Player 2 Has entered the Game

Some people were lucky enough to grow up with an elder brother or sister who played games with them. Me I was the older brother, so I was player 1, I was Mario and my younger brother was Luigi. I had the official joy-pad while my brother had the joys of the 3^rd party super cheap joy-pad that sometimes stuck but in the main was OK. There really were some great games for SNES that could be played Co-Op gems such as Smash TV, Zombie ate my Neighbor and the amazing NBA Jam.

I am not even including the totally awesome Original Mario Kart. I honestly don’t know how many hours I played that with my brother. Being the older brother I got to set the rules, what game we were going to play. The rules of the games, if you died did you have to go and make the person a cup of tea? If one of the parents called who would have to go?

What about FM18?

Can you play FM like that? We could play a network game but I don’t think that fits into the Co-Op style ( I do have another idea about this, so maybe more about that later) You certainly can play while two people are sat next to each other but that is no fun.  You can see what players the other person is scouting and you have to sit there while the other person plays the game. But what about co-op two people playing together and helping each other?

Well, Guido and I are going to try and do that in FM18. Guido will take control of all Transfers for the club and I will play the games. There will also be a 3^rd player in this game the Director of Football he will hire all staff apart from the Head of Youth and Assistant Manager. I will do that since I have to work with those two so much I want to choose who is part of my team.

I had this idea about 5 weeks ago and to be honest the most difficult part has been to choose the team. Now I blame Guido for this as all the information I got from him was not a team based in The Netherlands or Spain. I will also be doing a save in England, Turkey and the Czech Republic. So last night I sat down and narrowed it down to Italy or Portugal. Now It’s Saturday morning and I have already changed my mind. So let’s starts with the rules of this Co-Op game of FM.

1. Guido buys and sells players

2. Guido decides what tactic the team will play

3. Director of Football hires all staff except Head of Youth and Assistant Manager

4. Guido will leave Beppe a list of instructions to follow for the season

What is the aim of this save?

The main aim like in all my FM saves is to have fun and see where FM takes me on this journey but the ultimate aim is to win the Champions League. I am not sure if that is possible as FM18 is a new game and I am not sure am skilful enough of a manager to win the Champions League but I will give it my best shot. For me thou that is the joy of FM when we fire up the game we never know where we will end up. World Cup Winner? Best Manager ever in the MLS? Non-League Journey Man there are so many choices and it just makes the game almost infinitely playable.

As I said it was extremely difficult to choose a team as I was unsure whether to take teams like Crystal Palace or Benevento who need total rebuilds. Then I thought Juventus as they are a great team but they are also an old team. I was just worried that, with Guido’s help, playing in a large league with a considerable amount of TV money would just make the game too easy.

So the team I have chosen is Hajduk Split they are a famous team but they are far from a powerhouse and are not expected to win the league (Season Preview says they will finish 3rd) We have some money to spend not a lot but I think enough to start with.

Looking at the above odds it looks like it’s a 3-way race for the title, which should make for a fun save BUT Split have not won the league in a long time.

As you can see I was not joking it has been 13 years since “The Masters from the Seas” where champions. To qualify for the Europe the top team goes into the 2nd round of qualifying for the Champions League. While second and third are put into the Europa League although both will have to play games before they qualify for the main competition.

While having under half a million to spend does not sound like a lot, the TV payout for winning the league is only Eight Hundred Thousand. So I think it should be enough to allow us to bring in some good players for this level.

Beppe’s Letter to Guido

Normally I would introduce the team but I don’t know what players will still be at the club. I don’t even know what tactic we will be playing. All I can do is write my report to Guido and hope agrees with me. Maybe he will Maybe he won’t

Dear Guido,

Thank you for hiring me as manager of Hajduk Split, I know I was not your first choice of manager and that my employment comes with some rules that must be followed. I am sure the rules put off other managers but this is my first job in football and I am excited to work at such a famous and historic club.

Looking at the staff I am very happy with the Director of Football and would like to retain his services but the assistant manager I think we can improve on. I would like to suggest that we try to hire Nenad Cerovic as my assistant manager.

Getting Nenad would be a massive upgrade on our current Assistant Manager, unfortunately, Nenad does not know the Croatian League but he has a knack of being able to judge young players skill levels.

Before you try to hire Nenad, I would also like to hire Juri Schlunz who is an excellent Head of Youth for the level we play at. Why the previous Chairman thought it was a good idea to hire a Head of Youth who does not like working with the youth teams I have no idea. Please make Juri the main target if you can not either of the men I suggest I will look further into who is available.

As for player recruitment, I would like to recruit local players, especially from Croatia. If not then from neighbouring countries of Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to receiving your instructions and having a successful first season here in the beautiful city of Split.

Yours

Beppe

PS: The view from my apartment is stunning, weather is also nice 16c