ajt
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Posts posted by ajt
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been playing the game relentlessly for the past few days and I have to say this years match engine is proper good. couldn't get into FM23 at all but this years edition has me hooked again.
only thing that's slightly annoying is the skin bug where fitness levels don't update during a match but other than that I'm having a blast, keep up the good work!
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On 25/09/2023 at 22:12, Muttley84 said:
You might have a surprise here... as if you battle at the top you are looking at an 40 games season (30 regular + 10 playoff). Oh, and with a winter break in between when you will play in Europe will be challenging.
In addition, the clubs is owned by the Voluntari city hall (more like a plaything of the mayor), who also own a bus & transportation company (hence those in the pic). Your stadium is named after a renowned coach (Anghel Iordanescu) - but only cause he was in the same political party as the mayor (your owner). Long story short - irl no one likes the club and when the mayor at some point won't get realected - the club will dissapear (happened before with other clubs from nesr Bucharest: Otopeni, Branesti or Clinceni).
Best of luck, will be curious to see what u achieve.
thanks for the info! I did indeed get a surprise, not only about the season but mainly that things went so terribly that I got fired anyway! haha. Also as the season went on the club got into very terrible debt, I guess due to the facilities being so high. On to another save I think, Romania seems far too difficult for me!
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2022/23 Pre Season
We seem to have a fairly decent squad which is quite pleasing, the only real problem is that I have almost always used AML's/AMR's in the past and we only have 4 players that can play in those positions. Going to have to dive into this recruitment focus thing and try and work that out pronto. Luckily we already have a nice scout at the club and I've somehow managed to find some turkish blokes with good JPA/JPP who are willing to join us for £180 a week wages.
Diving into the squad we have this bloke Nemec who seems like he could be an absolute beast if i play him as a target man, great strength/jumping reach/heading and his finishing isn't even that bad either.
I will likely try out a 4-2-3-1 first and the way I envisage it working means that he shouldn't need to be running all over the pitch, so his low acceleration, pace and stamina shouldn't hinder him too much.
Two very respectable midfielders for this level. Not sure why an Icelandic international is at our club but I'll take it!
A really nice young goalkeeper, seems like he might have some room to grow too, although I'm not sure how good our staff member is at judging CA/PA.
Last but not least I'm absolutely delighted to have this youngster at the club! Only 15 but I'm already thinking I might play him in the first team. The only problem is that he may have problems with injuries but hopefully it's not a big deal.
Might be able to sell him for serious money in the future if he develops properly. I mainly plan to develop my first batch of youngsters with a view to selling them so I can reinforce the squad with good players in their prime.
Simmed a couple of days and got this interesting message. Looks like I will have to be very careful financially. Already worrying a bit about the future, but competing in Europe with such a restrictive limit will certainly be interesting.
Early Season Woes
Well, things haven't quite gone according to plan. In fact I'm not quite sure why the board haven't sacked me yet. I don't know if it's because I made my nationality American, but for some reason I haven't been able to get any positive results from my team talks at kick off or half time. I decided to try out a 5-3-2 wingback formation because I thought it would suit the squad and uhh, I think it's safe to say that it didn't.
My two wins before I took the screenshot were from when I changed to a 4-2-3-1 formation.
If only I'd been using this tactic from the start because I've been having good possession in the games I've played with it and a decent xG. The 4-1 win against Hermannstadt (sounds suspiciously like a Scandanavian club to me) came when they were top of the table. I think it's fair to say that the squad might not be quite as good as I thought it was, although the tactic definitely wasn't helping. Having now looked at the rules for the division it would appear that at some point during the season half the division goes into the Championship group and half goes into the Relegation group, which might explain why the board haven't dispensed of me yet. It might have been a good idea for me to research how the league worked before I started playing
The board grade was previously an E, so I guess it's.. getting better?
I have a feeling I'll be sacked soon anyway so this thread was probably pretty pointless 
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reserved
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FC Voluntari
I've taken a total break from FM for the past two years as I wasn't really enjoying the game anymore. Then I randomly came on the forum today and suddenly a wave of inspiration hit me to finally try a long term save in this years edition. Partly because I remembered how I much I enjoyed making a thread and chronicling my adventure, and also because I should (hopefully!) be able to carry this save on into the new edition too.
Thus with a new found pep in my step I needed a club.
I've already done South America in the past and multiple threads in Germany, so I decided to try a much smaller European league this time around. After an hour of weighing up various clubs and basically having no idea who to pick I've somehow ended up in a northern suburb of Bucharest. Even though we're literally in Bucharest we aren't rivals with either Steaua or Rapid
FC Voluntari only formed in 2010, yet managed to win the Romanian cup in 2015. However success seems largely to have eluded them since then.
As far as Romania goes we have quite a few heavy hitters in our domestic league that I'm sure are leaps ahead of us right now.
Cluj, Steaua & Rapid Bucharest are pretty big clubs, but most intriguing by far are Farul Constanta (they have one of the most insane youth setups I've ever seen at this level - 5 star youth recruitment, 4 star facilities, 3 star junior coaching). I imagine that the leagues continental co-efficient is pretty poor so I'm going to end up having to sort that out, but for now I'm more worried about how I'm going to compete with these behemoths.
Just realised this google earth photo could literally be out of FM which is pretty cool. Not the most impressive stadium I've ever seen, but we do have a few floodlights at least. It would also appear that we have plenty of buses, which will be very handy for any future away trips to the Bernabéu.
Introducing Stan Lee Cube Rick, rumoured illegitimate son of one of cinemas greatest enigmas.
Closely tied to the Danube himself through his love of Johann Strauss II, Stan Lee has left the bright lights of New York behind for a provincial life in the old Eastern Bloc.
Stan Lee's new residence - not too shabby!
I'm quite happy with the the current setup. Our first team training facilities aren't that good but with the great youth facilities and exceptional youth recruitment (the latter being higher than Cluj/Steaua/Rapid) I should hopefully be able to snag some nice regens.
One of my main goals of the save is to try and build around Romanian talents so eventually I'll need to upgrade junior coaching. However the bank balance is currently £140k so that will be for the future.
If I'm being totally honest this could all go tits up as I have no clue what works well tactically in this match engine but hopefully I'll figure something out. Luckily the board only want a mid table finish this first season.
The Romanian league only has 16 teams so seasons shouldn't take too long (as long as I don't get sacked in my inaugural campaign).
Anyway enough of the intro, time for me to get stuck in
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cheers man
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I'm sure it's already been asked, but am I right in thinking that I can start a save now in FM23 and carry it over into FM24 ? thought I read about it in an email from SI but want to make sure
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On 23/09/2023 at 21:30, busngabb said:
They need to expand the options to throw things at the players. They're all idiots and I should be able to physically hurt them. They 100% deserve it. I'm thinking benches, chairs, water coolers.
an idea i can get behind 100%
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cheers kev
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2 hours ago, Zemahh said:
There's no downside to playing 18-19 y/o's over experienced 27 y/o's who have been through it all, as long as they're close in ability. You can't really justify an oldie eating up wages of 2-3 youngsters, unless it's quite literally Ronaldo we're talking about.
I think this is the important thing tbh.
I believe my kaiserslautern fm21 save in the career forum ended with my champions league winning squad having an average age of 23~ with as you say, no downside. Also there is the advantage of being able to shape the regens personalities.
It doesn't seem to be a strategy that is countered at all by the ai having more experienced players, and it's been like this for many years now. In fm22 I'm going to limit myself utilising a squad of young regens as I think it's what has led to me not enjoying the game as much, even if youth development is by far my favourite part overall its just boring to exploit the system in the long run.
At this stage I may as well just go all in and get one of those skins/layouts that disguises attributes to balance the game for myself.
Also fwiw some people earlier in the thread were saying about how most people just play a few seasons, whereas my saves are usually one club 10+ season complete rebuilds.
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There are many from older versions that I loved, but for me it has to be Guarin. He was phenomenal in the DM role, and in 2003 or 2004 I switched from 4-4-2 to 4-3-2-1 (dm) because of Chelsea / makelele.
Guarin maybe isn't the most fancy player ever but because of him I really have never gone back to a 4-4-2 at all. I've tried it but it has just never felt right since those magic days. He had a huge impact on the way I have played CM/FM ever since. I try to find my new guarin in every save, but he will always reign supreme!
Special mentions to obafemi martins, okoronkwo, cavenaghi, araujo, fierro, taribo west, moukoko, francis jeffers, and of course the greatest right back of all time.. Billy Jones!
Now I feel proper nostalgic for when I used to trawl the Internet/forums for wonderkids haha, I'm so disconnected from football nowadays 😅
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Great thread! Really enjoyed reading it. I have used 4-5-1 as my tactic in every CM/FM since 2004, almost entirely because of makelele, so it's nice to see him included! I have tried the 4-4-2 for some fun, but I always inevitably end up with some sort of 4-5-1 variation
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2032/33 Season
This save has been a great ride and I've really enjoyed it. Watching the downfall of Bayern & Dortmund for the past few seasons has been a joy. However all good things must come to an end and so too must this save. I've found myself un-motivated to play for a month or so, as the only competition worth competing for each season now is the Champions League.
We won the league at a canter this season, and in recent seasons it has mainly been RB Leipzig who have somewhat kept pace with us. I'm not sure what happened to Dortmund or Bayerns transfer policy but they have been doing some exceptionally poor business despite their riches. Bayern still spend at least double our wages each season but haven't won the league since 2029 and even missed out on the CL one season.
It took a little over 10 years but I think it's safe to say that the Bundesliga runs through Kaiserslautern.
I won the one cup I needed to complete my domestic domination, with a handy 2-0 victory against Hertha Berlin in the DFB Pokal final. Funny how easy it was to win this cup when I actually played a full strength team for the final games.
I'm not sure who will win the Champions League this season as it hasn't taken place yet, but the final will be a real classic, Real Madrid vs Man Utd. The Belgian wonderkid I sold many moons ago (Patrick Bardiro), has established himself in Real Madrid's first team which is fun to see. At least his talent didn't go to waste! It would have been nice to have him around during our glory days.
It's nice to go out with a bang, winning everything except the Champions League.
I'm also happy to report that I finally became a Kaiserslautern legend! I guess winning the DFB Pokal put me over the top. Players like Lugo, Sosa etc are all icons too.
Best XI
The final best XI still contains a youth prospect, surely the best youth player that I've had in many an FM, the young now capped Brazilian Thiego.
Funnily enough the young Peruvian striker Claudio Principe gets in ahead of Benali in the striker role, possibly due to his very high average rating.
A bit of a disappointing season from Da Silva this year, with only 8 assists, though he was rotated a fair amount.
Omar Bojang (AML IW) has taken over on the left wing and did well in his first full season.
The Sergio Lugo "Player of the Season" Award
It wouldn't be fair to have anyone other than the man himself to win the final award. He barely played in the Champions League as I rotated a lot and he got injured for the final Man Utd game (probably one of the reasons we did so poorly against them) but he has been such a great player over the years.
To think that he joined the club for £2.7 million when we were in mid table mediocrity and quickly rose to become one of the worlds best strikers, and then to even do a good job at AMR. Well it has been quite a time and I have no doubt that he would have averaged around 20 goals for the rest of his career. I'm not sure I've ever had a regen with such insane physicals tbh. You can see in the image that his attributes are even still rising!
Important Players
Ziani has definitely been one of the best keepers that I've helped to develop. He came as a young 18 year old on a free transfer and has established himself as France's numero uno. A great shot stopper, he has kept us in matches many a time and rarely misses a game. Special shoutout to the wonderful Great Dane who was his prededessor and helped us get into the Bundesliga in the first place.
Sosa & Ibrahim have struck up quite the partnership in defence, and Sosa in particular has to be one of the best young defenders in world football as it stands. Ibrahim did my head in when he got in a sulk about moving to Chelsea but he has redeemed himself this season.
Ragno has quietly become our dominant figure in central defence. Originally signed as a midfielder he does a great job. Apparently he is "only" 3 stars but his average ratings show that he is much more dependable than his scouting report suggests.
Botsis does his job, he's the midfield enforcer so he doesn't get the best average ratings but I like him. I was worrying a bit when I laid out £24 million in 2029, but it turned out to be a good purchase. Would have been interesting to see just how much he would have grown with a few more years development time.
Da Silva cost £15 million from Corinthians and was definitely a worthwhile investment. He's now apparently a "world class player". Great mentals in general, 19 decisions / 20 vision.
Benali has taken over Lugo's mantle and is surely amongst the elite strikers. He has racked up nearly 90 goals since he joined from Zwolle (on a free transfer) three seasons ago.
Kaiserslauterns Youth
There have been many a young player come through the ranks over the years, but only a select few still have a role in the team to this day. To say that they even get game time is a testament to how remarkable they are, as I have brought in a lot of foreign players over the years. Despite this a few of them continue to feature in the first team.
Where to begin with Thiego. He joined the club with by far the best "starting attributes" of a player I've had since one of the FM's in the 2000's or something. I struggle to remember because really the guy was an insane talent. His attributes barely grew over the years, and that is a bit of a shame as I was hoping he was a freak of nature or something, but he has turned out to be a reliable player at either DC or DR, so I guess I can't be too unhappy with that.
He also has 2 caps from Brazil. A random regen from Kaiserslautern playing for the Brazilian national team.. brilliant.
It would be unfair to have one without the other, seeing as they both joined the first team in the same season. Ludwig & Zefi are dependable full backs that have both played for Germany. Zefi has the most international caps, which is funny seeing as he is valued at a paltry £2.8 million (seriously I have no idea how they came to this calculation..).
Ahh Stelios. I thought he was going to be the next Bardiro but sadly it never worked out that way. Still he has become a reliable bench player who can be deployed at AML/AMC where needed.
And finally.. the man, the myth, "The Sultan". The lad has seen it all, he's the one player still at the club who joined us in the early days, indeed he was generated in the 2021/22 season.
He must surely be Kazakhstans greatest ever player, and is their captain. Despite this as the years have gone on and with the rise of Lugo and Benali he has somewhat evaporated from my first team. The sad thing is that when he did play this season he was actually somewhat effective as AMR.
218 appearances, 66 league goals, 41 assists with an average rating just under 7. For a random Kazakh regen from the saves second season well.. he's been magnificent.
I feel quite sad to be finishing with the save, but playing seasons just for what feels like the lottery of more Champions League medals is well, boring
I accomplished my goal of taking Kaiserslautern to the summit of European football and really enjoyed it. The early years were frustrating as hell being stuck in Bundesliga 2, but really that was probably the most fun part of it now that I think back.
Farewell Kaiserslautern, Lugo lives forever!
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Champions League Quarter Final
We beat Chelsea in the previous round on away goals, it was 5-5 overall and luckily we got two goals in the second leg without conceding.
We would have to face a very strong Man Utd team in the Quarter Final.
Annnnd it's fair to say things didn't go so well
We conceded I think 4 goals from corners over the two legs and played terribly. A real shame to lose in the way we did, if we managed to get past United then I think we could have won it once again.
The league is going much better, we are eight points clear with five games to go, and we are also in the final of the German Cup (the one compeitition I didn't manage to win yet).
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Champions League group stage
Quite a surprising group stage, as Porto were utterly horrendous! We drew against FC Midtylland & lost once against Celtic but still go through on top of the group.
Champions League First Knockout round Draw
A fairly tough draw against Chelsea, who are currently fourth place in the Prem.
Good thing we finished first though as Celtic have been drawn against City.
Looks like it will be a two horse race between us and Dortmund, who are having a good season. I doubt Bayern will mount a challenge.
Awards
Finally my players have got some recognition with a slew of awards!
Lugo wins the big one! Atletico Madrid have two players in the top 3 voting so they could be a tough team if we face them in the Champions League this season.
Benali & Lugo make it into the world XI. A Norwich player is included as well
We also finally have a player win the Golden Boy award! my young centre midfielder Perez.
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2032 Champions League Draw
The FM gods have smiled upon me this year, handing me about the easiest group imaginable. Porto are a good team but I should be able to rotate my team a lot for the other games if needed.
This is definitely the toughest group this year, I think RB Leipzig will do well if they can make it through against two titans of Europe.
2032 Transfers
Sadly I haven't made many new signings as there don't seem to be a lot of good players available right now. I have however sent 17 young players out on loan to find their feet in the big leagues.
Young Niklas was about the best under 17 (well he turned 17 just as he signed for us) that I could find. I don't even really need another CD right now but he seemed too good a prospect to let go to waste.
He only has a 3 star potential (apparently) but I still think he could turn into a good defender, at least a quality backup.
Need to work on his strength and jumping reach.
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Very interesting idea for a save! Looks like you're doing really well so far and the youth goalkeeper is great
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On 27/12/2020 at 18:34, TheRobert said:
Congratulations!
Cheers Robert!
2031/32 Competitions
Finally the Champions League has been secured, though it is a shame we couldn't win every competition this year. I played a majorly rotated team for the semi-final in the cup vs Wolfsburg to our downfall.
Best XI
A familiar group of players now with the first team being established. My norwegian defender Ibrahim is missing however. He got annoyed that I turned down a £60 million bid from Chelsea so I turfed him out of the team (he only started 21 games this season).
Da Silva has turned into a real assist machine and Benali & Lugo continue to be our leading scorers. Lugo has now taken up position in the AMR position, perfect for him as he is left footed.
Season Performance Data
Our average xG is excellent and the tactic seems to be working really well now that I have the players for it.
The Sergio Lugo Player of the season Award
Sergio returns to the summit of Kaiserslautern. It was a tight race between him and Benali but I think Lugo just edges it given his 3 goals in the Champions League final.
I'm not sure how much room there is left in terms of player development for him as he will turn 23 later in the year but he's incredibly proficient being that he has "only" 15 finishing.
I taught him the "likes to round keeper" PPM a few years ago and it seems to work well for him.
Interesting Youth
Diego has matured into a really good defender (especially since he was a free transfer from Defensor Sporting many moons ago).
I think I had to offer him a 50k p/w wage when I first signed him but boy did that turn out to be a good decision. He can play all across the defensive line but I have mainly been using him as a central defender.
I signed Gorka for £7.5 million from Sociedad, mainly because of his determination / teamwork / work rate. His determination and work rate should mean that he develops nicely in the coming years.
He hasn't been playing well, but I think that's mainly due to how poorly this version of FM rates full backs performances (in direct contrast to last years game now that I come to think about it).
I found Lennart available on a free from Austria Vienna and decided he'd be worth a chance in the youth academy (which has grown in recent years and now has a huge amount of talent within it).
He's not the fastest player but then neither was Zefi and look how he turned out! Just a shame about his low determination and overall personality (which I'm trying to fix with mentoring).
Claudio had a brilliant first Bundesliga season with St Pauli scoring 21 goals and literally single handedly keeping them in the top flight for next season (their next best player scored 4 goals..).
Doesn't have the greatest attributes for his age, but he seems pretty well rounded in general. In a few years time I imagine he could be a good rotational striker for Benali.
I wanted to try and develop a young goalkeeper to take up one of the "home grown" spots in the Champions League squad and Fabrice was the best youngster I could find.
He was signed from Montpellier last season and has definitely developed well, even picking up a cap for the Cameroon team at age 17!
I've been training his positiioning and it's slowly getting better so we should be safe if our star goalkeeper gets an injury.
Next Season Goals
I guess the only real goal left to achieve is to win all domestic competitions + Champions League in the same season, as well as the Club World Cup (if that still exists).
I think that it is definitely achieveable given Bayern's decline. It would be nice to overtake them as being the most highly valued club in Bundesliga too.
A special mention to my favourite "real player" of this save. Paolo is now held high as an Icon by the Kaiserslautern faithful and who can blame them!
I even bought him on as a substitute in the Champions League final to make sure he got a medal (I couldn't remember if he'd played a game or not).
He constantly badgers me about wanting to have a new challenge but come on Paolo you've got to stick around!
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VAR/offsides/etc needs to be randomised definitely, anytime I see the referee blow his whistle I know exactly what is going to happen
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2 hours ago, Delvi said:
What I would love to see in the game is some more variety in the way different players develop, in conjunction with improvement of mental attributes being more dramatic from 25 yo (not for everyone, but lets say for 80% of players) .
This is basically what I would like to see too
Great player examples btw.
It just gets a bit boring trying to build up a good team (especially once you're competing for the Champions League etc) because you know exactly what sort of traits/attributes to target, and at what age.
Maybe I should just get one of those "fog of war" skins that removes attributes and go purely by recruitment analyst data to make it more interesting for myself.
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Champions League Final (Second Attempt)
Lugo goal one
Lugo goal two
Da Silva goal one
Lugo hat trick
We didn't have that much of the posession but our counter attacking football was sublime, Kaiserslautern finally get the big trophy!
I brought on some of the oldschool players at the end of the match so that they could get their Champions League medal, including The Sultan and a 31 year old Paolo Gozzi.
I'm now finally an icon of the club! (before the final I wasn't even on the favoured personnel list..
)
Nice to see myself join an esteemed list, though it might take a while to catch a 59 year old Zinedine Zidane..
The finances are in a great position, and the club has finally reached the £1 billion valuation. We're now the 4th highest valued Bundesliga club, behind Bayern, Dortmund & RB Leipzig.
A special shout out to the now 37 year old Great Dane, who is plying his trade in the Danish second division. He was instrumental in getting the team up the leagues so I'm happy he's still enjoying some football
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Champions League Semi-final 2nd Leg
What a moment!! 85 minutes in, down 2-3 and about to go out, we were handed a penalty by the glorious VAR
Benali slotted it home and we hung on for the away goals win.
I think we were more than lucky to beat Juventus.. they played far better than I thought they could.
They have still got some non-regens playing for them including De Ligt, Aouar and a now 34 year old Enrico Chiesa
Their team is very old now, they have many 30+ year olds, whereas we are the complete opposite with our youthful presence.
We will play against Liverpool in the final, who we thumped last season in the semi-final.
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Champions League Semi-final 1st Leg
A wonderful placed finish from our young left winger Bojang has salvaged a 2-2 draw at home.
I do hope the away goals don't come back to bite us..
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I've gone gif crazy for our second Bundesliga win
Lugo got a couple of great goals as we beat second place Dortmund 2-1 at their place to wrap up the division with four games to go.
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What will you do when FM24 is officially released on Nov 6?
in Football Manager General Discussion
Posted
carry on my Dynamo Dresden save, proper fun club to play as