PhilH82

I have had it a couple of times (but I have only had three intakes to date, I dont play very quickly...). Interesting to see

I have noticed this a lot on this years game, the contradictory Youth Intake previews. Which do you think tends to be more accurate, the role ratings, or description? Going well so far, nice start, keeping pace with TNS!

Thank you for all the kind comments around this save. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons I have decided to pull the plug.

Thanks for this and linking your thread, I'll have a read. I also apologise, I hadn't heard of this pre FM22. I'll be honest, it is a concern and if it wasn't for the added caveat of players from other clubs youth teams it would be pretty much unplayable under these guidelines. Especially as a lot of players in youth teams currently have 'unknown' as their place of birth. Thanks again, appreciate you posting, are you planning on doing anything region based on this iteration or are you done with it?

Thank you all, there are some very kind comments and I hope you all enjoy the save as much as I hopefully will. I am just about managing to wait for full release before firing up the save, in the meantime I just wanted to post a little update... L'Elettricista The Gaffer Having always used myself as my virtual manager, it doesn’t feel right that a man from the Northwest of England would fit the culture the club are looking to implement. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Filippo Massimo Caputo. Filippo is a 41-year-old Italian. Born in Carpi on 19th September 1982, his first real memories of football are Italia ’90, arguably one of the most highly regarded World Cups (from a romantics point of view, if not a football purist). A nine-year-old Filippo witnessed firsthand the joys of the English faithful on the streets of Bologna, after their last gasp victory over the Belgians, thanks to that David Platt goal. From this moment on, he was hooked on calcio and vowed to one day put joy on the faces of fans, just as Platt had. Despite being a proud Maroon (Reggiana fan), it was at local rivals, Modena where Caputo would get his opportunity. A technically gifted midfielder, Caputo was widely touted as being a first team player in the making before a career ending knee injury, just days after his 18th birthday, would end his dream of playing professionally. Caputo decided to take time away from the game he loved, and took to studying. He obtained masters degrees in Sports Science and Engineering at the University of Bologna, and soon found himself working in the motor sports industry, where he would travel the globe working for Ferrari. During this time Reggiana would continue to decline, folding, and re-forming on two separate occasions, the glory days of the 90s a distant memory. Fast-forward to the Summer of 2023, Reggiana have just been promoted to Serie B under Aimo Diana, who then departs to join Vicenza. From here the club decide they need a complete change of direction and appoint Filippo Caputo, a native of the Emila-Romagna region and boyhood Reggiana fan. With the boards backing to he decides he needs take the club in a revolutionary direction, implementing a Emilia-Romagna only policy for both players and staff… Whilst Filippo Caputo is a learned man, his footballing philosophy is yet to be defined, although it is thought he favours a patient, pragmatic passing style. Whilst working for Ferrari, football was never far from his thoughts, and in the off season he attained his National C, B and A coaching licenses. In his spare time he enjoys good pizza, an espresso at his favourite, local, bar where he would often discuss the world of football with the passionate locals and is also a keen runner. Admin. What I also want to do is quickly look at the search filters I'll be using in the save, again they are covered in the links in the opening posts and I've also spoken to Madd a couple of times about how best to go about setting them up. The best way to make sure you get the correct towns / cities for your region is to use the editor. Within the editor is each location within your region listed, these vary hugely in size and therefore it's not realistic to add them all to the filter. For example, when you look at Emilia-Romagna within the editor there are 461 individual locations, I narrowed this down to just over 30, using both the editor (which lists a population range) as well as wikipedia to understand which are the biggest / higher populated locations and where people are more likely to have as a place of birth within the game. The main cities in the region are Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia and Sassuolo, The second part of the filter includes players who came through the academy at all professional clubs within the area (down to Serie C, but I may also add clubs from Serie D and see how much of a difference it makes). To do this, select 'Home-Grown Status', and then 'Trained at Club (0-21) Below are a couple of examples as to how this looks... (Spoilers, the player pool using this in the test file is currently around 320 players but will change as my scouts get a broader global knowledge as I know at least one player currently in England is not showing up). Once I start the save I'll look at the squad and talk about the wider aims of the save as well as some timescales.

Thank you both, appreciate it. Just to play it safe I’ll be starting the save on the ‘full’ version, just in case any obvious bugs are discovered in the meantime. Once it’s out I’ll update the thread with details on the squad and a little bit of admin on terms of the search filters, etc and will also add in a little bit of Reggiana recent history.

Firstly, what is a ‘Regionnaire’ save? The Regionnaire concept first came to prominence on Football Manager 22, when @MaddFM coined the phrase with his thoroughly enjoyable Newcastle “Northern Boys” series, and more recently as AC Milan manager on FM23. In the most basic of terms the club is restricted to buying players from a certain region, with the most real world example of this Athletic Club Bilbao, who only use players of Basque origin. Not only this, but all staff should also be from the region. Madd also has created this great guide, which explains it a lot better then I can do - Link. The concept evolved slightly (again, by Madd) for his AC Milan save, where as well as players born within 50km of the San Siro being eligible, players who came through the academy at clubs within this catchment area were also eligible. What this does is alleviate an issue in FM where a lot of academy players in nations which are less well researched are given ‘Unknown’ for a place of birth. Selection Process. Ever since I read the first blog of Northern Boys the thought of doing a Regionnaire save has appealed to me. As someone who has played Championship / Football Manager for well over 20 years, and often plays the same way, it seemed a great way to freshen things up. Again, inspired by the AC Milan series, and having always had a soft spot for Italian football. This harks back to watching Football Italia, hosted by James Richardson in the 90s, with this in mind I felt the urge to start the save in Italy. Italy itself is split into around twenty formal regions, so research began by splitting these up, looking at the largest nine and listing each playable club from that region (Serie A, B and C). Initially I had planned to manage Brescia, having had a successful save with them on FM19, especially after they were relegated to Serie C last season. However, after they were reinstated to Serie B due to financial irregularities at other clubs, which is not uncommon in Italian football, it just didn’t appeal. Each region broken down club by club, including current facility ratings (taken from FM23), as well as capital city, population and size (Km2). Emilia-Romagna. After making a list of pros and cons for around 15 club, it was the Emilia-Romagna region caught my eye, in the main due to its relative underachievement as a region. It was also at this point I was lucky enough to have Adam to bounce ideas off, thanks for being my sounding board / putting up with my wittering (as well as providing the banner graphic!) Whilst many of the teams from the region are recognisable to most football fans, only Bologna have been a prominent Serie A club for a sustained amount of time (77 seasons). Even Parma, arguably one of the most well known clubs in Italy (especially to 90s football fans), have only spent 27 seasons in the top flight. Emilia-Romagna itself has the third GDP per Capita in Italy, is one of the wealthiest regions in Europe and is the home of the Ferrari Formula One team. With all this in mind, the fact that out of the nine clubs from the region currently plying their trade in the top three divisons, only two have ever won a major trophy is not good enough. Looking at the clubs based in the region, a few caught my eye, all with varying narratives, challenges, pros, and cons. Parma, for obvious reasons would be a popular choice, with Bologna and Sassuolo both established Serie A clubs with a good range of facilities. Similarly, both SPAL and Cesena have fantastic facilities for their Serie C status and are well positioned to produce good talent. However, what may have come across at this point is that I have a soft spot for the 90s, 90s football in particular. AC Reggiana 1919. Whilst Reggiana are hardly the proverbial 'fallen giant' I do recall their maroon kits gracing my television screen from time to time with a certain fondness. The mid 90s also happens to be their most successful period in history, winning Serie B and plying their trade in the top tier for a total of three seasons. They also had Brazilian Claudio Taffarel as their number 1 at the time he won the World Cup, at USA '94. Serie B feels like the right level to start the save at, there is time to put your mark on the squad as well as hopefully being a big enough draw to poach players away from the likes of SPAL, Modena and Cesena. In the next post, which will come shortly, I plan to talk a little about the history of the club, the squad as is it stands (according to Transfermarkt), how the save will be set up (including search filters), and how we will look to develop the region as a whole.