The FM23 Youth Academy Challenge

[Nottingham Forest]

Season 7

Season 2029-30

Vanarama National League

Second longest, maybe third attempt at this challenge. That's a wrap. Board, despite saying we needed to attempt to avoid relegation decided to sack me as I couldn't persuade them. Don't feel we were a bad side. But experience, morale and once you've lost it you're very much not getting it back. Update will be short and sweet.

Season Summary

FA Cup we managed to take Notts County of L2 to a replay and pens before losing. FA Trophy was third round and out. In the league we finished 23rd. Unfortunately we tried everything and it just wasn't working. Frustratingly we didn't have a bad squad. The sale harmed us so the chairman has to take blame for that.

 

[Neo_Geo]

39 minutes ago, thomas_e said:

Thanks, really happy (and scared) about the progression so far. If I can make the playoff spot (16th out of 18 teams) I will be extremely happy. The good thing is that Darmstadt and 1860 Munchen got promoted alongside me instead of Schalke and Union Berlin, I think they will struggle as well, so it's basically a battle between us and them. 

 

The supporters have moderate say on my position. They are keeping in mind the results from last year and strongly want me to be competitive against Hertha Berlin so those will be big games for us!! 

that’s the best scenario you could really hope for, best of luck for the next season

[Sn00gle]

@JLAB I think it's bug, like you got. After sign in new HOYD i've got instant report when usually it comes at new year with old data from last one. 

[JLAB]

17 minutes ago, Sn00gle said:

@JLAB I think it's bug, like you got. After sign in new HOYD i've got instant report when usually it comes at new year with old data from last one. 

Yeah, sometimes the game does that for some reason. You should be fine though since you've not gotten to December yet.

[thomas_e]

1 hour ago, Neo_Geo said:

that’s the best scenario you could really hope for, best of luck for the next season

Thanks buddy! 

[Habituz]

Karşıyaka Season 23/24 Update

I started the season fairly badly, a lot of players got upset with me, and cause a lot of morale problems, what made it worse is several of my best players would complain even if the I criticised them for having a sub 5 training rating. I stuck to my guns though and carried on using my typical pattern of praise and criticise for training & matches. Then around December we hit a really good stretch of form that carried us into play off positions and most of the players drop concerns and I was able to maintain the morale and we ended up becoming champions. With us being promoted I can now have more than just a manager for my youth team, the board has refused and not even willing to talk about me getting any licenses so far but hoping next time I can ask they will accept now we in higher league.

Youth Candidates

Ferhat Atay (24a)

Spoiler

Top Players

Fatih Taşdelen

Spoiler

Kerem Pala

Spoiler

Emre Gemici

Spoiler

Recep Türköz

Spoiler

Transfers

Squad

League Table

[Streetpete]

 

Season review season 2- 24/25

 

I wasnt sure what to expect now that we were in the second division, main goal was just to avoid relegation and the media expected us to be get relegated clearly.

 

And then this was our start to the season. Fair to say it wasnt the best start and I started having memories from my Holbæk save, although the board of course have more confidence in me here considering the expectations and last season. 

 

 

Luckily things turned around and we really picked up the pace and were even looking close to promotion towards the end! But fell a bit off in the last couple games, but still a good first season in the division epspecially after that start.

 

 

We also got a new upgrade, and my manager is now studying for a continental C license.

 

Youth intake was also good with some high potential and also decent ca players, and of top of that we had a lot of good personalities overall.

 

 

Konge looks very good and he is fairly ambitious as well. We have already given him some games, although we have some good depth in attack.

Vasic also looks like someone that could be good for the future, so far he is too young to play for now and also wouldnt get into in main squad anyways.

 

 

Someone who has played a decent amount of games i Riviere though, not because he is amazing yet, but we dont have much quality on back positions and our main RB got injured, so he played a role in the end of the season.

 

Larsen looks good but hasnt played any games yet, but he will be one to watch for the future.

Our youth team also debuted in their division and they did really well and got a 2nd place, so looking good for our youth.

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Streetpete

[jepze]

Jepze - FC Claravallis Clervaux - Season 2023/24

Squad | Transfers | Finances

First season in Luxembourg is done. And what a terrible season. Couldn't get any staff before after the Youth Intake, which meaned i played the whole season without knowing other than stats, how good my players are. We just got an Fitness Coach and a fysio to the club. The worst thing about this season was, that i should manage both our under 21 and first team with only 10 players. That means i played a whole season with U21 with greyed out players, but they won their league. For the First team, we got a 7th finish in the league, but to the next season, our squad is more than treble as good.

Spoiler

Coupe de Luxembourg was not our tournament this year. Lost in the first round, but that's fine for this season. 

Now to the interesting thing. We didn't get an preview because of no HoYD, but the players was okay.

Youth preview.

Spoiler

Didn't get one, because i don't have an HoYD yet.

Youth intake:

Spoiler

Trophy cabinet

None

 

EDIT:

And we're getting a new stadium.

Edited November 13, 2022 by jepze

[Barnsley]

2 hours ago, Nottingham Forest said:

Season 7

Season 2029-30

Vanarama National League

Second longest, maybe third attempt at this challenge. That's a wrap. Board, despite saying we needed to attempt to avoid relegation decided to sack me as I couldn't persuade them. Don't feel we were a bad side. But experience, morale and once you've lost it you're very much not getting it back. Update will be short and sweet.

Season Summary

FA Cup we managed to take Notts County of L2 to a replay and pens before losing. FA Trophy was third round and out. In the league we finished 23rd. Unfortunately we tried everything and it just wasn't working. Frustratingly we didn't have a bad squad. The sale harmed us so the chairman has to take blame for that.

 

Damn unlucky, very frustrating too i know how much hard work goes into the save. im onto my second attempt at first ended badly. it really seems to be these lower leagues of england are extremely tough to get out of. 

 

I was 1 point off top, and i have been thumped 6-2 4-1 and 5-0. now 10 behind and falling drastically. in 4th position and only 2 clear of the playoffs now after looking solid, i cannot stop conceeding. As i type another 3-3. 50 goals leaked in 28 games, only the bottom 3 have more. 

[Neo_Geo]

3 hours ago, Nottingham Forest said:

Season 7

Season 2029-30

Vanarama National League

Second longest, maybe third attempt at this challenge. That's a wrap. Board, despite saying we needed to attempt to avoid relegation decided to sack me as I couldn't persuade them. Don't feel we were a bad side. But experience, morale and once you've lost it you're very much not getting it back. Update will be short and sweet.

Season Summary

FA Cup we managed to take Notts County of L2 to a replay and pens before losing. FA Trophy was third round and out. In the league we finished 23rd. Unfortunately we tried everything and it just wasn't working. Frustratingly we didn't have a bad squad. The sale harmed us so the chairman has to take blame for that.

 

Hard luck.

try going to another nation with fewer tiers or at least smaller seasons if you like this style of save but it’s just not ha-pending in England.

I started with South Shields in the beta and got a little bored. I like finding nuances in other leagues (still sticking with europe for now).

I think England is probably one of the hardest nuts to crack in this type of save

[libbyshuss]

3 hours ago, Nottingham Forest said:

But experience, morale and once you've lost it you're very much not getting it back

ah man, i know exactly what you mean. those last two months of results are really harsh. it definitely seems more like morale manager than anything else down in those lower leagues. hope you get a bit more luck/understanding board next time round!

[grff]

Sesvete: 2024/25 Season Review

Our follow up season saw us with our highest ever finish. However, we were some way off the top two as they sped off into the distance.

The average ratings across the squad were nothing to write home about and our goal a game striker from last season was unable to get near his numbers from last season.

Our youth intake included many "elite prospects" but in reality our best recruit was another young striker.

A few outgoing transfers as I ditched some deadwood/centre-backs with a pace below 6!

Season tickets/attendances were up. However, we are hemorrhaging money due to Croatia giving no domestic prize money. Balance is currently -$433k

[XaW]

                     

XaW - Try Idrettslag - Season 2023 (Season 1) - 10. Division (11th tier)

Squad | Transfers | Finances

So I'm back in the deep depths or Norwegian football, and have a long haul ahead of us. At least we had a great start after a very good youth intake! We also managed to get both youth coaching and youth recruitment improved this season, and that should give long term benefits.

No cups this year.

U19 Team:

They only played friendlies.

Youth intake:

Trophy cabinet

10. Divisjon Oslo 1 - 1 (2023)

Player statistics:

Most apps for the clubs

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Apps
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mats-Erik Taubo 23b	Norway		<N/A>		14
Håvard Leirvik 23d	Norway		<N/A>		14
Sixten Diskerud 23o	Norway		<N/A>		14
Henrik Danielsen 23p	Norway		<N/A>		14
Terje Engelbrethsen 23f	Norway		<N/A>		13

Most goals for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Goals
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Erik Jansen 23k		Norway		<N/A>		10
Edvard Giske Person 23a	Norway		<N/A>		5
Mats-Erik Taubo 23b	Norway		<N/A>		4
Håvard Leirvik 23d	Norway		<N/A>		3
Terje Engelbrethsen 23f	Norway		<N/A>		3

Most assists for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Assists
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Edvard Giske Person 23a	Norway		<N/A>		4
Mats-Erik Taubo 23b	Norway		<N/A>		4
Håvard Leirvik 23d	Norway		<N/A>		4
Michael Bulay 23g	Philippines	Norway		3
Sixten Diskerud 23o	Norway		<N/A>		3

Supporters:

Summary:

[the_hdk]

Kaf Sin Kaf

Season 32/33 (10th) - Süper Lig

Players / Transfers

Great return this year and secoond championship for KSK!. 9 points to Fener are a bit misleading...they lost their last 2 games the seaosn was much closer than that. We did a bit better in teh cup but lost to Besiktas in QF. We had a great run in CL and defeated Man City in Knock Out Playoffs. But we lost round later to Mbappe FC (PSG).

Great to see that seaosn tickets and averages  are going up. First year with more than 10k seaosn tickets. This new chairman doe snot wnat to expand our youth facilities sadly. Chelsea beat Barca in teh final for their 3rd CL win. Arsenal after winning CL last year got theirt championship. VIERA is doing amazing work there. Funny thing...West Ham won for 2nd time in a row the Europa League a year after their Conferance League win...exactly 5 years later.

Three of our players debuted for Turkiye. Ofcourse our star player YALCIN (who is rated as 4,5 star ability). BULUT and ALPTEKIN also made their debuts. Our whole midfield. Our goaly BAS got called up but needs to wait for his chance. We did lose ourr star defender on deadline hour in january to Dortmund. DILLI left for staggering 20,5 mln. New club record. He got replaced in teh back by rookie ATES who did quite well.

New record sale.

As always an amazing intake. Turkiye is really amazing regarding that.

YILDRIM is considered the best of the bunch. decent detremination and work rate. Is proffesional so he should imporve quite nice. Love his tackling and bravery.

[Makoto Nakamura]

2041/42 Youth Candidates

I'm disappointed, we've had a fully professional staff for 13 seasons and these are the personalities that we're getting.

[Barnsley]

I genuinely can't do anything. after 23 games i was 4th with 42 points. after 42 games i have 49 points. I can't do anything at all to stop it, team meetings, changing tactics, tweaking. going so well literally flying and it just all of a sudden did this. Every single shot or attack is a goal, i lost 2-1 to Hitchen, i had 3 goals disallowed in the second half. I cannot believe the collapse of this season. Absolutely gutted. 

Never in my FM career have to gone through this sort of patch! Luckily i am 5 points clear of relegation with 4 games left, that the other teams should hopefully run out of games to catch me!

[SkiIIs]

On 11/11/2022 at 15:11, hubwub said:

Did you lose any players during the transfer window?

yeah i lost my two highest rated players Aguirre in defence who had is measly minimum release clause activated at 18.75k and Miranda up front for an even worse fee of 10k.  I couldnt get them to resign 

[Daddy]

2023/24 Season Review:

Very up and down season, though league position wise we held fairly stable. For whatever reason Dynamics never really took off and about 2/3rd through the season I had to basically make promises to squad and board to keep my job. Even now Club Atmosphere is now Excellent, but Leadership Support is just Average. I suspect this led to some of the inconsistencies in team performance. 

Clearing some deadwood and a player sale I wasn't keen on but got well of what was originally listed as his value and some clauses. He wanted to leave. The end of season prize money and sponsorship money (along with a few cash injections) are why the team is in the black. I'd really like to upgrade training facilities but that may be a few years off. 

Youth Intake:

Really solid looking intake. A few players aren't super far off from being first team capable. 

2024/25 Season Preview:

Team is way too good to be a relegation candidate. My hopes is the dynamics get in place and we're competitive towards the top. A promotion would be too early and likely lead to getting smacked right back down. The team is also bloated with 18-21 year old players and I sent just about all who aren't first team regular or primary back up out on loan to hopefully get some quality development in. The first team is fairly young, with only one player definitely nearing retirement, so I can't have a bunch of 21+ players that aren't first team quality. Switzerland has tight registration rules. Max 21 players but players under 21 do not need to be registered. All non-EU players must be registered though. I'll have 3 players aging up next season, but 11 the following. 

[glennuk]

Unterhaching - German 3. Liga - The Start

I had an unsuccessful attempt with this club back in FM 20 or 21. So I have unfinished business. Being in Munich I want to challenge the dominance of Bayern. Munich will be RED!!.....well a different red  

Spielvereinigung Unterhaching is a German sports club in Unterhaching, a semi-rural municipality on the southern outskirts of the Bavarian capital Munich.

We start with some decent facilities a good stadium and a cracking young talent. I feel a bit spoilt to be honest.

New Staff

First thing to do is to hire some new staff. 

I love a foreign HOYD. His attributes are great for this level, the only issue I have is with his preferred formation. However I will give him a good 5 years or so to see what can happen.

 

One of my better players Dominik Stahl was listed as retiring (I went to offer a new contract to see what would happen and it showed me his staff attributes). As my current Assistant had an expiring contract, it was a no brainer to keep an ex player, with some great attributes at the club.

What we are building around - Potential Bundesliga talent

Already my favourite player in the game. I am hoping I can keep him.  He has already (since this) signed a new contract, but it did have a 1mil release clause which is the best I could do.

Edited November 14, 2022 by glennuk

[grff]

Beginning to think I might need to bin off my Croatia save due to the club making a huge loss of money every month. 
I suspect I’m going to end up in a cycle of massive debt = no facility improvements = no decent newgens = no league progress 

[SkiIIs]

Season 2 - 2025 - Expansion League

Opening stage - we did really well in the league section, clinching second spot after winning the last three games. We're now seem to be one of the strongest team in the league winning more than not.  The QF draw paired us up against Venados, a chance to ger revenge from last seasons knock out. This time the first leg was away with a similar result losing 3 - 1.  Made it really tough for the home leg as we needed to win by 2 goals to go through as the highest ladder position. In a game we dominated, we won 2 - 1 which was not enough.

Spoiler

Closing stage - Again we finished second, only to Pueblas who were relegated from the first division. QF we got none other then Venados again, three times in a row now. Away first, we came away with a strong 1 - 0 win. In the home leg we blew them away early until i subbed out our key players to rest them (5 subs) before winning 5 - 4. Next was Puebla where we dominated at home first up but only managed a 1 - 0 win.  Away we copped a goal early and needed to at least draw the game to go through. we got that goal in the 80th minute and so progressed to the final. In the Final are our only rivals Correcaminos (who won the opening stage). I assume this was a dead rubber tie as they won the opening stage and hence both teams would play in the final (i didnt realise this at the time so played my best players and drained them). We lost 2 - 1 away and won 3 - 1 in extra time at home to be the Champions of the Closing Stage.  

Spoiler

Promotion battle -  we ended up losing in bloody penalties over two legs.  We bottled the lead too many times!

Spoiler

 

Upgrades:

Spoiler

 

Youth preview was all A's and the intake itself was pretty good. The best prospect is Resolute so thats pretty exciting!

Edited November 14, 2022 by SkiIIs

[Cultured Left Foot]

The Journey with Guiseley has started. For those that would like to watch the video series of this journey, it can be found here : https://www.youtube.com/c/CulturedLeftFoot

But those on the forum, here is the starting summary :

Guiseley Association Football Club is a football club based in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, England.  As of this save, they are currently members of the Vanarama National League North , the sixth tier of English football, and play at Nethermoor Park.

 

Dave Nicholls (Cultured Left Foot) has been appointed the manager of the newly promoted team.  Having no coaching badges and only playing Sunday League football, he's got a lot to learn in a short space of time. 

 

Nicholls will be hoping to get the most out of star player Jorge Sikora, but is already in a battle to keep his star central defender with interest from Gateshead and Southend.

 

The facilities aren't the best, but they are what they are. Lots of work is needed in youth development, youth coaching and the youth facilities.

 

First thing was to make sure our Head of Youth Development was suitable and checking of Dave Currie, who was already at the club we decided to give him another one year contract.

One big bit of concern for the squad is that we only have one contracted GK across our whole squad (Lets hope he doesn't get injured!)

 

 

I'll try and keep the updates regular in the forums to keep you all up to date as much as possible. 

 

Cheers,

Dave/CLF

Edited November 14, 2022 by Cultured Left Foot
Formatting and Spelling

[hubwub]

1 hour ago, SkiIIs said:

Season 2 - 2025 - Expansion League

Opening stage - we did really well in the league section, clinching second spot after winning the last three games. We're now seem to be one of the strongest team in the league winning more than not.  The QF draw paired us up against Venados, a chance to ger revenge from last seasons knock out. This time the first leg was away with a similar result losing 3 - 1 at home.  Made it really tough for the home leg as we needed to win by 2 goals to go through as the highest ladder position. In a game we dominated, we won 2 - 1 which was not enough.

  Reveal hidden contents

Closing stage - Again we finished second, only to Pueblas who were relegated from the first division. QF we got none other then Venados again, three times in a row now. Away first, we came away with a strong 1 - 0 win. In the home leg we blew them away early until i subbed out our key players to rest them (5 subs) before winning 5 - 4. Next was Puebla where we dominated at home first up but only managed a 1 - 0 win.  Away we copped a goal early and needed to at least draw the game to go through. we got that goal in the 80th minute and so progressed to the final. In the Final are our only rivals Correcaminos (who won the opening stage). I assume this was a dead rubber tie as they won the opening stage and hence both teams would play in the final (i didnt realise this at the time so played my best players and drained them). WE lost 2 - 1 away and 3 - 1 in extra time at home to be the Champions of the Closing Stage.  

  Reveal hidden contents

Promotion battle -  we ended up losing in bloody penalties over two legs.  We bottled the lead too many times!

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Upgrades:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Youth preview was all A's and the intake itself was pretty good. The best prospect is Resolute so thats pretty exciting!

Ricardo Sol, what a W pickup from youth academy!

You are lucky to have Correcaminos having been promoted. Since the start of my game, they still haven't been promoted it makes me sad. It's a shocker that Tampico Madero has no other rivals.

 

[glennuk]

Question:

For those who have played in Germany or with II (EG: Dortmund 2) squads.
Do you put players (youth) in the 2 squad if the 2 squad is not in a competition?

For real context:
I have:
Unterhaching - In 3.Liga
Unterhaching II - in no league
Unterhacing u19 - In U 19 League

I am guessing those in Unterhaching II will have little to no development unless I constantly arrange friendlies. I don't have an option to request Unterhaching II join a league (I thought they were adding it).

What is best to do in this situation? Just ignore Unterhaching II and have everyone in the main squad of U19?

 

 

[Ray46]

Update 4c; End of season 3; 2025/2026

 

Sant Andreu: A Dutch manager in Barcelona

“Go out and enjoy”

 

We won the league!!! We had a terrific second half of the season. Inherited youth players have developed very well, especially the defenders. Defense got more steady and the attack stayed very potent. A big change was when I found my best opposition instructions. Pressing got more and more effective. Also I have trained the want ball played to feet trait to all my small players and that helped with keeping possession. We kept winning and Sociedad, Valencia and Ateiti’s B-teams started losing a lot of points. In March some of their star players got promoted to the main squads.  So we are promoted to La Liga 2. That will be a difficult task, but a great challenge.

 

Review:

No new signings, of course. The players we released had decent seasons.

A nice cup run surprised Rayo and Ponferradina, finally losing bravely to FC Barcelona. The club we try to emulate in this challenge in the first place.

 

Commercially some small improvements:

The best line up:

Accolades: The 11 clean sheets make me proudest, most of them came in the 2nd half of the season.

Some nice facts from the timeline:

 

Our new best eleven:

 

We also got some more fans:

 

Star players:

Morer 17 goals and 16 assists; Our set pieces specialist:

 

Mejias; Our captain, one of the youth players originally at the club. Developed like there is no tomorrow.

Ouchouia: Sant Anrdeu’s Ziyech. He has debuted in Marrocco’s youth team. That sweet 13 vision gave us 14 assists all from open play, because he doesn’t take set pieces.

Ribo is our other DC. Also from the original youth team.

 

We had two starting academy players this season.

 

Minguez; He already wants to go to a bigger club that happened after he got called up to a Spain youth team.

 

The other central midfielder was Jofre Giraldez, our lone Elite recruit from last season.

 

Tactics:

Our beste eleven:

These are our opposition instructions very effective for gegenpress:

 

Financial and facilities:

Much needed:

 

No upgrades to facilities and licenses were allowed by the board during the season. They did strangely enough allow a healthy wage/transfer budget so I have renewed as many contracts as possible. Most of my players have 500k to 2.5M release clauses. I had to make a few promises, but we’ll handle those later. Now that we are promoted to La Liga Smartbank we have to pay every registered player at least 77.000 per year, but we can also only spend 1.566M in total wages. And we have to register at least 15 players. It feels like that’s impossible. I will probably have to let my two star players go and hugely overpay two youngsters.

 

For anyone starting in Spain let this be a warning.There is a squad cost limit in Spain’s top two leagues and I assume it is linked to your turnover or profit.

 

After the season ended I finally got my next coaching course:

And after some arguing:

 

5.7M TV money in La Liga Smartbank, compared to 50k in Primera Federacion. That will make finances a lot better. This will about triple our yearly turnover. Let’s get some season without being in the red.

 

Intake day looked good:

 

 

The best player is a striker who can go straight into the rotation.

The biggest potential is this guy with the worst personality, LOL. Let’s see what some mentoring can do. Or else I’m loaning him out to see if he’ll develop elsewhere. 

Sylla isn’t rated highly by the staff, but his attributes are perfect for the type of CD we need.

 

One of our players got poached. He is the 6th player in total. Haven’t found any of the others yet in youth intakes.

 

Summary of progress:

Edited November 14, 2022 by Ray46

[thomas_e]

Based on the posts in this thread, all journeys are a joy to follow btw, it seems like the challenge is tougher this year. 

Re-signing players are much more difficult than previous versions with non-negotiable release clauses much more frequent and players deciding early that they want to leave on free transfer. 

[CardiffDragon]

I have to say it does seem that this year people are going for it with the graphics and spreadsheets, with a lot of them being a step up from previous years, which i love as it does make it far easier to see it all in one place and you can get an idea of what has happened that season without having to scroll down and down....

No pressure on everyone else though to keep up!! 

Seriously though i am going to have a go for my next season report as i think it will be good method of information consolidation.

It is interesting to see the depth some go into the youth intake, which i suppose is the bread and butter of the entire challenge, i especailly like seeing the locations of where the newgens come from. Is there a particular site that people use to generate this or is it just find a map and stick pins to it?

and yes it does seem more challenging this year

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

2026 Youth Intake

 

 

 

Bjarki Guðmundsson 3A  -  Per Jensen 3B  -  Martin Ellehave 3C

 

 

 

An excellent intake, not coincidentally due to the increase in junior coaching. There are a couple of players good enough for the first team already, our 3A Icelandic prospect included.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sn00gle]

Quite interesting winter brake. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Sn00gle

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We scraped into the Promotion stage, but then on the back of a 14 game unbeaten streak we surged up the table to earn promotion! I'm not sure if it's due to this 3rd intake, but 5 players from that intake made their debuts since they joined the club. We also get promoted as the most attacking team too, signs we could hang in the 2. Division if our defence isn't up to scratch.

 

 

 

Transfers

 

 

 

 

 

Best XI

 

 

 

Mikkel Jensen  -  Erik Sigil 1D*  -  Nikolaj Frandsen

 

Honorable Mention:  Benjamin Warlo

 

Warlo gets a mention as before he was pushed out by youngster Poulsen he had a landmark season, scoring 33 goals. He's decided to retire at the end of the season though, as he feels he may no longer be up for it. I disagree, but fair enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

Manager Timeline

 

 

 

I let the HOYD deal with the offering of amateur contracts to my youth players and they showed up as signings in the timeline. Weird.

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

[jepze]

 

Jepze - FC Claravallis Clervaux - Season 2024/25

Squad | Transfers | Finances | Supporters

Second season is done, and we got a promotion on the second last game of the season. It was a rollercoaster, where we can win and lose every game, but in the end, we got an promotion, while our Youth Team yet again won their league. Otherwise, there was not a lot to comment on in this season, but we finally got an HoYD and nearly a full staff team, but we still need a U21-manager and an assistent. I still play all the U21 matches, but that means, that every player in the club are playing.

Competitions

League

Spoiler

Coupe de Luxembourg

Spoiler

Youth academy

Youth preview

Spoiler

Youth intake

Spoiler

Best prospects:

Spoiler

Laurent Guillaume (D (L))

Joel Duarte (AM (C))

Dawid Krzyżanowski (DM)

Best XI

Spoiler

Trophy cabinet

None

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by jepze

[Kazushi80]

 

KSC Lokeren-Temse

First Season (2023 / 2024)

A promotion to begin with

 

As a professional team in a league with around 50% semi-professional teams promotion was a walk in the park, so there's not much to tell you about that.

Off the pitch there was only one big topic: As I feared after hearing the stories from all the other people trying the challenge in Belgium, the finances are a huge problem. Over 2 million in the red after the first season will make this challenge much more difficult in the future.

 

The Facts

      

 

The Best Players

We started with the oldest squad in the league (average age: 28.05yrs), but they delivered. Especially Simon Vermeiren (33yrs, 27 goals), Julien Vercauteren (31yrs, 7 goals & 10 assists) and Alexander Maes (32yrs, 9 goals & 7 assists).

    

 

The New Youth Intake 

Not the best (more the worst) personalities, but a lot of players with high potential, who should help us in the future. Potkamp could make a few league appearances next season already since Vercauteren decided to leave us. And he's great for pressing football. Regarding El Joumani: Still undecided if I will use him as a striker or as a right winger. Hi acceleration is not good, but all other attributes make him better suited for the flanks.

        

 

The History

Through The Seasons - KSC Lokeren-Temse

Season

Division

League Pos.

GF

GA

National Cups

Int. Cups

Squad

Most Goals

Most Assists

(Other) Key Player

Intake

Best Prospect

Finances

Miscellaneous

2023/2024

Eerste klasse amateurs

1.

74

24

Croky Cup, 5th rd.

-

Squad

Simon Vermeiren - 27

Julien Vercauteren - 10

Alexander Maes

Intake

Lars Potkamp (01A)

-2.022.562€

Promotion to the 2nd division

 

The structure for this season review is inspired by @thomas_e and his posts about a (very, very successful) challenge with Energie Cottbus (see his most recent post with a Bundesliga promotion here). I hope it's okay that I've taken your design  (btw: love all the great graphic designs in this thread, but since I am very, very bad at graphics I can only admire them  )

[glennuk]

Unterhaching - Season 1 - 3.Liga - Mid Year Review

My first game of the season looked like this:

We then went 6 games unbeaten and by mid October, I asked and, received a new contract. With a one year extension in it if I get promoted.

Youth Intake Preview

It looks decent, but definitely not excellent. I am actually most looking for CBs and a new AMR, so if I do get a promising CB that would be much appreciated. Am I going to be blessed with an abundance of Goalkeepers again?

League - 2nd so far

We started unbelievable well and actually are currently going through our worst period with 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw in our last 5 games. We score for fun, but as I play positive with many players on attacking roles, we also concede quite a lot. The save is definitely going better than expected so far. Hopefully we can keep it up.

Key Players

My key players so far are Tizian Zimmerman my Deep Laying Playmaker who just controls the midfield for me. He is still young and has 5* potential. Maurice Krattenmacher who is a potential bundesliga talent, who is certainly performing well for a 17 year old. He hasn't got the most goals/assists, but he definitely is contributing. Patrick Hobsch is just a goalscorer. Currently the top scorer in the league and has been superb.

[JLAB]

Motor Lublin - Season 2 - Winter Break

As we head into the winter break, I take pride in knowing that I have obtained two more coaching badges since the end of the last season, and that we're now on our way to obtaining a 3rd coaching badge of the season.

The fact that our attributes and reputation have gone up as much as they have in just a season and a half is a really nice feeling, so hopefully this will continue to grow.

So when the season started off with just 2 wins in our first 10 matches, things were not looking good. We were in the bottom 3 and we needed to pick up form and quickly. So a team meeting and a friendly after a win against Zagłębie Lubin, and suddenly our form picked up like a rocket and we are enjoying ourselves in the top flight of Polish football. It told me what had needed to be done and where we needed to go from here.

So here we are, after 21 matches, we're in 10th place with 28 points and a very consistently average season of 7 wins, 7 draws and 7 defeats. It tells me that we can hang in this division and that we're good enough to be a top flight side, despite the media prediction claiming we would be finishing bottom of the table.

We're doing this despite the fact we sold arguably our best player to a divisional rival. He was consistently upset, he was doing poorly in training and despite his attributes was a liability and did more harm than good for the side. He needed to go.

Our youth intake preview is better than last season as well, even if I am only being promised a DM (which I do need to be fair) and a CM. Things could be better for us long-term if we can fill our the squad with plenty of young talent that can help us maintain our position in the top flight. We desperately need wingers though, and quickly.

JLAB's YAC with Motor Lublin Part 3

[thomas_e]

1 hour ago, Kazushi80 said:

The structure for this season review is inspired by @thomas_e and his posts about a (very, very successful) challenge with Energie Cottbus (see his most recent post with a Bundesliga promotion here). I hope it's okay that I've taken your design  (btw: love all the great graphic designs in this thread, but since I am very, very bad at graphics I can only admire them  )

Of course it's okay  

Looking forward to following your journey with KSC Lokeren. Always great to start off the challenge with a promotion 

Edited November 14, 2022 by thomas_e

[v1n1akabozo]

On 13/11/2022 at 10:33, thomas_e said:

Below is a screenshot of the training program that I use for the U19. As you can see it focuses a lot on development and it works for defenders and attackers! 

I actively praise and critize players for traning performances. Make sure that you go to staff settings and have your U19 and Reserve team coach send you weekly reports on how the players are performing in training. I usually praise players when they perform better than 9,0 and critize them when they perform below 6,0. 

Just make sure that you dont praise a player more than two weeks in a row. They often tend to get angry if you praise them three weeks in a row, as strange as that sounds. 

 

In my previous save i was criticizing anything below 7.0 and in the long term all my players but 1 or 2 were performing above that threshold and praising whoever was 7.0 and above. They do indeed get mad sometimes but then i'd just back down and everything was fine. Youth with good personality were developing like crazy following that method, but is surely lame having to go through this processs every week inside the game.

[thomas_e]

2 minutes ago, v1n1akabozo said:

In my previous save i was criticizing anything below 7.0 and in the long term all my players but 1 or 2 were performing above that threshold and praising whoever was 7.0 and above. They do indeed get mad sometimes but then i'd just back down and everything was fine. Youth with good personality were developing like crazy following that method, but is surely lame having to go through this processs every week inside the game.

Yes, a lot of work, but thanks for the tip, I might start critizing players a bit more even when they are performing above my usual 6,0 criteria! 

[Flashman\'s School Days]

Hello all, I've been lurking here since the beginning and had hoped to join in sooner.  I had originally planned to takeover a club in Slovenia from a village with a population of 73, unfortunately after many many reloads I couldn't get them promoted so I assume their rep is quite low.  I then went to Spain intending to take charge of another club who's reputation again must've been too low although in the end I had a few teams I saw getting promoted that intrigued me. 

I ended up picking Xerez but I usually wait until midway through the first season to do my initial post here just so I know it will actually be a fruitful save.  Unfortunately for me after getting 7 points from the first 5 games we went on to lose 12 games in a row, leaving the board to give me a target of 7 points in our next 5.  I had managed to get 4 from 4 and then played top of the league in the fifth game, we were 2-0 up until the 81st minute when we completely collapsed, losing 3-2 which caused me to be sacked.

On a whim after that I have decided to head out of Europe as I really enjoyed playing on a different continent last year in Uruguay but this time I have gone to South Africa and Jomo Cosmos.

Spoiler

Not many players in the squad when I arrived but the ones there seem very good and the board expect a mid table finish in the first season.  I have already played half a season and it is going way better than Xerez so I may actually be able to see a youth intake this time.

[Sn00gle]

      
Kotwica Kołobrzeg - 2024/25

Squad - League - Finances - Transfers 

Was worried about this season but went really good. We won the Fortuna First League and will join the top tier teams. Bobkowski 01a as main goalkeeper and Bieliecki 01b had a huge impact in this as first even got u19 call and played  vs Turkey (0-1), and my little ML with 3 goals and 12 assist done the job. 

Our finances went low but with 1st place in youth rewards we will get 350k and all bonuses after wining the league so this should go up. Small ups in JC and YR so went nice. Next season of course we need to survive some how because players are not prepared.

New HOYD bring very nice intake, some low personalites but Żubrowski 02a is a monster and joins first squad same as Dziąbek 02b MR which was just needed as Kaczmarek got big injury 2 days before intake. Thank you game LOL.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Sn00gle

[Conardo]

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and i´m always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

Edited November 14, 2022 by Conardo

[Sn00gle]

3 minutes ago, Conardo said:

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and i´m always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

I never finish this challenge in my life  LoL

[Conardo]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb Sn00gle:

I never finish this challenge in my life  LoL

Somebody started with Tord (?), since then it's been a hit - who shot the thing anyway? That has to be less than 1%, right?

[v1n1akabozo]

7 minutes ago, Conardo said:

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and i´m always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

I watch all my games on extended except when the team is in such a great form that i'm confident we'll win either way, and in this case i switch it to key highlights. Never have used instant results.

[JLAB]

13 minutes ago, Conardo said:

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and am always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch mr the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

I'm watching all of my games on key highlights. The lack of transfers coming in means that the seasons tends to go much quicker. Seeing the journey to eventually completing the goal is always the fun part of saves.

[WhiteCat33]

9 hours ago, Cultured Left Foot said:

The Journey with Guiseley has started. For those that would like to watch the video series of this journey, it can be found here : https://www.youtube.com/c/CulturedLeftFoot

But those on the forum, here is the starting summary :

Guiseley Association Football Club is a football club based in Guiseley, West Yorkshire, England.  As of this save, they are currently members of the Vanarama National League North , the sixth tier of English football, and play at Nethermoor Park.

 

Dave Nicholls (Cultured Left Foot) has been appointed the manager of the newly promoted team.  Having no coaching badges and only playing Sunday League football, he's got a lot to learn in a short space of time. 

 

Nicholls will be hoping to get the most out of star player Jorge Sikora, but is already in a battle to keep his star central defender with interest from Gateshead and Southend.

 

The facilities aren't the best, but they are what they are. Lots of work is needed in youth development, youth coaching and the youth facilities.

 

First thing was to make sure our Head of Youth Development was suitable and checking of Dave Currie, who was already at the club we decided to give him another one year contract.

One big bit of concern for the squad is that we only have one contracted GK across our whole squad (Lets hope he doesn't get injured!)

 

 

I'll try and keep the updates regular in the forums to keep you all up to date as much as possible. 

 

Cheers,

Dave/CLF

GL at Guiseley its a great club for the challenge especially with that 3 Youth level & facilities. Did your Zambian player get a work permit? I could never get him one so had to release him when I started.  At least for me Trenerry wasn't injury prone, as well as has good potential while being very young for a starting GK. Should give you some cushion till you can develop your own GK in the youth ranks.

Look forward to watching your progress!

[fries]

20 minutes ago, Conardo said:

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and i´m always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

The journey is the goal! I think most saves presented in here do not complete the challenge.

I watch every game with the middle setting (can't remember the correct name as I don't have the game open), but with the fastest speed. However, I go much faster through a season than normal when playing this challenge. Primarly because you don't spend time on scouting and transfers. So the time between matches is limited.

[Braumiller]

+1 here for Key highlights user.  This is what I run all my matches on

[Conardo]

That's why I'm afraid to take part in the challenge

[WhiteCat33]

I find at the low levels like in Luxembourg it can be dangerous to use too many instant results as its more about 'morale manager' than anything else. With that said, due to the fact I didn't have any staff I did use instant results for all the U21 matches because I didn't really care about a full grey team / my reject players. While i will use instant results with the 1st team its only in seasons where I'm more of a mid-table threat. Otherwise I'm a key highlight player as well. Other thing I do (especially for Luxembourg) is holiday through weeks where nothing is happening instead of spaming the spacebar.  

[Kazushi80]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Conardo:

First of all, I have to say, wow - so many great reports, so well prepared and presented. Every year I read here with pleasure and i´m always on the verge of entering here myself. The only problem I have is that I watch the games on at least "advanced" mode, so I think I'll never get to what the goal is here

You probably all play with instant results?

Or is the journey the goal?

Always Extended Highlights, except maybe a cup game or last games of the season if everything is decided with "key", never instant result.

And yes, the challenges take time (never finished one ), but you win back a lot of time because you don't do transfer, don't need to scout any potential signings etc.