[FM-15] Nothing More Useful than a Swiss Army Knife - The continuing game thread

Got the players entered into the Swiss expanded database...and I THINK it's going to work. Simming the first season at Neuchatel Xamax, as former pro player Erik Dorfjunge. Having so much fun with the lads that it's going to be really difficult to actually post updates. But I'm going to start putting up some pictures and updates. RIGHT after that first-round Swiss Cup game against Grasshoppers (yeah, the random draw is NOT working with us this season...)

Lowest valued but looking at the stat layout I should at least have a decent career.

Lowest valued but looking at the stat layout I should at least have a decent career.

He's so far solid if unremarkable on the left wing and the mostly-everyday starter - Neuchatel didn't have much to manage except for a 35-year-old left back. I'll put up some of our first results tonight.

He's so far solid if unremarkable on the left wing and the mostly-everyday starter - Neuchatel didn't have much to manage except for a 35-year-old left back. I'll put up some of our first results tonight.

Well I guess if I turn out anything like Milner then I will be happy.

Our first League match - I think we're going to be just fine...

Not sure how realistic it is to have the head coach for England singing the praises of a 15-year-old player in the Swiss lower leagues...but it's nice.

No, really - that's a fair draw for the first round of the Swiss Cup - I guess Grasshoppers got to eat something...

Oh, snap - guess the Grasshoppers got eaten by their puny little prey...

Our first International call-ups:

Our first long-term major injury:

And our first long-term major injury caused by international call-ups:

One of the great things about the Swiss Cup, the lower-level team gets the home advantage...to our advantage once again (2nd round)

3rd round - we get the defending champion...

We fought valiantly, and took it to extra time, but the Cup run ends...

Man of the match a goal and a call up, I will take it just seem to be a little inconsistent if anything hopefully that changes.

Decent start for the team, managed to start all games but got sent off in the last, oops. And called up for Belgium u21's.

Decent start for the team, managed to start all games but got sent off in the last, oops. And called up for Belgium u21's.

Dorfjunge's going to have some problems with Kemp, I can tell - almost every team talk, it's "doesn't appear to be listening"...

Man of the match a goal and a call up, I will take it just seem to be a little inconsistent if anything hopefully that changes.

as of late January, you've got the 2nd-highest player rating, if you hadn't been injured a couple times you'd be tearing things up...

and here's the current star ratings, although I'd imagine my assman's eye for talent's not the best - I'm wiping out the entire backroom after the end of the season.

I'm going to try to post the end-of-season stats later tonight, but the likelihood of this save continuing is very low. Every one of the now 16-year-olds are either declining to negotiate any contract renewals because they don't think the club can afford them, or they're each demanding 25%-30% of the total salary budget for the club. The club gave me $18,000/week in salary, and they all want $4,000+/wk. Since the club is apparently remaining semi-pro in the Challenge League and has been undergoing periodic attempts at a change in ownership, I just don't see the squad remaining together over the summer, and I don't want to do a "Dorfjunge stays in a low-profile job while all his former players go to Man Utd and sit on the bench" save.

Apparently, having a player on a 4-year youth contract means nothing - clubs can come in and walk off with your players in less than one year because the player won't negotiate for a standard contract because he apparently knows the club can't afford him...so...so long, Chapuisat. Enjoy Ajax ruining your career...

Too bad on all that. Maybe you could continue this with updates on all the players' careers? Just a suggestion though, it is a lot of work.

Too bad on all that. Maybe you could continue this with updates on all the players' careers? Just a suggestion though, it is a lot of work.

Well, I don't want to be "that guy" that announces a sign-up, goes to all the work involved and then shuts it down/walks away after the first season. And I guess I'd be okay with updating everyone's career, although it's not what the original intent of the sign-up was. Last year's "Baker's Dozen" was supposed to follow the players as they developed and moved on, and then as it turned out, virtually all the players stayed with Stirling Albion to win the SPL and Champions. I just feel like in FM15 players are greedy and disloyal and have no respect for their elders.

If I get some actual feedback from at least half the people who signed up for this, and they periodically check back in, I'll keep it running, because I've never managed in Switzerland before and aside from the lack of money and the penny-pinching chairman, I'm enjoying the save. I'll post up some pics and comment further later.

So, yeah, we won this thing, going away start to finish:

The board shows its appreciation at the promotion by giving us virtually no increase in wage or transfer budget, although their expectation is that we will win promotion from the Challenge League next season.

Hurst-May and Andelkovich take 1,2 in the highest player ratings for the season:

Dorfjunge renews his contract, and then a few weeks later the new board extends it to a two-year contract.

The league End of Season stats/results

9 of the top 10 in Average Rating (have you ever seen that before?)

More stats...because stats are nice, right?

Team end-of-season stats - everyone had a nice solid year, despite some nagging injuries.

New chairman takes over - doesn't offer any fiduciary assistance to keep the team together.

Chapuisat goes to Ajax - the $750,000 compensation goes nowhere near our transfer or wage budget, just into Stinky McChairman's pockets.

And forgive me if I go on a rant here...you'll note that Chapuisat's getting $140/wk at Ajax (only $100 more a week that we were paying), but his agent refused to talk to me because we couldn't afford him. Um, yeah, we had $10,000+/week to play with, FM15 is a piece of doodoo. I'm tired of being locked out by agents and being poached by larger teams when I haven't had a player on contract for a full year and trying to hire staff who apply for one position and then demand a position that's not open and when you try to steer them back to the open position, they storm off and refuse to talk to you.

FORTUNATELY, 6 players have signed 3-year pre-contract deals for when they turn 17: Kemp, Muff, Hurst-May, Jackson, Mulrooney, and Skripchenko. Balmont and Ginsberg are still actively negotiating. Andelkovic...went to Sion in the Swiss Super League. And Couteau's agent won't talk to me, which is a bad sign once again.

Fan's Player of the Year announced:

Best Eleven for the season:

Good to see that David will be remaining with the team, and I am reading this, I just don't comment much.

Yay we won!

Of course my guy decides to defect!

If this is continuing it would be grand to see what happens with his career - but I appreciate that it can be a lot of effort to keep these things updated.

Holy crap, I forgot all about Hakan Kerimoglu, the orphaned Turk. I put him in the database and then never checked to see where he went...

he's playing for Basel in the youth squad:

started out at Eschen/Mauren, runner's up in the Liechtensteiner Cup:

Looks to have potential, wonder if Basel will sell him to me?

strange thing, I saw on one of his profile screens that he had "retired from international football"...at 16...before he'd even played a game.

It looks like Hakan has declined slightly in Dribbling, Technique, Acceleration and Balance (-1) and enourmously in Off the Ball (-6). You may have better chances getting him on loan than buying him, his value is 68K and his salary 650p/w.

He had a decent first season but nothing spectacular. I don't expect much of him due to balanced personality, those guys are always complaining about training.

BTW, you should always sign your most talented youngsters to pro deals asap, especially in cases like yours- they were by far better than the rest of your squad and played first team football all season.

It looks like Hakan has declined slightly in Dribbling, Technique, Acceleration and Balance (-1) and enourmously in Off the Ball (-6).

How can you tell that from the screen shot?

You may have better chances getting him on loan than buying him, his value is 68K and his salary 650p/w.

He had a decent first season but nothing spectacular. I don't expect much of him due to balanced personality, those guys are always complaining about training.

BTW, you should always sign your most talented youngsters to pro deals asap, especially in cases like yours- they were by far better than the rest of your squad and played first team football all season.

Well, in my defense, their wasn't much of a salary budget, I was paying the 35 y.o. veteran right back almost 20% of the total budget and no one else wanted him. The one time I tried to talk to an agent about signing them to a senior contract, the agent's opening ask was more than the remaining budget. No way was I going to get all 11 under contract.

How can you tell that from the screen shot?

Didn't we choose a couple of technical, mental and physical attributes at sign-up? One at 17 and other at 14?

Didn't we choose a couple of technical, mental and physical attributes at sign-up? One at 17 and other at 14?

Oh, yeah, but I think the game "adjusts" the database starting numbers depending on starting CA/PA and then there would be any development over the first year.

Well...I may just retire as a coach and run an "unguided" save. The DoF isn't signing any players or negotiating any contracts, the scouts can't find anyone I can afford (even with no scouting restrictions in Europe), I had contracts extended to most of the lads and yet now Balmont and Couteau have left for Tottenham and Everton. The board wants me to win the Challenge League with 1 star players, and they won't even let me pay my coaches $1,000/wk when even the regional-level coaches want $2,000+.

After Balmont is named team captain and leaves for Everton a couple days later, Dorfjunge resigns in disgust and goes on a 30-day cruise. Upon his return to the real world, Chapuisat suffers a 5-week hernia at Ajax (which is the worst kind of hernia, am-I-right?), Andelkovic debuts at FC Sion, Balmont wants to join the trend and gets himself a 5-week hernia at Everton, Jake Mulrooney takes off to Young Boys (Neuchatel is making KILLER transfer income here, too bad they can't find a player to spend it on...), Skripchenko is feeling unloved so he takes off the Young Boys to join Mulrooney, Steven Kemp decides to tear a hamstring so he won't be any use to anyone for at least 3 months, Andrew Jackson takes off the St. Gallen, Andelkovic gets himself some 5-month knee tendonitis, Joe Hurst-sMay opens a letter from Andelkovic and suffers infectious knee tendonitis, so he's out 5 months, too. Vincent Muff goes to Grasshoppers...and Ginsberg, sensing a trend developing, chats with his agent and gets a contract with Grasshoppers, too. So, broken-down Steven Kemp is now the only member of the group still at Neuchatel. $7.12 million in transfer fees received by Neuchatel, and they now have a team of Kemp and the Nobodies to ride right back down into relegation.

Most amusingly, their new coach, Gianluca Zambrotta, is making 3x what they were paying Dorfjunge, and he won't be able to save them from relegation...I hope.

Player of the season wasn't expecting that at all. Unguided will be interesting if it's your only option then I am all for it.

Well...I may just retire as a coach and run an "unguided" save. The DoF isn't signing any players or negotiating any contracts, the scouts can't find anyone I can afford (even with no scouting restrictions in Europe), I had contracts extended to most of the lads and yet now Balmont and Couteau have left for Tottenham and Everton. The board wants me to win the Challenge League with 1 star players, and they won't even let me pay my coaches $1,000/wk when even the regional-level coaches want $2,000+.

After Balmont is named team captain and leaves for Everton a couple days later, Dorfjunge resigns in disgust and goes on a 30-day cruise. Upon his return to the real world, Chapuisat suffers a 5-week hernia at Ajax (which is the worst kind of hernia, am-I-right?), Andelkovic debuts at FC Sion, Balmont wants to join the trend and gets himself a 5-week hernia at Everton, Jake Mulrooney takes off to Young Boys (Neuchatel is making KILLER transfer income here, too bad they can't find a player to spend it on...), Skripchenko is feeling unloved so he takes off the Young Boys to join Mulrooney, Steven Kemp decides to tear a hamstring so he won't be any use to anyone for at least 3 months, Andrew Jackson takes off the St. Gallen, Andelkovic gets himself some 5-month knee tendonitis, Joe Hurst-sMay opens a letter from Andelkovic and suffers infectious knee tendonitis, so he's out 5 months, too. Vincent Muff goes to Grasshoppers...and Ginsberg, sensing a trend developing, chats with his agent and gets a contract with Grasshoppers, too. So, broken-down Steven Kemp is now the only member of the group still at Neuchatel. $7.12 million in transfer fees received by Neuchatel, and they now have a team of Kemp and the Nobodies to ride right back down into relegation.

Most amusingly, their new coach, Gianluca Zambrotta, is making 3x what they were paying Dorfjunge, and he won't be able to save them from relegation...I hope.

if you want to do a guided save the just give them a contract till the end of there career

Another Dead Post...

Another Dead Post...

after 3 months you drop by to criticize? The reason why I don't like running sign-ups is that when I do take the time to run them, no one ever checks back in to comment. I posted updates for 3 weeks, and this is your first comment on the sign-up results.

The other problem is the concept for the sign-up went out the window when nearly the entire Neuchatel team split after the first season so following the team was futile, and the players with a second nationality declared for their non-Swiss nationality. It ceased to be a "Swiss champions" sign-up and became just another "create super-potential players and turn them loose on Europe" sign-up. The experiment failed when the created players chose not to be part of the Swiss national system, and it's a hassle to copy/paste all those links and have only 2-3 people bother to drop in and comment/encourage the continuation of the project.

after 3 months you drop by to criticize? The reason why I don't like running sign-ups is that when I do take the time to run them, no one ever checks back in to comment. I posted updates for 3 weeks, and this is your first comment on the sign-up results.

The other problem is the concept for the sign-up went out the window when nearly the entire Neuchatel team split after the first season so following the team was futile, and the players with a second nationality declared for their non-Swiss nationality. It ceased to be a "Swiss champions" sign-up and became just another "create super-potential players and turn them loose on Europe" sign-up. The experiment failed when the created players chose not to be part of the Swiss national system, and it's a hassle to copy/paste all those links and have only 2-3 people bother to drop in and comment/encourage the continuation of the project.