bigmattb28 - Comments

** on hold ***

So here I am with a challenge I have attempted a number of times only to give up part way through, but not this time! Welcome to my Pentagon Challenge! All being well this is going to be my only ongoing save and this is definitely something I am going all in with.

For those that don’t know, the Pentagon Challenge consists of winning the 5 Champions Leagues from each of the 5 continents in the base game which are:
• UEFA Champions League (Europe)
• CONCACAF Champions League (North America)
• COPA Libertadores (South America)
• AFC Champions League (Asia)
• CAF Champions League (Africa)

The aim is to win each of the above listed competitions in any order whilst starting off unemployed, with a Sunday league rep and no badges. As an added target for this challenge, I am going to aim to win each of the 5 Champions Leagues twice, with different teams! As well as this I have seen other people putting international competitions such as the Euros, Copa America, World cup and so on so I am going to add the World cup in the aims (see below) as well as the Europa League & Copa Sudamericana

I have seen on another forum some guy had completed this ‘challenge’ in 9 seasons, NINE! He was boasting at how easy it was yet the team he started off at was Guanzaou Evergrande (Chinas biggest team) before going to Kaiser Chiefs (South Africa’s biggest team) then Santos in Mexico, Boca Juniors and finishing it off at Dortmund. Now winning all 5 is an achievement but come on, those are some of the biggest clubs in their respective continents and winning the Champions League is expected from each of those teams. I am sticking to the traditional method of starting a challenge of unemployed and seeing where it takes me.

Other than the requirements for this save, I have a few goals I want to achieve during this save:

• Win each of the 5 Champions Leagues with at least 2 different teams - 0 / 10
• Win the Copa Sudamericana
• Win the Europa League
• Manage Rubin Kazan
• Manage Lokomotiv or Torpedo Moscow
• Win the Champions League with a Russian club
• Manage Russia
• Win the World Cup more than once
• Win the World Cup with at least 2 different nations - 0 / 2
• Become favoured personnel at 3 clubs - 0 / 3
• Become club icon at 2 clubs - 0 / 2
• Become club legend at 2 clubs - 0 / 3

On other forums I’ve seen people leave as soon as they win the Champions League in that continent, however I will only leave if there is a decent opportunity to do so, I won’t just leave if / when I win a Champions League. If you’ve seen any of my other threads you’ll know I like my saves to be as realistic as possible, and with that in mind I have Malaysia and Singapore loaded from the start as these nations rep is low enough to start the game at a realistic level whilst being able to build up my own rep to move on. As I like realism I will try to keep the career going at a realistic pace, I've seen others do it on the forums rejecting jobs that wouldn't happen in real life, an example I saw on another thread a guy was offered a job in France after only managing in Andorra for 3 seasons so he rejected it. I'll try and keep it as realistic as I can.

Leagues loaded from the start. The aim is to start in Asia and move either to South Africa or South America second:



As noted I will be starting unemployed with Sunday League rep and no badges:





The start of the journey then, and we’re following Russian football manager Dmitri Yshkvin (thanks Russian name generator) as he sets out from his home city of Kazan in the Southwest of Russia to embark on a worldwide journey in the hopes of conquering each continent.

Назад в путешествие, чувак

I'm a Newcastle fan (for my sins) so I will definitely be following. Fingers crossed Mike Ashley sells up in your save.

Great result winning the league mate!! Are you staying to build on this win or are you going to leave whilst your stock is high?

Oooooh do you stay or go. After getting beat by the dirty unwashed, especially to a last minute goal too, I'd probably leave if it was me. But what jobs are out there? As it's end of the season there's bound to be some managers leaving anyway, maybe see what comes up, you never know there may be a lower mid table premier league team with your name on it........

Decent enough start, keep it up man

Fingers crossed you win the title mate! Hopefully AIK buckle

Have you given up on this dude?

I'm sure you'll do fine next season. As long as you aim for staying up as a priority everything else should fall in place.

I had a feeling. A strange, uneasy feeling in a way, but a feeling nonetheless. I had this feeling that some how, some way we were going to win this game. I tell the lads to go out there and take it to them from the off. Whilst I know we would look back with disappointment should we not see this through, I tell the lads the pressure is all on the opposition and to play our natural game.

Within the first 2 minutes we’ve already levelled the scores on aggregate. The ball came over the top and fell to left winger Portilla just outside the area and hit the ball, and my word it stayed hit! This is it, I can feel it, we’re going to win this game.

UD Legones equalised with a volley that was straight out of the top drawer. They crossed it in and it just fell kindly to their winger who buried it. 1-1. Straight from the kick off we went at them and lady luck was smiling down on us as we got another goal to put us 2-1 on the night, 2 all on aggregate.

The game finished 2-2 but thanks to the away goal rule, we won the tie! We have been promoted to La Liga 123!















Wow. Just wow. How on Earth have we done that! We got through on away goals but I don’t care about that, we just got promoted! The hard work clearly starts now as we’ve got an even bigger battle on our hands, but as this team were expected to be relegation fodder and we got promoted, should I be confident we can stay up next season? Only time will tell…

UD Adarve 2018 – 19 season review

End of season stuff now and what a season!



Player of the year goes to the retiring Gerardo Berodia. Goal of the year is Portillas effort way back in January. Signing of the season goes to January signing Mikel and young player of the year goes to Munoz, who didn’t actually play that many games.



Dressing room atmosphere is good and finally, finally the players are on board with me as the manager.



The clubs rep has gone up a bit which is no surprise considering where we were expected to be and what we’ve achieved.



Part of this challenge is to become favoured personnel at 3 clubs, and I can knock 1 off that list thanks to Adarve liking me!



How many times can I say wow? Like seriously how many? How did we pull this off?!? This is a small club that shouldn't have won promotion, not this season. I'm so overjoyed it's unreal, the hard work is coming though as next season we're going to be looked at by every other team as 3 easy points. There's not much money here so the signings we target are going to have to be the right ones, no way we can have any passengers, next season is going to be a tough ask, but I love a challenge and that's exactly what next season is going to be!

Next update will be pre season stuff for our first season in the next division, the start of the new season and anything else of note.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry to be 'that' guy, but surely you can't call Besiktas a sleeping giant? Anyway good luck with this, the team looks good enough for domestic dominance, but as @tongey says drop Karius, he'll hamper you in the Champions League. Good luck, will be following.

8 games to go and a game in hand, could this be your season to win the league?? Fingers crossed!

Great start so far dude, wouldn't worry about the cup exit it means you can concentrate on the league even more now.

I walk to the dugout in our home stadium, fans have packed every corner, my heart actually skips a beat. What on Earth are we doing here?!? How did we achieve this, the play offs?!? We should be battling relegation, not battling for promotion! My team has definitely upset the apple cart so to speak. Let’s upset the cart again! We take on Real Murcia who are in Group 4 of the Segunda league and they finished runners up. We’re going to have to be at our best to get anything from this game, I’m not going to get carried away, not yet anyway, but I’m quietly confident of getting something from this game.



The game comes and it’s by all accounts a pretty even game. We take an early lead from a corner and despite some dodgy defending we went on to hold the lead and win the game 1-0. We go into the second leg with a bit of confidence



The second leg is so much different from the first. They absolutely took it to us, and I mean took it to us. They were all over us from the first minute, but our counter attacking set up paid off, as did our set piece training as we got another goal from a corner yet again. The aggregate score of 2-0 flattered us really as Murcia were definitely the better team over the 2 legs.




We’re in the next round of the play offs and we’re drawn against Levante’s B team. We’re drawn as the home team again and we’ll set up to try and get them on the counter attack, it’s worked so far so fingers crossed it works again.



The game itself was pretty even. We did hit them on the counter in the 22nd minute and took the lead with a well placed shot. We added a second late on with an absolute worldie of a free kick, whilst Garcia got a red late on we held on to give us a good 2-0 going into the second leg.



The second leg was again an even game, and despite going behind early on we held on to the lead and against all odds have progressed to the third round of these play offs.



I’m not getting carried away, we’ve rode our luck so far and really we’re lucky to be where we are. The second leg loss to Levante should serve as a warning sign to us. We’ve got to step it up if we’re to progress. We’ve got UD Legrones at home next.

This is what I’m talking about when I say we need to step it up. We were the better team here all over the pitch, however we just didn’t take 1 of our many chances. They did and they’ve got a 1 goal lead going into the second leg.





The day before the second leg of the third round of the play offs, this is our most defining moment of the season. The winners of this round are promoted to the next division, the La Liga 123. I’m sat formulating a plan, do we go and try and get them on the counter? Do we take it to them? Do we go 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1? Whatever we decide on, whatever the outcome of this game we can be proud of where we've got to. This is a team that should have been propping up the league, yet here we are on the verge of promotion. We've just got the small matter of a 1-0 deficit to turn over.

Dare we dream, dare we think the impossible could happen? Could we do it?

The final run in and play off push starts of away to Inter Madrid who are looking more and more likely to get relegated. We put in another showing off grit and determination as we won 2-0 in a game they dominated shots but we never looked like conceding.



The play off push took a hit as we went down 1-0 at home to Deportivoa La Coruna B in another even game. Hopefully this loss isn’t a sign of things to come.



It wasn’t as we battled to a 2-1 home win over Unionistas. We went 2 up after 18 minutes but conceded not long after. We held on for the win which could be vital.



After the Unionistas game it is confirmed no matter what happens Adarve will be recording their highest ever finish



We finished the month off with a 0-0 away draw at Deportiva Leonesa and a 1-0 home loss to Sanse (I didn’t get a screenshot of this) to leave us in 5th place with 2 games to go.








We’ve got 2 games to go in the league, and a play off position is at stake. Our first game of the final 2 is at home to Burgos who have just been confirmed as champions. Can we get a result against the champs?



Final game of the season now and we’re away to Coruxo and if we lose here we’re going to be relying on other results to see us into the play offs.



Last point on this update is that ARC Oleiros have been relegated. This is notable as I wanted to manage them in this career, and it’s going to be at least another full season before I can get the chance, that’s firstly if they get back up at the first try, I am unemployed and if they don’t have a manager themselves.



Next update is going to be how we got on in the play offs, end of season stuff and anything else of note.

Thanks for reading!

Great result over B*nf*ca there man! Personally I'd look to keep Bas Dost but as you say depends on what offers you get.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes form here

I love saves in lesser know countries. I've had a couple of saves with teams in Indonesia. Is this going to be a 1 club save or a journeyman? Either way I will be following.

That's a decent looking squad there mate. Here's hoping you have a good season back in the Bundesliga. Miyazaki looks like he could turn out to be very very good!

Playing well and some good performances there mate. Hopefully you can close that gap on Malmo

I've always had a soft spot for AC Milan, I call them my Italian team that I follow. Good luck with this, Juventus can be unstoppable in FM and Roma, Inter & Fiorentina are no push overs.

Well done keeping them up mate, definitely time to push on now. I'd say a play off spot is definitely within reach.

Massive congrats on the 700 mark. Now aim for the big 1,000.

We’re kicking off February with a 0-0 away to Real Valladolid in a game they absolutely dominated. I’ll gladly take this draw after barley being in the game at all.



Another 0-0 followed this one at home to Navalcarnero. Not much to say on this really as it was an even game and a draw probably suits both teams.



We manage a good win away to Celta Vigo B before rounding the month out with a loss away to Fuenlabrada to give us a record of 2 draws, 1 win and 1 loss in February which keeps us in 8th in the league.










March started off really well as we recorded victories over Ponferradina (2-0), Guijuelo (1-0) in a game we were extremely lucky to win and Las Palmas B (1-0) before going down 1-0 to Pontevedra (1-0) before rounding out the month in an entertaining 2-2 draw with Real Madrid Castilla.











We’re sitting 7th in the league with 7 games to go. A top 4 finish is definitely on the cards if we continue picking up points. Whilst the results have been good, the performances in some games have left a lot to be desired. The Guijuelo game was literally attack versus defence as we nicked a goal from a corner and weren’t ever really in the game apart from that.





I’m happy with where we are. We’ve not ever thought about relegation and have the playoffs in mind.

Also a final point on this is that I’ve signed a contract extension. The 20% release fee is there just in case someone comes in for me, highly unlikely this early into the save though.



Next update will be April & May's round of games, how we finished up at the end of the season and any other business.

Thanks for reading!

I've done quite a bit on this save over the weekend and will have at least a short update up today, I;m at work so it may be tonight I get it done. However I will definitely have something up today.

YES!!!! Can't wait for this to come back dude!

Thanks for being on board man, much appreciated! I'll be happy with a mid table finsih at the start of the season but we've been surprisingly good so far.



It's a tough ask but you never know dude!

Update should be up today or tomorrow.

The league was never in doubt was it man! Next season the aim will be not to get dragged into a relegation dogfight! Good luck

First up in December were relegation candidates Unionistas and it showed why they were bottom as we effortlessly beat them 3-1. A red card straight after the restart helped admittedly but we still deserved the win



We then went down 1-0 away to Burgos which is really gut wrenching to say as we have been playing really well until this game, and we didn’t perform well at all in this 1. Not to worry though as long as we get back to winning ways soon it will all be alright



An absolute barn stormer of a match next as we shared the spoils in a 4 all draw at home to league favourites Deportiva Leonesa. Neither of us really concentrated on defence as this was as end to end as possible. Whilst I’m happy we can score goals we do look shaky at the back, something to keep an eye on.



Finishing off December we went down 1-0 away to Sanse in a poor game for us. We go into January 7th in the table though and really, considering where we were expected to be this is a good place.







Starting off this month’s update is the news we signed 2 players, center half Mikel and central midfielder Sergi Gomez on free transfers. These are brought in to bolster the squad and give us as good a chance as a high place finish as possible







Our first game of January and we went and beat Coruxo 3-1 at home and we played well.



Away to Atletico B team now and they controlled this game but better late than never as we managed to bury a late shot to grab a 1 all draw. Not too disheartened at this however Ateltico B are currently propping up the league so it could be seen as 2 points dropped



After that game it’s announced that I am currently rolling with a 50% win record! I knew we have been playing well but didn’t realise we’d won 10 of my first 20 games in charge! Definitely think we can grab a play off by the end of the season at this rate.



Another win in the league at home, this time against Bouzas and we’ve done the double over them this season. Another good showing from my team



Finishing the month on a low point now as we went down 2-1 to Salamanca. It’s not quite panic stations yet as there’s plenty of time left in the league and I’m not worried by this 1 loss although it could be argued they were very, very lucky to grab that late winner but it is what it is.



So we finish January 7th in the league and that’s not bad really. I’m confident relegation isn’t ever happening and we can aim for the play offs. I’m surprised where we are at really as I was gearing up for a long season near the bottom of the league.





Next update will be the next few months of the season in the run up to the end of the year and any other business.

Thanks for reading, it is much appreciated!

Kicking off this update is a home game against Fuenlabrada which we dominated and came away 1-0 winners, that score line is always dangerous but we held on for the win



Goalkeeper Laboto moaned about being out of the team, despite literally featuring in all games bar the last 2! Anyway I confirmed he’ll get game time and he assures me he’ll make the most of the chance





Well, thanks to Laboto’s promise of a good showing he helped us get beat 5-1 away to Ponferradina! I don’t like changing a winning side and this shows exactly why!





Next up was Guijuelo at home and what. A. Game!



We were down 3-1 after 60 minutes but got back to 3-3 by the 65th, however we pressed pushed and battered them all the way right up until the 92nd minute when left winger Portilla buried a shot in at the near post. Absolute scenes! Oh and Laboto didn’t play in this game!

Finishing off the month of October saw us take on and beat Las Palmas B team 2-0 in another really good showing. We dominated them from start to finish



At the end of the month we’re sitting in the dizzy heights of 6th in the league, the board are happy and the players are just about on board.











November carried on where October left off as we battered Pontevedra 4-1 in yet another fine showing after going 4-0 up in the first half. How this team were expected to finish near the bottom of the league is beyond me!



Back to back 1-0 victories followed as we beat Real Madrid Castilla and Inter Madid in both games we were clearly the better team. Again, how this group of players are expected to be battling relegation I’ll never know, I’m actually quietly thinking about a play off finish





We finished November off with a hard fought 0-0 with Deportivo B to end the month unbeaten and moving up to 5th in the league









After this great early season showing the board say I am untouchable at this point of the season



Players are slowly warming to me as well



That’s it for this update. Next update will be up shortly and will cover December and January, if we make any signings in the transfer window and any other business

Thanks for reading!

Me too man but there's a slim chance it may get resolved, however thanks for being on board as usual!

You did the right thing staying mate, hopefully some good performances and you should stay up this year.