Why Fjolnir?
Well, I think most of you can only guess where Fjolnir is from, and that is Iceland of course. Not one of the top leagues to be managed but have you ever thought how it is like winning the Champions League with a tiny club from this cold island? It would be quite a challenge, since I never saw anyone doing this before in Football Manager. Fjolnir are founded in 1988 and are located in Reykjavík, Iceland’s capital. They have just been promoted to the Premier League and are a semi-professional club whose name can relate to a legendary king in Norse mythology, who lived from the 1st century BC to the early 1st century AD.
Club Information – The Initial Setup
- Reputation: National
- Estimated Value: €7.5M
- Stadium: Fjolnisvollur, 1030 capacity (530 seated)
- Affiliated Club(s): Vaengir Jupiters (Iceland)
- Training Facilities: Impressive
- Youth Facilities: Great
Their relatively short history does not include too many trophies, yet they were twice finalists in the Icelandic Cup in 2007, 2008 respectively. Iceland’s top tier is slightly dominated by clubs such as KR or FH who share the most trophies during the last seasons. Fjolnir is media predicted 10th, given their newly promoted status but with proper guidance they can achieve much more than to avoid relegation.
Finances
- Balance: €8,000
- Projected Balance: (€520K)
- Total Player Wage Budget: €32,260 per month
- Current Player Wage Budget: €32,230 per month
- Transfer Budget: €1,500
With basically no transfer budget and poor wages the first couple of seasons will be quite hard to manage. You only have one sponsor worth €76K per season, until 2018. There are no current loans, but if the club is in danger on the elections day (and will most probably be), the president will borrow some money to help with the club’s running costs — these loans will be somewhere around €500K or so. You should be fine if you’re careful.
Board Expectations
The league expectations should not be much of a problem, perhaps the Icelandic Cup expectations are more challenging as they want you to reach the quarter finals of this competition. There are no other philosophies included, so you are free to decide on line-ups and tactics.
Staff Members
It will be quite difficult to find proper staff for all areas considering the club’s semi-professional status but a few changes should do the trick at least for the first season. For example you won’t have a dedicated fitness coach and the one responsible for the goalkeepers is none of a quality — nothing much you can do about these so just assign their job to the other staff members, including yourself as well.
- Assistant Manager – Olafur Pall Snorrason will be kept for the rest of his contract since he is also a 5-star winger in your team setup, also able to play as an central attacking midfielder.
- Fitness Coach – none
- Goalkeeping Coach — none
- Coach — as an additional coach perhaps the cheapest option is Bjorn Olafsson, but there are others as well.
- Scout (Atli Jonasson) — offer mutual termination and sign Kjartan Atli Arsaelsson and Gudbjartur Hjaltason.
- Physio (Eva Persson) – mutual termination and sign Darri Jonsson.
The Squad – Key Players & Backups
Goalkeepers: Tordur Ingason looks like he can be a reliable option at this level, but there might be better options out there. In my case I had him as a backup. The new signing was too good and I never used Tordur, so I can’t really tell of his value.
Defenders: There aren’t really stand out players in this compartment and all the first options can be used safely. This however needs some improvements. Perhaps Matt Ratajczak can make a difference, since he has very good aerial abilities.
Midfielders: Gunnar Mar Gudmundsson is definitely the first choice when it comes to the central area and he should also be pointed as captain. On the wings you have Olafur Pall Snorrason who is also your assistant manager. He does have a high wage and a long contract but he’s going to worth those money at least for the first couple of seasons. All others should be used in rotation and as backups, but we’re going to strengthen this area as well.
Strikers: Pall Snorrason might play as a striker as well, but you have a very good prospect in Aron Sigurdarson. He has scored over 20 goals over the season for me and most important, he developed into a very good player. You will also bring a second striker so keep Snorrason as a winger.
The Youth Generation
- Average Junior Coaching
- Extensive Youth Recruitment
For an Icelandic club, Fjolnir has quite a good setup in regards to future prospects. There are quite a few youngsters out there who needs your attention: Vidar Ari Johnsson, Snaer Ingason, Jokull Blaengsson, Orri Gudmundsson, Georg Gudjonsson. These can develop into good players but you will have to use them as much as possible, since they won’t gain too much from their part-time training.
FM 2015 Fjolnir Tactics
Well I am not much of a tactical expert here but I think I’ve come to a nice balanced solution for most of my challenges so until it proves the contrary, I will use this one and only adjust some of the instructions. Play out of defence, retain possession, look for overlap and lower tempo are just some of the instructions I used with the tactic. The structure is also adjustable since you can push the attacking midfielder into a second striker, or you can drop him as a defensive midfielder if needed. It’s up to you based on the match day events. [Download]
Club Transfers
First you will need to clean your entire squad and get rid of any deadwood players and trust me, there’s plenty. As for the new signings, any free youth other than these ones below are most welcomed, but pay attention to wages — it’s preferably you get them on a non-contract deal. In order to find the same players as I did, you will need to setup a large database and make the current international players available. Also keep in mind that due to the league rules you are not allowed to have more than 3 non-EU players in your match squad.
Players Out
There are no less than 17 players to offload as they have absolutely no future and they are not worth their wages, unfortunately you will get no money for these so in the best scenario you’ll have them out on a free transfer, else mutual termination. I won’t list them all here, basically anything below a 3-star potential is not needed.
Players In
- Goalkeeper(s): Ebenezer Dingong (non-contract) will most likely be your number one keeper.
- Defender(s): Denny Herzig — solid defender, can play as a midfielder too, number one in taking the free-kicks.
- Midfielder(s): Mads Rosenberg, Bradley Simmonds (non-contract).
- Striker(s): Edin Beslija — initially bought for the lone striker position, but since Aron proved his worth I had to use him more as an attacking midfielder, or as a 2nd striker.
Team Management
Your worst nightmare will be the injuries, but you can somehow reduce these by lowering the training intensity. I used fitness on high for the pre-season and changed it to average afterwards, while for the team preparation I used tactics then team cohesion (after they got familiar with the tactics, of course). Your team is one filled with nice looking prospects, however they will have a slow paced development if they are not given minutes in the first team. Use them as much as possible and avoid any expensive signings. You can also look for a parent club and get some free loans from there.
Another aspect is related to the club’s president elections, which happens on a yearly basis somewhere during the month of April but don’t worry too much about these. The current president has enough reputation to win most of the times and in that case your job won’t be in danger, but there is a slight chance of that changing after 10 seasons or so. Just keep doing a good job and there won’t be any troubles — who knows, maybe you’ll get one of those rich tycoons in the future!
The Conclusion
Based on this FM 2015 Fjolnir Guide I think we can analyze the challenge under two different aspects. The easier part is where you take control over Iceland’s football, which isn’t that hard to achieve really. If you’re lucky enough perhaps you can even conquer the title in the first season, but KR and FH will surely pose troubles. In my case, I used my first season to build for the next one (as always), but I still won the Icelandic Upper League, reached Iceland’s Cup semi-finals and topped the 4th place in the league. Then in my 2nd season I won the league and both cups, while the club improved finances to unlock the professional status.
The plan here is to maximize your first couple of seasons, raise some youngsters and sell them for good money then turn your club into a professional status. Once you get into the European groups (which happened in the 3rd season for my team), things will become much easier domestically. But the hard work for the European success nearly begins, so prepare yourself for a very long, fast-paced save towards the Champions League title. Good luck!
- Pros: great facilities, good youth setup, fast paced seasons.
- Cons: semi-professional status, poor finances, low reputation league, non-EU players restrictions.
- Difficulty: 8/10
