Jump to content

Flashman\'s School Days

Members+
  • Posts

    221
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

334 "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good"

Favourite Team

  • Favourite Team
    Wolves

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

  1. I would be really happy to do that if there is a consensus here that it is an acceptable thing to do
  2. I have tried that too, but the chances get even worse because you have higher rep sides that were relegated from the first season and also former giants coming up from the league below Serie D
  3. Even if the only tweaks are ones to about 4 or 5 unplayable teams and not to the team I want to manage, and those teams will still have higher rep than the one I want along with about 120 other teams at that level? I would argue I am not making anything easier for myself and all it does is slightly increase the chance for promotion of a few sides in a group where only one team gets promoted from anyway
  4. Hi all, I know the question was asked a few pages ago about editing a team's reputation in order to get them promoted but I wondered if it would be ok to instead lower the reputation of a few teams so that the target team has a better chance of promotion. I have currently been reloading for around 35 hours in Italy to get Victor San Marino promoted but because of their particular Serie D group (Group D) containing a number of higher reputation teams than most of the other groups it seems impossible to get them up. So far I have seen 118 different sides be promoted out of the 166 possible and the breakdown of each group is as follows: Group A - 15/20 Group B - 16/20 Group C - 16/18 Group D - 8/18 - group with Victor San Marino Group E - 14/18 Group F - 17/18 Group G - 12/18 Group H - 13/18 Group I - 7/19 As you can see Group D and Group I are the ones with least variation, mainly because Group I has the by far the best reputation team in Serie D in LFA Reggio Calabria and Group D has 4 of the top 7 best reputation sides at the level. All this is to ask whether it would be acceptable just to tweak a few teams in Group D down in reputation slightly just to give me a chance of getting Victor San Marino promoted.
  5. I had a scout report for Mike Havenaar who is playing for Honda FC in J3, I noticed that he had 11(2) appearances and 5 goals in all comps with an average rating of 6.85 but when looking at his history page it says he has 25(2) appearances with 8 goals in all comps with an average rating of 6.16. I have uploaded a save from the point at which I noticed this issue called "Mike Havenaar - Honda FC.fm
  6. Jomo Cosmos - Season Review 2027/28 Manager Characteristics - Attributes - Transfers - Fixtures 1, 2, 3 DStv Premiership - 2nd It's been a few weeks since I last posted as I was off playing other games or not playing anything but as soon as I came back to this save I really got back into it again. We weren't able to retain the title this season but we did accumulate more points and it looks close at the top, however, Orlando Pirates had already wrapped up the league title before the last game of the season in which we played and beat them. I'm thankful we managed to finish above Sundowns because they absolutely battered us in the two league games. TotalEnergies CAF Champions League - Runners Up As you can see an almost fairy tale run to the Champion's League title in our first attempt. We were really really good in this competition until the final where I think the occasion got to us and we conceded within 40 seconds from my left back running with the ball behind my goalkeeper under no pressure and just hoofing it against him for an own goal. No complaints in the end as they were the miles better side. Originally I had thought that we were going to get dumped out in the group stage because Sundowns always do well against us but ES Tunis had made the previous 5 finals, only losing 1, amazingly though in our first group game which was against Tunis, we smashed them 8-0 before going undefeated in the group stage. Ayanda Kubheka was the top scorer in the competition but he was injured for the final and one of 4 starting players to be unavailable so that is also a mitigating factor for the final loss. Other Cups Nothing to write home about from the domestic cup competitions this season. Squad Again no significant changes to the squad, a few youth players left and then early in the season my captain was unhappy so he was sold. This made room for Nkosinathi Clark 24d to become a starter although we did then struggle for back up. Victor Shongwe 25b also became the regular starter at left back and did well getting 11 assists. Morgan Masuku 26g had a bit of a better season but still drops the odd shocker of a game, although this is something I have always found with young keepers. Njabulo Francis 24g took his chance to become a starter this season as club talisman Matsi Sono has declined quite significantly due to his age. I thought he had a really good season but will have to keep it up as we have a couple of really good defensive midfielders coming through. Thokozani Shabalala and Mfundo Smith 26f were the starting wingers and absolutely tore it up both getting double figures of goals and assists. The person they assisted the most was Ayanda Kubheka who despite missing the last 5 weeks of the season managed to hit 46 goals and also pick up his first few international caps. Another player to get international caps (first from my academy) and the most impressive player this season was Luke Mthimkulu 24a who had a coming of age season, being incredibly deadly with his goals and assists. Youth Intake You may notice that this season's intake has quite a few players and it's certainly the most I have ever had in a single intake, well this is because this intake included 8 players that we had previously poached from other sides. It happened to also be called a golden generation, unfortunately only a few of the poached players seem to be really worth the effort of having been poached. The 4 top players from this intake are Lesedi Hlombane 28d, Thulasizwe Mkwanazi 28f, Eddie Makhoba 28b and (the star of the intake) Tebogo Mvebe 28a. Finances The finances are about £1.5m lower than this time last year but we have actually had a really good season financially but a week or so before this I had a request for improving the training facilities approved and that cost £2.9m. We made a lot of money this season off prize money in the champions league and having not done well in domestic cups, this was a big bonus. We also finally moved to our new stadium back in Potchefstroom which not only increased our season ticket holders but also our average attendance shot up by about 8000 people.
  7. Jomo Cosmos - Season Review 2026/27 Manager Characteristics - Manager Attributes - Transfers - Fixtures 1, 2, 3 DStv Premiership - WINNERS! A quite unlikely title win and something I didn't expect at the beginning of the season. We started the season with 4 draws in our first 5 games and our inability to finish games off was a real reason why the league ended up being really close because in 7 of our draws this season we conceded an equalising goal in the 85th minute or later. Orlando Pirates were unbeaten until the penultimate game of the season when they lost to Golden Arrows who we then had to play on the final day and with goal difference we only really had to draw, thankfully they went down to 10 men and we were able to get the win. Orlando probably had an underperforming season as they won the Champion's League and I expect the other teams to do a lot better too. TotalEnergies CAF Confederation Cup - Quarter Final We had a fairly easy run to the group stages through the three rounds you have to play and then we were drawn against decent sides in TP Mazembe and Pyramids. We quite easily beat Mazembe and we dominated both games against Pyramids but somehow managed to lose both games in what were their only wins in the group. Our reward for winning the group was Young Africans of Tanzania, we dominated both games and the xG on aggregate was 5.25 v 2.79 in my favour but the score was 4-4 with them scoring with the last kick of the game in the second leg to take it straight to penalties where we bottled it. Disappointing as I think we could have at least got to the final. MTN 8 - WINNERS! In the cup competition that begins the season from the past season's top 8 in the league we managed to grab the first proper silverware of the save and give us a decent chunk of proze money too. We had a couple of decent opponents to get us to the final where we played Sundowns, where they were probably slightly the better team but we came away with a 1-0 victory. Telkom Knockout - Semi Final Managing to get through two rounds with good victories we again had to face Sundowns who got their revenge on us, we went down to 10 men after 63 mins and we conceded the only goal of the game in the 88th minute which was typical of us this season. Nedbank Cup - First Round We first get drawn into this competition whilst there are still non league sides, so obviously we got Orlando Pirates who comfortably beat us. Squad Morgan Mauku 26g had his debut season and played almost 50 games, doing really well on the whole but as happens with young keepers he did have a few shockers, it's nice to now have an actual talented goalkeeper. Nkosinathi Clark 24d and Victor Shongwe 25b both had solid season as rotation options at fullback whilst Khaya Mashiane continued to be our best centre back and Siphamandla Ndukwane 24e really improving as the third choice centre back, Matsi Sono had a decent potential final season, his physical attributes are deteriorating but he scored a pen on the final day that confirmed the title win which would be a nice way to go out. Njabulo Francis 24g had a good season of development being the third option in DM and will most likely step up to be first choice next year. Thokozani Shabalala had yet another storming season off the right wing, he always gets plenty of goals and assists. Luke Mthimkulu 24a continued playing well but it's a shame I haven't managed to mentor his unambitious personality away. Mfundo Smith 26f had a fantastic debut season playing off the left wing despite still being 16 years old, even scoring the winner on his debut in the MTN 8 Final. Ayanda Kubheka had a decent goal scoring season but it took him a while to get going so he didn't hit the heights of last season. Luckily to make up for that Gontse Molefe absolutely ripped it up scoring 37 goals and was undoubtedly player of the season. Youth Intake On the face of it, not as much potential in the intake this season but I think that is actually due to the improvements in the players, so I have high hopes for some of this intake. The best players from the intake are George Modiba 27a, Itumeleng Cele 27c, Siyabonga Chauke 27f and the most exciting prospect is Siyabonga Silangwe 27b. Finances We made great strides this season with our finances mainly due to prize money. After we got the prize money for winning the MTN 8 I immediately asked for a youth facilities upgrade but since then I haven't asked for anything else, I am slightly reluctant to ask for Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment just now because it would mean we would lose a lot each month and I'm not sure how sustainable it would be. Strangely we haven't had much interest in any of my players from abroad so I am making no income through player sales. Our new stadium completes early into next season so I have to wait and see if that causes us to make more or less money.
  8. Jomo Cosmos - Season 2025/26 Review Manager Characteristics - Manager Attributes - Transfers - Fixtures 1, 2 DStv Premiership - 4th A fantastic leap in league position compared to last year but only 10 points better off. We were also top scorers in the league for the second season running but scored a couple less this time around. We were fairly consistent throughout the season, spreading our losses throughout and only once having back to back defeats, although we could have been a lot better off if we hadn't have lost our first team goalkeeper as neither of the other keepers at the club are even remotely good. With this fourth placed finish, I believe we will get entry to the second tier continental competition so I expect with the extra games we may not do as well next season. MTN 8 - Quarter Final The quarter final is the point at which the team gets entered so we lost at the first hurdle. Telkom Knockout - First Round Again another first stage exit for us but we did get drawn against Orlando Pirates so it was no surprise. Nedbank Cup - Semi Final We were excellent in what is the South African FA Cup, even setting the record for most goals in a single season of the cup, we got drawn against Sundowns in the semi final with the other semi final being between teams I would have fancied our chances against, unfortunately we conceded an equaliser in the 94th minute and the winner in the 121st minute. Sundowns would go on to win the cup against second tier opposition in the final. Squad We lost a couple of players from last season, unfortunately one was the goalkeeper and we had no real suitable alternative as the two goalkeepers at the club are poor. I attempted to play the younger and better potential of the two as the main goalkeeper in the hope that we would improve and be a long term option, however, he hardly improved at all and in fact Sithole improved a lot more despite playing half of Arendse 24h's games. Luckily neither will be the number one next season due to a better keeper coming through the intake. Our centre backs were the best performing players in the defence with all the fullbacks struggling this season Ntuthuko Mlotshwa and Khaya Mashiane were the two starters with Siphamandla Ndukwane 24e doing well as the understudy. The central defensive midfielders we play with were similar to the centre backs in that we had a couple of starters with a good understudy, although with Matsi Sono now being 34 Njabulo Francis 24g will probably become a starter alongside Bonginkosi Sibanyoni who having had his rapid development over the past couple of years seems to be on a plateau now. In attacking midfield Mooketsi Phindela and Luke Mthimkulu 24a rotated the central role, both performing well although the latter's personality seems to be keeping him on a leash development wise. On the the right Thokozani Shabalala was again one of the most important players with his goals and assists, making up for the left side not producing much this season, his understudy Sibusiso Modise 25l came in and had a great immediate impact in the team. Up front, last season's top goalscorer Gontse Molefe was impressive with his 11 goals in what was a season of being a back up because the player of the season Ayanda Kubheka wanted an improved contract which meant he wanted to be a first team regular, luckily he repaid the faith by smashing 30 goals in 23 starts. Youth Intake Another great intake with lots of five star potentials and as has been the case since I joined the club the personalities are pretty good, I'm not sure I have ever had a single intake in FM where less than half have had bad personalities let alone three in a row. Also for the third season running we've had an AM (C) be one of the best players of the intake which is kind of frustrating because it will be difficult to get them enough game time to develop but Reason Shange 26d is still a really good prospect and I may have to try and retrain him. Our first team AM (L) is currently underperforming and likes to get caught coming out of bars in the early hours so I already had a youth player from last season getting decent game time but I have had both Allan Mtsweni 26e and Mfundo Smith 26f come through who look like they can be instantly better back ups. Then we come to Morgan Masuku 26g who is instantly the best goalkeeper at the club, I decided against using him this season because I wanted to keep the faith with the two we already had in case of them developing but from next season he will be my starting GK. Finally the best player of the intake is Samkelo Johnson 26a who is already good enough to challenge for a first team spot especially as my other young left back from last year's intake needs some more time to develop away from the first team and really underperforming in almost every match he played. Finances The finances are looking ok and I'd say yearly we are probably breaking even at the moment and that is because since we increased both Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment to excellent we began losing a small amount every month. So even though with that happening every month with a small amount of prize money, sponsorships and season ticket income we are fairly healthy. This does mean, however, that we likely won't see any improvements until we either have a big sale or make some decent prize money but the only competition where the prize money seems alright is in the champions league which is a little way off for us yet. We also have only one more year until we move to our new stadium so that may also have an impact on our finances if we can attract more fans being in a less competitive town. We also had our first ever sale this season, making £28k off a 19 year old who was an alright back up but nothing we will miss.
  9. Jomo Cosmos - Season Review 2024/25 Manager Characteristics - Manager Attributes - Transfers - Fixtures 1, 2 DStv Premiership - 8th A successful first season in the top flight, overachieving from a predicted 16th place to squeaking into the top 8. The season started pretty brightly with a win in a close game then a close lose before we smashed Royal AM 7-1, from there we were always up and down until the end of the season. We never really were able to beat the better teams in the division which contributed to our patchy form except getting revenge on Orlando Pirates for them thrashing us and beating them away 3-1 on the day they lifted the title. Finishing as the top scorers in the division is a positive but I worry for our defence going into next season because our keeper is thinking of leaving and the one time I had to play another keeper we conceded 5. Nedbank Cup - Quarter Final We managed to get through a couple of rounds to a non league side and a top flight side before crashing out against Sundowns who went on to be losing finalists. Telkom Knockout - First Round First time in this cup and bowed out in the first game where we weren't very good. Squad Luckily we only had one departure after being promoted although that was our play of the season and starting centre back, we also lost last season's top scorer for a free near to the end of the season but he had been injured for the majority of the season. The best defenders were Ntuthuko Mlostshwa and Khaya Mashiane (who was called up to the South African U20 and U23 this season) Our best midfielders were Matsi Sono, who we almost lost between seasons but thankfully signed a new contract, Bonginkosi Sibanyoni isn't the greatest player but his development has been fantastic and Luke Mthimkulu 24a who was under bids at the start of the season when still 15 from Sundowns and SuperSport. Gontse Molefe had a storming season in front of goal for us and developed loads. Ayanda Kubheka did really well as the back up striker this season and resulted in him being voted 42nd on the NxtGen. The player of the season playing off the right wing though was Thokozani Shabalala. Youth Intake A five star intake but with not as many players able to jump straight into helping the first team although the personalities are much better than my normal intakes. After this intake I've had three news items that we've poached players off other teams for the academy. The stand out players are Victor Shongwe 25b, Gerald Mwafulirwa 25c, Sibusiso Modise 25l and the best of the bunch is an AMC for the second season running Tshepo Williams 25a. Finances A really good season for our finances mainly due to actually selling season tickets this season, a bit of extra sponsorship and £1m spread over the season for the TV deal. With this extra money we managed to get two upgrades each on Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment as well as another coaching badge. The board have also decided to build a new stadium which is 2 hours west of Johannesburg where we currently play to Potchefstroom where Jomo Cosmos play regularly in real life.
  10. Jomo Cosmos - Season Review 23/24 Manager Characteristics - Manager Attributes - Transfers - Fixtures 1, 2 GladAfrica Championship - 1st First season in the books and a promotion that I would have never expected after my torrid time in my previous save. The club already had some decent players already at the club and then a few generated players who made up a fairly decent if threadbare squad. This was also backed up by a few youth players who had come through too who would provide a little bit of cover and rotation. We began the season with a couple of wins before 2 defeats and a draw, I assumed this would be a pattern that continued but we then embarked on a 14 game unbeaten run that firmly cemented us as title contenders but 2 defeats in a row slowly brought other teams back into it. 1 defeat in the next 7 games meant that we went into the last two games of the season needing only 1 win to confirm the title but we lost the penultimate game and then only managed a 1-1 in the final game but luckily Cape Town Spurs also only managed a draw. Nedbank Cup - First Round The only cup competition we played in this season, managing a win against Sekhukhune in the preliminary round and then a 4-3 extra time defeat to Amazulu in the first round in a game where we probably should have won. Amazulu went on to win the cup so hopefully that's a positive sign for next season. Squad We lost a couple of players at the start of the season that I would have liked to have kept but they were on non-contracts and transfer listed so they weren't interested in staying so we had to make do with what we had. Cleopas Dube was our main striker but obviously at an advanced age I will be having to replace him soon which is ok because both Gontse Molefe and Ayanda Kubheka both look like they could be long term replacements. Ntuthuko Mlotshwa and Sibongiseni Ngcobo were outstanding at centre back but Ngcobo has decided he is leaving at the end of the season, I put it down to the bizarre contract rule where you can't offer a contract length further than the end of the season until April, thankfully this changes in the Premiership. Khaya Mashiane is a brilliant talent at centre back to be his long term replacement though. Out of necessity I had to play Bonginkosi Sibanyoni and despite him not being the best player around or having the best potential he has come on leaps and bounds this season, next to him was Matsi Sono who is the son of Jomo Sono, the man who gave the club it's name when he bought them and former teammate of Pele at New York Cosmos. Unfortunately Matsi is considering his future so despite him being truly one of our best players I may not have him for next season when I really need him. Thokozani Shabalala was excellent for most of the season but he missed 3 out of 4 penalties he took despite him having the best penalty taking attribute in the squad. My personal favourite player and standout player though was Mooketsi Phindela, excelling in the shadow striker role that I haven't been able to get working well in the past few FM games. Youth Intake A very promising first intake which will provide some depth in the middle of the pitch, where we were most desperate for some. The outstanding players are Ian Mooketsi 24b, Thuso Masedi 24f, Siphamandla Ndukwane 24e, Njabulo Francis 24g and the absolute star of the show Luke Mthimkulu 24a. Finances Our finances are in a right state, our wage bill was 10th of 16 teams in the league so not ridiculously high but we lost £350k even though the board pumped about £300k in and we got £157k for finishing top of the league. Not sure how those fortunes will change because every club seems to have insecure finances in this league, luckily our facilities were at a good point already so will hopefully bear fruit for us and maybe one will get signed for decent money. The club for some reason were looking at building a new stadium when I took over but have not long abandoned the plans due to poor finances although I'm not sure what the point of building a new 13k all seater stadium is when we already play in a 20k all seater but only attract 450 fans a game. I managed to get my first coaching badge whilst the balance was positive.
  11. Hello all, I've been lurking here since the beginning and had hoped to join in sooner. I had originally planned to takeover a club in Slovenia from a village with a population of 73, unfortunately after many many reloads I couldn't get them promoted so I assume their rep is quite low. I then went to Spain intending to take charge of another club who's reputation again must've been too low although in the end I had a few teams I saw getting promoted that intrigued me. I ended up picking Xerez but I usually wait until midway through the first season to do my initial post here just so I know it will actually be a fruitful save. Unfortunately for me after getting 7 points from the first 5 games we went on to lose 12 games in a row, leaving the board to give me a target of 7 points in our next 5. I had managed to get 4 from 4 and then played top of the league in the fifth game, we were 2-0 up until the 81st minute when we completely collapsed, losing 3-2 which caused me to be sacked. On a whim after that I have decided to head out of Europe as I really enjoyed playing on a different continent last year in Uruguay but this time I have gone to South Africa and Jomo Cosmos. Not many players in the squad when I arrived but the ones there seem very good and the board expect a mid table finish in the first season. I have already played half a season and it is going way better than Xerez so I may actually be able to see a youth intake this time.
  12. Playing as Sham Shui Po in Hong Kong and in game they play at the Sham Shui Po Sports Ground which is located in Cheung Sha Wan, 1 mile away from the centre of Sham Shui Po. At the end of the first season in game where we finished 8th out of 10 teams the board have decided to look to build a new stadium to "relocate the club back to their home city". To me this doesn't make any sense: the current stadium isn't far enough away for that to be an issue the club are currently only paying £442 a year to rent the stadium we have lost £300k this season, effectively wiping out the starting balance so we can hardly afford to upgrade the squad let alone pay for a new stadium we have only had an average attendance of 527 with a capacity of 2194 I realistically don't think there is room to build a brand new stadium purely for the club in Sham Shui Po in real life
  13. Got to the end of the season and on my timeline I have two highlights in a row for the signing of the same player (Callum Beattie). He wasn't signed from another club just as a free transfer and considering he only made 8 appearances all season definitely doesn't deserve to be on the timeline twice just because I signed him.
×
×
  • Create New...