[FM20] Promotion? It's Overrated, My Liège

[wynter]

In the Belgian Pro League, at the end of the season the division splits into the Championship Group and the Euro Playoff after 30 games.

We don't care about the Championship Group.

In the European Playoff teams placed 7-15 in the First Tier and teams 2-4 in the second tier face off for a shot at Europe. There's two groups within this stage, the group winners then face off against each other in a one off match, the winner of that plays fourth place in the Champ Group for an EL place. They win and Europe awaits.

This is what we care about.

Feasibly, this challenge could be easier in England or Germany, where one could manufacture an FA/League or German Cup Run backed by heavy financial assistance to keep and sign a strong enough core of players to compete regularly, relying on elements of luck. This one is more interesting for me though, because you can qualify for Europe through the League and not even be in the top division. 

But that's our challenge.

Win the Champions League while in the Pro League B

Now that you've moved on from the copy paste of last years version of this... Last year I attempted to give this a go, and then not knowing how the Second League would react if I won both stages, I accidentally got myself promoted to the the Top Division. I then decided it no longer felt 'right' and ended it prematurely.

This year, I know what I can and can't do to make this save work. I'll probably get fired A LOT but them's the breaks. This is just a stupid challenge that because Belgium is actually a great league, could actually be feasible.

In terms of still active clubs in the playable leagues, they're the 5th most successful in History and the 7th overall. They're also the inaugural champions of the Belgian Pro League, a club that would relish a return to success.

I'm hoping this time to really get this going. Hopefully you guys enjoy it!

Edited April 5, 2020 by wynter

[smp20]

This would be brilliant if done!

[ManUtd1]

This thread?

[wynter]

I wasn't going to update this originally, so I'm near the end of the first season.

We've had a strong year, flitting between two tactics.

Primary Tactic

4-3-3 Strikerless

Secondary Tactic

Changing Lanes

How the 3rd tier of Belgium works is the Top 4 teams go into a promotion playoff, points from the season are split in half and then we play 6 matches where team #1 get automatically promoted. Belgium only has one promotion slot, so there's no playoffs for 2/3/4 to try and slip into the higher division.

Basically, we need to be perfect.

[wynter]

Youth Intake

Monier and Renault are what I'd describe as the jewels, and players we can really do something with.

BWM with 4 strength seems like a non starter, a DLP role could in turn be optimal even if he has low flair.

Meanwhile Renault just looks like a good striker prospect, a little technically limited but he knows how to finish.

[ManUtd1]

Yeah, a BWM with 4 strength, 9 determination, and average workrate/aggression/anticipation...he's only 16, but that might be a big ask.

[wynter]

Playoffs... Not great. Dender and Thess handed us losses, but they also handed themselves defeats and walking into the penultimate day, I actually had the chance to win with a game in hand.

Even with the league cutting points in half, Dender were so far behind that while they went unbeaten, they weren't able to catch up.

What does this mean?

Ultimately, we're in the division we need to be now. Staying up is the immediate priority, preferably avoiding the relegation playoff. We have 9k in the wage budget to toy around with so we'll be looking for cheap, free players to help build a solid foundation and then we'll be banking on our youth factory to come good, to either give us some quality youth, or youth that we can sell on at a high price to build some financial freedom.

 

[wynter]

Two months into life in the second division and things are fine. Could they be better? Yes. What we have though is solid given I'm not fully on board with the team. We have a strong midfield, but lack quality out wide so our Raumdeuter/IF and IW combos in both tacs are filled in by decent but not exceptional guys who bring the tactics down a bit as a result.

If I could get someone in January to slot in there, or roll the dice and get a prospect in the Youth Intake out wide it'd be great.

To make the European Places Playoff you need to finish 2-4th so we could have an outside shot of making it into the ring this year.

[wynter]

...

On 06/04/2020 at 12:14, wynter said:

 

Primary Tactic

4-3-3 Strikerless

 

[noikeee]

I knew this sounded familiar...

I'm jealous, you're doing far better with this lot than I did. The strikerless tactic looks properly fun, too, and the Belgian league format is awesome. Think you'll be enjoying this career a lot.

[wynter]

Been racing through this.

We've had a big few months.

We finished 4th in our first phase, tracking well for the European Playoffs.

In the second phase... We're doing ok. At the end of the second phase the Overall table shapes who goes into the European Playoffs and we're tracking for 4th and being able to sneak in. That being said, I'm not overtly happy with the squad/don't think we'll have a chance of doing anything huge this year. Absolutely hyped for our intake though.

[wynter]

11 hours ago, noikeee said:

I knew this sounded familiar...

I'm jealous, you're doing far better with this lot than I did. The strikerless tactic looks properly fun, too, and the Belgian league format is awesome. Think you'll be enjoying this career a lot.

It's a shame my two best intake grads this year are going to be strikers, going to have to ditch it soon probably 

Edited April 10, 2020 by wynter

[wynter]

Youth Intake

Two absolute GEMS

My personal preference is Renaud, but I need both to come huge. We'll be ditching Strikerless and trying to bring both into the starting line-up, which means I need to come up with a 2/3 striker based tactic for the first time... Ever. 

I don't do multiple strikers and haven't for years 

So I'll be heading to the forge to come up with something decent.

Edited April 10, 2020 by wynter

[ManUtd1]

On 07/04/2020 at 02:39, wynter said:

...

 

[noikeee]

Well, at least that's a bit of a tactical challenge for you. 

[wynter]

End of the Second Div we cruised to some pretty positive outcomes.

Scraping into the European Playoffs by the skin of our teeth!

The way the playoffs work is Group of 4 with 6 games, home and away. At the end of those games the top team in each group goes into a knock-out format with a Semi-Final and Final where the winner gets the last European Place in the Belgian League.

Let's GOOOOOOOOO

[Yisz]

3 hours ago, wynter said:

The way the playoffs work is Group of 4 with 6 games, home and away. At the end of those games the top team in each group goes into a knock-out format with a Semi-Final and Final where the winner gets the last European Place in the Belgian League.

Let's GOOOOOOOOO

Actually not, after you play the final of the 'European places playoff' you have to play the #5th of the Champions playoff. Winner of that gets a ticket for the EL. So you have to win the EL and the year after win the CL, all while being in the 2nd tier. :)

 

GL!

[wynter]

5 hours ago, Yisz said:

Actually not, after you play the final of the 'European places playoff' you have to play the #5th of the Champions playoff. Winner of that gets a ticket for the EL. So you have to win the EL and the year after win the CL, all while being in the 2nd tier.

 

GL!

Ooh didn't know that. The European Places never shows up in the league rules so was going to be a surprise for me either way haha. Thanks for the heads up. 

 

And yeah, need to win the EL and the CL from Div 2 in Succession. Which is practically impossible but should be fun.

[wynter]

End of Season 2

We did alright, first time matching up against First Division opponents on the regular and we came out with more positive results than losses.

Brugge swept the group though and no Europe this year. Which was expected. Making the Top 4 was surprising in and of itself really.

Finances are spiralling though, so we could either hope for a takeover, or we can hope for a miracle Europe Charge that gives us EL/ELII TV money. Our squad next season is likely to be weaker than stronger so making top 4 and the European Playoffs again would be good, if only for the purpose of testing ourselves against higher opposition yet again. 

[ManUtd1]

Once you get some European cash, it'll grease the skids a bit.  Solid showing overall, though.

[wynter]

Weird issue, my file for the third season corrupted and haven't been able to use it to post. I'm in the 4th season now so was going to be backdating. Obvious positives of being in the 4th though is that I can come back and update, so the save is still alive this'll just be short and really incomprehensive. 

Anyways, We SUCKED

HARD,

With **** finances the only deals we made were free loans to pad out the squad depth. The Tactic change to three strikers was 50/50 Sometimes we'd dominate but overall we lost more than we drew, meanwhile we ran our tried and tested's in the cup, which is where we had a faint glimmer of hope. 

I honestly assumed we were in the cup final after winning the first leg, beacuse there hadn't been legs the entire tournament. Then we got buried away from home and any hope of glory/Europe died in a fire of pain and torment,

So we finished 7th and into the Relegation playoff we went.

We had to play Virton 5 times, and Virton aren't on our level so we've survived.

Going from here, we're cleaning our squad out and I've got some players I've been looking at for a long time, and after this season I'm going to be gambling on them.

Only noteworthy intake player

Maxime De Smedt

[wynter]

Transfers... Or No More Mr. Nice Guy

When we first came in we talked about using our Youth System to get our club into the necessary places needed to survive. Sell Youth, reap sell-on's use those to invest in facilities and gradually climb our way up. The only issue with that is our Finances as they are now. 2mil in the Red no sign of a take over and expected to be down 5mil come January. So we either need European Football now, or we need to sell someone for millions.

One is achievable. The other is not given our current squad.

With that in mind, I'd been holding off on signing two players but then June came and their contracts were both expired or expiring in days and I decided to take a leap of Faith.

Introducing...

The Otter

His contract had been expired for over a year but he'd been sitting in Lavellois's reserves after they'd been demoted to France's 4th tier. No renewal en route and free without compensation.

He's slotting in as our Shadow Striker, using his High Work Rate and Speed to operate in the final third and give us a boost. He's also got insanely good potential and it'll be a matter of WHEN not IF French clubs want him back in 1-2 years.

Isaac Karamoko

Dumped by PSG, his technical and physical attributes give us a Speedy IW to operate on the left flank as we follow through on Danilo/Renauld's Development. First team quality inserted straight into the line-up and combined The Otter and Karamoko upgrade our offense significantly. 

And... On Loan we Have

Logan Ndenbe

Wing backs are the heart of any of my formations. I love the idea of a 5/6th attacker that puts in a defensive shift and then zips forward. My Wing Backs are more wingers than defenders if our side is in full swing and Ndenbe is a mass upgrade on the left flank.

Three Players, all Pro League A quality and priming us for an assault on the Euro Places Playoff this season. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by wynter