Hello there, long time no see! Whilst I have not actively been blogging in recent months, I have still been pretty active playing FM23. Despite FM24 being on the horizon, I felt like Markus Beck’s time at Folkestone didn’t yet receive the blogged farewell it deserved. Neither did his seven years at Sparta Rotterdam get any blogging attention, which is the side he took charge of following his time at Folkestone. So, this post will cover exactly that; The end of Beck’s stint at “The Invicta“, as well as the following years at “De Kasteelheren” (Sparta).
The Beginning Of The End
So where do we start…? Where we left off, probably.
Following 12 years at Folkestone, which culminated in a fabulous Premier League title win in 2034/35, Markus Beck felt like he needed a change of scenery and wanted to move back to mainland Europe. Thus, at the end of their title winning campaign, he took care of various matters such as offering out new deals to the club’s key players and staff, so that they wouldn’t all be gone within a single season of him leaving – or that Folkestone would at the very least be compensated well if they were to lose them. Then, on the 19th of June 3035, he resigned from his job as manager of Folkestone Invicta. Together, they rose all the way from the National League South, the English 6th tier, to Premier League greatness and he’ll forever keep the club close to his heart, much like the club’s fans will always remember him as one of the greats of The Invicta.
Beck’s final action before resigning was to confirm the signature of Italian midfielder Stuart Lambert – a very Italian name, right? The Australia-born midfielder was signed from Lazio for a hefty fee of 76M€ at just 18 years old and was supposed to become a key player at Folkestone for years to come. He did just that and even evolved into a genuinely world-class midfielder.
Pastures New
Whilst he was looking for a change of scenery, Beck wasn’t looking to go on an extended holiday and instead immediately looked for interesting managerial vacancies across Europe. Within a couple of days, he had applied for the job at SD Eibar, AC Ajaccio, Sparta Rotterdam, NAC Breda, and Real Oviedo. All were either current 2nd division outfits or had just gotten relegated from their country’s respective top-flight at the end of this season. As you might be able to guess now, he wasn’t looking for a job at any of the European big guns, but instead for a job that would challenge him. After years of being able to spend freely thanks to the riches of the PL, he fancied working at a club with much more limited resources – and without those tedious UK work permits. Rather unsurprisingly, all clubs – bar Real Oviedo – offered him a job interview and then also put forward a ready-to-sign contract. In between interviews, Real Madrid tried to hijack these deals by also offering Beck an interview, but he swiftly declined for reasons outlined above.
In the end, after much deliberation (in my FM Slack channel), it became clear that the Netherlands would be Markus Beck’s next destination. Out of the two available options, NAC Breda always felt like the second-best option, so Rotterdam would be Beck’s new home for the foreseeable future…
Initially, the plan was to turn this second part of the save into a dedicated blog series called “This Is SPARTA” but it never materialised as I simply enjoyed smashing through seasons, doing transfers, tweaking tactics, etc. without documenting too much. Still, now that I’m about to end the save, I decided to spend some words (and even a couple of screenshots) on Markus Beck’s seven-year stint in Rotterdam. This also allows us to take a quick look at how Folkestone have been doing over this period of time and thus without Markus at the helm.
Folkestone’s Fate
To get Folkestone out of the way quickly, this is what the past seven seasons have looked like for them;
2035/36: 4th in the Prem | 2036/37: 4th in the Prem | 2037/38: 6th in the Prem | 2038/39: 5th in the Prem | 2039/40: 4th in the Prem | 2040/41: 6th in the Prem | 2041/42: 6th in the Prem and Europa League winners
It would be fair to say that Folkestone never hit the heights from their time under Markus Beck’s management again, but equally, they established themselves as one of the Prem’s illustrious big six, which isn’t too bad at all.
Seven Years In Rotterdam
This brings us to Markus Beck’s time at Sparta Rotterdam. When he arrived, the club had just been relegated to the Dutch 2nd tier. It was in an okay financial state, with 3M€ in the bank and a wage bill of 5.5M€ p/a. Sparta’s facilities were literally average, with national reputation and a 24k seater stadium. Now that he is about to step down after seven years in charge of the club, one second division title, two Eredivisie titles, two Dutch cups, one Dutch “community shield”, and a FIFA Club World Cup were added to Sparta’s trophy cabinet. And a Champions League trophy. Needless to say that its reputation is now worldwide. The facilities are also maxed out with the youth facilities being the only exception, but even they are on track to be state-of-the-art-upgrades in the coming year. Lastly, the stadium has gone up to a 36.200 capacity.
In his first season in charge (2035/36), Beck guided Sparta back to the Eredivisie at the first time of asking, despite a mass exodus of first-team players over the summer of 2035 that was caused by their relegation at the end of the 2034/35 season.
The club’s first season back in the top flight inexplicably saw them finish 3rd straight away, thus earning themselves a spot in the qualifiers of the Champions League.
The previous 2036/37 season was meant to be a fluke and should see Sparta hamstrung by whichever European competition they would end up qualifying for, meaning they would come crashing down the 2037/38 league table. Except it wasn’t and Beck’s side even managed to better last season’s final league positioning by one place (i.e. 2nd), and even were in with a chance to win the league up until an unfortunate loss to AZ on matchday 32. Meanwhile, they even advanced to the Champions League group stage and also made the competition’s first K.O. round.
In 2038/39, Sparta actually dropped down one place in their final league positioning (i.e. 3rd) – a first under Beck’s watch, but not a major blow either. They made it through the CL qualifiers once more and also made it to the first K.O. round again, earning some very welcome prize money along the way. A 6-2 win over local rivals Feyenoord on the final matchday could be seen as a statement of intent in hindsight.
Since the Eredivisie dropped down in the European competition ranking and mid-table FC Volendam won the Dutch cup the previous season, Sparta found themselves in the Europa Conference League qualifiers at the start of the 2039/40 season. They comfortably made it all the way to the competition’s final before seeing Southampton lift the trophy in front of their eyes thanks to a narrow 1-0 loss. The league season saw Sparta finish 2nd, but the supposed title battle never really was one as Ajax ran away with their 14th consecutive league title.
Then, in 2040/41, things finally clicked – if they hadn’t done so before already. Markus Beck experimented with a very attacking 4-1-4-1 tactic he found somewhere on the internet (that’s what the frustration of not winning a major trophy for five years despite coming close a number of times can do to a man…). Said tactic worked very well with a squad that had now played together for the best part of three or four years, meaning some former wonderkids were now well on their way to become genuine world class players (and also acquired “Home Grown at Club”-status). Naturally, this also coincided with Ajax’s first off-season in 1.5 decades. Thus, Sparta Rotterdam’s first league title in 80 years was confirmed as early as matchday 27. Celebrations were wild but didn’t stop Beck’s side from finishing the league season unbeaten. Neither did it stop them from advancing to the Champions League final, having beaten the Arsenal, Real Madrid, and Liverpool in the knockouts. Let’s cut a long story short here; Sparta considered themselves as favourites over fellow freak-finalists Bayer Leverkusen, but ended up losing yet another European final 1-0. Ouch…
As I already gave away in the first paragraph of this chapter, you know what’s coming now; My in-game representation Markus Beck will lift the most illustrious trophy of them all – the FIFA Club World Cup. Lol. I am obviously kidding. Whilst it is kinda true since the 2041/42 season was also the season in which Sparta won the CWC, the Dutch “Community Shield”, the Dutch cup, and the Eredivisie title, the Champions League win is what I’m writing home about here (and maybe the quintuple). Sure, we also went unbeaten across all competitions, only picked up two draws in 61 competitive matches we played this season, and had a single player in John Martin to score 62 goals in a season, but LOOK at that shiny CL trophy! 😀
FM? Completed it, mate!
Let’s address the elephant in the room straight away; This is my first Champions League trophy win in two real-life years, so since FM21, which is why I was so determined to finally win it again now. To achieve it, I freed myself from any self-imposed restrictions like HGN quota and partially also from the “economically sustainable way of working” (i.e. buy low, sell high, repeat times x) which usually is my default way of playing FM.
Contrary to what you may believe based on my seven short season summaries, that last playing style adjustment was only actually made in the summer of 2040 – and even then, the Sparta’s overall balance “just” went from 340M€ to 250M€ (and 100M€ transfer debt). Considering the massive value increase of their assets (aka their players), the club is still doing fine since most starting XI members are now linked with moves worth 100-300M€ each. In case you’re wondering why the numbers are that high, please take a look at the screenshot below and keep in mind that the Eredivisie has by now surpassed the French Ligue 1 in the 5-year European coefficient table. If you skip further through the screenshot gallery, you’ll find pictures of this season’s starting XI as well as some of our fantastic 2nd choice options.
Why I Actually Wrote This Blogpost
Before I call it a day for this save, I may as well let you know about the most pressing reason why I ended up writing this post. That reason goes by the name of Khalid Loukili. The 22 y.o. world-class attacking midfielder was crowned man of the match of the Champions League final, as he provided 2 assists in Sparta’s 3-0 win over Bayern Munich. Even more importantly though, he’s an actual graduate of Sparta’s youth academy and – having come through in March of 2036 – he has thus far spent his entire career being carefully developed by Markus Beck.
The combination of all of the above makes him one of these few players that I crave sooo much on FM; “my” players. The ones you’ll tell your uninterested girlfriend about, the ones you’ll remember from time to time for years to come, and the ones that end up being the main reason why you all of the sudden feel the urge to write a blog about Football Manager again after months of not doing so. Thank you for that, Khalid Loukili! I don’t really think there’s gonna be a better ending for this blog, so I’ll do exactly that. I’ll end it here.
Thank you for following along and maybe we’ll meet here again for FM24 to yet again embark on the search for the next José Silva, Richard Rosink, Christophe Breton, Moustapha Bâ, Dante Zeljkovic, or Khalid Loukili… 🙂
Much love – Oaky
Oaky-FM 