P O\'D

Given the fact I've developed and sold a couple of them it completely skews everything (regardless of how much. I think a restart is fair as the reach of this is beyond just the players. Confident I have the tactics and knowledge now to nail down the challenge in 20 seasons or so anyway if I go again in Belgium.

Gonna have to start again. When I checked my profile it said I signed 12 players, had no idea how but when I sort through my transfer history it shows 12 of my youth academy players all showing as signings on free transfers. Super disappointed, but my own fault (I generally holiday between matches) and their deadline passed before they confirmed. Super depressing as I had just won the league (my actual play time is 3 seasons ahead of what I've posted.) Depressing but we'll go again as I feel with Lokeren is quite possible to do quickly with the right board takeover to improve YF. Maybe I'll try a new country. Infuriating cause by my own rushing around. 18 seasons down the drain but the rules is the rules. I'm now in 40/41 and not a single one of those players made it at the club. A real motivation killer.

Lokeren Tense 36-37 Europe: Another amzing run this time in the Europa, brought to and end by a team we should have done better against. 9-5 vs Sevilla being the highlight. Can't help but feel we could have had our 2nd European trophy given no big guns made the business end of this one. Belgium: We were too far off to make a real challenge and 6th was the best I felt we could do so I played safe and took the easy route in 7th. Back in the conference league but necessary as the chance of missing out on top 4 was too high this term. Belgian Cup: A deep run all the way to the final and a 1-0 heartbreak. At least we showed up this campaign. Can't help but feel with Brugge having a poor season by their standards this was our big chance and we blew it. The Squads: Stats: Youth: Looks like a good crop and both De Meyer and Simeus look like they could already play as rotation players. Hopeful. Youth Picks: Other Stuff: Only notable upgrade was coaches allowed... The Club: What finance bug? Grinding the Conference League is a great way for co-ef point lol. Almost in the top 20.

Lokeren Tense 35-36 Season. So could we follow up last seasons Euro success and 3rd place finish? Well no, no we couldn't. The game refactored how good it thought we were and we had a tough time for the first half of the campaign. Europe Champions League We began the season in the CL Qualfiiers and Rangers quickly showed us we were out of our depth. That said it was 1-1 in the 2nd leg after and hour and a red card ended up but we were outplayed in both games. Europe Europa League: Losing to Rangers should have put us in a Europa Playoff but for some reason we started in the group stage, I have no idea why, bug maybe? Either way 4 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss in the groups was super impressive and though we narrowy missed out on auto qualification for the Last 16, I was quite happy. Atalanta were in no mood to underestimate us though and only losing 10-5 really flattered us. It could have been 15. Europa Table Belgian League: In the league we didn't do as well as last season but did make the Champions group and a fine 4th place. 5 wins 1 draw and 4 losses in the Champions Group is not as amazing as last season but still super given our ability in relation to our rivals. We really are abject failures when it comes to the Belgian Cup. The Squad: The Stats: 3.5 Star + Players: Youth: Youth Picks: Off the Pitch. Not alot to report bar a coaching upgrade.

Lokeren Tense 34-35 European Glory on the back of a nice draw! Crazy, we consistently batter Sociedad (San Sebastian). Our first trophy in the bag and its a biggie. Conference League Table and Other Results: In the league I went balls out to do as well as I could and we had a brilliant performance. We're such strong finishers. 7-1-2 in the Champions group. Even Brugge only went 5-3-2 I have no idea why we consistently do so well in Europe and these end of season qualifiers but somehow conspire to struggle in the league. Fully expecting a title push next season on the back of this though. 5 home wins from 5 games also. Its weird cause it feels like we're still miles behind Brugge and Genk (despite the latters struggles) as they consistently destroy us away from home. We've got a cracking record vs Anderlecht though. We really have to get our January to March form sorted if we want a title challenge. The cup yet again was a washout. Shocking loss to a poor Westerlo team. I gotta stop setting low bonuses for it I think. The Squads: Stats: Star Players (We now have 8 players of 3.5 or higher stars): Youth: My HoyD is really excited for Reynders and Chibani. Hopefully one of them is a similar talent to last seasons Noah Cruz (who is a baller). Youth Picks of the Bunch: Other Stuff: (Theres alot) I practically can't fail getting into Europe now. I've spoiled this is the discussion earlier but finally YF upgrade became available. I'm spending that Euro Conference money like crazy. Sorry for such a big post, its a lot of images lol.

Life imitating art .

I probably should have put this in the post above but midway through the next season and "Oh my". This kids gotta be something special right? He could single handedly end the finances bug for 3-4 seasons.

Lokeren Tense 33-34 Another season where we made Conference League QF's. Unreal. We could have went further but a poor showing vs Sparta (in both legs). Still pretty good all in all. In all honesty though I don't think we'd have had anything for Spurs or Vigo in the later rounds so happy enough. In the league we had a decent season and showed how good we are compared to the mid table sides winning 8 and drawing 2 of the back 10 in the Euro Qualifiers to return to the conference league. We could probably kick on but I feel its way too difficult to come top 4 out of the 6 that get there. I didn't cheese it or anything but I did strategically rotate the team to make sure we didn't pip to 6th in the main season. The Belgian Cup was much ado about nothing. The Squad Heres the squad with stats. Amazing campaign from Ortmann. I really need to remove headers from my stats though. Others And heres the attributes and main page of our stars. Youth: 12 players that were rated either elite or top had me super happy. Some dodgy mentalities but positive nonetheless. Noah Cornez and Henkes look the standouts, Cornez could probably already play DM for us, his mentals in particular are fantastic. Its a position where we are strong though. henkes also quite good but again in a position where we are super strong and deep. This is probably the strongest youth pull we've had though. Keep an eye on our 34's going forward. Picks of the Bunch. Not alot happened off the pitch so it kind of as you were finances and facilities wise. We're in a pretty good spot right now. As long as we can griend the Conference League to combat the finances bug we'll be golden.

We'll still be relying on the lucky chairman takeover. I've got mind up a bit after the 2nd takeover at Lokeren as this chairman actually values youth. It is possible just a pain in the butt. No changes to Belgium in the patch sadly. Think SI don't know how to fix it honestly. Its been bugged since last year iirc.

Lokeren Tense 32-33 I thought we overachieved last couple of seasons but that didn't appear to be the case. We did amazingly well in Europe making the Conference League Quarter Finals (having only the Belgian league loaded helps alot with this). We beat Napoli twice and drew with them once, eliminating them in the last 16. All 3 games were against the run of play but who cares lol. Newcastle though were a different beast and the tie was over 25 minutes into the first leg. Other European Stuff. Conference League Table. In the league we established ourselves as the best of the rest. Comfortable season. Our cup run was the deepest we've went in the cup. Narrowly losing to Antwerp who in turn got crushed by the Brugge machine that are hoovering up Belgian titles like they're the only team in the league. The Squad: Accidentally cropped stats. Its apps, goal, gp90, headers (no idea how that got in there) Assists and ap90 before rating. Rest of the Squad And the Star Players of said Squad: Youth Intake: The Pick of the bunch from this years crop. Awards: Around the Club: Yup thats right another takeover. Nobody wants this money pit. Despite not being as easy to bully this chairman to my whims we made some good off field progress before the buy out. Finally for anyone interested in how the world of football is shaping up, heres the changes in the holiday season and decade since I took over. I'm actually a full season ahead of this point right now. So will likely post tomorrow too, to catch back up.

Wow man the detail and depth you go to is super impressive and here i am holidaying and simming half my matches. I feel so inferior.

Lokere Tense 31-32 Season. So this was a hella busy season and we really punched above our weight in our 2nd European campaign. We suffered a little in the league for it but came good in the end with our best ever run of form to return to the Conference League for a 3rd straight season. 9 wins in our 10 playoff division games. Super impressed. Antwerp really shouldn't have caved the way they did. They beat us in the 2nd playoff game to go 10 points clear of us and then completely capitulated. I learned about using friendlies to turn form around and used the 2 week break after gameweek 29 to really put us in a happy place going in to the playoffs (nothing like 3 x 15-0 wins to boost morale). Europe was amazing with us punching way above our weight. Have no idea what happened vs VTSC in the first leg, think I messed my team talk up. Euro Conference Table: Not that anyone cares about it but heres the Belgian Cup run. All 2 games of it Squad and Stats: As usual heres our star players. Youth: Youth intake was the same as usual, good potential combined with trash mentalities. But we did get a couple of balanced in there. And the best potentials from the intake: Transfers: Ristic was a player who featured heavily in all my previous posts but he was demanding 7k a week to stay and alas I wasn't paying that so I continued my tradition of selling my best players. Other Major Stuff: Well first off was the Takeover and while it didn't change much it changed enough to where I could bully the chairman into doing what I wanted. Sadly he didn't care enough about youth to boost the youth facilities but we made strides everywhere else. And boy did I make hay while the sun shone. I just kept telling him he has no ambition and he kept folding so... 2 YR improvements taking us from above average to Excellent. A TF upgrade, and JC upgraded from good to excellent. That'll do softtouch chairman, that'll do. Things are really turning around. If we have another decent Euro campaign I should have all but erased the finance bug issue in Belgium (at least for me). I do find managing at this level is more moral manager than anything tactical etc... But onwards and upwards for hopefully a top 6 place (which I'll only hold if we're guaranteed top 4) if we're not I'll likely aim for 7th again and an easier run to get into Europe.

Yeah thats why I released the player... it just felt wrong still having him. Just glad it wasn't one of my top players who I had open at the time.

Wow dude, so close. Did the final go to the wire at 2-2?

Just a quick heads up guys about a certain skin. I downloaded a skin called Tato for FM23 as lots of people said it was the best and when changing boxes and views in there, I accidentally showed myself a players CA. I had no idea what it was till I clicked it, till I clicked it and it exposed one of my players for me. I immediately released the player, had him since ths start too which was sad and changed the skin. So just so you guys use or are intending to use said skin thread carefully. I've switched to Zealands for instant match sims instead.

Lokeren Tense - 30-31 Season. Our European adventure was short and sweet. Villareal were one of the toughest teams we could have drawn and so it proved. We did go 2-0 up in the first leg but in the end only losing 7-5 really flattered us and it should have been a cricket score. It was also 7-3 at one point. A step too far and nothing we could do. A slightly poorer season in the league finishing 8th, but we again salvaged 1st place in the Euro qualifiers thanks to a good back end. We seem to do really well in this for some reason. The cup again was a flop (results in spoiler). Squad: Season Stats: Star Players: Youth: Not the best crop but whatever. We're a stronger squad so its all relative. I didn't sign many of these. Future Picks: Transfers: AC Milan came for our soul and took our biggest prospect . Some Good News: His stats aren't the best but we managed to get a perfectionist HoyD. After years of begging on the back of the Ram sale we managed to get the board to spend a bit on infastructure which was a shock. Out of nowhere without me asking they also decided to do this and took out a loan against it (That should really mess us up with the finance bug) And that was that for 30-31. Back in Europe and a slightly weaker squad but not too bad. Hoping for a nice draw in the conference league. Only a 5m loss over 3 seasons we're slowly getting on top of the finance bug, sadly it relies on selling our best players. Had the board not decided on the stadium upgrade I'd be curious how different it would look.

Awesome thanks dude, I'll look into it, I've just downloaded a skin called tato or something so if that doesn't have it, I'll grab zealand one.

I wish there was instant results on fm23, my season has kinda descended into a nothing fest and being able to get through it quicker would be a huge boost..

Lokeren 29-30 - Shock Euro Football Qualification. Unbelievable Jeff. We started the season super strong, and after 20 of the 30 game sat in 4th, 4 losses in a row put pay to that and knocked us out of contention for the Championship Division and (luckily for us) gave us a huge headstart in the 7th to 12th group for the Euro spot. What was so lucky about it? Well had we made the top 6 mini league, we'd have started in last and only the top 4 actually get into Europe, so little old 7th place Lokeren got into Europe ahead of the teams in 5th and 6th. Belgium and its wonky rules. As usual no real cup progress. Youth: Nothing to write home about but some slightly better mentalities. Interesting 3 players fought with me about contracts and all went red in negotiations so I lost out on them. But I'm a stage where finance bug is super risky so had to make the sacrifices. The most impressive couple of players are Transfers: Disaster struck right at seasons end when our 6ft 4 inch goal machine Igor Baeyens got taken away from us by some middle eastern team for his release clause of 800k. He was a player who was rotation in previous seasons but when I opted for targetman up top his height and jumping reach saw him explode. Squad: Stats: Stars: Coaching Qualification:

Lokeren Season 28-29 A season where we were expected to go right back down but boy did we shock the division. With odds of 1000/1 we were set to give it our best and we did. A fantastic run after the winter break saw us safe Belgiums gibberish league stuff then saw us thrown into the Euro playoff division. The format is points / 2 and split into 3 groups, top 6, middle 6 and bottom 4. Weird. Nonetheless we gave a good account of ourselves. We did ship alot of goals. Results: Youth: A quite shocking haul of youngsters and I'm starting to worry. Is it normal I get my dev centre reports from my chairman and not my HoyD? Because yet again, we got a ton of trash mentalities, unambitious, low determination if highly rated? Of the following 2 of the good talents wouldn't accept the offered deal so were binned off. Potentially Good Players: Transfers: Squad: You can see here Aktas didn't play post loan. Better shot than above. Stats: Stars: Summary: All in all a good season, where by times we punched above our weight. Belgian football is weird though and there is such a big gap in quality between the top 8 and everyone else, making inroads is going to take a long time. Our best hope of making money is to actually finish as close to 7th as possible and sneak a conference league spot from getting 7th after the changeover. Something I feel we're quite a bit away from. Even losing Aktas I think we have enough about us to stay up as we actually did better without him second half of the season. Sadly Jul Ory also wants to leave so this might set us back a bit butI feel he has some potential replacements who can hit his standard. We really need some cash our to turn our best youth into some kind of selling factory to stay afloat, while Aktas has put us back above the 0 line, our 3 season project now stands at -£20m.

I couldn't terminate it cause something about belgian foreign loans during the transfer window. I threw him in my u21's just to keep him out of the way. I wasn't sure its against the rules but it felt against the spirit of the challenge so better to use caution I felt..

Never thought about this but just wondering on the rules, if I sell a player with a loan back clause is he usable or against the rules. Had to panic sell my star player £11.5m value to PSG for £5m to avoid him going elsewhere on a free and in my haste agreed to a loan back clause. Haven't used him yet but unsure on the ruling?

Finally Promoted.. Lokeren 27/28 Phew it took awhile but we did it and weirdly we did it without ever testing the top places in the league. We cruised through our own playoffs and luckily drew Cercle Brugge in the top/2nd division promotion/relegation player. Youth: It was a year of trash mentalities and only 4 elite players. Nothing amazing here. A look at the picks of the bunch (imho of course) And the squad that achieved promotion well it was... I didn't play near as many youth team players and stuck mostly to my young first team squad as above shows in comparison to other seasons. Lotta potential in this team. Heres a look at the stars. Emre Aktas still wants to leave but sadly no one in Belgium can afford his huge transfer fee. Have to get him out the door by December or he'll leave on a free. Big problem. Sadly our facilities got downgraded and we have to cash to push them back up. Oh well. Slightly better but still terrible.

Managed to bang out another season (2 in 1 day, not easy.) 26/27 More Playoff Misery for Lokeren. We began the season with our best every odds The season though was a distaster. 13 points from our first 5 games and I thought we were gonna cruise the league, but we took our usual February wobble early and had a disaster of a season. Only a superb late rally got us in the playoffs. There though we fell at the first hurdle. In the end we came 8th and only scraped in the playoffs on the back of Club Nxt and Jung Genk being unable to be promoted as they are B Teams. Weirdly xg wise we were the second best team in the league and should have gone up. I guess playing so many youngsters was a burden in the end. Youth intake was a lot of high potential but alot of terrible mentalities so expect little change next season. Ah well and our wonderkid won't sign on so its likely to be his last before we have to sell. Taking stock of the squad we're looking like this. Heres our star kids. No change in facilities so no point in wasting the bandwidth with a screenshot. Transfers Another season down, our 3rd in the 2nd tier, when a top half finish practically guarantees playoffs I feel like we're underperforming and the finance bug is really gonna get on top of us over the next 3 years. This season feels make or break because its never looked so bad before.

Have the same problem with my wonderkid, he has 2 years left on contract though so might hold on to him for 1 and hopefully sell for £8m or so the following year.