The Circle of Fitness Activists

[noikeee]

International friendly and UEFA Nations League Division B

 

First we beat Jamaica 3-0 in a friendly in which I rotated players to keep legs fresh for the Nations League decider. Most notable event that happened here was the first international goal for Szabolcs Schön.

Then we went to face Russia knowing that we did have to beat them not to get relegated. So I fielded the most aggressive version of the 4-3-3 wide. We got to a great start with an early goal, but Russia immediately equalized. Thankfully that didn't kill our morale and we added another 2 goals before the break, then managed the game to hold on to this lead.

 

We manage to avoid relegation, not a brilliant performance in the group but nevertheless I'd say it was positive. Serbia are really good, to a large extent thanks to all the players that are being developed at MTK!

[kidthekid]

I know I said it before, but I'm loving this save. Your UCL run has been impressive.

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League group stage - rounds 5 and 6

 

It was a poor performance in Bordeaux - we seemed to be getting outmanouevered no matter what I did tactically. It was only in the final 15 mins, after switching to the 5-2-3-0 and then slapping it on Control, that things got transformed and we started beating Bordeaux's aggressive stance... and amusingly we turned the match around for a 3-2 win, despite not really deserving it.

I stuck to the 5-2-3-0 against Liverpool and it made for a splendorous start, we got a 2 goal lead with the 2nd goal being a particularly pleasing to watch counter-attack. Note: Zvonimir Grujic is on incredible form and got the assists for both goals here AND all 3 goals in the Bordeaux match! However the 5-2-3-0 stopped working later on as Liverpool switched to a 4-4-2 and eventually scored twice equalising the game for a 2-2 draw.

 

We top the group rather comfortably...

 

... and have been rewarded with Monaco next. A decent draw, could've been worse but they're good, we'll need to be at our best.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update 2026/2027

 

In August I managed to get rid of the players I wanted to - some of them stars of this squad not so long ago. So winger Viktor Babic was off for 4.6M€, defensive midfielder Vladimir Screciu for 4.2M€, fullback Tomas Hofmann (a starter last season!) for 4M€, and then I decided to cave in on Bayern's bid for our 3rd keeper Martin Barcuch, who went in a 9.75M€ deal that can reach 16,25M€ AND has 50% profit from next sale clause. He's got potential but I didn't like his attributes spread and I wasn't going to play him, so he wasn't going to develop for me anyway.

 

 

Unbeaten! This first half of the season has been all about record sequences. We only conceded our first goal in mid-October(!) against Legia, and are still on a record run of being unbeaten, both in all competitions (43 matches) and in the league (92 matches). Let's see how much further we can extend this, I'd love to reach 100 in the league.

A highlight has been, surprisingly, striker Roland Szilvási, starring in the 2nd XI with 23 goals in all competitions, 22 of them in the league. That's 22 goals in 10(5) appearances in the OTP Bank Liga NB I... New signing Zvonimir Grujic has been an absolute monster too, and that's on the 1st XI who plays the tougher matches, currently 15(11) apps, 13 goals, 17 assists!

 

 

The players that are lined up to arrive in January this year:

 

55K deal for a 17yo Serbian winger. He's okay, some potential but nothing outstanding.

 

155K deal for another Serbian, 18yo, can play both wide and as striker. Also decent potential but unlikely to become a superstar.

 

I had more hopes for this Croatian 19yo striker, splashed 2M€ on him... but my staff now tell me he doesn't have potential after all. Seems odd, his skills look pretty good? Also branded "promising striker"? Which is usually a surefire way of showing potential...

[noikeee]

15 hours ago, kidthekid said:

I know I said it before, but I'm loving this save. Your UCL run has been impressive.

The real test starts now!

[oriole01]

Scouts are tripping on Jovicevic.... dude looks like a monstrous striker in the making.

I'm starting to think you've got the potential to go all the way with MTK now, the quality of your squad is seriously impressive. KUTGW!

[noikeee]

On 12/09/2018 at 05:13, oriole01 said:

Scouts are tripping on Jovicevic.... dude looks like a monstrous striker in the making.

I'm starting to think you've got the potential to go all the way with MTK now, the quality of your squad is seriously impressive. KUTGW!

Cheers @oriole01

Meanwhile, the draw for the Euros qualifiers is out...

This is a bit rough, the bottom 3 teams are easy and we had to face a top team or another so no shock at England, but I wasn't expecting to face Russia as 3rd seeds. We did beat them in the Nations League - just! -, we'll have to do it again.

[ManUtd1]

Not the worst possible draw, as you note.  Russia is yours!!!

[noikeee]

FFS.

[kidthekid]

wow!!

[noikeee]

Youth intake 2027

 

 

A pretty poor generation this year, this guy is the only one worth screenshotting at all. Don't think anyone from '27 will go anywhere.

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League 1st knockout round

 

Our trip to Monaco was a bit of a disaster. Monaco dominated us for a very long time, and only when switching late to the Derby/Valencia 4-4-2 did we start looking dangerous on the counter. Frustratingly, all of our chances on the counter were squandered - so it was a tricky 2-0 defeat to bring back home with no away goals.

At home it didn't go much better. Again we had to switch to the 4-4-2 (I did it much earlier now), but this didn't avoid their goal, and our own goal took a hell of a long time to come too, after we again missed chances.

It's a disappointing exit at the round of 16 again, and to top it off, after I had confidently promised a handful of my players that we were gonna make the later stages of this competition this year, this is happening:

 

[DefenseLover]

Justo ahora, noikeee dijo:

UEFA Champions League 1st knockout round

 

Our trip to Monaco was a bit of a disaster. Monaco dominated us for a very long time, and only when switching late to the Derby/Valencia 4-4-2 did we start looking dangerous on the counter. Frustratingly, all of our chances on the counter were squandered - so it was a tricky 2-0 defeat to bring back home with no away goals.

At home it didn't go much better. Again we had to switch to the 4-4-2 (I did it much earlier now), but this didn't avoid their goal, and our own goal took a hell of a long time to come too, after we again missed chances.

It's a disappointing exit at the round of 16 again, and to top it off, after I had confidently promised a handful of my players that we were gonna make the later stages of this competition this year, this is happening:

 

Welp, time to free a few players it seems

[noikeee]

UEFA European Championship qualifiers

 

We kicked off the regular Euro qualifiers with quite possibly 2 of the toughest matches. At home with England we were just dominated and although England didn't create a ton of chances, I guess a 1-0 defeat is fitting. Away at Russia though, whilst Russia had a couple of chances mostly on corners, we were very dangerous on the counter and should've scored at very least one goal. A 1-0 defeat (again), with a late goal, was extremely harsh.

 

We're already in big trouble, it's gonna take something notable to come back from this poor start.

[noikeee]

33 minutes ago, DefenseLover said:

Welp, time to free a few players it seems

They're too good to get rid of...

[noikeee]

And the bad news just keep piling up, we had a hell of a lot of players out due to the international break, as we had a cup fixture lined up, and...

That's the end of a run that was still going on from 7 years ago!! (the last time we had been beaten in a cup match).

[noikeee]

Better news now:

We finally reach the big 100 without losing in the league! Run still continuing and counting!

[PT-KK]

Oh! That youth intake is not gonna help in any way.

 

Congrats for the big 100!

[noikeee]

And the Champions League semi-finals this year are...

Huh?

[noikeee]

4 hours ago, PT-KK said:

Oh! That youth intake is not gonna help in any way.

 

Congrats for the big 100!

Thanks. Tbh that intake and the failure in the CL were like a kick in the balls, I needed some positive news here to keep me going. 

[rodesire]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

France that strong? Wuuuut?

[noikeee]

5 hours ago, rodesire said:

France that strong? Wuuuut?

I'm as amused and confused as you are.

[noikeee]

End of season update 2026/2027

 

5 kids arrived in January, 3 of them I had already shown but then there were these 2 extra:

 

It's slightly bonkers to have 4 promising Serbian keepers and even more so, in this case, to pay 1.4M for one of them. But he's got crazy good potential and is "driven".

 

190k for a slightly rubbish midfielder. I'm just doing the standard thing of hiring every mildly promising Hungarian kid.

 

 

Well this is one of those seasons I'm kinda frustrated with, and don't want to spend much time writing about, because getting knocked out at the last 16 of the CL ****ing sucked, I wasn't expecting that again, not at the hands of Monaco and not after what had been a breeze of a group stage. Turns out at the end Leverkusen won the CL and beat all those French sides!

In the cup we also lost 2 matches which was unusual and kind of poor, ending our unbeaten run in the competition that tracked all the way back to 2020(!). We still lifted the trophy yet again, as usual the cup final was the only domestic match I didn't IR all season, and I had quite a bit of fun with it. We trailed by 1 goal after a bad start where we conceded, then I started thinkering, added a regista, eventually we won 4-1 with a brace of our youth product striker Csaba Gáspár YP25A (sadly he hasn't developed at all the last 2 years, talented but lazy idiot kid).

However in the league we got a record points total with just 2 draws all season, and the unbeaten run in the league now stands at 106 matches.

 

[noikeee]

Sorry I'm tired to go above and swap the screenshots but I missed a transfer there outgoing, backup centre-back Vladislav Mitkov went to Frosinone for 350K (deal can reach 550K). The rest not pictured were just unimportant loans.

[noikeee]

Squad review 2026/2027

Best 11

 

GK - Vladimir Denkovic
 
7th consecutive season as our keeper. Highest ratings yet. He's ****ing great.

DR - Sándor Laczkó
 
Think he's reached his peak? I'm slightly unsure between him and Jiri Michalek, who had an awesome season in the domestic competition with 9 assists, but I think Sándor is better defensively and that counts for picking the best 11 who plays in the CL.

DL - Marin Sumberac 

This was meant to be the year Georgi Marinov became our left-back, but instead it was the Croatian wonderkid who returned from a loan to Leverkusen, that grabbed the spot, at some stage he was playing so good in the league I had to swap him with Marinov, he went to the CL first 11 and Marinov downgraded to the league 11. He's ****ing amazing.

DC - Mykola Spivak
 
Injured for 3 months at the start of the season, and fairly crappy ratings this season compared to his colleagues in defence. Not his greatest year but he still has the potential for more, and there's not much competition for the position, there's Komaromi but think I've had enough of him at club level.

DC - Dragoljub Vukajlovic
 
Like goalkeeper Denkovic he's been a starter for us for 7 years! And he's still great, now the game rates Marin Sumberac as our best defender so he's no longer "the best" but he's not far behind.

DM - Vladimir Makarov
 
I've used him in anything from DM to box-to-box to regista to wingback as I'm training him as DR. One of the most complete players I've ever seen for us, I wish I could clone him and use him as DR DM and MC all at the same time. Ratings below average, but, again, that's because he plays mostly as DM.

MC - Tomislav Ilic
 
With the sale of Gladyshev he was downgraded to box-to-box from mezzala as he was the more defensively sound of our MC options. This hurt his attacking numbers (just 6 goals and 5 assists), and ratings (7.26), but he's still an amazing player.

MC - Srecko Spremo
 
Michal Mares started the season as mezzala and was doing amazingly well (5 goals, 10 assists, and a sensational 7.74 ratings in 14(6) appearances), but then he picked up a career-threatening injury and I was forced to promote Srecko Spremo to the first 11. He's a slightly worse player (well WAS a slightly worse player than the then-awesome Mares that will now be ruined) but hardly bad at all, with 14 goals(!), 8 assists and 7.69 ratings himself (that's the highest ratings of all regular players btw); and rated by my staff as pretty close to the very best players at the club. I'm also adapting him to the wing in case of an emergency - and he even played upfront in a couple of occasions.

AMR - Zvonimir Grujic
 
An insanely good first season for the club - I think he's quite simply the best player we've ever had. 23 goals, 28 assists (!!!!! a new record, of course), and he wasn't even accomplished in the position I was playing him (AMR) for half the season. Ridiculous. The assman used to play him a bit upfront though (when IR'ing matches), which of course helps his numbers.

AML - Róbert Fedor YP20A
 
Uh, that was actually a pretty poor season for his standards. 14 goals, 12 assists, 7.38 ratings. That's not bad, but not the level I've come to expect from our superstar homegrown. He's been "feeling the pressure" of the clubs that are watching him, for a while now, and this hurts his performances.

ST - Branimir Sutulovic 
 
Well, I'm not entirely sure who's my best striker. On paper that's Sutulovic, heads and shoulders above anyone else in attributes. However Roland Szilvási had an absolutely bonkers season playing in the league 11, he finished the year with 34 goals scored (!!) in 19(17) apps. I considered promoting him to the best 11 and demoting Sutulovic, but then Sutulovic finished the season having a decent run in the league as well (when we had been knocked out of the CL and I started using our best 11 there), he still finished the season on 22 goals which is okay.

Rest of the squad and 3 hottest prospects

LB - Georgi Marinov
 
Well this was the year everything was set for him to get promoted to the first 11, he started the season there, but then... Marin Sumberac happened, overtaking him for the position with performances that were simply a level above. Still has great potential but is taking a bit of time to confirm it.

AMR - Gergö Schmid YP26A
 
Last year's youth intake star seems to have MORE potential than we thought at first, and is developing freakishly well. This is brilliant news but he's still a couple of steps below being first team useful. Being trained to AML inside forward, of course.

AMR - Adam Horak
 
Goalkeeper Radovan Basanovic is rated as having higher potential (maxed out, in line with Marinov and Schmid YP26A above), but I think Czech winger Horak deserves the mention ahead of him. This was a huge breakthrough year for him as he's now our 2nd option for AMR/MR ahead of Ivaylo Dimov who used to be a huge star for us. Oh, and Adam's still 18 year old... Already a Czech international, btw!

Career progress table

[noikeee]

New transfer rules

I might come to regret this... but I'm gonna make my game even harder, by introducing a bunch of transfer rules. As if winning the Champions League wasn't feeling hard enough of a challenge, eh?

This comes as a result of being bored with the last couple of seasons and wanting to try something different; and also due to a conversation I had with @Deisler26 a couple of weeks ago where we talked about the differences in playing style, he sells players when he receives bids that he feels would be unrealistic to refuse, by contrast I just hog players for all eternity. And it seems really easy to do so! This feels unrealistic and I feel I'm kinda exploiting the game. Also whilst I've always been able to hog players one way or another, they complain a hell of a lot about transfers and I think this has had a detrimental effect in morale. I've had enough and I want to sell players to improve the dressing room, it's just a matter of figuring out who do I sell, at what point do I sell them.

So for the sake of realism and to force me to do a bit of more dynamic team building, I'm going to revive a bunch of rules I used to do in the FM12 days and try to update them to these days. This will essentially force me to sell players whenever I get bids that are deemed "too high to refuse"!

Rule a) I must accept a bid for a player if:
1. It is 4 times the player value.
OR
2. It is a club record sale and is at least 2 times the player value.

Rule b) The following players are exempt from rule a):
1. Any youth product player.
2. Any player of Hungarian nationality.
3. Any player aged 19 or lower.

Rule c) It is exempt from rule a) any bid that:
1. Isn't at least 2 times the value I paid for the player.

Rule d) I am allowed to slap an extra non-negotiable 50% profit of next sale clause, on players that are 20 to 21 years old.

 

This is complicated and convoluted but I feel it might just about work. A couple of examples:

- Branimir Sutulovic. He's currently valued 10,75M€. 4 times his value = 43M€. Any bid I receive, I negotiate up to 43M€. When I receive a 43M€ bid, I'm forced to accept.

- Vladimir Makarov. Valued at 13,25M€. 4 times that = 53M€. However I paid a small fortune for him last season, 33,5M€. 2 times that = 67M€. That means I only need to accept a 67M€ bid, 53M€ isn't good enough.

- Marin Sumberac. Valued at 7.25M€. 4 times that = 29M€. He's also 20 years old, so I can negotiate in the clause, that means I only need to sell him for 29M€ + 50% of profit next sale.

- Robert Fedor YP20A. He's a youth product and Hungarian, I can keep him whatever happens.

- Roland Szilvási. Not a MTK youth product, but he's Hungarian, so I can keep him whatever happens.

- Adam Horak. He's 18, so I can keep him no matter what for at least 2 more years until he turns 20.

- Club record sale clause shouldn't get into play any time soon, as Gladyshev went for 110M€!

Transfer policy change

To compensate, I'm slightly loosening up our transfer policy. So far, we only hired U21 Eastern European players. From now on, we're hiring Eastern European players of any age.

This shouldn't make a huge difference as I naturally try to hire mostly kids anyway, but does open up the possibility of picking up players that we missed the first time around, before they turned 22 and older.

[noikeee]

Oh and in case this isn't obvious, the reason these rules are this complicated is because I'm trying to come up with an universal formula that I can take to any other club in any other career. So it needs to be a function of player value.

I feel that, by the examples provided above, it works pretty well with pretty realistic values. At the moment we are a hugely rich club (159M€ in the bank!), with already quite a bit of reputation (after reaching the CL semifinals and EL final), and the Hungarian league is now about on par with the Belgian/Dutch/Russian/Ukranian leagues. This means the game gives our players relatively high values (around 8 to 15M€), so multiplying that by 4 we get values of 40-50-60M€ to consider selling our world class star players.

Those would be some pretty eyebrow-raising sales for a league like the Dutch or Russian which is what the Hungarian league is like in-game now, but makes sense IMO because we're filthy rich - but we're only rich because we've made a massive club record sale last year. So per the rules, that is raising the asking price to 4x player value for pretty much everyone. Had we not sold Gladyshev for that stupid price, the rules would activate sales at relatively low values (2x player value), which would then incrementally rise and rise as the club record sale value went up and up, until over the seasons it'd reach the current situation of 4x for everyone.

[rodesire]

I like this update a lot, it does seem like a pretty reasonable universal formula, very well done!

BTW, how come there are no Romanians or Russians in the squad?  No-one good enough?  In my save, Russia always has at least a couple regen megastars in late 2020s and 2030s

[noikeee]

13 minutes ago, rodesire said:

I like this update a lot, it does seem like a pretty reasonable universal formula, very well done!

BTW, how come there are no Romanians or Russians in the squad?  No-one good enough?  In my save, Russia always has at least a couple regen megastars in late 2020s and 2030s

Romania for whatever bizarre reason isn't producing any decent players, I do have a 18 year old striker that is loaned out but I don't think he'll ever make my first team.

Russians up until now always rejected my transfer bids due to "doesn't want to move to a country with a lower standard of living". However this now changed (reputation finally raised enough?), and I have our first 2 Russians lined up to join us next season!

[noikeee]

UEFA European Championship qualifiers

 

Two routine wins over Kosovo and Estonia, not much to write about. We struggled a little at the beginning against Kosovo as they fielded a remarkably defensive 4-2-3-1 deep (with 2 DMs and MR/ML/MC), and I think there wasn't a single shot in that game until the 25th minute or so? But ultimately we broke them down and did the same against Estonia.

 

We're up to 3rd but Russia beating England makes everything even harder, essentially now to qualify through the top 2 we need to beat England at Wembley, or hope for them to lose points to Kosovo/Estonia/Luxembourg.

International debut

 

The third MTK youth product DM to reach the national team, after Zsolt Pintér YP19E and Dávid Csiszár YP24E, does so aged merely 18 - I think he can go a little further than those two players, as I'm already picking him ahead of them, and he's got a fair bit more potential. But he shouldn't become a superstar.

[noikeee]

The Hungarian league further rises in reputation rankings, overtaking Austria and Greece, and closing by on Belgium and the Netherlands:

 

 

However we fall in the coefficients, which is bad news for the other Hungarian teams in Europe:

  

[noikeee]

And the first "victim" of the transfer rules is....

 

 

 

It feels a little wrong to accept this given how crazy good he is, and given that I rejected 90M€ in the past (!), but rules are rules. Time to start rebuilding this squad.

[noikeee]

And the second player to go is also unsurprising, as he's been chased for a while:

 

 

 

[noikeee]

Transfer rules sales number 3 and 4...

 

 

 

-----

 

 

 

 

Makarov was one of the players I was most dreading to lose, was hoping nobody would be crazy enough to hit 67M€, oh well. Prucha is a slightly more surprising move, I guess the relatively low value made him an attractive signing, but I'm not super bothered to lose him, I didn't rate him that high - although that's the 3rd midfielder we lose in this transfer window now!

[noikeee]

Player number 5....

And this is definitely starting to become too many, so before I lose my entire squad, this is time to introduce rule e)

 

Rule e) After 5 transfers under rule a) in a season, rule a) stops being in use for the rest of the season.

 

[rodesire]

Skadoosh, you need a whole new team now  

maybe increase multiplier to x5 for next season for rule a) not that it would have prevented every single sale.

[noikeee]

28 minutes ago, rodesire said:

Skadoosh, you need a whole new team now  

maybe increase multiplier to x5 for next season for rule a) not that it would have prevented every single sale.

I think I'm going to cap it at 3 players max per season, being at risk of having to find replacements for potentially 5 key players every season is a bit too much. Luckily only 3 of the 5 we lost here were first 11 starters.

I cheekily stopped it right now before we lost Grujic though - he's our best player.  One more year of Grujic, yay! We're gonna miss Ilic Makarov and Spivak a lot though, even if we did hire a few midfielders and a decent CB to replace Spivak (will show them all in the pre-season update).

[Rikulec]

You must be absolutely loaded with cash right now, right?

[noikeee]

12 hours ago, Rikulec said:

You must be absolutely loaded with cash right now, right?

206.8M€ in the bank with a ******** of cash to receive from transfer instalments and from the Champions League.

 

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2027/2028

 

Transfers

 

 

 

This was unsurprisingly an unusually busy transfer window, due to the 5 per-transfer-rules sales that were completed. Thankfully only 3 of them were starters: midfielders Tomislav Ilic and Vladimir Makarov went to Chelsea and Bayern respectively for 53M€ and 67M€, whilst centre-back Mykola Spivak went to Bordeaux for 26M + 50% profit next sale. Two others also went, the hugely promising left-back Georgi Marinov (Man Utd, 26M + 50% profit next sale) and midfielder Lukas Prucha (Wolfsburg, 12,5M€ + 50%). I also voluntarily sold winger Ivaylo Dimov, a former star, to Southampton for 4,9M€, opening up space for the likes of Adam Horak to flourish; and notably Hungarian international DM Dávid Csiszár YP24E, he's just 19 years old but I don't see huge potential and as always I like strenghtening the rest of the league.

With all this done we had received 192M€ for players (!!) and had to replace them. So in comes 11 signings, although many as usual are just for the long-term future:

 

17yo Hungarian CB, not very exciting, I'm trying to develop all half-promising Hungarian kids with our facilities.

 

19yo Serbian striker, lately I seem to be hiring a lot of strikers that look awesome on paper but my staff tell me they don't have potential! So here's another.

 

18yo Czech left-back, impressive for his age, but not much potential. With the LB position weakened due to the sale of Marinov, he shall be our backup LB now.

 

Our first ever Russian!! 18yo striker. His finishing is low but he's got a pretty complete set of skills AND a fair bit of potential. Loaned out immediately to Sampdoria to get games (it's impressive how we're lately loaning out players for big teams, for example last year we had a striker that I never thought good enough for us, banging in loads of goals for Milan).

 

One of our biggest signings, at 5.5M€ expense this 20yo attacking-minded Czech midfielder is in the fight for a spot in the side.

 

Also Czech, also a midfielder, giant prospect, but just 16, he's got a long way to go yet, needs to develop a lot.

 

16yo Bosnian striker, limited potential but I'm gambling there could be something in here, his skills look good for 16.

 

Our most expensive signing of the window (15.5M€) is our first ever signing above the age of 21!! This 24yo Ukranian midfielder is one of several fighting for the MC position and looks a sensational player, apart from a perhaps worrying 20 for aggression!!

 

16yo Romanian striker. Good-but-not-great potential, but is well likely to reach it with a "driven" personality.

 

I splashed 10,25M€ on this 20yo Croatian DM/MC, but this was a bit of a fail, my idea was to hire him for DM to replace Makarov, at least for now as we have a lot of midfielders but too few defensively minded..... but he has PPMs of "runs with ball through centre" and "gets into opposition area". I guess he'll have to fight for MC together with Spremo, Lasota, Golovin, Mares when Mares returns from injury...

 

Our 2nd ever Russian, and our 2nd ever over-21 signing. This 24yo centre-back is meant to be the replacement for Mykola Spivak, the physical abilities are great but I'm a little worried about poor decisions.

 

 

Drawing our first match of the season wasn't great, but we're back to form now.

I think I did a decent job of replacing the departing players, and we should still be fearsome upfront with a trio of FedorYP20A-Sutulovic-Grujic, but it's inevitable that we should be a little weaker this season, but such is the fate of all selling clubs - which is what the transfer rules effectively turned us into - and something that all real life managers have to deal with. Biggest worry at the moment is the DM position for which I have not a single option that truly convinces me, but let's see what happens.

[noikeee]

Well this is going to make it easier to choose the midfielders, then.   We haven't even had Michal Mares back from his injury yet and his replacement/potential colleague gets injured as well, rubbish.

[noikeee]

Another example of a player out on loan to a big club:

He's been **** developing here, I hope a year in the Serie A gives him a boost. Has no place neither in MTK first 11 or second 11, or in Hungarian national team call-ups. Yet Juventus want him on loan. 

[deltablue]

Interesting transfer policy. I thought it was a lot harder to hang on to players in the last few versions anyway, especially with release clauses that are more likely to be triggered? 

[noikeee]

2 hours ago, deltablue said:

Interesting transfer policy. I thought it was a lot harder to hang on to players in the last few versions anyway, especially with release clauses that are more likely to be triggered? 

No I haven't had any issues whatsoever with release clauses, really. Very very rarely has any agent tried to slap one on a player in a non-negotiable way.

Essentially I've been fortunate with the economics of the Hungarian game and the way dynamics works (the whole "dynamics" thing in FM18 is what in theory should make players hard to hold onto, as it affects squad harmony, support for the manager etc).

I hire young, cheap, unknown players, who don't seem to realize we're rich and that they can get much higher wages out of us. We're using like 1/5th of our wage budget!! Not even when they do become established players over a few seasons with us, do they realise they're earning like 1/8th of the wages their slightly more prestigious, equally talented team-mates earn (when I hire more established players like Makarov or Grujic that cost us real money, I'm forced to give them better wages to move to us from clubs like Shakhtar or Dinamo - but they're the exception). 

Players values and wages etc, all seem to be pegged down to the under-the-hood "Hungary is a poor country" factor too much, instead of our current massive spending power. (I think the hardcoded Hungarian spending power and development status is a big factor, would explain why for example @pheelf in his Northern Irish career has had far more problems having to constantly sell players and re-develop the team, despite having more success than me - I suspect N.Ireland makes players expect much higher wages due to being part of the UK).

Then the "dynamics" seem to be not anywhere near as much of an issue as you'd think... once you've gained a reputation. It's attached to manager reputation far too much, it can be a nightmare if you just started the game, but once you've attained a bit of success at the club, players start worshipping you and it becomes a non-issue. The worst I've had in the dynamics tab was like 10 players wanting to move to a bigger club, with team-mates supporting them against me(!), and even then squad harmony and manager support only dropped to "Average". Of course it does hurt morale a bit though, you could see last season for example Fedor YP20A, his performances dropped, and I think it explains to some degree our step behind in CL performances the last 2 seasons. However we can still be ridiculously dominant in Hungary even with poor morale.

We also seem to be able to renew contracts with players forever, all I need is to wait for the player unhappiness to momentarily go away, once the interested club that sparked the problem stops looking at him (whilst 10 other clubs remain circling the player!!!), and then slap an optional contract extension clause of several years. That's how I'm already certain to hold Fedor YP20A hostage with the club until he's like 28 years old.  

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League Group Stage draw

We dropped to 3rd seeds this season and the result was this - a pretty tricky group.

[noikeee]

Guys, this is probably gonna be on pause for a while, not sure if it's completely over but I got a new thing that I got interested in, will be revealed soon.