FM14: Valencia CF - Getting to the CL, on a Budget

So, its plain to see that you have a reasonably capable squad to work with, but very little room to manoeuvre in the transfer market as you are already over your wage budget and very little transfer budget, increasing your expectations makes your job much harder, with little reward, therefore, in order to gain some funds, a bit of squad trimming is essential, here are my suggestions to look to move on ( remembering you only get 50% of any revenue ):

In Season 1:

Pablo Piatti: this guy is unlikely to be a starter for you and is your top earner, it makes sense to ship him out

Adil Rami: Irl, this guy has already been moved on and whilst he may be your best defender, he is also worth a lot of money, moving him on will give you at least 5 million to play with

Diego Alves OR Vicente Guaita: both of these guys are more than adequate keepers and have some room to improve ( though not much ), but you only need 1 top keeper and having one sit on the bench is a waste of wages that you cant afford, decide who you want to ship out ( I choose to keep Guaita as hes homegrown and is marginally less wages ) and pick up a cheap replacement from the free agent list

This should give you roughly 10 million to spend and around 100k space in your wage budget, not a lot, but more than you had! I also chose to to cancel Oriol Romeus loan, freeing up another 12k a week. My first purchase was Ignacio Camacho, a DM, for 5.5 million from Malaga, who will slot straight in as a starter. I also signed Marc Valiente for 1.1 million, he is a DC and is just a squad player. After that, i just loaned in a couple of odds and ends for squad cover and saved the rest till january. Barcelona ended up releasing Isaac Cuenca before january, so I signed him on a free transfer instead of signing anyone else. I used some of the remaining transfer funds and wage cap to overhaul my backroom staff ( I think i replaced EVERYONE apart from the GK coach, one of the fitness coaches, the U-19 manager + coaches and the DoF ) and to sort out player contracts, I dont anyway, but with Valencia, I think its important to not use the Yearly wage rise and Match highest earner contract clauses, as they will get you in a mess very quickly.

Afterwards:

Aly Cissokho: great physically, but otherwise average, you should be able to get 5 mil for him

Helder Postiga: Get some cash for him whilst you can in season 2, I replaced him with Iago Aspas who had been listed by Liverpool

Joao Pereira: I sold him in season 2 after snagging Hugo Mallo cheaply from a just relegated Celta Vigo ( Fontas would be a good signing too if Celta get relegated in your first season )

Dorlan Pabon: doesnt really fit in, get some more cash for your transfer kitty by getting him off your books, Jonathan Viera and/or Carles Gil returning from loan can take his place

I have just started season 2 in my save and despite making major squad changes and handing out new contracts to several key players including Banega, Bernat and Guaita, my current wage total is only 570k, I focused a lot on bringing through the younger players at the club, giving a lot of playing time to Alcacer, Bernat, Fede Cartabia and Camacho, but also relied on some of the more experienced players like Banega and Pereira in season 1

The greatest asset Valencia has to work with is that they have a plethora of players who are comfortable on the ball, the likes of Sergio Canales, Dani Parejo and Ever Banega, whilst not very gifted physically, all have great passing, creativity and other "on the ball" attributes, Banega is your star player and incorporating him and either Canales or Parejo into your lineup should be your priority. This will mean that your formation of choice will be some variant of a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 and you will need to re-train some players to positions they are already skilled in, but not as good as they could be. Here is my prefered lineup:

with Camacho as an Anchor Man, Banega as a Box to Box midfielder, Canales as an Advanced Playmaker and Alcacer as a deep lying forward

this requires the following position training:

Jonas to AML

Bernat and Guardado to DL

Mathieu to DC

Canales to MC

the middle 3 can be quite fluid in how you position them, you can move Banega back to DM alongside Camacho in a DLP role, Canales can be pushed up behind the striker, Camacho can go into MC as well. I like Bernat at LB as he offers a great attacking presence there, Guardado can do the same thing of course, Mathieu is surprisingly good at DC, good in the air, but is prone to a couple of errors every now and then. The above lineup can leave you with the following bench, which is pretty versatile and good enough to change games imo:

GK, R. Costa, Guardado, Parejo, Fede, Pabon/Cuenca, Postiga

This squad saw me through the season, I did ok in the league, qualifying for the Europa league again and also got me to the Semi Finals of the Europa League, after more shuffling, my aim for this season is top 4

done

..

finally...i've been lurking around here waiting for this thread. Will do a proper update about my season so far later but thanks CMS186...you're a legend

Nice thread cms! I've always been put off by the fact that the big two are so far ahead of the pack. However, I want to try some of the big European leagues that I never managed in (Spain, Germany, and perhaps Italy - although the co-ownership thing really puts me off). Now, due to my current location, Spain may have to be the first of those.

Valencia actually held my first interest in a La Liga club back in the late 90's when they had the likes of Lopez and Mendieta performing as well as anybody in the country. I'd been thinking about Atletico Madrid, with a squad I admire greatly, or a smaller side like Espanyol (because I want to have a young squad). I even thought about Mallorca, Deportivo and Tenerife in Liga Adelante. But now, I may have to seriously consider Valencia instead, especially if it can re-ignite my previous fondness for them.

Apologies for rambling on, it's something you will have to tolerate if I do take the plunge. But to end on a point specific to Valencia, it was interesting on Barca TV tonight when they were previewing the match with Los Ches this weekend - the analysts had Mathieu down to be the left-sided central defender. I've no idea if he has been playing there recently or if these 'experts' were on the money, but given what you wrote above about role changes, it struck a note with me.

Mathieu has been playing almost exclusively in central defence for the last season and a half i think

Ah, cheers. Well that proves just how out of touch I am with Valencia haha.

A couple of things that bear pointing out, at the start of the game, the board seem pretty accommodating to non-transfer budget related requests, you should be able to get improvements to your Recruitment Network, Junior Coaching, Youth and Training Facilities first time of asking, as well as getting another feeder club ( though i think it depends what type you ask for, ive had them approved and denied )

Secondly, there are plenty of decent youth prospects at the club, Paco Alcacer, Juan Bernat, Carles Gil, Fede Cartabia, Jonathan Viera, Salva Ruiz and Jose Luis Gaya all have good enough potential to become first team players for you, if you retrain one of Gaya or Ruiz to play at Right back, you could have youth prospects on both wings at midfield and in defence, so it would serve you well to incorporate them into your first team as often as possible and get them learning fast, I managed to get to the Europa League in season 1 with Paco and Bernat as starters and Fede playing often

Thought I'd give a Valencia save a bash as my rents reside in The Costa's.

Pretty much every player I listed had no interest so ended up staying clogging up the wage budget. Offered out - Postiga 0, Guaita for 500k, Costa 0, Barragan for 1m. Only 1 loan came in and that was Postiga from Lyon who he rejected. Wonderful.

Only player I managed to sell which I didn't want to was Banega for 20m to United. He got in a hissy fit and thought ahh sod it I'll cash in and bring in Will Hughes for 6m. Also got Sam Byram and Alexander Milosevic.

I play a weird asymmetric formation. Flat back 4, DM, CM, RM, CAM, LAM, CF and currently 3rd after 12 games. W8, D2, L2 to Barca. Not played many harsh teams yet though. Lost to Barca at home and Sevilla at home with draws to Bilbao and Espanyol away.

Don't they like getting fined in Spain or something? I've had 3 reds already lol and fined them 2 weeks wages and all of them went mental.

ive had no trouble selling Banega, Rami and Guardado, you'll have trouble selling pabon and postiga in season 1, because theyve literally just joined the club

also, ive just started a new game having made a few data changes to represent the january window, ive moved pabon, postiga and canales out and added 5 million to the transfer kitty, made a couple of other minor changes too, but i sold Rami, Banega, Guardado and Pereira for a combined 23.5 mil ( a lot less than i hoped for, but needs must! ) and signed Hugo Mallo, Ignacio Camacho and a transfer listed Fernando ( from Porto ) for about 13 mil and signed Salvio and Vargas on loan ( typically, Vargas broke his leg just after the transfer window closed, so i cant send him back )

I asked the board to judge me on "play attacking football" and "Give Youth a chance" philosophies, im only 4 games into the season, but ive got 12 points out of 12 and beaten Barca, so made a good start

Just go into January and still finding it hard to ship out any players. Just managed to get 2.7 for Pabon, was about to list the ever injured Canales until he scored a worldly. Only player so far in this window is Rodrigo Gomez coming in and scoring on his debut

Got 10m left but dunno who to buy. Ideally I'd like Balanta but they just rejected a 10m bid and Doria is at Benfica. Bit slow going on the rebuild, I've usually ripped apart the squad in the first window especially for a team like this with a load of old or average players on big wages. Guess that's half the challenge.

fontas at Celta is a cheap option at CB

btw, Barcelona seem to release Cuenca in November of the first season in every valencia game ive played, doesnt demand too much in wages ( 20k a week to be a rotation option for me ) and is a useful option to have

Will be starting this once the match engine has been updated.

Managed to scrape 4th in my 1st season, I played the transfer window to resemble the january transfer window as much as possible, which made the feat even harder, for the record, this involved moving on Banega, Rami, Guardado, Postiga, Pabon, Canales and signing Senderos, Ruben Vezo, Vinicius Araujo and Nicolas Otamendi ( though he wont arrive till the second season ), i used the leftover funds to sign Hugo Mallo, Ignacio Camacho, Steven Defour and, later in the season, Isaac Cuenca for a combined 15 million, i also sold Joao Pereira and, in january, Senderos after he requested a transfer.

My starting lineup was a 4-1-1-3-1 with a flat back 4, an Anchorman just in front of them, an Advanced Playmaker at MC and then 3 attacking midfielders, including one on each wing behind a Deep Lying Forward, the starters were:

GK: Diego Alves

DR: Hugo Mallo

DC: Victor Ruiz

DC: Jeremie Mathieu

DL: Juan Bernat

DM: Ignacio Camacho ©

MC: Steven Defour

AMR: Sofiane Feghouli

AMC: Dani Parejo

AML: Fede Cartabia

ST: Paco Alcacer

Halfway through the season, i dropped Defour for poor performances, moved Parejo back to MC, Feghouli into AMC and Cuenca at AMR, this lead to an upturn in form, including a run of 6 wins in a row and i managed to get into 4th place, which should see a great boon to my finances at the end of season 2.

I didnt get a great deal of transfer funds and after shifting out Javi Fuego, Vicente Guaita, Aly Cissokho, Jonas and Ricardo Costa, i had a total of 15 million in my transfer budget, i noticed Kevin de Bruyne had been transfer listed at chelsea and signed him for 9 million, i also signed Baptiste Reynet to replace Guaita ( he was cheaper and on less wages ), resigned Oriol Romeu on loan and signed Angelo Henriquez on loan from man utd. I also had Otamendi coming in from last season. de Bruyne is doing great, he has 10 goals and 9 assists in 21 games from the AMC position

Started yet another save with Valencia.

Must say, Valencia players are severely underrated. Paco Alcacer despite being one of the brightest young strikers in Europe gets a very average rating. Jeremy Mathieu is sought by so many top clubs yet look at his PA, and CA.

I'm in my 3rd season, doing well financially too but the board still takes %50 of the transfer income!

Is this going to happen every other season with Valencıa?

Ask to increase it from boardroom!

Ask to increase it from boardroom!

I'm making good profits the last 2 seasons but still the board only extends from %50 to %65, and after a season it goes back to %50.

is this something encoded into the Valencia game i wonder, or do any of you guys have different experiences, with like %90-100 transfer budget left to spend.

im on 75% in season 4, thats with a year in the champions league though, ive got a rough net spend of 60 million over those 4 seasons

How is everyone's Valencia careers going? They are one of my favorite clubs and am thinking of taking the plunge...

Managed to (finally) win the Champions League on fourth season. It's my first time with FM14.

Juanito Bernat is an absolute gem! I made him the Spanish Gareth Bale

Managed to (finally) win the Champions League on fourth season. It's my first time with FM14.

Juanito Bernat is an absolute gem! I made him the Spanish Gareth Bale

How are Valencia's finances by the 4th season? Do you finally start to receive a solid transfer budget?

Valencias finances should be fine for the next edition of FM

Valencia's board is simply the best I've ever had on FM14! They keep giving me massive transfer and wage budgets, even higher than the overall team balance.

They are also quite happy to accomplish me everytime I ask for something, and of course the big stadium (even bigger after 2017/18 season) helps the incomes.

rather mundane issue, but does anyone else have the problem where Valencia's away kit shows up as blue instead of orange? My Valencia team keep playing in blue away from home and it is very bizarre...

rather mundane issue, but does anyone else have the problem where Valencia's away kit shows up as blue instead of orange? My Valencia team keep playing in blue away from home and it is very bizarre...

its the red/yellow kit that shows up as blue, ive reported it as a bug, but it wont get fixed till FM 15

You tried fixing it in the editor before you start your game? It did it with my team, it was playing us in our third kit (yellow/blue) instead of just light blue (away kit).