BillHoudini24

Reasons to be optimistic pt.2 It seems that we are doing something right at youth level. Our U19 team won their first league title. Sign of better days ahead? I hope so, because for the main team the season has been a complete disaster. We spent the entire season in the last places of the table and even got last at some point. But more on that later. In the meantime, am I such a bad tactician and the roster is underperforming, or I'm just impatient, expecting miracles with a bunch of second division players? As you can clearly see, probably the second. We lack the technique and pace to play proper attacking football, we lack the Determination and Work Rate to go into a "Simeone" direction and we're horrible at set pieces, so we get no easy goals from anywhere. Honestly, I do not know how we have survived in the first division all these years, but I think our luck is running out. Nitis had an amazing season despite being unhappy for most of it and he's definitely the reason that our torture continues. I am 100% sure he's leaving us this summer though, as Europe's best 11 teams are after him. Luckily, he has a 10M release clause, so I hope we can fix our financial situation through him. Talking about finances, we sold our 4th choice CB for 2M +50% (Next sale), as he let me know that he wouldn't renew his contract. This is our second highest sale so far. 7 Jumping Reach in a league full or crosses and set piece teams is just a liability. Lastly, our right-back has been included in the list of the 50 best young players. First time for our team, this boy will go far! I hope he stays, but I am already trying to find a replacement, just in case.

Kotsopoulos and Dimitriadis with some great numbers there! Keep it up, this is an SL2 squad!

We have similar issues so far. I am following a similar logic when signing players from the youth intake, ignore low determination unless it's 4+ potential ability. It's not that they do not develop, but they keep my personality average low in the main squad, which messes up everyone else's Determination attribute as well.

Things are looking quite ok at the moment and you already have some nice personalities on the squad. Waiting for your latest intakes to come into play might be tricky, but it looks like you can survive this season.

Let's goooo

Patient as always Jim! How are you developing their personalities? I am playing youth only as well and I found it hard to establish a club culture. My staff for both the main and youth squads have 16+ determination.

Season 2030: Reasons to be optimistic As you probably read in the previous posts, things have stagnated for my youth Panionios team. But lately, there are a few reasons to be hopeful. Say hello to the "Promising Bunch", 6 players who are going to be the backbone of this team for the next phase of this save, the one where we stop being a relegation fighting team and start moving towards European qualification. Defenders: We start with Thanos Barkosis (29a), the most promising player of the class of 2029. A fast and all-around wing back who could potentially do a job for us even in midfield. Due to my lack of right-wing players I started playing him as soon as I could register him. In 17 league games, he had a goal, an assist and averaged 6.8. Not bad for someone who turned 16 during the season. Next up, we have another very promising player, Jo Papakonstantinou (30b). He's the second best of last year's very promising intake. He also seems quite versatile in terms of attributes and I decided to develop him as a Ball Playing Defender or Half Back. If everything goes well, he will become essential in the way we want to play. Last but not least, Isaak Chalimourdas (27c). A little bit older than the rest, but he looks like he can contribute a lot as a left back. He's the best athlete on the team, which I think helps him hide his technical issues. Last year he had 3 assists in 28 games and averaged a respectable 6.83. I hope he can improve a bit on his technicals. Another point for his positional versatility. Midfielders: Here we have two players, one that is still too young to play in the main team and one who has surprised me a lot. Starting with the young one, Christos Samaras (30a) was leading last years intake as the most promising player. He could already play for the men's team, but he needs to improve his physicals. I have very high hopes for him. Now, let's go to the curious case of Makis Skamantzouras (26h). According to my staff, he was the 8th most promising player of his year. His attributes don't say much, but he's been a very consistent contributor, all his goals were worldies (and important). Last year he had the highest average rating in the league for our squad, with 6.96 I don't know how much more he can develop, but he's definitely a player I want to keep on the squad moving forward. Forwards: Same story as the previous section. We have a promising star and a player who came out of nowhere to save us from relegation. Our promising forward is Orfeas Perdikis (27a). He was the best of his class, scored on his professional debut and I had the highest of hopes for him. Since then, 2 injuries have delayed his development and now I am starting to worry that he will be one of the first failures of my academy. So far he had 3 goals and 1 assist in 36 games. He's currently a squad player. Now let's go the player that impressed me the most lately. Pavlos Nitis (28h) was a 3 star potential in 2028's youth intake and my staff were against signing him. I saw a nice attribute distribution and I decided to give him a chance. He started improving immediately. Scored a lot in the youth teams and during an injury crisis I promoted him to the first team. He hasn't left the starting eleven since then. He has 12 goals and 4 assists in 36 games and he was the reason we stayed up last year, when my captain and main forward Lazaridis (23g) was unhappy about our lack of depth at left midfield (). In the next post, I'll show you how bad this team really is compared to the rest of the league, my troubles with squad personalities and an update on the 2030-2031 season.

Thanks man! It's not going well for a while, I expected to have a European qualification by now The jump from SL2 to SL1 is truly crazy. Even teams outside of the big 6 can spend a bit of money and get 2-3 good foreign players every year. Let's see how long it will take to play in the Conference League.

Season 2029-2030 Same old, same old. Some big wins here and there, stretches without any wins and then turning on the style during the relegation play offs. The only difference this year was that we made a step further on the Greek Cup, reaching the semi-final, where we fought bravely against Greek giants Olympiacos. They ended up lifting the trophy on a rare win over AEK. Just when things were looking a little bit better financially, the board decided to build a new stadium and get a huge loan, meaning that we won't have any facility upgrades for the time being. As I said in the first post, one of this season's goals was to come up with a new tactic that would suit us better. I opted for a modern 4-4-2, using roles that are not physically demanding. We still had a lot of harmless possession, but we did better than last year, so I think I am getting somewhere. The next two posts will be about this year's intake, the best performers and the most improved players.

Hi everyone! I'm a long-time reader of this forum, but I've never had my own thread, so let's change that. This will be part career updates from my Youth Only save in Greece, part tactical/club DNA discussion. Since I've already played 6 seasons, we'll have to pick things up from where I am now, which is the end of the 2029 season. The team had a crazy run at the beginning of the save, achieving promotion two years in a row, going from the third division to the first without any issues. Since then, things have stagnated. The main reason is that quality-wise, the jump from the second to the first division has been enormous and my squad is comprised on average by third division-leading players. Season 1 (promotion to the second division): Season 2 (promotion to the first division): Since I was promoted to SL1 (2025), I was always involved in the relegation battle. Most of the time we would be mathematically safe by the time we played the relegation group at the end of the season, but last year was our toughest yet. We barely escaped only because the teams below us were even worse. At the same time, I lost my best winger to Juventus, a winger prospect to a relegation rival and now my main left back is asking for a better challenge. Now that I covered the career update part of this post, I'll lay down my thoughts about tactics and as a result, club DNA, because without transfers, every part of the club structure will play a role on whether we'll succeed or not. Before my wingers became unhappy and left the club, I was playing different variations of a 4-3-3 vertical tiki-taka. It worked wonders in the divisions where we were the better team in most matches, but we couldn't pull it off with the big boys, even before the departures. Since then, I've been trying to find a way forward and now that we are heading into the off-season, it's a perfect opportunity to revamp our tactical approach. Needless to say, the squad is not good. We're not particularly athletic or technical. The mental attributes are alright, but not really better than average. My best players per position are the following: GK - Skafidas: Our goalkeeper since the start of the save. I've been very unlucky with the intakes GK-wise, but I hope there is a replacement coming up. To be fair to Skafidas, he has performed quite well in the first division, but if we want to take the next step, we need a better goalkeeper, who will be able to participate in the build-up as well. Wing Back - Xygoros: Same story as Skafidas. He has been with me since the start of the save, he was incredible in the lower divisions, but now in the Super League he's just ok. We need better wing backs with pace, who can create something by crossing. Centre Back - Manikas (26e): One of the best players who came through our academy so far. Great personality, great physicals and mentals, I hope we can help him develop a bit more technically and we'll be set for a few years. He spent 6 months injured last year which stopped his development. Midfielders - Sarris (25d) + Flessas (25c): My best players in terms of attributes and overall development. Sarris is our defensive pivot and Flessas is our creator. The goal is to keep them and build the team around them. Forward - Lazaridis (23g): Finally, our striker. Without him we wouldn't be in the first division, as simple as that. He's scoring as much as he can with the minimal service he's getting, he never complains and he was pretty low in the intake order when I got him. I wish he was a bit more all around, but we have to work with what he have. This brings us to the short, medium and long-term aims for this save (and thread): - Change HYD. The current one is Greek and has decent attributes, but hasn't really delivered considering our extensive youth recruitment. (short term) - Establish a new style of play, better tailored to our "strengths", which will function as a stepping stone for the future. (short/mid term) - Further improve the main and the youth facilities. (mid term) - Qualify to the European Qualification group. (long term) - Establish a new club DNA, based on the Cruyff principles. (long term) - Become a top 10 football academy. (very long term) Thank you to everyone who read all this, I'd be glad to read your suggestions about tactical adjustments with a team that is predicted to finish dead last every season and about establishing a "creative" club DNA only by using Youth Intakes and staff.

Proodeftiki used to be a standard save for me every year in fm, since I grew up right next to their stadium. It would be fun to see them in the Super League again, good luck!

Oh no! This can be good if they just agree to upgrade the facilities, but it can be save-ruining if they start signing players.

The next season was in Greece's second tier. I thought teams would be a lot better than they actually were, which resulted in us being first for most of the year. It was very frustrating to finish the season 2nd, but it was enough to get promoted to the Greek Super League. After a fantastic first round, we started drawing way too much and we slipped into second place in the final fixture. In the Greek Cup, we had a successful campaign that ended brutally by facing AEK. The financial benefit from the tickets definitely helped our season though. In terms of youth intakes, the first two years have been good to us, giving the team enough players to develop into at least Super League level. I'll post the ones with the most contributions so far. Kostas Pontikos (first intake): Our best player so far (spoiler: but not for long). His versatility, leadership and technique have made him a consistent contributor in my save, both as a Mezzala, as well as left Inverted Winger. He will soon become a Cypriot international with the main team, after 2 years in U18 and U21. Telis Boubas (first intake): In the beginning of the save he looked more promising than Pontikos and he played better in the third division games he got. Then he broke his ankle and his development stopped for around 7 months. He's playing catching up, but I still believe he can play an important role moving forward, mostly because he can cover us in many different positions. Kostas Papadimitriou (first intake): This is a weird one. His attributes don't really indicate anything special, but he just delivers when it matters. Many important goals and assists already, but I don't really know what to expect. I hope he keeps developing, but as long as he plays like that, he will have a place in the squad. Orestis Ntagiantas (first intake): The only defender (or defensive minded player) who is already playing an important role in the squad. His physical attributes leave a lot to be desired, but I hope he can improve there as he gets a bit older. Other than that, no mistakes, his mentals are developing nicely and he's already capped for Greece at the U18 level. Bonus points because of his avatar. I already played the next season in Super League 1, that's why all the newgens are a bit older, but I don't want to load the post with too much information/content. As you can image, things are tough in the top flight with underdeveloped newgens.

You're right about the jump from SL2 to SL1. I am struggling similarly, even with allowing myself to re-sign homegrown players, which is why I do not post on this thread. In my first season in SL1 I am currently above the last two teams, but I also had a 12-game winless streak. Your posts do not fill me with hope. Your intakes look good every year, I think it's a matter of time before you start getting into the European Qualification group. You would be doing a lot better without the new stadium, that expense is crazy in a league with minimal prize/TV money.

Thanks! That will make things difficult with youth related updates and then the updates will further sink me financially, but sounds fun! You're doing great by the way, Kavala is not the traditional football academy haha

After my test save on FM24, I decided to start a Youth Only save in my home country, Greece. Panionios was a perfect choice, they're in the third division with decent facilities, a good roster, plenty of history and financial issues. The rule in my save is one: No transfers, with the exception of players that started their careers in the Panionios Youth team. The first season was just a chore for my team, we finished 1st without losing a game and broke records in matches won and points gathered. We had a few players who contributed massively to our promotion, starting with the top scorer Ignatidis. He scored 25 goals as a DLF(S). Dimitris Grontis was our midfield maestro, with 10 goals and 11 assists to his name. Last but not least, Glynos was a constant threat from the right wing, scoring 11 goals and providing 11 assists. A few words for the Youth Intake, as the players didn't get a lot of game time yet. Things are looking good, with 9 elite and 15 top talents, we will at least fill our squad with players moving forward. Next year we have one aim: Survive Greece's second national division.

I saw you did a few seasons in Greece already, so I wanted to ask how are things financially? I am doing a Youth Only with Panionios (to give me a head start because of their facilities), but already from the third division I am bleeding money.

Thank you everyone who has worked so hard for this file, looks like tedious work! I'm not Dutch but I live in the Netherlands and I wanted to start a Youth Only save there, so I'll post here if I find anything unusual.

Loved reading this for the past two days! Props for the dedication, the patience and the level of detail. A few questions: Are you going attribute-less 100% and you just look at the stats? How did you arrive at both tactics you used so far? (4-2-4 and 5-2-3) They work wonders for you, but I'm surprised you don't find them immersion breaking. 3 AFs and 2 volantes is hard to imagine irl at any level of football.