[FM 21] And/or a hero? Poorly assumed identities and Thed Lazlo in a youth only adventure

[Ceching You Out]

5 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Randomised players. What was the thinking behind that? I used to do that back in the day. 

"massive" German GK with Aerial Reach attribute of 4. It's going to be a long old slog this save isn't it? 

I love stuff like 10 season tickets.

(21A) looks surprisingly competent compared to the massive useless german GK. 

9 match winless run.... 
 

Do you mind if I ask what the nicknames numbers represent? (Apologies if you have explained and I've missed it). 

My poor brain can't cope with asymmetric tactics. 

How does an Angolan get to Andorra easily, (other than alphabetically). 

Nothing wrong with cheap parlour tricks, (or expensive ones). 

I like the "Overall Metrics" you use. 

Alex Monteiro coming out as gay has happened so early for you because you used randomised players. This will never happen with a real player in game. I quite like the idea on the whole. I'm not sure they've done it justice though. 

Looks like Encamp are a Boing Boing club, (but not for long). 

I know that match ratings are pish, (can we say pish in here?) Pish. Yes we can. But 6.88 in a title winning year for your captain is even more pish than the match ratings are pish. 

A couple of your most recent intake have a little bit of CA to play with. 

Europe!!!!  

Wolves lead European in what!!!! 

Is Felipe Rego any good? 

OMG you got me again! 

AND AGAIN! 
 

Best I could come up with was the Angolan was a byproduct of the Portuguese dual nationals we see, although he had neither Portuguese nor Andorran nationalities. In our latest intake we have a Nigerien much the same though; no second nationality. I'm very curious if there's a backstory to this quirk in Andorra but we may never know unless there's an Andorran lurking around the forums who can enlighten us.

The second set of numbers represent the number of times a player has appeared in the top/bottom 3 players in a week. So "Giuseppe Elia 26+" was an original players who had appeared in those lists netting out to the positive side 26 times, from memory likely something like 28 positive and 2 negative. For reference, years later he's now only 30+ despite being a constant starter. Like we talked about a bit in your Koper thread, I'm still getting my bearings on what can be gleaned from training performances. I suspect there's some informational value there but I'm still trying to gather my thoughts. It may also turn out the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

My "Other Metrics" comes from my Luxembourg save years ago where I wanted to see how quickly things could (or it turned out, couldn't) progress on the facilities side. I've noticed this version is much improved on that front but it's still neat to see the progression since it means so much to a youth only save. Feel free to steal if it suits your needs.

Not going to lie, trying an asymmetric formation was a growing moment for me. Just looking at it irked the part of my brain that wanted things to be ordered, or at least not actively disordered. I think... I could do it again if it felt like something that was beneficial. But it may be a while before I try a new tactic given my ass was only recently handed to me on my last attempt. 

[Ceching You Out]

With several hundred thousand dollars riding on the result, we overturn a 1-1 draw at home with two second half goals to claim our first Champions League advancement. I'm already practicing my Scrooge McDuck swan dive.

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

The second set of numbers represent the number of times a player has appeared in the top/bottom 3 players in a week. So "Giuseppe Elia 26+" was an original players who had appeared in those lists netting out to the positive side 26 times, from memory likely something like 28 positive and 2 negative. For reference, years later he's now only 30+ despite being a constant starter. Like we talked about a bit in your Koper thread, I'm still getting my bearings on what can be gleaned from training performances. I suspect there's some informational value there but I'm still trying to gather my thoughts. It may also turn out the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Ah interesting. Training performances. 

So this follows on from a comment in my old thread recently? The only problem with this is that player personalities aren't static, so a player with 26+ might have gone through 3 or 4 personality changes during a career. I don't think it's the player you should be tracking but the personality.

Giuseppe Elia started with a Det personality so I think it stands to reason that he will get lots of positive training comments. He's the one you mentioned so the next on the list, (from post 3), is Albert Avila, (who is also Det). I would expect him to have also done well. Interestingly he has -2 numbers after his name suggesting negative training performances, (which is a surprise). Oh..... and he's the skipper you binned off too. Even more of a surprise. 

If I had to look and find a player who I would expect to have negative training performances then I would look no further than Augustin Martinez, but I can't see any mention of him at all. I know this is a tiny cross-section, but does this suggest that maybe Det is not the main driver here and we should perhaps be paying attention to Pro and or Amb, (for training performances), which is no great shock. The obvious problem with that is that you can't track those values without the editor and you can't use the editor until the full game arrives. 

I like this as an idea though. Hope you continue it with the editor. 

[Edit] 

Just seen that you responded twice to me.  Brilliant.

Rego is still only 16 but has 24+ so that means he's been in the top 3 trainers 24 times, (or a net result including negative training performances), and that's pretty impressive as he is still only 16 years old. Interesting though that while he has a decent Det score (14), his personality is Amb, (which is something none of your starting squad had I think). 

Jimenez has 28-, but we don't really know what that indicates because his values are hidden under the umbrella of a Bal personality. The same, (but opposite), could be side for Senger, (32+), but again a Bal personality hiding a multitude of sins, (or virtues). 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Jimbokav1971

[Ceching You Out]

These are all terrible match ups, but I'd say Dinamo Tbilisi/Macabi Haifa are our best chance.

 

This happened, so that means (1) like the cash register sounds in a MIA chorus, cha ching and (2):

Well, yeah. I think we're well prepared to shackle Donetsk, of the Champions League group stages fame. I'd take the check and the exit now if it was an option.

[Ceching You Out]

This is an absolutely ridiculous result. One shot, one goal - a through ball over the shoulder of my striker, hit on the full volley from the top of the box. For some reason the Shakhtar manager had used all his subs early, so when they picked up an injury in the 75th they had to match us playing with only 10. I suppose we'll pack it in on the home leg and pray for an undeserved 0-0.

Again, such a stupid stupid result here. 

[Ceching You Out]

Uhhh... that wasn't even a smash and grab. We had the better xG, .98 to .65. Guess we're winning the Champions League this year.

 

I think win or lose we're headed to a Group Stage? I don't even know anymore. Up is down, left is right.

[Ceching You Out]

This was nice to squeeze in. I'm expecting big things from our next intake between upgrades to Junior Coaching and Youth Facilities. Also this happened:

I don't even know at this point. I'm incredibly suspicious that we've made it this far. The Andorran leagues are the only ones I've been running since our bounce back season, but surely that wouldn't have such a massive effect on the quality in the rest of the world? Both here and against Shakhtar we were horribly lucky to get a result away and then good value for advancement in the second leg at home.

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

I deliver a giant bag with a dollar sign on it to our owners and they force me to throw my weight around to get a Youth Facilities upgrade . But, the pièce de résistance:

[Ceching You Out]

Probably advance top of our group at this point because it's opposite day and the world already stopped making sense.

[Ceching You Out]

On 26/10/2021 at 01:29, Jimbokav1971 said:

Ah interesting. Training performances. 

So this follows on from a comment in my old thread recently? The only problem with this is that player personalities aren't static, so a player with 26+ might have gone through 3 or 4 personality changes during a career. I don't think it's the player you should be tracking but the personality.

Giuseppe Elia started with a Det personality so I think it stands to reason that he will get lots of positive training comments. He's the one you mentioned so the next on the list, (from post 3), is Albert Avila, (who is also Det). I would expect him to have also done well. Interestingly he has -2 numbers after his name suggesting negative training performances, (which is a surprise). Oh..... and he's the skipper you binned off too. Even more of a surprise. 

If I had to look and find a player who I would expect to have negative training performances then I would look no further than Augustin Martinez, but I can't see any mention of him at all. I know this is a tiny cross-section, but does this suggest that maybe Det is not the main driver here and we should perhaps be paying attention to Pro and or Amb, (for training performances), which is no great shock. The obvious problem with that is that you can't track those values without the editor and you can't use the editor until the full game arrives. 

I like this as an idea though. Hope you continue it with the editor. 

[Edit] 

Just seen that you responded twice to me.  Brilliant.

Rego is still only 16 but has 24+ so that means he's been in the top 3 trainers 24 times, (or a net result including negative training performances), and that's pretty impressive as he is still only 16 years old. Interesting though that while he has a decent Det score (14), his personality is Amb, (which is something none of your starting squad had I think). 

Jimenez has 28-, but we don't really know what that indicates because his values are hidden under the umbrella of a Bal personality. The same, (but opposite), could be side for Senger, (32+), but again a Bal personality hiding a multitude of sins, (or virtues). 

Needed a little bit of time to collect my thoughts but great questions and comments here. I'm not sure I have any final answers but here's my current thinking.

First, the background - we're a part time club with terrible facilities. I think the combination of those two factors is a pretty significant handbrake on player development. At one point I recall the formula for attribute growth being something like the below. If that's the case, it's a very uphill battle on the Quality Training.

Quote

Game Time + Quality Training + Natural Development = Growth

 

Second, the "experiment" itself (if we agree that the scientific method is just a suggestion) - each week I've incremented or decremented a counter for each player's nickname if they show up in the weekly training report as top 3 or bottom three respectively. There's a bit of a gap in this methodology since if there are 4+ top/bottom performers, 1+ are excluded. I know this has certainly happened in weeks where the top 3 all come in at 9.0+ training ratings; I don't recall seeing it on the negative side but it's possible. More than anything, paying attention to the training performance on a weekly basis has kept me more attuned to possible correlations (game time, tantrums, personality shifts, etc.).

Like you mention @Jimbokav1971, there's also the potential for personality shifts along the way to change the level of training performance. I've definitely seen that as well as players go from negative personalities to balanced, and albeit rarer, from balanced to positive. For example, when mentoring in the early seasons there was a ton of "try different mentors, see what happens" since there were very few true positive personalities (since I think we agree, Determination is great but being Determined still pretty unimpressive). Over time I was able to see some players suddenly start performing better in accordance with personality changes from Monteiro's mentoring (who is only Fairly Determined). Others, not so much.

So back to the main gist of what I've noticed - at least in our circumstances (again, part time and terrible facilities):

1. Showing up repeatedly in the top 3 over any three-ish month period was strongly self-correlated, meaning the same players showed up on the list consistently week to week over a given time frame until there was a shift. Most of the first year it was Senger, Elia, and Monteiro. Recently it's been Aguilera, Rego, and Jonathan.
2. At least for the players whose attributes I can tell (since much of personality is hidden), the best performers I've seen were high in at least 2 out of 3 of Determination, Ambition, and Professionalism. Ruiz is 105 and Resolute. Aguilera is 114 and Fairly Determined (although he's essentially still Driven, just dropped one point in Det). Pedrosa has 32, is only 18, and Driven. Rego has 30, only 16, and started as Mercenary (high Ambition) and high Det. Monteiro (100), Perez Perez (35) are only Fairly Determined. Jonathan has 47 and is a mystery since his Determination is fairly low.
3. Nearly any time I saw players show up in the top 3, they were getting significant game time and developing. Despite being ever-present in the first two years, Elia dropped out (nearly permanently) at 30 once his development flatlined/he hit his PPA. Monteiro continued to grow for nearly 4 years, eventually reaching 100! And has only seen a few scattered increases in the last couple years once he flatlined as well. I can count on one hand the number of times, regardless of personality and past growth, a player showed up in the top 3 for two semi-consecutive weeks without game time and corresponding attribute growth.
4. In nearly every case, players who didn't show up on in the top 3 didn't develop significantly (ex. Avila who basically bounced around 0 despite his high Det.). The one counter example I can think of is Jimenez who had a bad personality (started Low Determination and never flipped positive) did develop a decent amount despite his -28. During periods he wasn't in the team, his development stopped or even reversed. Players who weren't developing and suddenly did were, best I can remember, linked to a personality change through mentorship and then started training well, including a few who made it back into positive figures after going -10ish.

 

I'm positive I'm forgetting something, but I'll have to come back to it. I do wonder how much is an impact of our semi-pro status and facilities. We'll see pretty quickly over the next 4-5 years whether that changes since we're going professional next summer and our facilities should be upgrading constantly.

I'm still on FM21 for this save, but I'd imagine these observations (assuming they're correct) would roughly port over to FM22. I don't think I enabled the editor when I started unfortunately, so I'm not sure I can go behind the scenes even if I get it installed.

[Ceching You Out]

We have our first full cap. Congratulations to Elias Aguilera! I'm sure he enjoyed that 4-0 hammering by Iceland. Early in the season but everything's coming up Millhouse!

[Ceching You Out]

This is interesting - less than half the Andorra senior squad originated from the Andorran league. Without checking, I'd suspect that means most are coming from various Spanish sides. My goal is to be the leading producer, although I suspect in our current squad we only have two players that would potentially add to Aguilera (21B). I'm a little surprised Monteiro hasn't had at least one call up and Deschamps (25B) of the Shakhtar away goal is a star in the making. The rest of our current crop will likely fall short or are Spanish/French. Perez Perez (21I) did get one emergency call up and cap but he's frankly borderline quality for our club side much less the national team.

[Ceching You Out]

Good news:

Bad news:

[Ceching You Out]

Considering that 5 star PCA and PPA are set by our ridiculous GK who was unwilling to sign a contract essentially from the first day he joined us because the rest of the squad isn't up to his level, this is a really deep haul of players. It woudn't be too big a surprise to see even down to 'L' have enough potential to play for us. Or at least it wouldn't be if the personalities here weren't so bad despite our HoYD having a Professional personality with solid Determination. My second biggest gripe? Well, we'll get to that in a second.

 

Lots of potential in a position we're already pretty deep in. All depends how he develops since he has a long way to go.

 

A very defensive DM/CM which I don't hate at all. I may actually retrain him to be a DC because...

 

...the DCs from our intake have stupidly low Acceleration/Pace that will likely never reach the 10+ I'd expect. If Afonso (28C) grows a point in each over the course of his youth contract, he's still short of where we'd want him to be. Ugh.

 

Another fairly strong ST with good potential. We've already got 4 star Monteiro holding down the lone striker spot with Deschamps (25B) shunted to an IF(a) role although his long term future may be as a speedy AF(a), Ruiz (21E) as a backup for the left wing and striker, Nuno (26H) showing surprise 1 star ability with 5 star potential, and Alonso (27B) 1.5 PCA with 5 PPA if his personality can be improved from Unambitious.

 

There's no way I can play a DC with 2 Acceleration; that's absurd.

 

This guy looks great. We're deep enough on the wings with our retrained strikers, maybe he'll move inside as a more attacking CM? We're lighter there and have Mezzala(a) and DLP(s) spots where backup minutes could be won by Gonzalez (28F).

[Ceching You Out]

When I realized I could request an affiliate, I clicked the button. Why not? The only option was Jenlai in our own Andorran second division. I'm not sure I've got a strategy in mind for how I loan them players, but couldn't hurt to have the option. Turning full-time in the summer and improving our training facilities a couple notches means we may be better off holding on to players in lieu of game time in the division below.

[Ceching You Out]

FC Encamp

Andorra 1st Division

2027-2028

 

How was the league?

Riding high on IR until about the middle of the season and then started playing out games when we lost our points lead. Ultimately clinched the title with a couple games to spare (again).

This is becoming routine.

Well, the title part has. From this point forward, not winning the big trophy and playing Champions League football would be a massive failure.

Whatever. Anything else?

Unless you have terrible reading comprehension, you already noticed that we made the CL group stages, got absolutely pummeled, and wiped our tears with a giant pile of money. The money led to facility investments (one each of youth and training completed, one in flight) and turning professional. 

I would've loved to continue the year-to-year stats comparison but it didn't pop up this year. I guess that's a result of our Head Performance Analyst leaving and the board not letting me hire a replacement? Not sure.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Had to look it up - an Israeli side.

Dolphins downed decisively. BATE Borisov in Belarus next.

 

 

A couple facility upgrades in the meantime. I don't know when we became time wizards but I am pleased that we can now manipulate the temporal space to accommodate construction.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

After losing 3-0 in the home leg, I was ready to concede the tie. Then we'd stormed back to 3-1 by half in the away leg, needing just a goal to advance. Instead we picked up a red card and a (rightly) disallowed goal for (needless) offsides. No Champions League miracle run this year.

 

Not beating Differdange would be a disappointment, and that's before I factor in my residual rival feelings from my long ago Luxembourg save.

[Ceching You Out]

Left it to penalties but got it done; far closer than it should've been. But that means we're set for another Group Stage - either Europa proper or conference.

 

They lost to Shakhtar, so by the transitive property we should advance. That's how football math works, right?

After a plucky 2-1 win away, I began to hope for another giant slaying. Instead, they laughed at our slingshot and smashed us into paste in our home stadium.

 

Not too terrible a draw, although I suspect I'm underrating OB from Denmark. Even if we just pick up a couple points from Valur that's a success.

 

Near maxed on Junior Coaching now!

[Ceching You Out]

This is interesting. Rego has been a star from the beginning, but he's quite possibly the best player in the entire division to get these kinds of odds for top player. Deschamps has been really coming along, but I think by that same logic he's got to be in the league's top ten. Still no senior call up for him though, surprisingly.

 

In our third game of the Europa Conference (after capitulating a lead in the first game to Spartak Moscow that turned to a loss in the dying minutes) we get our first group result ever. Three points against OB is delicious. $225K isn't a bad reward, but surely it's worth some coefficient points that are more valuable.

[Ceching You Out]

It occurred to me after auto-clicking buttons to request this and guilt trip the Chairman that I have no idea what our levels actually are after the recent completion. Hmmm, only Average. By my count we'll still need three after this to get Great --> Excellent --> Superb.

 

"Top prospect", "fine prospect", and "good young Spanish striker" plus "golden generation" all sound very promising. But of course, these seem to have little correlation with the actual intake outside of specifically highlighted players.

[Ceching You Out]

European group result number two. Which means we finish dead last but with some points to our name this time and GD a bit better than last year's -45.

[Ceching You Out]

We can now add Junior Coaching to our list of maxed facilities alongside Youth Recruitment. 2 down, 2 to go.

 

After this upgrade, three more to go here too: Great --> Excellent --> Superb

[Ceching You Out]

This is a pretty staggering intake. Especially considering that 5 stars here is an incredible level that has pushed down the rest of our squad's ratings so that we only have 4 players with 3 star PCA by comparison. So if these ratings are accurate, literally 3 of the best 7 players at the club will be baby teenagers from this intake. That's not surprising in the first year or two when you're making large relative strides, but eight seasons in... [head explodes].

Best example - Aguilera (21B) was 4.5 out of 5 stars until just this moment. Now he's a solid 1.5 worse off in PCA and 1 in PPA because of this guy:

Wow, just wow. Montforte (29A) is an absolute beast at 15 and I'm in love. He could be retrained to play anywhere - we need a DC where he could be great as a BPD, although that probably wastes some of his skills. Retrain as a striker to be a CF that quarterbacks our attack? Keep him in the middle of the park to run the whole show? Frankly he's good enough to completely change tactics just to get the most out of him.

I don't have to have an answer now...but I can't help myself. His First Touch, Passing, Teamwork, and Workrate are phenomenal. Even the things that he's weak at, he's still strong relative to our level but I think I have to maximize what he does well rather than get cute. If we only had a hole or two to fill amongst a similar talent level team, I think I'd mold him to fill whatever the gap was. As it stands, we'll build around him in the center of the park for as long as he's willing to stay (which may be just his youth contract at this point if he's like our GK Rego (26A).

[Ceching You Out]

An old name pops up with a great performance in the Second Division for our affiliate. That just got promoted, meaning the link will get broken. Womp womp.

 

Another guilt trip, another upgrade. At this rate we're probably 2ish years from being maxed on facilities, assuming we make another group stage or two to fund it.

[Ceching You Out]

FC Encamp

Andorra 1st Division

2028-2029

 

How was the league?

Next verse, same as the first. IR the bulk of the season until we drop out of first, then take the reins into the close and win the title. We did set records for wins (18) and points (60), but only because it took until the second to last game to confirm we were champions. Four straight titles now and we're finally viewed as favorites going into the next season.

Whatever. Anything else?

Wow, you're actually running out of questions. Guess we're slowly grinding you into submission. Anyway - crazy intake, as noted above. Turning professional, our upgrades, and growing reputation could mean big things from here on out.

 

Only 3 months into his career and already drawing international transfer attention. No, I don't like this at all for our wonderboy.

[Ceching You Out]

We're into the top 100 leagues so that's something. If other sides could start winning in Europe, we might speed this growth up a bit. Currently FC Santa Coloma and ourselves are the only Professional sides, but still. If we can pick up a little steam, rank goes up leading to more money and better players which in turn leads to the results needed to keep the rank improving.

 

Side note - Deschamps still hasn't earned a call-up. Surprisingly our very average Perez (21I) has the most caps. There must be a void of defenders for Andorra because he's only rated 2 star for our squad, likely trading on a higher reputation than ability I'd imagine.

[Ceching You Out]

We're seeded now, at least for the early draws, with a coefficient of 10.5.

Completely dominant without actually getting our deserved awards. Up next we go from Montenegro to Kazakhstan:

[Ceching You Out]

Disappointed here, but it leads to familiar opponents:

[Ceching You Out]

Absolutely livid. 4-0 up after the first leg so I play a heavily rotated side. Within 20 minutes we have one of our few regular starters on the pitch sent off for a straight red. We give up 5 goals on about a third of the xG, manage to pull one back so we're winning on aggregate, and then they whip a 30 yard free kick into the corner. Just everything about this, ugh.

 

Thankfully, a win still puts us in the Europa Conference group stage. That should be our minimum target going forward.

[Ceching You Out]

Oof. 1-1 away and we somehow lose this game at home. Their striker dribbles us 1v3 on a counter and similar on the wing. We deserved at least a draw; that wouldn't have been enough, but still. Punished.

[Ceching You Out]

By this measure, we've got 3 of the best 6 players in the division. Not bad at all.

 

Such a dumb, dumb media angle. You mean my "foreign" players that all came through my academy and have ostensibly been a part of Andorra soccer? Totally.

[Ceching You Out]

Really spending some money now - our balance drops down to the $6M range. We're going to need to make a group stage next year to afford more investments.

 

Adding to our European frustrations (and no doubt causing some of them), our wonderboy can't stay out of the physio's office. He does have poor Natural Fitness (5) and I believe the realism mod does up injuries a bit, but this is grinding my gears at the moment.

[Ceching You Out]

This is...actually pretty good. We don't really need strikers, but defenders and a keeper are top of our wanted list. Our cupboard is very bare on DCs and our star keeper Rego (26A) refuses to sign a pro contract because our squad isn't good enough. We've got our Model Citizen Assistant Coach taking charge of the intake so hopefully personalities are outstanding.

 

Weird quirk here that explains why I wasn't in the Super Cup at the beginning of the year - for some reason the "Winner" is shown based off the regular season table rather than after the playoffs (which are cumulative and determine European/relegation places). Quite odd. Digs a little that we're not shown as 4 time reining champions.

[Ceching You Out]

If the last two years are the start of a trend, then [chef's kiss]. Brilliant ST and GK who will instantly become the 3rd and 4th best players at the club. Even if the rest were useless (and they're not), that's a great haul.

Also, I don't know if this is a quirk of Andorra, something that changed in recent versions, or was a limitation of a particular league I assumed was universal, but I had assumed I was limited to typical youth contracts when I signed someone through intake (i.e., the typical four years w/o any options). It appears that's not the case and now I'm ruing that I didn't sign Rego (26A) or Montforte (29A) to longer contracts right off the bat when they were obvious stars likely to reject any kind of later extensions.

Anyway, on to the star of the show:

Uhh yeah, that's a player all right. Is it too cute to train him as a CM for our Mezzala(A) role since we have some depth already up top? Probably, but I may do it anyway. At a minimum he'll get cross-trained to play on the wing as an IF. Do I get extra cute, slap some lipstick on, put on my black mini dress that really shows off my hairy calves, and make him our captain since he's got the kind of Professionalism and Determination you want to settle down with? I just might.

 

He'll quickly become the starter once our star GK hits the bricks when his youth contract expires in the summer.

[Ceching You Out]

An unexpected request, but one I'm happy to grant to our longest serving and only remaining original player - in a large part because he's only rated at two stars when we have under 18 year olds already beyond four. Fare thee well, Monteiro. You'll leave with the records for most league goals and most league appearances, not quite averaging 1 in 2.

[Ceching You Out]

FC Encamp

Andorra 1st Division

2029-2030

 

How was the league?

Dominant, undefeated, all IR. We were a point from clinching before we even hit the playoffs. Par for the course going forward?

Ugh, to think this almost ended a couple seasons in. You're in a groove now aren't you?

Indeed. Despite the frustrating European experience this year we've seen lots of facility upgrades, several stars, and we're finally a clear head above our competitors. And look at that goal differential!

 

Whatever. Anything else?

Doubled up with the cup, which now pays a reasonable fee

 

 

Our U19s also did this:

 

[Ceching You Out]

Let's look at the squad since we're a decade in AND we have some potentially emotionally charged decisions coming. By PPA:

 

By PCA:

 

And finally by our best starting-ish lineup:

 

We've got a pretty good group of 4.5 and 5 star potential players here, dominated by our most recent 2030 class. Montforte (29A), Rego (26A), Santamaria (30A) are our standouts on that front, and current ability obviously.

Rego (26A) will leave shortly when his youth contract expires; while he'll at least enter negotiations at this point, he wants a stupidly low release clause and a salary that the board won't let me pay even if I wanted to triple our highest contract. A couple A-League teams are interested, but they show as "Transfer". I'm guessing that means we'll get paid some compensation if he signs there but not banking on much as player values are incredibly low. Anyway, we've got a 3 PCA/5PPA backup in 15 year old Pino (30G) so we'll be okay at keeper.

What jumps out at me is that we're going to be incredibly young for a few years. Usually I expect this to go in cycles, with upgrades leading a bright new influx of talent for a year or two that shake up the (relative) older guard, the inevitable intake plateau leading to a more stable roster, then the next round of upgrades sparking changes. Frankly, we've moved much faster on this version of FM so that it's been all change all the time.

What does any of this have to do with "emotionally charged decisions"? I'm pondering what happens to our old guard at this point. Monteiro has already decided to leave. Captain, vice-captain, and international cap leader - Aguilera (21B), Ruiz (21E), and Perez (21I) respectively - are in the bottom five by potential and the bottom ten by current ability. I'm a bit attached to these guys, but frankly it's difficult to justify even using them as substitutes when they're being passed by players that will be better shortly (if they aren't already) and will certainly be better in a season or two. Not much room for sentimentality when we still have so much to accomplish.

Having slept on the situation, I think what I'm going to do is this - keep these three as long as they'd like to stay but move them to de facto mentor roles outside of our lineups (expect for maybe rare appearances by Aguilera (21B)). Captain and vice-captain will go to our two standouts (Santamaria (30A) and Montforte (29A)) who have better personalities that will hopefully shape the rest of our potential players. It's a bit of a gamble since the latter already won't sign a contract and I'd bet the former might take some convincing as well when the time comes, but I think we can develop and bring through a player or two that might raise the level of the squad. Otherwise we'll simply enjoy the years they give us and reevaluate after, since the one constant theme has been CHANGE.

Before Monteiro leaves, here's the full picture of our international appearances:

It is not very impressive.

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Come on, SI. Seriously? There's no option to respond "He asked to leave and I honored his request. Your issue is with Monteiro, not me." 

 

Rego (26A) is getting PAID in Greece. Good for him.

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Probably our most dominant European showing yet; we put up > 3 xG in both matches.

 

Looks like being seeds stuck their tongue out at us and blew a big slobbery one. Not who we would've chosen.

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Well look at that, we were highly competitive away from home after a damn near perfect 2-0 at home. Can we make another dream run to the CL Group Stages? We're in the Europa Conference Group Stages at a minimum.

 

Not a bad team to face at this point. We probably have a chance against the Romanian side.

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5-2 in the first leg with all the goals coming in a mad first half. Comfortably saw it out until we squeaked a bit by conceding two goals in the 88th and 90th.

 

Win obviously gets us CL, loss takes us into EL. Excellent.

 

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They collapsed in the second leg - conceded a penalty (that we missed), picked up a straight red, and offered very little going forward until the dying moments. Was that completely on their collapse or are we actually... good?

 

Let's spend some Champions League money. That will just about cap our Youth Facilities, depending on whether State of the Art is an option; one more to follow on Training Facilities which should cost roughly $7M too. We'll have another handful of millions flowing through from the CL before the end of the year. So now the question becomes - what do we start spending our loot on? Well, I've got an idea.

We may start "financially doping" other sides by buying a terrible player for millions. I think I would start with Inter d'Escaldes, roughly the 3rd best side; hopefully that will turn them Professional and raise the quality of the player they can attract. Although FC Coloma, roughly 2nd, hasn't exactly been tearing up trees as the other currently Professional club. I'm not sure the best way to raise the profile of our league but I certainly need some help.

The only other thing to spend our money on would be a new stadium and I'm not sure there's much value. We're not consistently getting more than 500 attendees domestically but we do generally sell out the 1200ish seats for Europe.

 

That might've been the best outcome we could hope for. Small chance we take points off Benfica, but slightly larger chance we can get something from Copenhagen.

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Seeing this again, made me think (1) we've got some great quality and (2) our players haven't actually won any of these. Who has?

 

Basically just this pace merchant. Interesting that he's been so dominant, although I can remember him burning us a time or two before we got to IRing every match.
 

[Ceching You Out]

A good mix of positions is great considering we're only short centerbacks. Basically just give us good players now and I'll retrain to fill gaps like a mad scientist [rubs hands together with a little too much glee].

 

With an immediate request after our Youth Facilities completion, this will take us to State of the Art and cap our investing here (at least until it downgrades). Hopefully this will impact our intake this year as well.

[Ceching You Out]

Well this is highly disappointing after our last couple of intakes. Maybe I've gotten a bit greedy but there's no immediate starter, a fairly bad mix of personalities, and PPA dropping off more in the bottom half. Woof.

[Ceching You Out]

FC Encamp

Andorra 1st Division

2030-2031

 

Keep it quick now that you're grinding away.

League was a romp, U19s the same. No cup, but close to maxing facilities. After that pattern is set for the foreseeable future: make money in Europe to redistribute to our league-mates (which hopefully in turn helps speed the types of things that will leads to their success in Europe and an improvement in our league ranking) plus see what we can bring in with our youth intake.

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

 

 

Tough opponent but even a loss puts us in the Europa League group stage where we might be able to get a result or two. On the other hand, a win fills our coffers and means we can finish facilities and start subsidies.

[Ceching You Out]

HOLY $%^. 5-2 in the home leg and you feel like that should be enough. We give up a goal in the first five minutes and ohhh no two more goals send us home. A penalty for us is reassuring so we go into halftime at 1-1. But we leak, leak, and leak the fourth in the 87th minute. Unbelievable. Our second major collapse of the save and -- wait, what's this? Stoppage time header from Deschamps (25B) who's dropped to backup status this season. Unbelievable!

Also, completely wrong that this puts us into a group stage. Brain must've skipped a beat because there's still another round for us, and it's an opponent familiar from last year.

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Are we Champions League group stage regulars now? That's a pretty ridiculous question.

 

Getting points off Celtic would be our goal here.

 

One down, likely one to go.