Mikenevo's [FM22] Keep It Close To Home Challenge

[mikenevo]

Welcome to the Keep it close to home challenge! I created this challenge back in FM15 and I had some good fun playing it. I totally forgot about it up until today when someone mentioned it, so I've decided to revive it! If you are looking for something to end your time with FM21, with FM22 fast approaching, then feel free to join in!

Challenge Explanation

The 'Keep It Close To Home Challenge' is a whole new challenge which has taking the challenge of keeping it English only to a whole new level! In this challenge you basically have to pick a County from the top 5 Nations and then pick a team from the county where you will base your challenge at. So for instance I will be picking 'Greater Manchester' as my county and 'Manchester United' as the club I will manage in this challenge. To put it into basic terms, you will only ever be able to sign players who were born in the 'Greater Manchester' area and only ever be able to use players born in the 'Greater Manchester' area from your youth system, with the exception of the players your club starts with.

It doesn't matter what club you start with, where it is situated and how big or how small the club is! Each club will have it's own challenges that you will have to face and even starting as one of the biggest clubs won't make it easy, having to face constant high expectations that these clubs have, whilst transitioning you squad to fit the rules of the challenge. Although there are no time limits with which your club should eventually become a County only team, it is expected that you should replace and offload any players from outside your chosen county at the earliest opportunity, even if it's Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo!

The Rules - Must be followed at all times!

You can only sign players within the county that your team is based in.

You can only use players in the first team from your youth system who were born within the boundaries of your chosen county.

You may use any players who already play for the club from the start of the game, but the aim is to bring in replacements for these players as quickly as you can and offload the originals.

You can only do this challenge within England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

When creating your manager, you MUST have a Nationality of the country you are managing in.

When creating your manager, you MUST NOT have a second Nationality.

When creating your manager, you MUST have been born in the city / town you are managing in, not just somewhere within the county.

When creating your manager, your favorite team MUST be the club you are going to manage and you can't have any additional favorite teams.

When creating your manager, you MUST NOT have any additional languages spoken.

The captain of your club MUST have been born within the city / town you are managing in, not just somewhere within the county. This is a requirement from the very beginning of the challenge.

You must load up all players based in the Nation you choose to manage in.

Additional Rules (Optional) - To add a little spice to the challenge!

You can only sign staff who were born within your chosen county.

Your Assistant Manager must have been born within the City / Town of your chosen club, not just somewhere within the county.

Be a LEGEND and forget about the whole county idea, take it to a whole new level and make it a City / Town challenge instead! (WARNING: Not for the weak!)

How to complete the challenge

Win the domestic top league (with a full squad of county players)

Win all top domestic cups (with a full squad of county players)

Win the Champions League (with a full squad of county players)

Win the Manager Of The Year award (with a full squad of county players)

Have a county player Footballer Of The Year (or it's equivalent) in your chosen country

Have a county player win the top goalscorer award in your chosen country

Have a county player win the World Golden Ball

Have a county player win the World Player Of The Year

Additional Challenges (Optional) - Do the impossible!

Have a county player (Goalkeeper) win the Best Goalkeeper award at a World Cup

Have a county player win the Best Player award at a World Cup

Have a county player win the Golden Boot award at a World Cup

Have a county player win the Goal Of The Tournament award at a World Cup

Become Manager of the National team and lead them to European and World Cup Glory (with a full squad of your club teams county players)

Take a club from the very bottom league in your chosen Nation and complete all challenges above!

Have your club full of county players before the start of the fourth season (You have up until the first competitive game)

Have your club full of county players before the start of the third season (You have up until the first competitive game)

Have your club full of county players before the start of the second season (You have up until the first competitive game)

Do this challenge in a Nation outside of the top 5 Nations!

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by mikenevo
Title Change

[mikenevo]

Thought I'd go with Manchester United for my final save on FM21, the challenge of finding players within Greater Manchester will be greatly interesting!  Kieran Trippier will be a must, maybe Theo Walcott? Can Zidane Iqbal become a regular for the first team? Will this finally be Brandon Williams chance to be first choice? 

[mikenevo]

 

Player & Staff Transfer Update

It has been a struggle to get things started, but I can finally see some progress... On the staffing front at least!

Players in... 

James Tarkowski - £24mil (£29mil) - From Burnley - Central Defender - 27 Years Old - Manchester

Kieran Trippier - £32mil - From A.Madrid - Right Back - 29 Years Old - Bury

Players Joining Next Year...

Danny Drinkwater - £6mil - From Chelsea - Central Midfielder - 30 Years Old - Manchester

Players Out...

We are struggling massively to sell players at the moment, but hopefully people will come in with bids. If not, then we go with what we have!

Juan Mata - £4.3mil

Lee Grant - £105k

Anthony Martial - £41mil

Staff...

I won't go into any detail here really as it's long winded. I have removed all staff members of nationality outside England and I have also begun to remove staff from outside Greater Manchester when I've been able to bring in staff from within the area.

The big news is we managed to bring Paul McGuinness back to the club and he is our new Assistant Manager, hailing from Manchester itself! We also have a new Chief Scout in Martyn Glover from Bury.

 

[mikenevo]

Season 2020/2021 Begins!

I have finally started the season off with our first game coming against arch-rivals Liverpool! We have a surprise in store for them in the shape of Ryan Kent!

Before we go into what happened in the first game, lets look how the team shapes up with comings and goings.

Players in...

Cameron Brannagan - From Oxford United - Born in Salford - £3.7mil - Central Midfielder

Ryan Kent - From Rangers - Born in Oldham - £19mil - (Bought to be a striker)

Jordan Rhodes - From Sheffield Wednesday - Born in Oldham - £425k - Striker - For old times sake!

 Tyrese Campbell - From Stoke City - Born in Stockport - £19.5mil - Striker

Players out...

Victor Lindelof - PSG - Loan

Nemanja Matic - Sevilla - £12mil

Daniel James - Lyon - £12.5mil

Edinson Cavani - Arsenal - £1.3mil

Alex Telles - A.Madrid - £17mil

Eric Bailly - Real San Sebastian - Loan

David De Gea - Real Madrid - Loan

Finances...

With the sales and loans, we are now only spending £2.45mil on wages per week, which is a huge improvement and a massive £1.25mil under budget! I'm just hoping I haven't totally ruined the club on the pitch, whilst improving it off the pitch. Only time will tell!

Man Utd vs Liverpool (Season Opener)

We had to fight back from 2 - 0 behind at half time. I made some tactical errors up until half-time, but in the second half I closed down their full-backs and to great effect, with 1 of the goals coming from a tackle on the edge of our box from their full-back, to allow Ryan Kent to score. I also shouldn't have started the match with Rhodes, but nostalgia got the best of me! 

[karanhsingh]

Interesting I saw someone else do this with united earlier. Finding players of the right quality definitely hard! Foden would be the ultimate player to get. 

[mikenevo]

4 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Interesting I saw someone else do this with united earlier. Finding players of the right quality definitely hard! Foden would be the ultimate player to get. 

Someone on the forums? I've found some decent enough players already thankfully and we haven't had a bad start to the season either, so will be interesting to see what happens come the end of the first season. I'm probably going to update once every 3 months of game play and I'm into the 3rd month now.

I tried to sign Foden, but Manchester City told me where to go haha! I'm sure I'll be able to get him at some point though, with transfer outlay sure to be very low in the coming seasons.

[karanhsingh]

13 minutes ago, mikenevo said:

Someone on the forums? I've found some decent enough players already thankfully and we haven't had a bad start to the season either, so will be interesting to see what happens come the end of the first season. I'm probably going to update once every 3 months of game play and I'm into the 3rd month now.

I tried to sign Foden, but Manchester City told me where to go haha! I'm sure I'll be able to get him at some point though, with transfer outlay sure to be very low in the coming seasons.

Yes there was a thread in the careers forum IIRC. Good luck will keep an eye out 

[mikenevo]

14 hours ago, karanhsingh said:

Yes there was a thread in the careers forum IIRC. Good luck will keep an eye out 

I really would like to see that thread, any idea if they were having success or not? Can't seem to find it  

[mikenevo]

Season 1 (September - November)

Premier League

We definitely had a very easy start to the season in terms of fixtures, so I don't really know how to take this sort of form we've had. We struggled early on with the Liverpool game and the Arsenal game. One thing to note is that the Brighton, Leeds and Southampton matches were actually holidayed due to losing save game data after my laptop got switched off without saving. I holidayed those matches until I got results that more or less matched what I'd achieved. Brighton was previously 7-0, Leeds was previously 4-0 and Southampton was previously 6-0. I'd prefer the previous results obviously, but these will have to do...

Overall I'm more than happy with the points we've achieved and it's worth noting that we were so close to beating both Palace and getting a draw with Wolves, if it wasn't for late goals! I was very angry with my team after that Wolves game and I let them know!

Carabao Cup

That Chelsea game was insane, we absolutely destroyed them despite being the away team. Mason Greenwood is currently top of the goalscoring charts in the cup with 5 goals, a hatrick against Chelsea and a brace against Watford! Bring on Bournemouth!

Champions League

We definitely got lucky with the draw in the Champions League. After all the changes we made, I was worried about facing strong teams early on, but luckily that hasn't been a problem!

Apart from that last Porto game, it has been total humiliation for the other teams. Again, Mason Greenwood leads the goalscoring charts with 6 goals alongside some players from lesser teams who have played in earlier parts of the competition. 

One honorable mention to Anthony Martial who is smashing in goals for PSG, 10 goals in 12 games, 4 in 4 for the Champions League. He would have been lethal alongside Greenwood.

Premier League Table

If anybody is interested, this is the tactic that I use. It may be slightly familiar with some people as it is a modified version of a tactic that someone else created. I can't remember exactly who that person is. Mason Greenwood has scored 26 goals in 14(2) appearances within this tactic.

[mikenevo]

FM22

I didn't get much further with the save as I've been pretty busy, but I have just purchased FM22, so I will be starting a save very soon! I have already set it up and I've decided to start lower down in the leagues, but staying within the Greater Manchester area! I've chosen none other than Salford 

I'm currently in the tactical creation phase, so I won't be doing anything with this save yet. I'm testing out my first tactic with Manchester United and so far the results are insane, so this may well be the tactic I will implement with Salford.

Would be nice if some people joined me for FM22