[FM24] Lichen grows anywhere, Liechtenstein needs die Alpensonne - TAKE TWO

[Ceching You Out]

An Introduction

Elevator pitch me. What are you trying to do here?

Imagine a sovereign Liechtenstein financial fund, looking for a place to deploy capital, staring longingly into Austria. Just on the other side of the Alps there are football clubs aplenty in a league showing returns of Red Bull's investment. What if you bought a club, bootstrapped its infrastructure, and challenged the big boys of Austrian football while building a talent pipeline for your own beleaguered national team? What glory and dividends await.

Oh, so you're roleplaying.

No... I just panicked there. I didn't have a good pitch. This is a (mostly) youth only save in Austria, using a self-tweaked DB that turned FC Dornbirn 1913, from northwest Austria in eponymous Dornbirn, into FC Liechtenstein 2023. We'll focus entirely on our own youth intake with two transfer exceptions:

1. We can sign previous players from our youth intake, regardless of nationality
2. We can sign players who qualify for Liechtenstein

Using the pre-game editor, I've copied the city Dornbirn and moved the copy to a Liechtenstein region rather than the existing Austrian one. That will primarily give us youth with Austria-Liechtenstein dual-nationality. The only other edits have been to the Chairman of the club, making him more amenable to a focus on youth development.

We'll focus on the Liechtensteiner club initially, but keep an eye on how the national team develops. At some point I'd like to take over there and use our wealth of talent to be competitive internationally.

That sounds awfully familiar. Didn't you just try this?

Ahem. Yes. After running into some logistical challenges with the last save (read: I set up the original DB incorrectly in the pre-game editor), I've sorted out the issues. I think. And now I'm ready to restart with a few lessons learned.

What makes you think you'll be successful this time?

Well, I've got a rich and storied history of failure at this kind of thing. There was Avenir Beggen in Luxembourg, a second shot at the same, and Encamp in Andorra. The previous attempt at this just about a month ago. And those are just the public ones.

That's not... very reassuring?

I suppose not. But dream big, right? Right? Right? Echo, echo, echo. Feels like it's just my voice coming and going.

That's the whole gimmick, isn't it though.

I prefer "narrative convention". Even the best career threads are mostly talking to yourself. Might as well keep it interesting.

Edited January 8 by Ceching You Out

[Rick87]

Good luck again!

[FoxGe1994]

Good luck - nice following these kind of stories with building a nation! 

[_Ben_]

What did you change between game builds so that this one will reward your hard work with Europe?

[Ceching You Out]

17 hours ago, Rick87 said:

Good luck again!

15 hours ago, FoxGe1994 said:

Good luck - nice following these kind of stories with building a nation! 

Thanks, y'all! Let's see if we can improve on the slow start last time.

 

14 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

What did you change between game builds so that this one will reward your hard work with Europe?

Excellent question! I was going to put this all behind a spoiler in a future post for the sake of brevity, but all the more relevant since you asked. Also, I can bore a captive audience with a story so it's win-win for me.

I've long had a fascination with clubs which produce youth from other nations -- think more FC Andorra (all Andorran) rather than Schalke (a few Turks). I stumbled upon this thread a couple years ago and was (1) excited to see others had compiled a list of clubs with youth quirks like that and (2) disappointed that none really tickled my fancy for a save. I found a few ideas here or there similar to @bold013hades comments in that thread that suggested you could create the kind of situation I was looking for without a ton of changes (which risks DB disasters if you're as unfamiliar with editing as I am).

I tried to test a few but my laptop at the time took hours just to run a season. When it wasn't immediately clear I knew what I was doing, I shelved the idea. Long story, short(er) I now have a fancy laptop and am seeing what I can make happen.

Reiterating again that I am not an editing expert, here's what I've found. In the pre-game editor you have these fields that primarily control a club's location/nationality:

 

• "Nation" is always set to the nation of your league competition (e.g., Switzerland for Vaduz, England for Swansea); FM generates errors if this doesn't match the league
• "Based Nation" is set to the location of your club (e.g., Liechtenstein for Vaduz, Wales for Swansea, same as "Nation" for most other clubs) and controls the country your players accumulate "Days for Nationality"
• "Continental Cup Nation" sets the nation where your club qualifies for continental competitions (e.g., Liechtenstein for Vaduz, England for Swansea, same as "Nation" for most other clubs)
• "City" sets your "Local Region" -- more on that in a moment

My understanding, with some exceptions especially where there's hardcoding in the background, City and Local Region determine the base nationalities of your youth intake.  City will set your primary nationality with dual nationality from your Local Region. Names and Languages are mainly influenced by Local Region.

In the previous save the only change I made was copying Dornbirn and moving the duplicate city to Liechtenstein. This made (nearly) every youth in our intake over 9 years have Liechtenstein nationality; maybe 80% also had Austria as a second nationality. I was quite happy with that! Until I realized I'd locked myself out of all continental competitions. That made me less happy. I suspect there is a hardcoded rule that Liechtenstein clubs can't qualify for Europe via the domestic leagues (not just Vaduz and not just in Switzerland); other Liechtensteiner clubs play lower in the Swiss pyramid but I'm not sure why it'd apply to other leagues. Maybe just inelegant coding, which wouldn't be the first time that's been discovered within the base FM DB.

This time I'm likely going to reverse the City/Local Region relationship. I've again copied Dornbirn, but this time the duplicate city stays in Austria and is assigned to a Local Region in Liechtenstein. This took an extra few steps but from some early testing seems to fix the biggest problem of continental qualification. It does seem to reduce the number of Liechtenstein players coming through the intakes, shifting the balance more towards Austrian. Not ideal but I can work with that. When testing with much higher rep clubs I'm also seeing the youth intake trend towards 100% Austrian. Maybe they're pulling from outside the local region, hence that shift? That does concern me a bit, so I'm poking around to see if I can address that before I start. Worst comes to worst I can use the in-game editor to manually assign Liechtenstein nationality, although I'd really rather continuing to use it to monitor and report only. The game world starts to feel inauthentic when I have to manually maintain it.

All that to say, bear with me -- I'm close to relaunching this. I'm trying to be more thorough in testing this time around (for obvious reasons) but it's slow going with baby-addled tiredness. Soon though, I think!

[Ceching You Out]

Pre-season 2023/2024

Here's our original crew. I'm reminded how low on the hill we started - media prediction of 15 fits with this group. Knowing that I won't be challenging for a few seasons, I'm going to be pretty aggressive in trying to maximize high potential players and cull anyone unlikely to contribute much. Depth is for good teams! We need cash to fund improvements.

 

For those that followed my earlier attempt, our tactic may look familiar. This is where we left off after quite a few seasons of tinkering. I wouldn't classify it as perfected but it's a reasonable foundation.

 

Compared to my last attempt (cut short by a "bug" with continental qualification), I plan on being more active in the transfer market for Liechtenstein players. Obviously I won't sign anyone else given my self-imposed limitations, but I think there's an opportunity to buy-then-sell players to raise needed cash. In that vein, we've made our first signing already!

Salanovic plays for the NT and was available on a free. He's unlikely to grow as a 97 CA / 110 PA player at 27 years old, but I'm likely to sell next summer unless we can affordably extend his contract.

Edited January 15 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Our squad and staff have now been significantly overhauled -- best players extended for at least another season after this one, players deep on the depth chart sold. Feeling pretty good about this start.

And we've landed this beauty as our Assistant to take control of our youth intake. Model Citizen with the right formation is a great get!

[_Ben_]

1 hour ago, Ceching You Out said:

And we've landed this beauty as our Assistant to take control of our youth intake. Model Citizen with the right formation is a great get!

And one of the only professional footballers I've ever seen to use anti-glare paint under his eyes! Some shot stopper he was!

[Ceching You Out]

6 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

And one of the only professional footballers I've ever seen to use anti-glare paint under his eyes! Some shot stopper he was!

I'm forced to sheepishly admit that any vague name familiarity was chalked up to FM. Some quick googling and now I recognize him -- part of the shock Turkey side in WC 2002 in Korea. Also holder of their record appearances. Now I'm even more impressed by my signing. Many thanks for calling that out!

[Ceching You Out]

This... this is a thing? I'm clueless. In the 9 seasons of my previous save I never triggered it. Was that just dumb luck because of the volume of Liechtenstein-only players? Can I trigger it again? Wild.

 

EDIT: Find a nickel, spend a dime.

Edited January 10 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2023/2024

 

I'd mentally composed the update here, then was so rudely interrupted by a 2 month old getting in her midnight crying. Now that I've slept I've forgotten half of what I was going to say. C'est la vie.

We're performing fairly well for a 15th-predicted side that only made one addition. Fetahu is scoring boatloads upfront (nearly half our goals) but we haven't quite turned it into results. Lots of competitive draws give me the impression we could turn the corner at some point; most of our players have 20-30 points of PA to grow into. Based sheerly on GF and GA, you could argue we should be a little higher in the table too. All that said, we're still not safe. Plenty of work to do.

I don't expect much activity in the winter transfer window, but we'll look to be opportunistic if we can add a Liechtensteiner or two for cheap. There is a GK I've been keeping an eye on at Vaduz.

 

EDIT: Vaduz let me offer Foser a contract without countering, and charged us $28K to take him immediately. Deal! He's 78 CA / 114 PA @ 21. I'm expecting he'll have room to grow as a GK without any competitive matches. His upside is 18 points higher than our current starter and that was hard to pass up.

Edited January 15 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Ugh, Board insisted on selling Moosbrugger so in accordance with my own rules I negotiated the fee but didn't prevent him from leaving. Totally unnecessary given his potential (83 CA / 110 PA @ 18) and even my negotiated fee ($80K).

 

In response we sign Traber as a free agent, although I'm not given the option to buy him immediately I guess.

EDIT: Nevermind - for $12K he's ours now!

Edited January 10 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Woof, I'd forgotten how bad these early intakes can be. The personalities look nice though!

Edited January 10 by Ceching You Out

[syemo]

4 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

In response we sign Traber as a free agent, although I'm not given the option to buy him immediately I guess.

EDIT: Nevermind - for $12K he's ours now!

A good player. I had him at vaduz... Sadly just been sacked there in my third season. 

[Ceching You Out]

4 hours ago, syemo said:

A good player. I had him at vaduz... Sadly just been sacked there in my third season. 

Ahh, sorry to hear that. I'm aiming for something very similar to the Vaduz experience here. Hopefully Traber helps keep us up! He's got surprisingly good personality attributes which might put him in the conversation for our  next captain, although part of that is our early struggles with finding good role models.

[Ceching You Out]

Using all that bonus money we just found in the couch (ahem, the "Austrian pot" I suppose it's actually called), we hit the trifecta of youth upgrades in our first year. Now if we can stay up, we've got a great foundation going...

W

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2023/2024

 

Oooh boy, did we wobble. Frustration ran high in the middle of the season and I wondered if we'd immediately fail after spending so much time researching and testing. Started to feel like my least favorite season of FM, in stark contrast to our great escape in the last save after a 18 (!) game losing streak.

We dropped into the relegation places after this miserable streak:

 

8 without a win is not... not good. One of those low points where you begin to question your abilities - there wasn't any obvious fault. No radical change in tactics, personnel, etc. Morale plummets and then you're just looking for a lucky break. Instead, against Stripfing we put up this performance.

I literally laughed when Fetahu was through on goal and missed a sitter. When your ST who finishes the season 1st in xG per shot, 2nd in conversion rate, 2nd in G/90, and 2nd in overall goals essentially trips over his shoelaces... well, that feels like it's time to accept relegation. What felt like the lowest point of the season, ended up being that in fact. Because we ripped off 9 unbeaten (with only 1 draw) to close the season.

 

That meant a relatively comfortable finish in 9th, which does not at all match my perception of the season as it played out real time. I suppose this means we're actually a pretty decent side at the moment? Challenging for promotion next season is probably too soon, and actual promotion would see us immediately yo-yo, but we might just be... good. If we can bump up our facilities before our next intake we may be poised to really gain momentum.

Edited January 15 by Ceching You Out

[syemo]

A great ending to the season, some solid results. At least you able to stop that bad run. 

[Ceching You Out]

1 hour ago, syemo said:

A great ending to the season, some solid results. At least you able to stop that bad run. 

Thanks, syemo! Quite the slide and it starts to feel very ominous. Passes to nobody, loose balls lost. Just takes a win to turn it around.

[Ceching You Out]

This took 5 different complaints to get overturned. Ugh, come on Board. He's a 19 year old 89 CA / 120 PA they're willing to sell for such a low fee; his value is $240K on the high end and we've got $400K in the bank. FFS.

[Ceching You Out]

What a cool friendly! Didn't see this get scheduled initially.

[Ceching You Out]

won the battle above, but didn't take long to lose the war. Popovic is sold at the Board's insistence, although I was able to nearly double the fee. He'll stay with us until the end of the season, but we'll have a big hole then.

 

[Ceching You Out]

So I think I've figured out the parameters around this funky (substantial) bonus payment.

It appears every 9 games, not just contained within a season. It only counts players with Austria as their primary nationality, not secondary. There's a flat rate ($56K and some change) for each squad that meets the requirements.

At this point it's a large enough revenue source that I think I want to be intentional about it, but the secondary nationality piece makes it less straightforward as I bring in Liechtensteiners and have players declare.

[Ceching You Out]

Relentlessly asking earned us one of the two "free" upgrades:

 

EDIT: And after 9 more games where I made sure to have 9 Austrians, we get Junior Coaching bumped too.

Edited January 12 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2024/2025

 

Nothing of particular note to report. We're chugging along in a clear middle third of the division, while title charges play out above us and relegation dramas below. Interesting fact -- Lafnitz started 13 for 13, taking max points. Exceptional start that would be demoralizing if we had any promotion aspirations. Hint: we do not!

 

 

Oooh I'd never tried this before, but worked out. They wanted to offer me a new contract and I suggested they spend it elsewhere. Gave me options that were currently timed out for Board requests, so we're able to sneak an extra one of these in. I think this will max us out?

Edited January 15 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Spellachia joins us in the winter transfer window. He's 74 CA / 119 PA having just turned 18. $110K to Vaduz is on the high side for that, as is his $45K/year salary. There is a chance this move backfires depending on our intake but we could really use an attacker for the rest of the year given how lean our squad is running.

Edited January 12 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

New intake drops and it's certainly worth talking about.

My thoughts in no particular order:

1. Personalities here are quite possibly the best I've ever had in total across an intake. Two Model Citizens is for sure a record for me.
2. Those Youth Recruitment upgrades have radically changed the nationality distribution. Only half the players here are primarily Austrian.
3. Normally I'd be stoked by that! But unfortunately, that does not bode well for continuing to meet our 12 player per matchday squad Austrian quota for the free cash.
4. Depth is very solid -- 8 players in the 100ish PA range, most of whom have good personalities so they'll hopefully grow on their own.
5. Two players with the exact same name is quite funny. Both defenders both with decent PAs. Welcome Fabio Fehrs, (a) and (b). 
6. The most interesting two players are both Croatian only. (25i) Begic is a Model Citizen with 100 PA that I won't be able to stop myself from trying to develop into a future captain, even if his PA isn't really high enough for that to be feasible. And of course, (25c) Vikario the (eventual) star of our show. He gone be good.

 

EDIT: This is fascinating. Apparently some of these players have come through our Academy without learning German?!

Edited January 13 by Ceching You Out

[syemo]

On 12/01/2024 at 06:49, Ceching You Out said:

Spellachia joins us in the winter transfer window. He's 74 CA / 119 PA having just turned 18. $110K to Vaduz is on the high side for that, as is his $45K/year salary. There is a chance this move backfires depending on our intake but we could really use an attacker for the rest of the year given how lean our squad is running.

spellachia in the couple of season with vaduz he improved pretty well. 

[syemo]

One thing I saw a lot at vaduz in the new youth intake is that they were asking me a lot to send them on Italian courses. But I thought main language in swiss/Lichtenstein is German?

Defo will get back to this save again but at moment I'm taking a break with something else 

[Ceching You Out]

On 13/01/2024 at 02:25, syemo said:

spellachia in the couple of season with vaduz he improved pretty well. 

Spellecchia has come on leaps and bounds in just half a season. He's 10 points better in ability and done fairly well with a 6.98 average rating. I don't believe he had so much PA in my last save, so I'm guessing he has a randomized value there.

 

On 13/01/2024 at 02:27, syemo said:

One thing I saw a lot at vaduz in the new youth intake is that they were asking me a lot to send them on Italian courses. But I thought main language in swiss/Lichtenstein is German?

Defo will get back to this save again but at moment I'm taking a break with something else 

I'd expect the main language to be German in Liechtenstein too so that's quite odd. I'm a little shocked any player can come through the Academy without knowledge of the primary language, unless the game is essentially representing a kid joining the club at 13/14/15.

 

Success on upgrading Junior Coaching after our next $500K Austria-pot payment (I've been gunning for those), but despite $1.2M in the bank our Board is still scared of financial trouble to update Youth Facilities. Hopefully we can get that in the summer.

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2024/2025

 

Uhh...hello. You still there?

Always. Did you forget about your gimmick?

I... uhh... no. Definitely not. I've just been very busy, you know. With brushing my teeth, washing my hair, that kind of thing.

Basic hygiene is keeping you busy? If your avatar is anything to go by, you don't really have much hair left to wash.

Well that's hurtful. But my beard, it takes a lot of shampoo. Special shampoo. Like a lot. So much.

Can you even name a brand of shampoo?

Herbal Essences.

Do they even still make that?

Yes? I mean, yes. Of course. For my beard.

Try again.

Head and Shoulders.

Well that is--

Because we're head and shoulders better than we were last season. Ehh? Ehhhhh?

...just show them the table.

 

Horrible puns aside, our improvement is actually marginal -- up a position with a few more points. The journey was smoother however, with no flirtation with the relegation zone. The offseason will be dominated by two questions: (1) how much should we prioritize personalities by moving on our better, more influential players with mediocre Pro/Det/Amb (<11)? and (2) how do we construct our squad to keep hitting the $500K jackpot every 9 games for as long as we can?

Edited January 15 by Ceching You Out

[TelcontarTargaryen]

Love that there is a bunch of Serbian/Croatian/Bos.. well Ex-Yugo players in those intakes.

[Ceching You Out]

16 hours ago, TelcontarTargaryen said:

Love that there is a bunch of Serbian/Croatian/Bos.. well Ex-Yugo players in those intakes.

Very cool, isn't it? I love "foreigners" coming through intakes. My only complaint here is I'm trying to grow Liechtenstein and meet Austrian quotas! But I still can't help but enjoy it despite the complications it brings.

 

In other news, boooooo. That takes us down to 9 from 10. Fixing that is doable but will come with a price tag.

[Ceching You Out]

I've spent a good deal of time staring at my squad and trying to figure out how to have my cake and eat it too. But there are too many competing priorities to chase a good squad personality, meet our Austrian quota long-term, avoid relegation, and develop youngsters.

So here's our realistic target -- turn over the worst of the influential bad personalities this summer, leaving the other half for next. Push for the Austrian quota for one more season, recognizing it'll likely be out of reach next. Avoid relegation (duh) but be prepared to scrape it next season if necessary. Give youngsters the opportunities we can afford with the first three goals in mind, knowing there will be more next season.

In practical terms, that means we send Bitsche, Nussbaumer, and Cavafe out the door for whatever cash we can get -- just short of $800K in total. I'm a little disappointed by the combined figure, but we're committing here to the cult of personality. All hail the blessed, Model Citizens! Lead us, Reçber!

[Ceching You Out]

Oh no, our Leader forsakes us for the temptations of Belgium. Isn't that always how the story ends.

EDIT: Scratch that. Rejoice for he is faithful to our cult!

 

Edited January 17 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

57 minutes ago, Ceching You Out said:

I've spent a good deal of time staring at my squad and trying to figure out how to have my cake and eat it too. But there are too many competing priorities to chase a good squad personality, meet our Austrian quota long-term, avoid relegation, and develop youngsters.

So here's our realistic target -- turn over the worst of the influential bad personalities this summer, leaving the other half for next. Push for the Austrian quota for one more season, recognizing it'll likely be out of reach next. Avoid relegation (duh) but be prepared to scrape it next season if necessary. Give youngsters the opportunities we can afford with the first three goals in mind, knowing there will be more next season.

In practical terms, that means we send Bitsche, Nussbaumer, and Cavafe out the door for whatever cash we can get -- just short of $800K in total. I'm a little disappointed by the combined figure, but we're committing here to the cult of personality. All hail the blessed, Model Citizens! Lead us, Reçber!

Well, one of these targets nearly took a hit immediately but we were able to keep Leader Reçber. Didn't take long for another to age poorly either. Three of our bench players have decided they'd rather represent Liechtenstein, which is great, but they did it a game into the season outside an international break? Which means we can't reasonably field 12 Austrians in our matchday squads. Auf wiedersehen, free money.

Guess we'll increase our focus on development then? At least until something throws a wrench in that too!

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2025/2026

 

How's the season going?

Better than expected actually. Why the sudden interest?

No reason.

I'm suddenly suspicious.

No, no. I just genuinely am interested. What's going well?

Well, we seem to be coping with selling some high potential players just fine. We're not pulling up trees but that was never in the cards after we put the focus on Austrian-pot income (immediate failure) and then our cult of personality.

Ahh right. Hail Leader Reçber.

Hail Leader Reçber. We've been unable to convince the board to invest in our Youth Facilities, which is a bit of a damp towel, but I think our intake might be stellar. So all-in-all, a qualified success.

I guess it's safe to say you won't get relegated any time Vidal Sassoon then, eh?

...that was a lot of lather for a callback to shampoo puns. 

 

 

You know what currently grinds my gears? This fine youth was Fairly Professional in March last year with a 16 for Professionalism. Now in November he's Balanced with 11 (!). No off-field events, not even a "bad characteristics of the squad" message that I can recall. So frustrating. I may start tracking key attributes year-over-year to see if our cult is having any impact.

[Ceching You Out]

Well this is new. Probably not an improvement since our current Board has a preference for an amazing youth setup...

 

[Ceching You Out]

After my repeated jokes about 5/5 stars, I stumbled across the always thoughtful @Jimbokav1971 suggesting in his new thread that the letter grades are CA and the stars are PA. That could make sense? So let's pay a little more attention here for a few seasons to see if we can gather any evidence either way.

[Ceching You Out]

Even if it would be a rich benefactor, I'd still prefer things to remain how they are. Good news then.

[Ceching You Out]

Starting off strong in supporting this theory. Best two players by PCA are DR and AML, matching the highest letter grades. Great intake here which introduces 4 of our 5 best players by PA. Personalities worse than last year and much more Austrian/Liechtensteiner intake; not sure if that's random chance or what.

 

21 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

After my repeated jokes about 5/5 stars, I stumbled across the always thoughtful @Jimbokav1971 suggesting in his new thread that the letter grades are CA and the stars are PA. That could make sense? So let's pay a little more attention here for a few seasons to see if we can gather any evidence either way.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2025/2026

 

 A surprisingly solid season given the amount of players we turned over, mostly intentional. We're down to just Marceta and Fetahu from our original group of senior players, and both will be shown the door this summer as part of our continued personality culls. At this rate I think we're two seasons away from actually challenging from promotion.

  

 

I'm leaning quite hard into managing the personality of the squad. Next time I have to do a deep-dive I'll elaborate on how I'm using my U18s and Reserve side to control exposure (or trying to, anyway). I should probably start tracking the hard data at some point too.

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2026/2027

 

 An atrocious start to the season is the only thing standing between us and a legitimately promotion challenge at the moment. In our first 8 games we only picked up points in 4 (2 draws and 2 wins); all three of our attacking midfield band threw a fit when we refused transfer offers for them and it tanked morale, performances, you name it. Despite that we're 4th in xPTS, 3rd in GD. And despite that we sit back in 6th, 10 points behind the leaders. If some combination of our recent form continuing and leaders flaming out, maybe we've still got an outside chance.

I've deliberately slow-rolled some our high potential youngsters, trying to shape their personalities more before they become entrenched members of the first team. Is it working? No idea. Most of our starters are in the 90-100 CA range which is about what's required to be a challenging team.

 

Edited January 23 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

If we're sticking to our hypothesis, this batch of youth is good-ish in PA but poor in CA:

 

The Board continues to shoot down the last Junior Coaching upgrade and any Youth Facilities, so we may plateau for a bit.

[Ceching You Out]

The CA and PA here are good, but those personalities... [chef's kiss]. Doing a little happy dance that our cult of personality will get another big boost here. I still need to do that deep dive on what I've been doing on that front this year. Time is also here since the big milestone at work cleared; now I just need the family to stop getting each other sick. Kids are little disease factories.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2026/2027

 

While I'm a little bit disappointed because my eyes had gone up the table and convinced myself with a good run we could close the gap, ultimately this was a great season. We nearly matched the pace of the champions over the second half of the season (gap only increased 3). And that's an Altach side which blitzed the 2nd division with the most points for a promoted side so far; Liefering put up 77 in 24/25 but is a B-side for Red Bull.

 

This also reflects how well we played, finishing with the top scorer, (25e) Wolfinger. But also, three of the top 5 progressive passers and high xG for (25e) Wolfinger. This doesn't feel like a fluke finish. I think we're a legitimate threat to go up next season.

 

 

 

Edited January 27 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Rather than deep dive into personalities (which, guys, I'm still totally going to do), let's get sidetracked by a transfer experiment. Throughout the season I'd landed on three players we want to sell this window:

 

(24b) Wanger is obviously talented. So why are we getting rid of him? A combination of three factors: (1) he's pushed for the exit already, (2) he's not in our starting pair of DCs and unlikely to be where we prioritize dev minutes, and (3) his personality is middling (Ambition 8, Determination 12, Professionalism 12). Yes, that is becoming middling in our cult of personality, especially the Pro. 

 

(23b) Wenaweser is actually a player I'd like to keep. Determination is a bit low (10), Ambition the same (10), but Professionalism is solid at 14. He's been with us from the beginning, an original youth product. However he's still upset at the end of May that we rejected transfer offers for him in January. Time to cash in on his value.

 

(VDZ 24) Foser, signed from Vaduz in 2024, is our starting GK. He's just about capped out given his, you guessed it, personality (Amb - 10, Det  14, Pro - 10). That level of Professionalism makes him the worst of our regulars by at least 2 points. And he's highly influential.

 

I've stopped just after the season finished, on the day when I received notification of the next season's budgets (May 24). Ostensibly this means other club's should have their funds available. I plan on running through a few scenarios a few times to see which maximizes value. This means trying a tactic, pushing forward a couple days, then reloading. You could make the argument that we'd be better served waiting until a bid comes in for (23b) Wenaweser, but I think moving earlier might open up foreign options that tend to go quickly. Any tactics in particular you'd like to see me try here?

Edited January 27 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

So I tried a few different ways of offloading the above three players and recorded it here:

 

What did I learn? Well, it wasn't as straightforward as I'd hoped. A few tentative conclusions:

• You're never going to maximize value without trying a few things first, probably Agent --> Intermediary --> Transfer List and Intermediary in that order
• Asking Price makes a big difference on outcomes, for both Agent and Intermediary initiated sales. Too high scares off bids or reduces offers; too low leaves a lot of money on the table
• There are weird sweet spots where the transfer AI maximizes your returns, but doesn't entirely operate rationally (unless there's a built in "negotiation" buffer or something opaque like that)
• Finally, in a lot of cases I think price is driven by a limited number of clubs, hence the sensitivity

I may stare at the data again tomorrow, but nothing else jumps out at me in the moment. What did we actually do?

(VDZ24) Foser leaves us for Sampdoria in Serie B. Then funny enough, Premier Division club LASK was behind the bids for both (24b) Wanger and (23b) Wenaweser with only enough cash for one. I sold the former, happily, and will see if I can still get a good price for the latter later in the window. I'm doubtful, for what it's worth. Had we been able to cash in we would've cleared nearly a $1M, which would at least start our season in the black.

 

 

EDIT: Well, what do you know. LASK's interest returned and we cashed in on (23b) Wenaweser anyway. Excellent!

Edited January 28 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Didn't want for him to leave, but once our clueless chairman accepted a bid that meant he was out the door. My personal rules for playing mean I can only play around with different offers to make sure we receive maximum value -- no tricks to keep players, just trying various negotiations much like I'd done with the experiment above (which was actually helpful here).

Chairman had accepted $70K. Seriously, $70K. For a 17 year old 102 CA / 139 PA. Instead we take home a tidy $1.7M which we may be able to parlay into upgrades.

 

EDIT: Ha, swing and a miss on both Youth Facilities and Junior Coaching due to finances. I suppose we'll need to get promoted and/or have another big sale before we'll get one of those through. I'll give both another try next time we have a winning streak to see if that helps at all.

Edited January 28 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

The Board was willing to make this upgrade which... I'm kinda torn on. I mildly regret asking for it, although it is needed more in this save than my last attempt since I'm bringing along players more slowly and working with a larger squad.