Foreign League Evaluations

As FM 09 winds down i was wondering what everyone thought about its non british/irish leagues. Which leagues besides England,Scotland, Wales, Ireland, N. Ireland do you think are best researched and most accurately reflect their real life counterparts?

I'm thinking of starting a game somewhere outside Britain and i'd like to pick a country where randomness isn't rampant. If anyone has any suggestions i'd be grateful.

Thanks.

Probably the big leagues outside the UK.

French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portugese.

Holland would be worth a good shout as well.

After that you are probably looking at Russia, Ukraine, Romania etc... but im just thinking that the number of fans and importance of football in those countries would lead to a fairly robust understanding and knowledge of the various teams and players.

Probably the big leagues outside the UK.

French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portugese.

Holland would be worth a good shout as well.

After that you are probably looking at Russia, Ukraine, Romania etc... but im just thinking that the number of fans and importance of football in those countries would lead to a fairly robust understanding and knowledge of the various teams and players.

I'll second The French, Portuguese and Romanian leagues. I also had great fun in Argentina and Greece.

My most enjoyable FM save of all time probably was with FC Inter Turku of the Finnish Premier League...

As someone above mentioned however, to succeed in them kinds of leagues you need to use all aspects of the game to enhance your knowledge, your scout becomes your best friend. Albeit not a very good one.

Brazil seems legit.

Well, to be completely honest I got bored of the A-League (Australia) as it was way too easy to win the league year-after-year. Since the A-League teams don't produce newgens and the AI doesn't sign youth it is way too easy to pick up the best 17yo's and develop them. The AI usually ran their clubs broke as well by signing way more players than they are supposed to and leaving them unregistered. There are way more issues too all detailed in the FM09 Australian Data Issues and Bugs threads

I play alot in Holland, but I'm from Holland, so I'm biased( but I haven't really seen stuff in there that's wrong). Spain & Italy are great as well.

Well, to be completely honest I got bored of the A-League (Australia) as it was way too easy to win the league year-after-year. Since the A-League teams don't produce newgens and the AI doesn't sign youth it is way too easy to pick up the best 17yo's and develop them. The AI usually ran their clubs broke as well by signing way more players than they are supposed to and leaving them unregistered. There are way more issues too all detailed in the FM09 Australian Data Issues and Bugs threads

Why don't A-league teams produce regens? Because I bought one in my save.

Holland is well reseached. One problem in the past though has been the lack of good youth players at the start of the game (not talking about regens here). I've always found that the youth players at some of Holland's biggest clubs (especially Ajax) have been undervalued and it isnt often fixed until later patches.

Managing in Serbia can be great. There are no player restrictions and its only 3 years to get a Serbian passport so if you bring in young players form brazil/argentina they can often end up playing for the national team. Trying to overhaul the red star/partizan duopoly is a good challenge too.

I always go OFK Beograd, Belgrade's 3rd team who haven't won the tittle since the 30's. They have a great bunch of young players from the start and always produce great regens. Many of the best serbian players around europe have come from their in recent seasons. (see Kolarov at Lazio, Babovich at Nantes, Krstic at Sampdoria etc)

Another good club to go would be Vojvodina. Slightly bigger than OFK reputation wise and also have a good bunch of youngsters from the off but I don't think they are as consistent with their regens.....in fact i think OFK is actually the best club for regens ive ever managed.

Why don't A-league teams produce regens? Because I bought one in my save.

A-League teams don't produce regens as they don't produce youth IRL. They buy all their youth players off state league clubs

MLS was fantastic fun for me.

MLS is a great challenge due to draft picks and salary caps etc

Managing in Serbia can be great. There are no player restrictions and its only 3 years to get a Serbian passport so if you bring in young players form brazil/argentina they can often end up playing for the national team. Trying to overhaul the red star/partizan duopoly is a good challenge too.

I always go OFK Beograd, Belgrade's 3rd team who haven't won the tittle since the 30's. They have a great bunch of young players from the start and always produce great regens. Many of the best serbian players around europe have come from their in recent seasons. (see Kolarov at Lazio, Babovich at Nantes, Krstic at Sampdoria etc)

Another good club to go would be Vojvodina. Slightly bigger than OFK reputation wise and also have a good bunch of youngsters from the off but I don't think they are as consistent with their regens.....in fact i think OFK is actually the best club for regens ive ever managed.

this sounds like a fun challenge. when im a big euro club i always scout eastern europe, particularly serbia and croatia. i think i'll go either OFK or Vokvdina when i get FM2010.