The FM22 Youth Academy Challenge

[WhiteCat33]

36 minutes ago, Fmfan00 said:

I wanted to do one with a San Marino club… am I allow to use a downloadable database for San Marino or no?

Yes that's exactly what I'm doing just in Malta. I'd use the one that the San  Marino Challenge links to: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2651624557 

[SkiIIs]

4 hours ago, toshimitzou1 said:

Mission complete!!!!

 

I had to tweak early doors- whilst watching the Full Match for the first 5 mins, Musiala was a constant pain, being played in behind by the wide players and beating what was previously a strong offside trap. I dropped the offside trap, switched my defenders to stopper and cover with this guy tasked with covering Musiala's runs:

Their attacking impetus was almost immediately nullified. I was using this as a base point:

Again, at the 10 min mark I changed the CM-Attack to AP- attack and the DLP to DM- Support and added the TI play through the middle. What transpired was a turgid game where we were clearly keeping the ball centrally to prevent their exceptional wide players from obliterating us . Opposition example:

I can only say: ALWAY WATCH THE FIRST 10 MINS OF A 'BIG MATCH'. 

With these changes in effect, I watched PSG (with far superior players) look for the same through ball to Musiala time and time aging, who was thwarted by and organised deep block and a competent covering defender.

 

End result:

And the gritty:

 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

that is just insane, congrats!!!

[Daddy]

2037/38 Midseason Review:

The sale of our striker really made things more difficult than they appear with us sitting in 1st with a +45 GD. The league is quite top heavy and we put a hurting on the bottom teams and had much closer affairs against the top half. We have not found a replacement striker. No one is really scoring with any consistency. We've been carried by depth scoring, but in the big games no one is stepping up. We're making it ok in league, but Champions League was a different story:

We got hit with the triple whammy. 1 - as noted above a lack of scoring. 2 - losing our keeper right when group stage started. We've settled in on a guy who's doing okay, but he was the third player I tried. 3 - I jinxed it by saying this was an easy group. At least we are still alive in Europa League.

This should be winnable, but we just got smoked by Betis so who knows.

Youth Intake Preview:

Centerback is always a position I love to see good talent, and same with Striker. 

[Winski]

IK Sleipner

Season 2025 (season 4)
Superettan (14th)

League table | Finances | Facilities | Transfers |Youth intake| Club overview | Manager Profile

 

What a tough season it was! We nearly survived our first season at this level. It's no surprise that the quality of the teams is way better than the leagues below. Some very good teams are in this league, like Orobro SK, IFK Varnemo, Varbergs BoIS and Helsingborgs IF. Our squad is by far the weakest in the league, so I'm very happy that we managed to survive. We had to play relegation-playoff against Gefle IF. We lost the first match (0-1), but won the second match (4-1), so we'll play another season at the second division of Sweden.
With this league finish, we earned almost € 700k! So we finally could upgrade some of our facilities for the first time.

Youth intake
The preview was terrible, as I posted before. The intake gave us lots of Elite Talents, but a quick look at their profiles doesn't give me any hope for a future star. Hopefully some of them will surprise me!

Spoiler

Best players this season:
GK. Edvard Setterberg
DR. Jonathan Larsson
MC. Gentrit Çitaku
AML. Khaled Qasem

Best Academy players this season:
Tim Ström 23b
Giannis Chryssajis 22a
Mattias Larsén 22b
Oliver Berg 24b
 

Next season will be more of the same. Hopefully we will survive another season, because the price money is very welcome. Let's hope we can upgrade our facilities a bit more, so that our intakes will be better in the near future.

[glennuk]

@toshimitzou1- Huge congrats on winning the challenge. I can't even imagine doing it with an Icelandic team....but....maybe you have inspired me...

[XaW]

Congrats @toshimitzou1! Very impressive to do it in Iceland! 

[toshimitzou1]

7 minutes ago, XaW said:

Very impressive to do it in Iceland! 

It was insane fun. At first, I was worried that the weakness of the domestic league would be a major hurdle. However, due to the poor ability of the domestic teams I was able to put Youth Academy graduates into the First XI almost instantly without adversely affecting our title aspirations, which aided player development substantially. 

As i have mentioned before, knowing this was going to be a tough challenge I came in fully prepared. I completed the challenge on FM21 with Aigaleo in Greece and learned some big lessons along the way. First and foremost was that a truly 'flexible' tactic would be needed that could operate as both an underdog and a favourite. Before starting the youth academy playthrough I loaded up an old Arsenal save I had that was in 2030 and took a manager position at Odd in Norway. There I spent five seasons creating the tactic that I then implemented for the entire playthrough with Haukur. It was the perfect testing ground as within a season we were qualifying for the CL where the gulf in class was almost identical to what I ended up facing with Haukur. 

Thanks for the support to all!!!

[libbyshuss]

Croatia

Division 2

2027/28 (season 6)

Season Summary

Another season of close but not close enough. We started amazingly, finished well but had a dodgy middle (2 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats in 8 games) that put paid to our promotion hopes. But we were in the battle again with a new yung side so it will only be a matter of time before we go up. I hope....

It doesn't help we're a semi-pro team fighting pro teams at the top of the table but we can't afford the leap to proffessional status sadly

 

Players

The new side didn't have quite as many youth players in it as I'd imagined. I basically bottled it with the defence and kept the legacy players in! really pleased with how the midfield did and although Sesar 25C up front didn't score many he looks like a real prospect and could score a bucketload in a season or two

 

Youth

Another golden generation!  

 

A goalkeeper is always a handy addition to a squad!

Intake was pretty good again with another 8 elite talents!

sadly the personaities were again a mixture of balanced and unambious

but you never know right?

 

Finances and Upgrades

Another youth recruit upgrade! We're on excpetional now!!!!

 

Career

[Rainbowz]

17 hours ago, WhiteCat33 said:

Did you add an isle of man national team?

Yeah. I assume that means I can't post it then.

[WhiteCat33]

2 hours ago, Rainbowz said:

Yeah. I assume that means I can't post it then.

Up to the mods if you can post, just know it won't be eligible for the Hall of Fame as its a 'fantasy' modification adding the national team. Databases like the one I'm using for Malta or St Vincent & Grenadines are allowed as they strive to provide as close to real as possible league structure for unplayable nations. By adding a national team your players will get better earlier with international matches against stronger opponents than you face in the 10th tier of England. 

[WhiteCat33]

Random Question: Is there a way to check the Youth Rating of a save late on? I'm curious if I've managed to bump up St Vincent's after almost 30 years and lots of Caribbean trophies. 

[JLAB]

3 minutes ago, WhiteCat33 said:

Random Question: Is there a way to check the Youth Rating of a save late on? I'm curious if I've managed to bump up St Vincent's after almost 30 years and lots of Caribbean trophies. 

The best way to do so it using the in-game editor to check the youth rating of a nation. You just need to know what the youth rating was at first.

[JAwtunes]

18 hours ago, Fmfan00 said:

I wanted to do one with a San Marino club… am I allow to use a downloadable database for San Marino or no?

You can use custom db now but the San Marino league is structured with only one division so wouldn't be eligible, unless the rules for the challenge have changed. Same for Gibraltar for example. @XaW @darren1983

[XaW]

16 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

You can use custom db now but the San Marino league is structured with only one division so wouldn't be eligible, unless the rules for the challenge have changed. Same for Gibraltar for example. @XaW @darren1983

That's correct, custom databases needs at least two playable tiers. They also need to be "real", as in no fantasy databases.

[DrJones]

De Treffers

After a long break from FM and catching up to this thread I decided to start a new save in a country I've never played in, The Netherlands.

I'm taking charge of De mighty Treffers!

[thomas_e]

 

VV Katwijk

Season Summary 2028 - 2029

A surprising promotion 

 

*note: the reason the first season is in 2024-2025 is because of rule changes in Holland, so there were no relegation for the first three seasons

My FM motivation hit an all time low and I haven't played the game since april. Picked it up again today and finished the 2028/2029 season with Katwijk, which ended in a very, very unlikely promotion. I see that @Neo_Geo is having some great success with Katwijk these days, I think I will be very lucky if I can stay in the league. We were predicted to finish last place in the Eerste Divisie, so a 2nd place was way more than we could have hoped for. We also didn't play well to be honest, but we were really lucky throughout the year. Even if we go down, which we probably will, the year in Eredivisie will help our finances. 

 

Season Summary

      

 

Key Players

      

 

Youth Intake

         

 

 

[SkiIIs]

14 hours ago, toshimitzou1 said:

It was insane fun. At first, I was worried that the weakness of the domestic league would be a major hurdle. However, due to the poor ability of the domestic teams I was able to put Youth Academy graduates into the First XI almost instantly without adversely affecting our title aspirations, which aided player development substantially. 

As i have mentioned before, knowing this was going to be a tough challenge I came in fully prepared. I completed the challenge on FM21 with Aigaleo in Greece and learned some big lessons along the way. First and foremost was that a truly 'flexible' tactic would be needed that could operate as both an underdog and a favourite. Before starting the youth academy playthrough I loaded up an old Arsenal save I had that was in 2030 and took a manager position at Odd in Norway. There I spent five seasons creating the tactic that I then implemented for the entire playthrough with Haukur. It was the perfect testing ground as within a season we were qualifying for the CL where the gulf in class was almost identical to what I ended up facing with Haukur. 

Thanks for the support to all!!!

how did you end up fairing in the leaderboard?  

[toshimitzou1]

33 minutes ago, SkiIIs said:

how did you end up fairing in the leaderboard? 

Literally playing out the end of the season now. The CL win will be included in the next 'Leaderboard' update. I'll keep you informed.

NB: This should have also helped:

 

Final leaderboard placing:

Identical score to season without CL win:

Must be based solely on Domestic performance only. Perhaps if I spend a season playing my First XI in all domestic competitions I might be able to boost the score. Been playing my 'second XI' in the two domestic cups to-date. I might give it a shot. 

Edited August 4, 2022 by toshimitzou1
Added final leaderboard

[Winski]

IK Sleipner
Youth intake preview 2026

Well, this preview looks already a lot better then last year! We've got a new HoYD, so hopefully this guy will deliver some decent talents.
I really hope that we will get a promising defender, as I really need a new centre-back.

[libbyshuss]

Croatia

2028/29 (season 7)

Division 2

Season Summary

Much the same pattern as the previous couple of seasons. We started amazingly, 14 games unbeaten, before losing a couple just before the winter break. The main reason we did so well was Miroslav Sesar 25C - I predicted at the end of last season he was gonna score bucketloads one day, I wasn't expecting it so soon. In those 17 games he equalled last seasons tally with 13 goals and looked stronger and stronger with each game. Sadly, that didn't go unnoticed.....

And we had to sell him to a Division 1 side. At our level, we can't scoff at 60k though, we need every penny we get

But it meant we went int the second half of the season wuthut our star striker, but we did enough to again finish second

But only the champions get promoted!! and they nearly always are the club that got relegated the season before!!! 

It's a tough life in Croatia....

 

Players

The youngest side yet with some real talents emerging

A nice mix of nationalities there as well with 2 Bosnians and a Hungarian. Not that surprising as we are about 6 miles from the Hungary border. Bognar 27E was tearing it up fr the U19s so I promoted him during the winter break and he handled it really well! Looking forward to see what he can do next season

Kaptalan 27B was another that was doing so well in the U19s I promoted them in the break as well. Not quite as successful as Bognar, sadly, but should be a good player in a season or two.

 

Youth

So, an exceptional youth intake in the Croatian Second Division? What kid of crazy intake can this provide.....

This one!

5 stars and a golden generation is pretty good, even if the grades aren't quite as good. 

The intake was again jam packed full of Elite talent and 4/5 star prospects. I have a ludicrous amount of them now, it's insane. As much a problem as too few tbh. Who do I focus on? who do I loan out? I can't micromanage them all there's too many of them!

I signed all but two of them in the end. Again, determination and personalities could be better but hopefully I'll fine that out of a lot of them.

Star Graduate

 

A temperemental Bosnian striker. I don't mind temperemental too much, with a bit of discipline he should respond. Shame he's not any faster.

 

Career

Stuck in Croatian Division 2! But the club is improving off the pitch so, you know, small victories and that

 

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by libbyshuss

[WhiteCat33]

Mellieħa SC - Malta Premier League

Season 5 2026-27

Competitions: MPL 3rd Place ; EC2 Second Qualify Round ; FA Trophy Second Round 

• League - We were just 1 game shy of claiming the title, but more importantly will be back in the EC2 in the Fall.
• EC2 - Our first draw was FCI Levadia from Estonia. We started with a 2-2 draw at home, and repeated the performance in Estonia to send it to Penalties. Luck was on our side and we scraped by the win and much needed prize money. Second draw was Ferencvaros from Hungary, where we had absolutely no chance. Lost 5-1 on Aggregate. Got a total of $650k prize money, which is 3.5x our total Income from last year.
• Cup - Yeah we did awful, no excuse here. Oh well. 

Transfers: Amazingly we held onto everyone during the season. There was a scare with my RB Samuel Tanko 03a, but luckily I jacked his wages and he chose us over domestic rivals. I'm sure I'll have to fight them off in the summer.

Squad: Players are developing well. I'll be tossing my 2nd Striker for one of the new intakes and clearing out most of my subs. Pretty happy with the progression of my players right now.

Youth Academy:

YI Preview - Same 4* with lots of A's.

Youth Intake: Pretty happy with this

Only 4 Professional personalities, but they line up with 2 of the Elite talent AMRs who will end up being speedy Forwards for us as we don't use wingers.

Best Ability is a FB, wish he was left sided but at least this is rotation for the right.

Club Improvements:

Senior Affiliate: I put in senior club requests periodically expecting the failure. Apparently 3 Icelandic clubs are interested in having a Malta feeder club!? European Island Power! Breiðablik Ungmennafélag is by far the best of the 3. I don't know if you can do a reverse YF sharing as the minor club. I hope so because that would be unreal to get access to Great Level facilities so early.

Double Upgrade YR: I've decided to hold off on JR coaching to prioritize going professional. Still no-dice with the board, but maybe after one more year qualifying for EC2 they will say yes.

Youth Facility Upgrade: Only 120k for the first rung. Goal will be to do the next ladder after EC2 matches. 

 

Thoughts:

Our success is completely dependent upon if we can keep Sean Caruana 02a. He scored 24 of our 46 league goals and assisted 6 more. Dude just keeps developing and media rates him as the #4 Malta player and #1 playing domestically. He won't sign a new contract with us, but luckily he won't with any other domestic teams either. Basically its just a countdown till a foreign club takes him now that he's 18. My 'hope' is that my Icelandic senior Affiliate picks him up. Figure he'd be good enough to feature well there. Luckily I got the two quick Wingers this intake as they will be my future forwards.

Now to get that domestic title!

July 1st Update:

Couldn't even make it 2 weeks after the contracts were signed (6/20) before I lost my RB. He rejected the first team that asked, but then agreed to the second offer. Guess its a good thing now that FB is right-sided. So far I still have my striker, so there is still hope...

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by WhiteCat33

[Siepe1990]

Season 3 (2024/2025) - 2. Bundesliga (all images)

After just nearly missing out on promotion to the Bundesliga in the previous season by losing the play-offs on penalties, I was set on challenging again this year. However, I also wanted to implement at least a couple of talented youngsters into my First Eleven. Looking at the talents at my disposal, I picked three: Alexander Kammlott(re-trained to Inv. Winger AMR, Youth Intake 2023), Edgar Baar (Winger AML, Youth Intake 2023) and Ronald Schubert (BtB CM, Youth Intake 2021 - so a 'regen', but in the first season before I was in charge). (All images are end of season 2025).

To accommodate them, I had to change my formation to implement the wingers, which also lead to me changing my playing style (since a Vertical Tiki-Taka is not really sensible with a winger). Thus, I changed from my proven 4-3-1-2 Narrow Vertical Tiki-Taka to a 4-3-3 Tiki-Taka. Through my practice campaign, I noticed that everything wasn't going as smooth as hoped. The tweaking to the playing style and the chosen players roles took up a large part of the first quarter of the season, meaning my results were not as good as I hoped. We picked up the pact during the remainder of the season however and managed to finish a very decent 5th after an undefeated streak of 12 games (5 W / 7 D).

 

Player of the Season: Burim Halili (7.22 average after a 7.32 in the 2nd season and a 7.24 in the 1st season - rock of the defense)

Talent of the Season: Ronald Schubert (7.16 average, coveted by several Bundesliga-teams, this might be the best talent I have - however, he's a regen from 2022, so the season before I took over)

Honorable Mention: Alexander Kammlott - re-trained to Inv. Winger AMR and after a U19-season with a 7.51 rating as a Mezzala, he now won the German U17 Player of the Year

Honorable Mention #2: Yannis Jura - behind my 2 go-to wing players he managed to play 19 games and earned a 3rd place in the German U17 Player of the Year

No Transfer Proof

 

Youth Intake 2025

I've managed to increase my facilities to 'Great Youth Facilities', 'Good Academy Coaching' and 'Excellent Youth Recruitment' and it's showing. The Preview was promising and the eventual Scholars were indeed very promising. Especially Nico Alburg was a welcome addition as a back-up CM BWM - I'll keep him in the U19's but he'll be given some playtime when my regular needs a rest of gets injured. Another very decent talent is Alexander Miller ; when one of my great CM's gets lured away (which will inevitably happen for at least one of them), this might be a good replacement. Still no Left Back - not even a half-decent one - so I'm still stuck with one (very good) DL and a very bad back-up - fingers crossed for the next intake!

[dcayton9]

America De Natal: 2029

Transfers: The outgoings below.

Having already posted lamenting the vultures sweeping up my players, I will keep this shorter, but sadly I lost one more key player about a third through the Serie B campaign. Goodbye Joao Cleiton 01B. You were a valiant servant and a great captain and I'm really going to miss having your personality to use for mentoring. We overall made fantastic money off the outgoings but losing four Serie A level talents put a huge dent on my hopes of success.

Cups: Soon I'll likely stop trying on cups as the early season fixture congestion from just four extra games really hurts my ability to challenge in the league. However...

• We won the Potiguar State: Four times in a row! This is just a youth competition for me aside from the odd game I need to win where I play the key players.
• We won the Copa Nordeste! I had wanted to win this and the success stemming from it was exciting. There's no huge monetary reward or incentive to keep winning in the future but getting my first true silverware was a great feeling.

• We reached the third round of Copa Brazil: The third round is where the competition becomes two-legged ties, meaning fixture congestion and I am not in for that, especially at a time in the season where there are already so many matches as Serie B always starts as bi-weekly matches before returning to weekly matches halfway through the season. Maybe when my team is truly strong I'll challenge for this, but as of now it's going on the backburner.

Serie B: 5th... one spot short. We started the season extremely strong, though after losing our entire attack bar one player, we became a significantly weaker threat. However, our ability to eke out games and over-perform xG meant we stayed in a promotion spot from matchday 6 to 37 (!!!) only to fall to fifth on the 38th and final day. I was crestfallen, sitting for about 10 minutes after feeling absolutely defeated. However, in my attempt to console myself, I'm thinking that 1) I wasn't strong enough to go up and I would've been certainly relegated, but now I can develop a stronger team and challenge again and hopefully stay up next time, and 2) that I overperformed xG so much that it didn't even make sense for me to go up. However, I am terrified that I'll lose my key players again this offseason and I'll be back to square one again. 

Facilities: For the first time all save, we have a glut of cash and were able to really invest in our youth set-up. This season saw an upgrade from average to good training facilities, an upgrade from average to good to great youth facilities, and an upgrade from adequate to good to excellent youth coaching. This accompanies our already exceptional youth recruitment and leads me to believe that within the next few years we'll be pumping out Brazil's finest products. Last, I finally got my coaching badge up to Continental Pro, so I'll get the most benefit to players in training possible.

Spoiler

Youth Intake: The intake wasn't spectacular, which is something I expected from the very underwhelming preview, but there are definitely a few guys that will be solid and could even become stars with the right development. I was able to sign around 10 of them which is a significant upgrade over the 6 from my last intake and should keep the youth team stocked as it's becoming quite shallow. However, I think it's finally time to change my HoYD. I know I can't control bad intakes but I am getting annoyed with a lack of holding midfielders. Having 4-2-3-1 as a preferred formation tends to produce a number of forward thinking midfielders that can play CM and AM but next to no guys with the ability to play DM. Further, many of the wing players have ST as a secondary position meaning any transition to a shape with WMs is difficult as well. I'll probably look for a 4-4-2 or 4-1-4-1 HoYD but am open to others if they fit in other regards.

Three (or Four) Stars:

• 2029 Key Player, Xavier Simoes 02D: I don't like repeat performers for this, but he had by far the best season for us. Shifting between ST and AM, he expertly played all roles, was our leading scorer, and only player with above a 7 rating in the league. Beyond that, he became my all time leading league goal scorer, so I must commend him. I'm also now realizing he was the only player of the 02 intake to stick it and make the grade, but I'll take a deeper look when I start looking back at where are they nows in a few seasons. Honestly, he's only worth 1.5 mil but he'd play decently in up to a mid-table squad in top five European leagues. 

• 2029 Breakthrough Player(s), Jose Ivanaldo and Fernando Henrique 05D: Jose Ivanaldo was the only right back option of any quality when Felipe 03A was sold, and though he was 17, he had to step up and play a key role the entire season. Starting over 2/3 of league games, he stepped up to the call, and though he wasn't stellar (6.65 average rating is not great), he filled what was needed. However, when looking for a player that actually performed, Fernando Henrique 05D became a valuable goalscorer about halfway through the season, netting 11 in 20 starts and forcing Xavier Simoes into the AM slot for a while to accommodate his form. At a young 19, he has a lot of developing to do and given that he's touted to have Serie A potential, I think he'll hit that and be a key scorer for years to come.

• 2029 Hot Prospect, Gilvan 08A: Though not the highest rated in terms of potential or value, Gilvan 08A certainly has the attribute spread to succeed as a forward in my team. Thankfully he's versatile, but also not being able to play deeper on the left wing highlights the issue I mentioned earlier with HoYD. Still, his personality ideally means good development so we'll see him in a few years.

Summary and Looking Ahead: It will be tough to challenge for promotion as the relegated teams are always looking to go back up and each year there's the usual suspects sniffing around as well. However, I'll try and hopefully this time I can be complete with it. In the undesired case that I lose more key players, I'll hopefully be able to really improve the facilities and start pushing out world-beaters. However, I don't want that to be the case quite yet.

 

[Daddy]

2037/38 Season Review:

Five straight, but Metalist was right on our tail the whole time. We scored the most goals and gave up the fewest and managed to not run away with the league. Against the better teams we drew and lost matches we would have won the last few years. It's hard to win a 5th straight league and say it felt underwhelming, but here I am saying that. No one has hit 30 yet so it's not a matter of decline. I'm toying with a second tactic to see if I can't handle the better teams, well, better.

After a disappointing performance in the Champions League group we went on to the Europa knockouts. Torino we handled nicely. Some of the underwhelming issues crept up against Real Sociedad popped up as we scored at will but just couldn't stop them. Got lucky in penalties. Again, underwhelming against Hertha. We ran circles around them but just couldn't score until late in the second leg where we put it away. First leg against Arsenal was two fairly evenly matched teams, but the second leg we just laid an egg. 

Arsenal then went to lose 1-0 in extra time. 

I'm still not sure if I made the right call selling Petrov. He wanted to move to bigger clubs/competitions, but I still had two years to try to convince him to stay. He might have walked for free, but the 111M goes to waste as the owner won't upgrade youth facilities, build a stadium, hire more coaches, or anything else useful.

Here's the latest wonderkid. At time of screenshot he was hurt, his attributes were on the rise prior and have been since taking that screenshot.

Youth Intake:

Strong preview actually led to a strong intake. I think there will be a few pretty useful players from this intake in a few years.

2038/39 Season Preview:

Still going to keep focusing on winning the league. It's especially important so long as it's getting a 1st seed in CL Group draw. I will be experimenting more with tactics, but not at the cost of winning matches. The top of the league is too close to throw away wins.

Man City is no longer the dominant team in the Premier League, only winning once in the last five seasons. However, the other four years they didn't win they came in second. In six matches we've won once (last time we faced them in 2036), drawn tice, and lost three times. I'm hoping to at least not lose both matches. Borussia M'gladbach has been regularly in the varying European competitions. A few years they've missed outright. They've never come close to challenging in Bundesliga, at best only 11 points off the chase, but normally 25+. We've never faced them but if we don't win at least once I'll be disappointed. We've also never faced Qarabag but I have to expect two wins there. It'll be a failure to me to not qualify for knockouts.

[SuperRedditch]

The Spartans

Season 15 - 2036/37

*Scottish Premiership - 1st*
*Scottish FA Cup - Winners*
*League Cup - Winners*
Champions League - Runner-up

 

 

Domestic domination is par for the course now. Beyond a few odd games a season no-one can really touch us. It's all about the Champions League now.

 

 

It was a tricky group that we just managed to sneak out of.

 

Drew Paris Saint-Germain in 1st KO round. Run over? Nope, smashed them. Barcelona next. Beat them 3-0 at home. Atalanta (12th place in Serie A this season) in the Semis, 7-1 on aggregate.

OMG WE'RE IN THE FINAL!? IS THE CHALLENGE OVER?

Nah, Man City too strong. Incredible run though, never expected to get this far this soon.

 

The most exciting this about this season is that we moved into our new stadium (took 3.5 years to build). The  21000 all-seater Thermopylae Stadium (renamed with lnc file). It's being immediately expanded to 24.5k this summer.

 

 

 

Also, as a fun little side activity, I'm trying to get affiliated with every team named after Sparta. I'm up to 3 now, just ignore the random South Korean club:

 

 

The Intake

 

Pretty trash, The top player might make a squad player some day.


The Future

 

Whilst we came really close, I think the stars kinda aligned. Imo, we really need: a GK, full back, CM x2 and maybe a world-class striker. I've converted two defensive midfielders into IWBs as they are a massive improvement compared to what I have, and the promising winger from last season's intake is now a CM (Mezzala) and doing well. I play a 4-3-1-2 or 4-4-2 narrow diamond. No wingers for me.

 

[SuperRedditch]

 

Hahahaha. We've been in our stadium for 6 months and we've already got to play next season somewhere else. Absolutely incredible planning.

[Daddy]

25 minutes ago, SuperRedditch said:

 

Hahahaha. We've been in our stadium for 6 months and we've already got to play next season somewhere else. Absolutely incredible planning.

they must have hired the project managers I deal with

[_JHTB_]

Enfield Town Season 15

SkyBet League Two – 3^rd - Promotion

Transfers – Fixtures (1) – Fixtures (2) – Squad – Table – Key Player – Hot Prospect 

No outgoings over the summer aside from goalkeeper Andrei Lefter 10 who completed his pre-agreed transfer to Hull City, only other players to leave left to get minutes under their belts in the lower leagues.

League

The season started strongly for us, we were proving ourselves hard to beat so whenever we didn’t win we’d usually be still coming away from the match with a point in the bag. A key proponent to our success was our defensive prowess which considering we’d lost our best goalkeeper was very pleasing. We also found goals a bit more readily than the season past which left us after half the season in a promotion battle – something that I had thought was incredibly unlikely from us.

On 31/07/2022 at 14:13, _JHTB_ said:

Being realistic, I think we’re in league two for the long haul and see us going down more likely than us challenging at the top.

The second half of the season was very much similar to the first half though all the teams around us were in similarly good form which meant that a run of 4 losses from 6 games between February and March left us outside the playoffs for the first time since early in the season with 7 games left to play. After that however, our defense really shone, only 2 goals conceded from then until the end of the campaign with us winning 6 of the 7. The penultimate game of the season was pivotal in our promotion campaign as we scored in the 92^nd minute to take the win which meant the season ended with 3^rd vs 4^th on the final day with us needing to avoid defeat to be promoted. We ultimately won the game thanks to a first half strike to secure what, based on my pre-season thoughts, was an unexpected promotion.

Cups

As with the past few seasons the Cups are not something that I’ve focused too much on. However, we did actually progress to the 2^nd round of the League Cup for the first time in our history before getting smashed 7-1 by Brighton. We did win our opening League Trophy game too but that was the only other win in cup competitions for us as we lost in the group stages there whilst also being knocked out of the FA Cup in the first round.

Youth Intake

Not the best, not the worst, a few players who with a few years of development look like they could provide us with some good options.

Danny King 15 – Naturally a winger, but has pretty good tackling and already some familiarity in the position I’m training him to play – wing back. I’ve quite high hopes that he can develop into a strong option for us in the future.

Nicholas Pond 15 – Technically he has reasonable attributes for a centre back and has plenty time to develop physically and mentally to hopefully break his way into first team reckoning – especially as we don’t have a lot of depth for centre back. A good personality on him so hopefully that will transpire to fast development.

Joseph Rainford 15  - I’m not too sure what to make of Rainford, not great attributes as a defender but the coaches rate his potential highly, and as mentioned centre back is really an area we need improvement. Since being at the club he’s actually already developed a good chunk so hopefully he’s one of these with low ability when joining but fast development.

Key Players

Ed Stevens 13 – Transitioned into first choice centre back during last season and was very good for us this. Consistently performing well in what was a very tight defense. He unfortunately seemed to get jaded every other week even with me sending him on holidays but when he is playing he’s a strong performer.

Josh Mohammed 11 – After losing Lefter I had little choice but to put Mohammed in, though he’d done reasonably enough on loan last season in the lower leagues. He was just very good for us, similar in ways to Lefter in his first season for us where he just prevented so many goals (26.54) which was surely a huge factor in our promotion.

Ken Cover 13 – Cover spent half a season on loan 2 divisions lower last season and did reasonably enough netting 6 goals whilst developing quite nicely. It was enough for me to push him into the first team and despite other players already having staked claims to the starting striker spot Cover quickly made it his own with a hattrick in our first home game of the season. On occasion he was a bit patchy in form, but still scored plenty goals. The main thing I’m happy with is that he’s developed incredibly over the last season with improvements of 2 and 3 in many key attributes for the role – he could be the consistent goalscorer to finally replace Faal.

Infrastructure/Looking Ahead

Our new stadium hasn’t done much at all to alleviate our financial woes though we are about breaking even just from a base of minus 700k. We should be able to make some at least a little dent in it as we agreed last summer to sell Eirik Stensrud 10 at the end of the season to Cardiff for £100k. Not a bad deal considering the transfer date of 9^th June is only 3 weeks before his contract runs out, as well we got 50% of next sale on it so hopefully he can develop well for Cardiff and earn us some more money going forward.

It's a weird one, on one hand I’m absolutely delighted we’ve been promoted, but on the other I’m dreading that it might see us in a relegation battle in a league with 4 relegation slots. Relegation would be sure to get half the team upset and wanting transfers which is what I’d rather avoid. Hopefully the overall quality difference between League One and Two isn’t too big and we can avoid the drop with relative ease, but I feel it’ll be a tough season. On the plus side, perhaps it will bring us more revenue as we hope to get out of the financial hole we find ourselves in.

Notable Landmarks

600 Appearances

Stephen O’Brien 1 – Becomes the second youth player to surpass 600 appearances for the club. The next closest current player to the milestone is around 350 appearances away so he may well also be the last to pass the milestone. He’s probably still got a year or two left as first choice centre back too as we wait for youngsters to develop so could yet reach 700.

200 Appearances

3 of our players reached the 200 mark for appearances though with one of them soon to go onto pastures new.

Eirik Stensrud 10, Jason Bailey 8, Martin Parker 10

100 Appearances

Only one player to reach 100 this term with Juan Calero 11 joining the club, he’s contracted for another 8 years with contract extensions and is one of our better players so I can see him reaching many of the other milestones before his career with us ends.

50 Goals

Sean Papirnyk 10 – Last season was our top scorer but struggles to get going this season, he still managed 10 which put him to 54 overall only the 4^th player to pass the 50 mark.

 

[XaW]

Ouch....

My goalkeeper got a 5.4.... 

[XaW]

XaW - Follo Fotballklubb - Season 2027 - Eliteserien

Squad | Transfers | Finances

Well, I was wrong. I expected us to struggle now that I really brought in the youngsters, but we owe a lot to our new striker Kenneth Knudsen 27a. His goalscoring really got us going this season, and eventually we finished in a very nice 2nd place and qualified for the Champions League next season! Rosenborg was a bit better than everyone else, but it was a really fight for the rest of the European spots. Bodø/Glimt, Brann, Stabæk, and Odd were all very close to us, and even another underdog in Jerv made a push for it before they collapsed towards the end. All in all, a very good season for us, and one to build upon going forward.

Norgesmesterskapet: We beat Asker, Bærum, Rosenborg, and Jerv before we lost to Stabæk in the quarter final.

Europa Conference League: We beat Basel of Switzerland, Piast Gliwice of Poland, and FC Midtjylland of Denmark to reach the group stage. There we drew Mura of Slovenia, Apollon Limassol of Cyprus, and FK Vojvodina of Serbia. We absolutely bossed the group and won all matches to qualify for the knockout rounds next season. (I will post a new update when it's done).

First 11:

GK: Sander Østbye
RB: Vemund Berntsen 26h
DC: Eivind Bakke 25e
DC: Øystein Birkeland 26i
LB: Ole Andreas Sandven 22b
DM: Robin Gonella
MC: Christer Omholt 26f (new)
MC: Sebastian Sandsengen 24c (new)
AMR: Kristian Seteklev
AML: Gunnar Larsen 23a
ST: Kenneth Knudsen 27a (new)

Trophy cabinet

PostNord-ligaen Avdeling 2 - 1 (2022)

[DazRTaylor]

Youth Candidates

Season 2023/24

FC United of Manchester

It was another good preview:

It was a wonderful intake with several players going straight into the first team.

[Neo_Geo]

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn 

Its like de ja vu with Strikwerda a few seasons ago, Cengic has been immense for me and I'm gutted to lose him, now have to choose between the 2 other keepers to try and repeat the process of throwing them into the lions den and hoping the defence carry him enough until he develops.

Only just appointed Cengic as vice captain as well, got him to sign a new deal without minimum fee then arsenal turn his head and unfortunately I couldn’t use the “you have a minimum fee release clause and when someone comes in with it you can go” so he forced me to agree £17.5m and Arsenal came in with that amount straight away.

Not been able to get on my save at all as I've been working loads of overtime of late, found the time to kick off season 12 at least.

In other news the man that made all of this success possible finally retired therefore leaving us with a squad full of regens after 11 seasons Thanks Hugo

 

EDIT: Here are the two keepers to choose from (Maulana had just gone to Telstar on loan for the season but I think I prefer his lower eccentricity and tendency to punch)

Edited August 5, 2022 by Neo_Geo

[DazRTaylor]

End of Season Review

Season 2024/25

FC United of Manchester

Season Summary

A solid first season in the fifth tier, together witrh some decent cup runs represents a good season.

Season Details

League Table - We have to be pleased with a mid table finish in our first season at this level.

League Fixtures 1 & 2 - A season of two halves.  After the first half, we were in the top three.  Then our form fell off a cliff and we settled for a mid table finish.

F. A. Cup - We were absolutely annihilated away to League One side Rochdale in the second round, going down by eight goals to one.

F. A. Trophy - We were convincingly beaten at home by Bromley in the fifth round, byt four goals to one.

Friendlies - A very mixed bag of results.

Squad - We are getting a lot better as players have started to develop.

Squad Dynamics - It is still rather good.

Transfers In - None.

Transfers Out - Three players departed, including one youngster for a nominal transfer fee and a hefty sell on clause.

Youth Candidates - Striker Moses Njoku YP25A33 is the best player out of a very strong intake.

Finances - We made a modest profit this year as our bank balance remains healthy.

Key Players

Jorge Sikora - The Polish defender continues to impress.

Luke Griffiths - The central midfielder had another solid campaign.

Jacob Hanson - Comfortable anywhere across the back four, the defender coniued his fine form from last season.

Démounou Guindo YP24G23 - In his first season at the club, our new number one has been sensational.

Max Molloy YP24A17 - The teenage right winger or central midfielder got better as the season went on.

Next Season

An improvement would eb great, so anywhere from eleventh upwards is the aim.

Personal Coaching Data

Season     Reputation            Qualifications     Att   Def   Fit   GkD   GkH   GkS   Tac   Tec   Men   WWY   Ada   Det   PlK   YoK   LoD   MaM   Mot
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At start   Minimal   (0.25*)     None                 1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     1     4     1     1     1     4     1     1     1
2022/23    Minimal = (1.00*) ↑   National C ↑         6 ↑   5 ↑   2 ↑   1 =   1 =   1 =   5 ↑   5 ↑   5 ↑   4 =   1 =   4 ↑   4 ↑   6 ↑   6 ↑   6 ↑   6 ↑
2023/24    Minimal = (1.50*) ↑   National C =         7 ↑   6 ↑   2 =   1 =   1 =   1 =   6 ↑   6 ↑   6 ↑   4 =   1 =   5 ↑   5 ↑   6 =   6 =   7 ↑   8 ↑
2024/25    Minimal = (1.50*) =   National B ↑         8 ↑   8 ↑   3 ↑   1 =   1 =   2 ↑   8 ↑   7 ↑   8 ↑   4 =   1 =   6 ↑   6 ↑   7 ↑  10 ↑   9 ↑  10 ↑

Club Facilities

Season     Training Facilities  Youth Facilities  Youth Level  Corporate Facilities  Junior Coaching  Youth Recruitment  Club Reputation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At Start   Basic                Basic                  4       Adequate              Fairly Basic     Basic              Local   (1.00*)
2022/23    Basic =              Basic         =        4 =     Adequate =            Good         ↑↑↑ Average     ↑↑↑    Local = (1.00*) =
2023/24    Basic =              Below Average ↑        4 =     Adequate =            Exceptional   ↑↑ Excellent    ↑↑    Local = (1.00*) =
2024/25    Basic =              Below Average =        4 =     Adequate =            Exceptional    = Exceptional   ↑    Local = (1.00*) =

Season Record

Season     Played     Won     Drawn     Lost     Goals For     Goals Against     Goal Difference     Win Percentage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23      62        37       11       14          126             72                 +54              59.68%
2023/24      54        38        6       10          126             55                 +71              70.37% ↑
2024/25      52        22       14       16           79             63                 +16              42.31% ↓

Overall Career Record

After Season   Played     Won     Drawn     Lost     Goals For     Goals Against     Goal Difference     Win Percentage     Time At Club
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23          62        37       11       14         126              72                 +54               59.68%            322 days
2023/24         116        75       17       24         252             127                +125               64.66% ↑          686 days
2024/25         168        97       31       40         331             190                +141               57.74% ↓        1,037 days

Transfer Sale Record

Date               Player                    Position               Club Sold To                 Country                   Transfer Fee
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27 Janaury 2025    Eddie Randall YP24D20     Striker                Charlton Athletic            England                         £1,000

Trophy Haul

Season     Competition Won
--------------------------
2023/24    Vanarama National League North

Trophy Cabinet

League Titles
-------------
1 x Vanarama National League North (2023/24)

Cup Competition Victories
-------------------------

Career Overview

Season     Champions League    Europa League    Europa Conference League             League                             Position     F.A. Cup                    League Cup        Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23           N/a               N/a                    N/a                       Vanarama National League North        4th       Third Round                     N/a           Lost in Promotion Playoffs semi final.  F. A. Trophy quarter final.
2023/24           N/a               N/a                    N/a                       Vanarama National League North        1st ↑     Fourth Qualifying Round ↓       N/a           Promoted as champions.  F. A. Trophy Fifth Round.
2024/25           N/a               N/a                    N/a                       Vanarama National League             12th ↑     Second Round            ↑       N/a           Safe mid table finish.  F. A. Trophy Fifth Round.

Record Number of Appearances (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Appearances
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                       3
2023/24    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                      47
2024/25    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                      83

Record Goal Scorer (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Goals
---------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23    No one                                 0
2023/24    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                   13
2024/25    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                   26

Record Number of Assists (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Assists
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23    No one                                  0
2023/24    Aaron Hendry YP23A1                     7
2024/25    Max Molloy YP24A17                     12

Record Number of Clean Sheets (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Clean Sheets
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2022/23    No one                                     0
2023/24    Démounou Guindo YP24G23                    2
2024/25    Démounou Guindo YP24G23                   22

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by DazRTaylor

[SolnaRoyal]

Lowestoft Town FC
Britain’s most Easterly football club.
 

Manager

Keeping it short and sweet as the first time post, time to get started after a long break from FM, will be my first time over in England and managed to get Lowestoft Town FC in The National League North.
Also before I get started and get in to the save, why is this showing up, even though the In-Game Editor is "turned of" ?

 

Spoiler

 

[Daddy]

2038/39 Midseason Review:

After a slightly sluggish start things have gotten aligned with my expectations. Despite to excellent Goal Difference I'm still waiting for someone to claim the striker role. I've been trying several people out. We score a lot as a team which helps, and we don't give up many goals either, but I've been spoiled with strikers that play at Goal per Game pace and I'm just not getting that now.

I was confident of reaching the knockouts. I even thought with a split with Man City I could have a shot at first. However, I was not expecting to run the table and beat up on Man City more than the other teams. 

Inter had a run of dominance winning Serie A 8 out of 9 seasons but the last few they've fallen back behind Juventus. They're still a good team, but one that I faced 4 seasons ago in the First Knockout Round and was able to get by them 3-1 on aggregate. I'm hopeful to be able to do the same again.

Intake Preview:

Pipeline is starting to fill up a bit with the DC role, but no one has really taken off development wise. Same thing with Strikers. I have plenty in the system but no one is progressing enough. With DC role I'm fine at the first team level, but the players are starting to hit late 20s so I'd like to get replacements ready. For Striker if a player comes in with enough promise he may get a shot right away to claim the spot. 

[Winski]

IK Sleipner

Season 2026 (season 5)
Superettan (13th)

League table | Finances | Facilities | Transfers |Youth intake| Club overview | Manager Profile

 

Another survival in the Superettan! We got a lot more points then last season, so that's a positive thing. With our 13th place we had to play playoffs, this time against IF Karlstad Fotboll. With a 3-4 away win, and a 0-1 loss at home, we managed to win the playoffs and survive another season at this level.
We are slowly growing, as a club and as a team. With the prize money we are finally able to upgrade some of our facilities. We upgraded our Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment budget twice. Our Training- and Youth Facilities are still at a very poor level.

The players who played almost every game this season:

GK Edvard Setterberg
DR Jonathan Larsson
DC Tim Ström 23b
DC Calle Appelquist
DL Oliver Blomdahl
DMC Arbér Abazi
MC William Lundell
MC Mattias Larsén 22b
AMR Khaled Qasem
AML Gentrit Çitaku
SC Oliver Berg 24b

Oliver Berg 24b scored 13 league goals, and finished 3rd on the topscorer-list. Tim Ström 23b is one of our best Academy players, and some bigger clubs from Sweden were interested in him.

Youth intake
Well, the preview was okay, as I posted before. Way better then last season. But the intake.... incredible. 15 out of 16 Elite Talents! It shows us how weak our current team is, but also how talented the youngsters from this intake are. Let's hope this is a real Golden Generation, and that within a couple of seasons a lot of them are in the first team.



 

Spoiler

 

[XaW]

XaW - Follo Fotballklubb - Youth intake 2028

No one stands out all that much, but some very good personalities!

Looks like the best of the bunch.

[dkouv]

Congrats @toshimitzou1, amazing achievement! A proper tactical masterclass there in the end, think that was needed to win the CL with an Icelandic team  

[SolnaRoyal]

Lowestoft Town FC
Season 2022/2023
Britain’s most Easterly football club.
 

Nothing to really say about the first season, no depth and only one boy in the U18s to fill out the roster with.
Managed to scrape 14 losses in a row, team record.
Even with a loss on the final day we managed to stay up with 1 point.

Youth Prospects, plenty of them will go straight to the first team to fill out the roster.

Current squad

 

Season

League

Position

FA Cup

FA Trophy

EL

ECL

Top Scorer

Most Assists

Highest avg.

Training Facilities

Youth facilities

Junior coaching

Youth recruitment

22/23

VNL N

20th

3QF

3rd round

Jake Reed (18)

Dylan Ruffles (11)

Dylan Ruffles (7.13)

Poor

Poor

Basic

Limited

[BustaRaymes]

*FM20*

Had a break from the save for a couple of weeks. Played a few slow seasons, will be posting about them over the next couple of days.

Littlehampton Town 2049-2050

Vanarama National League

Our first season back in the VNN was nearly a succesful one. The loss in the playoffs was harsh but not undeserved.

 

Squad

Wood was the key man in midfield while Page - freshly retrained to be a striker - exploded. Silic is maybe our most talented youngster and Mputu is developing as well.

Moore really stepped up at the back and Shaw had a pretty prolific season at MR.

 

Transfers

A los of players were offloaded after going down. Mohamed was not going to develop any further. Rayco is a huge sale, with a sell-on clause we might even get another truckload of cash in the future.

 

Youth

A decent batch this year. I love Bowie, and with a bit of development Van Heusden and Pointing should be able to feature before too long as well.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by BustaRaymes

[SolnaRoyal]

Lowestoft Town FC
Season 2023/2024
Britain’s most Easterly football club.

 

Battle for relegation once again, started off the season by falling to 23rd place and having to fight to get back over the bump.
Major problems with the defence, don't really know how to solve that right now with the current crop.

Still no sign of a coaching badge nor any better youth recruitment from the board, we'll keep trying...

Prospects this year, Danny Morrison looks like a decent prospect in the midfield, not really much to add about the current squad.
We're still weak and will have fight another year against relegation. A couple of aging players that I'm slightly worried about replacing.

 

Season

League

Position

FA Cup

FA Trophy

EL

ECL

Top Scorer

Most Assists

Highest avg.

Training Facilities

Youth facilities

Junior coaching

Youth recruitment

22/23

VNL N

20th

3QF

3rd round

Jake Reed (18)

Dylan Ruffles (11)

Dylan Ruffles (7.13)

Poor

Poor

Basic

Limited

23/24

VNL N

19th

2QF

3rd round

Jake Reed (12)

Louis McIntosh (9)

Callum Adebiyi (7.04)

Poor

Poor

Basic

Limited

[The_Gato_In_Goal]

Spoiler

Starting off in Mexico. Finances will likely be an issue, but I'm interested in playing outside of Europe and South America.

[DazRTaylor]

I am away for a week so no updates from me for a while.

[JLAB]

OFK Beograd - Season 8 Review

After the youth intake, our form sadly took a bit of a nosedive, mostly because we were in the Championship Group of the SuperLiga. We only picked up 8 points in 7 games, and I was fearing what would happen as a result of our poor end of the season.

Sadly, we only just missed out on European football for the 2nd season running, this time because we didn't finish in the European spots, despite claiming 4 more points than last season. It goes to show just how much needs to be done here. Once we get European football, we'll be golden.

Perhaps to add insult to injury, Stanojevic who left us for Cukaricki Stankom ended up being considered one of the signings of the season, even if he couldn't get his side to finish in the top half of the table.

In better news, we convinced our best striker and top goalscorer to sign a new deal with us, despite at one point believing the squad wasn't strong enough to match his ambitions, he got 15 goals in the league this season, so keeping him around was terribly important for our cause.

JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 1 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 2 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 3 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 4 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 5 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 6 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 7 | JLAB - OFK Beograd - Season 8

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by JLAB

[toshimitzou1]

15 hours ago, dkouv said:

think that was needed to win the CL with an Icelandic team

Cheers. Yes, as opposed to the domestic fixtures, once I was into the knockout stages of the CL I was spending far more time watching the opening exchanges of matches on Full Match. If I was just blitzing through the CL Knockout games without any adjustments in-game the challenge may well of taken another 10 years or so to complete!!!

[OlivierL]

On 02/08/2022 at 21:15, toshimitzou1 said:

Mission complete!!!!

 

I had to tweak early doors- whilst watching the Full Match for the first 5 mins, Musiala was a constant pain, being played in behind by the wide players and beating what was previously a strong offside trap. I dropped the offside trap, switched my defenders to stopper and cover with this guy tasked with covering Musiala's runs:

Their attacking impetus was almost immediately nullified. I was using this as a base point:

Again, at the 10 min mark I changed the CM-Attack to AP- attack and the DLP to DM- Support and added the TI play through the middle. What transpired was a turgid game where we were clearly keeping the ball centrally to prevent their exceptional wide players from obliterating us . Opposition example:

I can only say: ALWAY WATCH THE FIRST 10 MINS OF A 'BIG MATCH'. 

With these changes in effect, I watched PSG (with far superior players) look for the same through ball to Musiala time and time aging, who was thwarted by and organised deep block and a competent covering defender.

 

End result:

And the gritty:

 

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

Superb performance, doing this in iceland is really beautiful.  Going to read all the details tonight and I'll try to do the same on this or next Fm with Njarðvík. But doing it in 2035 is something nobody will be able to achieve 

Edited August 6, 2022 by OlivierL

[Neo_Geo]

17 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Superb performance, doing this in iceland is really beautiful.  Going to read all the details tonight and I'll try to do the same on this or next Fm with Njarðvík. But doing it in 2035 is something nobody will be able to achieve 

I think for most nations in this challenge that 2035 is some achievement but for Iceland on top of it really is a credit to @toshimitzou1's tactics

Edited August 6, 2022 by Neo_Geo

[The_Gato_In_Goal]

14 hours ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Starting off in Mexico. Finances will likely be an issue, but I'm interested in playing outside of Europe and South America.

Blitzed through the first season and had a promising intake, but the challenge of building a team with 13 players proved too difficult, and we secured relegation with a couple months to go. Looking to start in the Caribbean now using V50's megapack. I've loaded the leagues, but not the edited version of the NACL. Going to start in either St. Kitts and Nevis or St. Lucia.

Edited August 6, 2022 by The_Gato_In_Goal

[libbyshuss]

Croatia

Division 2

Season 2029/30 (season 8)

Season Summary

same old story of the last few seasons. We were good, but not good enough, and finished second again

 

Players

The main reason is we really struggled up front. I couldn't decide between Popovic 28C or Culjak 26A and in the end played both at different times only for them to prove equally useless. But they were only 17 and 18, what else did i expect? But I had nobody else....... next season 2 more 17 year olds will be old enough to be promoted so i might ditch them both already!

 

Youth

Exceptional youth intake rating in Croatia Division 2? With my reputation???

 

Most of this intake could walk straight into the first team if they were old enough!!

 

To get that many with a 2 star CA is really encouraging

Star Graduate

They went with Cordas, who I ranked third. But he's got a good range of starting attriubtes and a nice personality and trait so who am I to argue?

 

 

Career

Surely promotion is only jsut around the corner. this is getting nuts!

[The_Gato_In_Goal]

Spoiler

Newly-promoted and heavily favored to gain promotion to the top flight. Although the difficulty in this challenge is developing a St. Lucian club to compete with the large American and Mexican sides in the North American Champions League. The league reset date for St. Lucia is October 20th.