The Norwegian Way – Chapter 1 – Introduction
In the grand scheme of things, a football club founded in 2010 is a relative infant in comparison to the historic goliaths both foreign and domestic. My decision to manage Arendal had two factors. Firstly when researching clubs at this level and looking at the communities and scenery around them, they stood out. I’d like nothing more than to give this picturesque setting, the glory it deserves. Secondly is one of pragmatism, of all the teams playing in the 3rd tier of the Norwegian football pyramid I believe they are in the best position to push onto greater things. Just as they have done in real life by winning the title this season by a whooping 16 points. They are the only team at their level to boast “Above average youth recruitment”, which I believe will help us greatly in the early days as we have a minuscule transfer fund, so much of the development will have to come from within. As well as maximising our tactical efficiency.
The aim for this save falls into 3 milestones which I hope to achieve:
- Take the club to the top tier in Norway and win the league title.
- Transfer the domestic success into Europe and win the UCL.
- Build the nation as a whole to a point where Norway is the top ranked country according to UEFA’s Coefficient rating. They currently sit 26th so that will be an ongoing struggle.
Taking an initial glance at the squads we have at our disposal it is clear that we have a strong first team, but also possess some talented youngsters in our B team and U19 squads.
Our brightest sparks come in the form of wingers Rasmus Lynge Christensen and Willy Pepa. Since the the tactic I’ll be using relies on high quality wingers they will be essential members of the squad if we can keep hold of them. In terms of striking options we are somewhat lacking. Our best forward is Christian Tveit, whose stats particularly as an out and out goal scorer leave a lot to be desired. I hope to use him in a DLP(S) role so his lower finishing stats may not matter quite as much as hopefully he can link up well with more of the scoring chances falling to a Shadow Striker or a marauding winger.
Turning our attention towards our younger players we find ourselves blessed with an excellent prospect (A regen as well which only makes it better for me). Presumably the default database doesn’t feature a huge amount of players from youth teams of Norwegian 3rd tier clubs so it has kindly generated a couple on our behalf. 16 year old Jonas Håland is the kid in question, unfortunately he plays a position/role combination that I don’t plan to use. However since he is so young I think he can easily be retrained to play slightly deeper as an AP(S) in an M(C) position as that’s where I believe we will get the best out of him. We also have 16 year old Tasso Dwe, a real life prospect who looks to have big things ahead of him. Whether that be with us or at a larger club with some very favourable sell on clauses remains to be seen.
As for tactics, I had planned to transfer over the tactic that some of you may remember from my Wimbledon save on FM16. The idea is to see if the tactic is actually any good or whether it was simply relying on exploits that have since been patched out in this year’s version of the game.
Above you can see the shape I intended to use and the instructions. This was all copied straight over from FM16. It did not take long into our pre-season friendlies for me to realise this was not going to work in it’s current form. We may have won our first two games but the goals were more a case of a statistical likelihood due to the sheer volume of shots we were having rather than through careful build up that would work against higher quality opposition. The main issue was long shots, we were taking far too many of them even when there seemed to be passing options available. I knew it wasn’t down to the individual player instructions as all players are marked to shoot less often. Therefore it had to be coming from either the shape or the team instructions. Much to my chagrin it took me two games of watching the team to figure out that the issue was due to our “Stick To Positions” instruction. This was stopping players from roaming into areas where they could easily be found with a pass from a teammate. In turn the lack of passing options was causing player to shoot from range instead of risking losing the ball with risky passes.
In our following three matches we not only created a great quantity of high quality chances but also became more solid at the back as we weren’t turning the ball over to our opposition constantly thanks to our aimless long shots. The next three games saw us take part in a small tour of some Swedish lower division sides which seemed to offer more of a challenge in the games. Despite this we came through the games with flying colours looking dynamic going forward and reasonably assured at the back, though there is always room for improvement.
In amongst all these friendly games and tactically experimentation I tied as many of the important players to new contracts as i could. I also moved some our high potential non-contract players such as Jonas Håland onto part-time contracts to ensure that we had more leverage in the transfer market should some larger clubs start circling like vultures. In terms our own transfer dealings, I tried to strengthen in areas we were lacking depth, mainly our centre and defense midfield roles. Predominantly down to the high intensity of our tactic, it tends to leave us with a few yellow cards, which means we will need cover for the inevitable suspensions. I also had my scouts out specifically searching for a new striker more familiar in the DLP role however they came up empty by the time the window shut which is unfortunate.
I will show some of the players I brought in in more detail in later posts as this just an introduction. To give a quick run down, Solbakken will provide us cover for our most creative midfielder Tobias Henanger. Jiress Suka-Suka can cover both in centre midfield and in a deeper role which makes him an excellent addition to the squad both because of this and his top tier name. Finally Jean Christian Rugamba will provide cover for our centre backs. While we have plenty of depth in the position, the players are of a very low level compared to their first team counterparts. Rugamba will give me more confidence should we lose one of our first choice partnership due to injury or the more likely threat of suspension. Our only large outgoing transfer is that of Tasso Dwe, one of our most promising young players I identified earlier in the post. It only took a matter of weeks for his head to be turned by the offers of a bigger club and since I can’t risk destroying squad harmony at this early stage I was forced to let him have his move. I took this as an opportunity to milk the transfer for all it was worth. The fee itself is not astronomical but at this point all money coming into the club is welcome. The real benefit to the deal is the “50% of next sale” clause, when selling players I plan to use this clause as often as I can to generate the club more income a few years down the line should we produce some players that go onto big things. We also get him back on a loan for a year along with a friendly against a top side which should bring in some extra income for us as well.
Since I don’t want this post to go on forever i tried to wrap things up, however i couldn’t help myself from playing the first couple of league games of the season to see how our tactic compared against teams at the same talent level as us. We began the season away to Moss FK, who had given me a lot of problem in a test version of this save I played on the beta. We did have the benefit of them being down to 10 men from a very early point in the game. Despite this it took us longer than I would have liked to break them down. The breakthrough finally came in the 86th minute from our dynamic right winger Willy Pepa (again top tier name). We failed to hit the target as much as I wanted but I believe this is partly down to the shot stat being skewed by the amount of free kicks we were given in shooting positions on the edge of the box. Perhaps if we had a better FK taker at our disposal we could have punished them for their ill discipline. Shout out to the 20 away fans that made the trip, that is some commitment and I’m glad they were able to witness a win.
Next we faced a game that on paper should have been a much greater test. One of the pre-season favourites for our division this year, the 2nd team of top tier side Strømsgodset IF. Much like our first game we didn’t get started until the second half, a few half time changes such as more roaming seemed to create even more passing channels allowing us to cut through them easily. Our 4th goal was scored so late that even I missed it, having stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Our propensity for late goals shows me we have the stamina to maintain at least a decent level of pressure for the entire game. The tactic comes to life against tired legs and that is something we can definitely look to exploit this season
.
Our final game in this post comes from the cup. I wanted a cup run in our first few seasons to help build some bank balance, however Egersunds had other ideas. Every now and then you will have a game where it seems you do everything right and leave with a baffling result, this was one of those games. For the most part the game was very even, both sides had chances but our opposition were ruthlessly efficient at converting theirs. In a 30 minute period in the middle of the game they put us to the sword and galloped into a 5 goal lead. A couple of late goals from Steinar Berås saved some of our embarrassment but did nothing to offset my anger at the performance.
That will do it for the first post in this tale. This is the first time that I have turned my hand to writing about FM in this way, it truly is a totally different skill set to making videos and one that I’m not sure I currently possess. I do intend to put the work in to get better, as writing about this save has given me more reason to pay attention to the nuances of the game that sometimes slip under the radar when i play the game more casually. In terms of format for the future posts, I hope to be covering a season in each of them so the frequency of publication may vary based on the time i have available. I won’t be going over every game in the posts but the important things, I do plan to take a deeper look at players and finances too. My main aim is to tell a story, not too provide in depth guides and analysis, mostly because I have no idea what i’m talking about when it comes to things like that. If there are any specific things you would like to hear more about then do feel free to let me know in the comments or on twitter. In addition be sure to drop the club a follow on twitter also, their twitter can be found here.
About the Author
SYC Matt A football fan just like the rest of us. Battling with the usual ups and downs that come with supporting one of the less glamorous teams. Crusader for footballing justice.
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