thomas_e

Haha, it's either Hall of Fame or the unemployment office, mate!

Energie Cottbus Season Summary 2025 - 2026 A shocking Bundesliga promotion Our second season in the Bundesliga and I was hoping to replicate our really good 9th place finish from last year. The opening fixtures couldn't have been worse when drew Union Berlin, Ingolstadt and Fortuna Dusseldorf, all away games. I don't know how, but we won all three games and found ourselves top of the table. We kept playing really good football and we were in the top 2 spot for several months. Around mid-february reality hit and we started to struggle quite a bit. A 6 week injury for our starting goalkeeper didn't help. Luckily for us the other top teams also lost games that they should have won and even though we struggled we were always in the top 3. We drew 4th placed Magdeburg 2-2 in the last game which gave us a playoff spot. SpVgg Greuther Furth had finished 16th place in the Bundesliga and we faced them in a two-game playoff. A really strong performance when we played 2-2 away in the first game. For the second leg our starting striker got suspended and our back-up players are so bad I actually played with a midfielder up top. Greuther Furth took the lead in the first half, but an equaliser from a corner kick in the second half gave us the goal we needed. We went through on away goals. You always want to win every game, but I had mixed feelings on this one. The media predicted us to relegated from the 2nd Bundesliga this year, 9 months later we find ourselves promoted to the Bundesliga. Our best player, Tobias Eisenhuth wants to leave on a free transfer and a couple of our star talents have really low release clauses in their contracts. We also have many contracts, staff and players, that have big salary increases after this promotion and the board has basically given me the same wage budget for next season, which is shocking. I will for sure be in the relegation battle next season and we will probably go down. I just hope I dont lose my job on the way there... We had a really good intake whish was nice! Season Summary Key Players Youth Intake

Below is a screenshot of the training program that I use for the U19. As you can see it focuses a lot on development and it works for defenders and attackers! I actively praise and critize players for traning performances. Make sure that you go to staff settings and have your U19 and Reserve team coach send you weekly reports on how the players are performing in training. I usually praise players when they perform better than 9,0 and critize them when they perform below 6,0. Just make sure that you dont praise a player more than two weeks in a row. They often tend to get angry if you praise them three weeks in a row, as strange as that sounds.

I would advice you to try the challenge in a fairly "easy" country if you are new to the challenge. Easy doesn't mean easy to complete the challenge, but in a league that is pretty straight forward when it comes to club status, youth rules etc. Starting with amateur clubs brings an extra challenge, but maybe not suitable when it's your first attempt at the challenge. Italy, Holland and Germany are good candidates as the teams in the lowest division are professional and the clubs have pretty decent room for staff. Other random tips from me (many might disagree with some of these, it's just how I play this challenge). Club - Focus on getting improvements from the board. Focus especially on "Junior Coaching" and "Junior Recruitment" as well as getting more staff. Upgrading facilities are important, but they cost a lot of money, so make sure improvements dont put you in the red. Bad finances often leads to the board accepting bids for your players without you being able to intervene. - Get as many affiliated clubs as you can, from as many different countries that you can, but make sure that the co-operation between you and Club X includes the benefit that youngsters from their club can come through your academy. If that is not an option you can always make another agreement and easily re-negotiate the deal some months later. - It's a good idea to pick a club that is fairly close to a big city. Remote areas get worse youth intakes. - Try to ask for improvements when your team is in good form and winning games. The board is more generous with you at those times. Staff & Contracts - When getting staff you of course have to focus on the attributes regarding coaching, but always do your best to sign personell that has high "Determination" attribute. This is absolutely crucial when it comes to your Head of Youth Development. Determination is far more important than any other skill for your HOYD and high determination usually means good personality (professional, driven, determined etc.). - Fitness and Goalkeeper coaches signed for the first team also train players in the U19 side. In many ways that means a fitness/goalkeeper coach is a "double" signing, so prioritize them in the beginning of a save. - Push for coaching badges. This will improve your stats, but also your status and reputation, reducing the chances of the players turning on you. - Get a technical director as they are great in organising coaching badges for all your staff. You dont have to care about getting a good one in the beginning as they are quite expensive. - Always try to include a clause in a players contract that the club has the option to extent the contract for X number of years. - When you move up the leagues you get more money and since you're not using anything on transfers you get a very healty economy. This makes contract negotiations a lot smoother as you can provide good wages. Re-sign players on good contracts almost as early as possible. Once a player gets set on leaving there is no going back, so try to renew contracts as often as you can when your economy lets you! Training & Youth Development - Do not let your assistant handle training! I know many people do, and many have probably completed the challenge without touching training, but the AI doesn't do a good job with it. They suck at handling fatigue and they keep trying to improve player traits that have absolutely no meaning behind it. This doesn't mean that you have to make your own schedules, there are some great ones out there that you can easily download. I use a separate traning schedule for my U19 side that only focuses on development. - Assign individual training to youngsters to improve their weaknesses rather than trying to improve already good stats. - You should as early as possible start to work on individual player traits. The most important ones relates to passing. Have your coaches teach players with bad passing attributes to take less risk and the skillful passers to take more risk. It's also a good idea to teach fast players to try to run into open space and play the ball past the defender. - Do not loan out players before they are 18 years old unless they are so good that they can play for a side in the same division as your own team or the division below. If you loan out to a team in the division below your own team, that should only be done after you have gotten promoted at least once, so the division is a playable league. The reason you should be careful with loaning out players when they are young is that training is more important than matches for a 16-17 year old. - Promote players to the first team when they are ready start or to be part of a rotational system. Being on the bench and getting 15 minutes every game for a 19 year old provides basically zero attribute improvement. - On youth intakes you should sign all the best players coming through (of course!), but always sign anyone with good determination skill, they always have the ability to develop great. - Fine players when they are performing bad, this is especially important with academy players, it's a great way to improve their determination and work rate skill. A warning for performing at 6,5 rating, 1 days wage for performing between 6,4 and 6,3 and 1 weeks wage for performing at 6,2 or less. If they complain about it, ignore. Keep fining for bad performances. - Don't be afraid to retrain a player to a new position! Full backs often make for great central midfielders, especially ball winning midfielders. - Try to retrain center backs to full backs or central midfielders if they are very short. FM has a tendency to produce quite a lot of re-gens that doesn't have the height to be a centre back. Not everyone can be Roberto Ayala. - If you dont have 2nd team or U23 team, remember to arrange weekly friendlies so players that match training. If your U19 side competed in a U19 league they dont need more match training than that. Training is what matters for them. Tactics - It's a good idea to sign a HOYD that has a fairly similar preffered tactical approach as yourself. If you prefer a very direct counter attacking football it might be a bad idea to sign a HOYD that prefers a slow tempo tiki-taka. The HOYD will reflect the skills of players coming through. This is more for the later stages in the save, beggers cant be choosers!! - Implement a tactic that suits your players, but if you are planning to build a tactic that you stick with, as I often do, don't make it too complicated. An assymetric 3-5-2 or a crazy tiki taka might look good in the moment, but remember that you have to rely on academy players coming in every year and replacing players. You can't rely on getting wing backs or false 9's through the academy! - Fining players (as mentioned before) improves their determination, team work and work rate stats. Late game you usually have a team with superior attributes for those three in the league, your tactic should reflect that as you will never have a good enough team in technical and physical aspects to compete with the best of the best. A tactic that focuses on pressing (doesn't mean high press) and high tempo is usually the smarter choice. - FM produce more strikers with pace than aerial strength. Late game tactics should take that into account. This turned into a lot longer post than I thought, hopefully there are one or two things in here that helps!

Such a joy following all the updates, especially now after the release when the forum is hectic! Some great journeys!! One wish from me: post screenshot of your best players, especially the players coming through from the academy. When I'm reading about a great talent I would like to see his stats

Energie Cottbus Season Summary 2024 - 2025 Great first 2nd Bundesliga season, big generational change coming up! After our promotion last year the media predicted us to finish last in the 2nd Bundesliga. I could understand why, but we still have some good quality in the team and we managed to finish in a very impressive 9th place! We started very average, but we managed to pick up speed and collect some good wins! At the end of the season we lost quite a few games that we should have won, but it seemed like fatigue had set in a bit! We have some good players in our U19 team and I think at least three of them will be promoted to first team starters next season. This will as always provide it's own set of challenges, but it's the only way to make progression. We have a 21 000 seat stadium, now the board has taken up a massive loan to build new 17 000 seat stadium.............. Our Youth Intake wasnt that great, especially in regards to personalities, but we had a great intake last season so I cant complain! General Summary Key Players Youth Intake

Great stuff @hubwub! Sorry for giving you a scare, my bad!

Maybe there have been changes I dont know about, but I dont think it's possible to get promoted to the top division in Mexico for quite a few years? Maybe even 5-6 years, as relegation from the top flight got suspended a couple of years ago. Just double check so you know a promotion is possible!

Energie Cottbus Season Summary 2023 - 2024 Comfortable first season promotion! I have played this challenge in Germany twice before and I decided to return for my first FM23 Youth Academy Challenge. Not only that, i returned to Energie Cottbus, a team I completed the challenge with on FM20. A couple of the players are still there actually. I reloaded a couple of times before deciding on a team, and even though Cottbus weren't the strongest side on paper I really liked the squad (except for some of the contract lengths). A really good first season and we won the 3rd Bundesliga comfortably, 13 points ahead of 1860 Munchen. Already from the start of the season we looked really good and I was happy with the tactics that I decided to use. I spent a long time in pre season working on tactics and set pieces, so a great feeling that it paid off. Hopefully we can do okay in the 2nd Bundesliga. We have quite a few contracts expiring in the next 12 months so a relegation would not be great to say the least. I got a couple of upgrades this season, both in terms of junior coaches/recruitment as well as youth facilities. Upgrading the youth facilities put the club very much in the red, so hopefully we will get a bump in sponsorship income next season! A pretty mediocre youth intake, lets hope for a great one next year! Season Summary Key Players Key Talents

I know the feeling. I completed the challenge with South Shields back on FM20 and even though there are some advantages in the beginning the usual problems come around after a few seasons just as with every other team. Looking forward to seeing how you do in the second season! My bet is on back-to-back promotions!

Regarding the lack of development of technical attributes that is just the price we pay when playing a Beta version of the game in my opinion. Great that it got figured out early, and completing this challenge is not down to 1-3 seasons of slow development in the lower leagues.

Really impressive first season @fries, in every aspect!

Then why discuss with strangers on an online forum dedicated to discussing the game?

With the Beta out I would like the opportunity to thank everyone, and especially @darren1983, for another great year of the Youth Academy Challenge. A great little community!!!

It's 20% off until November 7th

Switzerland doesn't say, but you can usually find the reset dates by googling, they are usually the same from year to year. I found somewhere just now that it's June 26th, but I can't promise anything. Save a couple of days beforehand and make a back-up, that way you can get different teams.

100% agree. It's amlost plug-and-play. People sign 99% of the same players and use 99% of the same tactics. How some people are getting 100k views on youtube videos where they show how to build a tactic (that they themselves have copied of someone else), find wonderkids who are extremely easy to find and set up a standard training regime is beyond me. OnlyFans makes more sense...

Agreed! I really enjoy playing this challenge, and it's the only way I play FM, but I honestly enjoy just as much reading about the stories from other players! Of course I wish everyone success, but reading about the failed attempts is also a lot of fun as many people have a great sense of humor about it. And even though some players succeed and some don't in completing, we are all in it together and can relate to the struggles along the way. Padders is truly a legend, I think we are all in his fan club. It's great to see more and more people joining the challenge and it seems like people who try it wants to stick with it. If there wasn't a challenge section on this forum I dont think I would play a lot of FM, as I do feel the game has stagnated quite a bit over the last few seasons and the promotional video put out yesterday was honestly a joke. Luckily I dont think about that at all when I play youth only, its almost another game.

Great stuff! Great overview and always a great story behind every completed challenge. Norway and Iceland is really, really impressive..

Thanks buddy!

Thanks Winski!

Thanks @glennuk!

Thanks, really happy with this one as it was the first outside of a top league like England or Germany. FM23 is only a months away now and I always start the Youth Academy Challenge on release day so now I dont really know what to do. Not enough time for a new Youth Academy save unfortunately and I always leave the save once I have completed the challenge. I actually started a save with Norway now, I always enjoy trying to take them to the World Cup or Euros. Maybe I will play another season or two with Katwijk, it would be fun to sign some players that can fill some gaps in the team!

Thanks Darren, appreciate it! Number six for me, hopefully I can add another one on FM23. Your challenge is what keeps me playing this game and it's really fun to see how popular it has become this year!

Thanks buddy!