[FM17] Generation-Next's: Next Generation Superstars (Youth Challenge)

[Generation-Next]

Generation-Next presents: The Next Generation

Hello everyone and welcome to my first career save thread of FM17. On previous versions of the game, I've attempted to get one going, and then life gets in the way and I lose interest. I've just finished a week of working nights and I have 10 days off. So I thought..... Why not try it now?! The aim of the game, as you can probably guess from the title is to develop the next generation superstars. I'll be holidaying for a season and then choosing a team who were previously unplayable. 

Rules

1. Holiday for a season and choose only a team who were previously unplayable.
2. Only the current and youth team players may be used. No purchasing/loaning players.
3. Create a State of the Art system at each club I manage before I move onto the next.
4. I can't manage my favourite club, Liverpool FC. 

Meet The Manager

Tobias Strabag. An unknown 35 year old Austrian. Probably found skiing. Never had any experience in Football, with the exception of playing ball games, where ball games were not allowed to played. 

He's a youth focused manager (ish). 

The set up

All leagues from all nations selected in this screen, to give me the best possible choice of previously unplayable and hopefully in future be affiliated with a foreign club where I could get some talent.

 

 

           

 

[Generation-Next]

 

                                                                                            Hrvatski nogometni klub Segesta                                                                                                     

 

So I've gone Balkan. HNK Segesta as they will be known, have just been promoted to the Druga hrvatska nogometna liga, the second (and lowest playable league in Croatia). I preferred to start with a Balkan team as many people go Scandinavian. 

This will be a ridiculous challenge for me, as I usually go for Top division clubs. 

 Club info etc

 

                 

So, all in all - not too bad. We're projected to lose a lot of money though and end the season with over £200k in the red. 

I'm happy with the Facilities as I thought they were going to be poor or very poor so Below average doesn't bother me. Something to build on.

I'm also happy that I've still got a fair bit left in the wage budget so I might be able get some staff in. As you'll see in a minute we desperately need some.

 

Personnel

 

I'll start with the staff (or lack of) 

Plenty of jobs available to be filled there, I thought we'd of just of had room for a coach with a dodgy leg and a blind scout. 

 

Playing Staff

 

 

I'm glad I'm not the sort of manager who plays with 3 at the back. Virtually no back up available there. So I'll have to beg to the FM Gods to give me a couple of CB's in the intake. 

The team, is extremely undetermined so will be attempting to improve that for the future by signing determined  staff across the board! 

 

Key Players

                                                                                                                      

 

My main challenge this season is to be able to keep both of these, they will both play huge parts of any success we have for the first couple of seasons. 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                             

 

 

 

[Generation-Next]

So guys, I've rushed through this (much much much more will be added tomorrow) as I'm on my way to work right now and I can't use any sort of electronics there, besides the computers given and I can't even get on this website properly there. I have to go through a Google Translate the website hack to get to it But doing that means I can't sign in. 

I can read the comments though, so if anyone would like to please comment to give me something to read and give advice for the lay out etc, I'll surely take it and change it tomorrow morning when I get in. 

[Jimbokav1971]

In terms of layout, I don't like the diagonal layout of the pictures. 

In terms of the save, good luck in Croatia. 

Do you mind if I ask what style of save you will be playing? Is it 100% Youth Only with absolutely no signings at all or something slightly less restricted?

What goals/targets do you have for the save?

[..Valhalla..]

My God the determination; it's like a team of Daniel Sturridge & Ryan Babel

I'm curious to see how that works out because I never sign players with low determination (unless they can be tutored), and surely you won't be able to replace that many/any to begin with. I will be following.

[Generation-Next]

12 hours ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

My God the determination; it's like a team of Daniel Sturridge & Ryan Babel

I'm curious to see how that works out because I never sign players with low determination (unless they can be tutored), and surely you won't be able to replace that many/any to begin with. I will be following.

I don't even know how they can manage to get themselves out of bed in the morning! Yeah, I've never played with such a poorly determined side either, so we'll see how it goes. 

 

13 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

In terms of layout, I don't like the diagonal layout of the pictures. 

In terms of the save, good luck in Croatia. 

Do you mind if I ask what style of save you will be playing? Is it 100% Youth Only with absolutely no signings at all or something slightly less restricted?

What goals/targets do you have for the save?

 

I've adjusted the lay out a little bit, started it again really. With my goals/targets included in the opening post. 

[nextqprmanager]

Good thread, they`re all unhappy with training straight away

It was easy before you came along !

[Generation-Next]

56 minutes ago, nextqprmanager said:

Good thread, they`re all unhappy with training straight away

It was easy before you came along !

Thanks! 

Yeah, hopefully that sorts it self out in a bit, just got all the coaches that I can get. Focused more on determination really, but my staff are nearly all the best in the league. 

[Generation-Next]

Pre-season results and Fixtures

 

I've had a wonderful pre-season. I do the "Play as many games as possible against weak opposition technique" to get morale up. 

Although everyones morale is currently only at 'Okay' which I'm confused about. Newly promoted and won every pre-season game and the morale isn't at least good? Give over. 

 

Results

This has shown me that we're capable of finishing, and that the goals can be spread around a bit. Also, it's shown me that we're capable of keeping clean sheet. Granted it was against lower opposition that ourselves, but at this level anyone can score against anyone. 

 

Fixtures

 

It's a very congested fixture list until the beginning of September, with us playing on every Saturday and Wednesday. Gonna play havoc with the players fitness, so It looks like I'll be having a First XI and Second XI and rotating them as much as possible.

 

[Generation-Next]

HNK Segesta

August 17/18 Update.

 

It's been an interesting first month in Croatia. 

I lost my first game, because one of my 'key players' (not included in the screen shot above) gave away a penalty. 

I then lost the next game after the same player scored an own goal. 

Desnica, the key player included above started the season off well, scoring in both of those opening games, but done **** all since and now he wants to leave. I've told him to run his contract down if he feels that strongly about going.

 

These are our first 5 of the 6 fixtures played in the month of August

 

So, in 4 league games, I'd picked up a point. That point was against RNK Split, who were top of the league at that time. That gave me some hope that my season would start up after that.  

Next came our first cup game of the season, which resulted in 120 minutes of both teams kicking the **** out of each other. The team we beat are in our division also, so that gave me a bit more hope. 

NK Zadar weren't in great form either until they came up against us, tiredness lost us that match and tiredness alone... Well apart from them scoring as us not.

 

So I've purposely left the 6th fixture off of the screen shot above. 

The next match came against HNK Sibenik - league leaders going into that game. 

A tactic change was definitely needed because whatever I was or wasn't doing, was definitely not working. I changed from a 4-4-1-1 to a 4-4-2. With no team instructions as I just wanted to play it very simple and try not to make any mistakes, and try not to be embarrassed.

 

 

We've only gone and bloody beaten the league leaders! First league win of the season, and it came against a team who had won 3 and lost 1 previous to this. 

 

 

So this is how the table looks going into September

We're now off the bottom, where we had been until that match. Time to press on and keep going from that. 

 

 

I feel that there is some very winnable games there, against teams that are around us in the league table. 

 

 

[..Valhalla..]

I like the new layout, cleaner and easy on the eyes. 

 

As for the season - good work beating the leaders. I haven't the first clue about Croatian football so I'll rely on your comments to know what is and isn't a good/bad result. Croatian 3rd division though, you're in the arsehole of nowhere
Even if you got promoted to the top division it's still pretty obscure. What is the eventual plan; will you move clubs and even countries? I never venture beyond well known leagues in my own games because I get digitally homesick. Is that a thing? Maybe I just invented it.

[Generation-Next]

2 minutes ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

I like the new layout, cleaner and easy on the eyes. 

 

As for the season - good work beating the leaders. I haven't the first clue about Croatian football so I'll rely on your comments to know what is and isn't a good/bad result. Croatian 3rd division though, you're in the arsehole of nowhere
Even if you got promoted to the top division it's still pretty obscure. What is the eventual plan; will you move clubs and even countries? I never venture beyond well known leagues in my own games because I get digitally homesick. Is that a thing? Maybe I just invented it.

Thanks, now I'm looking a back, this definitely looks cleaner. 

Well once I've made HNK Segesta a Champions League regular and producing some top talent, and I've done everything I can do there, then I'll probably move on. Not too sure where though. 

[Generation-Next]

Just an extra little tidbit from August. 

Our first goal of the campaign turned out to be Goal of the Month with this superb effort from Mario Desnica

 

[Generation-Next]

HNK Segesta

September 17/18 Update. 

 

I'll start this month by showing you yet another photo of us beating League Leaders. 

It's getting quite silly now, it really is. The rest of the month was disappointing though, and the playing twice a week really does take it out of us. We're going into weekly fixtures now so hopefully that will help us a little bit.

We go through phases of every game, looking like Champions League winners but also in the same game we'll go through phases of looking like the relegation fodder that we are.

Moving on now to the rest of the month

 

Again a poor start to the month after finishing August in high spirits. Another change to the tactic though prior to the Cup game that we managed to just scrape through. 

That tactic change saw us go on to pick up our first back to back league wins to end the month on, is it a bit risky to say that I feel hopeful going in to October now?

 

Current state of play in the Druga hrvatska nogometna liga

For the first time, escaping the bottom 3 looks like an actual possibility.

Staying with the current tactic I'm using and tweaking here and there during games should be able to do the business for me. 

 

 

October Fixtures

 

Only 4 league games coming up this month, with a Cup game sandwiched in there. 

As I've said we'll get a 6 days rest between most days so we'll be fresh as daisies. 

 

 

 

 

[Generation-Next]

              HNK Segesta           

    

October 17/18 update

So for the first time this season, I've not started the month off with a loss. It was a 1-1. Improvement! 

It was such an improvement that I actually managed to pick up 7 points!

I was unfortunately drawn against 3rd in the top division in the cup match, I was trying to avoid embarrassment in that match, and managed to avoid it. 

I was then 4-0 up against 3rd in the league! It was a daft second half. Where they managed to pull 3 back, with 10 minutes to go, which my my starfish twitch a bit.

 

Four games in November, gives us our quietest month to date. 

Plus with no Cup games now it's 100% focus on the league, and a 6 day break between all but one of the games.

 

Player of the Month

Luka Vranic managed to pick up player of the month for October. Our first player award to date (with the exception of Goal of the month).

Luka scored 2 goals in 4 games and picked up a rating of 7.40 over the course of those 4 games.

 

So, with an improvement in results, comes with an improvement in the table (sort of).

We're on the brink now of breaking out of the bottom three. It's going to be difficult because the teams around us are doing alright too. 

[ssestig]

Whilst you haven't got out of the relegation spots yet, you're still only a few wins from being in the promotion picture. How many times do you play each other in this league?

[Generation-Next]

1 minute ago, ssestig said:

Whilst you haven't got out of the relegation spots yet, you're still only a few wins from being in the promotion picture. How many times do you play each other in this league?

We play each other 3 times, so I've got half a season to potentially actually win the thing

[ssestig]

6 minutes ago, Generation-Next said:

We play each other 3 times, so I've got half a season to potentially actually win the thing

Plenty of time to get everything right then

[Generation-Next]

1 minute ago, ssestig said:

Plenty of time to get everything right then

To be fair, If I just get something right, then I may get to where I need to be. Don't even need to get everything right

[Generation-Next]

HNK Segesta

November and half season update 17/18 (And youth Intake!!)

 

So as we reach the end of November, and the first match in December - We arrive at the winter break. 

November will be known as the first month where I didn't win a game. Only collecting a point from a potential 12.

We did manage to at least pick up a win before going into the break, a decent 3-1 against a team battling down the wrong end of the table too.

We ended December on a positional high. The first time we'd been 10th.

It's still super close all over the table, a few wins and you can be well out of the relegation battle and battling for promotion instead

 

 Youth intake!

The youth intake, the moment we've all been waiting for - to see if I get any players at all with determination of double figures.

Well, yes. Yes we did! We got two. Wooo.

I was actually happy about that!

 

Here are my 4 top prospects who I'll fit straight into the team.

Two forwards who'll lead the line for years to come and two left backs. One of which I'll retrain to play LW. I'm probably going to retrain Matej Vlak.

All I pretty much needed in the intake was some CB's. I got a couple but they were rated poorly they need to step up at some point, so we'll see how they get on! 

 

 

 

 

[Generation-Next]

HNK Segesta 

End of season Summary 2017/18 season

 

We've now reached the end of the first season. If you've followed from the above posts then you'll know it's been a tricky season! Struggled to get to grips with the toughness of the league and went through a couple of different tactics. Mainly being a flat 4-4-2 and a 4-4-1-1, it soon came to fruition that it wasn't going to work. My midfield was consistently being over run by much stronger teams and I was even struggling to score goals with two up front. 

I thought about doing monthly updates towards the end of the season, but the problem is (that I didn't realise at the time) Is that there is only 2 and a half months worth of football left following the Winter break. So just ended up doing a end of season round  up.

 

The general consensus in the build up to the winter break, was not if I was going to stay in the division, but in which position I'd be going down whether it be dead last, 11th or 10th. There were glimpses of us actually being able to play football sometimes and I had hope. The word hope has been used a lot so far in this thread and did it work?

 

 

 

You're damn right it did!

Unbelievably we stayed up.

We managed to stay up on the last day. On the last game of the season the bottom two teams were already down, but anywhere between 10th and 6th could've joined them. 

This league is thrilling and so, so close. Made up with my lads who actually only lost 3 games after the break

 

 

Again, unbelievably we went on a 6 game unbeaten run. Where we drew against the eventual Champions and beat the team who're in the promotion play off.  I was definitely pulling my hair during some of those game though. 

 

Cup Run

Well I didn't expect to get anywhere in the cup this season and that's pretty much what happened.

 

We got beat by the eventual runners up of the competition. Going to try and get a bit further in the cup next season, now I've got a much larger squad with the regen intake. 

 

Squad stats

 

The two players who I singled out at the beginning of the season as my key players were Ivicic, who was actually the only player to get into double figures with 14. 

Desnica got a couple of assists to his name, and came joint second goal scorer with Sandro Kovacic, one of my Youth intakes.

The keeper played every minute of the season in all competitions, keeping 8 clean sheets and conceding 52 in 36, which I wasn't unhappy about at all. He kept us in the division at times. 

 

Youth Intakes

In this section here i'll just leave you my key intake players from the season (in future end of season reviews, these players will also be added into that post)

Matej Pelin

He didn't get much game time this season, due to an injury he picked up. I originally rated him higher, but the chap below has been phenomenal. Will definitely be using him next season though

Sandro Kovacic

Ended up joint second top goalscorer. Stat's haven't really improved in the few months he's been with me, but I can see him leading the line for as long as he wants to be at the club for.

Andjelko Stilinovic

We needed a LB desperately, so young Andy was a God send. Played the most games out of any of my youth intake and made that position his own.

Matej Vlak

Matej managed to get a couple of games on the left wing when I was playing with two banks for 4, but I'm not any more so he'll be back up to Andy from now on. Will be used next season.

 

 

 

We're in dire financial difficulties. We'll be getting no sort of funding towards improved academies at the moment. I think the only way we'd earn some money if some big boys wanted Matej Pelin or Sandro.

[Generation-Next]

Took them long enough!

[ssestig]

Told you that it would click

[Generation-Next]

13 minutes ago, ssestig said:

Told you that it would click

It appears that I atleast got something right!