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Evian — The Finale

Hello friends! I hope you all had enjoyable Christmas and Boxing days! This post is a little belated to be a gift for either, but better late than never (my family insisted that I spend time with them rather play FM and type this up. Can you believe them? :P). As you all know, near the end of my 4th season with Evian, my save file was corrupted. The season before I had won my first piece of silverware: the Coupe de la Ligue. Before my game died, I was 3rd in the league, with a chance to still win. There were eight games left, two of which were against 2nd place PSG and 1st place OL. So I could have possibly won the league. In addition, I was through to the finals of both the Coupe de la Ligue and the Coupe de France. Lastly, I was in the semi-finals of the Europa League, having won the first leg. So I was in position to pull off a famous quadruple! Alas, that will never be. So I started a new career with Evian. All the way, back to the very beginning. This super post will be an overview of my whole Evian. Yep, this is my entire career in one post. I was surprised that I even found the will to continue through all the drudgery. But, I felt I had something to prove and finish. I will admit, I simmed quite a few games; I really didn’t want to relive all that and I wanted to save some time because I was desperate to get back to where I was. That’s how I was able to finish in about 2 days (I was feeling a little under the weather, so my family let me stay in bed and play FM on the 23rd and 24th). All subsequent seasons will be played completely fair and square. So let’s kick things off!

Season 1:

Ah, a familiar sight with some familiar names. It all made me cringe. Evian, I thought we left all this behind. Well, it seems that we just can’t shake the past. All dramatics aside, Evian wasn’t in the best of shape. The facilities were poor, the team wasn’t in the best shape, and the finances were pretty bad.

You can’t accuse me of not learning. I came to Evian with fire in my eyes this time. I completely trashed the backroom staff and replaced them with my own, in addition, I came down on the team with a cleaver. While in my first season, I brought only 4 players in, this time I brought in 14, all high potential youngsters.

The transfer are a little misleading because a good number of the players who were new to the team were sold in January. Take a look at my wage budget at the end of the season:

I slashed it from £9million, so the club was making a profit every month.

The results were terrific; my youngsters really came through. Take a look at the first half results:

So apart for that string of draws near the end, including one against OL, we were pretty phenomenal. We were in 6th place at the half and most of our draws were games that we controlled but either couldn’t find the firepower up front or we had lapses in concentration.

Here are the awards we won at the half:

As you can see, similarly to my first season, Mensah is by far our best player. I should have taken more screenshots of my team’s rating information, but I kept making so many transfers that I can’t provide an accurate picture of my top performers. For example, while Govou was still on my team, he found the net 12 times and after he left, John Reis became my top scorer with 14 goals. So it’s hard to accurately say who my top performers are.

On to my second half results:

So not as stellar as the first half due to injuries and some lost team chemistry. Also, I took control of more games in the second half than the first :P As you can see, we:

No, we didn’t win the league. But we won both cups! It was a complete shocker. The Coupe de la Ligue was especially surprising since we were going up against the mighty OL. But they fielded quite a weak team — glad they underestimated us!

So even though our performances in the second half of the season weren’t the greatest, we still almost go a Champions League spot! I’ll satisfy myself with our cup double, however. Now all France has left for me is the Ligue 1.

Here are awards we won at the end of the season:

My Belgian assistant won the Manager of the Season award! I won’t begrudge him that honor since he did preside over most of the club’s wins this season. Obviously Evian won the Overachiever of the Season award and Mensah was my best player and the Fans’ Player of the Year. Brazilian Reis was my top goalscorer of the season, with 14 in all competitions. Here’s what he said when he signed for us in January:

He couldn’t steal the show from Mensah, but he did his part. I just thought this was very funny since I’ve never seen this kind of demand before.

I would say this was the game of the season:

It was also one of the few games I took charge of and won :D

So that’s the end of season 1 at Evian and it sees as the holders of both cups and ready to enter the Europa League.

Season 2

Season 2 started out with a complete clearing of my squad. Too many of my players were wanted and the ones who weren’t didn’t meet the standard I needed to mount a serious challenge on the top of the Ligue 1 and for the Europa League.

Again, some of these players were sold after just half a season, most notably, Junior Tchobe Leukoue, who was probably my second best player, even though he didn’t even spend a full season with me.

The most notable transfer in is without a doubt Yaya Sanogo, who was absolutely breathtaking. By then end of the season I was receiving bids of up to £17mil for him.

Most of the players I bought were from Africa. Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo produce some great players, just like in real life. I especially recruited heavily from Cameroon. 5 of my players were all actually from the same club, Ecole de football Brasseries du Cameroun. The club had some real gems. Not at the same level of Barcelona’s feeder team in Argentina, whose players still refuse to sign for me despite me offering them the chance to show their skill on the European stage, but they are cheap and do not count towards my foreign player quota like Argentinians do.

Hey, not too bad. We went from being predicted to finish in 20th last season to 10th this season. Quite a jump. But I’m aiming a little higher ;)

So let’s see how my completely new team did for the first half of the season:

Pretty darn good and we already won our first trophy of the year in the form of the Champions Trophy — which is essentially the Community Shield. Only 2 losses, one in the first round of the Coupe de la Ligue and a lesson in football from PSG. Sure it was disappointing being knocked out of the cup, but I’ve already won it, and we lost to the eventual champions. The league and Europe are my priorities anyway. While the loss to PSG was worrisome, the team was still gelling. They had all been together for less than a month so I was willing to let it slide. After this incredible first half we were in 3rd. The other big highlight was how we were performing in Europe. I was worried for qualification since PSV are such a solid team but we easily handled them. Not only that, but in the group stages we went for 5 wins and a draw! So naturally we finished top of our group and Evian was going into the knock-out rounds! Also, I played a lot more of the games this time around :D

One thing that was a little surprising was that we didn’t win any awards at the end of the year :/ We’ll have to make it up at the season’s end. Of course, we did win quite a few player of the week/month stuff, but none for me :(

Here are the results from the second half:

Not as solid as the first half. I threw away the Coupe de France. I decided to rest a lot of first team players and my back-ups and youth squad couldn’t handle the job. I wasn’t too concerned though because that meant fewer games in our schedule. We also shockingly made it to the Quarter-Finals of the Europa League, losing to eventual champions, Manchester City. We gave those games our all but in the end City just outclassed us. One big positive of this part of the season, however, was:

Yup, we won the league! We were leading for the last quarter of the season but the loss against OL put us level on points but we led the goal difference by about 10. After the second to last game of the season, we were leading by 3 points because OL lost to PSG. That essentially secured the league for us since even if we lost our last game and OL won theirs, the would need to win by a substantial amount while we had to lost by a substantial to give them the league on goal difference. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. And though we set the points record, OL also broke the 80 point mark and were hot on our heels.

After 2 seasons, I have won everything I can in France and it feels great. These players in this squad are all superstars in their own right. I can’t forget to thank my backroom staff. Without them, particularly my assistant, I wouldn’t have been able to do this as quickly as I did. And I want to thank my board for not interfering in my affairs :P

Here are the major awards we won. Sanogo was in inspired form. He is a superstar. I was sorry that he couldn’t win the European Golden Boot. He scored the same number of goals as the eventual winner but he played 2 extra games :/

In addition:

I’m may not be a legend, but it’s good to be recognized for what I did. I forgot to mention, early into my second season the club agreed to build a new stadium and upgrade all the facilities. The stadium is identical to the one from my previous campaign, 24,000 seats at a cost of £38mill, but £18mil being taken care of by naming rights. So the stadium probably won’t bear my name, but I’m most upset that I didn’t have a chance to manage Evian in it. Yup, that’s right, I’m leaving Evian but you will have to wait until my next post to see where I take charge.

I’m not quite done, though. Almost, just bear with me. I started a third season with Evian, but quit early into the pre-season. Take a look at how we’re viewed, though:

We are contenders! It feels good to finally be taken seriously. Finally people recognize Evian as a force to be reckoned with!

In addition, take a look at the finances, mostly thanks to my wage control but our great results obviously were a major factor as well.

Yes, you’re reading that right. Almost £73mil in the bank. I really have to thank my scouts for unearthing some great players and at low prices. All this money led to:

That’s a transfer kitty you don’t even see at major clubs! If I picked winner I would have gotten the same wage budget but a total of £63mil for transfers!

Some of you are probably wondering who is in my squad, so here is who I ended my Evian career with but keep in mind there were others:

So I’ll be signing off now. I hope you found this update exciting. My next update will be back to my old format and I will reveal my new club. I will leave you with this parting picture:

Yep, the greatest manager of all time was there, in person, to see my players. Incredible. Have a safe and happy holiday! As always, I look forward to reading your comments.

 

25 комментариев

25 Comments

  1. Jai Swan

    27 декабря, 2011 at 18:10

    fairplay mate, really improved from the last one, wouldn’t you of liked to have won european competitions before moving on? :) good luck with your next team!

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:26

      Thanks, Jai! Leaving Evian was not easy but I really wanted to get through as much of my European pentagon challenge as I could, considering I have to go back to college on the 3rd of January and the amount of time I can spend playing dramatically drops.

  2. AJW

    27 декабря, 2011 at 19:04

    Fair play this is awsome! I tried playing as evian but I just finished mid table every season. Would be brilliant if you could share your tactic ;)

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:30

      Thanks! In real life, Evian are actually in 13th right now. When I first played the game it took me about 4 seasons before I could actually challenge for the top. This time around, I really have to give a lot of credit to my assistant. Without him, I would have been nowhere. In terms of tactics, make sure you get some great scouts so you can find cheap but high potential players from Africa. Also, use the scouting network on the site — there are some great players who will sign for you if you act quickly enough. Apart from that, I used a slight modification on Darren’s Barcelona and Arsenal tactics (I would edit them for my players) and also use the training schedules on the site. Personally, I use Ugo’s. Apart from that, I guess in the earlier seasons what I would do is focus on the cup so that I would capture some silverware and increase Evian’s profile, but wage control was by far my biggest strength and source of money.

  3. Darren Smith

    27 декабря, 2011 at 19:08

    Well done mate, you built very well and its rare to make so much money so fast while still winning competitions and especially in the volume you did so great work. Can’t wait to see who you’ll be with next.

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:49

      Thanks Darren! A lot of credit has to go to my assistant. He was so much better than me during games (felt a little jealous at times :P). I also used the scouting network quite a bit, so thank you as well!

      • Darren Smith

        28 декабря, 2011 at 17:34

        No problem mate, the scouting network is there to act as an extra scout for you guys ;)

  4. Kevin

    27 декабря, 2011 at 20:51

    Hi Bhargav
    Very nicely done even though you were sick! Great job with masively improving the financial situation with Evian and congrats on winning all you could domestically. To be honest I’m surprised you are moving on though I’m interested to see who you will be next. Don’t take too long :)

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:51

      Thanks Kevin! I really wanted to just stick with Evian after how I’ve reshaped the club. But, once I go back to college, the amount of time I can spend on FM will be really diminish so I want to get as much of my pentagon challenge out of the way,

  5. hapoo

    27 декабря, 2011 at 20:54

    i think you should have stayed in evrian to become legend at clube

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:54

      Haha becoming a legend would have been nice, especially since that means that brand new stadium would have been named after me. But I felt it was time for new pastures.

  6. Frozy

    27 декабря, 2011 at 20:56

    OMG, what a big and impressive story! It’s a horrible feeling to get game error in your situation but I wish you better success in your next savegame! :)

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 16:55

      Thanks so much Frozy! I know use 5 rolling saves haha so all should be well!

  7. Rodd

    27 декабря, 2011 at 21:29

    Hi! This is my first time reading your story and i’m sure that here we all know how bad it feels to lose a savegame, but it’s more difficult to start again the save, so congratulations. I have to say that i like this post very much, specially because i like seasonal updates. Great job in France, awesome results for that team, i would like to see the player attributes at the end of the 2nd season. Too bad you want to quit the job, it would be interesting to see you flying high in the Champions League with Evian. Good luck!

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 17:02

      Thanks Rodd! Let me know which players you’d like to have a look at!

  8. Ana Garcia

    27 декабря, 2011 at 21:38

    Well done!!

    Was a little confused at first when reading it!

    But best of luck on your next adventure!! :)

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 17:03

      Thanks Ana! A new league is always so exciting!

  9. vaibhavc

    28 декабря, 2011 at 07:17

    That was a great job, most people would not have started again with the same club. But you did awesome and you led your team through and won all cups in France! Great job.

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 17:07

      Thank you, sir! I didn’t want to leave things unfinished like that. At the same time, it was frustrating having to go through everything again, so I holidayed through decent chunks of the season.

  10. Laxeyman

    28 декабря, 2011 at 11:23

    Brilliant Bhargav, to completely dominate French football in just 2 years is incredible, well done! Sanogo is just amazing, are you going to try to take him with you to your new club? Looking forward to seeing who it is :)

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 17:09

      Thank you so much! Sadly, Sanogo is unlikely to follow me because he is being chased by every major club around Europe, and some of them like Liverpool and Barcelona are offering bids of over 17million pounds!

  11. Johnny Karp

    28 декабря, 2011 at 11:59

    Congratulations mate, great job! But I have to say that what I admire the most is your dedication to this career, most people would have given up after that file incident.

    • Bhargav

      28 декабря, 2011 at 17:14

      Thanks so much Johnny! I couldn’t leave without fulfilling my goal of propelling Evian to the top of French football!

  12. CsAtlantis

    29 декабря, 2011 at 00:35

    Wow that was fast, don’t think I can do everything you did in so quickly with AS Monaco, but I think the French league has a lot of ups and downs as most of the teams are pretty evenly matched, just need someone to bang in goals like mad and I could win the league (my strikers are not scoring a lot, but some of them like Kadlec and Cvitanich are only in their first season so I am willing to let them adapt a bit (they need to learn French too I suppose while they’re here)

    • Bhargav

      29 декабря, 2011 at 02:13

      I need to credit my assistant. He just understood the team and what needed to be done during a game and when on a much deeper, intuitive level than I did.

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