Dr Rizzoli's Journey

We are back for FM24

Having closed the previous Journeyman save, I realised the time between posts, lack of structure was against the grain for me, so for now I will break up the seasons into halves. Then broken down into objectives, notable transfers, results and standings. Having seen FMstags player performance calculator, I will try and gather some moneyball momentum behind each team, and as ever starting unemployed with no badges, experience or reputation. 

Nations Loaded : Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore.

I apply for all jobs and nobody wants a piece !? I decide to buy my time and see how it goes, when J2 league side Thespa Gunma come knocking after a mediocre season, which ends in the December, so I have a few games to aim for the playoffs. So…

Team 1: Thespa Gunma, J2 League 2023

The club was founded in 1995 in Kusatsu, one of the most well-known spa resorts in Japan, and have never tasted J1 league football. Lets try and change that.

Thespa Gunma 2023 Season 1 Welcome Aboard

Fresh from studying the first coaching badge at the thermal spas, I took a look at the squad and realised all the decent players were on the last 6 months of their contracts, and were looking for a move away from spa baths and and relaxation in the foothills of Japan and J League 1. Either way, Gunma found themselves hovering above relegation, albeit safe for now. Quick analysis showed some good depth and a decent B-Team which will help with Objective 1 of 4;

Objective 1 : Promote youth team where available. 

Objective 2 : Survive relegation and fight for promotion next season (2024)

Objective 3 : Keep the club in a healthy financial balance

Objective 4 : Play attractive football

As mentioned earlier, we will use player data to make informed transfer decisions, but that will be at the beginning of the next post. For now in the time between September 23 and the season ending in December, we finished a respectable 8th, with a good run of form, and some cracking games.

But 2 late defeats in the season ended our play off hopes. Playing a good old 4-1-2-3 we were good up top, but leaked goals throughout.

So for now its bye bye to some of the better players and time to invest in depth, the squad is small and we have only one player in the U18 team, and 11 in the B team. In the next post I bring in no fewer than 16 players! for 2024 we re-build and look to a good cup run and a fight for promotion.

Thespa Gunma 2024 Season 2.1 Moneyball-ing! 

After a middling start to life in Japan, I was finally able to get my teeth into the transfer market, crucially at the end of the season using the stats to plug into Stag FM's performance calculator to use some sort of sabre metrics to determine high performing players in the leagues around us, as well as relying on my scouts and director of football. We are lucky to have a strong striker in Take who can step up after our best striker Iwumoto moved on to bigger things.

Areas to improve:

• Central defence (we lost our best defender at the end of the season)
• Right back (only one natural right back in the squad)
• Defensive midfielder (Hosegai is the club captain but is knocking on a bit)
• Centre midfield (we have quality, no depth)
• Wingers left and right (depth, no quality)

So with my shopping list in hand, the backroom team and I sat down and found a plethora of undervalued but effective players from J leagues 1, 2 and 3 to create our bargain basement team. I leave all contract negotiations to the director of football, other wise I'll bankrupt the club. These fellas, are the notable finds.

And thats just the tip of the iceberg, all signed on frees. Apart from one fella at RB, panic bought on the last day of the transfer window. Therefore the budget went a little more south than expected. Never the less, we have assembled a good team to fight for promotion and we strengthened where we needed, which was, everywhere in the end.

Safe to say we have had an interesting first half of the season with a good cup run in to the Semis of the League Cup, through to the 4th round of the All Japan Cup and hovering in 7th in the league just a point off the playoff positions.

The new signings are fitting in nicely, but we are struggling for consistency in the league, if we can go on a run we can challenge for the playoffs. Stay tuned for the more detailed second half of the season, still in the cups, still in a hunt for promotion. Coaching badge completed, we go again back to school.