My Football Manager 16 Story #8: Dumb and dumber (associate)

by Brucevsky · Published 18 August 2017 · Updated 1 September 2017

As always, I planned pre-season friendlies with little-known semi-professional opponents. This strategy worked well before and I believed that this time it will again serve well for my players. They just needed to comfortably work on fitness. Time for challenges and murderous fight for every meter of the pitch will come, so there’s no need to rush it. Also some impressive wins should raise the morale of the entire team and that’s another good point of working on form against lower-league sides.

We won every game comfortably, but I wasn’t enthusiastic, contrary to my superiors, who have already seen those euros falling from the sky after such accomplishments in the Spanish third league. This was starting to be scary as I thought about their reaction for another season spent by Pena Sports FC in the middle of the table. On the other hand, why we would struggle, with all that new players that brought great quality to the squad? We should play better. We should, right?

I tried to calm down myself watching my players work hard during the pre-season period. New faces looked good and quickly found their place in the team. Only winger Echeveria and centre-back Monrell had some minor injuries, the rest of the pack was ready for any challenge. I didn’t have reasons to be nervous.

Until…

Biggest transfer moves in Spain? Surely Valencia made the best business, Real splashed cash and Guadalajara decided to change its team entirely. I mean ENTIRELY. For information 4,2 mln zł = 1 mln euro.

Until one of the associates working at San Francisco Stadium decided to fuck up everything. On his own he decided what dimensions of the pitch would be perfect for upcoming games. Ignoring our tactics and common sense, he reduced them to the minimum size acceptable by the federation, thereby literally cutting our wings. Just before the first match of the season we learned that we will have to play our game on the narrowest possible pitch, making our plan to use wings almost impossible. This error couldn’t be fixed quickly.

So now’s the time to ask yourself really important question. Would you pay 47 mln euros for Shaqiri?

Two failures 0:1 in the following weeks only confirmed my fears. I had to come up with something quickly. A complete change of tactic wasn’t an option as players needed time to learn new strategy. I could only make minor adjustments, so I decided to change my wingers into offensive midfielders. They were supposed to play closer to the center, run into the penalty area often and try to use more space in the middle.

The beginning of the season was lost. After eight rounds, Pena Sports was in the thirteenth position with only ten points. The president wasn’t thrilled. Do you know Brucevsky that I was just joking when I told you that I will be happy if Pena Sports stays in the league this season this season? – chairman caught me off guard one day. I could only smile nervously, holding and molding some sheets of paper in my hands…