My Football Manager 16 Story #10: Hunted by the Yellow October
Only the biggest optimist or some kind of madman would assume that Pena Sports FC have any chances against Villarreal in Copa del Rey game. The problem was that my chairman just perfectly fits that description. He looks like WANTS us to win that game and gain promotion to the second tier of Spanish league in the same time. And so I started to count days to this “crucial” match…
The top half of the third league table was surely a sign of our progress in comparison to the previous season. Even so, it wasn’t such a great progress to aim for eliminating Villarreal from Copa del Rey. Okay, my players in many cases learned new skills and played better, but they were not even close to the level of Bakambu or Soldado. From the beginning, I felt that it was going to end with a defeat and I was just aiming to lose honorably. I was only afraid of my chairman and his reaction to failure.
On the day of the match, I received an awaited answer to all my questions. A little consoling, because the boss decided to use Pena Sports’ participation at this stage of the game to make a few contacts, develop acquaintances and promote his person. Visitors from Villarreal were therefore hosted in the club with style. They could feel like visiting not a third league team from the province, but a serious, dynamically developing football club. Expensive limousines and suits, golden watches, caviar and champagne from the top shelf on the tables. And on the dark side was our budget, already several million below the line.
Villarreal may not have swept us off the surface of the Earth, but won confidently. They made the job done, without giving any illusions to me, my players and Pena Sports fans. However, we were defeated in an honorable way, even being able to pack the ball into the opponents net. I was happy that it all ended in such scenario. Just next day I happily returned to the right part of my job, where I could fight for promotion from the third league. We still had a chance, holding right behind the favorites.
These may not be the world’s biggest football stars, but Villarreal’s team could have been calm about playing Pena Sport.
My achievements weren’t unnoticed as eleven clubs from Spain, Italy and France, who got into troubles this season, started to think about me as their savior. My plan of getting out of this mess worked really well. Soon few of them made official inquiries. Or tried to do that. The problem is, all these calls from Venezia, Rennes or La Hoya were successfully blocked and rejected by club’s secretary, Maria, who followed specific orders from the chairman. She just passed to him new offers with every phone call and convoyed responses. The demanded amount for my contract rose with every call, becoming more and more shocking to representatives of other sides. Two, three, five millions for some coach of Spanish third division side? That was crazy. Well, at least I knew that I won’t get from here on normal terms.
Managing Pena Sports wasn’t maybe the worst experience of my life, but it was surely becoming more and more frustrating as our debt rose with every month. We regularly lost thousands of euros and nothing let me believe that we will get from this safely. What’s worse I couldn’t see any way to improve the team for the future with such financial problems. I felt sad. For myself, for all the players I bring there and for an accountant that surely already lost faith in this project as well. Transfers of our major stars looked inevitable. We were sinking fast…
