Some of my achievements in the game are quiet good. The best one though has to be getting Cork City into the champions league group stage only to be knocked-out.
Cork City:
At Cork I first targeted the league. It was out with dead wood and in with some swift but effective signings. The idea was to bring in free agents or free transfers and sell them on for a good profit which would fund the objective of winning the league. I kept hold of John O'Flynn, Dan Murray, Danny Murphy and Joe Gamble and made some good money off the likes of George O'Callaghan and Vinny Sullivan.
My first year we finished a creditable 3rd considering the changes I made. Free players I picked up were sold to other League of Ireland and English clubs and in came around €250k to spend on a winning squad.
I felt my defense needed improvement so I signed Eddie Nolan from Blackburn. Quiet a good signing I must admit. Attempts to bring Stephan Carr in were in vain but more quality players were signed with James Vaughan from Everton the pick of the bunch. I now had a squad capable of matching Shelbourne.
We went on to win the League Cup, Munster Senior Cup and the League. The League was fantastic and we only lost three times all season. Phase one was completed in year 2.
Year 3 was all about the Champions League. Drawn against Siroki Brijeg in the 1st qualifying round I played tight defense and went through on away goals. The next round was against Gorica of Slovenia and though this was close at 1-0 over two games we played well.
The 3rd qualifying round was a big one against IFK Goteborg. A fantastic game and we sneaked through on away goals.
Finally we were there, the champions league group stage in a group with Real Madrid, Fenerbahce and Lyon. A very though group indeed. At the end we somehow picked up 3 points from two draws with Fenerbahce and a draw against Lyon.
Napoli:
Napoli were in Serie B when I took over and I knew that Serie A was where they belonged. I started with a squad that had finished 8th the year before and so the work began. We had a good start by picking up 12 points from a possible 18 in our opening games and as the season went on I found a formation that matched my ambitions. A 3-4-3 formation that worked a treat. We were top of Serie B with three games left and we only needed a point in any of those games to win the league but we lost all three and we pipped by Crotone by a point.
We were promoted to Serie A having finished 2nd but the title was what we deserved. I left the club that summer after I was refused to have money to improve my squad. They eventually finished 10th in Serie A that year.
DR Congo:
Being appointed boss of DR Congo meant a lot. I always felt I could get DR Congo places and so I attempted to achieve that. I set about getting the nation into the african cup of nations firstly and see what happens there. With the firepower of Lomano Lua Lua and the excellent keeping of Yves Ma Kalambay we had a good team. Trésor Mputu was another star in a team rising and rising. We qualified after being drawn in a piss-easy group where we finished with maximum points.
Although exiting at the group stage so cruelly it was certainly a good experience. We were now hard to beat which was half the battle in the Football Manager world. As it turned out after that cruel blow in the 2010 African cup of nations I was surprisingly sacked as boss. I felt it was harsh considering that they proberly wouldn't have qualified had I not changed a few things with the formations.
Uzbekistan:
After the shock of getting sacked by DR Congo, I quickly found new employment this time with Uzbekistan. The challenge was to get Uzbekistan to the 2014 world cup. By now it was Autumn 2010 and I had three years to get Uzbekistan to Brazil 2014. It started well as we went through to the final group phase. This was a tricky part of the journey as we lost our opening two games and needed to win every remaining game to have a chance. We did exactly that and made the continental play-off with New Zealand. We overcame New Zealand and thanks to Djeparov we were going to the World cup. My first World cup finals with a country was surprisingly Uzbekistan. To my amazement we went to the last 16 only going out to Spain 3-1.
I left the position after that as I felt this Uzbek team could do no more with me in charge.
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