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LLM Belgium - FCV Dender - YDWAWK


LilSaint

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FCV Dender bringing the glory back

Welcome to my Dender save thread. I hope you enjoy reading.

Should you have any questions or remarks, feel free to hit the reply to this thread button.

This being my first LLM adventure, I’d appreciate any constructive criticism.

The club:

FCV Dender

The club in its current form was born in 2005, out of a fusion between Denderleeuw & Denderhoutem. Since the fusion in 2005 they’ve climbed up from the third division to Belgium’s first division where they remained for two years under the reign of Johan Boskamp.

The following years they’ve been struggling and were once again relegated to second & currently to third division. When taking over the board will expect you to get promoted again.

The idea:

To give myself a real challenge I’ve vowed to not bringing in any new players. I want to aim to bring Dender back to the first division & eventually win it, by only using the own youth & what the club provides me with.

The reality:

Thus far, this is proving to be quite the task. As I’ve never managed lower leagues before, I’m struggling to get the finances sorted out. We’re paying entirely too many high wages, for both players & staff. I’ve tried offloading some players, but no one seems to be interested in signing them, bar one who's leaving on a free transfer. Shame I didn't get a transfer fee for him, but at least I won't have to worry about his high wages anymore.

I’m currently in January, with most contracts expiring after this season so I’m in danger of losing some key players.

I’ve reduced the staff to the absolute minimum, but am still not quite there yet.

As far as players are concerned, this really is going to be a longterm effort. I’m lacking any good midfield players, and there’s no one to play right in midfield. Retraining heavily atm. We've got a couple of decent defenders that I was pleased about at first, but we're still conceding too many goals (feels like it anyway, it doens't seem to be so dramatic when looking at the league table, comparing to other clubs)

The youth at this point isn’t much to look at, but there’s one promising striker & one promising goalie. They’ll be getting first team experience for sure.

Upgrading the youth facilities is not possible yet due to poor finances, so it will be some time before any good or even decent youth comes through I fear. Hopefully through promotion I can secure the funds necessary to invest here.

Season #1

As said above, the board expect you to breeze through the league & secure promotion. This isn’t how the season started off for me. At all. A very poor start saw us struggling to retain a 9th position in October & knocked out of the cup in the second game.

An impressive turn around & string of good results has managed to get us to a joint second place in January though, one point behind the leaders. So far my hopes are high for the future.

I’ll be providing updates per season from now on. As I’m unsure whether it’s encouraged to post screens in this part of the forum, I’m refraining from it at this point. Please let me know if it’s common so I can upload them – or not.

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Challenges & LLM do not really mix, setting yourself a goal of concentrating on youth is a noble idea but in LLM a manager would not turn down the chance to sign a 20 goal a season striker because he's set a restriction to only have players from the academy.

If that's how you intend on playing your save then the challenges forum is what you're looking for.

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Thx for the advice Barside. I've actually started out with this idea in the challenges forum, but my idea of this 'challenge' doesn't fit in with any existing challenges (although ri's comes close) & creating a new challenge wouldn't spark enough interest other than my own.

Perhaps this'd be more suited for the stories section then?

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Stories might be the one then, I didn't know that personal challenges were not the done thing in the challenges forum.

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I’ve reduced the staff to the absolute minimum, but am still not quite there yet.

If I'm not mistaken, staff salaries come out of a separate salary budget, the chairman/board will let you know by cancelling any job offers to staff over their set limits (which are generally shown on the boardroom page, and also limited by the maximum salary you can offer them). If you cut your staff back, player development is going to take a hit that in your case could be detrimental to the completion of your proposal.

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Welcome to FMS LilSaint. You're welcome to post your adventure in here, providing you adhere to the house rules we have listed at the top of the main forum. If you write it, people will read. We have a range of different styles here, and you will fit in with your own.

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thx for the welcoming words gavrenwick!

If I'm not mistaken, staff salaries come out of a separate salary budget, the chairman/board will let you know by cancelling any job offers to staff over their set limits (which are generally shown on the boardroom page, and also limited by the maximum salary you can offer them). If you cut your staff back, player development is going to take a hit that in your case could be detrimental to the completion of your proposal.

By cutting back on the staff I ment I've sacked my AssMan & hired a cheaper one (with better attributes), sacked the scouting staff as I'm not going to bring in any new players anyway & sacked the DoF

I'm keeping my coaches (in fact I've brought some in) to get the most out of training & player development :)

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end of season #1 update

good results since newyear made it possible to secure promotion 1 game before the last. Since January we've won 11, drew 2 and lost 2 games. The game that won us promotion was a 2-0 win in front of our own fans, with 2 goals of our best attacking player: left winger Yanis Papassarantis, who's given the most assists in the league (12) and been our top scorer (12). We've conceded the fewest goals in the league, but we've not scored a great deal either (7 of those post-NYE wins finished 1-0). An area of improvement for next year, although I'm happy we have a solid defense to build from.

The finances remain the big point of attention, i've managed to get rid of a couple of high-earners but unfortunately they were all picked up on free transfers. They'll only be leaving when all my other players contracts finish too, so I fear I won't be able to offer them new contracts. Major worries here.

The youth intake this year was actually better than I'd expected. A couple of these youngsters went straight to the first team:

Nathan Van Den Bossche (15) S/AMR; 4star potential. I've already given him a little match experience: in 4 games he scored 1 and gave 1 assist. Not half bad for a 15yo, since we were in the midst of battling for promotion.

Ilias Yildirim (15) LB/CB; 4 star potential. Given him some first team experience too, but he's been a little unlucky (got sent off once & scored 1 own goal) I guess his nerves got to him. 4 games got him an average rating of 6.68, 3 yellow cards & 1 red.

the rest of the youth intake were between 2 star & 3,5 star potential. Most of them have 15 or above determination, so I hope they can live up to their potential. God knows I'll be needing them next year.

Plans for next season: Avoid relegation, hoping to keep my key players contracted, upgrade youth facilities & bring in some extra coaches. We only have 2 atm (maximum allowed by board) so training is below par. Unlikely to get everything done so youth facilities might get set back another year ;(

Edit: as hoped, promotion solved the dire financial situation. The wage budget was increased to 12k, of which I'm only using 4k at the moment. Players with too high a wage for their resp. abilities were let go, key players all signed new contracts. I sat down with them & they all agreed to signing new deals on less wage. Top blokes. Still no funds to improve the training/youth facilities, but if all goes well, i should be able to do so soon.

I thought the board would expect me to avoid relegation now that we've been promoted to second tier, but they expect a respectable position mid-way the table.. This is going to be a tough year

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Whilst leaning backwards on my chair, I aim the sheet I'd previously turned into a little ball towards the bin.

It circles the edge of the bin before eventually falling in. I smile, as it seems symbolical to our season and my own carreer at the club. This years season expectations are now off the table, literally. Freshly promoted, I'd been asked to avoid relegation and if it was at all possible, aim for mid-table.

The door swings open & the cold creeps in. It's another one of those rainy cold October nights. André Van Roy, or Dré as he insists I call him, steps into the office. His warm personality makes you forget about the cold outside. "Coach", he says, "Great job again today. Looks like we're heading for another unforgettable season. If you keep this up we're going to have some unexpected costs."

"Oh?" I ask him, uncertain what our chairman is getting at.

The nervous look on his face quickly makes way for a cheeky grin "If you keep this up, we're going to have to build you a statue in front of the stadium old chap"

We both laugh as he walks out again "See you tomorrow. No need to work double overtime again at the office tonight"

I take a last glance at the lineup at the chalkboard. All those arrows and x's are working out decently I think to myself.

One last look at the league table. October 11th, 2013. Second division, Belgium, first place: FCV Dender EH. I turn off the desk light & head home, into the night.

Lots to be done tomorrow.

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