[FM17] Amsterdamsche Football Club: We Aim To Play Well Enough

MarcxD · January 13, 2017

Update 25: AFC Season 2029-2030

After last year's amazing season we had to try and perform as well again. The transfers are the same as posted above since nothing happened in January. So I was forced to sell our star-striker Drews because PSG paid his limited fee of €74M. After that I did one more big sale and that was keeper Stefan Bos, who also went to PSG. I decided to sell him, even though he's good and performed well, because I could get a similar replacement for only €3.3M in Bruninho. The other incoming transfers, outside of new striker Vela (also shown above in an earlier post) I got AML Castillo and exprienced right-back Medina from Estudiantes for very decent prices. Although Medina performed well when he played, he couldn't actually play for most of the season because of this awful injury:

Lastly I sold AML Pospisil for 7.25M to Villareal because he had not quite developed as I would have liked and the offer was pretty decent. Another year with more than 100M in sales!

But let's get into the football. The friendlies were all convincing wins, but one I want to showcase. Spanish born Dutch international Alex Salto celebrated his 10th year at the club and we played a testimonial match for him.

I thought it would be nice to play against our city-rivals Ajax, and we beat them 2-1 in a game where some former players showed up as well (although, outside of Driessen, not really the top tier players.... Albert played for us in the jupiler league days!)

After that of course we had to play two supercup matches: Feyenoord was easy prey but internationally Manchester City was just too strong, sadly.

Our cup-run this year was very smooth, for once, and we won our third KNVB Beker:

A lovely 5-0 win in the final. Pretty easy draws though, it has to be said.

In december we played the world cup for clubs, and that was pretty smooth as well!

Actually, remarkably, the final was probably one of the most one-sided games, let alone finals, I've ever been part of:

Anyway, that was another trophy in the bag! Lovely, of course, but as always the real exciting stuff is the league and the champions league.

As you can see we performed well but sadly we could not repeat our feat of last year. I thought it would actually be possible, after we drew Real MAdrid in the semi-finals, because we were better than them in the group phase (the first time we finished 1st in the CL group so far!). A lovely 1-7 away win against Austria Wien and a demolishing of Juventus in the first knock-out round is something to remember, as is the group win against Madrid. Vela performed pretty much the same as Drews did last year in the champions league. He did not do nearly as well in the Eredivisie though, so he's sadly shown he's not quite as good. But 15 goals in the CL is ridiculous, of course. Deservedly he got a place in the dream team, as did Djokovic and club-jubilee Salto! Another year of rising through the ranks, so we're building and building.

In the league, as you might have guessed, we won another title pretty easily. It's kind of a shame how far Ajax have fallen, they haven't really bothered us ever in our years of dominance. PSV did okay this year, and it seems likely that they will be the best of the rest for the near future, although of course Feyenoord, Vitesse, Ajax and Heerenveen will probably play important roles in Dutch football as well. It would be nice if one of those clubs performed a little bit better though - for Dutch football, excitement nationally and some uefa points internationally. My performances keep us at the seventh place in both coefficients and FM competition rankings. A step up will probably require one of the other clubs to also make a step up... Anyway, here's the games we played and the table:

There was much to celebrate: I won manager of the year again (I also did last year), and Bruninho won keeper of the year. With this win I am now #1 in the Netherlands domestic hall of fame:

And last but surely not least The u19's won the Youth League for the second time (while last year they were beaten in the final):

They also won their league as did the reserve-side but that is now so common that I'm not even screenshotting that anymore.

Next year we'll try the very same thing again, and perhaps we might have that bit of luck again to get to the final of the champions league. We'll see. I can, however, already, give away that once again I sold the striker, so Vela has only played for one season for us as well. He did very well in the CL but not so much domestically so when Barca offered €69M (up to a maximum fee of 90M) I let him go. His replacement cost me €61M, so let's hope he can be the striker for us!

MarcxD · January 20, 2017

Update 26: AFC 2030-2031

The fourteenth season for me at AFC and we're still going strong. Another new expensive striker, who's on the highest salary I've paid any player so far, but he wasn't quite what I was looking for either. We started weak to the season, but we got better as the season went on. Anyway, as always, the first part of this post will be a discussion of the major transfers. The biggest incoming and outgoing ones I've discussed shortly above. Otherwise the incoming players were mostly rotation or back-up players, with only loanee Pat o' Brien ending up a first-team player. I got a 12.5M optional future fee in his contract, which was a good deal honestly. He performed very well. There weren't any other big sales this year outside of Alan Vela, although it was interesting to see that Fenerbahçe wanted to buy Nilton from me after he only played one half of a season for me, and with a little profit as well. He was the back-up for the back-up so that was fine with me. Because we barely sold more than we got in, though, this was an awful financial year. We made a loss of €50M..... and the board even jumped in with a 11.5M cash injection so we wouldn't get in any financial fair play problems! Anyway, we have a buffer until we get to €0 in the bank, so it's not worrying RIGHT away, but we probably need to sell of some players to be safe next year.

The season started on a low (after the friendlies) when we lost the Dutch super-cup

And the first couple of games we played in the Eredivisie went relatively poor as well, winning only 2 of the first 5 games. I wasn't worried too much, but my ass-man was:

A bit much to say we were already "out of the running" after 4 games, having played against PSV, Feyenoord and Ajax and having lost only one of those, but any way, it did show we weren't quite as dominant as in the previous years. Ajax also had a better showing than previous years, which was somewhat nice to see.

As you can see in the games- screenshot linked above though, we didn't lose after that early Ajax game and while some teams were close for a while, because we kept on drawing a couple of times throughout the season, in the end we had a comfortable lead, although not as comfortable as the fans were used to in the previous seasons.

Once more, though, the cup wasn't quite to my liking. Winning 2 cups in a row seems to be an impossibility for now....

Of course, more importantly than all of that is the champions league. Last year Real Madrid bested us in the semi-finals. In the group we were drawn with their city-rivals Atlético, who were a tough opponent for us in the first 2 times we got to the knock-out round in the champions league, but we certainly have eclipsed them for now. We were safely first in the group, which also contained Olympiakos and Köln.

In the knock-out games we were drawn first with Inter, who we're still affiliated with, although we are definitely a better club now but as long as they keep on paying us some money each year it seems pointless to end the deal. Anyway, we lost in Italy but we the quick goal we scored meant I wasn't too anxious for the return and my players proved me wise when they beat Inter 3-0 at home. Next up was Leverkusen from Germany, and those two games combined is probably the best knock-out performance so far in AFC history. Amazing wins both away and at home but definitely the 4-0 away was amazing. In the semi-final we played Barcelona, who we beat in the final two years ago, but it was a bit closer this time. At home we won 1-0, and we were the better team. Away it was pretty close though, but striker Sebastian Luck managed to score again and my defense was amazing. Another 1-0 win, and we went through to the final. The second in three years!

We played Liverpool, who beat PSG in the semi-final. Quite a shame, because I really wanted to play the "French". They have paid all the highest fees for the biggest transfers, and they poached some of my best players during the years, including the best player ever at the club, Emil Drews. Usually they paid the limited fees as well so meh. Anyway, we played liverpool, and it was an anxious game. We had much more of the chances, but after only the first half of the first half it was 2-2 and it would remain like that. Penalties for who would become champions of Europe......... and that was also very tight. A lot of missed penalties.

In the end aging club icon Salto - in my eyes he's a legend, really - scored the winning penalty and we had our second champions league trophy. Amazing!

Six of my players in the dream team, with both strikers being ex-players. Pretty interesting and awesome to see!

Finally a step-up; we overtook Portugal! At least 2 teams in the CL nexxt year, let's hope some of the other teams will start performing better in Europe. The resistance in the league seemed a bit tougher this year, so it might be the case. Let's hope so.

Mauricio Player of the Year

Bruninho GK of the Year

Team of All Time

Wow, an amazing season internationally. The team is getting a bit older and we're in financial trouble though, so it won't be a given that we'll keep on performing like this. We have a couple of decent youth prospects though, and quite a few players we could sell for some $. I haven't decided yet if I'll keep my striker for another year, Wolfsburg want to buy him back for some reason, and while he's performed well in Europe he has been even worse than Vela was in the Eredivisie, so I might look to sell him if Wolfsburg pay more than 70M. We'll see when it happens. Anyway, another year gone. Next time will be the 15th season, and after that I'll do another little catch-up update/ gamestate.

noikeee · January 21, 2017

Congratulations on your second European title! :thup:

MarcxD · February 2, 2017

On 1/21/2017 at 14:48, noikeee said:

Congratulations on your second European title!

Missed this, but thanks a lot! Also for sticking around of course

MarcxD · February 2, 2017

Update 27: season 2031-2032

Another season past, and another grand one. Usually I would not tell right out of the gate how the season went, but oh my. This has been the best season I've ever had on any fm. Ever.

Anyway, let's get into the usual stuff. First, the transfers, which were interesting once again. We sold our striker because as I said above I would accept any offer over 70M and they did that, albeit barely. Besides him quite a few of rotation and back-up players were sold, to make room for new recruits and the offers were just good enough. Especially the sale of Bekkar to Newcastle was one I didn't really see coming, but they were willing to pay quite a sum for him. He was my back-up AMR, and what's especially lovely about the deal is that I bought him for €54K back in the day! Quite a return of investment. Other players to mention that I sold are Fernandez, former best striker at the club but getting old, Witteveen, back-up DR and Takizawa, back-up midfielder. I also sold youth player Hoekstra for 6.75M with the possibility of some more future money after he played a couple of games in the first half of the season. Now that I look back on this deal, I kind of regret it, since I still want to develop the club's own talents. The players that I bought 3 players are exciting: O'Brien who I already talked about last season when he was on loan here, Robson Luis from Brazil, a very good AMR who we got for relatively cheap and our new striker Montiel. He has been on my radar for a while but I wanted a top striker that could perform right away for me so I didn't buy him in the previous seasons, but now he's getting to that level. He has performed very well and has been the best of the strikers I bought after Emil Drews, and he's still relatively young. He also has no limited fee so I should be the one who decides when he leaves.

The friendlies went pretty well as usual (note we played another testimonial match, this time for Rafa Cañas), we won the Johan Cruyff Schaal (after penalties) and sadly we lost the European super cup again.

The cup run was one of the smoothest ever and we won the damn thing again. Maybe for once next season we can do a repeat cup win?

In the Champions League we were drawn with Schalke ("Gelsenkirchen"), Shakhtar and Sparta Prague, probably the easiest draw yet. We totally bossed it.

The league went amazingly well. Last year we had a pretty big drop in points and I thought maybe the opposition was getting stronger. Well, maybe they did, but they were sure as hell no match for my AFC boys this year.

Our second unbeaten league season, and only 3 draws. The last months of the season were absolutely amazing, win after win after win.. (games)

We also had the world cup of course after last year's champions league victory, and this time it seemed like it was even easier than last time. Not sure if it's because I have not loaded any leagues outside of Europe or if the level of football is just so much lower there, but scoring 12 goals in the 2 matches there and conceding none... Wow

And last but definitely not least are the knock-out games in the Champions League. First up was a tough draw against Chelsea, but we were definitely better. A 1-1 draw at their place and a good 4-2 win at home. Then we played Bayern, who we demolished 3-0 at home so that the return wasn't even that exciting anymore. In the semi-finals once again we played Barça, who we also beat very convincingly 3-0 at home. Like I said, this has been an amazing season... In the final once again we would not play PSG, since they lost in the other semi-final to Manchester United. A very tough opponent, that's for sure, but we were cruising. At this moment in the season we only had lost one game, and that was the super cup, months and months ago. I was sure we would win. And we did.

What's especially amazing to me, is that we definitely deserved to win all these games. We bombarded them with chances, and our defense stood strong. Of course teams like Bayern and Chelsea are going to score some still, but damn we beat the best teams in the world. Two champions league-winning seasons in a row, I've never done that before........

Our dominance showed itself in the Champions League Dream Team where we were represented by six players.

We are also now the #1 club in Europe based on coefficients!!! (not yet on reputation, although we are one of the top 6 or 7 clubs that are on 4.5 stars)

Squad - here you can see my one worry. I have a thin selection, which means that if one of my top players get injured for a long time we're in a world of worry.... I can hardly have the kind of full selections that clubs like PSG and Manchester City have because of money reasons - even though we do good and we got a new stadium sponsor at 11.9M a year (the last/first one was barely 1M a year!) but our top players are on salaries at around 3.5-5M€ a year, which is peanuts to the top clubs in England, Germany, Spain and of course PSG. But we can't afford to have 15 players or something on salaries like that, so we'll ahve to make do. If the top clubs come calling and offer sums of 75M+ I'll really have to think about it, even though the players they then buy are probably irreplaceable.

The eredivisie did rise one place in the competition (reputation) rankings, after last year we rose in the coefficient-rankings. PRetty exciting, although the other dutch clubs still are not performing amazingly well in Europe. first or second knock-out rounds in europa league are usually the end phase for the top clubs like PSV and Ajax, while Vitesse and Heerenveen don't even get that far usually.

end of season awards

Bruninho keeper of the year

Team of the Year - The boys that made this wonderful season happen

Team of All Time - Note Cañas and Salto on 500+ games, and all players on 100+ games.

Manager of the Year (also "one of the best ever" - I'm now in the worldwide hall of fame)

Montiel player of the year (with Savic 2nd and Diabete 3rd!)

Montiel topscorer

season review - only one trophy not won, the super cup, which also was coincidentally the one game we lost in the entire season.

We can only really go downhill from here, but of course the club has not yet reached its full potential. We have quite a sum in the bank and we usually fill our stadium, but I'm not allowed to ask for a new one, so that's a bit of a bummer. We just got a new stadium sponsor so I'm not sure if that's a reason for it not to happen. I hope not, since they just started a 10-year sponsorship! Our facilities are at the best they can be, and my HoYD is pretty decent, but the youth players from the last couple of years have honestly been awful, so I'm not sure if it's just bad luck or what, but that could and should improve. I do want to make some more room for youth players and I'll try to give them some more gametime the following seasons instead of just loaning them out all the time and buying all new players. If we keep performing we could possibly become the #1 club on reputation, which would be amazing. I also still hope that the other Dutch clubs can make a step up so that our league reputation and coefficients can make another step, which would also be good financially for all involved.

MarcxD · February 2, 2017

Recap after 15 Years as AFC Manager

Just another little recap post, where I show you some of the club screens, and where AFC is at right now comparatively in Europe.

Alex Salto has joined me as a club legend, deservedly so. He is 35 years old now and on his last year (although it will be automatically renewed if he plays 10 games this year, which could just happen).