Squad planning - soon to be promoted to Bundesliga

[Tcufrog]

I play as 1860 Munich and feel confident about getting promoted twice in two years.  It's only October but I'm first in the 2. Bundesliga and look to be the strongest team.

The situation I find myself in is that only 2-3 players on my team look to be able to contribute at the next level.  The core of my team is older and regressing, and all of my other players are decent loanees for the second division, but I doubt I will retain but 1-2 of them due to their ability.

Since it's October, I'm trying to put a plan together to acquire players for next year.  It's unlikely come Jan 1 that any Bundesliga caliber players with expiring contracts will opt to sign for us - below are the alternative ways I'm thinking about building next year's squad.  I'm also limited to scouting in Europe.  Happy to get the board's thoughts!

• start scouting player's on expiring contracts in bargain countries.  even though they might not be interested in signing for us now, we can get a head start on scouting them in case they're available once I'm officially promoted.
• Rely on loans once again.  id prefer not to go this route as it's almost impossible to build team chemistry with a new squad each year, and i don't build any equity in my players
• start scouting top clubs' loaned out players now in the hope that they'll be interested in a loan with us next year.  scouting these players early would give us an idea of who is realistic early on, and then we don't have to wait until August 31st to make offers on loanees we're unsure on because they are not fully scouted
• utilize stat-analysis to find bargain players that may be only 2nd tier quality, but fit my system. this is a riskier strategy, but one i believe will be the most realistic given my situation
• continue to push the board to expand my scouting network so I can go into central and south america and pick up some high potential young players who are willing to sign

Thanks for reading!

[CARRERA]

First of all you did a very good job at 1860, if you really manage to get promoted to Bundesliga within two years. 

I think the main problem will be your teams progression which is much faster then your reputation and income to actually compete for „real“ 1st division players. The best way properbly is to find one or another player to join you on a free transfer who is an average 1st division player or at least close to. And stick to loans for the first season.

if you manage to stay in the league will gain the financial strength to refine and further build your squad

[Tcufrog]

Agree with everything you said. I’m not worried about building once I stay up, I’m mainly looking to compete as quickly as possible. Beat 1st division Mainz 3-1 and barely lost 1-0 to RB Leipzig in the cup so I think we have a good system, just need to find the bodies next year

[smp20]

My approach to first season in top division is to not change too much. Whatever you're doing has worked to get you there so you may as well see how it fares.

I imagine the system will give you enough to compete and stay up and then you can build from there without a season of signing players that aren't really at the level.

I'd upgrade a couple of the loanees then look for one or two key signings, allowing some budget for January if required.

[Outsider23]

By all means look for bargain permanent transfers, just don't get your hopes up. I took Dresden from the third tier to the Bundesliga and I was surprised by the players who turned their noses up at joining my team. The thing is, we all know that, as the human player, you are a pretty good bet to stay up, but as far as all the NPCs are concerned, you're booking an express ticket straight back to the second tier. Put simply, no one, probably not even your own board, will have even the slightest bit of faith in you.

It will take a while for your reputation to catch up with your performance and in the meantime you should, in my opinion, focus heavily on high quality loanees. It does cause a little chaos and uncertainty in your squad and the knowledge that your best players, the ones you rely on, aren't really your players and never will be can hurt a bit, but it is the surest path to long term stability.

In my Dresden save I was wary of relying on loanees, I was tired of being bled dry by the big clubs, tired of developing players for them to sell for big fees, but looking back I should have relied more on loans. I made some excellent permanent signings, but I made bad ones too and I didn't have the resources to correct my mistakes. One season, I spent big on upgrading my defense, only for my expensive new signings to flop horribly. Let's just say that in my current save I plan to take things a little slower and take full advantage of the flexibility the loan market can offer.

Scouting players who are currently out on loan at other clubs is a good strategy. More generally you should look for talented players over the age of 19 who are making few or no appearances for their club. If the player is based in a foreign club it might be a good idea to make sure they have good adaptability as they won't have time to settle.

Signing cheap players can be good, but just try to exercise a little restraint otherwise you can end up with a lot of deadwood .

Don't be seduced by expensive signings with (allegedly) high potential ability either, you don't have the luxury of buying lottery tickets. Don't sign anyone permanently unless they are a clear upgrade on a player in your squad.

[santy001]

My advice would just be to accidentally win the league in your first season like I did:

It was actually built almost entirely by investing in my midfield. It's a network game and we're using false player names so its not really clear who the players are but I built my midfield up primarily thinking that would be where it all counts for me. In my first season I deliberately loaned the best box to box midfielder I could buy with an option to buy knowing I would want him were I to get promoted.

My theory was that in defence you just need reasonable competence, and up front you can achieve an awful lot with pace. So build the best midfield I could with the available money (£8.5m spent in total on 3 players) and go at it with the rest being budget buys. 

[enigmatic]

Hardest part about consecutive promotions to the Bundesliga is lack of funds in my experience (boards ignoring the €20m you've got in the bank and the minimum €20m a year you'll average over the next two seasons even with consecutive relegations and giving you €10m combined wage and transfer budget) though that situation might not be as bad at 1860 as it was at someone like Unterhaching. Which is where the loans come in particularly handy, not least because loans of just-about-good-enough players to fill desperate gaps are more easily terminated if you find better options at the end of the transfer window or even January. Second season, if you stay up, is where you start having money to invest in the equity of 18 year old Colombians that still have some way to go to make their potential, make some of your loan signings permanent, pick up international standard free transfers that want €1.5m+ in annual wages etc.

On the plus side, Bundesliga 2 standard players can normally perform absolutely fine in the Bundesliga especially since German players are normally physically sound with good attitudes,

tbh my advice would be a mixture of all of the above, probably with your best players being loans and your backups being cheap loans or released youngsters that might improve. Re-loaning players is probably easier than you think too: Bundesliga sides will usually have good existing squad depth and the AI isn't that strategic about cashing in on much-improved prospects. Extending the loans as early as possible is a good start in ensuring you have a core squad with tactical familiarity,

[Tcufrog]

Great feedback everyone, much appreciated!  @enigmatic, I definitely like renewing existing loans as early as possible on no brainer type players that I know will contribute next year in the Bundesliga.

@Outsider23 I agree that loanees are still the best option, and really liked the comment about targeting top loanees with adaptability - hadn't considered that trait before when prioritizing loanees but I absolutely should.

Two other strategies I've utilized and will continue to utilize next summer are below.  Trialists have been a great way to preemptively "scout" players before signing them without actually scouting them.  Since I have limited scouts, this has been huge.

• Utilize pre-season and winter break to bring in trialists.  Since I'm not worried about the long term development of most if not all of my players since they won't be with me in a year or two, I'm okay with training taking a slight hit with too many players temporarily if it helps me get the best players in the squad by the start of the season.  This strategy also allows me to bring in trialists once players realize I'm in the top division - I noticed this usually doesn't resonate with players until July 1 so many trialists would probably not have been interested just a few weeks prior.
• Loaning out players early in the transfer window.  This pays off greatly - I loan players and remove the "loan unable to be cancelled" clause so I can bring in players in July, then cancel the loans 28 days later before the transfer window ends if a) they're not up to par, or b) if I've found a better player to replace them.

[glengarry224]

Lots of great advice.  I always started to think about how I might have to change my tactic, or create an underdog tactic (in your case I'd call it "Hund"), to compete against bigger teams.  Like irl, last season, Fulham played a 4-2-3-1,controlled possession and dominated:  Fulham are not going to control possession this year, likely will need a more defensive pivot and plan to be dominated and hope to counter attack.

If I thought that I'd struggle the first season, a good keeper could make the difference between a 1-0 loss and a 0-0 draw in a number of matches.  Of course, I always focus on my biggest weaknesses but keeper and central defense seemed the most important to me.  I think that Forest loaning in Henderson is huge for them.  

Edited August 4, 2022 by glengarry224