FM22: A.D. SANJOANENSE — THE ROAD TO JAMOR
THE ROAD TO JAMOR
Welcome to my last dance with FM22, in this save I will be looking to take a lower league side all the way to becoming national champions. It wasn’t easy to decide on which nation or club. However, I whittled it down to two teams, the first being Monopoli from Italy’s third tier and the second Associação Desportiva Sanjoanense of Portugal’s third tier.
I opted for Portugal as I want my main save in next years game to be with Udinese, exploring the world of Giampaolo Pozzo and Moneyball, so here I am in Portugal.
Portugal is made up of 18 districts, you will note from the above that the most densely populated are surrounding the major cities, Lisbon (517,802) and Porto (249,633). When looking at the clubs which make up the top two tiers of the national game it should come as no surprise that the majority are located close to these two communal hubs. (see below)
ADS is located São João da Madeira in Aveiro and has an area of 7.94 km², making it the smallest municipality in Portugal. It is for this reason why they became my team of choice for this save, I want to put ADS and São João da Madeira on the map.
THE PORTUGUESE LEAGUE STRUCTURE
Portugal, a nation historically dominated by three incredibly powerful clubs, but one with plenty more to offer the fans of the game.
The top flight is made up of 18 teams and operates with a straight forward league structure, there is no league split, teams playing both home and away with the bottom two sides facing relegation. There is a relegation play-off for the side who finishes in 16th place, they will face the third place side from tier two for the right to play in the nations top tier.
There are currently six European places, first and second secure direct passage to the UEFA Champions League, whilst third place enters the third round of qualifying. Fourth place enters the UEFA Europa League group stage whilst fifth and sixth enter the Europa Conference League in either the third or second round dependant on place.
The structure for the Liga 2 replicates that of the top flight, apart from the obvious fact that there are no European places.
Tier three (Liga 3) is a new league for the Portuguese pyramid which was introduced for 2021/22 which was introduced as a part of the re-structure of Portuguese football.
This competition consists of a first stage with all the teams then proceed to a promotion or relegation series depending on their performance.
First Stage — In the first stage, the 24 clubs are divided in two series (Serie A and B) of 12 teams, according to geographic criteria. In each series, teams play against each other in a home-and-away. The four best-placed teams of the two series will advance to the promotion series and bottom 8 teams will proceed to the relegation series.
Promotion Stage — The eight qualified teams are divided in two series of 4 teams, playing against each other in a home-and-away double round-robin system. The winners of each series will be automatically promoted to Liga Portugal 2 and will face each other in a neutral venue to determine the champion. The second best placed teams will face each other in a playoff, whose winner will face the 16th placed of Liga Portugal 2 for the last spot in Liga Portugal 2. On this stage teams will be divided as follows.
Relegation Stage — The bottom 8 teams are divided in four series of 4 teams, playing against each other in a home-and-away double round-robin system. To account for their performance in the first stage, teams will start with bonification points, with 5th placed teams starting with 8 points and 12th placed teams starting with 1. The bottom teams of each series will be relegated to Campeonato de Portugal.
A.D. SANJOANENSE
Founded in 1924, Associação Desportiva Sanjoanense predates the municipality of S. João da Madeira, which took place in 1926. In its early years, ADS was essentially a football club.
In the 1930s, it began to diversify its activities with the opening of an athletics section and a strong focus on basketball. Over the years the introduction of new sports were added to the portfolio and today at ADS you can access the likes of roller hockey, handball and squash.
ADS have spent the majority of their club history yo-yoing between the second and third tiers of the Portuguese game. However, they have played in tier three for approximately 58 seasons, which gulfs the figure for tier 2 (41), making them predominantly a tier three side.
ADS were promoted from Campeonato de Portugal Série D (Fourth Tier) last year (2020/21) after the new national third division was introduced for the 2021/22 season and it is from this point which I will look to take over and begin my journey as manager.
Taça de Portugal
Each year about 150 teams battle it out hoping to reach the cup final held at Jamor: Portugal’s equivalent of Wembley Stadium. The Taça de Portugal is a competition which for the most of the participants is the most important one they can aspire to take part in, let alone win, even if for the actual winners it is often more of an afterthought or a consolation prize for when the main objective, the league, fails.
Looking at ADS’s recent history in the Taça they rarely progress past the third round (the stage at which the big teams enter) and have only made it to the last 16 once back in 2016/17.
THE STADIUM
The Estádio Conde Dias Garcia is the home to ADS, it boasts a capacity of 15,000 and the expansion potential to 18,750, with average attendance at 5% of capacity (860) I wouldn’t expect a sell-out anytime soon.
When questioning as to which side to choose for this type of save I asked @CrusaderTsar for his opinion, to which he responded.
“I would go for the one with the bigger capacity stadium, as in the game that’s the one thing that takes the most time to upgrade”
Smart thinking, this should pay dividends in the long run, leading to more income for the club and hopefully one less factor to worry about (the potential points deduction for financial issues etc.).
THE SQUAD
Opening the squad screen for the first time, I found that the senior squad had 23 players (the perfect number) The eldest one was Rui Pedro at 33 years and the youngest one was Andre Paco, a 20 years old Portuguese full-back.
Of these 23 mentioned players, 8 were on loan and a whopping 21 had their contracts expiring on 30 June 2022 (the end of the first season).
I will need to see them all in action prior to December 2021 in order to make an informed decision as to whether or not these individuals a) add value to the playing squad, b) have re-sale potential, c) deserve a new contract.
The team currently have no leaders, therefore this will be an area which I will look to cover in another blog, the need for some strong personalities to help balance the squad .
As with every save on FM, the first transfer window is disabled and after my initial analysis below you will find my own interpretation of the squad depth.
Like a child with a new toy, it should come as no surprise that I am going to look to use my Marcello Gallardo — Tactical Master tactic initially within this save.
My response to ThrowingCopperFM was that I felt this role can be played by your average Deep Lying Forward as long as they have a strong attribute in dribbling.
Off the back of this conversation I swiftly moved to the player comparison tab to my favoured ‘Mental’ attribute tab to see that my squad actually possess higher than the league average in Decisions, Determination, Flair, Off the Ball, Positioning and Vision.
This was followed up by a swift move to the ‘Technical’ tab which showed we were in the 90th percentile for First Touch, the lads might well be able to pull off the bespoke roles such as the Mezzala and the False Nine after all.
KEY PLAYERS
Rui Pedro — at 33 years of age Rui is both the age and experience of the team (average age 24), the midfielder started his career at FC Porto before spells a few Portuguese sides before moving to Romania (CFR Cluj) and Hungary (Ferencvarosi TC) with both sides becoming national champions during his time with them. He is ADS’s highest paid player on £600 per week and despite his age would still be classified as a good player for most Liga 2 sides (the league above).
Aldair Faustino — the 21 year old Angolan is in his second year at ADS, he is a youngster with a growing reputation among football fans in Portugal. A technical player with an abundance of pace and strong mental attributes for his age, Faustino will no doubt be one of the first names on the team sheet.
Lucao — The Brazilian has joined ADS from Atletico Clube Goianiense on loan from the Brazilian Serie A. The Advanced Forward has a great profile and is a great fit in terms of the type of personnel which I would like to secure.
You can see by some of his ‘pros’ that he is going to be a reliable performer both with and without the ball. A prime example as to why I have chosen him to lead the line and spearhead our side for the season.
FINANCES
The club salary of £239k per year was the second lowest in the league, Pevidem with the lowest at £232k whilst at the other end of the scale Sporting B had a £1.59m per year salary bill, the largest for an independent club was that of Lusitânia Futebol Clube at £573k (4th in the rankings).
Our current spend of £5,863 per week was under the wage budget of £6,063, enabling us some wiggle room/flexibility when offering new contracts. The above is a breakdown of how the wage budget is distributed across the squad against player type. Fringe players making up the majority share, which is of no suprise given a large percentage of the current players are players signed for free and therefore, more than likely happy to be attached to a club.
I will also be looking to utilise @afmoldtimer latest blog surrounding finances, if you are yet to read this mini master-piece I suggest you do so.
PRE-SEASON
We wouldn’t be playing our first competitive game for just over a month. Therefore there was plenty of opportunities for me to get to see the players in action (seven friendlies) and enable me to assign individuals to specific individual training.
The usual training schedules were imported, set pieces plugged in and job adverts posted to fill some of the vacant roles.
It was also mainly about setting and arranging the training schedules, set pieces, individual training, mentoring… all the typical FM admin and it was quite good.
Undefeated over pre-season, (ok we played a few minnows) securing some notable victories over the likes of Alverca (Liga 3), Benfica B (Liga 2) and Lugo (La Liga SmartBank). The early signs were promising, could the side from Aveiro surpass the early predictions of a 6th place finish, only time will tell.
