FM 2012 Story — Unfriendly Friendlies and a Bit of Panic

Hello friends and welcome to a new episode of my Romanian Football Manager 2012 story! The previous episode ended with my team, Viitorul Constanta, finishing the first half of the season in third place in the Second Division, not too bad but not excellent either since only the top two teams get promoted to the top flight. However, the first half of the season ended in November and the second half was only beginning in March so we had a lot of time to prepare. Or at least that’s what I thought…

I have already mentioned that I had no transfer or extra wage money left so I had to look for solutions inside my own squad. That’s what I did and I decided to sell three fringe first team players for a staggering total of… 3,000 pounds! They were replaced by youngsters from our own under 19s team, here are their profiles:

That gave me a bit of extra cash in the wage budget so I was able to sign no less than… two players. The first one is a youngster that will be playing in the under 19s team for the moment but might become a good lad if he reaches his potential. As for the second signing, you will know more about him in a bit.

Next up… the nightmare! Yes, a total nightmare! We played 9 friendlies in January and February, lost six, drew three and won… none! The even worse thing was that we only scored three crappy goals in nine games and I had no explanation for that. The team was just a bunch of guys in shorts running around a football pitch without a clue to where to pass the ball or how to tackle an opponent. I tried having a team meeting to lift their morale, it went well but the results didn’t change and they way they played didn’t improve either.

I admit that I panicked at that point and I decided to bring in an experienced striker to improve our goal scoring ratio. I was quite surprised to find Alexandru Piturca on a free transfer so I quickly offered him a contract and he swiftly accepted.

But when you panic you are bound to make bad decisions and that’s exactly what I have done. I disregarded a very important aspect: Alexandru Piturca is unavailable until May 2013 so that means I’m paying him 750 quid per week for absolutely nothing! Well, at least I didn’t offer him a two-year contract… However, I hope that you will learn something from my mistake: whatever you do, don’t panic!

So, with no new first team transfers we started the second part of the season… And we kicked it off with a sluggish performance at 6th place Snagov but luckily we grabbed a goalless draw. The next game saw us receiving the visit of 4th placed Botosani and this time we played very well, it was an excellent performance bar two important things: no confidence upfront which led to several missed chances and a very uncertain defence again which led to our opponents scoring on their very first attack. The game ended 1-1 and I’m going to be totally honest with you: at that point I thought that I was going to get sacked before the end of the season!

I had no plan to get out of that mess so I went to the next game, away at 12th placed Astra Giurgiu with little confidence but with my 4-3-3 Barcelona counter tactic. And it worked! Striker Marius Albu bagged a brace (click here to watch the goals) and we finally recorded a win after a long painful drought. The players regained their confidence and that showed in the next game, we beat 10th placed CF Braila at home after a very good game in which we really didn’t give the opponents a chance to fight back.

Our next game was a tough one, away at local rivals Callatis. They were down in 9th place before the game but a win could have improved their situation sensibly. This time we only had to play well for 45 minutes though, we were all over them in the first half, scored three goals and missed a pair of other good chances. (click here to watch the highlights) This was our best away game of the year so far but unfortunately it came with some sad news: goal scorer Nicolae Hertu will be out until the end of the season due to a serious injury.

The last game of the month saw us beating 8th placed FCM Bacau 2-0 at home and I was extremely happy, we turned the situation around after the nightmare friendlies campaign and the unconvincing start of the spring season.

The four consecutive wins pushed us to the top of the table but the promotion race was still quite hot with no less than eight teams fighting for the top two spots.

I couldn’t stop playing at that point so there’s more to read in this update, head over to the next page to see what happened in April!

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Before moving on to the April results let me present some good news for the future: I was asked to evaluate this year’s youth candidates and I must say I was quite impressed. There seems to be a lot of potential in our academy graduates, I even watched the test game against our current under 19s and I was quite pleased.

One youngster really stands out from the crowd and not only due to his incredible height: 16-year old centre back Timur Peniu. With that height and jumping this boy could well play basketball but I hope he’ll become a rock-solid defender in a few years.

OK, now let’s get back to the league… The month of April started with a tricky away game at 15th placed Branesti but we made the most out of our opponents’ poor form and took a solid 2-0 lead before a late fightback from the home side. Then we beat another relegation candidate at home, 14th placed Delta Tulcea, courtesy of a fine team goal in the first half. (click here to watch the goal)

The easy games were behind us at that point, we had some very tough ones coming up. First we had to meet 4th placed CS Otopeni away, they were just 8 points behind us before that game. There was a lot at stake there and the two teams seemed to crack under the pressure as the first half was totally boring with no shots on target from the hosts and only two from us. Things changed shortly after the break, the home side finally managed to break the deadlock and I decided to make a change and switch from the counter tactic to the attacking version. That move nearly paid off on 68 minutes when we went very close, you’ll see that in the highlights, but it backfired minutes later as we got caught on a counter attack and conceded a second goal. (click here to watch the highlights) Our winning streak was over after six consecutive successes and the promotion race was still wide open.

We could have used an easy fixture at that point but it wasn’t the case: we were going to take on city rivals Farul Constanta. I was hoping for a good reaction from my boys but the opening 15 minutes proved me wrong, the visitors were dominating the game and our goalkeeper saved us on a couple of occasions. The 20th minute marked a change of fortunes, our first decent attack of the game resulted in a goal as a good cross from our left back was headed home by striker Valentin Simion. The goal changed the game completely, we started to play much better and made it 2-0 before half time after a fine goal from striker Marius Albu. Things were looking great at that point but we suffered a setback on the stroke of half time when midfielder Nenad Grumic picked up a stupid red card. I switched to the counter tactic at the break with a 4-3-2 formation and that kept things fairly quiet for a while although our keeper had to pull off an amazing save on 52 minutes (that’s included in the match highlights video). Farul finally struck 10 minutes from time and the final minutes were quite thrilling with both parties missing a clear cut chance apiece. (click here to watch the highlights)

That wrapped up the month of April and I’m happy to report that we’re still top of the table with 5 games to go.

We are the favourites at this point but our schedule is not easy at all: first we take on 4th placed CSMS Iasi and then strong 5th placed Dinamo 2. These two games will probably make it or break it for us, I admit that I’d be very happy to record two draws there.

New signing Chakib Benzoukane leads the player charts at this point, he is a valuable asset and I’m quite happy to have signed him last summer. On the downside I must note that my strikers don’t have great records in terms of goals scored but I hope they will bag a few in the closing stage of the season.

That almost wraps it up but I have just one more screen shot for you: my glorious under 19s squad won their group against big top flight clubs like Steaua and Rapid Bucharest!

That’s about it for now, thanks a lot for coming by to read this post, especially since it might be a bit too long and boring. If you have some strength left after reading it please use it to stick a comment into the box! ;)