boring 0:0.


Floriana was the next opponent and I expected a tough away game.

We started terribly and went down 0:2. Rodolfo Soares and Jonathan Pearson again did not look great. After being shouted at there was a good reaction from the players however who turned the game around in the second half. Degabriele keeps on scoring and got the winner in the 92nd minute.
Also young midfielder Owen Magro has to be mentioned after a few impressive performances and two assists in this game.


Predicted top team Sliema Wanderers visited next.

Rodolfo Soares and Jonathan Pearson again looked pretty awful. At half time Stefano Baldacchino came on for Soares and he will probably keep that center back spot for now.
The second half looked better with Mifsud and Degabriele scoring but it was not enough with Sliema getting a 90th minute winner.

In the table we stay in second position one point behind the leaders. But it is Zebbug Rangers who have now surprisingly taken over 1st place.

We are almost half way into the season and it was time to face surprise team Zebbug Rangers who occupy first position.

It turned out to be a pretty boring game with few chances created on both sides. I was happy to see my defense looking more stable though.

The next game against Melita was a game we were expected to win.

We got off to a good start as young Andrea Farrugia who was replacing injured Marco Mifsud scored what could be the goal of the season with a chip over the goalkeeper from far out on the left side.
The team could not keep concentration up after the goal however end conceded the 1:1 already in the 16th minute. After that we struggled to create anything really dangerous.

In the cup 3rd round we were facing Lija Athletic.

Despite my key players playing quite a lot I felt it was important to at least reach the minimum goal of reaching the next round, so the only changes to the starting 11 were giving second goalie Rudy Briffa a chance and playing second choice left back Connor Zammit.
It was a nice comfortable win with Degabriele and Mbong once again being the difference makers.

Back in the league we were playing relegation threatened Balzan.

Maybe I paid the price for not resting enough players in the cup. Jonathan Pearson scored an early own goal and we just couldn't do enough to tie the game after that.

We wanted to try to make up for it in the next game against predicted champions Hamrun Spartans.

But it ended in another disappointing result. I experimented with a different tactic after recent poor results, playing a 3-4-1-2. And while it helped Degabriele scoring two our three man defense struggled.

Very out of form and with Mbong out injured for a few weeks, we suddenly had the chance to win a title as we were facing Balzan in the BOV Super Cup.

This is of course not the most prestigious title. But anyway a nice bonus and hopefully it improves team morale a bit.
While Marco Mifsud got us an early lead we did not look very good in the second half and conceded in the 74th minute.
We adapted by playing more defensively and having our wingers run on long balls. This helped Mifsud counter in another goal in the 90th minute.

We needed to carry some of this form back into the league.

And we certainly did. I did some changes to the tactics giving Debono back the right back spot and moving Jonathan Pearson into his more familiar defensive midfield position. Additionally we played this game somewhat asymmetrically placing Mifsud on the left wing as usual but missing a right winger in Mbong's absence.
While the game was pretty even we were really efficient and cruised to a pretty comfortable win.

Heading into a three week winter break we had lost some ground now being in 4th, 5 points behind leaders Sliema Wanderers. I hope to make one or two signings in the January transfer window and hopefully pick up some form again.

Before the next game the winter transfer window opened up and I wanted to use the 5K € of transfer budget I had left to strengthen the team a bit.
I managed to sign one player for exactly 5K. Brazilian striker Gregori joined from league competitor Senglea Athletic which means there is finally a decent backup for Degabriele.


Additionally the board decided to also spend some of the Champions League and Europa League budget:


The first game after the break was going to be a tough challenge away against Valletta.

I don't think we played too badly but they were just a bit better. And Mbong being injured meant we missed some edge going forward.
Young Baldacchino is also unfortunately not looking too good in defense and does not seem a big improvement compared to Rodolfo Soares.

Next came a home game against Mqabba which we really should win.

Quite a disaster. We started with a different tactic playing a wide 4-4-2 diamond starting with both Degabriele and Gregori. And we got off to a great start with Gregori scoring in the 6th minute.
We had a few more chances and could have had a bigger lead but after half time everything changed and we just couldn't take control of the game. Really disappointing.

A tough away game was now waiting for us again against Birkirkara.

And our poor form continued. We did look ok defensively but just could not get any decent attacking play going.

The next game at home to Senglea Athletic was basically a must-win game.

With Mbong back in top shape things finally worked out. He contributed with one goal and an assist and on top of that Degabriele scored two.

In the 4th round of the cup we were going to play Melita. We were expected to reach at least the quarter-final which meant winning this game.
Still I decided to make a few changes, mainly resting Degabriele for the first time this season and giving second goalkeeper Rudy Briffa another chance.

Unfortunately this was another game where we looked good in the first half with Mbong giving us the lead, but we collapsed in the second. Not sure why this is happening.

Back in the league waited a home game against Naxxar Lions who were just above us in the table.

With our regular starting eleven we did really well again, although it was a pretty even game where we were just more efficient.
Rodolfo Soares was also back in the team after some poor form from Baldacchino.
Young midfielder Owen Magro had an incredible game with two goals and two assists. Unfortunately Degabriele got injured early on and will be out for a few weeks.
But Gregori came on and scored a hat-trick. If he can keep that form we should be able to deal with Degabriele's injury.

Overall this has been a tough few weeks though and we have fallen further down the table. We are now in 7th and can forget about the title.
Qualifying for Europe is definitely still a possibility. But team atmosphere has taken a hit by the poor form lately and I might just have to focus on achieving the expectation of top half finish in order to keep my job and get a contract extension.

The season had taken a negative turn. 8th place, which we were predicted to finish before the season seemed more or less secured, but we would need to hold on to 7th to reach pre-season expectations of a top half finish.
A few good games and qualification to Europe would be nice however.

We started with an away game against struggling Lija Athletic.

Terrible game. We did not manage to create anything and were very lucky to even get a draw.

A home game against in form Floriana waited.

Another draw although this one was a bit better. Gregori got an early goal in the 1st minute and in the first half we had enough chances to score a few more.
For some reason however we totally collapsed after half time and it was just a question of time until Floriana would score. They did in the 79th minute.

For the next game against top of the league Sliema Wanderers I did not have too high hopes.

And yes. Not much to say about this. We were totally outplayed. Just a level below the top teams right now.

I was hoping this season would end soon so that we could regroup and get off to a fresh start. First came a home game against Zebbug Rangers.

A frustrating game. We were terrible in the first half and 3:0 down. I changed to some kind of 4-3-3 throwing everything forward which gave results. But a goal each by Degabriele and Mifsud was not enough.

Two more games to go. The last awaygame was against Melita:

Another game where we just could not create anything. Not much to say. There is just no flow at all to our attacking game in some games.

Last home game against already relegated Balzan would determine if we finish 7th or 8th.

Balzan seems to suit us after we already won the Super Cup against them. I went with an attacking 4-3-3 formation and it paid off with both Gregori and Degabriele getting on the score sheet.
Nice to finish the season in a good way.

This also secured 7th place and made the board overall pleased with my season.


My front three Degabriele, Mbong and Mifsud definitely deserve the most credit this season.
Datsenko also proved to be a great signing at center back. Apart from that there is room for improvement.


Overall for me the season went ok. The Super cup win was a nice bonus. In the League I had high hopes after a good start but ultimately we ended up where we were expected to.
But I enjoyed the season so I will definitely hang around here for another one. Financially the club is looking healthy and some of the players are still very young. So I am confident we can improve next season.