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

[Ceching You Out]

We don't make it through the remainder of the transfer window unscathed, with Vienna circling (VDZ 24) Spellecchia until our Chairman snapped a stupid offer. So with a bit of negotiating magic, I'm able to up the fee. He'll see the season out with us on loan.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2027/2028

 

I'm having a hard time matching our performance to how I feel about it. If I take my hand and cover the very top of the table, I'm not sure how I can be any worse than satisfied. 28 points is a haul and essentially on pace for matching last year which would've been a title-challenging total in most years. We've allowed the fewest xG and notched the 5th most. What's not to like?

The fact that we're looking up at Wien. Every dropped point feels like our opportunity this year dribbling away through our leaky fingers. If they could just lose form for a moment and stumble... lose key players to injury... or get bit by turned heads in the transfer window... then I think we can do this. Liefering can't get promoted and I just have this feeling Ried won't stay in the hunt, so promotion feels tantalizingly close.

If at the end of the season we haven't managed promotion, this will feel like a largely wasted year given how much playing time we're sinking into loanees and nearly maxed players. Keep beckoning, sweet regrets.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Good CA full-backs incoming? Decent PA overall? Let's gather another data point, he says scientifically.

 

[Ceching You Out]

I can see the fullbacks as an "A", I suppose. Maybe it's sensitive to volume?

We can definitely use a GK with a higher ceiling, so (28b) Pfiffner is quite welcome. (28d) Hepperle would be great if his Determination wasn't awful; maybe we can turn that around. And then we've got our raft of outside backs who we'll see how they fit.

The rest don't have high enough PA or a strong enough personality to set the right personality path for our U18s.

[Ceching You Out]

Woof, can't lose these kinds of games to the 12th place team. 8 points back with 9 games to play, and a worse GD. Our promotion challenge is teetering on the edge.

 

 

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2027/2028

 

So...did you pull it off?

Good news, everyone!

Congra-- Wait. Isn't that what the old man from Futurama says? And then the news is... not so good.

Professor Farnsworth.

Great, you know his name. What about the promotion chase?

We looked dead and buried after the Kematen result above. Ready for a bouquet and eloquent elegy.

And then?

We closed the gap on SV Reid, battling through four games against the other top five teams. Beating them and Liefering in a row was the peak of our season.

If that was the peak...

How awful. Did we die painlessly?

Huh?

To shreds you say? What about his wife?

I don't think you did that right. All the grace of a cat on rollerskates.

To shreds you say?

 

We finished second in the promotion race (Liefering is ineligible), with a bag of mixed emotions. I was ready to throw in the towel if we fell any further behind after the Kematen result. Then we slowly clawed our way back and had to see it out. Much of that coincided with pushing (27e) Bidermann into the starting lineup at AML, a 6'5" 16 year old that grew to a ridiculous 99 CA / 122 PA by the end of the season despite only substitution appearances for the first two-thirds. He's a cheat code in the air against all but the leapy-est fullbacks.

 

Despite the stretch against Wien, Ried, Liefering, and Horn (the other four top sides) we were excellent to finish the season. Only one win was a snatch and grab, the rest deserved.

 

But two small breaks in the run-in could've changed the outcome. How we didn't win this game against Horn, I do not know. Then Reid snuck a win against mid-table side Bischofshofen after a 90'+2 goal. That four point swing would've seen us through.

 

I also suspect if I had backed off our approach from "Positive" to "Balanced" earlier on we would've picked up more points through the middle third of the season. So we definitely wrap the season with regrets. You'd think we're odds-on promotion contenders for next season but (VDZ 24) Spellecchia and (25c) Vikario will return to the clubs that purchased them in August. Extending them for one more push would come at too great an opportunity cost to our class of 2027 on the cusp of bigger roles. (23e) Hilti will probably be sold to fund the season, so that makes three new starters on top of how we finished the season.

We do have good options in those spots. I think we should still challenge but it will depend how quickly our up-and-comers gel together and grow.

(And for real -- next post will check in our cult of personality. I need to do the analysis anyway to see if my approach bore fruit, or if I've been watering fake plants)

Edited January 30 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

 

Cult of Personality

 

 

Is this a recurring segment, worthy of it's own header? Who knows! Let's see what we find, or at least whether anyone finds this an interesting detour.

First, context - I'm playing with the In-Game Editor (IGE) enabled so I've got access to the hidden attributes. I've actually quite liked playing that way but, more importantly for this point, it means I've been collecting full attribute data each year on the date of youth intake. March 2026 will be our baseline; I made a concerted effort starting that summer to do a few different things. March 2027 will be our first year, March 2028 the second, plus May 2028 as our far-from-evenly-spaced finish line.

Working backwards, our current squad personality is impressive. I'm pretty happy with where we're at, but I believe there's one more notch above this that I'd love to hit ("Ultra Professional").

Here's an information-overload view of our top 30 or so players by PA at the club in May 2028, sorted by appearances. B Team and loanees make this less obvious, but the lowest players by Professionalism that see play are stand-outs (23e) Hilti with 12 and (VDZ 24) Spellecchia with 13. Not too shabby.

 

Until we dive into the numbers, it's a bit hard to know which (if any) actions to attribute this to.

• In summer 2026 I changed our captain to (25i) Begic, a Model Citizen, replacing (VDZ 24) Traber. (24d) Ospelt was our vice captain, starting the year before
• In summer 2027 I changed our captain to (26d) Weirather and bumped (25i) Begic down to vice
• (VDZ 24) Traber remained very influential regardless and was our primary tutor
• Where possible, I mentored with (25i) Begic and (24d) Ospelt but it was a constant game of whack-a-mole to use their "Light" influence on players who wouldn't in turn change them (influence "None")
• I distributed our youths with questionable personalities across the three squads (senior, B, U18) to try to get each weighted towards Professional rather than go all-in with one at the expense of others
• In a large part this was driven by my belief that the excellent personalities of solid B players (24e) Hahn and (24k) Goop could be leveraged as influencers as captain and vice-captain for my B team
• I also tried tutoring with these two, but that proved more challenging that I thought

A few observations:

• Some players did see a 2-3 point jump in Professionalism, as called out by notifications. Another couple seemed to have changes without them
• Overall, there were far fewer notifications about mentoring changes and general squad characteristics than I expected to see given how heavily our squad is weighted towards Professionalism
• I'm not sure how much, say, Determination or Pressure changed over this period since my eye was primarily drawn to Professionalism
• I'd wager that our squad has at least half a dozen players that would be Model Citizen but are Professional/Light-Hearted instead since one or two attributes are only 1-2 points too low

What I'm hoping to find:

• Our senior squad moved significantly towards Professionalism, with moderate gains in Determination, Pressure, and (maybe) Ambition
• Our U18 squad moved similarly, despite the high concentration we started with
• Our B squad improved, although maybe not as much

Time to do some Excel analysis and report back!

[Ceching You Out]

Who likes tiny charts? Apologies for the loose formatting here. I'd fix if this was for a client, but I think it's sufficient to get the point across. I'm just going to freeform my observations and try to summarize at the end.

For the record, the order right to left is:

• Ambition
• Professionalism
• Determination
• Loyalty
• Consistency
• Temperament
• Pressure
• Versatility
• Adaptability
• Dirtiness
• Sportsmanship
• Injury Proneness
• Controversy
• Important Matches

Total Personality Changes

 

These are the total attribute changes for the 47 players who were with us at least one full year between March 2026 and May 2028. Big oof. I'm poking at the numbers and this seems to be legitimate. We've generally made our players worse! Very impressive.

Looking more critically, there are some positives here. Determination, Consistency, Temperament have all improved. Then the obvious big hits to Ambition, Professionalism and Loyalty; more specifically the damage was done here. Things would look rosier without these drops.

 

I remember (25d) Frick getting hit and being sad. He'd originally been one of the Professional personalities. The Professionalism hit for (25b) Fehr could be similar - (VDZ 24) Foser was a very influential personality with lower Pro & Amb (10). I'm shocked at the others. We clearly don't have any players with rock bottom Ambition or Professionalism that would explain (25f) Terzic or (26e) Hilti. Intra-individual changes then?

 

I'll spare y'all the rest of the evidence, but here's what I'm walking away with:

• Our squad personality has not been as beneficial as anticipated. I think that's because we've had so few highly influential players in our hierarchy, which may drive the frequency of positive "general squad characteristics" events too
• Mentoring is still the largest driver (for us so far, anyway), both at the senior and B level. I can't recognize any impact from U18 mentoring, tricky as it is to find players with influence
• Personalities did not change as much as I thought behind the scenes given I can recognize a wide swathe of them came with notifications, mentoring or otherwise
• Players who stayed within the U18 squad generally didn't seem to change, despite highly influential players within the hierarchy

Safe to say our cult of personality has largely been driven by how our players came in plus my hype. If only there was a phrase to describe something largely built on narrative rather substantive facts...

[Ceching You Out]

Assorted off-season news:

 

C'mon, man! We're going the wrong way here.

 

[Ceching You Out]

As planned, we ship off (23e) Hilti before the season starts. $500K + $100K in installments + $100K if he plays (and he has been) PLUS a 50% profit clause is good business. Value could jump since he is getting game time in the (Austrian) Premier Division.

 

(25f) Terzic is a funny case. A terrible personality (<8 in Amb, Pro, Det) but decent talent (76 CA / 117 PA). After shipping him out on loan last season, he drew a bidding war from $50K that ended in quite a fee. More than I expected to be honest. I nearly took the initial bid from an Eredivisie team for $0 just for a sell-on clause punt.

 

And finally a deadline transfer I desperately did not want to do. (26d) Weirather was earmarked as our long-term captain, but instead our Chairman wanted to accept silly offers. I played back negotiations a few times before landing on the deal below. I'm not sure how relevant the Buy Back will be, but if we get promoted it may potentially be a way to snap him back.

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2028/2029

 

It's taken some grinding after another flat start, but we're in the promotion mix. Lustenau started ridiculously, including a win against us in a tight game, so happy to still be in striking distance. They've nearly matched their points total from last year already, so if I were a betting man I'd say they're likely to trail off some in the second half of the season. But I thought the same for SV Reid last year and instead they won the title, so take my betting "locks" with a grain of salt or four.

To be honest, I'm so so ready to get promoted just to get our player values to normalize. Right now everyone is undervalued and that means fighting off destabilizing bids every transfer window. Emotionally exhausting.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Still not quite sure what to make of these. Leading hypothesis says good PA, weak CA especially beyond the Cs. But I'm not sure I've seen much of a significant connection.

 

I do know what to make of this, however -- infuriating. In the middle of a promotion charge our Board accepts a paltry $300K bid. I protest and then renege. Until the $375K bid the next day where it's simply too good to resist (again). Lunacy, when I can get twice that plus a profit clause when negotiating myself (below). And he'll be worth 3x even that amount if we get promoted. Such horrid short-term thinking. We need promotion to get higher player values and cool off the interest to save us from our selves.

[Ceching You Out]

A good intake in terms of PA, but an inexplicable step back in terms of personalities. Made me double check that our glorious Cult Leader is still in charge, and he is. We'll need some mentoring magic to turn some of these around.

[Ceching You Out]

It all comes down to the last four games. We've got a 3 point lead over Leoben and 4 points over Wien, plus GD (at least for now). Liefering can't get promoted but could win the title, and definitely will have a say in who goes up since they play all three of us.

Lustenau has the easiest run-in but thankfully they're all but written out. If they could snatch points from Leoben though... we might even send our rival a gift basket if that happens.

 

[Ceching You Out]

First round of matches:

• Lustenau does indeed beat Leoben
• We lose to Liefering on a stoppage time goal after out-playing them. Oof.
• Wien beats Bischofhofen

We're now 2nd on GD, but still leading the promotion chase by a point over WIen. Who we play after they play Liefering.

[Ceching You Out]

Second round of matches:

• Leoben loses to Klagenfurt, essentially ending their hopes
• Up a goal to Kematen, we miss a PK. Then a straight red, immediately followed by the drawing goal. We're bottling this.
• Wien beats LIefering 2-0

Now we really need to beat Wien on a short turnaround match. Otherwise we need a draw and Kematen to have the same luck on the last day.

[Ceching You Out]

Third round of matches:

Heartbreak. They score with their first shot of the game -- a corner to the far 6 yard box. Yes, in minute 48. Another year in the First Division. Just absolutely crushing to lose it like this.

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2028/2029

 

 

 

xG tells the story. We should've won the league, but instead underperformed in attack and significantly on the defensive side.

 

In positive news, I figured out we were only two subs away from qualifying for this again so finished out the season with some bonus cash. So we've got that going for us. Will it stem the tide of bids I'm expecting this summer? No, dear reader, it will not. I will be holding on to my ass with both hands. To make sure the Chairman doesn't accept a bid for it.

Edited February 2 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Hey, finally one of these I'm not raging about! A solid deal for a third starter/rotational player. Good work, Board!

[Ceching You Out]

This graphic is single-handedly helping me emotionally recover from last season. Wien (26), RB Salzburg (24), and Vienna (21) are cut off because of FM's weird windows, but we're on the list of leading supplier of players to the Premier Division. Keep in mind, we're not even in the Premier Division yet ourselves. I like it.

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2029/2030

 

You feeling up to one of these? The tears into a pint of Haagen Dazs was just sad. The first time. Then I couldn't keep watching.

It was salted caramel so I was just enhancing the flavor. Because I happy about how delicious it was.

Definitely. Those are words of someone on a winning streak.

Grandpa always used to say -- when things are going against you, get out there and exorcise.

Well, exercise is a good way to raise your endorphins and--

Exorcise.

[sigh] You mean--

Exorcising last seasons demons. And I must say, we're setting a fast pace and getting our heart rate up so far.

 

[Ceching You Out]

If our hypothesis is right, this means bad CA and bad PA. Hooray!

[Ceching You Out]

What debts? Even though we'll dip into the negatives over the winter break, we're not there yet. And we'll quickly pop back with our Austria pot payment that is only 3 games away.

Surely they don't mean this paltry thing?

[Ceching You Out]

The last two under Board Culture ought to be interesting. Hopefully I can finish off promotion and then have some leeway to negotiate them away; they just laughed at me when I tried that now.

[Ceching You Out]

I'd spent the afternoon daydreaming about how far we might be able to push this Cult of Personality concept, given how well I'd laid the foundation. Our captain (27a) Hug was already Highly Influential at 18 and he had the potential to bump up another player's 1-2 attributes to start a chain reaction. I say "had", because our Board was willing to accept $125K on deadline day after refusing lower bids the entire window.

Absolutely infuriating. This was the only time in the save I'd considered pulling out an FM trick to keep a player. It is just a game after all, and one I want to enjoy. (27a) Hug was shaping up to be the central figure going forward. In the end I stuck to my "renegotiate but player still goes" rule. I think abandoning that undercuts the challenge here, and would thieve more joy than it'd return. So I played negotiations back to square away a much larger fee and a buyback, although a sell-on clause was impossible to make happen without chopping the fee in half.

The new Board is starting out on the wrong foot. Rapid is becoming a personal rivalry.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Second 2030 intake here since the game crashed after the first. Better from the very brief look I had -- previous best player was another GK and overall PA was worse before (I think).

[Ceching You Out]

I think we've got the best run-in here with Lustenau and Hartberg both having significantly harder paths. Ried, trying to return to the top division at first asking, should be too far back. Need to be goldfish here -- memories of last year purged for positive thoughts.

[Ceching You Out]

Matching wins in the first round of matches kept us and Lustenau level. A 90'+2 winner for us against Amstetten gave us a two point lead when Lustenau failed to topple Klagenfurt. We dominated Vorwaerts Steyr in what looked to be the clincher, but Lustenau responded with a deep stoppage time goal of their own to beat lowly Bregenz.

So it all comes down to the final matchday of the season - if we at least draw versus 14th placed Kapfenberger (which would see them relegated), we win regardless of Lustenau's result. If we lose, then we need help from Liefering to at least take a point at home against our rivals.

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2029/2030

 

So, the obvious question: how'd it go on the final day?

Smooth. Then, not so smooth.

Uh oh...

(27e) Biedermann, our 6'5" giraffe powered home a header from a corner inside the first 10 minutes. Felt like we things might end on an anticlimactic note. But we couldn't hold on for even the next 10 before conceding a screamer from the edge of the box. The tide turned against us. Kapfenberger smashed a shot off the underside of the bar... and back out. Knuckles whitened as we tried to keep grasp of the game despite the reversal of momentum. That burst was all they had; one way traffic resumed. 2-1 before half, before piling on to finish 4-1.

And in the end it didn't matter because Lustenau could only pull back level against Liefering. Promoted, and champions at that.

About time.

I want to argue, but honestly I agree. This was the third season running we had a serious chance to go up.

What next then?

Well, we sell some players in the summer to manage squad personality and cash balances (as we always do). I'll check in with some of our recent departures to see if I can convince them to rejoin us, although my expectations are low there. Then we try to stay up. Famous last words, but I think we'll be okay.

Sounds like--

I also think, despite our recent setback with (27a) Hug's departure, that we'll focus heavily in the short term on our Cult of Personality. Europe may be another half dozen years off, so we'll need another way to show progress. I may have figured out a more cohesive, effective approach and we can see if the data supports it.

Anything else? You seem to have a lot on your mind there since you cut me off.

I'd ask you if you want a Hug, but it's me. I'm the problem, it's me. I need a Hug.

...Taylor Swift, now?

And a bad hug pun. What can I say, I'm a man of culture. At least when we're winning.

 

Largely our starting line-up and rotational players here. 110+ CA is good for the next level, so you can see we're roughly 50/50 compared to that mark.

 

And, quite possibly for the first time, we end the season significantly in the black. Our Chairman giving away Hug(s) is the larger chunk of it, but we'd still have been positive without it. The Austrian pot payments are delightful when you can hit them contorting your lineup. We've been strangely buoyed by only our (questionable) back-ups switching to represent Liechtenstein. That's a problem in the long-term, but for now it's helpful to the tune of $1.5M+ a year.

Edited February 5 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Another side effect of promotion (besides turning Professional) -- I can finally talk the Board into this:

 

And after cashing in a nearly $1M sell-on fee for (26d) Weirather, the Board is suddenly amenable to this as well:

Edited February 6 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Well, we won't be hurting for money for a bit. The Board was ready to accept (relatively) meager bids for (26e) Hilti so we maximized offers and out he goes for a hefty sum. I'm honestly less sad about this one. He's 91 CA /138 PA @ 20 and struggling to close the gap because of a miserable personality (15 Det/7 Amb/8 Pro) I haven't been able to turn around despite being with us for ~5 years.

 

 

After the already planned, extensive sales, we're sitting with > $5M in the bank. Time to upgrade Training Facilities just as soon as the Board will let us request it again.

 

EDIT: Took until October but here we are. Completes before the youth intake too, which could be a big plus.

Edited February 6 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

When (27f) Aedtner agreed that an "acceptable" bid was $7M I thought we'd successfully priced him out of a move. Then RB Salzburg bid and let us negotiate this frankly ridiculous amount of money.  I guess we need to stay up so we can use it.

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2030/2031

 

Despite the fantastic incoming fees and the promising facility news off the pitch, on the grass we've been poor. We should be two spots better by xG and that matches my subjective experience so far. We've just lacked killer instinct to get games over the finish line due to bad luck and boneheaded decisions. We've conceded 7 (!) penalties so far, 4 worse than the next. And that was 7 in 12 before we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot.

5 more games until we split into the Relegation Group, points get halved, and it becomes all about out competing at least one of our fellow bottom dwellers.

 

With the unexpected windfall and struggles, I've brought former player (26b) Dabrowski back on loan. We'll pay a minimum of $70K, but the rest will be set by the % of minutes he plays. As one of our top three players by CA, he'll slot right into the line up and hopefully help us put the ball in the net while staying healthy. Should things go off the rails and we can't reliably play him ~90 minutes every game (e.g., an injury), we'll immediately cancel the loan to prevent the $650K charges from totaling up.

I honestly wrestled with making this move. It's certainly not value for money even if he's a workhouse -- I'd be happy with a $330K total outlay that has him playing 90% of minutes. If we weren't flush with cash and desperate for points, I don't think I could pull the trigger. Knowing we have an out helps, and we'll be prepared to overpay a little if he's making a difference.

[Ceching You Out]

This is just... [delirious laughing].

Easily the best intake I've had on any version of FM, at least that I was aware of. 10 players 115+ PA. 5 players 125+. 2 players 135+. And then the creme de la creme, a bona fide star. Personalities are solid, maybe even borderline great. (31a) Jumabaev, the Kyrgyzstani wizard, and (31f) Itter are 1 point of Loyalty from being Model Citizens. Only 4 of the 10 have Pro < 13, and they're all 9-11. I can work with this, and our Academy is going to be stocked.

For posterity, here's (31d) Starke:

[Ceching You Out]

In a bit of luck, we get (31a) Jumabaev to pop to Model Citizen from "Light" mentoring not two weeks after coming through. 

 

Woof, then we immediately after we get the far worse end of things. Away he goes, albeit having given us a boost in both points and morale. We've won 3 of 5 heading into the Relegation Group. I'd love to keep him, but he'll miss at least half our games -- potentially more like two thirds. Not going to pay a $1M for that.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Spending that windfall as soon as our Board will let us. I missed the notification, but we've also got Training Facilities upgrading by September as well.

 

...and (31f) Itter pops too. Very nice! I may be (re)learning an old FM tutoring lesson -- do similar personalities still see the most change? They had similar positions too, which likely has an impact as well.

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2030/2031

 

Three points adrift at the bottom of the table in January isn't a very promising position.

How could you say something like that?

At the end of last season you were predicting you'd be fine. Last doesn't feel very...fine.

No, no. I'd never say that. Hubris isn't in my nature.

I quote: "Then we try to stay up. Famous last words, but I think we'll be okay".

Maybe you're taking that out of context?

No.

Fine, you got me. Things looked desperate in January. We took a risky loan of (26b) Dabrowski in January to make sure our attack was better than needed for the Premier Division. He lasted five games before picking up a several week injury that would've cost us $1M+ in fees. Whether it was that, or the shift to (27e) Biedermann up top and our AM playing more attacking, natural progression, or just the right bounces resetting our morale -- our season turned around. We comfortably avoided the drop, finishing 2nd in the Relegation Group and a path to Europe opening up.

Feeling verbose today, eh?

Relegation battles get me feeling some sort of way. I think the sequence in our last attempt where we went winless for 18 matches in a 30 game season and (1) didn't get fired, then (2) stayed up on the last day might be my favorite FM memory ever.]

Anyway, we should be settled in the Premier Division now. We lose (27f) Aedtner to RB Salzburg after his loan concludes. (26e) Hilti similarly returns to Stuttgart although he'll be far less missed. We'll clear out 4-5 players, largely loan players or now-backups outside (LTC 26) Grünenfelder who is worth cashing in on.

 

"Regular Season"

 

Relegation Group

Altach really took a dive, picking up only 4 points in the Relegation Group and plummeting to the First Division as a result. I love how the Championship/Relegation Groups shake up the end of the season, and they actually work well for an Academy save like this. We can take more risks blooding players in the "Regular Season" and hopefully be in better shape when we really need results.

 

Next season I expect that we'll be near the top of the Relegation Group. Our reserves will be very young even for us, but we'll bring back a pretty settled first 11 unless the Board sells over our heads. Our bank account is healthy and players valued pretty robustly, so that should be less of a concern as well. Two topics for our next deep dive -- checking in on the Liechtensteiner National Team and our Cult of Personality.

[TelcontarTargaryen]

Now, the charge towards the upper echelons of the top league.

[Ceching You Out]

I was able to talk the board into this. It may be a bit aggressive financially as it leaves us sub-$4M in the bank but I'd like to really max these now in the expectation that we'll see returns in how quickly some of our poorer personality you improves. We're at 14/12/20/20, so I think this will take us to 16ish for Training.

 

[Ceching You Out]

7 minutes ago, TelcontarTargaryen said:

Now, the charge towards the upper echelons of the top league.

The distance is substantial, but we spent 7 years churning just to get promoted. I think we'll get there eventually! One of the reasons I liked the challenge here -- there are such dominant domestic sides to overcome. But I'd be happy for just a little taste of Europe when we can.

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2031/2032

 

I'll skip most of my usual editorializing since, for once, my expectations were spot on. We're a mid-table side. Decidedly worse than Salzburg, Sturm Graz, and even a down-year Rapid. We're in the next tier with Wolfsberger, Vienna, and Wacker Moedling. If we can beat one we're in the Champions Group, two we've got a decent shot at Conference League, all three we're in the Europa League. I'd bet on the former right now, but still much to play for as we head into the business end of the season.

 

Let's see how well this predicted our intake. Lowish-CA but high-ish PA?

 

CMs and AMs check out as the highest PCA, followed by Wingers. I'd say overall PA is actually worse than indicated. Positives: one Model Citizen plus the best of the group, (32g) Sulzbacher, is one Loyalty point from popping. To be fair, I'm not all that upset by a mediocre intake since our depth charts are already clogged with 120-130+ PA players. We've been getting poached less so players are starting to pile up.

Good problem to have, but still.

Edited February 13 by Ceching You Out

[Ceching You Out]

Post-season 2031/2032

 

A draw on the last day of the "Regular Group" meant we were guaranteed a top half finish even results went against us elsewhere. They didn't, so it was quite comfortable in the end. I'd hoped to sneak 5th and a shot at Europa Conference League.

 

Instead, we managed 4th after Rapid absolutely imploded. They're easily a top 3 side, but their long-term coach of 9 years hit the skids and decided to join Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga in April. They slipped a bit further, then finished with an unlikely win to nab 5th then comfortably beat the best placed team from the Relegation Group to still get a taste of Europe.

 

This is the worst I've seen a team perform in a 32 game season. Sure, LASK lost 4 points when the table got halved, but 13 is awful. And they still had a chance to stay up with two games left because Blau-Weiss was only fractionally better.

 

Just a sign of how far we've come. What appears to be three relegated seasons in the distant past of the 60s then our most recent two.

 

So we venture into the Europa League to test our mettle. No real expectations for how we might match up against other EL sides. I'll be happy with a bit of cash before we crash out of EL and then EC. Besides that, we've got our usually pruning of the squad for cash and focus on cultivating our Cult of Personality. More to come on both those, plus Europe.

[Ceching You Out]

Europe 2032/2033

 

 

In the first match we give up a goal in the 3rd, then immediately leave a backpass short to play in an attacker. Somehow we rally to take the lead 2-1 before settling for a point in the face of a Standard Liege onslaught. The home leg was a beating, but the final scoreline isn't all that unfair in the grand scheme of things.

Their $30-46M rated striker scored a hattrick of offside goals in the first leg, followed by two legitimate goals in the second. He's 135 CA and their 8th best player by that metric. We are out of our depth at this level, even more so with the super young backups we're having to play given I haven't been keeping significant depth behind our starters. This certainly puts into perspective the level of player that's relevant for us long-term.

Edited February 15 by Ceching You Out

[SovietTea]

On 13/01/2024 at 08:27, 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 

Multiple languages in Switzerland. They have German, Italian in the south and French in the west. 

Even though Liechtenstein is German, being based in Switzerland, the game must be trying to get the players to learn each language in a country.

This does make me wonder about other countries with more than one official 'main' language. In the Finnish leagues do you have to send players to learn Swedish? 

When in Quebec, does it make the players learn French or English?

[Ceching You Out]

Europe 2032/2033

 

We get Norwegian club Odd and are considered favorites. To be honest, just playing a team not in an active league should be a big advantage.

A disappointing draw after a horribly misplaced goal kick in the 90'+4th lead to a ridiculous finish off both posts. So we head to Norway with the tie on a knife's edge.

 

 

We dominated, even before their pair of second yellows, and got just enough for it. Our first European success.

 

We've got this two-legged tie versus CSKA Sofia for a spot in the... [checks notes] League Phase. Not the Group Stage any more. Without doing any xIncome calculations, feels like we'd come out a few $M ahead between results and gate receipts. Plus extra games to grow our youth and raise our reputation.

 

3-0 away, 2-1 at home with a heavily rotated side. Easy as you like. League Phase here we come!

 

Most of my "edits" on here are just working around forum idiosyncrasies with copying from old posts, but legit EDIT:

[heart eyes] This takes us to nearly $7M in the bank. Our finances are seriously stabilizing.

Edited February 15 by Ceching You Out

[_Ben_]

15 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

Just a sign of how far we've come. What appears to be three relegated seasons in the distant past of the 60s then our most recent two.

Lost track of this for a while and come back to see where you are now: great achievement!

Can I see some of your better players please? The mentoring and youth development must be working wonders...

[Ceching You Out]

5 hours ago, SovietTea said:

Multiple languages in Switzerland. They have German, Italian in the south and French in the west. 

Even though Liechtenstein is German, being based in Switzerland, the game must be trying to get the players to learn each language in a country.

This does make me wonder about other countries with more than one official 'main' language. In the Finnish leagues do you have to send players to learn Swedish? 

When in Quebec, does it make the players learn French or English?

Very interesting! I wonder if somewhere as multi-lingual as Switzerland the primary language is set by region. If so, Belgium would likely be similar.

I do recall that for some languages in game, for example the family that Serbian is part of, if a player learns one they get a decent chunk % knowledge of the others. Supposed to reflect the similarities across those. Could that apply to Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian as well?

[Ceching You Out]

1 hour ago, _Ben_ said:

Lost track of this for a while and come back to see where you are now: great achievement!

Can I see some of your better players please? The mentoring and youth development must be working wonders...

Glad to have you checking back in!

Here's what our squad looks like at the moment with our typical starters, subs, and others I'm keeping a keen eye on:

 

By CA, (27e) Biedermann and (26c) Kaiser are our best players. Let me know if any of the others catch your eye!

I love his profile, so so much. He's a fast, mostly two footed giraffe with okay-ish technique. Playing in the German part of the world, I'd take 10x more (27e) Biedermanns. My only real complaint is that he falls short of the (extremely) high personality bar I'm setting.

 

(26c) Kaiser is our biggest mentoring success story so far. He came through as Fairly Loyal with borderline bad hidden attributes and he's now 4ish points away from Model Citizen. Granted he's unlikely to make it, but he's close enough to not get the boot once he's become influential in the squad. I've always fancied giving him a try in our BWM(d) role in midfield, but we've been short at DC in this save.

Intake:

Last Year:

 

 

 

[Ceching You Out]

Europe 2032/2033 (continued)

An unexpected computer restart ate my draft with the proper screenshot, so this will have to suffice. Ahead of any matches, I'd say this is two losses (Sporting, Utrecht) and four opponents where we're favored (at least on neutral ground). That may be enough to see us through? To be honest, I'm not too worried. The cash we've already generated plus a win or two (>$500K per) fills our coffers. Much needed, because I'm finding out I'm going to have to actually pay my players to extend now that we're a top half side in the Premier Division.

 

So far we've lost away to Silkeborg in a match where anyone who was fit started and crushed Slovan Liberec at home in a game even less competitive than the scoreline. 

[Ceching You Out]

Mid-season 2032/2033

 

We've done just about enough in the league so far. We're a clear top half team, but barely keeping touch with the teams above us. Thankfully the league format suits us here - once we split, points are halved and I like our chances of hauling back at least one of the Vienna or Admira Wacker if we're only 2-3 points behind. Most likely the latter -- they're outperforming so far and that usually means players and/or manager get poached in January. That would keep us in line for another Europa Conference appearance.

 

We've done about as well as can be expected in the current EC. Playoff place secured after 3 wins and 3 losses, with a nice $1.5M in winnings. No expectations that we'll pull up any trees here. I think we'd be competitive against maybe a third of the playoff sides, and that's likely to get worse as Europa teams join us. Actually wait, looks like that doesn't happen until the R16.

 

If I put much stock in these, I'd be salivating at these two As as harbingers of CA. I'm skeptical though. I'd be happy for those to be the prominent positions though. Most STs can be trained to play across our front 3, and DMs slotted into DC and/or CM.