Ana, FM 2012 : Season 8 Long Old Struggle

Hi everyone!

So a long time since I posted an update on my Livadia story mostly as the thought of playing FM at the moment isn’t one I am enjoying that much as I have outplayed it I think, with the new game on the horizon am not really sure what I want to do as I feel I have achieved most of my goals and all the story ideas and challenges I feel I have completed in one way or another so am not 100% sure if I will write a story for the new game.

I know that sounds extreme and maybe the length of this journey is clouding my vision a little and am thinking aloud as I type so we will see, I wont be leaving the site though! I will continue the same and writing my La Liga reports which I am really enjoying, just possibly giving up writing stories which has been my hobby for the past four or five years.

As always I would like to thank all the readers for there support its means a lot to me that you have enjoyed my stories over the past years I have been here and even some readers who have followed my stories before I even got here! Like I said am maybe 50-50 so nothing definite its just seems like I have lost my passion to write.

With that said another update for you all!

Last time we finally won promotion, after seven years in the first division so the top league awaited us and a tough season ahead but with my all Belarus squad I was confident to upset the odds a little.

Lets see how I did.

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So as expected we are predicted to have a tough season, to stay in the division seems to feel right I am prepared for one of those seasons where losing becomes a habit! Some transfer money was nice £21k seems like millions for me! But I’ll take it and we are well under out wage budget so plenty of flexibility for some transfers.

Club Information and Start of Season Finances

So we turned professional the curious thing was that I never saw the memo in my news box, so am not sure if I missed it and forgot to take a picture but that was nice! Everything else was mostly the same but club value almost doubled to £400k so we are taking giant strides at the moment.

Financially at those stadium improvements hit the bank balance quite hard, I would have preferred if that work hadn’t been carried out as we wont make that money back at least for the next ten years or so maybe better to have left them as they were. Still not in crisis though as we are still in an amazing financial position something I always try to achieve on my games.

Transfers In and Out — First Transfer Window

Amazing isn’t it?

I win promotion after eight years finally make my way to the top division and there are honestly no players for me to sign. I scouted Belarus and they unveiled four players with only one that would be a squad player which is Andrey Klimovich and he is more of a back-up signing.

Funny thing is that the players I scouted last year who were willing to sign not wont talk to me, I win promotion and now they are not interested I cant work this game out at times.

Results and Table First Half of the Season

No miracles I’m afraid just a long hard season as expected, the two five four defeats were funny as you do get that feeling that at times this game does not want you to win I really don’t mind losing I just dont like it when it feels like the odds are stacked against me even when having a commanding lead.

We are scoring goals which is good but defensively we are terrible, I was happy with the defense last season and I dont feel like they are that far out of their depth in this league the step in player quality isn’t huge in my opinion but when things like this happen, you kind of think that maybe the game hates you!

Losing ten first team players isn’t ideal and that news was even worse as Fastov my amazing central midfielder has broke his leg so that his season ended at times in doesn’t rain but it pours.

Transfers In and Out — Second Window

So again no-one wanted to join us at least from Belarus which is the only player I will be signing so as if things are not hard enough it seems the only players I can sign wont join. We were sent two very good Russians though which I wont be using to my self invoked rules but look at the quality and I ask myself why players from Belarus who are half as good refuse to talk to me.

Sergey Dorofeev and Alexandr Durnev were both sent my our parent club to help keep that agreement on going and both are exceptional for this league, I wont be using either of them.

League Results and Table Second Half of the Season

Survived!

Some really funny results though that you have to smile at really, another five four defeat and a lovely seven four defeat against Bate which was just incredible to watch honestly I would have been dissapointed to have lost that game never mind conceding seven which summed this season up.

Pleased to have survived but results that just don’t make any sense I mean we were one goal behind from having the best attack in the league! Sounds weird but I was more happier with our defense going into this season than our attack such a strange game at times.

Final Player Ratings of the Season

Tischenko was outstanding, the jump he has made from last year to this is remarkable and without him we would have been relegated in my view, our very own Lionel Messi. ;)

As you can see our defenders rated quite highly which adds to the puzzle of why our defense was so horrible and in truth I was very happy with our squad, essentially its the same as last year without one improvement and take away those really freakish and weird results we would have done so much better I guess a four one lead can be considered dangerous now.

Star Man of the Season — Pavel Tischenko

End of Season Round-Up

So yeah that was how the season went!

Not one I really enjoyed playing, as I have said before I dont mind losing it really does not bother me but when you lose games you cant really lose you have to pose the question of how. I know freak results happen but this was far too frequent for me to accept I guess you just have to laugh and ask more questions than you will get answers for.

How I couldn’t sign anyone was annoying especially lower league players from last year who wanted to sign but now decided not to, but that’s the game I guess I did have a few players in the team of the year amazing to see Fastov there considering he broke his leg and missed most of the season and no Tischenko who ended up at the top scorer in the league.

Then when this game couldnt annoy me any more this happened! Usually an expansion is a good thing right? But just take a look at those numbers £450k for 747 seats just try and work that out a little, we charge £0.80p for a ticket  and £5 for a season ticket so lets say in an ideal world we obtain 747 more season ticket holders that equates to an increase in an extra £3,735 a season so times that by 10 seasons and we still wont make that money back factor in we had an increase last season which wont make the money for for over ten years and you can sense my frustration with this game.

The icing on the cake as they say is we dont have £450k for the improvement so now we are in debt and our chairman has took out a loan to pay for it, despite not being able to make our money back for over ten years how can that be considered a good idea?

So as you can see I have had my fill of this game for now, usually this twists make great stories but honestly I am at the end of my tether and getting to the point where I am just not enjoying playing it anymore. I know I have had my fair share of ups and downs but its things like this that drive me mad improvements that are just wasted, I spent eight years trying to make the club financially sound which I achieved only to be destroyed in one fail swoop by a worthless improvement.

So this season was a real eye opener, I am just not enjoying playing anymore am not sure if its because I have played this game too much or if I have reach the end of the road with it. The thought of writing another story which I usually am so excited about just isn’t there this time so maybe a break from the new game is what I need and I will focus on my La Liga posts which at the moment I cant wait to write about!

As always your thoughts and opinions are welcomed, this could be my final post on a story for now so again thank you all so much for the support you have showed me over the past few years. If I could give each of you a hug and a little kiss then I would! But like I said I am not leaving the site just will be writing about real life football and possibly taking a break from writing stories.

Thanks also for all the support for this story, took me a while but I finally completed my last big challenge with the Pentagon and I don’t really feel like doing any others.

So until next time, bye bye!!

Ana. xxx