American playing first save without cheating. Goal: Winning Champions League Ship with Twente

So i have been playing football manager since fm11 but have never played the game without using genie scout or fmrte. That is cheating enough but i also frequently quit and reload if i lost big games. With doing all of that, i still had never won a Champions League despite all that help. So for FM15 i decided that this would be the year i learn to actually play the game and try and make myself a good player.

So despite playing the game for the 4 versions previous i have no favorite teams or any sort of loyalty, as well as having close to no knowledge of soccer having never played it nor it having any sort of relevance where i am from outside of when the world cup is on.

Goal: Win the Champions League without using any data editor or saving/reloading.

Club Requirements:

Not hard to sign non-nationals

Have a "B" team playing in a lower league that i can control tactics/training

League with more then 2 European tourney quals

Be decently sized but not the best team in the league

Decent national youth rating

After scouting all the possible options i landed on playing as FC Twente in the Eredivisie

So in past versions, i would typically play in either the Sweden, Bulgaria, or Liechtenstein and i would then edit the youth rating of my nation of choice to be 200 so that youth intake would be more fun. I also liked signing foreigners young and making them nationals so i could use them on the national teams.

So i started this post by talking about the things i planned to do and how i planned to do them.

Tactics

Before i started the save i played in FM Classic and tried to create my own home made tactic, which i have found despite playing for years to be very difficult. So after days of trial and error i decided that it may just be best to find one on a forum that i liked and use it. I ended up choosing this one by Mr U Rosler that was different than what I usually used in games past (4-2-3-1), or my fm14 fav the (2DC, 2WB, DM, 3CM, AMC, ST).

Training

After I selected my formation that i plan to use for the rest of the year i decided to set up my training plan right from the get go, So i set my team training to look like what Cleon uses in his famous Ajax post for FM14 that i used on fm14 and seemed to work pretty well, i do not really know how that stuff works and he seems to be an expert. The big reason i enjoy training is because i can mold players into the positions/roles i want them to play based on their attributes, so i would look at each player on my teams attributes as well as potential transfers and see what they did well and based on the attributes Mr U Rosler found important for each role i would pick which role and position i wanted them to play as shown below

As for PPM, i do not really understand them, so i dont not try and teach any to my players and usually say no when my coaches suggest them, i am sure once i learn teh game better i will incorporate them. Tutoring seems to be a difficult thing for me, in fm14 i would typically just use the editor and find their hidden professionalism rating and have high prof players tutor young as well as signing all the high prof players i could find and changing their names to tutor. Now that i cannot do that i have looked what each personality means and have 2 guys tutoring but really just plan to let the guys stay what they already are. Someday i might put more of an emphasis on these 2 things after i gain more expertise on the game

Coaches

I tried not to fire to many and really do not understand how important they truly are. I figure that the more coaching courses they take the better their DDM will be so i just signed guys with high coaching attributes. I also do not really understand the importance of Physios so i think i have only 2 and i do not seem to have any more injuries then a normal team would. I just signed as many scouts as i could and let the chief scout send them out.

Morale

I typically would just use fmrte and make everybody happy all the time but this season i planned to play by the rules and have found that keeping up player morale is tough especially after a string of losses. So my strategy was to praise all my players as much as possible by either praising conduct or training form. If i lost a bad games i would then plan a friendly(although late in the season after i secured taking 2nd i planned some to make money). I also loaned or sold unhappy players that i had because i am under the impression they hurt the rest of the team.

So i shared my tactic of choice above, my first goal was to make a few transfers and figure out what i had on the team that worked. This season i decided to sign a general manager and decided i like having one, i just target players my scouts like and he signs them for less and gets a better transfer deal than i typically have been able to(This didnt matter in fm11-14 when i would use GS and get a Nigerian Wonderkid for 10K)

So my first move was to get a left Full Back which i found in Chris Lowe, who my scouts give a 3 star rating which is better then the 2 star i had thre prior. I also wanted a striker but did not have much for cash left so i got Rondon for pretty cheap to go with my 3 star strikers i already owned, both turned out to be good purchases and both were starters on my team. I later learned that you should rescout players you want becasue they can be wrong from time to time leading me to buy some guys that were not as good as previously scouted but this Martin Odegaard guy i signed in the winter transfer window seems good. I also loaned a DC from MANU that seems good but i dont like giving development time to guys i dont own so i tried to only play him during important matches. I thought i was weak at goalie but Marsman turned out to be really good and i am glad i did not sign someone else to replace him.

My Depth Chart

Potential Depth Chart

My Transfers (wasted a lot money)

So the Season began, and i was very nervous about whether i could win without the crutches of GS and FMRTE as well as save reloading.

So using something i read on Cleons Ajax thread i cited above, i played a stack of friendlies against bad teams as well as kept the ones my assistants planned. I actually started the season out really good until i got to November for some reason i started dropping games to much lesser opponents. I ended up losing early in the Dutch cup to a much lower opponent.

So during the winter break i sold some bad morale players and tried to set up some friendlies i could win. It didn't really change things, but i was murdering teams to start the year.

This is me having 9 players in the leagues team of the week which i thought was awesome.

I ended up losing in the Euro Cup knockout rounds to Real Sociedad 1-0, which was kind of heart breaking but i knew that if i kept up my hard work i would qualify for the Champions League next year and my main goal is to win that. The team then went on to collapse somewhat at the end of the season but i also scheduled some profit driven friendlies at the end that i lost that didnt help morale.

The final standings ended up having me in the 2 spot and Champions League bound, which i am very excited for.

So i considered year one to be a success and have now set some goals for myself this offseason.

Bring in a better Right Fullback

Sign some youth

Win some games in CL

Things to improve

Understand Team Instructions better, currently do not mess with them during the game very much which i know is bad. Currently just use same formation but switch mentality to/from counter, control and attacking depending on the level of my opponent.

I also usually just pick the sqaud my assistant suggest and might switch in a young player or 2, i am wondering how accurate the star ratings of my own players are and if some of my B team guys may be better than projected.

Anyways i hope you enjoyed this and that i did not over step my bounds by saying my tactics, training and other strategies that i got from other posters. I look forward to learning how to play the right way and becoming the FM player i knew i always could be.

This offseason I have been looking for players to bring into my youth set up. During the end of the season, I had been focusing on African players because they seem to be relatively cheap but now after asking around this forum and the reddit forum I have discovered that Eastern Europe and Scandinavia also have cheap youth for me to scout, sign and develop into my system! I just lost my best Striker Luc Castalgnos for 10 mil transfer fee, I hope to be able to keep my other players and I do not plan to add any big name strikers during the window.