Finding a team for a long term FM15 save was going to take some time. I did a lot of research into teams that I wanted to manage, I looked at teams that had fallen on hard times like Rangers and AEK Athens, even Strasbourg in France. AEK were the team that seemed most perfect. I did a season with them, getting them promoted, but I just didn’t feel any love for the players or the club. I’ve got to be interested to make it work.

I’d recently read Inverting The Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson and I really enjoyed the chapter that mentioned Valeriy Lobanovskyi’s Dynamo Kyiv, so I thought I’d look into the team. I remember Kyiv, as most people of my age will, for the team containing Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov. That team made it to the semi-final of the Champions League in 1998/99, although at the time, I was oblivious to the fact that Lobanovskyi was in charge. I could talk about how successful they’ve been in the past, but a quick look at their wikipedia page would tell you all you need to know.

They haven’t won the league since 2008/09 and never twice in a row since 02/03 and 03/04. They won the domestic cup last season. This seems like something I could revive, turn their fortunes around. They’ve not done terribly in the past 5 years, but they’ve got a winning past and tough competition now.

So, it looked like this was my team.

My aims are:

• Win the league within two years
• Maintain a period of dominance
• Develop Youth
• Win a cup in the first two years
• Have a good run in the Euro League in Season 1
• Make it to a Champions League Final within 5 years

Now some of these tasks are pretty doable. I don’t think winning the league will be easy, Shakhtar Donetsk have a pretty firm grip on the title and a pretty dominant team. Dnipro are also pretty handy and Metalist, although not as strong as they were, are still pretty decent. Doing this long term will be an even bigger ask.

Developing Youth is going to be a long term project as it will depend greatly on the facilities that the club has.

The Champions League aim is going to be the hardest though. It’s going to be difficult keeping hold of all my best players, especially if I achieve success, but that’s a problem to worry about in the future.

So, there’s the basic outline of what I want to achieve with Dynamo Kyiv, now to assess the team.