To Win Or Toulouse? That Is The Question!

So I have arrived in Toulouse, the capital of France's Southern Occitanie region, to take over the managerial role at the Ligue 1 football club that sits close to the Spanish border and just west of Montpellier. Toulouse is known as La Ville Rose (The Pink City) due to the terra cotta bricks used in many of it's buildings. But the football team I am now in charge of are more well known for their distinguished purple colour, although this season's shirt is predominantly white.

I take over at a time when the club have returned to the top tier of French football and the fanbase will have high hopes of once again becoming a regular fixture in Ligue 1, although my arrival as an entirely unexperienced manager has caused a stir amongst the Toulouse faithful. After 17 straight seasons in Ligue 1, finishing as high as 3rd all the way back in the 2006/07 season, the club dropped down to Ligue 2 three seasons ago. After a 3rd placed finish in 2020/21, the team won the league the following season and we now grace the highest level of French football once again.

For my first season in charge, the board and fans are realistic and simply staying in the division will be enough to keep everyone happy.  Beyond that, we have domination of French football and then on to Europe in our sights…or in my sights at least. It's lucky not much is expected in my early reign as although the squad is not an awful one, it isn't anywhere near the quality to be challenging the likes of Marseille, Lyon, Monaco and the mighty PSG! One thing I do notice with the squad right away is that it's extremely multinational with only 3 French players in the first team…that's something I'll be looking to change over the years as I look to build more of a French core.

In my next update, I'll work to create a tactic from the crop available to me above. We will take a look at our key players that I'm going to look to build the team around as well and see how that all goes in some pre season friendlies. This should allow me to identify weaknesses in the squad to focus on strengthening ready for the season ahead, although I don't have the biggest transfer budget to work with and the wage budget is completely maxed out.