Are you Keegan in disguise?

Following on from our successful trip to Euro 2016, our third season with club and country has been a stark contrast between unexpected success with the club side and massive disappointment at international level.

I’m not too disappointed by our struggles with Austria as it shows that there’s still plenty of work to do, as I did wonder if our quarter final showing at Euro 2016 was a sign that we’d find things too easy.

With Red Bull Salzburg continuing to provide stiff competition domestically, there still seems to be plenty of longevity in this save yet. Hopefully the rest of the league will catch up at some point but this season it would take something really special to beat our rivals from Salzburg.

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Rapid’s Second Season & Euro 2016

It’s been a while since my last update as I’ve been distracted by the usual family commitments as well as NBA 2K15 and a spot of Minecraft, which I’ve discovered is actually great.

In the meantime, though, we’ve progressed into season 3 of the club and country save, meaning I owe you an update on how Rapid Wien got on in season 2 and, more importantly, how Austria fared at Euro 2016.

Before we get there, I’d just like to say a huge thanks to all the readers, commenters, retweeters, linkers and pluggers who have helped publicise and contribute to the blog recently. It’s fantastic to see how many views we’ve been getting recently and, even better, the number of comments being made. I do try to respond to everyone so keep them coming!

For now, on to the business at hand.

Settled tactic, now what?

Anyone who has read my previous blog articles will know that I spend quite a bit of my time in FM trying to perfect the tactics. Tactics, the system, the philosophy, the approach… whatever you want to call it, it’s vital for success in Football Manager.

But tactics are only half the battle. At the end of the day, it’s the players that will dictate whether your tactics are successful. You can have the most revolutionary, awe-inspiring and unrivalled genius of a tactic but if you try to use Adel Taarabt as your midfield enforcer then you’re going to struggle.

So what I aim to do with this article is run through my approach to identifying the right player for the right role – which attributes are important, what PPM’s does a player need, would they benefit from any personal instructions?

And to do so, we’ll use the 4-1-4-1 I’ve been developing with Rapid Wien and Austria as a case study.

Austria & Rapid – Early days and FM12 striker flashbacks

After a series of posts dealing with the periphery of the game, graphics and mods for streamlining FM, I’ve finally played long enough to write a proper update on my actual save. In case you missed it, I’ve started a Club and Country save with Austria and Rapid Wien that I hope will last for some time and form the bulk of my blog articles for the foreseeable future.

I’ve played up to the winter break in my first season which includes 19 leagues games with Rapid and 4 Euro 2016 qualifying games with Austria.

My initial tactical plans have proven impossible to implement due to SI’s decision to introduce the inverted wingbacks as a new feature that doesn’t actually exist in the game. Therefore, I’ve had to tweak the 4-1-4-1 slightly. There are some parts that are working very well and others, like the striker, which aren’t

Apologies if this is something of a statistical overload but, as well as updating on the progress of both club and country, I hope to work through the issues I’ve been having tactically and hopefully come up with some sort of solution.

FM15 – Setting up the game

With the editor finally released, I’ve spent nearly all my time thus far setting up the amended Austrian league structure which will provide the framework for my club and country save this year.

But there’s quite a bit more that goes into that initial set-up of the game. And I’m not talking about what you do in the actual game environment, this was covered by Petr Uchio last year. I mean streamlining the default game to get rid of those annoying little things that SI sneak in every year, personalising the game and making it just a little prettier.

So here, in case you fancy doing something similar, is how I’ve set up for what I hope will be an epic game

So let’s try this again…

So if anyone has read this blog before, or even ‘knows’ me from my time posting on The Dugout, then you’ll probably have seen me attempt the odd club and country save with Rapid Wien and Austria.

Well the good news is that you’re going to see another one!

I had considered a few different games for FM15 but it was perhaps inevitable that I would come back to the club and country format I have enjoyed so much in the past. For those who don’t know, I first became interested in Rapid Wien after a brief stint there during a journeyman game on FM09.

In FM11, I then merged the German and Austrian leagues and had a legendary club and country save that took me to the year 2030. Hopefully this year’s attempt will prove to be as enjoyable.

While I wait for FM15’s release then, I thought I’d write a little about the changes I plan to make to the “gameworld” for this save and a few self-imposed challenges I want to implement to keep it interesting.

FM14 Club and Country – Wunderteam reborn?

Finally! The patch arrived and I have been able to play Football Manager 2014 for real! In fact, I was so excited about being able to play FM14 in anger that I’ve sped through the first season before I even had a change to set the scene.

Therefore, this post is going to have to cover a lot of ground – setting the scene in how the game has been set up, my general approach to the game and a look back at a successful first season.

As many of you will be aware, I have an FM-induced affiliation with both Rapid Wien and Austria – built up over years of playing them within the game and then graduating into watching the teams week-in-week-out. This year’s version returns to an edit that has proven to be the most interesting and long-lasting in the past – an Anschluss merger of the Austrian and German football systems.

However, as opposed to previous years, this version’s updates will place much more focus on the national team. Although I will update on the fortunes of Rapid, this will hopefully just provide a background of tactical experimentation and player development with fuller, more detailed analysis provided on the Austrian national team’s progress.

This will take the form of the odd piece on individual players whom I hope will develop into the national team and thorough reports on specific matches – why I used certain tactics, why I made certain in-match changes, etc.

Hopefully, that sounds like something of interest to you. If so, read on…