The FM21 Youth Academy Challenge

[JLAB]

Just now, hubwub said:

What's their media personality? Hammall and Andreetto.

Both Reserved, while Andreetto also plays mind games.

[hubwub]

4 minutes ago, JLAB said:

Both Reserved, while Andreetto also plays mind games.

Hammall's the one.

[Sn00gle]

@hubwub Their are above the map on the screens

[hubwub]

3 minutes ago, Sn00gle said:

@hubwub Their are above the map on the screens

Those are their personality. I was asking about their media handling which is not on those screens.

[hubwub]

It is now three players straight that have been poached that are from Curacao.

This can't be right.

[jmonfu]

Hi All

In 3D matches, I am getting some of my players and sometimes even my opponents players that have different kits which makes it very annoying, especially when one of my players has almost the exact same kit as my opponent.  Is it a bug related to the skin I am using or is it a well known bug?

[Flashman\'s School Days]

1 hour ago, hubwub said:

It is now three players straight that have been poached that are from Curacao.

This can't be right.

It seems strange that it says they are from Curacao but all have Chinese names, it may just be a bug on that screen and come through as only Chinese still but I suppose you won't know for another year 

[witticism]

After a couple conversations regarding wanting to move to a bigger club it finally happened, 3 + 3 on installments but I managed to include the 50% sale.

[Perre8]

@OlivierL make the red part of mancs proud again!  Goodluck 

[The Gold Guard]

Truro City Youth Academy Challenge 

2023/24

Act IV

"So close but so far." - Chad Thundercock, post-game interview at the play-off semi-final after losing 4-1 against Maidstone. 

A 3-Year Reflection...

It has been a remarkable season for the Cornwall kids with veterans Andrew Neal and James Hamon leading the front and back of the wolf pack. This 2023/24 season was the current squad's magnum opus. You won't be blessed with a better striker for a while with Mr. Neal and a better wall between the sticks in Mr. Hamon. The philosophy of this challenge, to me is to absolutely abuse and push what crop you have to the absolute limit. This season was the limit to at least try and milk a promotion - but it was just way too much to handle. This is a hard challenge but a welcomed one.

There has been a consistent harassment of 'potential takeovers' by fans, a business consortium and dodgy foreign firms. The Cornish Pirates group is not budging one bit despite dropping thousands by the month. Thankfully, the wages are plateauing and the attendances are slowly rising... The staff is solid as well. Just gotta keep pushing!

Squad | Staff | Table | Transfers

High Points:

• Andrew Neal. That is all. I am gonna write a song about him at this rate. Check my band out HERE (shameless self-promo but I will probably write a song about this champ)
• Sh*thoused my way to the play-offs.
• All the kids who had to fill in didn't necessarily let me down. So much guts n' determination. 
• I worked on making a better 'away days' tactic going to a textbook cautious 4-4-frickin'-2 - It didn't always work but going from 13th to 6th in the table eases the stressload
• Did I mention ANDREW NEAL? :O
• Flank play is really good

Low Points:

• I am still relying on the veterans
• We peaked too hard again
• Still letting in silly goals because my defense is still too inexperienced in the guts
•  Self-inflicted, but the tactics that have been used over the past 3 season aren't very 'underdog' friendly - slowly working it out with this squad
•  

Academy

Best preview so far lmao

I like the versatility of these kids. Unfortunately no one is piercing the first team ranks for the time being... Maybe just for the surnames lol

I screwed up and forgot to name and categorise the intakes. Rookie error. Just gonna go with the flow.

The squad is blessed to have plentiful staff thanks to the board confidence... shame about not being able to afford facilities or milking a senior affiliate. I can't risk the loans into the squad unfortunately :/ 

End of Act IV

[lewis999]

Started in Greece but lost interest quicker than I would have liked as I think I wanted to do Scandinavia firstly and I keep getting pulled back there. 

So Denmark it is! Anyone know the date so I can get different teams by any chance?

 

Quick edit.... As shown below after I holidayed to June 30th (the date in the OP) there were no teams listed as promoted in the season summary and also no P next to the teams in the preview. Any help would be appreciated!

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by lewis999

[Braumiller]

On The Pitch - League Table
We punched well above our weight in the first half of the season.  This was after going more defensive for the first three games and losing them all (although during these games after we were behind we tinkered and found better roles and mentalities).
As December, rolled in we fell apart and lost 3 of our last 4 games before the league split.  Thankfully we JUST kept hold of 6th, which meant we were in the upper half and safe from relegation!  The downside is your last 10 games are against the top 5 teams in the league....  We continued our torrid league form and lost 7 and drew 1, before a change of tactic (and fresh blood from the intake) saw us win our last 2 league games.
And so on to the European Play-offs, a simple knockout affair, 4 teams, semi final & final.  Our semi final was against Gap Connah's Quay who we had just beat and the other finalist was already decided, Cefn Druids, who we had also just beat!  Possible European action?!?!
Er, nope! GCQ beat us 1-2  We did make a game of it late on, but they dominated the first half and deservedly led 0-2.
In the cups we made it to our first final!  During our overachieving first half of the season we made a run to the final of League Cup, including a lucky semi final win on penalties during our precipitous drop in form.  The final was against TNS, so it was an inevitable loss but a 1-3 result wasn't as harsh as some of our TNS losses.
We were dumped out of the Welsh Cup at our first hurdle.

Off The Pitch
Oh boy...
So we started the season 500k in debt, with the prospect of losing 500-600k a year for the next 25+ years.  Grim.
In December, with the bank balance now reading -855k we were placed into administration and the receivers announced that they would accept offers for any player.  11 days before the transfer window opened...
Mid January the receivers announce a debt restructuring package has been agreed!  This wiped out our bank balance debt (now 0!), our 14.9m bank loan debt is gone and a new Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) debt of 3.01m is now in place, with monthly repayments of 16.5k.  A massive amount of debt is just gone!  But the repayments are still unsustainable.
As the transfer deadline approaches and then passes we dodge bullets.  Firstly no-one comes in for the highly rated first teamers!?!?  4 prospects do leave, all of whom had started to get minutes in the first team and will be missed.  2 others, who were more in first team squads and plans had offers but they rejected them!
Mid February and the receivers announce a 2nd debt restructuring deal has been reached!  This again wiped out the bank balance debt (now 0 again, from approx -20k), the original CVA is also gone and a new CVA is in place.  The new CVA is for 874k debt and has monthly repayments of 7.25k.  Again, a huge reduction in our debt, but again still unsustainable repayments for a club our size and with our income levels.
A couple of days later it is announced that we are now out of administration (and back to just being insecure financially! lol).
For the past two years there have been almost monthly messages from the chairman rubbishing takeover reports in the papers.  This is the only way out of this hole I fear, if a takeover happens and they assume / write off the clubs debt.
The other (otherwise inevitable) scenario that I see is in several years time we do the whole administration, receivers, everyone available dance again and play russian roulette with whether our stars are swiped away from us.
For now, a slower descent into the red, but still no sight of being able to upgrade anything for quite a while.

Screenshots of the stages of debt
Before Administration
After CVA #1
After CVA #2

I was 100% blameless in this fiasco happening (and still happening on a much smaller, slower scale), it was all the chairman.  And to be honest he feels very shady now.

Youth Intake - screenshot
Oh boy, but positively this time!  Was this ever a ray of sunshine in a depressing 2nd half of the season.  Three tagged, including a cracking striker (our first tagged FC since season 1 I think!).  For the first time we also didn't sign them all, letting 6 trials expire due to lower potential and/or poor personalities.
James Downes 05A - So much to love here!  Pace, finishing, determination and technique (all relative, of course!).  Immediately the undispauted #1 striker at the club (not hard!).
Jake Spruce 05B - A central midfielder, which is also a weak spot.  I've never been happier to see a 10 in tackling and hoping it is the start of stopping teams just walking through our midfield before salivating at our porous defence!
Duncan Cooper 05C - After not having a GK tagged last year for the first time, our Monmouth GK prospect tradition returns!

Squad Stats

Transfers

So, approx 3 weeks before the intake arrived I made the decision to try retraining our highly rated right winger Chris Hilton 04A to be a forward.  He is quicker and has better finishing & composure than our existing forwards (at the time), so why not!  He initially was unhappy at the unfamiliar role, but he learnt it very quickly!  Then the intake happened and now I have two top quality (for our level) forwards (or a forward and a winger, depending on our direction tactically)!  Our defence is just plain bad, so thinking we might just need to adopt the 'score one more than you' approach and play them both up front together.  Loving the way Chris Hilton 04A is taking to playing up front and if we can get him to stay with us (he only had 1 year left on his deal and wouldn't discuss an extension, so I triggered our optional 2 years on his intial deal ) he is our long term future captain.
I may end up making him our captain next year, which is way too early but I have no better options now we are 95% youth only at the club.

[Hian]

14 hours ago, witticism said:

343? You have my attention, hows that working out for you and how are you making it work?

 

I knew I had to play a strikerless tactic as I did not have any good natural strikers. So I remembered seeing this tweet from the strikerless mastermind himself, Guido. But because I didn't have any good wing backs either, I moved them up and made them into defensive wingers. The team was at times wonderful to watch in attack, with the Libero on attack duty being superb going forward. It did however suffer alot in the defensive transition.

Now that I have gotten a good right back in my last youth intake I should probably go back to a normal straight back four. But after seeing how nicely the Libero links up in the attack, I've kinda become obssesed with getting a back three with a Libero on attack duty to work.

[witticism]

2 minutes ago, Hian said:

 

I knew I had to play a strikerless tactic as I did not have any good natural strikers. So I remembered seeing this tweet from the strikerless mastermind himself, Guido. But because I didn't have any good wing backs either, I moved them up and made them into defensive wingers. The team was at times wonderful to watch in attack, with the Libero on attack duty being superb going forward. It did however suffer alot in the defensive transition.

Now that I have gotten a good right back in my last youth intake I should probably go back to a normal straight back four. But after seeing how nicely the Libero links up in the attack, I've kinda become obssesed with getting a back three with a Libero on attack duty to work.

Interesting! I love everything about this, I'd try it but I have 1 1/2 centre backs at the moment. Never once used defensive wingers so that's wholly new to me.

[sc91]

7 hours ago, hubwub said:

It is now three players straight that have been poached that are from Curacao.

This can't be right.

It's a bug, I am in Malaysia and all my poached players are West German.

[hubwub]

1 minute ago, sc91 said:

It's a bug, I am in Malaysia and all my poached players are West German.

Has it been reported? Is there a thread?

[Cheez3y]

Royal Excelsior Virton - Season 2023/24

Youth Intake 2024

W O W

Adams looks insane and we got a Meunier!

[XaW]

3 hours ago, lewis999 said:

Started in Greece but lost interest quicker than I would have liked as I think I wanted to do Scandinavia firstly and I keep getting pulled back there. 

So Denmark it is! Anyone know the date so I can get different teams by any chance?

Quick edit.... As shown below after I holidayed to June 30th (the date in the OP) there were no teams listed as promoted in the season summary and also no P next to the teams in the preview. Any help would be appreciated!

In Norway the lowest tiers are suspended the first few season, so the same could be in Denmark, but I haven't tested it. Try to holiday another season and see how it goes.

[hubwub]

Hopefully, I made the thread in the right forum. Reported the poached players having the wrong nationality.

Edited December 3, 2020 by hubwub

[holidaysong]

FC United of Manchester ; season 2023/24

League Table ; After flirting with relegation for the whole season, I was just relieved to get through it. A 19th place finish in my 2nd season at National League level (down 8 points and 8 places from last year).

Squad ; The weakness at the back is really hampering me with late goals in so many games.

Starting 11 ; I ended up playing around a bit with my formation after an 8 game losing streak. Finally settled on 442 to fit in both my strikers (2 of the best players). Last season's top youth intake player Jac Mason was outstanding.

Transfers ; One player lost out of the youths on a non contract. No big loss.

Youth Candidates ; A decent enough intake. Joe O'Neill is the standout player, with a much needed centre back also there in Oliver Jones.

Next season expectations ; Same objective now for the third year is to fight bravely against relegation.

[Bartrcm]

Racing Mechelen - Season 2027-2028 - 1th amateur (Third division)

Predicted: 15th

Final position: 3th

Play-offs: 1th and champions.

 

During the summer we lost our 2 bet players, and I thought we would have to fight again to relegation. But this season was incredible. From day 1 we were in the play-off spots, We only lost once during the regular season. With 3 games to go we secured our play-off spot. We finished the season in 3th possition, but the 4 teams that reached the play-offs weren't seperated by a lot of points. Everybody could win the league. We started the play-offs with 3 wins and 1 draw. A win in our 5th game would gain us promotion, but we could only draw. This left us with 39 points, 3 points ahead of Lokeren-Temse and Patro. Our last game was a home game against Patro. A loss from us and a win from Lokeren-Temse would mean that 3 teams would finish with 39 points. Reading the rules that Lokeren-Temse who won the league would be crowned as champions, we would be 2nd (3th after the normal season) and Patro would finished 3th (4th after the normal season). So anyhthing but a loss would mean that we were champions. But we played awful, it was actually our worst game of the season. I think our youngsters were to nervous and we lost 0-3, only our second loss of the season. But luck was at our side, as Lokeren-Temse concided an equaliser in the 89 min. The couldn't score anymore, what means that we are CHAMPIONS!!! Unbelievable.

 

The day after our promotion we received the message that we would turn professional.

 

Games 1

Games 2

Cup: We reached the 5th round, were we only lost after penalties (10-11) against Virton.

 

Youth intake: Preview was good again. The actual intake was OK, but we didn't had a stand-out player.

Marc Schmit (YP4a): MC

Mattia Biancone (YP4b): AMC

Arthur Vereecke (YP4c): DM. Needs to be re-trained as I don't play with DM. But I'm not sure what position. Can somebody give me some advise?

 

Transfers: None

 

Finances: We had a take over this season, and they took out a loan of 875K and invested afterwards another 90K. But we are still in debt.

 

Our U18  and our U21 won their league, so I think we have some talents amongst our youngsters

 

Next year I just want to try to stay up.

[Cheez3y]

Royal Excelsior Virton - Season 2023/24

  

Absolut delighted.

The squad is slowly developing, we got some great players already.

Lets see how the adventure in the Pro League goes.

[OlivierL]

3 hours ago, Cheez3y said:

Royal Excelsior Virton - Season 2023/24

Youth Intake 2024

W O W

Adams looks insane and we got a Meunier!

Korea  i love your detail(s) about youth intake nations, i'm going to do the same in my save.

[Cheez3y]

2 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Korea  i love your detail(s) about youth intake nations, i'm going to do the same in my save.

I always love to track them.

I find it fascinating to get as many combos and nations as possible.

 

 

[Winski]

ÍR Youth Intake 2022

Wow. This is a really, really good first intake! I didn't know what to expect, but I'm very happy with this intake!
This was the preview:

And this the intake:

A lot of potential!! Even a rare Turkish player!
I can't show them all, but I'll show some of them:

 

[MoonMonster]

Alemannia Aachen
2022-2023 Review

Previous post

Next Post

Season 2 started off with our star striker and leading goal scorer, Vincent Boesen, wanting to leave to play for a better club. I originally told him no but it caused such discontent in the locker room that I was basically forced to sell him. A handful of the players who were mad that I wouldn't sell him came to me upset that I sold him. At one point even asking me to resign because I'd lost the dressing room. Also, due to our poor finances, the board reduced our payroll by over £20K, leaving me struggling to offer contracts to our current players. 

Previous Season Regens:

Jan Hartmann, Giulio Giustini (leading the team with 4 assists lol), Michael Hoffmann, Christopher Wenzel, Cüneyt Menteşe

Transfers

Media Prediction

Fixtures: 1, 2

As expected the season started off rocky and we never really found form. Losing our main goal scorer forced us to rely on a few of our youth prospects. I also wasn't ever able to find a formation that worked consistently.  

Toward the end of the season I was able to finally secure my first coaching course after being rejected again earlier in the season because they were afraid I'd leave for a bigger club.

The season ended with a whimper with us stuck in mid-table but avoiding relegation which is all the board wanted.  I'm worried that next season we won't be able to beat the drop because our best defender, Alexander Heinze, doesn't want to renew his contract

Table

Squad

Best XI

2023 Regens

Pretty average youth intake compared to last years but we have a giant of a center back coming through

Finances

New Contract

Profile

Our finances haven't been good enough for me to upgrade any of the facilities yet

 

 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by MoonMonster

[OlivierL]

10 minutes ago, Winski said:

ÍR Youth Intake 2022

Wow. This is a really, really good first intake! I didn't know what to expect, but I'm very happy with this intake!
This was the preview:

And this the intake:

A lot of potential!! Even a rare Turkish player!
I can't show them all, but I'll show some of them:

 

Really good, on the beta i had a real monster with Njardvik but i started with them one week later after a small bug fix .. really shame  

[Flashman\'s School Days]

3 hours ago, hubwub said:

Hopefully, I made the thread in the right forum. Reported the poached players having the wrong nationality.

I've just had exactly the same happen to me so I'll add to that thread

[dervinus]

wow @Winski, Peturswon looks quite a player. 

[jmonfu]

Season 2023-24 - 11th Place - 6thRnd Belgian Cup

 

Finances

Transfers

My Chairman decided to sell my 3 best players this season

Youth Intake

Some good personalities, at least an improvement with the new staff in place

 

Youth Candidates

Edited December 3, 2020 by jmonfu
update

[weepube]

Steaua Bucharest - Season 2022/23

League - Championship Playoff - Romanian Cup - Finances - Transfers

League - We did the unthinkable and smashed our media prediction of 13th and remarkably won both the league and Championship Playoff. 

Cup - Knocked out in the Fifth round again by local rivals Dinamo Bucarest after beating Poli Timisoara in the forth round.

Youth Intake - After a preview of another possible 'Golden Generation' in which was proceeded with a whole lot of negative there we three decent looking prospects who could contribute to the first team.

Andrei Bratu YP23A - A left winger

Flavius Puscasu YP23B - Central Defender

Ghiţă Feher Yp23C - Inside Forward/Winger

Notable Existing Youth Team Players - Dinu Căpăţînă YP22a - Played a full season in goal and impressed getting a club record clean sheets in a season and making the leagues team of the seasons

Player Awards - Walace - Captain Fantastic dropping into the centre back position after playing DM last dominated in his natural position winning Player of the Season and got Highest AvRating

Dragos Nicolae - Young Player of the Season and finished top Goalscorer not bad for a Segundo Volante

Florin Rasdan - Key Player had a great season finishing with 13 assists

Romanian Liga II Team of the Season - 5 Players made the team of the season in Dinu Căpăţînă YP22a, Walace, Daniel Beta, Florin Rasdan and Bogdan Chipirliu

Seasonal Performance Analyst Report - Overall Best Eleven Squad Season / All Time

Off Pitch Progress -  National B Licence - National A Licence -  Junior Coaching Budget increase - New Contract - Manager of the Season Award

 

[Anners]

I'm getting slightly sidetracked in this save by trying to make my team extremely dirty...

[keeper#1]

South Shields September 1, 2025 Update

Blooding in a lot of new players so we've have a very choppy start.

[shaunvamos]

3 hours ago, Cheez3y said:

 

 

@Cheez3y where do you find this screen? It's excellent  

[Hian]

I am pleased that we are (hopefully) getting some decent attacking players.

Some sad news though, it seems like I'll be loosing my golden boy Lara P23b. There is quite alot of interest in him and he has asked to be aloud to leave if a club bids 200k for him.

 

 

Realised I had not posted my manager profile on my first post. So here it is.

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Hian

[shaunvamos]

Excelsior Maassluis 2029/30 Season Review

 

 

Kai Menzo 6C* - Daniel Mofokeng 4F - Tijmen Westra 1J*

 

Another season of improvement, so much so we made the European Places playoff. That was mainly off the back of our brilliant late season form, going unbeaten over the last 11 games. We were bounced out in the first round of the playoffs by Groningen, but there's no doubt we are beginning to reach the places we need to be to make it into Europe. Mokofeng was brilliant in goal again, he's by far our best player. But this season was all about the emergence of Kai Menzo. I did think he and our D player in that intake Carlos Ferri had the most potential in that class and they really came of age this season. Ferri maybe wasn't that great in terms of his average rating but I reckon he'll have a carer making year next season. We hold on to everybody again, and we have upgrades to everything that needs to be upgraded.

 

Youth Intake

Teoman Bah 9A  -  Alex Smith 9B*  -  Raimond Schaap 9C

We are weakest in the LWB position, and this intake duly delivered. Our top 2 prospects are LBs who can easily be retrained, and one has a professional personality. We really hit the jackpot here!

 

Transfers

A whole bunch of loans for players that will probably never play here.

 

Progress
 

 

[gadedk]

9 hours ago, lewis999 said:

Started in Greece but lost interest quicker than I would have liked as I think I wanted to do Scandinavia firstly and I keep getting pulled back there. 

So Denmark it is! Anyone know the date so I can get different teams by any chance?

 

Quick edit.... As shown below after I holidayed to June 30th (the date in the OP) there were no teams listed as promoted in the season summary and also no P next to the teams in the preview. Any help would be appreciated!

 

After the first season in the game the 3 division is created, so not sure how its working this year.. That being said, you should pick Næsby if you can. They are a small club with a focus on youth.

[JLAB]

ACN Siena 1904 - 2022/23 Season Review

There has been times when I have completed dropped the ball and wondered if I would have problems with the season going onward, I didn't think that this would be one of those seasons. Yet, I've had one of my worst 2nd half of the seasons in my entire history of Football Manager, to the point that I am going to be scrapping my 4-3-3 tactic that got us to 2nd place after 19 matches. Yes, We were sitting in 2nd place after 19 matches and we absolutely bottled the chance for the play-offs.

To further demonstrate just how badly we blew our season away, only bottom of the table Prato had a worst second half of the season than us, and they were the only team that we were able to beat on the pitch in the 2nd half of the season. All of the hard work we did in the first half of the season, we absolutely blew it away by playing like relegation candidates in the worst possible way. We were in the top ten until the 37th game of the season, and Sambenedettese won before our last game of the season, while we lost against Fermana to ensure that we were denied by 3 points, instead of results between teams. A truly embarrassing way to end the season that had at one point be filled with hope.

Still, despite the negative end to the season, I've found some silver linings, Michele Mazza has been able to be played in the starting lineup and over the last year has made numerous improvements to his game, with his stamina and balance being among the things that he has improved. He hasn't improved everything in his game, but his fairly ambitious nature is making sure that he at least can get better over time.

Despite his low determination (which we are working on improving), Lanari is now the best right back in the squad that isn't a centre back that is playing a No-Nonsense Full-Back. He is one of 3 recognised players that can play as Right-Back, but unfortunately Dusan Macura has broken his lower leg, which leaves us without our exciting 16 year old full-back. It means that Lanari, who's already played 28 league games for so far, should get more game time going forward. 

I am going to be honest, I wasn't expecting to be talking about Alioune El Abd with silver linings in mind, but this right winger who can also play as a striker has improved quite incredibly since I last saw him. His finishing is up by 2, his heading and Long Throws are up by 1, his Anticipation is up by 2, his Decisions and Determination is up by 1, his Acceleration, Balance, Stamina and Strength are all up by 2. He's developing into quite the right winger, and with 2 more players that came through the youth intake also able to play on the right wing, that side of the pitch might be something we need to focus on for next season.

 

Behold, the formation that I ended up going to in December, to the formation that I am strongly considering for next season. We're abandoning the 3 strikers at the front in favour of the two wingers again, but with the left side of the field being stronger in defence, while the right side of the pitch being younger on the right, I need to adjust things to suit the team. It would be a waste of young talent if we don't adjust the team to my liking. The formation on the right isn't finished by any means of the imagination, but it is a start to say the least.

We've had our best finish of our career so far, but I can't start the feeling that we've wasted a really good opportunity this season after the form that we showed in the second half of the, that I feel is partly my own fault.

 

[shaunvamos]

I just thought I'd share how I go about selecting my players.

 

 

This was my default lineup for most of the season. The good thing about Holland is that there are 12 subs so I can have an entire second XI as backups, and the twelfth sub is the guy with most potential. I calculate these ratings using this:

((Sum of all key attributes for role + (0.66 * (sum of all preferable attributes for role))) / total number of key/preferable attributes for role * 5) / rating if all attributes were 20 * 100

 

 So basically what it does it give me a rating out of 100 for each player in a specific position. I may have set the bar a bit too high as it's unrealistic that every key and preferable attribute will be 20, but I suppose it works given that a player isn't ever going to be rated 100/100. I may have to tweak it though as the best players in the world barely reach 80. So maybe I'll have to change the benchmark to be 17 or 18 instead of 20.

 

Thanks to @XaW and @Braumiller, whose thread on attribute weighting was a massive influence on this for me. I've only just discovered the print screen option to create a web page that can allow me to import everything into excel (I was doing everyone manually). That'll save me so much time!

 

Edit: it looks like I'll be using 17 as the benchmark, as using that the Ballon D'Or winner has an overall of just over 90, and Mbappe is a 92. So pretty close to something representing FIFA I'd say.

 

So using this our ideal lineup for next season is like this:

 

 

A couple of new names in there, but this definitely shows a clearer picture of how good we are at the moment, and the areas we need improvement on.

Just to be clear the new formula is

((Sum of all key attributes for role + (0.66 * (sum of all preferable attributes for role))) / total number of key/preferable attributes for role * 5) / rating if all attributes were 17 * 100

Edited December 4, 2020 by shaunvamos

[Flashman\'s School Days]

Wuhan Three Towns - 2023 Season Review

 

Manager Attributes - Characteristics

Transfers - Fixtures 1 - Fixtures 2

CFA China League One

Spoiler

 

Well out of nowhere we are league champions!  Following on from last season's sixth place I was expecting a hard season of survival, despite a good victory in our opening game we crumbled to newly promoted Nantong 6-3 and then were 2-2 against a side from the league below in the cup until a couple of goals very late on got us through.  This was then followed up with a draw against a side who I expected to be near the bottom of the table so in my head we were definitely in for the predicted struggle, however, the first full month of football became a dream and the last two games of it were beating Shanghai Shenhua comfortably in the cup and then recently relegated Shijiazhuang.  From the Shenhua game we got Hebei China Fortune in the next round and lost 1-0 despite dominating the game, unfortunately the prize money is basically pointless in the CFA Cup and hardly anyone turned up to watch me so it wasn't quite the money spinner I hoped for.  There until the halfway point we were generally okay but no other side was a standout either so we kept in touching distance of the top.  The second half of the season we were excellent, only losing a couple of games but with some draws thrown in we were always on the tails of the top two.  In the penultimate game we faced Hebei Olle Elite (newly promoted but ended up in 4th place) knowing that we needed a good result as first and third were playing each other, despite throwing away a 2-0 goal lead we managed to bag a late winner to mean on the last day we only needed a point to finish in second place due to our superior head to head record.  Luckily we were playing bottom of the table Qingdao who had already been relegated, our captain and 34 year old centre back Liu Sheng came up with his first goal in over two seasons in what was the only goal of the game and news came in that our opponent's city rivals Qingdao Huanghai were losing to Olle Elite which meant not only did we overtake them to win the league but that they dropped out of the promotion spots entirely after being top of the league since matchday 14.

Squad

Spoiler

The squad looked largely the same as last season with two players retiring (one of them gave me two days notice) and two players being released.  One of the retirees was my starting left back so that gave a great opportunity to last years pick of the intake Tian Weiwei 22a who played every game he was available for and had a solid season.  The star young player Feng Shaobo 21a became a first team regular in the first half of this season and showed enough promise that a couple of super league teams came sniffing around, I managed to hold off a few bids until Dalian came in with a bid that was too good for my board to turn down.  £1.4M rising to £2.2M is decent enough but there is no sell on clause and despite me asking for them to renegotiate to put one in they didn't budge.  Chongqing also offered £475k rising to £1.4M for Tian Weiwei 22a but I rejected that with no fuss.  Qu Cheng was once again our top goalscorer and the league top goalscorer, however, he noticeably declined as the season reached its conclusion and that might have something to do with his rapidly dimishing physicals but Xu Chen 21b looks like he could be a decent replacement and showed what he could do by getting a goal and assist in the 2-0 cup win against Shenhua.  Both centre backs were our best performers and Wang Xingqiang may not look the best but he performs well and still has a few years left in him, Liu Sheng had a lengthy spell out with a hip injury caused by wear and tear so its unclear whether he'll last much longer although hopefully long enough to mentor a little bit more.

 

Youth Intake

Spoiler

 

Again we had another "Golden Generation" although this season's wasn't quite as golden as the last one and apart from Liu Yang 23a none of them seem quite good enough for the first team yet.  Last seasons intake have managed to get some good game time and made 84 senior appearances between them.

Tian Weiwei 22a - Wei Mingfei 22d - Ma Jian'gang 22f - Guo Qi 22h

Liu Yang 23a - Zhang Jinhu 23c - Liu Weihao 22i

Finances

The finances are in pretty bad shape, we entered the season with a wage budget of £41k p/w which was down from £57k the season before and through negotiations with players I had managed to get every player from the first youth intake on professional contracts and we were still below our new budget, which I was quite chuffed about.  Unfortunately due to us losing about £200k a month the board slashed that to £27K p/w during the season, I haven't really got a lot left to squeeze out of the players to get the wage budget down and after promotion they announced that next season's budget was going to be £32k p/w with nothing for transfers.  Talking of things for next season, the league rules in China mean that the council stadium that we were playing in (rent free) is too small and so we are building a brand new 30k capacity stadium to the tune of £8M.  Nowhere have they mentioned how its being paid for but it hasn't taken anything off my balance and the stadium has a 10 year sponsorship worth about £4.3M.  Before the season started the board also decided to take out a £1.4M bank loan which at the time didn't even clear the debt we had which seemed like a daft idea, then we had the £1.4M sale of Feng Shaobo 21a which at that point took us to about £96k in the black but at the end of the season with a nice big bonus of £650k to the players for the league position we are in about the same position as last season with £600k of debt.  This has obviously meant that I haven't been able to upgrade anything or even take a coaching badge.  I really hope that next season we can attract a decent sponsor that will at least keep us ticking over but in reality I imagine it'll just get worse.

Next Season

I don't envisage any way that we can stay up but even if we are relegated and have managed to attract some decent money then that could set us up for the future

[Braumiller]

18 minutes ago, shaunvamos said:

I just thought I'd share how I go about selecting my players.

 

 

This was my default lineup for most of the season. The good thing about Holland is that there are 12 subs so I can have an entire second XI as backups, and the twelfth sub is the guy with most potential. I calculate these ratings using this:

((Sum of all key attributes for role + (0.66 * (sum of all preferable attributes for role))) / total number of key/preferable attributes for role * 5) / rating if all attributes were 20 * 100

 

 So basically what it does it give me a rating out of 100 for each player in a specific position. I may have set the bar a bit too high as it's unrealistic that every key and preferable attribute will be 20, but I suppose it works given that a player isn't ever going to be rated 100/100. I may have to tweak it though as the best players in the world barely reach 80. So maybe I'll have to change the benchmark to be 17 or 18 instead of 20.

 

Thanks to @XaW and @Braumiller, whose thread on attribute weighting was a massive influence on this for me. I've only just discovered the print screen option to create a web page that can allow me to import everything into excel (I was doing everyone manually). That'll save me so much time!

 

Edit: it looks like I'll be using 17 as the benchmark, as using that the Ballon D'Or winner has an overall of just over 90, and Mbappe is a 92. So pretty close to something representing FIFA I'd say.

Love this!

Just dusted off my spreadsheet yesterday for the first time!

[shaunvamos]

5 minutes ago, Braumiller said:

Love this!

Just dusted off my spreadsheet yesterday for the first time!

I can't believe I've never thought to use something like this before, especially I'm about to start a PhD in sports analytics next year!

I think for a challenge like this it helps you get to know your players a bit more too, especially when injuries and suspensions force you to look at who's the most ideal replacement.

[hubwub]

@Flashman\'s School Days Congrats on the promotion to Super League!

Once you are promoted, you'll get grant money and that should last you for the whole season. I've noticed that my sponsorship has not changed since getting promoted. You will get TV money in the Super League but it's not a lot.

Also, check your Sponsors and Others tab to see when your current contracts end.

Depending on who is in Super League, you might be able to survive the drop. In my save Henan and Chongqing under performed.

Your team just got promoted to League One in my save.

Looking at this page makes me sad. If I could get the amount of money like the rest of the other teams in the league, I could do so much more. My current sponsorship deals will end in the next two years. If I am still in Super League then, I hope I get new sponsorship income.

[shaunvamos]

Extremely pissed off at this. Board went over my head after I protested about 5 times previously. We have enough depth to cover him, but it won't be the same without him. Funny thing is, we play Utrecht next so I hope to crush them in revenge.

 

Beat them 2-0

 

[gadedk]

Going up! We're goooooing up! 

Finally i'm moving up to second best league in Portugal and with the club going pro this season, i hope to have my players a lot longere!
And maybe therefor i can get up to the best league in short time. BUT we'll se... There is a long way ahead of us.

Lucky for me i just keep getting good YI, this team with my first from Brazil and second from Luxembourg! And i know who you guys want to see now....
 

Spoiler

We lost our goalkeeper last season, but i did already have a new one ready to take over and now is playing for Schweiz u21! 

Silas was unhappy all season and wanted to leave with contract ended after the season, but i got him signed after the last game when we won the league.
Sadly Espiguilha still did't wanted to sign, so he is going out on a free transfer...

[XaW]

@shaunvamos- I love your explanation of your spreadsheet. I started my own (again) not long ago, and it's so much fun working out things and making them work. I changed mine to Google sheets to ease the access to it, and I had to rework a lot, but it's slowly coming together again.

On that note, I suddenly saw something I hadn't thought of (and is the whole reason for the spreadsheet. A full back is rated as quite good as a DPL...

Matty Hughes 28b is currently my 2nd choice left back (after Thomas Ström 26e, although he is pushing him for the spot), but according to my calculations he is an even better DPL. So let's see his stats.

You see, the drawbacks for Matty has been his crossing and tackling mostly, although at this level I could live with it. Still, Thomas is a better fullback. 

So why haven't I changed Matty into a central midfielder and made him a DPL? Because I have too many good central midfielders (Including star player Leon Tracy 26a), however, should I have had need of it, I would have done it without thinking much about it. Matty would do a good job as the distributor in my tactic.

[gadedk]

You guys need to make a video on this spreadsheetshit for us other normal human beings (me.... 

[shaunvamos]

29 minutes ago, XaW said:

@shaunvamos- I love your explanation of your spreadsheet. I started my own (again) not long ago, and it's so much fun working out things and making them work. I changed mine to Google sheets to ease the access to it, and I had to rework a lot, but it's slowly coming together again.

On that note, I suddenly saw something I hadn't thought of (and is the whole reason for the spreadsheet. A full back is rated as quite good as a DPL...

Matty Hughes 28b is currently my 2nd choice left back (after Thomas Ström 26e, although he is pushing him for the spot), but according to my calculations he is an even better DPL. So let's see his stats.

You see, the drawbacks for Matty has been his crossing and tackling mostly, although at this level I could live with it. Still, Thomas is a better fullback. 

So why haven't I changed Matty into a central midfielder and made him a DPL? Because I have too many good central midfielders (Including star player Leon Tracy 26a), however, should I have had need of it, I would have done it without thinking much about it. Matty would do a good job as the distributor in my tactic.

That's interesting, because I've always found the opposite. Whenever a player came through that didn't know a position in my system, they almost always showed a proficiency to play complete wing back. I once had a CAM become my starting WB because his rating at WB dwarfed the others. But then I stopped using that system because I was getting way too many WBs and they were never going to play a game for us. So I started training them in positions they were uncomfortable with but could learn.

Have you also noticed that players can learn new positions organically? I'm not sure if this is a new feature or not but I've never noticed it in previous FMs.

[Cheez3y]

11 hours ago, shaunvamos said:

 

@Cheez3y where do you find this screen? It's excellent  

It was in one of those End of Season mails.

[shaunvamos]

2 minutes ago, Cheez3y said:

It was in one of those End of Season mails.

Ah yes I've found it. But I think it only turned up because I hired performance analysts this year. Do you have analysts?