The birth of BB the King!

I am 29, born in Poland to a Polish mother and a Latvian father. I have bounced from job to job, never really finding something to hold my interest for more than a day or 2. That is, except football. I play every Sunday afternoon, but am not good enough to make it any higher than that. But it seemed like I was always the one who took over those casual matches, giving the tactics to everyone and stating our case to the referee when they made “that” call. 

What else did I do? I learned some languages. I speak Polish and Latvian, as well as German, English and Serbian. 

Dad says I am crazy, Mom just smiles in that way that Mom's do….but I have decided to do that thing I always wanted to do….become a football manager!

It is 7 March 2022 and today is the 1st day of the rest of my life!

30 July 2022

The phone has been pretty quiet. I guess not having any badges is causing many clubs to look past me, I know it isnt because I celebrated my birthday by counting gray hairs already. 

I decided to not chase every opening that comes up. Laura Molek, my personal assistant, does notify me of potential jobs as well as jobs that match my background and such, but I have decided to let them contact me. I think that will change if I dont have a job by 1 January 2023. I can only live in the basement for so long!

I did have one interview, it was a newer club in the Ukraine, Dianz. I had my interview on 7 July. But they didnt waste any time in telling me that even though I had a good interview, I didnt get the job on 11 July. 

So back to watching the matches and playing Football Manager!

21 August 2022

And so it begins! BFC Daugavpils reached out to me and within 6 days I was hired to manage a team in my own nation! 

BFC isnt a big club, only has 180 season ticket holders. We are going to be fighting to stay up in the couple of months we have left.

Club Particulars:
My allowed payroll: 26,000

Current payroll: 21,606

Payroll space: 4, 394

Transfer budget: 45,000
HOYD (Allowed/Current): 1/0

Coaches (Allowed/Current): 3/2

Recruitment staff (Allowed/Current): 1, allowed 4, including GM

Medical Staff (Allowed/Current): 1, allowed 3, including 1 Sports Scientist

BFC B Staff:
Coaches: 0/4

Medical: 0/2

U-18 Staff:

Coaches: 1/1, Head Coach

Medical: 0/1, Sports Scientist

That all important message!

Let the journey begin!

What do they expect?

And those all important supporters!

What is that club vision?

League Table

Remaining Matches

Current Finances

What is my Plan?

I am going to have to remember how to post images on here, it has been a while. I could only post a single image per post, that is why it looks like this. I will pracitce and get better so there are not so many to look at like that. I also switched skins, I didnt like how that one looked.

Moving Forward

I dont have that much money to use to bring in players. I am going to switch to a 4-2-3-1 with 2 MC, 1 a deep-lying playmaker and one an advanced playmaker. This may seem like an odd combination, but I think with the mid-fielders I have it will work.

Hopefully we get the results we need.

Thanks for reading along and feel free to drop a comment or 2, even a suggestion or 2….especially about these images! I tried to use Imgar and use the link, but it didnt work. So I am open to suggestions about how best to do that.

1 Oct 2022

As I was working on this, I decided to do it as monthly updates. I am going to provide a short summary of the matches and where we are, along with my thoughts about what is coming next.

MATCHES

27 Aug 2022

BFD (9th) vs Meta (10th). Home, attendance: 358.
Luckily my 1st match as manager was against the only team lower in the table than us. In the league the bottom 2 teams have a relegation playoff with the loser being relegated. I had promised to not be involved in that playoff, which gave me a little more money to try to strengthen the squad. To avoid the playoff I just need to finish 8th in the table. To be honest, the side played well from the start and we won 3-1. The striker we have on loan, Lizounovs from RFS, scored a brace with the left winger, Yanki, scoring the other for the home side. I decided to stick with the 4-2-3-1 despite the insistence of the Assistant Manager that we play a 5-3-3.

So with my 1st match, we moved into 8th place by 2 points with a match in hand. But it lasted less than one day because the other team that I am fighting for the 8th spot, Super Nova, won their match, so we dropped back into 9th.

5 Sep 2022

BFD (9th) vs Auda (5th) Away

This match had me worried. I knew that if we didnt win it, or at least get a draw, I was going to have troubles with the locker room. Somehow, we came away with a 1-1 draw. The formation didnt perform as well as I had hoped. Even though I was switching between Positive and Balanced, we seemed to be just sitting back and absorbing what they threw at us. I was pleased to come out with a draw to be fair. Our lone goal was scored by Yanki, a penalty kick. 

We are in 8th by 2 points. But I was worried to see the results from Super Nova's match the next day. I was beyond happy when I saw they had also drawn. We were safely up with a game in hand and a 2 point margin.

10 Sep 2022
BFD (8th) vs Tukums (7th), Home, Attendance: 318.

I felt we could win this game. I kept the formation, moved a few players from the bench to the starting 11, gave the pep talk which had no impact at all and watched them take the pitch. Once again, we were able to get a win, 2-1. Our goals came from Yanki (I am quickly finding out how much of an asset he is) and Bezarashvills. He is our only striker on the bench. A Latvian youngster. I was really pleased how well they played. I am struggling to have an impact on them with the team talks, but at least they are winning. 

We finally got on even matches with Super Nova and this victory gave us a 5 point margin. The next 2 matches are not going to do us any favors. We will take on the top 2 teams within 3 days of each other. Super Nova played another match during the interval and somehow won, cutting or margin back to 2.

17 Sep 2022
BFD (8th) vs RFS (1st), Home, Attendance: 268.
We kept the 4-2-3-1, but I listened to the Asst Manager and went with a defensive mentality. I agreed that it was the only way we stood a chance. But nothing really went our way during this match. The only thing I can be happy about is we didnt lose by any more than we did. The match ended with a 0-2 loss. It was made even worse by DC Ivanovs scoring an OG. It was their only score of the 1st half. But at least we were able to keep it close to not hurt our goal difference with Super Nova (if it comes down to that). One other thing I found out, my starting striker was not allowed to play. He is on loan from RFS and is not allowed to play against his parent club. Yea, I didnt find out until match day about that nugget of information.

I would have liked to have gotten the victory to open up a bigger lead, but it wasnt in the cards. Luckily though, Super Nova lost as well so we were able to stay in 8th place.

20 Sep 2022
BFD (8) vs Riga (2), Home, Attendance: 249

I think the supporters had the same concerns that I did, we were looking at another loss. I changed the mentality to Positive, ignoring my Asst Manager on almost everything. I also had to make some roster adjustments because of how tired the normal starting 11 were from the RFS match. Looking back, I should have used the bench players in the RFS match, or at least that is what I thought at the time. These bench players were out to prove themselves and shocked me with a 3-1 victory. Lizounovs scored 2 on his return to the starting lineup and defender Idowu shocked me with a scorcher from just outside the box. 

This win let us catch up to Super Nova on matches played, and more importantly, open the margin back up to 5 points. We are on a 2 week break before our next match. Which could see Super Nova cut back into our lead since they have a match when we dont. Life is being good though as they lose the match 2-1.

League Table

Remaining Matches

Musings and Thoughts

After the Riga match, (which I am still smiling over) we suffered a bad injury as our back-up Fullback (Mikelson) broke his ankle and will be out for 7-8 months. He joins AMC/ST Dele Israel on the Injury Report. Dele was hurt 27 July during a training session where he tore a thigh muscle. The latest report says he will be back in 2-5 weeks, so maybe before the end of the season. He is signed through 2023 so I should see him take the pitch, unless we dont stay up, in which case I get the sack.

I am really pleased with how we are doing. We are even within reach of 7th place, but that is going to take quite a bit of things to go our way. Right now I am more concerned with staying in 8th place. The Locker Room morale is so-so. Even our victories dont seem to have made much of an impact. I do have quite a few who are not happy with the strength training. I got permission to hire another coach so I will probably try to get a Fitness Coach.

A bright spot, our youth intake was very good and I signed a Central Defender that is good enough for the starting 11. He cant be registered this season, but will try to get him off of an amateur contract as soon as possible.

This is harder than I thought it would be, but I am enjoying it. I have had 5 players tell me they want to examine options at the end of their contracts. I cannot say that I am shocked, we are fighting to stay up with a shoe-string budget. Unless I can get more supporters in the seats, I dont see the financial situation improving. 

October is going to be interesting. We have 5 matches, which I would be pleased with 10 points from them. We will see I guess. If I can get into 7th, I think it will help my chances of staying up. November, 2 matches and the season is over. I havent asked about taking a coaching course, may see if they will let me over the off-season. But with the tight budget, I wont be shocked if they say no.

On to the next match!

I hope you have enjoyed reading along. 

I guess this is not drawing any attention. I am going to keep the save file, but will look to start another save. If anyone is interested, I will start running this one again.

Thanks