The FM20 Youth Academy Challenge

[TheRailwaymen]

2 minutes ago, XaW said:

Then I don't see any reason to not play there. Tag Darren when you know the reset date, he can add it to the opening post.

@darren1983

 

Bulgaria is 29th June (I think ) 

Edited July 21, 2020 by TheRailwaymen

[Brentmeister]

 

Season 2 review

League performance: Season 2 was a tale of 2 halves. The first 15 games saw us pick up 12 points, relegation and/or being fired were becoming real possibilties; morale was at an all time low and I didn't know how to arrest the slide. I decided to go back to basics; a quick direct 442. I also became a lot more mindful of morale and it seemed to work, 23 points in the second half of the season saw us safely in 10th place. 1 position better than last season.

Croky Cup: 3 easy wins against lower league opposition before being thrashed by Anderlecht 0-4.

Key player: Last season's top prospect Benjamin Leonard 21A instantly became our best player and probable captain next season. He gained 45 attribute points in 1 season! That probably means we won't keep him, Jupiler Pro teams are closing in.

 

 

Youth intake preview: Another golden generation promised, a few of last season's crop are promising, hopefully this is similar.

The top prospect is probably Cyprien Hubert 22C. I'm most intrigued by half Belgian half Brazilian Marquinhos 22L though. He has evasive and unflappable media handling and a model citizen personality. I'm interested to see how far he can go.

 

 

Transfers: None in, but our board decided to sell our first choice keeper before the season started for a massive 20k, that should keep us ticking over nicely for about 3 hours.

 

Finances: Skint and getting skinter.

No upgrades or coaching badges.

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Brentmeister

[Brentmeister]

14 minutes ago, XaW said:

Ok, I've made a call that is either fantastic or horrible and please give some feedback on what you think.

That great youngster I have... I might have made him into a defender.

Hear me out! I mean, as a ball playing defender...? Looks really tasty, and I have too many good midfielder and too few good defenders. Thoughts?

He can literally play anywhere! He's definitely tall enough and well rounded enough to be a BPD. Could be the new Koeman with those free kicks!

Edited July 21, 2020 by Brentmeister

[XaW]

7 minutes ago, Brentmeister said:

He can literally play anywhere! He's definitely tall enough and well rounded enough to be a BPD. Could be the new Koeman with those free kicks!

Yeah, I just think with his VERY LOW flair, he would be better further back, rather than as a midfielder who should be able to do the unexpected.

[Alsolate]

It's great how you guys support each other, rather than competing against each other. Congrats on Bundesliga XaW, if nothing else, that prize money will be a huge bonus. But you might stay up, looking at your first 4 results.

 

Double season update coming up, as I struggled through the first season then overhauled tactics and retained youngsters and had a brilliant second season.

2026-27

Finances   Transfers   Table

Squad   Youth Intake

Ugh. Despite a decent bank balance, they sold my best defender for 3.7m. It impacted up far more than I anticipated. The goals also dried up in attack which led to a horrific season by our normal standards. I did clear out some of the older players who were no longer cutting it (this probably also contributed to us nearly being relegated. 

We ended up one place above the relegation play-off, by 5 points. We deserved to go down I feel, yet in no season would 35 points have been enough to go down. 

So it was the end of the 4-2-4-0 that had served my so well in other saves, and a few adjustments to make it a 4-3-2-1, retaining the potency of 2 central attacking midfielders and pulling the wingers back a bit. Ready for the next season.

 

2027-28

Finances   Transfers   Table

Squad   Youth Intake

We took a while to adapt to the new formation, particularly the strikers, who never got going til the second half of the season. After the January friendlies we went on a fantastic run, but were too far behind to catch the top 3. We turned over champions Hertha 4-1 away, and thumped another team 7-2. Previous seasons we would be on the receiving end of the 7-2. I feel we could go up this next season...

The youth intake was strong again, but oh god the why? The profile photo for my highest potential youngster has gone wrong... here  He certainly looks unique...

Dominik Zimmer is our Francesco Totti, the talisman. 

Marvin Muller is the best player to come through the ranks so far.

Alexandros Bountopoulos the coaches reckon he will be amazing too. Top Bundesliga teams are already sniffing around him. Another reason I kinda need to get promoted very soon before the board sell him for peanuts.

 

[Brentmeister]

13 minutes ago, XaW said:

Yeah, I just think with his VERY LOW flair, he would be better further back, rather than as a midfielder who should be able to do the unexpected.

True. I was being a bit hyperbolic! His low flair, and low ish dribbling and crossing makes him unsuitable for a few positions but he can defintely play BPD and most roles in the dm strata.

[darren1983]

3 hours ago, TheRailwaymen said:

@darren1983

 

Bulgaria is 29th June (I think ) 

Cheers mate, some countries got missed off as for a while it was just a list of countries where people had tried and I think I've copied and pasted it for a few versions now and I really should next year open the game and list every country really. 

[darren1983]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

Ok, I've made a call that is either fantastic or horrible and please give some feedback on what you think.

That great youngster I have... I might have made him into a defender.

Hear me out! I mean, as a ball playing defender...? Looks really tasty, and I have too many good midfielder and too few good defenders. Thoughts?

Big fan of this move yeah, I love a retraining  

I'd maybe ensure dribble less is ticked for him too

[Miek]

Took me 28 seasons but the CL is off the checklist. Just need to focus on the PL now so I can finally say I've completed this challenge.

[XaW]

8 hours ago, Brentmeister said:

True. I was being a bit hyperbolic! His low flair, and low ish dribbling and crossing makes him unsuitable for a few positions but he can defintely play BPD and most roles in the dm strata.

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking about pulling him backwards on the pitch. I have a fantastic DM, and not that great DC's... So it kind of make sense.

6 hours ago, darren1983 said:

Big fan of this move yeah, I love a retraining  

I'd maybe ensure dribble less is ticked for him too

Yeah, I don't want him to make fancy dribbles, only good passes out from the back! And be an extra pivot when we really need to go back.

[Padders]

12 hours ago, b101 said:

Damn  - great money, but I imagine that's no longer an issue for you

Yeah don't need the money, much prefer the wonderkids

[Padders]

12 hours ago, XaW said:

Ok, I've made a call that is either fantastic or horrible and please give some feedback on what you think.

That great youngster I have... I might have made him into a defender.

Hear me out! I mean, as a ball playing defender...? Looks really tasty, and I have too many good midfielder and too few good defenders. Thoughts?

WHAT A PLAYER!!

Love to see his stats in a few years

[SpS_Zen]

Season 26 2045/2046

A decent start with 17 points taken in 18 games. That gave me hope we would be able to maintain. We had many issues : score goals, maintain our score lead, or get points versus the top 8 (we got 2 points).  I didn't manage to fix those issues and we got relegated logically. 

Funny part, our affiliate club was promoted in L1 and given my club is announced as one of the favorite to be relegated from Championship, my chairman cancelled the link. Like if it was unevitable lol. PL accession was just too early, but it gaves us a massive financial/reputation boost, even after the relegation.

With all that cash, i was able to ask facilties update + a 8k seats stadium extansion. We will be playing in Watford stadium next season. Despite those expenses, we are 130m in green. I gave decent wages to most of my players. The PL promotion also gave us a massive sponsorship boost. During the PL season, we had 750k from sponsorship, despite relegation we will get ~15m next season.

While in PL, i was able to ask for an affiliate club to increase our commercial revenue. I took a chinese club. I wonder if increasing the knowledge of a country will help to get regens from it. 

Cups went poorly, as usual. I got eliminated by 2 L1 teams. 

I sold some back up players, nothing notable. L2 players and below.

Mills 24a will become my best player for sure. I made the choice to renegociate his contract and concede a 84m clause release. If he keeps improving, he might refuse to negociate with me in the future. I'm taking a "reasonnable" risk as his generation was not golden. 

Finally, a golden generation! The previous one was 4 seasons ago. A left wing back is my hot prospect. I am not sure at which role i will train him. I might wait to see how he is evolving. 

Aim: Promotion in the next 2 seasons.

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by SpS_Zen

[Brentmeister]

6 hours ago, Miek said:

Took me 28 seasons but the CL is off the checklist. Just need to focus on the PL now so I can finally say I've completed this challenge.

That's usually the hard part! Congratulations

[XaW]

Season 2032/33 Review - Bundesliga - Germany

League | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Well, this was quite a tough season! Though that was not unexpected after the surprise promotion last season around. The ideal goal was to survive, but I just not be the whipping boy was the main thing. After we lost the first game to Bayern and then three 0-0 draws after that it became clear we were not that bad compared to a few of the other teams, but the biggest ones are quite a bit ahead. So we picked up some points here and there, but it was clear we were fighting for staying up early on. There were 4 teams clearly on the bottom from the start, Nürnberg, Freiburg, Dynamo Dresden and ourselves. The rest of the 14 teams left us in the dust from the start. At the halfway line Dynamo Dresden was a bit behind the rest, but all of us tried to avoid the last relegation spot, and the playoff spot in 16th if possible. With 5 games left we were in 15th, but firmly in the fight.

In the next 5 matches we drew 0-0 away to Nürnberg, lost at home to Bayer Leverkusen, lost away to Schalke, lost at home to Stuttgart and won away at Dynamo Dresden. So we finished on 28 points and in 16th. The relegation playoff. Freiburg joined Dynamo Dresden down into the 2nd tier. In the playoff we faced Kaiserslautern, who finished 3rd, behind Fortuna Düsseldorf and Mainz. We beat them 2-0 at home and 1-0 away to stay up and compete in the Bundesliga next season as well.

In the DFB-Pokal we beat Lohfelden before losing to Köln in the 2nd round.

Notable players

Fréjus Akognon 29b - Another excellent season from the young defensive midfielder. Had more to do than previously, but did amazing once again.
Frank Kleineheismann 30e - Came out of nowhere and became our first choice striker. Scored a fair bit for us.
Eldar Ajanic 31b - A solid season in defence for us, but were not as outstanding as I had hoped. Still, he is 17, so he has time to grow.

Youth intake

Youth preview - Good enough. "Excellent" again.
Youth intake - A very good intake, and very balanced. No one really stand out, but a lot of very promising players.

Daniel Musah 33a - Quick and can play on both wings. Very good physicals for his age.
Mario Wörsdörfer 33b - Another talented left back. Getting loads of them, so he need to work to stand out.
Matthias Bochmann 33c - I think he could be a very good defender. Not bad on the ball either. A bit on the short side, but he can grow.
Weerapol Tongthong 33d - A very well balanced midfielder who can slot into many different roles there. So far I told him to be a box-to-box midfielder, but things can change.
Ferdinand Heller 33e - Young winger, rated well by the coaches, but I'm more hesitant.
Luca Pini 33f - A deeper type striker with very good mentals for his age.
Hassan Adekoya 33g - If his finishing was high I would really rate him, but it's not, so I have my doubts.

[ashton321]

So I have decided to start again after being relegated in Austria. This time I am on FM 20 and off to Bulgaria

Facilities / General

 

League - We were fairly safe all year through. We didnt really look in any danger at all, we looked about mid table all year long and the going into the winter break I actually thought we could push further up and maybe to promotion. It was not to be as poor form took us further down the league and looked like we could even be in a little bit of trouble but we stayed firm and we stayed up with fairly decent position. 

Cup - We beat a non league side before being beaten by a First Division side so no real shame here. 

Finances - We are loosing a bit of cash but I think we will be ok

Transfers - Nothing to see here

Youth Intake - Looks decent enough some fair quality coming through

Tsvetomir Atanasov - Always good to get an early keeper in so pleased with that

Milen Aleksandrov -Looks ok, I hope he improves in next couple of years

Stars of Season

Stefan Mitev - played very well for us all year and is a rock in the middle of the park

Todor Plankov - Came from nowhere as an absolute goalscorer, is retiring this year and will not stay

 

Next Year - Had a junior coaching upgrade and also a youth recruitment upgrade so hoping they bare fruit next year. I think another year of mid table should be what we need. 

 

Year       Division        Finish        Cup           Europe
-----------------------------------------------------------
2020/21     Second League   11th       Rnd 2            N/A

 

 

 

 

[Miek]

46 minutes ago, Brentmeister said:

That's usually the hard part! Congratulations

Man, I can't believe I didn't realize this before. Finished 3rd, 2nd and 3rd in my last three seasons but City keeps buying world class players and destroying teams like Chelsea or Spurs.
My best striker is also turning 29 this season so really need City to slip up a bit more this season.

 

[b101]

Well, this was unexpected...

And the wonderfully funky tactic I've had to develop to fit to this ragtag squad with zero actual strikers lol. So many roles and combinations I've never used before, but it's working and produces some lovely movement!

[XaW]

This kid playing for Hertha is pretty good...

[b101]

10 minutes ago, XaW said:

This kid playing for Hertha is pretty good...

[Constantine]

Had a great start to my save with FC United of Manchester, sitting 3rd in the league while collecting ******** of money. And while i plan on continuing it down the line, my main focus will be my local club.

Jedinstvo Ub.

Nemanja Matic helped save us from administration few years ago (he's raised in this village), his brother took over as president and since then they're pretty much stable in Serbian Third Division.

Since that level is not playable in Football Manager, that made them perfect for this challenge. Matic himself said they plan to focus on youth, bring up local kids (in real life they haven't really done so) so i'll correct that.

Personally, i tried this challenge in the past. Pretty unsuccessfully, having been sacked by Histon, twice (FM 12 and 13, if i remember correctly), St Neots (twice as well), Moravac Mrstane and some Dutch club i can't for the love of me spell correctly. My greatest success was with FC United of Manchester few years back, when i brought them up to League One, where we got relegated and after two more season in League Two i just gave up.

Here's my profile, as required by this thread. I play this way pretty much in all my saves so nothing really that drastic was asked.

Not the worst starting point ever but, boy, we're leagues behind everyone else in this division and one above.

As for squad, Jedinstvo went for quantity over quality. There's a lot of players here, we're well covered in all positions. I'm yet to do squad review but there is trimming waiting to be done. But at first glance, this squad is old. Not exactly good news for longevity of this save...

At least, our board is reasonable. For now. Just remaining in Second Division will be enough for them.

Which, according to bookies, will be a monumental task.

Let's see how we'll do.

Bring on preseason.

 

Edit:

Oh, **** me.

Just read the rules for the league. We have to have two u21 player on the pitch for at least 45 minutes and two more in the match squad.

Problem is, we have none. Zero. No u21 players in the club.

****.

Edited July 22, 2020 by Constantine

[XaW]

44 minutes ago, Constantine said:

Just read the rules for the league. We have to have two u21 player on the pitch for at least 45 minutes and two more in the match squad.

Problem is, we have none. Zero. No u21 players in the club.

I think you have to use grey players until the intake. For the ones on the bench you can usually just leave a few spots open and the game will accept that.

[Constantine]

22 minutes ago, XaW said:

I think you have to use grey players until the intake. For the ones on the bench you can usually just leave a few spots open and the game will accept that.

Yeah, that did the trick. Both greyed out fullbacks will play first 45 minutes before real boys come in. Thanks.

Also, i just can't escape those bloody greys!! In my FC United save, we had no goalkeepers so i had to use them. And now here, all because of that rule. And because we've got an aging squad. Bloody hell!

[Padders]

Season Review 2189/90

Relegated again

[Padders]

2 hours ago, XaW said:

This kid playing for Hertha is pretty good...

Got some unreal players in your game

[b101]

Top at the halfway point and not quite sure how this is still happening. We are so limited going forward, but super stingy at the back and have a knack for eking out a 1-0 win.  

In much-needed news, we might finally be getting a striker. Could use another AM to develop as well. Fingers crossed that they are actually decent!

[Padders]

Duplicate post

Edited July 22, 2020 by Padders

[manutdfan1999]

After taking a couple days off from my save I’m really missing it. Haven’t connected with a save as much as this one on a long time 

[ashton321]

 

 

 

League - A little bit of an up and down year for us. We scored 20 goals less than last year, but we also conceded 20 goals less than last year so there was a little bit of trade off. I am not sure what the difference was as we kept the same tactic and the majority of the same team. Despite the huge goal swing from last to this we have finished with the exact same amount of points but 2 places lower. I very pleased with what we did and to stay up again is superb. 

Cup - Decent in this, we beat a Non League team this year to get into the next round. We then beat a top league side before crashing out in extra time to another team from the top division.

Finances - We are dropping here a little

Transfers - Nothing to see here

Youth Intake - Got some decent players through but in similar spots to last year so could do with more variation.

Atanas Flipov - Decent striker, has played a couple of first team games already

Anton Ganchev -Decent enough keeper, hoping he will play for the first team

Stars of Season

Stefan Mitev - another fantastic season from one of the main players for us

Kristiyan Angelov - what a player, I really like him he has a low release fee so we could loose him

 

Next Year - Two new upgrades which was fantastic for us and will allow more people to come in. We have already lost one of our future prospects in next years intake to another team. I am hoping we could maybe get above the 40 point mark next year.

 

Year       Division        Finish        Cup           Europe
-----------------------------------------------------------
2020/21     Second League   11th       Rnd 1            N/A
2021/22     Second League   12th       Rnd 2            N/A

 

 

 

[XaW]

Ok, I'm properly fuming now! The new pc I bought a few months ago wouldn't start this morning. So I tried to fix it, but I can't get any power. The power supply is ok, but just nothing. So I had no choice but to take it back to the shop and have them take a look. Turns out, the motherboard is somehow fried. FFS! So I got this crappy "borrow" computer while they send it to someone to handle it and blah blah blah. The reason I'm fuming? They said they would probably have to change the motherboard and reinstall the who damn thing, INCLUDING wiping the disk and everything. And do you think the idiot writing this had enabled cloud saves? Of course not. So my German adventure is potentially gone (as well as loads of personal files and such things).

So I'll see if I will do anything in here or what I'm doing for the next weeks while I wait for the computer again. Just wanted to vent a bit and let you know that updates to my save is, at best, stalled for a few weeks.

Oh, and the "borrow" computer they gave is horrible, but I'll see if I can get FM installed and running...  

[manutdfan1999]

@XaW that sucks man hopefully you can manage to get it back 

[Padders]

1 hour ago, XaW said:

Ok, I'm properly fuming now! The new pc I bought a few months ago wouldn't start this morning. So I tried to fix it, but I can't get any power. The power supply is ok, but just nothing. So I had no choice but to take it back to the shop and have them take a look. Turns out, the motherboard is somehow fried. FFS! So I got this crappy "borrow" computer while they send it to someone to handle it and blah blah blah. The reason I'm fuming? They said they would probably have to change the motherboard and reinstall the who damn thing, INCLUDING wiping the disk and everything. And do you think the idiot writing this had enabled cloud saves? Of course not. So my German adventure is potentially gone (as well as loads of personal files and such things).

So I'll see if I will do anything in here or what I'm doing for the next weeks while I wait for the computer again. Just wanted to vent a bit and let you know that updates to my save is, at best, stalled for a few weeks.

Oh, and the "borrow" computer they gave is horrible, but I'll see if I can get FM installed and running...  

Oh no! Gutted

I use OneDrive and save my FM folder so it's always backed up.

Give that a go in future 

[XaW]

24 minutes ago, manutdfan1999 said:

@XaW that sucks man hopefully you can manage to get it back 

16 minutes ago, Padders said:

Oh no! Gutted

I use OneDrive and save my FM folder so it's always backed up.

Give that a go in future 

Thanks guys. I'll be sure to set up backup when I get my new computer back!

I at least got FM installed and started on this computer, but it so slow.... 

Anyway, I think I'm going to try to find a country to start in now, but I'll take my time and see if anything seems interesting. I'd most like to continue in Germany, since I really liked that save....

[scottjameswilson1987@gmail.com]

Hi all. Just signed up to the fm forum hoping someone had done this thread! In my 3rd season with Macclesfield and I am getting a bit bored. Going to give no signings and just using kids a go now! I've found that Kristjaan Speakman has done wonders with poor youth facilities. Even though I've creamed in a bit of cash the club has still only let me upgrade the youth facilities once and they are still only compatible to the facilities to that of a child's nursery. Has anyone struggled in the early days using kids or always do well? 

[uroszila]

@XaW sorry to hear that, it was a promising save indeed.

I hope that you will come back with a new save soon.

[Cookie147]

If I don't get fired this season I'll be amazed. 

90% of goals I'm conceding are from crosses into the box, and I can't work out how to stop this, I've tried everything. Any ideas? 

Currently winless in 11... help! 

[b101]

40 minutes ago, Cookie147 said:

If I don't get fired this season I'll be amazed. 

90% of goals I'm conceding are from crosses into the box, and I can't work out how to stop this, I've tried everything. Any ideas? 

Currently winless in 11... help! 

From open play or from set pieces? If the former, the main thing for me is to stop the supply. In a 4-5-1 with advanced wingers (or in my case, the outside CMs in a 3-5-2), you often have to set the wingers to specifically mark their full backs (mark specific position rather than player), or else they have an easy cross from deep every time. Set pieces take a while to set up, but worth doing specific positioning or man marking once and saving each as a template so that you can reuse in different tactics.

You'll still concede (and score) a fair few headed goals, but this should minimise it.

[XaW]

So I've loaded up a new game and holidayed for a bit. That took ages, but I've got a team. I'm heading to Austria! I haven't played there for many versions and before RB Salzburg was a thing, so it will be fun to try to overcome them.

Here is my profile:

Just had a friendly and the graphics are horrible! There are no graphics card on this rubbish so things now look like this:

Ugh! Looks horrible! And the keyboard layout is different, so I keep hitting the "Fn" key instead of Shift or Ctrl... Ok, I'll stop complaining about it now...maybe...

[b101]

Complain all you like. Horrible luck

[XaW]

5 minutes ago, b101 said:

Complain all you like. Horrible luck

Thanks, but I'll stop! Let's keep this thread to the youth challenge!

I also remembered to use cloud saves! 

[ashton321]

  

 

 

League - Guess how many points?? Yes thats right 40 again but this time we finished a little lower in the league, I felt though that we did progress this year. The league is tight so a bit of form and we could have rocketed up the league one extra point and we could have been 11th so it is tight. I really feel its slowly coming together. 

Cup - First round again this year once again out to top division league team.

Finances - Not ideal

Transfers - Lost of couple of kids who I didnt want to out due to buy outs they left and then the rest were kids out to get experience. 

Youth Intake - Another good year for us a good few players who are decent

Milen Dimitrov - Not a spot of need but a very good player

Nikolay Stoychev -Looks decent might be one for the loan market next year

Stars of Season

Atanas Filipov - came last year and what an absolute beast scores most of our goals and I am a huge fan

Pavel Inanov - my best player, he wants to leave so wont be around for much longer I think

 

Next Year - I think next year will be the year I stick the kids in, I have had a few in but next year I am going to change the team around and give them all a go. 

 

Year       Division        Finish        Cup           Europe
-----------------------------------------------------------
2020/21     Second League   11th       Rnd 1            N/A
2021/22     Second League   12th       Rnd 2            N/A
2022/23     Second League   14th       Rnd 1            N/A

 

 

[XaW]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

Thanks, but I'll stop! Let's keep this thread to the youth challenge!

Ok, a final one...

No no, the graphics on this old piece of metal is fiiiiiine.....

Or are we playing on gravel????

[Padders]

Season Review 2190/91

Absolutely dreadful season losing 14 games

Lost in the play off final vs Chelsea

[XaW]

FC Kufstein

Season 2020/21 Review - Sky Go Erste Liga - Austria

League | Squad | Transfers | Finances

So, since I cannot play in Germany, I'll play at a club just south of the German border, just inside Austria. FC Kufstein is located in Kufstein, on the road from Germany to the more famous place Kitzbühel, so I guess it's simply a small town to pass through. My goal is to make it into something bigger! The squad was quite decent with a few very good players, but also very few. With a full 11 and 7 on the bench, I had one single player extra. So, I had a few matches with open places on the bench. Still, the season went really well for the most part. Around the winter break we had a real down period, but other than that it went surprisingly well. We were never close to getting the single promotion spot, but we were around the top half all season. In the end I'm very happy with a 4th place.

In the ÖFB-Cup we beat ASV Draßburg before losing to FC Juniors OÖ in the 2nd round.

Notable players

Tidiane M'Baye - Our main striker and top scorer.
Maximilian Pfeifer - 11 assists from the DM strata is amazing. Really good player.
Klinsman - I will note him because I had expected so much more. The name and being Colombian, I want more from him next season.

Youth intake

Youth preview - Looks promising, any player is needed at this point.
Youth intake - Wow, I guess we are stocked with central defenders for a while!

Alexander Wittkowski 21a - Really rated by the coaches, but is a bit on the short side for my likening.
Maurice Berger 21b - Whoa, what a player! Also a bit short, but still a great player at this level.
Sven Dost 21c - A good goalkeeper is always a good thing to get.
Niklas Kirsten 21d - The 3rd central defender and also a good one. Don't need more of those for a while.

[kollitos]

hello, does anybody know the reload and reset dates for Greece?

[Brentmeister]

19 minutes ago, kollitos said:

hello, does anybody know the reload and reset dates for Greece?

New teams appear 22 june 2020, so if you holiday till mid May and save it, you can reload for different teams.

Edit: 15th May and 22nd June work, I just checked them.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Brentmeister

[b101]

Well now...

I'll do a proper write-up tomorrow, but just kinda stunned. I think this will likely be a 'take the money and run' experience as we are nowhere near good enough for Serie A. So many gritty 1-0 / 2-1 wins this season and we're just not ready. Weirdly, none of the other sides ever made a push. The form column shows how weird this run-in was - we didn't even have to play particularly well. It does show that Palermo's starting squad is really solid though. 

[Cookie147]

JALKAPALLOSEURA HERCULES

Season 8 - Finnish Premier League (12th)

....but at least the new Chairman was happy...

Not the season I had hoped for, but it was always on the cards. We stayed up last season by a whisker, and nearly performed another miracle this time as well. If we had of drawn our final match we would have gone into another play-off. We conceded in the 92nd minute to lose 3-2, and back in to the First Division. We did deserve to go down though, and gives me a chance to get rid of some of the 'old-guard' and bring through some of the promising youngsters.

LEAGUE TABLE

PLAYER OF THE SEASON

Centre back Samuli Hölttä wins this award for the second time. The best of a poor bunch really.

YOUNG PLAYER OF THE SEASON

I'm more excited about the emergence of 2nd season youth prospect Janne Oikkonen 02a, who picked up the young player of the season and was the top scorer this season with 12 goals. Joint top in the division.

YOUTH INTAKE

There was an improvement in Junior Coaching at the beginning of the year, so some decent prospects in the intake, including a random Russian. I may involve a few next season in the lower division.

IMPROVEMENTS

Junior Coaching Upgrade, before the money ran out.

TRANSFERS

PROGRESS

Finally...

The boss man wants top three next season, and promotion the following one. I hope these kids learn fast!

[b101]

  

Palermo - 2021/22 Season Report

Fixtures 1 - Fixtures 2 - Transfers

League

As mentioned in the previous post, we kept surprising everyone. The whole season was devised around a plan of being very cagey at the back with an ultra-compact 3-5-1-1 (mainly due to having zero natural strikers) and it kinda just kept working. We won SO many games 1-0 or 2-1 and got very lucky with the number of spot kicks awarded - 3 of our wins were decided by a single penalty. Most of all though, nobody else seemed to want it and teams kept taking points off each other. Seems like that's what happens in Serie B as our points total of 75 (which I don't think is THAT good compared to other leagues) would have won the league by 11 points and 6 points in the previous two seasons. We also benefited from the schedule 'clumping' a bit more than expected. Our bad run in February was the hardest run of fixtures we had all season and they all came at about the same time. The big win was home to Genoa - after that, we'd played all of the major promotion contenders and just needed not to lose to Monza and Perugia as part of our easy run in. 

League Table

Key Players

More this time than in future years as it's the first one. Sadly, I couldn't persuade Floriano to reconsider his retirement, so we're into Serie B with even fewer strikers...

Danilo Ambro (CM turned RWB) - Huge number of assists from RWB and super consistent. The best retraining I've done in this challenge in any of the years I've done it.
Alessandro Martinelli (CM) - Solid and came up huge when needed. Hasn't missed a penalty for us and keeps the midfield ticking over.
Raimondo Lucera (RM turned ST) - Sacrifices himself for the team. He's not the most consistent, but when he goes off in games, he was unplayable at Serie B level. We need to find a way to support him better. 18 goals from a non-striker with 7 finishing is a damn good return though.
Eugenio Buscema (AM) - faded in the second half of the season but was great at the start. Again, another one I think I can get more out of.

Youth Player Watch

Riccardo Albertini (YP1e) - the only one who cracked the first team. He's a solid midfielder for our level. Serie A though? Gulp...

Youth Intake

We badly needed a striker, so I was delighted to get the preview saying one was on the way. Our next big need is WBL, but I think I can retrain in the meanwhile. I'm not sure whether it is good enough to truly be a golden generation, but I'll take the players happily/

Intake

Roberto Perri (YP2a) - ST - The guy we really wanted. Needs a lot of work on his physicals, but otherwise pretty solid.
Matteo Pavani (YP2b) - AMC - solid spread of attributes. How I'd love that 10 for heading to be pretty much anywhere else
Saro Sangiorgio (YP2c) - ST - see above re: heading! Should do a job from the bench in a couple of years
Alessandro Galli (YP2d) - DM/MC - there's a lot he can't do, but he does have a good amount of attributes in the right places to be a solid defensive mid in the future. 

Facilities and FInance

Spent the whole year badgering the board for ANYTHING with no success. Won the league and suddenly we're getting upgrades to youth facilities, training facilities, youth recruitment and junior coaching . I maintain that we're going to get slaughtered in Serie A, so we might as well get the upgrades while we're there.

Progression

Season  |  League   |   Pos.  |   Cup    |     Europe     |  Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2020/21 |    C/C    |   1st   |  1st rd  |      n/a       |  
2021/22 |     B     |   1st   |  3rd rd  |      n/a       |  

[Constantine]

Jedinstvo Ub

Season 2020/2021 - Review

Prva liga Srbije - We survived quite comfortably, even if hadn't looked as we would at times. Before season started, i wished only to get into the Top 8 before the split. Got off really well, ending up in top three for a good chunk of the season before our form took a nosedive in November, only stopped by the winter break. We stabilized afterwards but never quite looked as good as we did during opening two months. Still, for first season, with this team, i can be perfectly happy with where we ended up. Offensively superb but defensively subpar. Part of that fact i can blame on stupid league rules, where i had to play two u21 players in starting eleven for at least 45 minutes, with additional two on the bench. Problem was, we had none before intake so i had to cope with **** like this till April, playing two grey goalkeepers as strikers, usually falling behind and having to go all out in second half.

Kup Srbije - Somehow we've got way further than we had any right to be. Quarter finals, while eliminating two teams from top flight but Vozdovac (my former team) got the better of us, with my former captain and former FM wonderkid Jovan Nisic scoring from penalty.

 

Top performers:

Kristijan Djurdjevic - Decent haul for our supporting striker, who made the best of Nemanja Ratkovic's injury struggles and put up decent numbers despite the fact he had to come in as sub for 20something games because of league rules i mentioned before.

Milan Jeremic - Former winger, converted by me to a deep lying playmaker was our main creative outlet. He's on the wrong side of 30's but he's easily most talented player we have. We got a kid who could replace him in a season or two but till then, he's irreplaceable.

Djordje Bicanin - Struggled with injuries for good part of season but left winger still put an impressive display.

 

Top prospects:

Intake preview wasn't a surprise, considering our poor facilities but we still got one great prospect with a bunch of potential bench warmers. Due to league rules, i consider it good enough. Seven players bagged and tagged.

Miroslav Krasic - Originally an AMC but considering his weak physicals, he'll be retrained to deep lying playmaker and will be put straight into the first team as Jeremic's understudy.

Aleksandar Djergovic - Not as good as our backup goalie yet but, league rules, yada yada yada, he's going on the bench.

Vukasin Vukoje - Kinda Jack of all trades type midfielder.

Luka Trifunovic - With a little bit of work, he could be an useful rotation option.

Miso Alempijevic - Another potential playmaker...

Attila Horvath - Fullback who isn't fast at all, CB who can't jump, still signed him because our defenders are getting old. That area could become a real problem for us.

Milan Jovanovic - Last player i signed and one who will see some game time in coming season from the bench, considering age and injury troubles of our other strikers.

 

No improvements has been made off the pitch. We just have no money for anything bar player salaries and travel expenses. Prize money is **** and even if we sold someone, their value is so low we could get as much for our training cones. Couldn't even get myself on coaching course.

 

No incoming transfers.

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Constantine
Added No Transfers screenshot