Tips on raising a profile in a small league?

I've started a new save as TNS in the welsh premier league.

As defending champions I started with a team in the champions league qualifiers. With a combination of luck of the draw, good use of the transfer system, reasonable tactics, and a 93rd minute winner, I managed to get tiny TNS into the group stages of the champions league.

This brought with it a 7mil prize fun which will see the club financially stable for years to come, and will basically mean we will always be the richest, and should be the best, team in the league.

However in the group stage, we were drawn against Porto, Man City and Athletico Madrid. So You won't need to think to hard to work out what happened. Yup, played 6, lost 6. Didn't score a goal, and lost 3 games by 6-0. Bad times.

Anyone got any advice on managing in a tiny league like this yet still being able to raise your clubs profile enough to attract half decent players so that we arn't always destined to be European whipping boys. I'm not expecting to turn them into Barcelona, but at least put up a fight in CL and who knows maybe scrap a way into third place of the group and into Europa league.

I've done something similar a long time ago doing the Gundo challenge, (it's like the Dafuge challenge but in a small Nation).

I was managing in N.Ireland and it is just a hard hard hard slog. There are no quick fixes but there are multiple ways that you can influence it. The 1st way is to obviously keep plugging away year on year in the Champions League and slowly improving your reputation and the Welsh coefficient.

The 2nd thing to do is to increase the reputation of the Welsh Premier League. That might mean in real terms that you might have to help other clubs your league to progress, (but not too well). How you do that I suppose is not refusing to sell players to them and also maybe loaning them players.

Something else that you might want to consider is that it might be more beneficial for you to lose the Playoffs and miss out on the Champions League, (where you are going to get battered), and instead drop in the the EURO Cup, where you might have a chance of winning games and picking up some coefficient points.

In broader terms, (as long as you know this isn't going to be an overnight success), maybe look to bring players in from lower reputation nations, (relatively speaking). Scandinavia and Eastern Europe might be your best bets, but even they are probably off-limits for a bit. Also, try and get the Premiership boys, (Cardiff and Swansea), as parent clubs. Even Wrexham might be worth looking at depending on how they are doing.

Good tips so far guys,

Ill request to the board to improve youth facilities/training. You never know their might be a a young Gareth Bale knocking about somewhere.

This is defiantly a long game, my hope is within 5 years to have a team that is easily winning trophies in Wales but also can start to complete and attract semi-decent players. Internationals from smaller nations would be perfect, as would a couple of veterans who can still turn it on for a European game.

Interestingly David James as a 41yo player/ass. manager has been a great little buy so far.

Any other advice?

Good tips so far guys,

Ill request to the board to improve youth facilities/training. You never know their might be a a young Gareth Bale knocking about somewhere.

This is defiantly a long game, my hope is within 5 years to have a team that is easily winning trophies in Wales but also can start to complete and attract semi-decent players. Internationals from smaller nations would be perfect, as would a couple of veterans who can still turn it on for a European game.

Interestingly David James as a 41yo player/ass. manager has been a great little buy so far.

Any other advice?

I didn't mention the facilities because I assumed it was a given, but in line with that, when you do produce youngsters, make sure that you keep them at home for the 1st 3 seasons so that they gain HG at club status. After that, (and you should have personality sorted by then), then you can loan them out for xp, but not until after they become HG at club registered.

If you are going to loan players out to your domestic rivals, make sure you do it early enough in the season that they can play in the early European rounds before they get knocked out. You have to be quick or you will miss it.

Feeders is deffo the way to go though. I saw someone post on here last week that as a Welsh club they managed to get 3 feeders at the same time so this got them some real quality while their home-grown players were catching up. (Not sure if you like the idea of a squad full of loanees though). What's the Welsh rule on loans? Fined out and take advantage if it floats your boat.

[Edit]

I wouldn't worry about blowing your finances on players in the early years. The problem at the moment isn't money, it's that your reputation is so low that it's impossible to spend it! lol

Upgrade Youth/training facilities, more money for junior coaching, continue to win things/progress as far as possible in Europe, and slowly but surely you're reputation will increase

Managing in the Republic of Ireland I've managed to follow the path of where I've always invested the money in facilities and 8 years on the club now has a couple of players who would fit into championship and lower end premiership sides. It's only been the last 3 years I've managed to scrape a few wins in the group stages together, but the season before this one I actually got through the group stages off the back of winning 2 home games and drawing the third. The Irish leagues reputation has risen from 50/60 something to 25 and the coefficients now have us in 14th meaning more teams in Europe and more chances to gain coefficient points.

My problem now is the club has the reputation to actually attract some decent players, but no the wage budget to do so. However, I have spent extensively on facilities with the youth side maxed out and after the current training facilities increase is finished they too will be maxed out. After that money can then be spent on trying to get in other young players who will improve, but are also first team ready. I bring through a lot of talented Irish youngsters and often will let them go to other clubs as they won't play for me but whenever a bigger club comes I tend to sell for cash + 50% sell on clause which has seen me raise a lot more money in the last 12 months or so.

Clwb Pêl Droed Caersws

Here's my career thread where I've been doing a similar thing in the Welsh league. My only advice is to be patient and expect things to happen very, very slowly.

A bit like test cricket then.