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iacovone - So close, some nice signings though which should get you promoted.

IOA - Gutted for you mate. Are you planning on actively looking to sell all of your assets and rebuilding your finances based on that income, or will you keep some around to help your promotion push?

Mooping - Well, that was quick. Finances not too terrible yet either, which will help a lot in consolidating your top league status.

Meanwhile, we've signed another Cameroonian player, partly based on his name and partly because he's actually a really good (albeit old) centreback.

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Machico Season 10 - 2024-25 - October Update

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Ok so after the heartbreak of last year and a flurry of new faces in the summer I was confident of attacking the promotion spots. Unfortunately our tried and tested tactic just wasn't clicking so after the Leixoes defeat I built a completely new version of a 4-4-2. We still didn't exactly string together a series of great results but that 6-0 win over Penafiel gives me great hope that we will eventually kick into gear.

You'll also notice that we've actually done well in the Taca da Liga for the first time! We lost the first leg of the first knockout stage to top flight Arouca 2-1 but we're still just about in it.

Star men in the opening period are Jucemir Decio, Jose Pedro and Alfredo Henriques. The latter has blitzed it and kept the iconic Pedro Jesus out of the team and I think he could return even better figures than the 27 goals, 17 assists Jesus did last year.

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Not a disastrous start, just a bit slow. We survived a mini player revolt as well, so that's good :D. Onwards into the busiest months of the season where hopefully we'll gel and string together a run to push us into promotion contention!

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Not really sure what we've done to warrant this award except the cup run maybe? Always seem to win these awards, the press love me/us it seems even though I always Sir Alex it up and send my assistant to pressers. Whatever he's saying in them is going down a treat it seems!

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He's been our most important player aside from Vincent Jardin in the last season or so, a quality CAM but considering I paid about 750K for him so to get 6.75M for him is a massive profit that I couldn't turn down especially as our finances still aren't amazing. The most amazing part of it is that he was on 9K a week for us, Guangzhou have agreed to pay him 59K!!!! 50 THOUSAND more than what we were paying him ffs :D

Free agent Bram de Gruyter joins as his replacement, pretty decent business for a free transfer if I do say so myself - scored on his debut as well!

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pretty poor run of games really, a few draws and a lot of losses. Highlight being the 4-2 win over FC Lorient where Jardin got a late hat-trick to seal the win. Continued our great record in penalty shoot-outs by getting past FC Lorient in the Couple de la Ligue 4th round before getting found out away to Lyon who had too much for us on the day. We also went out to PSG in the French Cup, was pretty much always going to be a case of going out if we got drawn against them, they're just way way too good, they're on course for an unbeaten season. Even though i've reached a point in the save where i've got a few good wins over bigger teams, got to a Cup final etc, we're still so so so far off topping them its unreal :D

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We're doing alright points wise. Relatively comfortable off relegation - of course a bad run of form could change that but we can usually beat teams worse than us and get draws here and there. There's no cup competitions to distract us this season either now so it would be a disaster for us to go down from here. I can't see us challenging for European places, pretty sure its 6th that gets the last Euro Cup place depending on cup winners, we don't have the depth to form a challenge really especially since we have quite a few injuries scattered around the squad.

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Machico Season 10 - 2024-25 - January Update

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I sensed it right - the change in tactic has really pushed us on and this period was a triumph for my tactical nouse :cool:

A ten-game unbeaten run propelled us back to the top of the table and although back-to-back defeats annoyed me (particularly away to Feirense) we did enough in the next games to hold onto top spot. The home loss to St Eulalia was so frustrating as we were specifically asked a question by the media in the tunnel about how easy we should find it (a classic clue ahead of an unavoidable defeat). Still, narrow but exciting wins over Farense and Trofense saw us head into the new year on top of the pile.

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The big-money summer signing of Abner looked like being a bit of a flop until this period. He's now comfortably one of our most important players but does have a tendency to pick up small injuries. Alfredo Henriques on the right flank has continued his fine form as well.

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Mooping's Infesta 2017/18 End of Season Update

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Upon promotion to the top flight I made a raft of new signings and was able to build, what I thought, was a solid squad made up entirely of permanent signings. I kept the board expectation low, but secret I was hoping for a safe mid table finish. It turns out the Premier League is much tougher than the lower leagues (who'd have thought it!). We struggled all year and finished third from bottom (though 6 points ahead of the relegation stragglers). I was a little disappointed as I thought our squad was a bit stronger than this, but nonetheless, merely avoiding relegation should be considered a success and hopefully we can build from here.

Key players:

Nobody stood out in a relegation scrap.

League Table

Competitions

Squad

Transfers

Finances

Aims for next season:

Continue to build a competitive team and move towards the middle of the pack.

Career Overview

Season    League                            Position    Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16   Portuguese National Championship  N/A         [b]Promoted via Promotion Playoff[/b]
2016/17   Portuguese Second League          4th         [b]Promoted[/b]
2017/18   Portuguese Premier League         16th        None

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Batman PetrolSpor 2023/24 Update

The Club

Manager Profile | Staff | Team Report | Information | Facilities | Finances | Transfers

With league position money now also coming in at the end of the season, our finances are sitting pretty at £16M in the black. We should be improving our training facilities for about £4.6M (the board promised this when we negotiated my new contract), while our youth recruitment is now well established.

Spor Toto Super League

Predicted finish: 8th

Actual Finish: 3rd

League Table | Graph | Fixtures 1 | Fixtures 2

An excellent season, characterized by consistency throughout as we never dropped below 6th place. Once again we conceded the least goals in the Super League, but for once we weren't among the lowest scorers.

Turkish Cup

Quarter Final

An okay performance in the cup even though the board expected us to go one stage further.

Europa League

First Knockout Round

I was delighted to qualify from the tough group we were drawn in. This saw us face AZ, who over two legs proved too strong for us, albeit only marginally.

Squad

Squad Screen 1 | Squad Screen 2

Most Appearances: Sertaç Fırat (41 starts, 1 sub)

Top Goalscorer: Yiğit Konuk (27)

Most Assists: Salih Uçan (12)

Highest Average Rating: Muhammet Cenk Güzel (7.19)

Konuk once again finished as our top scorer and now has over 100 league goals for the club. However, his form was streaky and his relatively low average exemplifies this. I'm also very pleased that an academy graduate had the highest average rating this year.

7.00 and above club: Harun Tekin, Mehmet Ademoglü, Muzaffer Emir, Kemal Efe, Jules Ebwelle and Mehmet Ocak.

Previous Season Goals

-Meet the board's goals domestically - Success - The league finish more than made up for the 'early' cup exit.

-Avoid embarrassment in Europe - Success

-Develop the club's infrastructure - Success

Next Season Goals

Qualify for Europe - The board have set our initial transfer budget at £8M, with a £184k p/w wage budget, I won't be spending most of that but it should still mean heightened expectations.

Continue developing the club's infrastructure - I'm hoping that with elections due this year, the new board will want to put some money into improving our youth facilities and junior coaching.

Continue developing a homegrown spine for the club - We have several of our own youths playing in the first team and I will be promoting some others to the first team next year to ensure that they continue to grow.

Career

|  Season  |    League    |  Position   |     Cup     |    Europe   |  Avg. Att.  | Season Tickets (Change) |        Achievements       |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  15/16   |    2L Red    |     7th     |   2nd Rnd   |             |     959     |        623   (+90)      |                           |
|  16/17   |    2L Red    |     1st     |   3rd Rnd   |             |    1053     |        645   (+22)      |   Promoted as Champions   |
|  17/18   |    PTT 1.    |     2nd     | Group Stage |             |    2671     |       1527  (+882)      |          Promoted         |
|  18/19   | Super League |    18th     |   4th Rnd   |             |    6698     |       4570 (+3043)      |         Relegated         |
|  19/20   |    PTT 1.    |     1st     |   3rd Rnd   |             |    4447     |       3934  (-636)      |   Promoted as Champions   |
|  20/21   | Super League |    10th     |   4th Rnd   |             |    7545     |       6640 (+2706)      |                           |
|  21/22   | Super League |     7th     |   4th Rnd   |             |    7559     |       6741  (+101)      |                           |
|  22/23   | Super League |     8th     |   Winners   |             |    7807     |       6890  (+149)      |   European Qualification  |
|  23/24   | Super League |     3rd     |  Qtr Final  |  EL 1st KO  |    8095     |       7104  (+214)      |                           |

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Machico Season 10 - 2024-25 - April Update

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Fourteen more matches were played and we maintained our consistency by and large. The defeat to Chaves was disappointing but not wholly surprising - we were due one. The defeat at Guimaraes B was nothing short of a disgrace though. Somehow they've put 7 goals past us this season.

Despite conceding 40 goals in 27 games by this point, we went on a great run and kept four clean sheets in our next nine games - impressive for this level of football. Eight conceded in nine gave us a solid platform and we really hit our straps by the Santa Clara game, leaving us nicely on top of the pile three points ahead of Chaves.

Jose Pedro was probably the star man in this period, contributing a nine goals to the cause.

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So then, 10 games to go and we lead the lot. But we've been here before and bottled it. We've avoided any major injuries so far so I can't turn to that for excuses - it's all about holding our nerve.

Our toughest remaining games are Belenenses at home, Beira-Mar away and St Eulalia away but they're all tough games from here!

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PaulHartman71 - Great transfer business there, how are the finances looking?

iacovone - Good to see you back at the top of the table and I'm sure you'll win the league this season!

Mooping - I don't really understand the Portuguese league but you're in your third season and you're in the top flight and didn’t get relegated! I'd say that was a very successful season!

Romanista1994 - Another successful season there, you're well on your way to becoming a "Big" club, it also seems Galatasaray isn’t as dominate in your game as mine, which should help!

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Started this run of games terribly with 2 losses including a horrific display against ESTAC Troyes which at one point saw us 6-0 down. Since then we've done pretty well, won 3 games in a row, drew another 2 and won another one. Bram de Gruyter has looked a great buy as he's got a lot of goals and assists so far.

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We're only 6 points off 6th and the Euro Cup place that would give us but with 6 games left its very unlikely that will happen especially since we still have to play Monaco, Lille and PSG

IOA - Finances are looking okay. They'd look a lot worse if we hadn't sold Chikhaoui. We haven't spent that much really but our wage bill is quite high, but by the end of the season when we get the prize and sponsorship money it should look quite alright. I don't see myself getting a very big transfer budget again next season though.

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Season 10 Preseason Report

Summer Transfer Window

Transfers

Some notable transfers out this year. I sold our starting rightback for £400k as he was 31 and I had agreed a transfer for a much younger and better replacement. His backup also left for £155k because his development was stalling. The biggest trasfer though was that of Barış Yavuz, who rejoined Galatasaray for £2.5M (spread over 4 years) after I signed him from them for £36k three years ago. Club icon Sebahattin Usta sadly also left the club, I was hoping he'd retire with us.

Friendly Results

Friendlies

Like last year we beat all of the lower league teams, while this year we made a trip to Manchester, once again not embarassing ourselves against much stronger opponents.

Euro Cup

Qualifying Rounds

In the third round we were up against CSKA Sofia and we beat them 1-0 at home before destroying them 4-0 in the away game. Next up we were drawn against Armenian side Shirak, who were duly dispatched with a 4-0 aggregate score. This saw us qualify for the group stage where we had a tough draw once again, facing Schalke, Metalist and FC København.

Current First Eleven

GK: Hakan Bülbül - Our goalkeeper is one of the best in Turkey and he has now gotten his first international cap. Luckily, I was able to remove any release clauses from his new contract, so he will stay with us for the foreseeable future.

RB: Werner Markovic - A new German rightback, signed on a Bosman from Bayern where he had fallen out of favour. He instantly becomes one of our best players and still has room for growth.

CB: Galip Köse - An academy graduate who has regularly featured for us over the past couple of years and will hopefully continue to grow in a more prominent role in the first team.

CB: Atınç Nukan - The captain of the team.

LB: Sertaç Fırat - Fırat is another who saw a release clause removed from his contract.

DM: Abdurrahman Aksu - Our first good youth product continues to feature in the team, although his backup has now reached a similar level of ability.

RM: Kemal Efe - He continues to be a fixture on the right flank.

CM: Salih Uçan - Uçan has had the best two seasons of his career in Batman.

CM: Jules Ebwelle - No longer our lone superstar, not because of his own decline, but rather because of the growth in other players.

LM: Muhammet Cenk Güzel - Another youth player, who wouldn't be a starter normally, but has been so impressive over the past two years that leaving him out would be criminal.

ST: Yiğit Konuk - The vice captain had the best season of his career in terms of goalscoring last year, hopefully he can continue to hit that sort of form as he hits his prime.

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iacovone - Finally! Congrats mate, you've deserved it!

Romanista1994 - That RB is awesome and his wage demands are nothing! You have a great, young balanced team mate, congrats!

Is anyone else spending a ridiculous amount on their youth setup!?

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iacovone - Finally! Congrats mate, you've deserved it!

Romanista1994 - That RB is awesome and his wage demands are nothing! You have a great, young balanced team mate, congrats!

Is anyone else spending a ridiculous amount on their youth setup!?

Yeah, I was pretty surprised that Markovic wanted so little in wages, that's really what made me sign him even before all areas of his game had been scouted and I probably would have missed out on him otherwise as Werder Bremen (iirc) had started sniffing around for him.

I'm spending £500k per month on the youth setup now, btw, with excellent junior coaching and well established youth recruitment. What's yours at?

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AD Machico | Season 10 -- 2024-25

Segunda Liga

Fourth season in the second tier and after last season's narrow miss it was all about bouncing back. I was aiming for the title and I'm delighted to say that's what we ended up with!

Consistency was the name of the game and even though we had a bit of a set-back around early December we kept rebounding impressively and stringing together brilliant runs in the league. We did almost blow the title though, losing two of our last three games but a final day win was enough to leapfrog Chaves as they lost at Sporting B. Needless to say, everyone was delighted.

In terms of the cups, this was our best year thus far, making it to the Taca da Liga second round and Taca de Portugal fourth round. We'll have more success in these one day.

High point: Beating Belenenses 3-1 on the road

Low point: 4-1 loss at Guimaraes B

Squad

I'm going to list the whole squad below, with notes as special mentions by each player.

Manuel Martins (GK)

****

Sidivan (DR)

Tiago Rodrigues (DR/DM/MC)

--

Diogo Pereira (DC)

Goulielmos Sarganis (DC)

Jucemar Decio (DC/DM/MC)

--

Jose Dias (DL)

Goncalves (DLC/ML)

****

Pedro Jesus (M/AMRC)

Alfredo Henriques (M/AMRC) | Most assists award | Player of the season | Most MOTM awards | Fans' POTY |

--

Samba Diallo (DM/MC)

Fortunato Bestilo (DM/MC)

Vitor (MC)

Rafael Matos (DM/M/AMC)

--

Antonio (M/AML)

****

Jose Pedro (AML/ST) | League goals record |

Oliver Sarkic (AMC/ST)

Pedro Figueira (AMR/ST)

Abner (ST)

****

Three players made the Team of the Year

Squad Stats (sorted by Ave Rating)

Admin

First up we had our wage budget more than doubled from around £25k per week to £58k per week, immediately after sealing promotion. We also had to improve our stadium to comply with league regulations so in the interim (9 months) we'll be sharing Maritimo's stadium.

I was then informed that our facilities had been downgraded but at least we can now send scouts around the globe! Time to really invest in our scouting department, which will be supplemented by the increase in sponsorship money.

We also sold 431 shirts this year...

Our attendances dipped this year (down to 1,009 from 1,155)

I won manager of the year again

We won the Fair Play award

Best XI

All-time Best XI

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20 games in and we're in first place with Erzurum although it's a close race as we're currently tied in points. Josep has exploded and leads the league in goals. Sitting in 3rd in the Turkish Cup group stage, facing a League 2 side and likely needing to make up some goal differential to advance.

Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to let my young Israeli striker sit as I can't justify moving any of my foreign players to provide a spot for him at this point. Should be interesting to see how he reacts to being stuck with the U21 team for half a season.

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Good stuff iacovone, winning the league is always the best way to get promoted!

Meanwhile, in my own save we're losing money at an unprecedented rate and the finances are now down to £6.5M after a £1M loss last month. The huge youth setup expenditure (£504k per month) is certainly contributing to that, as is our relatively poor form which saw us only pick up draws and two losses in the month of October. I guess at least we won't be facing an additional tax bill next year.

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I must have missed this Romanista - was there a specific moment the youth academy costs rocketed? Or was it just after improvements to the facilities? That's a huge amount of cash a month! We're spending £3,908 a season on ours :D. Probably why I've not a single player above 1.5 star potential through in 9 intakes!

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I must have missed this Romanista - was there a specific moment the youth academy costs rocketed? Or was it just after improvements to the facilities? That's a huge amount of cash a month! We're spending £3,908 a season on ours :D. Probably why I've not a single player above 1.5 star potential through in 9 intakes!

Yeah, it's the upgrades to junior coaching and youth recruitment. Increasing the junior coaching to 'excellent' this season basically doubled our expenditure. I think I'll hold off asking for more upgrades even if they become available until we have a lot more income from stable sources, especially since we're already producing players with good, leading or star Super League potential year on year (mainly because we're the biggest club in a pretty big area).

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That sounds sensible to me.

As for us, I think sentiment is getting the better of me. I'm considering avoiding singing a French winger eminently better than Alfredo Henriques, purely because Henriques stole the show last year. I feel like it'd be so harsh to just dump him on the bench after he led us to promotion.

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My wide-men play very different roles otherwise I'd do that (right side is a Winger(A), left is Wide Playmaker(S)). Decided to stick with what I know and loan in a back-up (as our last back-up Pedro Jesus, the hero from two seasons back, got pissed off and left us on a free in the summer). There's a big old merry-go-round occurring at Machico at the moment and I'm ruing the day I agreed to add a 'match highest earner' clause in the contract of two of my best players :(

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Well, problem solved with fitting Golzan as I sent my French goalkeeper back to France to play on loan with a Ligue 2 side. He's quite happy to go back to France and no one is complaining on the team. Guess I'll find out just how important he was to us. My goalkeeping coach thinks he has peaked as a good League 1 player so if that's the case, I'd need to find an upgrade if we move up anyway. He is still signed to us for 2 more seasons regardless, so playing in a higher level league my increase his value.

Outgoing:

Romain Carre

Potential Replacements:

Serkan Kirintili - 35 year old keeper who has been our backup. Only allowed 1 goal in 3 games so far. Relishes big matches.

Fethi Mansiz - 19 year old we signed on a free during the offseason from Super League team Karabukspor. Probably our 3rd stringer still but I like him a lot.

Dogancan Demirci - 26 year old we signed from Super League side Kayseri Erciyesspor during the January window when I decided to move Carre. Held his own there in a few games, should be quite strong in this league. Pretty injury prone though.

I don't see any of these guys as a long term answer but they should get us through the year.

On the positive side, we finally got our board to agree to another youth facility upgrade.

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Batman PetrolSpor - January 2025 Mini Update

Competitions

This season hasn't gone that well so far, as we sit in 12th place currently after 15 games and are only 4 points above the relegation zone. We haven't been terrible, but we're simply drawing almost every game, which has also affected our income. We also exited the Europa Leage in the group stage (my laptop overheated while we were winning 1-0 in the final game against Metalist; a win would have seen us go through and we ended up drawing when I replayed the game :mad:). We're currently doing reasonably well in the Turkish Cup, as we sit in first place in our group after three games, although we did draw the last game.

Hopefully we can find some kind of form over the next few months, as we really should be doing better in the league with the players we have.

Transfers

Out

The following two veterans should be leaving:

Shane Ferguson - I offered the left winger out for £15k because he was barely playing and we couldn't justify paying him £6k p/w to sit on the bench. Wigan immediately made an offer and he has already joined them.

Yaya Banana - Unfortunately his poor performances have outweighed his fantastic name and he has been offered out for £10k with nine teams making bids. This means another £6k will be taken off the wage bill should he leave.

In

I don't expect anyone to join us this tranfer window (although Nelson Delgado returned from his loan spell in November), but I did raid the Netherlands for these two players on Bosmans:

Veysel Baydemir - Should be a very good backup to Konuk, although he might be slightly inconsistent. Joins on £2k wages.

Özcan Arslan - An excellent centreback, who will become a starter as soon as he joins. This is the first time we're signing a regular in the Turkish national team, rather than developing the player towards making his first international appearance while at the club. He is also consistent and enjoys big matches and should therefore be able to perform very well and his resolute personality will make him an excellent tutor for our young centrebacks. My only worry is his slight injury proneness, but hopefully his performances will be worth the time he'll spend on the sidelines. He'll be paid £10k p/w.

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AD Machico | Pre-Season 2025-26 |

Primeira Liga

| Transfers[/url] |

We had our scouting range upgraded to worldwide but little time to use this increase in freedom. Still the freedom you're given by the rules in Portugal meant I could go for pretty much anyone and with our salary budget doubled, I had tons of room to manoeuvre. You'll also see in the transfers screenshot that a lot of our squad from last year left.

Everton (DL)

Bernardo Carlos (DR/MC)

Guilherme (DC)

Gustavo Hebling (DM/MC)

Cocada (M/AMLC)

Everton is an excellent left-back and replaced Jose Dias who asked to be allowed to leave for Guimaraes (a side who as yet have failed to muster the funds), while Bernardo Carlos brings a lot of experience and leadership to the squad. Guilherme will compete with Decio and Sarganis for a spot in the defence.

Hebling, likewise brings experience and depth to our midfield but it's Cocada I'm most excited about. I specifically went hunting for a wide playmaker and found this Brazilian prodigy. At just 20 he's got a big future ahead of him and although his physical attributes are poor, you don't really need to be quick or strong coming in off the left flank.

So overall I'm happy with the additions I've made. I'm still looking to bring in a striker and it looks as if it'll be Horacio Zubar but otherwise I've used all of the budget and will have to make do from here on in. The only positions we're short in are in goal (no decent back-up) and on the right wing (pray for Henriques' health)

Squad Numbers

Season Tickets Sold: unavailable due to temporary home

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Remember how PaulHartman said above that his player left for Guangzhou and got a contract on £50k p/w more than he was earning before? Well, I've just had something happen that blows that out of the water completely: Yaya Banana, who was getting £6k p/w when he was with us will now be earning £195k p/w! I guess they're expecting shirt sales to skyrocket, but wow. Here's a screenshot of him at his new club. :D

Edit: On another note, our performances didn't improve in early January, so I decided to sign Argentinian left winger Daniel López. He is 'driven' (with good professionalism as one of his media handling styles is 'reserved') and has some great attributes even though he's either footed. He joins with a £7.5M release clause and £8k p/w wages. López should add a lot of quality to our left flank, which we've been lacking a bit lately. His signing means that one of our two homegrown left wing prospects will have to go on loan, while the other will be his backup for now.

Edit 2: I like this López fella, he had a pretty solid debut. :D We desperately needed that, our last win in the league was all the way back in November.

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Remember how PaulHartman said above that his player left for Guangzhou and got a contract on £50k p/w more than he was earning before? Well, I've just had something happen that blows that out of the water completely: Yaya Banana, who was getting £6k p/w when he was with us will now be earning £195k p/w! I guess they're expecting shirt sales to skyrocket, but wow. Here's a screenshot of him at his new club. :D

WHAT! Hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha :D This is AMAZING.

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I'm spending £500k per month on the youth setup now, btw, with excellent junior coaching and well established youth recruitment. What's yours at?

I was spending that amount when I was in the top division but for some reason (good news) I am paying £305,000 a month, and like yourself it is bleeding me dry!

I have the following;

Good training facilities

Good youth facilities

Exceptional junior coaching

Above average youth recruitment

Remember how PaulHartman said above that his player left for Guangzhou and got a contract on £50k p/w more than he was earning before? Well, I've just had something happen that blows that out of the water completely: Yaya Banana, who was getting £6k p/w when he was with us will now be earning £195k p/w! I guess they're expecting shirt sales to skyrocket, but wow. Here's a

I think that Chinese club is really rich and desperate!

He was on 10k at my club!

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Great signing there too Romanist, really like the look of him.

Mr_Demus - afraid I can't help you there. LLR might be able to if he ever returns!

In Machico news, we sold 2625 season tickets in Maritimo's stadium! That's huge considering we only sold 216 last season. I've got a feeling they're just counting the Maritimo fans rather than ours but what the hell, we'll roll with it and hope it brings in some nice dollar :cool:

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Gaziosmanpaşaspor

(Season 14) - 2028/2029

PTT 1. League

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I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to go as smoothly and we only missed on beating the record of most points in the league by 2 points. Thoroughly deserved winners.

Transfers

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Transfers In - I had no money and therefore loaned in three players for nothing to add to the squad depth or XI depending on how my trusted youth were going to perform.

Transfers Out - Pretty much the first XI of last season wanted to leave, which included all the foreigners and a couple of Turks who had been with me for over 10 years, I made no fuss and sold them all, I could’ve got more money for some of them, however, there sneaky agents had made non-negotiable minimum release fee clauses which I couldn’t get around.

Squad

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Team Report

GK - Mutlu Akdeniz's first full season and he was superb, Fikret Kaya didn’t play all season due to the fitness and condition of Akdeniz.

DEF - I've had the same RB for nearly 10 years and my new LB got used to his role this season, further to this they were joined by Muhittin Toprak who has just played his international debut for Turkey.

MID - The most important positions in the team, and where I've had the most success throughout the game, and once again they did superb.

ST - See below and my youth sub striker was incredible with 12 games off the bench and 6 goals to his name!

Player of the SeasonIvan Re - Easy, 28 goals from 42 games and 7 assists, as a result of the goals he scored he broke the record for top goal scorer for Gaziosmanpasa.

The squad were superb, the first XI contained one foreigner, 3 academy products and the substitutes were predominately academy products and everyone played their part in a successful season.

Ziraat Turkish Cup

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It was all going well, until we get to January once again, which is when it gets ridiculously busy and it’s either the Cup or the League, and obviously the League always takes priority.

Finances

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After selling players worth £13,000,000 we've only just about got £500,000 in the bank, and the main reason for that is that we've just been paid for our end of season performance. My main issue at the moment is the amount of money I am paying towards the youth setup, which was £4,500,000 last season but the season before was £6,500,000 so I'm not sure how it’s gone down, although I'm not complaining.

Finally, I am only paying £48,500 a week on wages of which the top three earners are earning a combined of £20,000.

Next Season

Do not get relegated!

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IOA - Great job bouncing straight back up! Nice to see your finances sorting themselves out to some extent, the additional income from the Super League should also help in that regard. I saw you mention your youth, has your academy been producing some gems for you?

Meanwhile in Batman, my own youth intake came in and to say that I'm excited about it is an understatement: we got through three players with Super League star potential, two of whom are already rated at a full gold star in terms of ability. I guess the massive increase in investment in our youth setup paid off.

I'll be doing a post reviewing the performance of our academy over the past ten years, hopefully I'll get it up tomorrow. :thup:

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LLR is part Scottish? :cool:

Anyway, hello there. I'm going to join your intriguing challenge if that's cool with y'all :) I'm going to start in France, I've decided. So yeah, I'll start the game and holiday to the appropriate point before finding a team I want to manage (will probs settle for the first team I see tbf, but we'll see how it goes). And then I'll come back here with the appropriate information :thup:

e: Also, minor request - anyone got a link to a more comprehensive badge pack? I have every team in the top 2 divisions of just about every league in the game, but when it gets to things like Serie C, 3.Liga and Championnat National, there's a bunch of those ugly default badges that are not at all pretty to look at. Want to get rid of them, basically, for real badges.

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Machico Season 11 - 2025-26 - October Update

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Dreadful start to life in the top flight. We didn't score for the first three games, got an expected thumping at Porto before an unexpected thumping at Rio Ave. The two week break allowed my to bring in a new striker on loan (budget was so stretched I had to sell a left-back just so I had enough room to loan someone in) and he scored a dramatic late winner at home to Guimaraes.

Sadly this didn't kick us on as Braga destroyed us. A draw at Gil Vicente in the first leg of the Taca da Liga gives us hope there but we were cruelly beaten late on at Olhanense to compound a really poor start in the Primeira.

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John Tuijt came in on loan from AZ and finally got us scoring, thankfully. He'll be our main striker for the season, supplemented by Abner in the false nine role. Both have started nicely.

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Batman Five-Yearly Academy Review - 2025

Players that are currently at the club will receive a small individual write-up as well as the inclusion of a screenshot of their attributes, while players who are out on loan or have been sold will only be mentioned in passing if they are doing something impressive.

The PTT1 league is the 2nd tier in Turkey, while the Second league is the 3rd tier.

Class of 2017

Abdurrahman Aksu - The first youth player to actually make it into the first team. He's been a regular in the team, though he's now a bit behind our other starting midfielders in terms of ability.

Class of 2018

One player has played in the PTT1 league and got promoted with his team, but is now being loaned out to a Second league team, while another has been a regular at a Second league team.

Class of 2019

A couple of players from this intake are currently playing in the PTT1 league, while another is playing in the Second league after his team got relegated.

Class of 2020

Galip Köse - He's developed into a good centreback and still has some room to develop with potential to become a star Super League player.

Mehmet Ademoglü was sold to a PTT1 League team and we still have a right to 50% of his next transfer fee, while some others are being loaned out with a view to selling them.

Class of 2021

We have several players from this intake playing out on loan and I'll be looking to sell them when they come back. Others have left and are playing in the lower tiers of the Turkish league pyramid.

Class of 2022

Ali Taş - An excellent prospect, but also an awkward one. I still can't really fit him into my team. He's currently being retrained as a rightback, but even there he lacks a lot of the attributes required.

Akın Şenol - The young left winger suffers from competing with Cenk Güzel, who seems to perform much better despite having a lower ceiling. He was sent on loan in January in the hope that he would get some game time, but he has spent most of that time injured.

Muhammet Cenk Güzel - He has already left his mark on the team and has 4 goals and 6 assists to his name this season.

Class of 2023

Alper Saruhan - He's the type of defender that I really like. He came through with very good mental attributes for his age and has continued to develop them while also growing in other areas. He hovers between good and star Super League potential, but he should be a great option going forward regardless.

Erdinç Görgülü - Very nice to have a goalkeeper prospect through who can potentially be a backup to or replace Hakan Bülbül, I will need to give him some games next season and we'll see how he develops from there.

İsmail Kaya - Not the greatest in terms of potential, but he's developing at a rapid rate and he may well have a good career in the lower reaches of Turkish football if he continues on that path.

Class of 2024

Güven Şener - We seem to be loaded with centreback prospects. Şener has enormous potential, but he will need to work on a few areas of his game before I trust him to play for the first team.

İdris Çelen - The pick of the intake unfortunately has low professionalism and fell out with his tutor. He is being tutored again, this time I hope more successfully.

İbrahim Özdemir - He could very well become a starting central midfielder for us in the future. He has all the technical and physical tools for it, but some aspects of his mental game will have to be rounded out before he'll play regularly.

Bülent Yıldız - A decent midfield prospect, who will probably be sold on in a couple of years.

Egemen Doğruyol - Eccentric goalkeeper, can't see him making it for us because of Görgülü, but he should have a good career with a smaller team.

Deniz Akyüz - Pretty poor both mentally and technically, I'll do well to sell him on.

Class of 2025

Onto this year's intake then, perhaps the best of the lot, certainly the best since the class of 2022.

Tekin Bingöl - For his age he is fantastic both technically and physically. With a bit of work his mental attributes will also increase, so the only thing stopping him from becoming a star for us is the amount of players he'll be competing with. Star Super League potential, but fairly inconsistent.

Orhan Çiçek - Another with good physical and technical attributes, though he also has some nice foundations laid mentally. Unfortunately, he is inconsistent and doesn't enjoy big matches.

Aziz Gökhan Elik - Star Super League potential with a fairly professional personality is great, but once again he suffers from the amount of prospects we have in his position as well as being fairly inconsistent and not enjoying big games. He'll need a lot of work to develop to a good standard mentally, but with a good personality he should be alright in that regard.

Overall Assessment

The first five years (2015-20) we were obviously still growing as a club and many of the players that came through, while considered good prospects at the time, were never going to be good enough for us as we rose through the divisions.

Since then, we've developed a status as a reasonably settled Super League club and our investment in the youth side of things has increased exponentially. This, coupled with becoming the biggest club in a fairly large and populous region, has seen us get multiple intakes with prospects who could well make it to the first team.

Over the next five years, our reputation will hopefully continue to increase and we already have our youth and training facilities at a high level. I'll be looking to stabilize our finances rather than increasing investment in the youth department, because I'm confident that 'excellent' junior coaching and 'well established' youth recruitment are easily high enough to continue regularly producing players for our first team from within.

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Pau FC - Season 11: 2025/26 Ligue 1

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A decent end to the season including a fantastic 3-3 draw with PSG and an unbelievable 7-3 win against Lille - a few poor losses but overall a very good end to the season which lead to us finishing 10th.

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An improvement on last year which saw us finish in the dizzy heights of 10th - only 7 points off of Europe which is pretty good really. PSG though :D 1 loss all season and 129 goals/95 points ffs.

Transfers

The highlight of course being Chikouai's massive move to China - again this season I wasn't given a huge amount of money to spend so the majority of players that came in were on free transfers and cheap deals. Jardin the main signing, Danny Schreurs became a key part of our defence being a starting CB and Bram de Gruyter was an incredible replacement for the departing Chikouai in January.

Squad pt 1, Squad pt 2

Cesar Pavon had a good season getting 16 goals and 17 assists in 40 appearances. Bram de Gruyter was an amazing CAM replacement - signing in January and in just 15 games he got 6 assists and 12 goals. Vincent Jardin was again the star of the season and in his 38 appearances he got 29 goals and 17 assists - he would have been top scorer in the league if PSG didn't have such good strikers.

Finances

They're looking okay but still working on a shoestring budget as our wages are quite high. I wont have much transfer budget next season so it will be a struggle to progress further than what I achieved this year - but we have a youngish squad so it is doable.

Career Overview

Season     League     Position   French Cup   Coupe de la Ligue   Europe    Other
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2015/16    National   14th       8th Round     N/A                 N/A       N/A
2016/17    National   14th       9th Round     N/A                 N/A       N/A
2017/18    National    9th      10th Round     N/A                 N/A       N/A
2018/19    National    6th       9th Round     N/A                 N/A       N/A
2019/20    National    3rd       7th Round     N/A                 N/A       Promoted to Ligue 2! 
2020/21    Ligue 2    15th       9th Round     1st Round           N/A       N/A
2021/22    Ligue 2     9th       9th Round     1st Round           N/A       N/A
2022/23    Ligue 2     5th       8th Round     4th Round           N/A       N/A
2023/24    Ligue 2     2nd      10th Round     3rd Round           N/A       Promoted to Ligue 1!
2024/25    Ligue 1    16th       Finalists     Qtr Final           N/A       N/A 
2025/26    Ligue 1    10th       9th Round     Qtr Final           N/A       N/A 

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Pau FC - Youth Academy

Ahcene Ziane, 25, D/WBRL

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2017/18   National      31           4       0      0
2018/19   National      37           2       1      2
2019/20   National      33           5       0      0
2020/21   Ligue 2       37           1       0      0
2021/22   Ligue 2       39           2       0      2
2022/23   Ligue 2       40           4       0      1
2023/24   Ligue 2       43           8       0      2
2024/25   Ligue 1       42           3       0      1
2025/26   Ligue 1       17           0       0      0
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Total                  319          29       1      8    

International: 
Algeria U20: 4 caps, 1 goals

Summary: Did his cruciates quite early on in the season so only ended up playing 19 games - hopefully the injury wont have damaged him too much in the long term but he does have a younger replacement that took over from him for the rest of the season. He will miss all of pre-season this year as a result of that injury being so long.

Kevin Haller, 25, DC/DM/MC

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
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2017/18   National      12           1       0      0
2018/19   National      39           2       0      0
2019/20   National      26           1       1      1
2020/21   Ligue 2       35           0       1      1
2021/22   Ligue 2       36           0       0      0
2022/23   Ligue 2       36           1       1      1
2023/24   Ligue 2       37           1       1      0
2024/25   Ligue 1       46           1       2      1
2025/26   Ligue 1       38           0       1      0
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Total                  305           7      10      4    

Summary: A decent season for Haller - still seems to be improving but i'm still debating replacing him with someone better when I can afford to.

Abderrahmane Aichour, 23, DM/MC

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2017/18   National      1            0       0      0
2018/19   National     25            2       4      2
2019/20   National     36            2       0      0
2020/21   Ligue 2      32            3       6      1
2021/22   Ligue 2      40            3       0      0
2022/23   Ligue 2      39            3       7      3
2023/24   Ligue 2      41            6       4      2
2024/25   Ligue 1      39            4       5      0
2025/26   Ligue 1      35            1       2      0
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Total                 288           24      28      8    

International:
Algeria U20: 14 caps, 0 goals

Summary: A decent season for Aichour - he's facing more competition for his starting spot now but is doing well to hang onto it and has the potential to still improve considerably. Picked up an injury that ruled him out for a few months.

Karim Amroune, 24, DM/MC

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
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2017/18   National      2            0       0      0
2018/19   National      3            0       0      0
2019/20   National     18            1       3      1
2020/21   Ligue 2      25            1       2      1
2021/22   Ligue 2      29            3       1      0
2022/23   Ligue 2      45            4       0      0
2023/24   Ligue 2      34            5       0      1
2024/25   Ligue 1      27            2       3      1
2025/26   Ligue 1      17            1       1      0
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Total                 200           17      10      4    

International:
Algeria U20: 4 Caps, 0 Goals

Summary: Got less games this year with just 17 games - he would've got even less if Aichour hadn't picked up an injury.

Vincent Jardin, 22, AMLC/ST

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2018/19   National      18           0       4      4
2019/20   National      37           7      31      7
2020/21   Ligue 2       42          10      25      4
2024/25   Ligue 1       45          16      27      3   *ON LOAN FROM OLYMPIAKOS*
2025/26   Ligue 1       38          17      29      5
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Total                  180          50     116     19    

International:
France U21: 1 Cap, 1 Goal

Summary: An even better season than last year in less games he got more assists and more goals.

Gerard Vincent, DRC/DM, 22

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Season    Division   Appearances  Assists  Goals   MOTM  
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2018/19   National      4            0       0      0
2019/20   National     21            3       1      1
2020/21   Ligue 2       7            0       0      0
2021/22   Ligue 2       2            0       0      0
2022/23   Ligue 2       3            0       0      0
2023/24   Ligue 2      15            0       0      0
2024/25   Ligue 1      10            0       0      0
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Total                  62            3       1      1    

Summary: He spent the season on loan at Ligue 2 side ES Wasquehal where he did okay. I don't think he's ready for Ligue 1 as anything apart from emergency cover. Could do with another loan next season.

Others

  • Patrick Yidikes spent the season on loan at Creteil of the French National. He did alright. He'll need another loan next season to progress more - i'm hoping a Ligue 2 side might take him this time but may well be in the National again. It will probably be 2-3 seasons more on loan before he has a chance of making it depending on how he develops.

Alumni

  • Sami Denis is still at Genets Anglet who are still in the CFA

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Welcome aboard JDownie, can't remember seeing you in here before. May have to edit your 'location' :eek:

Good luck!

Over in Machico, my word are we struggling. Been on the receiving end of three batterings so far :(

Thank you kindly :)

I managed to holiday through the whole season last night and when it came to the reset date, I found that I was always just getting the same four teams promoted (I can't remember who they were but among them was Grenoble and Mulhouse and the other two teams weren't attractive prospects either tbh). So I reloaded and reloaded but still, same four teams. I think the French league decides who is getting promoted before the league reset date - if you look at CFA league winners they are decided in May and it seems that those league winners are always the teams to get promoted where possible, rather annoyingly. So I started afresh and am reloading just prior to the CFA league winners being decided. So far I've only done it twice and both times it produced the exact same four teams (Grenoble, Sedan, Pontivy, Mulhouse). Of those I'd opt for Sedan but really I'd rather someone else. Gonna try a few more reloads and hopefully it starts giving me different teams :lol:

e: or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Never done this type of save before on any FM, I'm rather ashamed to say. It's new territory for me :D

Yeah, I just get the same four teams... frustrating. Having looked at reputations I think I'll go for Pontivy as they're the 'worst' of the four teams by far and also predicted last (probs cos they're the worst, duhh). Only annoying thing is they don't have their badge etc but I can do that myself. Not going to be able to do it tonight til after work but will get round to it and will start my save at some point this weekend :)

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pretty random that you're getting Pontivy so much - 11 years into my save in France and not seen them once. at first I thought I was just forgetting them because you'd used an abbreviated version like with Sedan but just checked and have definitely never seen or even heard of them :D

CS Sedan have been pretty cool in my save game they started the thing off as newly promoted into the National like me and have been battling with them the whole time up to Ligue 2 and now Ligue 1 as well - they're sort of like the Gary Oak of my save game except i'm doing better :cool:

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Sedan seem a good aide but they were in Ligue 2 not long ago so I'm not sure if that would be 'too easy' (I know the challenge is actually really difficult and an initial kickstart in rep won't matter after 2/3 years) and I'd rather have the worst team possible tbh :D

I cant find Pontivy badges online anywhere that are any use to me so I might not use them afterall - I am pretty anal about having the correct badge :lol:

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