Tanel

You may have noticed my stories around in some of the big forums if you've visited the story sections. Anyway I've decided to bring my latest adventure here too. I have like 20 posts to catch up so I'll make 3-4 updates daily probably.


I arrived in Lisbon from Estonia during the lunchtime. The hot and dry weather was killing me after few minutes. I had to walk with my heavy bags for good half a hour until I reached a little hotel in the city center.

I could've easily took a tram, but I decided to go past some interesting historic buildings on my way. That was a wrong decision, but I guess the shower felt so good only because of that.

In my little hotel room I had one big bed, which I though, luckily or not, have all by myself, a very nice bathroom and a satellite TV and a nice fridge with many tasty things in it.

On the table I noticed some different fruits, which I decided to eat before my meeting. On the TV there was World Cup quarterfinals game replay between Portugal and England which I rather uninterestedly watched as I already knew the result and had seen the game yesterday evening. I put my leg's on a table nearby and started to click between different channels. Nothing too interesting though. I couldn't understand neither Spanish or Portugese and I wasn't really attracted in seeing Discovery Channel, CNN or National Geographic.

I turned back to the footie, but since I wasn't interested really I decided to go peep out of the window and see what was going on. The city was living fast life and it was a lot different to most of the Estonia's town's where I had gone.

When I was about to die with the boringness I recieved a phone call from the administrator, saying that a gentleman is waiting for me downstairs.

I went down, it was the president of my new club and we were scheduled to have a meeting.

I had gone through the UEFA manager's licence course last summer and thanks to my father's money I got a great job in Portugal where I could realize my dream which didn't go through as a footballer.

Tanel

"Welcome to Portugal," said Carlos Oliveira as I steped off the stairway. I shaked hands with him and said it was a pleasure to meet him.

Carlos Oliveira is owner and chairman of the Leixões football club that plays in Liga de Honra in Portugal. They were supposed to be hunting for the promotion this year, but then my father steped in. Oliveira also happens to be a rather wealthy businessman and he is a friend of my billionare football loving papa. The club was going through a rough time as my father had steped in to give Oliveira some money instead of selling the club and wanted me to become the manager because of that. Oliveira accepted eventhough he didn't knew that I even excisted.

Oliveira escorted me into his lovely Lexus as we drove through half of Lisbon where we had a table reserved in one of the finest elite restaurants in Lisbon. I was amazed by the interior of the Alcântara Café and the foods were simply brilliant.

We spent whole next two hours eating and discussing about the Leixões football club, eventhough occasionaly our talk went over to our father.

I didn't even knew where the club was based, since I was in Lisbon I thought is somewhere nearby, but no. It was in town called Matosinhos, much further in the north, based near Porto.

Before we left the Alcantra Cafe, which address I carefully marked down to my notebook (Rua Maria Luisa Holstein, 15, Lisbon), we made sure that we'll meet again tomorrow as I'm going to load my heavy bags in his car and we go meet the neighbourhood where I'm going to live in for some time now.

I got back to hotel right in time to see Portugal play France in the World Cup semi's. Instead of siting in home, I decided to take a 15 minute walk and go watch the game on big screen with the Portugese people in Lisbon. The World Cup dream for my new neighbours was over though as Zinedine Zidane penalty gave France a 1:0 victory.

noxocube

nice story :D kutgw

scholesy18

wow so indepth, great work m8

Fedorico Roma Fan

WOW! very good story, looking forward to next installment

Tanel

Thanks for the replies all 3 of you. I hope to beat a 500 post mark with this story around different forums and so far I'm on track. Hope you keep on reading as the whole story will be more in-depth than it has matches actually. It'll have some hot action coming up sooner or later too.

The pictures will arrive after few more updates.

Tanel

Leixões is like most of the football clubs in Portugal a piece of a sporting club which is based in Matosinho, near Porto.

Nicknamed the Sea Heroes or the Babies, Leixões is trying desperately to get back into the top flight of the Portugal football after spending decades out of it. The success has been rather good over the past year.

After missing out on promotion by just two points last season the plans are to get it this season, but the sacking of the manager Vitor Oliveira has made the fans worry as the new replacement is a unknown Estonian who by rumours was bought the place as the manager of the team.

The team also just very recently enjoyed UEFA Cup football after reaching the Portugese Cup final despite being a 2nd division side, beating top division side Braga on their way.

With club's 100th anniversary coming next year, returning to top flight would be a brilliant gift for the Babies.

With the colours of the club being red and white they play in Estadio do Mar, which can hold upto 25 000 people and is used with many different sports, but mostly it's a football stadium.

Leixões has got a very good fanbase and it's placed in a small town that has got nearly 30,000 habitants - Matosinho. Matosinho is based south of Porto.

The city has a rival for Leixões in smaller club Leça FC.

Jack'

gd story

evertonfan

great story and really indepth keep up the good work and cant wait until the next part :)

thanks to James M for the sig, cheers buddy :D

EFC Diddy
FMF Unittttt :P

Tanel

Well few more thanks given out. The next update is here.


I checked myself out of the hotel first thing in the morning as Mr. Carlos Oliveira gave me the keys to my new car instead of getting into his one.

My father had sent the car to me, a nice S-Class Mercedes. I only drive a Mercedes and this was a certain pleasure as it was a rather nice upgrade to my previous car.

Anyway, I put my clothes and hygen stuff into the back and hti the gas pedal. I had my trouble driving in Lisbon at the start, but then I got the feel of the car and everything and on the way out of the town I really was flying.

Finally I reached Porto and after that it was just a "walk" to Matoshino. When I finally reached the town, I found one English speaking local and asked does he know where the Leixões club headquarters or training ground is. He was a fan of them and he offered to sit into the car and guide me. I was in a fancy suit and driving a luxury car, he was all smiling, probably thought I was going to do some good for the club. That I'm the new manager or some big name player.

I told him that I'm his club's new manager and he was suprised, but he shaked my hands and wished me all the best of luck when we got there. I turned around and started walking towards the club, saying quietly (yet enough for him to hear), "Luck we shall have."

I opened the front door as the club general director was waiting for me. He gave me a choice either look around the training ground first and then sign the contract or other way around.

I picked to sign the papers as in the end I wasn't going to decide anything with seeing the training ground or staff.

I was first explained the small financial possibilities of the club as Oliveira didn't really want to give much money to the club and there was a very small amount of money he gave to the club as most of the money the club had to earn itself. And my father didn't want to give too much money either as he only paid Oliveira to get me into management and he didn't want to make the job easy for me.

I met with the scouting, medical and coaching staff and asked about the strenghts and pluses of the staff I've got. I decided to widen our scouting abilities ofcourse as with one scout I was not going to work. And also I decided to call one of the mates who had a coaching course alongside me to help me out with senior team coaching.

Eventhough three of the new staff who I called hadn't signed a contract yet, but since they had given a verbal agreement I was believing that my staff is complete.

I also had a check on the training ground and stadium. Eventhough it was my first experience as manager I knew very well what are good and what are bad conditions and here I had considerable good training and playing facilities - I was happy, eventhough I was first againist the option father gave me in coming to Leixões.

The players were set to arrive in couple of days time, which I was supposed to use to fill up my new department in Porto which was somewhat 10 kilometers away from the training ground & stadium.

Fedorico Roma Fan

Good update, story is coming along very nicely, well done

Tanel

I had set up my department in Porto. A rented little place around fifty meters off the sweet ground. Not what I prefer as I like to have to feet firmly on the ground, but it's a good height training for me.

There was three rooms all by myself in the departmnet, all decorated and stuff by my will before I came to Portugal. With a huge HD TV in the living room and one smaller plasma in my bedroom I had a nice choice. A satellite TV in both of them, English unlike the hotel I was in, I knew what I could do during the nights. Espescially on Monday's as I had to make a little wake up in the middle of the night to watch Prison Break on Fox.

The living room itself was very huge and nicely filled up with stuff. A personal bar in one of the corners of the room I had a perfect chance to either celebrate a huge victory or get downhearted by a defeat. Eventhough in case I'm depressed the height of the building I'm living in may be a problem as I may get tempted for suicide. But quite frankly I wouldn't care less about what happens in Portugal and I doubt I'm ever going to get depressed here.

The bedroom has a classic big bed, eventhough once again for myself, with an amazing morning view outside to the city and the Atlantic. Also it has a huge closet for my clothes, eventhough I'm not a party type of a person as working is sacred for me and partying would interupt into my work.

Anyway, I had to live my luxury home to go to meet with the squad finally. The players weren't really bunch of talented lads, but I had no idea of what is the level of other Portugese clubs so I wasn't going to make any assumptions.

To be honoust it is taking some time to get used to any names, but it comes with few days as I'm rather good in putting names and faces together.

The first impression I've got was that I won't be building a defensive fortress with this bunch of players and I had to be the one invading. Couple of quick weekspots spoted I need to have more time of seeing does and how this team needs to be fixed.

I certainly had one player on my mind, but I don't know can this deal go through.

Tanel

The character is named Tanel Tursk. Borned in Estonia he had lived with his mother and stepfather for a long time.

He grew up and lived couple of kilometers away from the second biggest town in Estonia, Tartu in a nice house as his stepfather and mother were quite well financed, but he did have to work in the farm's of the country in summers to earn himself some money.

As his mother died tragically in the bus accident, he had decided to search for his father as the stepfather had said to him that he is not his real dad soon after the mother died and left him with some money as he left Tanel behind.

As a rather stubborn person Tanel wanted to find out who his real father is. He was 15 then, a age when you don't want parents. He had never been like ordinary kid, he was a genius. Not as a student, but he had wisdom, his principles and his mind was clear and he always looked at things deeply thinking of what will happen if you do this or that and he never really did any trouble.

Despite being a not-partying person and dreaming of belonging into the high class of the communities and earning his money as a wealthy businessman, Tanel did have lots of friends and a very close friend of his, Marko, decided to help him out.

They were looking like in the movies, asking people who mother had knewn until one best friend of her mother from the past knew something. Mother had an affair with a multimillionaire Italian businessman in the past - named Marco Cozza. Quite suprising considering the deep soviet time in Estonia then.

As Cozza had to take care of his new son, they had a small bond coming between them in time. And both of them shared a passion of football, but as a bad thing, Cozza happened to be a Milan supporter while Tanel was Inter's.

Tanel then completed his schools with all A's in Estonia before going to Georgetown in USA and get a top class education. Tursk was a CEO in his new dads company for few years, but then he decided that he is not ready yet.

He told dad that he wants to try his hand in the football management. Dad was willing to pay for his UEFA courses and get him a job in Portugal.

Tanel

Portugese media headlines about my appointment were rather small and side of the paper news obviously. If I would've not been foreign then I would've not gotten anything at all. But that was obvious.

In Estonia though things were trastically different. It was a rather big in the papers and TV. There were even column's where they said that I probably bought my place in the side which though is partly true as I've admited it myself that I got there thanks to my father's connections.

But overally people were ecstatic, they didn't know my face or anything, but they were great to hear the news that Estonian manager is going foreign. The papers had already found out that Leixões is one of the biggest candidate for promotion so it raised the fuzz even more.

I remained rather quiet, but did accept an interview with my favourite paper - SL Õhtuleht (Translate: Evening Paper) as I made a quick return to Estonia. I answered to their questions about the club, how I got the job, what I plan to do.


I don't think it's rather interesting to read what I told there and I prefer not to write the stuff which everyone can figure out themselves. You know, I plan to get promoted.

Eventhough one question was more appealing to the people which was new to me. They asked me will I try get some Estonians to the Portugal league. I told to think about it, also telling that my financial possibilties aren't really wide.

After the interview I immediately headed to Tartu and have my time with friends there as I probably wasn't going to come back for a long time. Probably not during the christmas even.

During the bus-drive, rather funny considering my financial possiblities, I was seriously thinking about the Estonian part. I had found out the weak spots of the team and I knew couple of promising Estonians for that. Maybe I can arrange something with the next three days I'm here. Get a meeting with some dudes from the three top clubs - Levadia, Flora & TVMK.

I knew that Levadia was coming to play one of the Tartu teams during that three days time.

Tanel

• The character is writing in a "diary" (eventhough not regular diary) style as he in future plans to publish those in a book.

• During the story there will be little reviews written about the character or the club which aren't in "I" form of speech and aren't meant to be in his so called diary-biography.

• There will be flash-backs to the past of the character. His conversations with his dad, mother, friends, previous clubs or from his footballer career. It may affect his relationships, decisions & everything during the story.

• There could be paper stories/columns, but there won't be nothing written in match review style by any paper or site. Also there could be some snippets from the articles, interviews, TV shows etc.

• The character will often share his visions and philosophy and he'll quote some famous persons from the past.

• The character may not often pose lot of "interest" in the matches he has been through lately, so he may just jump through them, writing maybe just couple of lines. But with certain and important games he may go for many entry's. Usually he makes a entry at the end of every month, with the important games been handled first.

• There won't be any short entries about one date, as when he writes, he writes it long about one certain date.

• There will be many unpredicatable stuff happening which come out of nothing and the answers you could find out in the next entry or many years later with a flashback to his history.

• The use of pictures will be as minimal as possible, but when it adds something or is a view of some place the character is the pictures will be tried to use.

noxocube

im in awe of this. Once this is over I will print it off and bind it myself so I have something to read at night :D

Tanel

Thanks for more replies! You will have to wait long until you can print it out though.


I arrived in Tartu last night as I spent most of the day helping my neighbour around. She had been helping me and supporting me a lot since I was a little child. He used to give me candies. A great person she is and she was the one giving me most of the directions in life, helping me avoid alcohol or smoking.

I was helping her with gardening and I had to dig up one bush that hadn't got new leaves after the cold winter here when the temperatures reached over -30 degrees in Estonia.

I never liked gardening or digging, but I wanted to help her before and leave a memory of myself as I never knew was I even going to return or was she going to be alive when I'm back as she's very old, reaching her seventies, but she was a healthy person and also very energetic.

In that garden there also were those lovely strawberries. Big, juicy and oh so tasty, I always used to eat them as I was a child. She kept that for her grandchildren, but after they rarely came over she was thinking about digging those strawberries up, but then she saw that I loved those and she keeps taking great care of those every spring and summer as they go better every year.

She knew that I was going to leave and my last words to her was to keep those strawberries as I might want them again next summer. They were suprisingly already good enough to eat and I took a huge box full of them with me as I had to prepare for the send-off party arranged by my friends.


They had reserved a nice restaurant in downtown Tartu as there was like thirty-forty people there to send me off to my trip to the world of football world.

Some of the friends wrote speeches and read it to me. After one of the friends talked about sports and told how that in the determination to win, hopefully who I am won't change. I replied to him with a quote from legendary American sports commentator Heywood Hale Broun who I had a pleasure to meet when I was in America in the 90's for couple of years. "Sports do not build character. They reveal it," I repeated his words.

The evening continued in great mood, bottles of the most expensive champagne and wine cheering up the mood around the restaurant as a pianist is playing in the corner some of the legendary Estonian songs alongside with some more fun songs from foreign countries.

In the middle of the party I got all those gifts that are supposed to remind me my friends and my homeland in Portugal. Most memorable one was a carpet shaped just like the Estonia with it's two biggest islands, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. The carpet cleaners won't be having a nice time with this one, but I loved it and this will be decorating the hallway of my new department.

The send off ended late at around 2 AM as that was the maximum limit to have the party in the restaurant. Some of the guys had left, but majority was with me until the end. AS we left I said that we'll see again soon.

Tomorrow I was going arranging my final stuff in Estonia, including the negotiations with Levadia players, as the plane to Lisbon was going to be the last of the evening, so I had around five hours in Tartu, spend some time and talk to Levadia players.

ConryBfc06

gr8 story so far m8!! KUTGW!

Tanel

Before leaving Estonia, as mentioned before, I went to visit Levadia game in Tartu againist local Tammeka. I actually went to see one guy in particular. As I had labeled our right side the "weak" one back in Portugal I needed to find myself something net there. I wanted both full-back and winger.

For the winger I turned to Estonia to see how does Konstantin Vassiljev do. Vassiljev is one of the few Estonians that can actually do something with the ball and have the courage to try something. I had seen play him before for the national team couple of times and as much as I visited Estonia, I went to see the local "big" matches too where he usually impresses.

Anyway, I standed on the bench with a journalist approaching me from Soccernet.ee, Estonia's biggest and basically only football site. As my face had gone hot over the past days i nthe Estonian football world and he asked me about am I watching anyone here.

I only told him that I'd lie if I'd say no, but I don't know am I going to buy anyone. As in the end, it's not only upto me as in such low profile club things are run by the management mostly and manager can only suggest signings, not request.

After Vassiljev had a yet another impressive match to prove that he is one of the best, if not the best, player in the league I asked him about it. In foreign countries that would be illegal approach, but in Estonia people are happy to send footballers out of the country.


Vassiljev, with his huge curly & bushy hair, told me that he considers that option and we swaped our phonenumbers. I told him that I'll give him a call after I've talked with the management of my club in Portugal. But I also needed to ask Levadia's owners Viktor Levada's phone number to go about the possible price of him.

I then noticed that time was running out fast as th eplane was going to leave in two and half hours with little more minutes. I immediately called the taxi from the football stadium as I had bringed my bags with me. The wild rush to the airport ended around fifteen minutes before the plane left. I paid the taxi driver his huge bill and got on the plane.

In Portugal I had billion things to do before I could somewhat relax and enjoy my time as Leixões coach.

Fedorico Roma Fan

i wish i could write a story this good :D lol