dothestrand

He will be interested eventually....we've all signed him. There are definitely some Sociedad players you can never sign in my experience - Zaldua, Elustondo. But Zubeldia is usually gettable. And Pardo usually gets listed but you might have to sign him from the next club he goes to. Sociedad produce loads of great youths, some of whom you can tap up.

It'll help if you're massively outperforming them, but as ThePietu says, I would recommend declaring an interest every now and then and the moment he says "I'll see when a bid comes in", then bid.

I think my last two or three intakes have had nothing better than 3.5. Luckily Sociedad, Osasuna, Alaves and Eibar have had better intakes

Jeez. At least he's relatively at his peak. In FM18 I got him on a Bosman and paid him around 250-300k when he was 32-33.

2024-2025 update: for much of the season it was a one horse race (Barcelona) and a three way fight for 2nd-4th between Atletico Madrid, Valencia and us. Valencia have really come on recently. Real Madrid were never contenders. They really haven't redeveloped their squad at all. I was content with a CL place but for some reasons the stars began to align as we won seven on the trot as the fixture gods had nicely given us some very winnable games and none against our rivals. Barcelona dropped a few points and suddenly as we went into the last game we were 2pts ahead but with a better head-to-head record so I knew a draw would be enough to deliver the title. Cue a 2-0 away defeat to Getafe....but then the players starting celebrating on the podium as Barcelona could only manage a 1-1 away draw to Tenerife. Phew!!!! It always amuses me how you can win trophies without having standout performers. The defence and attackers racked up 7s easily, but none of the midfielders did. We're developing a nice young squad now. Inigo Martinez and Muniain might be moved on this Summer. Look at David Jimenez if you want to know why!nThey both have a year left on their deals but maybe I'll keep them in reserve. Eizmendi and Rodriguez are two promising deep lying playmakers that I alternate around Merino/Sancet. Etxabe has been converted from an AMC to an AML and is the reason Muniain might move on as I have Barrenetxea as first choice. Adrian Rodriguez is a quality striker though we could do with backup. The B team has great potential. I'll just pick a couple out. Seguin, an attacking RB, came from Sociedad. I might leave him one more season. Unai Martinez is a wonderkid AMR and he might move up this Summer. And Koldo Martinez adds to our embarrassment of riches on the other flank. There are a few Basque wonderkids knocking around that I've been unable to nab, but that would be greedy right?

He has four gold stars ALREADY (or have I misread?) Jeez, I don't think I've had anyone with more than two gold stars with five star potential. Also, is it a bad idea with Athletic Club to have a foreign HoYD? I've had Nuno Gomes and Per Mertesacker and both have great stats (better than their Spanish equivalents) but are finding 3-4 potential players. I haven't had a great 15/16yo for a few years now. Of course I doubt Spain is listed as one of their stronger countries.

It took around three seasons maybe. This is the second year they've been there. I don't think I have Segunda Division B loaded either, but I tend to move any really talented youngsters straight into the B side, skipping the C and u19 levels. I'd rather they played as good a standard as possible. There's nobody older than 22 in my B side as I recall. Not controlling individual training is annoying - I suppose I could move them to the first team and make them all available for the B side - although I'm not sure that would work as there is a registration window for both teams and could someone who's young but in the first team be eligible for the B side? Who knows?

My B team are in the second division and are currently top, but they can't be promoted, I'm guessing. Now they're in the second tier, I don't bother sending talented youngsters on loan unless a La Liga club wants them. I'd rather have them here playing a decent standard than elsewhere. I try to keep the B team pretty strong as I have no financial incentive to sell young players who aren't quite good enough. I might as well see if anyone kicks on out of nowhere. Unless I am doing something totally stupid, I cannot set individual training for the B team - which is annoying as their individual training is always set to none which must hinder their development.

Two things...I don't think they're unique to Athletic Club btw, but keeps happening in my game. Do your players get unsettled by Chinese clubs, even when they're still in their prime? Yeray and Merino are in their mid/late 20s and want to leave. Does the game factor in huge wages and that's the cause? I can't imagine why Merino, only 26-27 wants to go to a weaker league for anything other than money. Do your players ask for new contracts every season? I always make sure young players never have anything less than 2y to run because there's always a chance a bigger club will sniff around and they won't want to renew, but some of my young players come to me every season asking for a new deal, even if they have 4y to go. I don't change their squad status or anything; they're all first teamers but they seem to ignore their contract length completely.

I use Yeray more as a RB as once De Marcos goes, I don't feel the other options offer enough defensively. Plus Nunez/Martinez are my first choice pair and I have twi regens who can play CB.

A CB is the last position those skills suit.

If I'm playing Merino and Sancet then I would definitely want an anchor man DMC type player. My game keeps producing regens comfortable in that role, but someone like Zubeldia, who Real Sociedad will eventually transfer list, would do a good job.

Yeah I reckon all these guys could be retrained. Mancisidor could play the role Sancet does for me as a CM with an AP role. The other guys could be converted to be wide players - I think you can have AP roles for these rather than trying to turn them into wingers as such.

I seem to get a lot of AMCs. I just retrain them as CM or hope they have some ability out wide so you can retrain them as wingers or inside forwards. I never deviate from 4-3-2-1 or 4-1-2-2-1. I'm looking forward to the day my whole squad is regens. Martinez, Muniain and Williams will age, and I suspect Yeray can be superseded, as can the GKs. It's Nunez who's young and probably can't be bettered for around ten seasons!

I finished 2nd in my first season with them to get them into the Championship, but didn't make a huge deal of progress in the second season. We finished something like 19th. Basically there's no transfer budget and not a huge amount for wages. I held onto the squad I had more or less, but it was a struggle to even sell players. In the off-season going into the third, we've picked up some of the City/Utd's youth cast-offs, who will hopefully develop and are only picking up small wages. Again, it's picking up Championship rejects on short(ish) deals and resigning your existing squad. Aribo had a year left on his deal and wouldn't sign another so I did well to get 5m for him. 10% of that came back to me - but we're in the black at least. Nathan Wood, who's a very promising young defender at 'boro was transfer listed for next to nothing so we picked him up. On the other hand, I have been offered the jobs at Brentford (promoted to the Premier League) and Burnley (midtable). I obviously saved those offers in other games but have declined them. I'd like to think we'll be bottom half but not at risk of relegation this season, but it's a medium term job to really kick on - without any room for manoeuvre with contracts/transfers it's rough!