[FM23] - Mission Paris Deux - creating the anti-thesis of PSG

[karanhsingh]

And so it's back to my favourite league on FM and one of my most managed sides - Paris FC

It will be my third consecutive edition managing the lesser known Parisian club. Last year's adventure was epic, and ended with a memorable Coupe de France victory over PSG. However, the Ligue 1 title eluded us. This time, we will try to put that right.

Also, I myself will be doing things differently this time. No more scouring the earth for the best cheap young players and turning them into wonderkids. I really want to focus on the one part of the game I have historically never been good at - youth development through the academy. France of course seems like the best country to do that in.

I will stop short of saying that this will be a "youth only" save - I definitely do not have the perseverance or patience for that. However, what we will not be doing is making 10 transfers every season. Players will be brought in very selectively, and when they are they will only be -

(i) directly from African clubs

(ii) young prospects from clubs in France below us

(iii) cast-offs from the larger French clubs 

This should ensure a real challenge on my hands, while at the same time allow some room to maneuver. 

Off we go! Hopefully it won't be too long before we are selling out the Stade Charlety.

 

[karanhsingh]

Here's a link to Mission Paris from last year for anyone interested:

 

[karanhsingh]

I have played through till the summer of 2024 so the first updates will be a little concise. We took over the club at the end of March 2023 (just after the first youth intake) with them struggling in and around the relegation places in Ligue 2. Managed just about enough wins to stabilize the ship and secure our place in the division.

Oh, also I was a bit lazy so did not change my manager profile from the last save - did however add Cote D'Ivoire as a second nationality.

There are no further screenshots from season 1, primarily because I forgot to take any 

 

[karanhsingh]

The transfers from season 2 - as promised not too many. Georgen and Bellodi were already fixed before I took over. N'Diaye is one of the best bargain buys this year. We needed a new LWB and RWB for the system I intended to play.

And here is the chosen formation in all its glory - after my last save I definitely wanted a formation with 2 strikers having seen how lethal it was. But using an attacking wide 4-4-2 almost felt a little bit like cheating because it is so unrealistic, barely any big team plays a 4-4-2 IRL anymore. 

I am sure some of the roles will get tweaked in due course but this is the base for now. Tried out the AMC in a support role but he was not getting involved enough in the action.

[Swaban]

good luck mate, looking forward to this!

[karanhsingh]

Right, I wasn't quite expecting this but apparently the tactic done pretty well in Ligue 2 -

Which means that we get promoted to Ligue 1 as champions!

[karanhsingh]

The intake was a pretty poor one in all honesty

Peyrat looked like the only one who may amount to much. In addition, we have a couple of youngsters from the first intake progressing well. 

I actually read through my earlier FM22 Paris save thread as well and saw that we never really got any good intakes. I wonder why that is. Maybe PSG is scooping up all the good youth around Paris. Really hope for the sake of this save, that it changes soon.

[karanhsingh]

As always, the money in France is very average, even when in Ligue 1.

However whatever little bit we are getting is being invested straight into the facilities -

[karanhsingh]

A quick look at the 3 academy boys who got their debuts this season and will hopefully continue to develop well - I have highest hopes from Diarra if we can get his work rate up

[KlaaZ]

I think you may be right with the reasoning that youth recruitment is made harder with a club like PSG nearby. 

Diarra looks good, great personality too (which is a very important driver for development). Good luck with this!

[TelcontarTargaryen]

I support anything that is anti-PSG  (And to think they were my favourite team in France prior to the takeover.. )

[Hootieleece]

On 22/05/2023 at 04:21, karanhsingh said:

I am sure some of the roles will get tweaked in due course but this is the base for now. Tried out the AMC in a support role but he was not getting involved enough in the action.

That formation looks an awful lot like a 5-2-1-2WB instead of a 3-4-3. Also changing the player role might help. I tend to try a trequarista role, but it needs a player with a bit of flair. Other roles and more generic ones can work depending on player attributes, Flair, off the ball, anticipation, workrate, and pace are needed for a good AMC to be involved. IMHO. (but take what I say with grain of salt looking at my Preston Save) I have more success with the AMC roles in a 4-2-3-1Wide. 

Good Luck bringing down the Galactic Empire of PSG! 

As this is a youth oriented save, MAKE SURE to keep as many native Parisians in the team as possible.

 

I saw a map of the Birthplaces in Paris of the players that are World Class and Don't play for a Parisian team. It would make an incredible Starting XI.

[13th Man]

Yes!! Got to love a Paris FC challenge. Youth is going to be tricky so maybe try and get the board to focus on youth recruitment? 
Also, funny that your AMs wasn’t involved. I’ve had a lot of success with a similar set up, though with CMs rather than DMs. The player at AM was more of a CM playing higher, but I do wonder why it didn’t work on support for you.

[karanhsingh]

16 hours ago, KlaaZ said:

I think you may be right with the reasoning that youth recruitment is made harder with a club like PSG nearby. 

Diarra looks good, great personality too (which is a very important driver for development). Good luck with this!

Thanks! And yes although I am hoping i am not right about the youth recruitment - time will tell 

16 hours ago, TelcontarTargaryen said:

I support anything that is anti-PSG  (And to think they were my favourite team in France prior to the takeover.. )

Thank you! 

14 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

That formation looks an awful lot like a 5-2-1-2WB instead of a 3-4-3. Also changing the player role might help. I tend to try a trequarista role, but it needs a player with a bit of flair. Other roles and more generic ones can work depending on player attributes, Flair, off the ball, anticipation, workrate, and pace are needed for a good AMC to be involved. IMHO. (but take what I say with grain of salt looking at my Preston Save) I have more success with the AMC roles in a 4-2-3-1Wide. 

Good Luck bringing down the Galactic Empire of PSG! 

As this is a youth oriented save, MAKE SURE to keep as many native Parisians in the team as possible.

 

I saw a map of the Birthplaces in Paris of the players that are World Class and Don't play for a Parisian team. It would make an incredible Starting XI.

Thank you! Yes i am trying to do that and spoiler alert - also actively bringing back some former Paris FC academy graduates. The AM is working better now so don't need a role change at the moment, not that we have a genuine flair player anyway lol

10 hours ago, 13th Man said:

Yes!! Got to love a Paris FC challenge. Youth is going to be tricky so maybe try and get the board to focus on youth recruitment? 
Also, funny that your AMs wasn’t involved. I’ve had a lot of success with a similar set up, though with CMs rather than DMs. The player at AM was more of a CM playing higher, but I do wonder why it didn’t work on support for you.

Actually funny you say that because now I am more and more playing Diakite there who's more of a CM. On attack duty it almost functions like a front 3 which is better for a transition type of play. Support would i guess be better if we are looking to dominate the ball and play more. 

[Carambau]

Good luck with Paris FC! In my save Red Star Paris became the 2nd force in France/Paris. This time its your turn again  

[karanhsingh]

5 hours ago, Carambau said:

Good luck with Paris FC! In my save Red Star Paris became the 2nd force in France/Paris. This time its your turn again  

That's another great club to manage for sure! And thank you

[karanhsingh]

So guys, a couple of confessions / disclaimers for this save:

1 - since I am trying to focus more on the academy than I usually do, I am checking the CA & PA of every intake player once they enter the system. This is helping me focus on the development of those who can actually break into the first-team, and also preventing the U19 side from having too large a squad which hinders development and also leads to the board being unwilling to further improve junior coaching etc. 

2 - in my hurry to get through the season and to the in-take date (which ended up being very disappointing, more on that later), I holidayed through a large part of the 2023-24 season - our first in Ligue 1. The ass. man. did a rather interesting job, as you will see in the next post.

[warlock]

4 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

a couple of confessions

Tsk tsk

Just kidding - play your game any way you want. Whatever makes for fun and engagement.

[karanhsingh]

10 minutes ago, warlock said:

Tsk tsk

Just kidding - play your game any way you want. Whatever makes for fun and engagement.

[karanhsingh]

So as I said, I went on holiday for about 6 months - from October through to the end of March when the intake usually comes in. We had a decent start to the season so I assumed we would be easily safe and mid-table at the very least.

Imagine my surprise when I return to find us flirting with relegation but at the same time having made the final of the Coupe de France 

Let's wrap up the league campaign first, here are the results from the entire season:

And the final league table... we needed those couple of wins in April to ultimately get us over the line

A finish of 13th spot with a negative GD is my personal worst on FM in a while, even if I was not physically managing the team for large parts of it - was still my tactic and squad of course.

[karanhsingh]

And now for the cup, since the asst. had done such a fine job I decided to let him play out the final as well, after picking the team and tactics... there was some hope as our opponents were Nantes who had somehow gotten past PSG in their semi final (and they deserved the cup purely on the basis of that tbh)

 

But somehow, they conspired to lost to the (much) worse Parisian side! Incredibly, we have managed to win the Cup! 

Although it has to be said, without facing a truly good side throughout the campaign (see below) - so a special thank you to the fixture computer as well

[karanhsingh]

After a season in Ligue 1 we are finally making some decent money as well (also filling up the stadium regularly now) which means we have also been able to make some steady improvements to the facilities:

[karanhsingh]

And now to wrap up this series of posts... a review of all the good / promising youngsters to have come up through the system so far. 

There are 3 from the first batch of 2023, two of whom have broken into the first team already. 

Diarra is definitely the pick of the bunch and now is a regular fixture in the side. He has 33 senior appearances so far and has been capped by France at U19 level. I primarily want to continue improving his work rate and stamina if he is to play in a 2 man midfield for the most part. For those interested, his PA is 131 and he is now up to 116 for CA. If anyone does not know what those numbers mean or is curious, let me know.

Tony has just broken into the first team partly thanks to injuries, and is actually performing better than his attributes suggest with 4 goals and 1 assist in 6 games playing as a DLF. I want to get his dribbling and finishing up though. He has 128 for PA and 104 for CA currently.

Mercier also looks a decent prospect but has been sent out on loan due to the number of CB options we have. He has 122 PA and 103 CA so could be a decent squad rotation option if not a first teamer in the future.

Colin Peyrat was the only really good new-gen from the class of 2024 and another CB as you can see. He is developing with the U19 squad currently and has 136 PA and 91 CA. So he can definitely turn out to be a strong player if we can also work on his personality.

The class of 2025 delivered yet another CB in Steeve Besse who is coming along well in the U19s too as you can see. He has 123 PA and 85 CA so again can probably be a good squad option in the future.

[Hootieleece]

Great Job! Champions!

Hurray for Clermont. (in memory of my epic CU in 2020 with them)

Pouring one out for ASSE......(probably my next CU)

[Jogo Bonito]

Wow, a new save and in days you virtually matched my entire FM23 output! Well done on promotion and to your AM for securing safety and delivering a Cup.

[karanhsingh]

2 hours ago, Hootieleece said:

Great Job! Champions!

Hurray for Clermont. (in memory of my epic CU in 2020 with them)

Pouring one out for ASSE......(probably my next CU)

Thanks! And yes well done Clermont! Of course I remember that epic save of yours. 

51 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

Wow, a new save and in days you virtually matched my entire FM23 output! Well done on promotion and to your AM for securing safety and delivering a Cup.

I must say this is the fastest I have got through the first two seasons of a save. And yes well done Mr. Kolo Toure!

[KlaaZ]

33 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Thanks! And yes well done Clermont! Of course I remember that epic save of yours. 

I must say this is the fastest I have got through the first two seasons of a save. And yes well done Mr. Kolo Toure!

You've got him as well?  Team Kolo!

[13th Man]

Love the assman getting the cup!  Giving Kolo a good resume builder.  Hopefully, next season you'll get a bit more going in the league

[karanhsingh]

12 hours ago, KlaaZ said:

You've got him as well?  Team Kolo!

Legend!

1 hour ago, 13th Man said:

Love the assman getting the cup!  Giving Kolo a good resume builder.  Hopefully, next season you'll get a bit more going in the league

Haha yes, cheers bud

[Carambau]

Niiiiiice! Congratulations on the Cup Win! The League wasnt that impressive but you managed to stay up thats the most important thing  

[karanhsingh]

44 minutes ago, Carambau said:

Niiiiiice! Congratulations on the Cup Win! The League wasnt that impressive but you managed to stay up thats the most important thing  

Thanks! Yes absolutely 

[karanhsingh]

Apologies guys, it looks like another save bites the dust. I holidayed 4 years into the future and the club even with 20/20 for JC and YR did not produce a single new-gen crossing 135 in PA. I think somehow Paris FC gets the raw end of the youth in the game, maybe due to location or whatever else. In the future for a youth focused French save it would be better to go with one of the provincial clubs. This just made me lose interest a little bit.

I am going back to the game mode I know and love the most - the journeyman -for my next adventure

[KlaaZ]

Yeah, that was not have been a fun run. Good luck on your next adventure!

[13th Man]

Oh well. With the save goals you had, it would have been a long and likely tedious save where you’d have to increase youth recruiting and coaching year after year while keeping the first team competitive, then bring in the new blood through the team…