How to build a weak league's team to became Europe's contender?

[nole1312]

I need some helps here. I never been played any very long-save before, today I just started a save with Red Star of Serbia with expectation to build this team become a strong team in Europe, regulary present in Champions League Knock-out (better than Porto or Shakhtar Donestk). My questions are:

 - The league's rule is "no more than 4 foreign players in match", so i'm glady to build a team with pure domestic player. But I have to say Serbian players right now aren't good enough to challenge orther big europe's team (or they only want to move to bigger foreign clubs). So what should I do to improve my youth intake, to produce some young players with much better potential (i mean world class potential) for europe's competions in futures? The Red Star and Partizan are two most popular clubs in Serbia so I think every domestic young talent should want to present here. May be 1 or 2 player/season should be enough? In case the Youth Recruitment and Facilities are maximum upgraded, could I get the Serbian's youth intake as good as Brazil or France? I don't care how many season it take, I just want to know how to do it and is it work?

 - How do I improve my league's reputation? If the league's reputation improved, could I get more money from the TV, sponsor deal, tickets too? When you introduced young talents, you need alot of money and reputation to keep them stay, right?

[turnip]

Be successful in Europe, improve your club's facilities as much as possible, cross your fingers and hope.

Also, hope that the national team do well, I guess.

[nole1312]

1 hour ago, turnip said:

Be successful in Europe, improve your club's facilities as much as possible, cross your fingers and hope.

Also, hope that the national team do well, I guess.

Does better facilities help me recruit better regen? Or just help me train them to reach their potential faster? If all of my intake regen's potential aren't good enough, whaterver the good facilities I have, they still can't be world-class right?

[XaW]

The most important aspect is time. I saw someone made Gibraltar a top nation, but it took about 50-60 years to do so with increased European success.

So pretty much you have to constantly do well in Europe and be prepared to spend quite some seasons before you notice a lot. After a while you also need the other teams from your country to also do well to keep improving. After all many teams from a country doing well in the Champions League and Europa League will get more points than a single team from another country. Even if that single team do better in isolation that the teams from the first nation.

[Nacaw]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

The most important aspect is time. I saw someone made Gibraltar a top nation, but it took about 50-60 years to do so with increased European success.

So pretty much you have to constantly do well in Europe and be prepared to spend quite some seasons before you notice a lot. After a while you also need the other teams from your country to also do well to keep improving. After all many teams from a country doing well in the Champions League and Europa League will get more points than a single team from another country. Even if that single team do better in isolation that the teams from the first nation.

Some 100 mill tv money glitch greatly aided the Gibraltar thing. You are looking at between 100-150 seasons of playing to make a tiny nation a European force. 

Serbia could be shorter, it's already an established nation. You'll need to raise the coefficient dramatically (10-15 seasons), get more teams in CL, more money into the league, all the teams will eventually invest in youth facilities. TV money growth isn't set up to change much, so you're very dependent on good European results.

Basically agree with this, but repeat x50

8 hours ago, turnip said:

Be successful in Europe, improve your club's facilities as much as possible, cross your fingers and hope.

Also, hope that the national team do well, I guess.

 

 

[DrIgz]

I've done very well with Partizan over the years, won the Europa League and regularly playing quarter finals of the Champions League (I'm actually playing Barcelona next week, fingers crossed :P)

However, I've never gone further in the Champions League and I feel like in every version of the game I reach a plateau that I cannot overcome.

Youth products are essential. With Partizan, right from the get go, I focus all my energy into developing players because I feel I can easily win (or at least challenge) for the league title with youngsters and the rewards in a couple of years are huge.

I focus a lot on making the players happy and giving them long contracts so that I can keep most of my youngsters who become absolute class.

The issue becomes that even though I do well in Europe, have tonnes of money and am able to sign a lot of quality players, the league never quite keeps up and so I play in a useless league which I can win with my third team and it doesn't quite allow me to go that one step further and actually become of of the best in Europe :/ 

[XaW]

8 hours ago, Nacaw said:

Some 100 mill tv money glitch greatly aided the Gibraltar thing. You are looking at between 100-150 seasons of playing to make a tiny nation a European force. 

Ah yes, I had forgotten that part of it. Anyway, the point was it takes a long long time to do, but it is possible.

[Ales]

Note also that Serbia at one point will reach European Union, so all the foreign player restrictions for players from EU will be gone. Until then, focus on snatching best Serbian prospects. 

I do not have experience with FM 2018, but in FM 2013 I managed to win the CL with Partizan in my 9th season and played in EL final in 2019. First few seasons were frustrating, even when I reached CL groups, I regularly finished outside top two. But somehow I managed to replace my "FGN" spots with quality players, especially two regens from Croatia. Try to find the best "FGN" players for your most critical positions. In 2018 (that is 6 years into the game) Serbia became EU member, so I could sign EU players, who counted as non-foreign, including South American regens who had EU passport. This helped me greatly and also the other teams in the league benefited from this. Sadly I never played this save enough to see how it will develop, but I believe at some point also Red Star (or it was Vojvodina?) reached the 1st k.o. round in the CL in the 2020s. 

Regarding the youth intake, even with all facilities maximised, many time it will be just pure luck. For developing youth players, and giving them play time, send them on loan to clubs, but (for your top ones) try to find ones with good youth and training facilities. Make note also on Teleoptik players, Partizan reserve team, I believe there is an agreement the players can pass free between the two clubs.

[nole1312]

2 hours ago, DrIgz said:

I've done very well with Partizan over the years, won the Europa League and regularly playing quarter finals of the Champions League (I'm actually playing Barcelona next week, fingers crossed :P)

However, I've never gone further in the Champions League and I feel like in every version of the game I reach a plateau that I cannot overcome.

Youth products are essential. With Partizan, right from the get go, I focus all my energy into developing players because I feel I can easily win (or at least challenge) for the league title with youngsters and the rewards in a couple of years are huge.

I focus a lot on making the players happy and giving them long contracts so that I can keep most of my youngsters who become absolute class.

The issue becomes that even though I do well in Europe, have tonnes of money and am able to sign a lot of quality players, the league never quite keeps up and so I play in a useless league which I can win with my third team and it doesn't quite allow me to go that one step further and actually become of of the best in Europe :/ 

You won the Europa and regulary playing in CL quarter final, that's mean your first-team's quality right now is much better than the first season already, they have the same quality with some big teams in europe. So how about your youth intake? Are you get the youth intake better and better over the years? Are their quality and potential are equal with other europe big teams?

[nole1312]

1 hour ago, Ales said:

Regarding the youth intake, even with all facilities maximised, many time it will be just pure luck. For developing youth players, and giving them play time, send them on loan to clubs, but (for your top ones) try to find ones with good youth and training facilities. Make note also on Teleoptik players, Partizan reserve team, I believe there is an agreement the players can pass free between the two clubs.

I know it will depends on luck. But when you're Barcelona or Bayern Munich's manager, almost every season you'll get at least 1 or 2 youth intake with superb to excellent potential, i mean Champions League's potential. Will my Red Star get the same youth intake's quality if my team regulary playing in CL Knock-out, the facilities are maximum just like Barcelona?

[ClemB]

I'm currently managing FC Nordjaeland in Denmark and the best i've done is reaching quarter finals of the Champions League. I can beat some decent sides, however there are 3/4 teams that are another level for me (Real Madrid, Chelsea, etc). I feel FM made it tougher for teams from weaker leagues to become UCL contenders because of players hapiness and a more agressive AI regarding transfers. In FM12, i could win the UCL with a team from Iceland after 15 seasons or so. I'm glad they made it harder and more realistic.

 

My advices are:

- Play very defensive away and defensive home in big UCL fixures. 

- Offer to your key players very long contract. Always make sure they have 2 years to go on their contract 

- Sign young players from the balkans, its easy to make profit on them. Once you have accumulated good money, you can start to have a look on south american regens. They are expensive but they will help you reach a new level

[nole1312]

3 hours ago, ClemB said:

My advices are:

- Play very defensive away and defensive home in big UCL fixures. 

My team is the top team in the league, so I have to play with a high pressing and possession dominated style in league games all of the season. So if i change this familiar system to a very defensive tactic when playing at the UCL, the players gonna be very awkward with this. How do you deal with this problem?

[zlatanera]

4 hours ago, nole1312 said:

My team is the top team in the league, so I have to play with a high pressing and possession dominated style in league games all of the season. So if i change this familiar system to a very defensive tactic when playing at the UCL, the players gonna be very awkward with this. How do you deal with this problem?

Keep some similarities - for example if you're closing down more with a high line and retaining possession, in the big games keep the closing down, drop deeper and look to break quickly. Personally I've always gone for more a dogmatic approach so I'm not the best judge, but that's what I'd start with any way.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

4 hours ago, nole1312 said:

My team is the top team in the league, so I have to play with a high pressing and possession dominated style in league games all of the season. So if i change this familiar system to a very defensive tactic when playing at the UCL, the players gonna be very awkward with this. How do you deal with this problem?

If you add another tactic in the tactics screen instead of replacing your existing tactic then your team should be able to train on both tactics at once.

[karanhsingh]

This is a very interesting topic. Has anyone actually managed to win the CL with a team from a smaller country?

i imagine rangers would be a good challenge in Scotland 

[DrIgz]

16 hours ago, nole1312 said:

You won the Europa and regulary playing in CL quarter final, that's mean your first-team's quality right now is much better than the first season already, they have the same quality with some big teams in europe. So how about your youth intake? Are you get the youth intake better and better over the years? Are their quality and potential are equal with other europe big teams?

The first team is very much equal to many of Europe's best, and maybe it's my tactics which stop me from progressing further.

I have found that the quality of newgens I get has been exceptional right from the start. Not sure it really improves to be honest. Partizan has a very high level of newgens to begin with, and as my first team gets stronger, I find that I am able to integrate less of the youngsters in because only one or two players per intake could potentially make the first team (which is still huge). At the start of the game, I think I could take at least 7 or 8 U18 players and turn them into first team players within a season or two, because the first team isn't too strong.

[nole1312]

4 hours ago, DrIgz said:

I have found that the quality of newgens I get has been exceptional right from the start. Not sure it really improves to be honest. Partizan has a very high level of newgens to begin with

Thanks you, that's exactly what I wanted to know. I'm ready for next couple decades with Red Stars Belgrade now 😎

[forameuss]

On 05/08/2018 at 18:42, XaW said:

The most important aspect is time. I saw someone made Gibraltar a top nation, but it took about 50-60 years to do so with increased European success.

So pretty much you have to constantly do well in Europe and be prepared to spend quite some seasons before you notice a lot. After a while you also need the other teams from your country to also do well to keep improving. After all many teams from a country doing well in the Champions League and Europa League will get more points than a single team from another country. Even if that single team do better in isolation that the teams from the first nation.

 

On 05/08/2018 at 22:47, Nacaw said:

Some 100 mill tv money glitch greatly aided the Gibraltar thing. You are looking at between 100-150 seasons of playing to make a tiny nation a European force. 

Yeah, I managed to build Gibraltar up to that level in a thread that's still over on FMCU somewhere, but it did benefit from the maybe-a-glitch-but-maybe-not-who-really-knows stuff around TV deals and prize money.  

But that really just accelerated things.  XaW is right that all it really needs is time, and I'd add a lot of patience too. Inside the game, you just basically need to win, but in greater detail, I'd go with the following

Short term, you need to get a stranglehold on your league.  Complete domination. I think I managed to win the league every single season (apart from the first if I remember right).  That's obviously essential to get qualification to the Champions League (particularly when you'll likely only have one spot), but also so you don't really have any kind of fight on your hands, and can concentrate on building a squad that can concentrate solely on the important stuff.  It's easy enough to focus on Wednesday's European game when you can put out some youth players and cuff Lynx FC 9-0 on Saturday.  In this time, you just need to get as far as you can in Europe.  It'll likely be no further than a couple of qualifying rounds, but any win will boost your coefficient slightly.  But if you don't make the group stages in this period, it's not the end of the world.

Once you feel you're ready to make the next step, yyou really need to start racking up Group Stage appearances in Europe.  Europa League is fine at first, but once you make the Champions League group stages, you are in another financial stratosphere.  As long as you don't **** it away, you'll end up being untouchable domestically.  Once you've qualified a few times, it's time for step 3.

Step 3 you need to start getting philanthropic, and start looking at the country as a whole.  Your coefficient will rise as part of you qualifying for latter stages, and you should start seeing 3 or 4 teams qualifying for Europe.  But to really push you forward (and get the league building, rather than just you) you need those teams to start getting results.  That became quite easy in Gibraltar with every club getting TV money, but if you don't have that then you're probably going to need to start being Clairefontaine, providing players that you don't really need to boost your rivals ranks.  It shouldn't make a dent in your domination, but it could make all the difference if you can start getting them winning European games.

Once 2 or 3 sides start getting success in Europe, it's a bit like a rolling stone. Success breeds success, and your coefficient should rise up to at least the top 10.  At this stage you should be bothering the knockout stages, maybe even getting deep into the competition.  Once you start winning the Champions League, and other sides are getting Group Stage appearances, you'll be troubling the top table of leagues.

[Boltman]

15 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

This is a very interesting topic. Has anyone actually managed to win the CL with a team from a smaller country?

i imagine rangers would be a good challenge in Scotland 

I've managed it with Dundee, but Scottish clubs are a bit of a cheat because the game has always had them produce far more high quality regens than they do in reality anyway. It's not unusual to see Scotland winning the European Championship or World Cup in FM when being managed by the AI, and not that far in the future either. I've seen a Gordon Strachan managed Scotland win the 2018 World Cup a couple of editions ago. In the game Scotland suffers from the exact same bias as England, i.e, mature players hugely overrated by researchers, and ridiculously unrealistic numbers of world class regens. 

[karanhsingh]

38 minutes ago, Boltman said:

I've managed it with Dundee, but Scottish clubs are a bit of a cheat because the game has always had them produce far more high quality regens than they do in reality anyway. It's not unusual to see Scotland winning the European Championship or World Cup in FM when being managed by the AI, and not that far in the future either. I've seen a Gordon Strachan managed Scotland win the 2018 World Cup a couple of editions ago. In the game Scotland suffers from the exact same bias as England, i.e, mature players hugely overrated by researchers, and ridiculously unrealistic numbers of world class regens. 

Is that so? I wasn't aware about this! 

[RodentofDoom]

Your biggest obstacle is going to be reputation

• The host nation
• The League
• The individual teams in that league

Not only do you need to strengthen your own team, you also need to strengthen the other teams in your own league so that they can challenge in European competition more too.

As other teams in your league strengthen their squads, they will over time, slowly, increase the pool size of good youth talent which will enable the host nation to possible do better in international competitions

It's not a long-term project, it's a life-time project.

[Nacaw]

5 hours ago, forameuss said:

Once 2 or 3 sides start getting success in Europe, it's a bit like a rolling stone. Success breeds success, and your coefficient should rise up to at least the top 10.  At this stage you should be bothering the knockout stages, maybe even getting deep into the competition.  Once you start winning the Champions League, and other sides are getting Group Stage appearances, you'll be troubling the top table of leagues.

My experience is mostly in post-step 3 of your model. This is where the lack of natural income (tv, prize money, sponsorship) hurts the league so much, that even when you've driven up the coefficient to have  4 CL teams, you never get any further than the 6th best league. As a club, I can be in the top 5 world reputation for years, but the league as a whole still sits below the top 5. At this point, we're 20-25 years in and the natural income has increased maybe 50%. Yes, the other teams are generally doing well financially because of often making the group stages in Europe, but I'm yet to see a single 5 mill purchase by any team. Often the main improvement is the players' wages, but the players themselves haven't improved drastically. In other words, I'm still waiting for another team to "take a step forward", even with my help. Of course, this could still be considered a huge success by most, but my aim was to get a top 3 league and that seems almost impossible. Alternatively, I could reload to help the other clubs do better in Europe and make sure I win the CL every year instead of twice in twenty years, but I'm not really interested in playing like that.

I understand your experience has been different, but I think you vastly underestimate how much the "glitched" TV deals and prize money helped the league after step 3 in your case  

[forameuss]

3 minutes ago, Nacaw said:

My experience is mostly in post-step 3 of your model. This is where the lack of natural income (tv, prize money, sponsorship) hurts the league so much, that even when you've driven up the coefficient to have  4 CL teams, you never get any further than the 6th best league. As a club, I can be in the top 5 world reputation for years, but the league as a whole still sits below the top 5. At this point, we're 20-25 years in and the natural income has increased maybe 50%. Yes, the other teams are generally doing well financially because of often making the group stages in Europe, but I'm yet to see a single 5 mill purchase by any team. Often the main improvement is the players' wages, but the players themselves haven't improved drastically. In other words, I'm still waiting for another team to "take a step forward", even with my help. Of course, this could still be considered a huge success by most, but my aim was to get a top 3 league and that seems almost impossible. Alternatively, I could reload to help the other clubs do better in Europe and make sure I win the CL every year instead of twice in twenty years, but I'm not really interested in playing like that.

I understand your experience has been different, but I think you vastly underestimate how much the "glitched" TV deals and prize money helped the league after step 3 in your case  

Oh don't get me wrong, it's a massive, massive part of it.  No underestimating here.  Other clubs were still slightly reticent to spend, but they did spend more than they would have.  For the most part they spent a long, long time relying on the hundreds and hundreds of players I grew out of using.  Marked every youth product with the old YP mark, and it was amazing the number that came back to haunt me domestically.

The steps are largely the same though, whether you managed in Gibraltar or not.  Personal success is an absolute must early on, then eventually drifting towards something more general.  In the latter stages, money sure helps of course.  Not sure I ever really actively helped out the other clubs, short of letting them hoover up players like I mentioned above.  

Would've been nice to get to the bottom of that issue to be honest.  I'm not convinced it's strictly a bug, at least not in the traditional sense.  Although not sure if it's just a perfect storm of conditions, or an inherent problem in the edit SI made (it was the official one after all).  Even though it was their file, I don't think investigating it would have been very high on their agenda.

[Nacaw]

7 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Would've been nice to get to the bottom of that issue to be honest.  I'm not convinced it's strictly a bug, at least not in the traditional sense.  Although not sure if it's just a perfect storm of conditions, or an inherent problem in the edit SI made (it was the official one after all).  Even though it was their file, I don't think investigating it would have been very high on their agenda.

Way too few people play this type of long-term game, and I can only imagine the (sparse) in-house testing done 20-30-40 years in the future of the game, is mostly focused on maintaining the status quo between leagues. We're testing the limits of the game engine  It could easily be an easter egg for Gibraltar that you unknowingly unlocked.  

[nole1312]

3 hours ago, RodentofDoom said:

As other teams in your league strengthen their squads, they will over time, slowly, increase the pool size of good youth talent which will enable the host nation to possible do better in international competitions

Why need to wait for other teams increase their youth system to provide good youth talents while you can get the best domestic youth intake for yourself by maximum youth facilities as you can?

Or you mean my team get the better domestic youth intake if only other teams also increase their youth system at the same time?

I really don't clearly understand how this youth intake work, because I never been played a very long-save before.

[nole1312]

Siriously, why so much of you guys play Gilbatar, are there any excite over there?

[RodentofDoom]

1 hour ago, nole1312 said:

Why need to wait for other teams increase their youth system to provide good youth talents while you can get the best domestic youth intake for yourself by maximum youth facilities as you can?

Or you mean my team get the better domestic youth intake if only other teams also increase their youth system at the same time?

I really don't clearly understand how this youth intake work, because I never been played a very long-save before.

Yes you can over time just increase the national talent pool from your own teams youth intake

but if there's 2-6+ other clubs all getting improved youth talent you speed the process up for the nation you're playing in

this isn't about your team, it's about the nation that team plays in, it's a very different focus to pure club/nation management

 

it's all about the reputation trickle down up

increasing the standing of just 1 team will have minimal impact on the league & continental/international coefficients & reputations

but if several teams start improving their reputation & facilities you've got more opportunities for better youth intakes overall

more quality youth will increase the chances of better performances, initially only in the U18-23 categories, but after a while that moves to senior level

those performances can start to increase the reputation & coefficients

those increases improve the odds of getting better youth intakes

it's a very slow process, but a possible one

[nole1312]

47 minutes ago, RodentofDoom said:

it's all about the reputation trickle down up

 increasing the standing of just 1 team will have minimal impact on the league & continental/international coefficients & reputations

 but if several teams start improving their reputation & facilities you've got more opportunities for better youth intakes overall

more quality youth will increase the chances of better performances, initially only in the U18-23 categories, but after a while that moves to senior level

those performances can start to increase the reputation & coefficients

 those increases improve the odds of getting better youth intakes

 it's a very slow process, but a possible one

Thanks you, it was extremely useful to me!