Big Club, Small Country - Challenge

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

brettney your reviews will take an age to type up once you have a few Sri Lankans in the team. Awesome name again
jimbo looks like you're in a bit of a quandry there. Need to get the ranking up to so the players accept call ups, need the better players to get an increase on the rankings. Difficult situation.

I'm having problems during international weeks. The Belarus league doesn't stop during the breaks and I'm having to field loads of youngsters. Means I'm dropping more points than I would like but at least they are getting experience

[brettney1980]

brettney your reviews will take an age to type up once you have a few Sri Lankans in the team. Awesome name again

I'm having problems during international weeks. The Belarus league doesn't stop during the breaks and I'm having to field loads of youngsters. Means I'm dropping more points than I would like but at least they are getting experience

Yeah least you can blood some youngsters ...Im already tempted to give them short nicknames ... Just finished latest season report will be up later tonight. (still no sign of the Sri Lanka job) Wayne Rooney once again wants out .. So far the only bid is £45.5m from Barca .. Not a chance. Tried offering him to Madrid in a swap for Ronaldo to no luck. Oh and the genius board scrap plans for a Youth academy upgrade and then 1 day later pump 63m into the club and give me (yes you guessed it) 63m transfer budget

[jimbowmanuk]

I've managed to solve the call-up issue with one of my future stars, The Central American Cup took place in January and Gallardo accepted a call-up. Clearly he thinks a friendly against Montserrat beneath him, but a tournament against Belize is more his style. Herrera - has the potential to be like Casillas - is a permanent fixture in the Spain U21 team so may have to wait til he's grown up to bring him in to the senior squad. We finished 3rd in the cup meaning we've qualified for the Gold Cup so I'm hoping a good performance there will boost the rankings

[glennuk]

Congrats Jimbowman

Still plodding along with this, but slow going due to my sign up, and reading most posts on this forum

[brettney1980]

Brettney's Manchester United Sri Lankan Adventure: Season 2013/14

Missed out on the FA Cup once again, losing in the final to Newcastle (first time i've ever lost to them ..) Barcalona stopped out Champions league hopes but we dominated in the league so much so that i put out entire teams of reserves when i wanted to rest players after Europe and they still managed to pick up points. We won the League Cup again making it 3 for 3 (it must be my favorite trophy ).

Squad Stats

Transfers 2 - The big signing of the summer was Eden Hazard and he proved to be a popular signing winning the fans player of the season.


Competitions Info;

League Cup: Won!
FA Cup: Lost In Final.
Premier League: Champions Again!!
Champions League: Lost to Barcalona in Semis.

[WarSlamEagle]

Would a powerful MLS team (using MikeMagnum's Alternate US Setup) with 17 in Youth Development, Coaching, and Recruitment work in this challenge with, say, a Caribbean nation?

[jimbowmanuk]

Would a powerful MLS team (using MikeMagnum's Alternate US Setup) with 17 in Youth Development, Coaching, and Recruitment work in this challenge with, say, a Caribbean nation?

In a word no, the only change to the database allowed is adding extra players from your nation. No edited databases as they can have been manipulated to give you an advantage

[WarSlamEagle]

In a word no, the only change to the database allowed is adding extra players from your nation. No edited databases as they can have been manipulated to give you an advantage

Would 15s-16s in those categories in the default database work?

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Been offered the U-21 Belarus job. Not sure about taking it though. Main advantage would have been to give my youngsters first team experience but they are getting plenty of playing time at club level. Three are regular starters and getting around 20 games a season and I have another 2 playing quite a lot as subs and in cup games.

[Biscotti]

Would 15s-16s in those categories in the default database work?

Any numbers in the relevant categories can work, but the higher the numbers the better your chance of getting quality through is.

[Scarman]

Haha this is an awesome idea for a save.

Borat Sagdiyev, former Khazak superstar, has taken the reigns at Porto.

It's the only logical approach

[Dave.]

Really, really like the idea of this. Simple, challenging, and I get to manage one of the biggest clubs for the first time ever. (Actually I lie; I managed Arsenal once, on FM07 I think).

I've got a month off of uni so plenty of spare time to crack on with this alongside my Basque/Catalan experiment.

So - meet the new manager of FC Barcelona, former Nicaraguan international Raúl Espinoza.

[Dave.]

I sent my scouts out to compile reports on every Nicaraguan player they could find, and I signed this guy - Victor Webster. He was the best of a bad bunch (that is the only player with a rating better than half a star). Safe to say he won't be getting near the first team very often, but he has the honour of being Barcelona's first Nicaraguan.

[jimbowmanuk]

I sent my scouts out to compile reports on every Nicaraguan player they could find, and I signed this guy - Victor Webster. He was the best of a bad bunch (that is the only player with a rating better than half a star). Safe to say he won't be getting near the first team very often, but he has the honour of being Barcelona's first Nicaraguan.

If you get the Nicaraguan Job, those half star players will be rated 5 star by the national assistant

[jimbowmanuk]

Real Madrid/Panama - End of Season - 2014/15

Another successful season for Madrid, we won the league for the 4th time but it went down to the last game. We should of had it wrapped up by easter as we threw away a 7 point lead with 2 games in hand to only win by a point. We only managed to take a point from our 2 games against Barca but we got revenge in the Cup by beating them 1-0 scoring 35 goals en route to the final. The Champions League was the only disappointment. We beat Porto 2-0 at home in the semi-final 1st leg, only for my team of highly paid players to forget how to pass in the 2nd leg where we went down 3-0 and out 2-3 on aggregate. The Euro Super Cup was added to the cabinet by beating Man City 4-2. A 7-0 victory against Velez in the Final of the Club World Championship also brought this trophy to Madrid.

League Table
Spanish Cup
Champions League

Youth Intake

Two more Panamanians came through the Academy. Puente has some promise to being a good International player, doubt he'll see much action in Madrid. The other Moreno shows practically no promise at all but I signed him anyway.

Youth Intake
Nestor Diego Puente
Jonathan Moreno

Panama News
My 1st game in charge was a friendly against St Pierre it was a bore draw but I had seen enough of the players to know that they were capable of winning games at this level. We won every other friendly bar one, which was a 2-1 defeat to Chile despite dominating most of the game. In the Central American Nations Cup we drew the 1st game 1-1 with Guatemala, before going on to beat Belize and Nicaragua 3-0 and 2-0 respectively. This meant we topped the group and qualified for the Semi-finals. El Salvador proved to be too strong though beating us 4-1. The 3rd place playoff matched us against Guatemala, we proved to have got over those opening game nerves by winning 3-1. This performance was enough to qualify us for the Gold Cup.
The Gold Cup put us in a group involving Jamaica and the USA. So it was going to be a challenge, our 1st game was against familiar opponents Guatemala. We won 3-0 and it gave me hope of maybe pulling off a shock result. We went down 1-0 to Jamaica in the next game but it was a close affair and a point in that match may have been enough to qualify. This meant we had to beat the US to go through, 10 minutes in when Donovan scored I knew this wasn't going to be our day, 4 more goals later and I had suffered the biggest defeat of my International reign. Strangely 3 points were enough to qualify us for the quarter finals but we were beaten 3-1 AET by Haiti

2014 Fixtures
2015 Fixtures
CAN Cup
Gold Cup

Real Madrid
Season	| League	| Cup		| Europe
---------------------------------------------------------
2011/12	| 1st		| Runners-up	| CL semi-Finals
---------------------------------------------------------
2012/13	| 1st		| Winners	| CL 1st KO round
---------------------------------------------------------
2013/14	| 1st		| Winners	| CL Winners
---------------------------------------------------------
2014/15	| 1st		| Winners	| CL semi-finals

Panama Under 21's
Season	| FYI
---------------------
2013/14	| Group Stage

Panama
Season	| CAN Cup	| Gold Cup	| World Cup Quals	| World Cup
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014/15	| 3rd Place	| Quarter final	| N/A			| N/A

Hold the Phone just got this message

Gold Cup Quarter-finals

[jcoll]

The new manager of Sporting (POR) has been announced, former Papuan International Felix Davani has been appointed as manager.

[Biscotti]

Just realised I'm into november but I didn't post my end of season report up

We won the league again, but didn't have such a good time in Europe. I'll fish out some screenshots later today for that.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2016 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

Another year another league title. Europe is the aim now. After a good run in the Europa league we are now ranked 66th in Europe as a club. Very happy with that as it shows progression. Next step is to try and get a 3rd seed when the CL group draws are being made. Qualification into the groups is becoming easy enough but we had another very tough group. Roma, A.Madrid and Benfica is not easy but we made a great start with two wins. Thought it would be the year we make the KO stage but we only managed 1 more point to finish 3rd. We'll have another crack at the Europa league. Plenty more action for the youngsters and I will be selling one of more established strikers to give them even more playing time. Really hope to qualify for KO stage within the next year or two. The club is building nicely with constant stadium and training facility upgrades. Just need to make the next step now.

Youth Intake

Got some defenders through this year which is just what I needed. I think Branfilov and Rusak show quite a lot of potential and will be eased into the 1st team as soon as possible.

Branfilov
Chernyavskiy
Rusak

Belarus News

I took charge of the U-21 team for a game but decided to resign and wait for the top job. Could be a while off as the manager is still quite young and his status is shown as very secure but it will be worth it. Hoping my youngsters will just be about peaking by the time I get the job and I will have a decent shot at qualification for the tournaments.

[jimbowmanuk]

SBB - good progress there, a bit of a shame about the champions league, Rusak looks like he's going to score a few from corners with that height and his jumping and heading.
Brettney1980 - That FA Cup will come soon, any sign of the Sri Lankan job becoming available?

Good luck to all newcomers, nice to see a good mix of Nations and clubs, will be interesting to see what the Non-European clubs youth intakes look like

[brettney1980]

Brettney1980 - That FA Cup will come soon, any sign of the Sri Lankan job becoming available?

I've just had a little taster of the job after becoming the U23's manager for the 2014 Asian Games (but i couldn't pick my own squad for some reason). Didn't do great a win, a draw and a loss saw us finish 3rd not making it out of the group stages.

EDIT: Oh and the FA Cup will not be coming to Old Trafford this year again thanks to Rooney again missing a Penalty (we go out to Chelsea on Pens in the 4th round).

[jimbowmanuk]

I've just got bad news, my laptop has a problem with it and it needs to be fixed, they reckon it could take about 10 days. Fortunately I saved my game onto a dongle but unfortunately the GF says I can use her PC for internet but not for FM so I wont be able to update on my save til I get the Laptop back.

[Biscotti]

As promised, here's screens to show that I won the league but failed to win the cup. My European adventure was painful and I'd prefer not to relive it

I'm actually in February at the moment, so there's a chance of an intake update by the end of tonight.

[brettney1980]

I've just got bad news, my laptop has a problem with it and it needs to be fixed, they reckon it could take about 10 days. Fortunately I saved my game onto a dongle but unfortunately the GF says I can use her PC for internet but not for FM so I wont be able to update on my save til I get the Laptop back.

Well thats some bad news ... Just when you were making a start as Panama boss.

[Biscotti]

Just the one Liechtensteiner player through this time, but he looks to easily be one of the best Liechtenstein will have ever seen:

Dirk Bayer | Report

[brettney1980]

Just the one Liechtensteiner player through this time, but he looks to easily be one of the best Liechtenstein will have ever seen:

Dirk Bayer | Report

Looks like he could do something as a backup for you eventually.

[18Rabbit]

UPDATE FOR August 31st, 2012

CONTAINS PLAYER NAMING

This is a list of the 2011/2012 transfers for Inter: LINKY LINK

Nenê and Willian have both been fantastic for me last season. The fact that I wasn't really paying attention when we did the second half of the season registration and Nenê was left out of the registration by my (now ex) assistant is partially to blame for us not winning the Euro Cup I think. He was really spectacular. Team of the week 9 times, two goal of the month awards, 2012 Serie A team of the year and Seasonal best 11 for Inter.

Robbie Cotton was a youth player from England that looks pretty amazing but has had a terrible time adapting to Italy. I let him have leave and scrounged around to find another English youth (Bradley Hunter form Chelsea) to bring in this season but he still has requested to be transfer listed. Hopefully he'll learn some Italian while he's out on loan and can come back with a better attitude. I actually forgot/got tired of him whining about it so I've put him out on loan to Genoa so he can wine at them about not playing enough. Sorry dude, you're amazing for a 17 year old, but you still ain't first team material for Inter.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

\o/ 3rd seeds in CL and Belarus have been granted an extra place in the CL from next year

still managed to draw Real Madrid and Bayern in my group. Was hoping for a bit of an easier group. Still it shows progress I suppose

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2017 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

Won league again. In Europe we were made 3rd seeds. Thought this would give us a great chance, if we got a bit of luck, of qualifying for the KO stages for the first time. Unfortunately we drew Bayern and Real Madrid along with AEK. Still we gave it a good shot and came 3rd with 9 points after beating Mardid away and AEK twice. Into the Europa league and a winnable tie against Standard Liege. I have decided to take a chance on next years league performance by selling all my established Belarusians. They have been getting in the way of me bringing some of my youngsters through as they perform week in week out and are still quite young at 24-27yrs. Should do the national team some good if I can bring in another decent group. Plus it raises some more cash to upgrade facilities which are getting close to being the best around (I think the youth facilities are now maxed out).

Youth Intake

Wasn't a great intake this year but Khatskevich looks decent. 5* PA according to my staff so we'll see what he brings. Will be getting quite a bit of first team football due to my plan to off load the first teamers. The other two shown are best of the rest with 3* PA

Khatskevich
Kuznetsov
Satsunkevich

Belarus News

They came 2nd, undefeated, in the World Cup qualifying group behind Italy. Knocked out by Switzerland in the play offs. Means they are down to 34th in the rankings but the managers job is still shown as secure. Hope he resigns or gets sacked within the next couple of years

[brettney1980]

Brettney's Manchester United Sri Lankan Adventure: Season 2014/15

Again the only trophy that eludes me is the FA Cup, and it was those damned Penalties that did it again. We did get revenge on Chelsea though beating them in the League Cup Final. We also won the Champions League and Premier League titles.

Premier League: Won.
Community Shield: Won.
Champions League: Won.
FA Cup: Lost.
League Cup: Won.

Transfers 1 and 2.

Squad Stats|Team Report

International News;

Took charge of the Sri Lanka U23's for the Asian Games managing a 1-1 draw with Kyrgyzstan. A 2-0 loss to India and finally a 2-1 win over Vietnam. But this wasn't enough to see us out of the group and my spell in charge of the U23's comes to an end.

[Biscotti]

2014 saw us come slightly unstuck in the league. Bad results against our rivals and a couple of rough patches meant we could only manage second place. Our Cup performances were also pretty woeful, but in Europe we managed to cruise through our Champions League group before knocking out Man Utd and CSKA Moscow on our way to losing to Liverpool in the semis. A good run and one I'm happy with, although we need to win it sooner rather than later

The National team managed to finish above both Latvia and Lithuania in their World Cup Qualifying group, and have pulled themselves up to hold position at around the 100 mark

[Biscotti]

Switzerland has just come online, and almost instantly I get the single biggest piece of good news for Liechtenstein since I started:



Follow up news item. Dear god I hope this goes through:

[SetUpMan50]

Biscotti - if that takeover goes through you should upload the save. A tycoon in Switzerland would be a fun game to play!

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

That would be great news Biscotti, should really help bring some players through if they improve the facilities rather than just buy loads of players. Could do with someone taking over one off my rivals in Belarus. Would give me a bit of competition and bring some more decent youngsters through rather than just relying on me

[Charlie_B]

I'm in!

Having just won the Premier League with Droylsden I'm looking to put aside my main game and try something else so a bit. Ramping up the difficulty I'm going to give a shot at running this challenge alongside ri916's
Youth Academy Challenge (and if you're following both threads you may notice these posts are a bit similar!)

Step forward Charlie Nguyen.

As required by ri916's challenge rules I holidayed until 2012 and picked a newly promoted team - Carshalton.

I loaded up all the game's Vietnamese players, all players in the Vietnamese league and all the Asian leagues in addition to the challenge's required database.
And here's the Carlashton squad.

I expet its going to take a very long time before there's anything even approaching success in this game, and the inability to sign players makes it difficult for me to really engage with my team at present, so I'm going to hammer through the early seasons pretty quickly.

Edit: A quick look at Vietnam. I've got 1,300 Vietnamese players loaded, which is reassuring to see. Slightly less reassuring is that the most expensive 'pure' Vietnamese (ie not dual nationality) player in the game is worth a whopping... 95k. Intriguingly, by far the best Vietnamese player in the game is Yohan Cabaye, who apparently has a Vietnamese grandmother. Shame he plays for France.

The best player eligible for the national team is probably this guy - a sorry state of affairs. The best named player is undoubtedly the schizophrenic stylings of Marcos Jeferson Farias Valentim Le Trong Son.

Fun fact of the day: despite having never got to the World Cup, more people watch the competition in Vietnam than in any country in the world - with the exceptions of Brazil and China.

[Biscotti]

The Vaduz takeover fell through

[jimbowmanuk]

Unlucky with that takeover, still if you get to the point where the board let you pick a feeder club go for Vaduz and send some fringe players there way to improve them.

On another note my laptop should be back in my possession on the 30th so I should be able to continue with the save next weekend

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2018 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

Got handed another tough group in the CL and thought we were going to qualify with one game to go. We were home to Koln and if I beat them I just needed Madrid to hold Juve to a draw. We won out game easily and with 10 mins to go the other game was 1-1. Then Juve grabbed to late goals to send us into the Europa league again and a tie with Celtic. Had some great news when the club agreed to build a new 35k all seater stadium which is due in a couple of years. All the youngsters who were promoted last year and got games performed brilliantly. I am looking at moving on some more experienced heads again this year, mainly due to the fact that a lot of them are looking at moving to bigger clubs and will only sign new contracts with very small minimum release fee or very high wages. Next year, next year we will qualify for the KO stages.

Youth Intake

Not a great year again and only two players of note. They are only 3* PA and aren't too bad but I would be happier if they had higher determination ratings.

Fastov
Vysotskiy

Belarus News

Still no sign of the manager giving up the role. Thye have had a poor start to the Euro qualifiers though as only drew with Armenia and lost to Romania. Dropped a lot in rankings and are currently 53rd.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Looks like I'm going to lose my captain and best player. Can't get him to sign a new contract as wants 3x more than the board will allow me to offer. Bought him as a raw 18yr old 5 years ago for £2.1m, my first big signing for the club. Still only valued at £2.1m by the game but I think he is a £30m player. Has the likes of Roma and Juve watching him at the moment.

Sebastian Martinez is the player and I'm gutted to be losing him. He's pivotal in the TM role I use. Gets loads of goals and assists every year. Think I may even just let his contract run down and keep him for the remaning two years

[Charlie_B]

ShyBaldBuddhist - a lot can happen in that length of time. Hold on to him and see how it goes; I've had plenty of players with unreasonable wage requests who change their minds as the club's stature progresses.

Charlie Nguyen - Carshalton Viet 2012/13 - Blue Square South

If anyone wants detail on my season then head over to the Youth Academy Challenge thread. This is a much shorter update as there's a lot less relevant to say. I got promotion and improved my JC/YR, but no Vietnamese players in my youth intake and I expect it'll remain that way for a long time.

Vietnam did rubbish in the AFF championship and Asian Cup quals. They had a meteoric rise to 130th in the world rankings at one point but have settled at ~165.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Think I will keep hold of him. The £4-5m I could realistically get for him wouldn't be as important as him playing for the two years. And, as you say, may even get him to sign within that time. In other news I reached the Europa league quarters again. Beat Celtic and Fiorentina but then underestimated Rennes and got hammered.

[Biscotti]

Unlucky with that takeover, still if you get to the point where the board let you pick a feeder club go for Vaduz and send some fringe players there way to improve them.

On another note my laptop should be back in my possession on the 30th so I should be able to continue with the save next weekend

Already did, and already did :P I was given the option in my second season.

Got all 3 of my Liechtensteiner kids over there at the moment, and they're getting a little bit of game time (Vaduz sit top of the challenge league, too)

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2019 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

Yet again we get a tough group. I'm sick of facing Real Madrid, even though my record against them isn't too bad. It came down to poor decisions by me again for the reason we didn't qualify. Thought PSG would be stronger so played the defensive side of my formation I save for the big guns. They were no where need as good as I thought though and we should have beaten them at home. In the end we have to be satisfied with the Europa league again. Been drawn with Twente and I think it is a tie we can win. In another error by me I had left the ass man to renew contracts. Got a message saying Martinez has signed a new deal \0/ checked the contract and min release is £2.7m /o\. We have to qualify for KO stages next year, it will give us the push in reputation I am striving for now.

Youth Intake

Got some decent players through this year. Sivakov and Khatskevich are rated at 3 1/2* and Shtanyuk is 4*

Khatskevich
Sivakov
Shtanyuk

Belarus News

Think it will be a matter of time now before the boss is sacked. They failed to quailfy for the Euro's from a pretty easy looking group. They are up to 46th in the rankings and he has finally started calling up some of my stars. Hopefully I will soon be in the big show.

[18Rabbit]

End of 2012/2013 Season Report

The Goals

1. Win League Title - 2012, 2013
2. Win Champions League - Not complete
3. Win World Cup - Not complete

2013 Cup Finishes

• European Champions Cup - Quarter Finals - Knocked out by Real Madrid 3-2 on aggregate.
• Italian Cup - Winner - Wound up playing Chievo (who is being relegated this year) and won handily 0-3.
• Italian Super Cup - Winner - Beating out Juve just like I beat them in the Cup last year, penalty shootout.

2012 League Tables
Senior Squad - 1st place by 16 points, qualified for ECC.
U20's - 1st place Group 1 by 15 points.

Status of International Achievements
Manager for Finland - Position still filled by Mixu Paatelainen (Still Secure)
Finland World Ranking - Currently 56th as of June 1st, 2013.
Fnord Fjord is currently in 3rd place in the Finnish manager hall of fame with 102 points.

2012/2013 Transfers
Transfer list: HERE
Lots of the free transfers back in were loans expiring. The main transfer I had this season was Eugene Konoplyanka. He's done fairly well though I think he will get better as he grows. The majority of my other intakes were youth prospects.

2012/2013 Youth Intake
Here's the youth candidates we got in March: SUCKAS. Rocco Gervasio looks like he might be amazing but the rest of the squad was fairly Meh.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Internationals have just come around and I spot that Belarus have had a change of manager. I didn't get any news item for it so didn't apply as I didn't know it was available. Check my news subscriptions and for some reason that subscription has been removed. Going to have to wait a few years now for a shot at the national job.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2020 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

We were seeded 2nd for the CL this year but still couldn't qualify for the KO stage. Went with a different approach by signing a few better players but most were foreigners which meant I couldn't play them all in the league games. It didn't pay off though as finish 3rd again and went into the Europa league. Going to stick with with the plan this year as we got very close and if we had beaten Panathinaikos in the first game I think we would have made it. We had to go for bust against Lyon and they picked us off on the counter attack.

Youth Intake

I think Afansiev looks a decent prospect and have put him straight into the first team squad. He should get himself around 20 games this coming season. Think the other two should also be challenging for 1st team spots within the next year or two.

Afansiev
Fastov
Goncharenko

Belarus News

Currently 3rd in a very tight World Cup qualifying group. Could go either way depending on results against Ireland and Albania. Now ranked 49th in the world rankings. The new manager did himself a massive favour by calling up Sebastian Martinez who had taken Belarusian nationality. He has started off well with 5 goals in 8 games.

[Biscotti]

Vaduz got their takeover, but it was only a consortium in the end

[brettney1980]

Haven't managed much FM time this week but just managed to put in a couple hours and hopefully i'll get the current season finished this weekend ...

Brettney's Sri Lankan Challenge!

2016 Youth Prospects;

Youth Candidate's

Rohan Manjula Profile|Coach Report

[EoinMcG]

Gunna give this a go! Come on Suriname!!

[Biscotti]

Intake has just come around, and unfortunately no Liechtensteiner players this time. I did get the next John Carew come through, though.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Dinamo Minsk/Belarus 2020 Season Review

Squad - League - Champions League

We had a great start to the season as we reached the semi finals of the Europa League. Juve were too strong over the two legs but it was only 4-2 on aggregate. This meant quite a leap in our co-efficient rating and we went straight into the group stages without any qualifiers. I had quite a grin on my face when the groups were announced. Up against Milan, Copenhagen and Lokomotiv Moscow I felt we had the best chance yet of making the KO stages. We finished second and for the first time we get to try out the Champions League knock out stages. We meat Besiktas in the first round, a tie I feel we can win. Definitely making progress now.

Youth Intake

I have been crying out for a DM. The Belarusian ones I have are not very good so I have to keep buying foreigners for the role. Imagine my delight then when I get 3 of them in my intake, all with 4* potential.

Lukhvich
Rusak
Sokolovksiy

Belarus News

They failed to qualify for the upcoming World cup but the manager remains in the job for the time being. Moved up to 47th in the world helped a lot by loads of my youngsters now making the grade and getting regular call ups. My plan to sell my youth once they have reached max potential at my club appears to be working as we now have a lot more youngsters stepping up.

[darrylv2]

I am trying this with cook islands .. I am barcelona mid way through first season .. won basically every game .. cook position come up and the laughed at me basically
Any ideas on why i didnt get the job?

[jimbowmanuk]

I am trying this with cook islands .. I am barcelona mid way through first season .. won basically every game .. cook position come up and the laughed at me basically
Any ideas on why i didnt get the job?

on fm12 most national teams won't appoint a manager in the 1st couple of seasons regardless of what they've achieved.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

I am absolutely gutted. I have lost my Minsk save. 10 years in, we finally get to the CL KO stage and I make a school boy error. Been updating my system to Windows 7 64 bit and thought FM was instaled on my E drive so didn't back it up thinking everything would be fine. Transpires I had FM and all folders installed on my C drive.

Not sure whether to start again or not at this stage. Going to have a think about it whilst I redownload steam and FM

[jimbowmanuk]

I am absolutely gutted. I have lost my Minsk save. 10 years in, we finally get to the CL KO stage and I make a school boy error. Been updating my system to Windows 7 64 bit and thought FM was instaled on my E drive so didn't back it up thinking everything would be fine. Transpires I had FM and all folders installed on my C drive.

Not sure whether to start again or not at this stage. Going to have a think about it whilst I redownload steam and FM

Thats really unfortunate SBB hope you do decide to try again was really enjoying seeing the future World Cup winners coming through the ranks.
I should hopefully have my Laptop back tomorrow, there was a problem with getting some part, and a big despute with PCWorld customer services but hopefully I'll be able to continue with my one.

[ShyBaldBuddhist]

Decided I didn't have it in me to build Dinamo Minsk up again but will continue the challenge. Going to keep Belarus as the nation and my new manager persona will be my old Minsk captian. I introduce the new manager of Real Madrid, Sebastian Martinez

[jimbowmanuk]

Decided I didn't have it in me to build Dinamo Minsk up again but will continue the challenge. Going to keep Belarus as the nation and my new manager persona will be my old Minsk captian. I introduce the new manager of Real Madrid, Sebastian Martinez

Good luck with Belarus (again)

[glennuk]

Its 21st of march and no youth candidates for barcelona has anyone had later than this?

[jimbowmanuk]

Its 21st of march and no youth candidates for barcelona has anyone had later than this?

spain youth intake is usually 28th march, so you just need to wait a week.

[glennuk]

Thanks JIm - it came and no kenyan players

Then just after i lost against real madrid in the champs league quarter finals 1st leg 4-0 (I am top of the league by a mile, and have beat them twice already this season comfortably) then drew against granada feel a loss of form coming

[glennuk]

GRRR my save game got corrupt

Got a backup but its over a month behind. Will go back and continue.

On one hand, im still in the champs league, and i havent had my youth intake yet.

On the other hand i spent HOURS searching for talent from the new regens, and had virtually guranteed the league title, and had 2 3.5 star potential youth players come through.

[glennuk]

Got my new Youth Recruitment and got a 2.5 star potential Kenyan winger/striker Well chuffed.

Also got a 4 star potential Dc (Spanish) should be better than Pique or Thiago Silva.

Screenies to come later

[Biscotti]

14/15 was a very disappointing season at Lyon - runner up in all 3 French competitions and out at the 1st KO of the Champions League.

FC Lorient have just had a tycoon take over as well, so there's every chance that they could become a challenger in the next couple of years.

On the plus side, Vaduz got promoted to the Super League with 4 games still to go and are looking pretty good as a result.

[Almighty Thermos]

Long time lurker, time to join in!

[kabajingai]

One thing I would suggest is try and link the club and the nation together. For example you are more likely to get Malian regens at french clubs and Cape Verde players at Portuguese clubs. Another thing is that the recruitment system works in such a way that it will often recruit players from the local area, so you are more likely to get Luxembourg players coming through at Bundesliga clubs and Liechtensteiner ones at Swiss clubs.

Off the top of my head I would say;

Barcelona - Andorra
Boca/River - Venezuela
Portugal - Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome e Principe
Milan/Inter - Libya, Somalia, Malta
French clubs - any major Francophone countries in Africa and the Caribbean
Mexico - Central America

Just my opinion. There are plenty more.

I don't think it matters that much about how good your current set-up is. You need choose the right club imo. The youth system will naturally improve in time the more successful you get. So I would recommend setting up the challenge in such a way that you can almost certainly get through certain players at certain clubs.

[AndyEs]

any idea if this concept has the same affect when you have the second nationality set as what u want the regens to be?

[scythian12]

One thing I would suggest is try and link the club and the nation together. For example you are more likely to get Malian regens at french clubs and Cape Verde players at Portuguese clubs. Another thing is that the recruitment system works in such a way that it will often recruit players from the local area, so you are more likely to get Luxembourg players coming through at Bundesliga clubs and Liechtensteiner ones at Swiss clubs.

Off the top of my head I would say;

Barcelona - Andorra
Boca/River - Venezuela
Portugal - Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Sao Tome e Principe
Milan/Inter - Libya, Somalia, Malta
French clubs - any major Francophone countries in Africa and the Caribbean
Mexico - Central America

Just my opinion. There are plenty more.

I don't think it matters that much about how good your current set-up is. You need choose the right club imo. The youth system will naturally improve in time the more successful you get. So I would recommend setting up the challenge in such a way that you can almost certainly get through certain players at certain clubs.

I agree with this, I see a lot of Serbian regens at Újpest in Hungary, where Zoran Splisjak is manager, but the youth range is not huge.

And also second nationality seems to have an effect, some Serbian/Hungarian regens coming through at Hajduk Kula with Serbian pass/ethnic Hungarian manager

[darrylv2]

Is there anyway on fmrte of making yourself favioute for the international job .. two years at barca won everything still cant manage cook islands :l

[jimbowmanuk]

Is there anyway on fmrte of making yourself favioute for the international job .. two years at barca won everything still cant manage cook islands :l

How many players from the cook islands are in your game? If its too low usually less than 90 then the job isn't manageable. go through the process of adding a new manager and and see if its possible to pick them from the nations to take over if not then it may take a long time for it to become manageable as you will need to make sure any of your cook islanders from the youth intake don't retire.

[darrylv2]

yeahh i have done that 10-15 times and there are manageable .. but i cant get the job for some reason

[jimbowmanuk]

yeahh i have done that 10-15 times and there are manageable .. but i cant get the job for some reason

Hopefully after your third season of winning things when the job becomes avaliable you should easily get it. I turned down both the England and Mexico jobs before Panama became available and got the job no problem after about the third season

[Wonderkid36]

I'm starting this with mali and sporting.I'll post a pic when my game has finally loaded

[Wonderkid36]

I'm starting this with mali and sporting.I'll post a pic when my game has finally loaded

alright Here's my profile:
Says my pic I 'Undefined'
Any Help?

[Wonderkid36]

Am I allowed to Make A New manager,make him manager of Mali then Retire him so i get the job?

[stothy]

Am I allowed to Make A New manager,make him manager of Mali then Retire him so i get the job?

Interested in this. I'm just lurking and doing the challenge with Shakhtar and San Marino. Not a fan of doing write ups though sorry!

[jimbowmanuk]

Am I allowed to Make A New manager,make him manager of Mali then Retire him so i get the job?

Interested in this. I'm just lurking and doing the challenge with Shakhtar and San Marino. Not a fan of doing write ups though sorry!

I guess that could be allowed once other nations start offering you jobs, as it would show that you've caught the eye of the international stage. As you should've been successful enough at club level to make the world take notice. I should point out however that even though your managing a big club almost every nation will laugh off your applications in the 1st couple of years as your reputation isn't going to be high enough

[stothy]

I guess that could be allowed once other nations start offering you jobs, as it would show that you've caught the eye of the international stage. As you should've been successful enough at club level to make the world take notice. I should point out however that even though your managing a big club almost every nation will laugh off your applications in the 1st couple of years as your reputation isn't going to be high enough

Debatable, in my first season I have reached the top 10 manager in Ukraine ever. I reached the champions League final and got thrashed by Real Madrid though :/ 5-0 Thanks for the update though, will make sure I stick to the rules!

[ri916]

This is a really good challenge. Deserves to be upped so others can see it.

[jimbowmanuk]

This is a really good challenge. Deserves to be upped so others can see it.

Yeah I was going to run it again when FM13 came out, very few challenges in this forum let you take over the big teams while still giving the added difficulty of doing the near impossible

[soccer.joel]

So when managing a club do players of your national team come through youth team

[jimbowmanuk]

So when managing a club do players of your national team come through youth team

If there is high youth recruitment at the club, then there is a greater chance of players of the managers nationality appearing in the youth intake.

[GreyedOutMan]

I've started this as Chelsea and Guatemala. Didn't want to wait until the end of the 1st season for my first regens so holidayed through the first year, and got sacked. Added another Guatamalan manager as Chelsea manager but does that mean I won't get any Guatemalan regens this year?

[jimbowmanuk]

I've started this as Chelsea and Guatemala. Didn't want to wait until the end of the 1st season for my first regens so holidayed through the first year, and got sacked. Added another Guatamalan manager as Chelsea manager but does that mean I won't get any Guatemalan regens this year?

You still have a good chance of guatemalans, the sample screenshots in the opening post were all from the same save. I holidayed to just before the intake then added the different nationalities of managers.

[neushoorn70]

Tanzanian former international Ajali Kikwete has taken charge at Barcelona. He's looking to best former manager Pep Guardiola as the best ever manager at Barcelona, and will one day look to take over his home nation Tanzania.

[benrollo]

Wow what a great concept for a game. I never realised you could influence academy intake via manager nationality, so thanks Jim (and ri for the bump!).

I've been scouring the forums today looking for a long term challenge after I broke my leg in 2 places last week and am now pretty much sofa-bound! I have a slight obsession with Liechtenstein (Vaduz in particular, I was actually very close to going out and meeting the players a few years ago, but that's another story!) so I will be taking control of Barcelona and will be a Liechtensteiner manager.

Judging by some of the posts' advice I'll stick in the Swiss league as well. Here goes..!

FC Barcelona Hire Stocklasa
Barcelona have today announced the shock appointment of 32 year old ex-Liechtenstein international footballer Ben Stocklasa as their new manager. Stocklasa, who made 42 appearances for his country and scored 2 goals, has said that he is delighted with his appointment and will aim to emulate the success of outgoing head coach Pep Guardiola.

My first signing was Sandro Wieser, the best Liechtensteiner player in the DB by some margin. I've sent him to Barcelona B to try and get him plenty of games in a competitive division. He's also being mentored by Xavi - not a bad player to learn from!

I don't usually play with a big club so I'm looking forward to actually competing for trophies! Here's hoping some very nice looking Liechtensteiners come through as well

[GreyedOutMan]

Guys, ive been playing a game using this with a view to perhaps doing it as my main FM13 game. Ive just reached my 2nd batch of regens and still not a single Guatemalan. Does that indicate that it doesn't really work, and in fact setting your nationality has little or no bearing on the regens you get?

[jimbowmanuk]

Guys, ive been playing a game using this with a view to perhaps doing it as my main FM13 game. Ive just reached my 2nd batch of regens and still not a single Guatemalan. Does that indicate that it doesn't really work, and in fact setting your nationality has little or no bearing on the regens you get?

You've just been unlucky with your intakes so far, the managers nationality increases the chance of players of that nationality coming through the youth intake but it doesn't neccesseraly guarantee them every season. I tested this out before I started the challenge, the screenshots in the opening post were all from one save where I holidayed to just before the intake and added managers to the 2 Milan teams took screenies, then reloaded to just before the intake and tried different nationalities.

[jimbowmanuk]

Good luck benrollo maybe you'll get the next Mario Frick in your intake

[benrollo]

Thanks Jim. I've actually just had my third youth intake, I wanted to wait a few years before getting an update up. The league is pretty comfy, you almost have unlimited money and Leo Messi is so good he's almost a cheat player .
I'll get an update up once I've finished the third season later today and then get yearly updates up after that. No Frick-esque strikers yet but a couple of promising players!

[benrollo]

FC Barcelona 2011-14 Update

As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to wait a couple of seasons before getting an update up. I'm not going to focus on Barcelona's overall performance too much because basically we have been invincible. Instead I will briefly go over my strongest side and a few gems (Warning - player naming!)

Here is my current strongest lineup:

GK: Marc-Andre ter Stegen
DR: Daniel Alves
DC: Gerard Piqué
DC: Jan Vertonghen
DL: José Ángel
DM: Daniele De Rossi
MC: Thiago
MC: Cesc Fabregas
AML: Lucas Moura
AMR: Leo Messi
ST: Neymar

You will probably notice a few absentees, namely Valdes in goal as well as the midfield maestro duo of Xavi and Iniesta.
Valdes was sold to AC Milan for £15m in the middle of the 2013/14 season. Although still relatively young at 31, he had been poor for the entirety of the campaign, and he was asking for a pretty large wage to extend his contract which was up at the end of the season. With able backups in ter Stegen, Alphonse Areola and newgen Alvaro Gil I felt we could pass on the baton.

Xavi had suffered several debilitating injuries over the course of my time in charge and had declined pretty significantly after a decent first season. He too went in the January window in 2014, to Deportivo for £10m. I felt like he should get a chance to start somewhere else rather than barely make my bench.

Iniesta is still in my squad and is the first player brought on in most circumstances. Two muscle tears - to the groin and calf - sustained in the space of 9 months of each other have left him wanting physically, but he can certainly still spray a pass, and he ended with a 7.25 average from the 17 league games he appeared in. Thiago's development has been almost astronomical, I certainly had my eye on him in the B side when I took over, but he has gone from strength to strength to dislodge Andres.

OK, onto the juicy bit - the Liechtenstein contingent.
First up is Sandro Wieser, the young midfielder who currently plies his trade with Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga in real life, was my first signing as Barcelona manager. He has since spent time in the under 19s and the B team, and spent the last season out on loan with Eibar in the Spanish lower leagues. He hasn't gone much hope of making the Barca first team, but I hope he will benefit from our coaching and tutoring to become a figurehead for the national team. He already has 29 caps at 21 years old.

Next up is my first Liechtensteiner youth academy graduate, who came through in the second season after an all-Spanish intake in 2012. Sebastian Kraus is a central midfielder currently rated as a 1.5* prospect by my coaches. Not actually too bad considering the talent we have at our disposal to compare him to! He has made seven appearances for the Liechtenstein u21 side. I'm hoping to get him under someone's wing for some tutoring next season.

In my latest academy bunch I got two Liechtensteiners through! First up in that batch is goalkeeper Tim-Julian Siegl. He's pretty awful to be honest but has already made three appearances for the u19 national side (OK he's the only keeper in there, but still!). I'll of course hold onto him as long as possible in an attempt to buff a few attributes.

Last, but certainly not least, is full back Rouven Kempe. He's rated by my coaches as a 2* prospect at the moment, and he certainly has a good base on which to build his attributes. I'm loving the 13 passing, which makes him one of only THREE Liechtensteiners in the whole database with passing that high (Kraus is another one of the three!). Although he hasn't played for the national team at any level yet I'm hopeful he will be fast tracked to the big time.

The plan for next season is to try and bring in more Liechtensteiner coaches (I've signed 2 very good ones up already), and try to get Kraus and Kempe (The Special K's maybe?!) some game time at u19 level. I'm also really trying to get Vaduz as a feeder club in order to send out my youngsters on loan, but the board can't get an agreement in place yet. I shall persevere!

[musantha]

Hi,

This might be a dumb question, but, can you please let me know how do I "Load all players from chosen Nation"? I know I can customize the database at the time of game setup, but not sure what conditions would make sure all players from the chosen nation would be included

Please help me out here. Many thanks

-Mugu

[benrollo]

Hey musantha. For my Liechtenstein game I used a custom database with all Liechtenstein players loaded, and also included the Swiss leagues in my game setup, because this is where Liechtensteiner teams play. I would definitely say its worth loading the league(s) up that are most likely to include additional players from your nation.

[musantha]

Thanks benrollo. How do you load all the liechtenstein players? Which attributes to use when defining the custom DB?

[benrollo]

Thanks benrollo. How do you load all the liechtenstein players? Which attributes to use when defining the custom DB?

I've uploaded a screenshot below to show how I did it - choose Custom in the Database Size drop down and then select the option 'Players based in nation'.

Overview Screen

This, along with loading the Swiss leagues, has given me a current total of 101 Liechtensteiners in the database (not sure how many there would have been at the beginning, obviously there have been retirements and newgens since then)

[musantha]

Thanks bernollo...that helped

Cheers,
Mugu

[musantha]

I am going to give this a shot. Here goes my manager's profile with nationality as Indian

====

Manchester United have hired santh mugund as their new head coach.

The thirty-two year old is reportedly delighted to be given the opportunity to hone his coaching skills at Old Trafford and the Red Devils supporters will certainly be hoping that mugund can take their team to new heights.

====

[musantha]

BTW, I am playing with the latest transfers update pack from pr0

Is this fine or should I play only with an official update?

Can someone pls clarify

-Mugu

[benrollo]

Jim's probably the best person to advise on that but I think you need to do it with the default database.

[musantha]

Thanks benrollo. I have sent him an IM. Will wait for his response

[benrollo]

FC Barcelona Liechtenstiener Review 2014-15

Another season, another promising Liechtensteiner through the Barcelona academy. Introducing...
Benjamin Thiele
Beni is currently rated as a 2* prospect by my coaches, and was immediately fast tracked into the Liechtenstein under-21 set up.

And how about my previous graduates? Here's how they are looking:
Tim-Julian Siegl --- 2013/14 Profile
Tim has seen very little improvement in his stats from last season which would seem to show that my coaches have their assessment bang on! He did however make the step up to the under-21s set up for his country and played 9 games for them. He even managed to keep a clean sheet!

Rouven Kempe --- 2013/14 Profile
Rouven is really coming along nicely, and was for a while rated as a 2.5* prospect by my coaches. He is now a fixture in the under-21s and has banged in a couple of goals in the 11 matches he has played. I'm hoping he gets a call up to the senior squad soon as he is head and shoulders above half the players in there! I recently signed him up to pro terms and he is currently being tutored by Gerard Pique - not too shabby! I'm hoping to get him a couple of Spanish Cup games this season too if possible.

Sebastian Kraus --- 2013/14 Profile
Seba has also made good progress this season, although his mental attributes are leaving a lot to be desired. Maybe this is because he needs some tutoring, but at present I can't seem to assign anyone to him. He leads the way for the Barca Liechtensteiners with 17 youth caps, and I expect a senior call up is not too far away. Technically he is one of the finest players for his nation in the database - his first touch is higher than any other player, his passing only matched by Kempe and Wieser (good to see the Barca way of playing rubbing off on them!) and his technique leads the way as well. Add to that some not too shabby physicals and you would expect some senior action this season. Maybe his mentals will hold him back.

And finally (although he isn't actually a newgen)...
Sandro Wieser --- 2013/14 Profile
Sandro was loaned out to Huesca in the Spanish Second Division where he played in 15 league games with an average rating of 7.07. He did also appear in two games for Barcelona B, and recorded a goal as well.
My coaches have pretty much dismissed him as useless but that hasn't stopped me offering him a new 5 year contract! This boy is going to be integral to Liechtenstein's future so he needs to be somewhere he can reach his potential. Sandro also had the joy of scoring his first international goal in a 2-0 win over Luxembourg.

I've also put Liechtenstein's world ranking below. Unfortunately I only have from July 2013 onwards, but I'll do this every season now!



Their big rise up the rankings in September 2013 was thanks to a 2-1 win over Lithuania in World Cup qualifying. They followed that up with a few more rises later in the year as they won three games on the trot, which surely has to be some kind of record! Malta, Luxembourg and Armenia were all dispatched by their mighty opponent. Liechtenstein have now settled around 110th place.

I still can't get Vaduz as a feeder club so I've resorted to pretty much clearing out my under-19s in order to ensure my youngsters get decent game time this season.

[jimbowmanuk]

BTW, I am playing with the latest transfers update pack from pr0

Is this fine or should I play only with an official update?

Can someone pls clarify


-Mugu

For the challenge its just meant to be the official one, the only changes you are permitted are cosmetic ones that change competition names etc.
But seen as we are only a matter of weeks away from FM13 being released, you can do the challenge with the other database if you wish, but when I run the challenge for FM13 it will strictly be the official one only