Unemployed Sunday League Footballer - first stop Tuzla, Istanbul...

Have been playing since FM24 release day in my spare time. Started as the title suggests and applied for jobs. Allocated a chunk of my mental points to adaptability and was offered the job at Tuzla for £600/week. Negotiated up to £700 and signed for my first season.

The job appealed to me over others available:

• Second Tier European League entry level
• Low expectations - avoid relegation

14 League games in and so far, so good. Have been hovering around the playoff places most of the season so far, but just took a 3-5 defeat away at Bodrum FK which dropped us out of the zone.

Have won a couple of games in the Turkish Cup and have been dealt a money spinning (hopefully) last 32 tie away at Kasimpasa to be played just before the Winter break.

So, my 15th League match of the season was a home game against lowly Genclerbirligi. It looked like a perfect fixture to get the team back on track after a bruising defeat at Bodrum. I picked up a couple of niggly injuries to first teamers, my best midfielder and my striker, so young replacements come into the side, but I'm still cautiously optimistic. Half time comes and we're comfortably 1-0 up and dominating the match. Then in true FM style the sucker punch of two late strikes and we go down 1-2 in the last ten minutes. The stats tell the story - true FM profligacy going forward and conceding to their only two shots on target:

Still in 9th position in the league but that defeat has knocked the stuffing out of us a bit. Now we have three tough away fixtures before heading into the Winter break. With the team relatively comfortable still, and the board and supporters overall very pleased with me, I've decided to put more emphasis on the future, tactically, and also look to overhaul the team playing personnel.

I've succeeded in my request to do my National B Coaching Badge at the second request, and the team is fully trained to play my Watson-ball style of entertaining attacking football. So with the fixtures the way they are I'm going to train and play in a more cautious style of Watson-ball to get the players more familiar which should stand them in good stead for the future when trying to manage a game and see out a win.

I've been paying a 31 year old Imbula £7.5k/week out of my total budget of £16k/week. His attitude and performances don't match his salary so he has to be first to go. Will look to offload a couple more also in order to free up some budget space and get in some young, hopefully Turkish, youngsters with some decent potential. Recruitment focuses are in place and intermediaries have been contacted in preparation for the forthcoming transfer window. First the small matter of the away matches to the league leaders, and top tier side in the Cup.

Since my last update, it has to be said it's been tough. As can be seen from the image below, since my 4th Round home Cup win against Afyonspor at the beginning of November, it's been hard going. Trust me, I now understand why this team was tipped for a relegation battle before the season started. Quirks in the fixture list have not helped one bit. Since the afore-mentioned Cup Tie, I have toiled away for two and half months with “away” being the operative word. Ten matches of which only two were in our own 2,581 all seater stadium. Two away ties in the Cup and six league matches on the road, it's been really tough.

There have been chinks of light however. In amongst a dismal run of six defeats on the spin, there was the small matter of our 5th Round away tie at top tier Kasimpasa. The FM Gods were on our side this particular match as we absolutely thrashed them 4-0. Unbelievable scenes were followed by the deal of another away tie at Kocaelispor, who had soundly beaten us at our place earlier in the season.

The poor league run was finally halted towards the end of January, and that was quickly followed by another great away Cup win in the 6th Round. Unbelievably we are now in the Turkiye Kupasi Quarter Finals, and I was hoping for a money spinning away trip to one of the big boys. I got one of the big boys, but Fenerbahce will be visiting our place on a balmy Thursday evening in March. Not sure that's going to yield much in the way of receipts, where's the option to switch venues when you need it?

Anyway I'm not going to grumble. My overhaul of the playing staff with very cheap or free incomings seems to be slowly taking shape, but time will tell if we can keep ourselves clear of the relegation battle. There's now a host of clubs just teetering above the red zone. It's going to be entertaining.

Wasn't going to update so soon after last post but those chinks of light I spoke about last time are now shining brilliant rays.

Since the last post we have won all four of our league matches and have firmly pulled away from any signs of a relegation battle. Indeed we are looking just upwards now towards the remote possibility of sneaking into the playoff places before the season's merry-go-round stops. We've not just been winning but the last couple of games we've been in scintillating form, getting early comfortable leads then being able to lower the tempo and pick the opposition off seemingly at will.

A lot of this is down to three new players, 2 free transfers Realdo Fili (AML-IW) and Benjamin Leneis (SwK), and £4.9k purchase, Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana (STC) who couldn't seem to get a game with Kaiser Chiefs in South Africa. The striker has now started 5 league games and come on as sub in another, and already has 9 goals in the bag. I also have my DoF (appointed by the board) to thank for a couple of 18 year old attacking full backs that he originally brought in to play for the U19 team back in August, but I've slowly introduced them to the first team and the attacking philosophy seems to be bearing fruit.

In the midst of this good run I've also signed a new contract until end of season 2025 for a raise up to £850 per week.

Nine league games to go and a free hit against Fenerbahce, all in the space of the next six weeks. As I said in the last post, this is definitely entertaining.

Last update, certainly until the regular season of matches are through.

The month of February continued well and assisted by catching up on some home matches, ended in a brilliant record of 6 wins from 7 league matches, with an injury time equaliser at Sakaryaspor the least we deserved from that match. It maintained our unbeaten run going into the month of March and fixtures were juggled around due to Fenerbahce's schedule.

So we started the month well with another good home win, but then came the blip away at Manisa F.K. We took an early lead but couldn't get the second and slowly let them back into the match. It was frustrating because we deserved at least a point, and with others faltering around us, we missed a big chance to move into the playoff spots.

Never mind, we focus back on one game at a time, and finish up with 3 home league matches against the current 1st, 3rd and 4th place teams in the league. Hopefully there'll be a bit of complacency from the opposition and we can shake things up to land in the top 7.

So, we headed into the final 4 league matches and Quarter Final of the Cup, and it all started horribly. In our away match against Genclerbirligi, we went 2 goals down in the first half, got a late consolation but ended up with a loss.

The Cup tie against Fenerbahce ended up being a routine loss. Fenerbahce got the early goal. We held out and even got an equaliser with 20 minutes left, but no sooner had we got started again they upped the ante and made it 1-3 with ease.

Ahead of the Goztepe match, things looked poor in terms of morale, so I called a team meeting which perked things up a bit. I couldn’t let the lads know but I still wasn’t confident at all. I was effectively going to have to play a half-rotated side due to recent fixture schedule, against the team top of the league, and in addition my main striker, Bimenyimana, was off on international duty with Burundi.

Anyway, after providing the guard of honour for the opposition, we took a bit of a battering, but to be honest we started to feel our way into the match. We won a penalty (we’ve had quite a few this season), calmly slotted it away just before half time, then came out for the second half and dominated. We came away with a good 2-0 win and we were flying, even if complacency was partly responsible.

On to Bodrum FK, and what a match! Seriously what a match! Got an early penalty but went in 1-3 down at half time. Came out for the second half and everything was flowing. With 20 minutes left we were 5-4 in the lead and hung on for a superb result. Even more pleasing was that I love to be on right side of an entry in the high scoring record books.

On to the last match of the season and we started the day in seventh, the playoff spots. There were seriously tired legs, and with 15 minutes to go, the live table showed us in 9th place. I threw caution to the wind to get that all important goal. I substituted my entire front 3 and the youngsters did the business and secured a 2-0 win. Unbelievable scenes on the pitch and A+ ratings from the board and supporters for achieving the playoff berth target 4 years ahead of target.
 

So on to the playoffs, but wait, they’re six weeks away! Shocking fixture scheduling from the Turkish FA, absolutely ludicrous. So, I’m planning some friendlies to keep things ticking over. Then we have our Playoff Quarter Final away at Boluspor, who we just beat in the last match of the season.

Update on the youth candidates, I got one elite right back, but the rest were good or below. I signed all bar two anyway, and they will help to overhaul the club’s youth system in the next few years.
 

So, spoiler alert, my Tuzlaspor team won promotion through the Playoffs, but the manor in which it has been gained has left me a bit flat to be honest. Not really the exciting FM experience or challenge that I was looking forward to or expecting.

The problem lies in the fact that as I mentioned at the end of my last update, there was a six-week gap between the final regular league game and the Promotion Playoff Quarter Final, 44 days to be exact. So, I took the opportunity to arrange five easy going friendlies evenly spaced out, which gave me the chance to initially rest my first team regulars, get my squad players some minutes then gently raise my key players to peak match sharpness for the forthcoming playoffs. It all made sense to me, but then apparently not for any of the other teams involved in the Playoffs.
 

When I played Boluspor away in the one-off Quarter Final the first half was cagey, but a convincing performance saw us comfortable 4-1 winners against a team who hadn’t seen a football stadium for 44 days. Probably the biggest challenge was the two-legged Semi Final against Eyupspor, but after an unbelievable display in the second half of the first leg, it was pretty much all over. Then came the Final against Bodrum, and it must go down as the most confident I have ever been about an FM match. The Bodrum players had fought all season for the right to play in the one-off Promotion Playoff Final, but they hadn’t played a match for 58 days by the time we played them at a neutral stadium.

After Bimenyimana got his first goal in the 5th minute we were camped in their half and celebrated another three goals before half time all in front of the Bodrum fans packed in one end.

Anyway, we’re up and now I’m very apprehensive. Admittedly I’ve got a well-oiled team playing some good stuff in 1. Lig, but how on earth are we going to compete with the likes of Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce next season. Apparently, we need a minimum 10,000 capacity stadium in the Super Lig as well, so I have no idea where we’re going to be playing our home games next season. We’ve been using the 2,581 capacity ground of Sancaktepe all season so I have no idea.

Anyway, we’ll take on the challenge and see what happens with my Watson-ball style that knocked in a record 85 goals this season. At the very least I will have caught the eye of some prospective club owners around Europe with an unbelievable achievement. By the time next season comes around I will have gained my National A coaching badge and surely, I will have enough credit with the board to progress through my badges.