Managing small national teams. FM related Issues. Maybe.

In next life, I'll manage Luxembourg. It's cozy, it's pretty, it's small a country, and there's still plenty of headroom to improve their national team's track record. That was the masterplan. Until very recently.

Then I stumbled upon this. Mighty google, I bless thee. Whatever.

Bad news everyone, I'm going to be closing this SOMS. I hate to let the people who have commented so often down, but the game is pretty much unplayable. Half of the squad has retired because they couldn't find a club, so i'm back to the beginning again.

Never managed a smallish, (in terms of Football Managering) even rather obscure team before. Taking a closer look at the Lux squad, you'll quickly see that most of the players are assigned to a club that has no league as of yet in the FM world. Many Luxembourg footballers aren't assigned to a club at all. I suppose that's where most of the issuses that lad experienced were coming from, or similar, and either way: any chance that what happened to him was kinda random? The prospect of half a squad retiring at some point or other kinda sucks.

It's an issue with regens, and especially from smaller nations, they retire after a few years because they can't find a club. You could always load all players from Luxembourg and that should mean there are plenty of options available throughout your save game.

You should run the leagues (down to the lowest level) of the neighbouring countries. I think a team from Luxembourg may play in the Swiss league as well.

You learn something new everyday.

I definitely think that managing a nation like Luxembourg would prove to be an interesting and difficult challenge.

Surely the national FA will not have any expectations, not even to win a game, so if you could get some points and take them up the rankings, it would be a big achievement.

This might be one to keep people up to date with. Then we can all hear about the famous day when Luxembourg took on the mighty Estonia in Tallinn and won their first ever away game, etc.

Grey teams in the eglish cups ruin my FA cup and Fa vase runs when i am a smaller , also regens need sorting .

Awesome! Thanks for all suggestions given! Mind you, I've had zero experience taking over such a small outing. As such I wasn't even aware of players retiring just like that. Does it happen when they haven't been assigned to any in-game club for a period of time, as in: Yes, definitely, no random factors involved? Or else?

Surely the national FA will not have any expectations, not even to win a game, so if you could get some points and take them up the rankings, it would be a big achievement.

Absolutely. This is their best player at this moment. And many of the teams are dominated by foreign players, see Beggen, Letzebuerg, Grevenmacher, and so on. Which in a country this small makes youth development harder as it could be. Quite a few Germans like to play in Luxembourg not least because it gives them the chance to participate in the UEFA cup every once in a while.

Should prove to be an interesting challenge, I'm just 20 minutes away from the border myself.

I've managed the Faroe Islands a few times, although not in FM08 and haven't had too many problems, although including the Danish league in the game does seem to have an impact (in a positive sense) which ties in with what Ter was saying.

I was reading a story from someone in FMS who was managiing the U21s and U19s of the Faroe Islands as well as their full squad and I was asking how he was managing to do this because in my game (in which I obviously included all Faroese players at the start and had Icelandic league running) there weren't enough players under 19 to sensibly make a team.

He told me he had the Danish league active and clearly that was the factor that made the difference. There will still be an issue of players not getting a club, but it will be lessened I would hope and they should be the worse players.

True that. And this is something I hadn't thought about before. Adding Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany etc. to the roster should allow for things to go more smoothely.

Of course the other option is to also manage a club side with the purpose of signing up any of those players without a club and trying to improve your national team that way.

Ah, so that's possible! Managing a club side and a national team at once. Thinking about it,

I was reading a story from someone in FMS who was managiing the U21s and U19s of the Faroe Islands as well as their full squad and I was asking how he was managing to do this because in my game (in which I obviously included all Faroese players at the start and had Icelandic league running) there weren't enough players under 19 to sensibly make a team.

Is it possible to manage the U19's and U21's and the National team at the same time?

Or would you need to add new users?

You can set, like you do with a club side. You would have to sack any current U21/U19 managers you have employed though.

Oh my goodness, there must be worse ways to get this party started! The lads who scored the goals were brought into fold by myself prior the the game. They were not assigned to the national squad at the start of the game. That was damn sweet!

'tis a friendly you say? Yes, true. On the way to South Africa 2010 (as if...) I'm gonna face Iceland, Croatia, Northern Ireland, Belarus and Denmark... anything but dead last and I'll be over the moon! If anybody's interested in making this a challenge, let me know.

I've managed nepal for several years with all nations loaded but only european leagues which handicaps me somewhat since they all play in nepal on p/t contracts. Luckily i signed the 3 best for my eastleigh side, i would suggest you take on a club side to manage at the same time to avoid the boredem between matches.

With small nations you are very much reliant on the quality of regens, some nations simply don't have enough players to ever be very successful, luxebourg should be alright as long as you maximise the number of regens available.

load all leagues from countries that surround luxembourg like belguim, holland, france, austria, germany and switzerland. Load all players from these countries and luxembourg as well since this will increase the number of players at clubs and the likelyhood of any luxembourg regens.

Have a look at the luxembourg team and see where their players play to see any other useful leagues and the luxembourg teams to see counties where they are feeder clubs for.

Ter: i think you are thinking of valez, there play in switzerland but are from leichtenstein.