French Ligue 1 Reserves

Out of all the small annoyances in FM (no disrespect to the FM 2010 team, they have done an immaculate job in a genre that is by definition impossible to get completely right) the most frustrating to me is taking control of a Ligue 1 club after years of building my reputation in other lower leagues, only to find that my reserve team has NO upcoming fixtures! Immediately, it hit me that the Ligue 1 reserves play in one of the French lower leagues, and if the league is not selected as playable, the reserves won't play a single game all season long .

Now, I realize that it's my fault for not selecting CFA-2 as playable, but I tried to select as many leagues as possible when I started my game, and my computer can only handle so many leagues to sim before dying. There's no way everyone here is playing with every single league selected and playable, am I right?

So, since I like to think that I'm not just some whiner who likes to complain about minor details in an otherwise spectacular game, and I wholeheartedly believe that we all have a duty as gamers to work with the development team to improve our beloved game, I will propose a solution to this problem: At the "New Game" screen, make a note next to all of the leagues where the reserves play in a lower division, ie. Ligue 1, Ligue 2, LIGA BBVA, LIGA adelante, etc. Caution the player that if the lower leagues aren't playable, you won't have any reserves.

Ok, rant over. Now I ask for your help/advice. Does anyone who has encountered this problem have a stop-gap solution without having to restart the game completely? I am finding it impossible to keep my whole squad fit (especially injured players!) without the reserves to bring them back to match fitness. Is there a good way of doing this?

Thanks for reading.

Arrange friendlies for your reserves against other reserve teams.

The players still play 'fake' matches.

Thanks for the reply, Kyno. Yes, that sounds like a possible option, but I'd rather not use it unless I absolutely have to. My assistant manager won't schedule reserve friendlies automatically, so I would have to schedule them all myself - what a pain.

I know, I'm lazy, but there's got to be another way!

The players still play 'fake' matches.

Don't follow. Care to elaborate?

Don't follow. Care to elaborate?

Sure. If you look in your reserve players' match history it will still show them as having played matches. At least it does in the Spanish league since the B and C teams play in playable leagues as well.

The players still play 'fake' matches.

Sure. If you look in your reserve players' match history it will still show them as having played matches. At least it does in the Spanish league since the B and C teams play in playable leagues as well.

Sadly, I think you're mistaken . I've been managing Lyon for half a season now, and my reserves are ALL "Severely lacking in match fitness" and their form sheet lists no "fake" matches.

Edit: That could be another solution to the problem, though. SI could make it so that if you haven't enabled the league, the reserves start playing "fake matches".

Edit2: I think that in your game, you must have the B/C leagues set to enabled, but not playable.

Ahh maybe it doesn't apply to the French leagues then. Seems strange though that it works properly in the Spanish leagues at least.