The FM20 Youth Academy Challenge

[keeper#1]

Finally reached the youth intake day in my first season with Fortuna Koln.  Very excited to see what is coming into the club.  Very disappointed with what I got.

One maybe two players should make a push for the first team.

We are small, light, not very determined, and with awful personalities.  SEVEN "unambitious" players.  The Class of 2021 will not be a class that pundits will look back on fondly.

[Forest]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Soviet:

You can, but the odds of team being promoted twice from non-playable league are very, very slim...

Was for dnipro

 

[schnauzer]

[Fastbasher]

Wow. Not a single good thing to say about them?

[schnauzer]

3 minutes ago, Fastbasher said:

Wow. Not a single good thing to say about them?

I know, it literally couldn't be worse  Oh well it's probably only 50/50 at this rate if we even stay up

[XaW]

Youth intake 2023

A pretty good intake this year, and I'm very happy with the midfielder we got.

Trevor Ramsey 23a is a good defensive player, but I might use him as a defensive minded midfielder. Simply due to lack of good midfielder, but also because his fitness and work rate will be useful there.

Greg Shenton 23e is the closest to a decent goalkeeper I've gotten, so I think I need to bet on him, at least for a while.

[Fastbasher]

19 minutes ago, XaW said:

Greg Shenton 23e is the closest to a decent goalkeeper I've gotten, so I think I need to bet on him, at least for a while.

What is he like compared to your existing keepers?
I find it hard to develop a keeper by giving them playing time. What is your plan for him?
 

[XaW]

1 minute ago, Fastbasher said:

What is he like compared to your existing keepers?
I find it hard to develop a keeper by giving them playing time. What is your plan for him?
 

I have a great goalkeeper, but his contract is expiring at the end of the season, and I can't get him to sign a new one...

So I don't have a real choice here.

[Quacky]

@XaW I like the idea of Paul "Zlatan" Burgess, volatile, confrontational but media-friendly.

[OlivierL]

2 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

We are small, light, not very determined, and with awful personalities.  SEVEN "unambitious" players.  The Class of 2021 will not be a class that pundits will look back on fondly.

nice list ! u just enter all the attributes in technical , mental etc column ? do u use this to keep them ?

[XaW]

XaW - Stratford Town - 2022/23

Table | Squad | Transfers | Finances

So the youngsters are coming more and more into the team, and with a lot of the established players continuously refusing new contracts, they have to step up. And the team really stepped up this season. We just simply played well this season. For a long long time we were part of the playoff spots, and we actually played really good. I had some tactical swaps this season, but I haven't really locked in how we should play yet. We are scoring very freely now, but we are still having issues in defence we need to work out. The team played well, but in the final match of the season we fell out of the playoff spot after losing to FC United. So close, and maybe we can give it another shot next season.

In the FA Cup we beat Mickleover, Brightlingsea, Halifax Town, Boreham Wood and Alfreton Town before losing to Leeds in the 3rd round. A real cup run that really helped our finances. In the FA Trophy we beat Lancaster before losing to Gainsborough Trinity in the 1st round.

We had a quite good youth intake with Trevor Ramsey 23a as the best rated talent.

The leading players this season have been Nabil Shariff, Charley O'Keefe and James Hancocks.

And now our academy coaching and youth recruitment are back to bad again... No idea why.

[XaW]

12 minutes ago, Quacky said:

@XaW I like the idea of Paul "Zlatan" Burgess, volatile, confrontational but media-friendly.

Indeed!

[Quacky]

He's so absolutely useless at football that I would have no idea which position to train him in.

[SpS_Zen]

@XaW Finances looks complicated, are you using a lot of staff? That low attendance is an issue

[XaW]

3 minutes ago, SpS_Zen said:

@XaW Finances looks complicated, are you using a lot of staff? That low attendance is an issue

Nope, limited staff, but not getting in attendances really hurt. I'm keeping the wages as low as I can, but we are still losing money.

[Fastbasher]

This is supposedly my third golden generation in a row. I don't believe them anymore.

Still no sign of a keeper.

[OlivierL]

17 minutes ago, Fastbasher said:

This is supposedly my third golden generation in a row. I don't believe them anymore.

Still no sign of a keeper.

isn't their an issue with the term golden generation in this FM edition ? they are comparing PA's from the first team with the intake or something like that ?

[keeper#1]

2 hours ago, OlivierL said:

nice list ! u just enter all the attributes in technical , mental etc column ? do u use this to keep them ?

Yes.  It's just the technical, mental, and physical attributes added up.  I keep track of the intakes like this for a couple of reasons: 1) to see how the intakes improve over time as the facilities improve and 2) to see what impact my Head of Youth Development has on the initial player personalities and if the players, through mentoring, change the initial personality.

[schnauzer]

@XaW another great season 

Nabil Sheriff 51 goals!! Going to be very hard to replace once he retires. 

Your intakes have been great so far, you've got lots of decent players coming through I'm envious!

How have you managed to stay in a positive bank balance? Is it to do with cup runs?

[XaW]

3 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

@XaW another great season 

Nabil Sheriff 51 goals!! Going to be very hard to replace once he retires. 

Your intakes have been great so far, you've got lots of decent players coming through I'm envious!

How have you managed to stay in a positive bank balance? Is it to do with cup runs?

Thanks, his goals were amazing, and I'll really miss it, but I'll keep him as long as he keeps scoring.

I've gotten in some good players, but no real super talents.

I got a good cup run last season where we played away to Leeds. That is the only reason we are (were) in positive cashflow.

[andershs]

An approximation, but Welsh new season date is 24th of June 2020. Reload date is somewhere between 16th of May and 24th of June.

[Quacky]

This is such a weird position I find myself in. For prize money reasons I want to finish as high up the league as I can but I don't want to get promoted. I will be losing some key players at the end of the year due to age/wage demands and there won't be anyone to replace them for some time, I can't really think of a way that I could survive in the super league so early into the save.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Quacky

[darren1983]

Season 2022/23 Review Vanarama National League South

 

League - Along the same lines as last season, a solid start, awful middle, indifferent end meant we finished in same place but with more points than last season. It does feel like some progress though as we often started with 2 or more youth players as we begin to introduce them to the team.

FA Cup - A little run here but still not made the first round proper yet

FA Trophy - We fell to a late defeat but this was during our awful spell so only losing 1-0 was a result

Squad - Steve Keogh & Ben Wood cam through during the holiday season but both play 40 or so games this year. Lot's of minutes to DouglasYP02B, and minutes and goals for Carragher YP01A and Andrews YP01D which I'm happy with for now

Transfers - None in or out this season

Finances -  Awful, could do with a cup run

Youth Intake - Again not good just OK. Some nice personalities this time though

Josh Shaw YP03A - right back, like the look of, could turn out decent
Peter Edionhon YP03B - Centre back, like his personality 
Chris Dorin YP03C - right winger for a change, after loads of left wingers it's nice to get a potentially ok wight sided player
Neil Hunt YP03D - had to include a left winger though  
Adrian Wright YP03E - not great but am a fan of his workrate and teamwork stats so could do a job for us as a rotation option a little down the line

Career Overview

Season		League		Position	Coaching		Recruitment		Notes

2020/21		VNLS		4th 		Fairly basic		Basic			Lost in promotion semi final	
2021/22		VNLS		18th 		Fairly Basic		Basic
2022/23		VNLS		18th 		Fairly Basic		Basic

 

[Jintro]

Austrian Reset Date is june 13th, but promoted teams seem to be decided after june 6th (The day of the last league game)

[thomas_e]

So rewarding when the board starts selling players over my head. An offer of 20k for our only talented RB? No problem at all, just sell him.....

Extremely unrealistic and a terrible feature in the game btw... 

[rycl77]

Pink. Italian. Not Palermo.

Edited November 8, 2019 by rycl77

[rycl77]

23 minutes ago, rycl77 said:

Pink. Italian. Not Palermo.

So just to check, I'm leaving it on this date for today but all the under 18s and under 21s are greyed out atm and with a squad of about 13 players and 4 out of contract in a few days I'm unsure if I've messed something up while setting up the game

[thomas_e]

A great youth intake. I have gotten a couple of improvements to our Youth Coaching Budget and its paying off. 

Simic, Maric, Grgic and Zeljkovic all have massive potential so this is promising. Until our board sells them all over my head, but that seems to be the club strategy!  

 

 

[keeper#1]

Election Day came to Koln on June 19, 2021 and the new ownership group showed me the door.  

The old ownership had granted me upgraded academy coaching and youth recruitment too.  Back to square one.  Trying Holland this time (yeah, I know I need to sim ahead two seasons)

We didn't do too poorly.  Finished 13th.  Expected finish was 18th

[OneManSnipez]

Im not sure if i am doing anything wrong but my top youngsters keep getting poached despite signing them to pro contracts.

Is it because they arent old enough for the pro deal yet so they can still be poached? I dont get it

[Richdc92]

Anybody managed to load one that included Yate Town? been trying for hours.

[schnauzer]

25 minutes ago, Richdc92 said:

Anybody managed to load one that included Yate Town? been trying for hours.

I tried for ages to load Harrow and I don't recall seeing Yate Town once I'm afraid

Edited November 9, 2019 by schnauzer

[jstu9]

Exploit or Feature?

In Belgium, if you are not in the promotion or relegation pool you have no games in April/May yet your players are still at the team. I just watched a yt video showing how to make money from friendlies. Play them in a "League". I just did it, invited a number of English clubs, and made ~$250k. So I've set up another one.

But it feels almost exploit-y. Yet it is in the game. So is this ok or should I stop doing it?

[Quacky]

Etoile Carouge FC

Table | Squad | Transfers

This is a team that starts with a pretty decent squad with some impressive players. For the first half of the season we were in with the pack at the top and then after the winter break we reached peak performance finishing the season with 10 wins a row to take the title by 5 points. I'm a bit worried about this promotion though, the £600K prize money has wiped out the debt and the money for last place in the Superleague is £1.42M so money is great. The superleague has some genuinely good teams though and I was only able to secure a 1 year contract so it could be tricky to stay in the job. The biggest issue is that the promotion bid was spearheaded by the excellent Lakdar Boussaha, who is leaving for Grenoble because I couldn't triple his wages. Also needing replacement is Mauritanian international, Sally Sarr, who can no longer run and technically gifted Geoffrey Tréand who is about to join Sarr in the retirement home.

 

Top scorer - Lakdar Boussaha

My player of the season - Loïc Ombala (Switched to South African nationality and got called up half way through the year)

Honourable mention - Alban Ramadani

 

The youth intake was very promising, good coaching/excellent recruitment, the problem is that some of these players need to step up and take on the best of the Superleague right away. Next season is going to be very tough.

 

Top prospect - Guillaume Cazaux

My picks - Besmir Bytyci, Eric Gueguen, Pascal Liloia

 

 Season  |   League  | Position |   Cup   | Europe
---------------------------------------------------
 2020/21 | Challenge | 1st      | 3rd Rnd | N/A

[Quacky]

In weirdest bugs I've spotted so far, Tréand just became 1 year younger. His birthday has changed to nearly 12 months later.

Samuel Gomis has also lost a year, has anyone else seen this? If it happened to a lot of my players I would never have noticed.

[schnauzer]

So despite my pre-intake report having ZERO positives to give, we have actually come out with a half decent intake!

Spencer Smith looks the best of the bunch and with my best player Finn O'Mara leaving I will train him to take over his position at CB - a) because we have literally no one else to play there other than Callum Davies and b) Spencer Smith looks a beast in the air and his stats look more like a CB than a LB.

Carl Blanks will provide good cover to LB as I currently only have Ethan Madden to play there.

Chris Hewitt will already be good enough to challenge for a starting spot at CM, and is much needed as I currently only had 3 players there and my backup is a 1 star player. He has great determination and is only 16 so i'm not sure why his potential is only 3 stars.

 

If this is a bad crop then I can't wait to see next year's!

[keeper#1]

Reset date for Holland is July 7, 2021.  Save on May 29, 2021 to get different teams.

[jstu9]

Koninklijke Voetbal Klub Tienen-Hageland

A Struggle

After finishing in the top 4 the first 2 seasons heavily using the original players on the squad, this 3rd season saw much more usage of the youngsters. We finished 10th, never really in any danger of the promotion or relegation zone but many of the young players that should be the backbone to the team got some playing time.

Squad, Table, Transfers:

Youth:

Some nice potential in this group.

[Muttley84]

6 hours ago, thomas_e said:

So rewarding when the board starts selling players over my head. An offer of 20k for our only talented RB? No problem at all, just sell him.....

Extremely unrealistic and a terrible feature in the game btw... 

I doubt it thats to unrealistic. Maye the sum could be a little (not much higher) but the chairman of a newly promoted second league club selling players at first go without caring about the manager opinion sounds about spot on in this part of Europe. Here your role is still more of a coach then a proper manager.

[Fastbasher]

Well done @Quacky. Good luck in the Superleague. Even if you go back down, your youngsters should develop from the higher level competition.

Only one relegation spot in the challenge league feels safer than many other leagues.

[Fastbasher]

6 hours ago, rycl77 said:

So just to check, I'm leaving it on this date for today but all the under 18s and under 21s are greyed out atm and with a squad of about 13 players and 4 out of contract in a few days I'm unsure if I've messed something up while setting up the game

That sounds about right @rycl77. The first season is tough on the squad until you get your youth intake.

I played with a squad of 14 players until April and three of them were keepers.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's Palermo 2019/20 Challenge Start Report

After trying for so long to get Folkestone to appear in England, I became a bit worried when Palermo didn’t appear in Italy the first few times. However eventually it did.

The side looked pretty decent when I took over. Then all my loan players left at the end of their spell. Then my 2 best players left at the end of their contracts, their wage demands way beyond my means.

Luckily I managed to get my goalie to reup at the end of his contract. I’d have been in real difficulty if he hadn’t.

It’s depressing to have my team decimated before I’ve so much as played a friendly, but at least now I know what I’ve got to work with.

It means that I’ll be giving first team action to youth players much earlier than in any challenge attempt before. Not because I want to. Not because they necessarily have any potential, although you never know. My hand is forced.

I’ll be starting with 2 16 year olds (and a 19 year old) in the first XI, and there are only 2 players over 20 in the rest of the squad.

The key will be surviving, since I’d imagine the board might have high expectations, but they seem quite content at the moment with just staying in Serie C.

Edited November 9, 2019 by vikeologist

[Watson156]

I'm looking at giving this a go as my beta save, but have a question. How do you work out the league reset date, and also when to save it so you can reload to get other teams appear?

[Brother Ben]

1 hour ago, Watson156 said:

I'm looking at giving this a go as my beta save, but have a question. How do you work out the league reset date, and also when to save it so you can reload to get other teams appear?

Some are in the opening post, you can use last years thread as a rough guide.

what country were you thinking of?

Edited November 9, 2019 by Brother Ben

[Watson156]

Just now, Brother Ben said:

Some are in the opening post, you can use last years thread as a rough guide.

what country were you thinking of

Well I've just started in Brazil (league reset day was Jan 2nd), and I think I've done everything right but I'm going to use it as a guide to see how to do things as I've never tried this challenge before.

The other leagues I thought of were Russia & China. 

[weepube]

CARSHALTON ATHLETIC F.C - Season 2020/21 - National League South

 

League - Not a bad first season Never really looked in trouble and finished 12 points above the relegation zone in 17th.         

  

Youth Intake - The term Golden Generation seems to be thrown around a lot in the beta and going by my candidates i have a diamond generation with eight 4-5* potential players.

 

Very excited by one of the three goalkeepers that came through the intake this season. David Siddall already a 2.5 * current ability and a 5* Potential, George Kember looks a decent prospect will be playing him as a full back as not currently using a DM. Jacob Robertson also a 5* Potential wide midfielder these three could push the first team next season with the finances in a terrible state i need to release a lot of the current first team to try get us back on track.

Transfers

Career Overview

Edited November 9, 2019 by weepube

[Brother Ben]

2 minutes ago, Watson156 said:

Well I've just started in Brazil (league reset day was Jan 2nd), and I think I've done everything right but I'm going to use it as a guide to see how to do things as I've never tried this challenge before.

The other leagues I thought of were Russia & China. 

Bit of a minefield really, it'll be trial and error, usually once you work out the reset date try saving a month before, that works with most leagues (not all)

[thomas_e]

2 hours ago, Muttley84 said:

I doubt it thats to unrealistic. Maye the sum could be a little (not much higher) but the chairman of a newly promoted second league club selling players at first go without caring about the manager opinion sounds about spot on in this part of Europe. Here your role is still more of a coach then a proper manager.

It's not unrealistic that the board forces a sale of players, it's the very uncritical way they often do it on FM. Not just in certain regions. 

When we have positions with basically no cover and we start selling players in those positions for an extremely low price, I call that unrealistic.

And this is a repeating theme on FM, it happened on this challenge last year in Spain when I managed there. Luckily I had the opportunity to talk to the board about it then, and they changed their mind, after threatening to resign that is.. 

[Brother Ben]

8 hours ago, rycl77 said:

So just to check, I'm leaving it on this date for today but all the under 18s and under 21s are greyed out atm and with a squad of about 13 players and 4 out of contract in a few days I'm unsure if I've messed something up while setting up the game

Think you've done something wrong

added players should look like this for Italy

Legnano start the game with over 30 players so unless they've released a shed load I think you've missed something

Mind you 14 players is a luxury in some countries on the game!

[XaW]

7 hours ago, jstu9 said:

Exploit or Feature?

In Belgium, if you are not in the promotion or relegation pool you have no games in April/May yet your players are still at the team. I just watched a yt video showing how to make money from friendlies. Play them in a "League". I just did it, invited a number of English clubs, and made ~$250k. So I've set up another one.

But it feels almost exploit-y. Yet it is in the game. So is this ok or should I stop doing it?

I think it's @darren1983's choice, but the general idea is don't use exploits. I mean, one league per summer would be reasonable, but exploiting it by arranging 3-4-5 is not in the spirit of the challenge, at least in my opinion.