Getting promoted too fast

I generally won't get consecutive promotions on a regular basis at least from the second tier to the first one where there's a good gap in quality at least in most leagues.

But right now on my Dresden save i just did that , i won the 3.Bundesliga on my first season, didn't get an increase in budget or any transfer funds for the new season since the club was in debt, but with some free transfers managed to get a few good signings though i didn't really had any depth in the squad.

So i ended the season second in the 2.Bundesliga with a squad that really isn't that great for that league relying on playing on the counter a lot, meanwhile the debt was cleared and with the league prize money and cup money from a good run i have a bank balance of around 10M, but i was seriously considering bottling the promotion on purpose just to spend another season to reinforce the squad.

As the new season starts, the board only gave me a minuscule 5M to spend and the wage budget only increased by around 150k/month and i still have a lot of players that are from the third tier, considering the difference on quality i think that is going to be very hard to avoid relegation unless i spend a lot of time looking for free agents and cheap players on low wages..

Enough of my rambling and getting to the point, do you think it's always the best option to be promoted as fast as possible or do you like to spend at least a couple of seasons on a division to make your team stronger before getting to the top tier?

I generally won't get consecutive promotions on a regular basis at least from the second tier to the first one where there's a good gap in quality at least in most leagues.

But right now on my Dresden save i just did that , i won the 3.Bundesliga on my first season, didn't get an increase in budget or any transfer funds for the new season since the club was in debt, but with some free transfers managed to get a few good signings though i didn't really had any depth in the squad.

So i ended the season second in the 2.Bundesliga with a squad that really isn't that great for that league relying on playing on the counter a lot, meanwhile the debt was cleared and with the league prize money and cup money from a good run i have a bank balance of around 10M, but i was seriously considering bottling the promotion on purpose just to spend another season to reinforce the squad.

As the new season starts, the board only gave me a minuscule 5M to spend and the wage budget only increased by around 150k/month and i still have a lot of players that are from the third tier, considering the difference on quality i think that is going to be very hard to avoid relegation unless i spend a lot of time looking for free agents and cheap players on low wages..

Enough of my rambling and getting to the point, do you think it's always the best option to be promoted as fast as possible or do you like to spend at least a couple of seasons on a division to make your team stronger before getting to the top tier?

I prefer a 3-year gap between promotions.

I like to consolidate

I find that successive promotions cause problems relative to having to bring in better players to cope with the standard of the higher league... wage-bills increase, deadwood increases, the players don't 'know' each other - "our current players are a long way short of operating as a unit" or "are blending well together" are no where near as good as "have a strong understanding" or "are willing to die for each other"... I also tend to grab a lot of youth prospects that the bigger clubs have released and they need time to develop which successive promotions can rob them of..

yeah i preferr at least a season in the new division after promotion, like lazaru i sign lots of freed youngsters and they usually need a season or two to develop.

Zooming up the non-leagues is no problem as the low quality levels out.

In the higher eschelons? Dunno - have never experienced it.

Let's ask Norwich fans!

I did back to back promotions with Notts County from League 2 to the Premiership on FM10 (when they had money and it was easier), and ended up being relegated in my first season. I only just scraped into the playoffs in the Championship, but ended up bottom of the Premiership because it was too much too soon. I still had 3 players from my original squad when I got to the Premiership.

I was champions of blue square south and blue sqaure premier with Havant and Waterlooville in consequtive seasons. But now in the league two, I am between mid table and the relugation zone. I think my players are more suited to the blue square premier. and the best players I have for the previous season just can't cut it out in the league 2. If i earn a draw I am satisfied. If I lose, I don't mind, If I win, I am estatic now. I am just playing the game with hopes of survivval.

Btw I didn;t cheat with saves, like I usually do with the bigger clubs in previous FM versions. Some how its soo much more satisfying getting promoted with out cheating/saving.

I was champions of blue square south and blue sqaure premier with Havant and Waterlooville in consequtive seasons. But now in the league two, I am between mid table and the relugation zone. I think my players are more suited to the blue square premier. and the best players I have for the previous season just can't cut it out in the league 2. If i earn a draw I am satisfied. If I lose, I don't mind, If I win, I am estatic now. I am just playing the game with hopes of survivval.

Btw I didn;t cheat with saves, like I usually do with the bigger clubs in previous FM versions. Some how its soo much more satisfying getting promoted with out cheating/saving.

This. I save every 15 matches immediately after the 15th match regardless of results... you enjoy the game much more because you experience the highs and the lows, you have to learn how to motivate your players properly, there are no second chances, get it wrong... woops! Get it right? :D Nothing more rewarding than knowing it's your skill as a manager not your skill at reloading that earned you a title, promotion, trophy, unexpected win, etc...

Getting promoted too fast could be a "nice" problem. You should feel happy!

yes motivation is quite important. i usually select the team talk, and on top of that change the indivdual talks as well. so it acts as a double talk. This is only my theory though, not sure if it has any affect.

I am greedy I want instant success on my current save I won everything there is to win with Liverpool 3 years in a row then decided to leave for a challenge as the job at my fave club Bradford was up for grabs in League 2.

A shocking drop I know but they are close to my heart.. I took over a side languashing midtable added my 4 2 3 1 with wingers and AMC and got to december 31st with a rubbish squad from october winning a few and losing a few.. Now I have added my own feel speedy players maybe not good tecnically but am now Payoff contenders.

My point is once I get in the playoffs I will be planning my squad for a shot at League 1 promotion and I have not been promoted from League 2 yet.

To the TC. I took over Union Berlin at the 2. Bundesliga and after playing for a bunch of real life months and getting to 2016 (I usually just play on weekends), I managed to bring the team as high as 5th in the league in the 2015-16 season. After three seasons of avoiding relegation, I've become a better team and finished 7th and then 5th. This season 2016-17 I'm mid-table, although I was hopeing for promotion.

I really want to get promoted but I can't see what else I need to do. I've worked with training, brought good free players after long searches, new coaches, scouters in the entire world. You've promoted from 2. Bundesliga. What did you do to succeed?

In the english leagues I always start with a BSN/BSS south team and try to take them all the way up. I always find that the gap from championship to premiership is always the hardest/biggest, so reinforcing for an extra season could pay dividends as the first premiership seasons always seems to inevitably end in relegation, or very close to it as often the stadium is not big enough to sustainably build a good squad as the budget isnt sufficient enough. However, i have in the past got stuck in the championship for 4 or 5 seasons if i dont get promoted first season so there is that issue.

Thanks everyone for the input, i really want to avoid to get relegated back down since when that normally happens i don't have the patience to continue the save and i'm really enjoying it right now so hopefully i'll steer the team away from the drop-zone.

To the TC. I took over Union Berlin at the 2. Bundesliga and after playing for a bunch of real life months and getting to 2016 (I usually just play on weekends), I managed to bring the team as high as 5th in the league in the 2015-16 season. After three seasons of avoiding relegation, I've become a better team and finished 7th and then 5th. This season 2016-17 I'm mid-table, although I was hopeing for promotion.

I really want to get promoted but I can't see what else I need to do. I've worked with training, brought good free players after long searches, new coaches, scouters in the entire world. You've promoted from 2. Bundesliga. What did you do to succeed?

I think that most of my success came from signing Elson from Stuttgart on a free transfer, he is a good player considering the rest of the league and whenever he was injured and not playing, the team played a lot worse, i basically relied on playing most of the games on the counter (pretty much every away game was on the counter), my striker that i also got from a free(Esmael Gonçalves from a French Club that i don't recall right now) had some pace on him so he scored a considerable amount of goals.

But what really started to make me more successful was to start watching the games on extended even if at full speed, so you can tweak during the match, even subbing a DM and playing even more defensively with about 15 minutes left, or playing more direct when you see the AI is closing you down up the pitch so you can play direct and maybe pass into space.

And i also started to be more picky with the players i sign, very rarely i will sign a player with determination lower than 10, upfront i need players with pace and on the back i need players mentally strong since they'll spend most of the games "under pressure" and need to avoid mistakes.

Hopefully it's helpful.. i'm not even a great manager by any means, but ever since i started being a lot more careful with small details instead of simply rushing through a season as i used to, my win percentage increased a lot!

Well, on my Truro City save I managed consecutive promotions all the way up, but some of them were playoff victories, including the last one, where I finished only just in the playoffs, and got promoted through that. Was completely out of my depth and was sure we'd go straight down, but I found a few cheap/free signings, and shifting my transfer budget more towards wages and away from transfers, I was able to put together a team good enough to survive, finished nicely clear of the relegation zone. I say go for broke really, shift to wages, get tons of free transfer players in, even if they're ones that'll only play good for a season, that's all you need, once you've done your first season in the top you'll have a huge reputation boost and can push on from there.

I'll admit it might be hard in germany, lower rep compared to england, and probably less TV money? but I think you can do it.

Took Crawley from the Blue Square Premier to League 2 and I'm now in League 1 in the playoffs midway through the season; I'm currently in my third season. I've found that back to back promotions are not much of a problem when you can snap up those quality free transfers and keep a constant control on ya wage budget. To be fair, I already had a pretty decent squad to begin with.

Don't think consecutive promotion in lower leagues is a problem. Its when your team gets promoted to the top division in consecutive years that's when it gets hard.

Good luck to Norwich btw

I think that most of my success came from signing Elson from Stuttgart on a free transfer, he is a good player considering the rest of the league and whenever he was injured and not playing, the team played a lot worse, i basically relied on playing most of the games on the counter (pretty much every away game was on the counter), my striker that i also got from a free(Esmael Gonçalves from a French Club that i don't recall right now) had some pace on him so he scored a considerable amount of goals.

But what really started to make me more successful was to start watching the games on extended even if at full speed, so you can tweak during the match, even subbing a DM and playing even more defensively with about 15 minutes left, or playing more direct when you see the AI is closing you down up the pitch so you can play direct and maybe pass into space.

And i also started to be more picky with the players i sign, very rarely i will sign a player with determination lower than 10, upfront i need players with pace and on the back i need players mentally strong since they'll spend most of the games "under pressure" and need to avoid mistakes.

Hopefully it's helpful.. i'm not even a great manager by any means, but ever since i started being a lot more careful with small details instead of simply rushing through a season as i used to, my win percentage increased a lot!

Very helpful, thank you!!

Just giving this a bump to say that i did managed to avoid relegation and finish 10th place.

However it wasn't really that smooth and that final position is somewhat deceiving, though i never got into a relegation place i was struggling until December/january and with a couple of signings and a striker loan(since my strikers weren't really finding the net) i managed a good 2nd half of the season.

Once again i relied on staying back and hitting on the counter but i really need a stronger squad since i struggled to play against teams of similar stature at home where i couldn't be really effective on attacking them and controlling the match due to a lack of quality on my squad.

But anyway, the final position gave me 17M and that should be enough to start building for the future