The_Gato_In_Goal

Great update @WhiteCat33 Never encountered the World Cup money either, even while managing some small nations. Obviously, the expanded World Cup does wonders there. Interesting idea for the HOYD, he looks special if it ends up working out.

Haringey Borough - Review Season 3 Another year, another mid table finish. This time we we're safely mid table for the entire season, but still finished with less points than in year 1. The intake, as you saw, was incredible, so I'm hoping to push for the edge of the playoffs next season. We're financially stable and not looking like being relegated, so I can't complain. A very impressive cup campaign. We pulled out a thrilling 3-2 win at home against VNL heavyweights Southend in the FA Cup to make it into the first round proper, where we got an incredibly favorable draw at home to a VNN side. We bowed out to L2 Morcambe, but got our paydays. Then Southend got revenge on us in the FA Trophy. Temi led us in scoring again, but his numbers have dropped a bit and he will have competition next season. Messam 01j continues to oddly produced and Ben Allen had another solid season in midfield. Even with the 400K spent on youth facility upgrades, our cup runs helped keep our finances in a strong position. Our payroll is still low (and the board still wont let me sign any staff for the youth team or the medical team) so it should keep up for more upgrades in the future. I think I've been scammed since the upgrades completed but our youth level still is at 4. Maybe it ticks over during the reset date, but not sure. Nothing in, nothing out.

You're telling me one Stuart Neace can only speak Malay...

Surely the poor intake is made up for by a player from Brunei

Haringey Borough - Youth Intake and Youth Review Season 3 I was planning on writing up a review of how some of the previous youths have been progressing, but it may not be as important now as half of them are about to be replaced by this new intake. Our upgrades paid off big time and we have some real talents coming through I've highlighted some of the difference makers below. The mix of good personalities and good physical stats are welcome for the squad. We have been struggling to compete at this level, but these guys can come in and contribute right away. Class of 2025 Update Callum Graham 01a has barely improved his attributes over his time at the club, but he has raised his performance levels this year. 8 goals and 13 assists in 31(13) appearances in all comps means we're going to have a hard time dropping him for unproven prospects with better attributes. Johnny Rea 01b has been a starter this season, but has underwhelmed. A 6.79 rating in 36(3) games isn't bad, and with no prospects pushing for his spot at the moment he'll be given more time to improve his attributes. Colin Morgan 01c has played terribly, and splits time with Dylan Wilson 02c, who performs nearly as poor. His progression recently has rewarded my faith however, Kenneth John 01d hasn't developed as much as I would have hoped, but his performances are solid enough to keep him in a starting role. 15 goal contributions as a BBM this season is good enough. Rayon Messam 01j continues to be confusing. He seemingly has no potential, as he hasn't developed with good performances, training, and a Fairly Pro personality. I've actually increased his role however as he's averaging a 7.10 rating with 9 goals and 9 assists in 34(4) appearances. He may be a casualty of producing better players fairly soon unfortunately. Brian Inglis has a couple of injuries and lost his starting place to Messam 01j midway through the season. He has stagnated in development and needs to do more to get back in the first team. Class of 2026 Update Oliver Smith 02a has really kicked on in development. Still is worryingly short for a fullback, but he's performed ok with a 6.75 rating in 35(2) appearances so far this year. His progression has been incredible. Dylan Wilson 02c as mentioned has not played well, and he has not improved as much as Morgan 01c has. He'll get a longer leash due to the Perfectionist personality though. Goncalo Paulo 01d has been fine. He's struggled to cement himself in the first team, but has played well in the support role, scoring 10 goals primarily as an IF(A) off the bench. Has not developed much however. Ryan Camm 02f just got called up from the U18s. He's tall and passable technically, so he'll get a chance to prove himself and hopefully develop despite the Unambitious personality.

My tactical setup is pretty simple, just a 4-3-3 with standard instructions on offense and a counter press on defense to get advantageous turnovers. If the counter press fails, we run a mid block and an inside trap to again force turnovers in advantageous positions. The player roles are suited to the individuals, but I found having an IF(A) gets involved more than a winger regardless of footedness. I'll have more details on individual players in the end of season update, but Callum Graham 01a and the technically-poor Rayon Messam 01j are both having solid seasons.

The board works in mysterious ways. After repeatedly rejecting my requests for more junior coaching and youth recruitment, they go ahead and approve my request to move up a youth level without even making me beg. About to become the only VNS side with a level 3 academy.

I think it's hard to have structured contract approaches. This challenge forces you to pay your best players as much as they want, since you can't afford to lose them without being able to buy replacements. The money you save not having transfer fees and generally having a low wage bill since your team is very young means you rarely have problems paying your players. It can get a bit wild if your star player gets a big contract then everyone else wants new deals, but the key is to pay a higher base wage to get the longest term deal you can. That way if anyone complains, they still have 3+ years under contract and you can dismiss the complaint if you don't want to give a new deal

I usually end up stacking the schedule for money, but that only really works at the start of the save and in England. I also had my captain have the promise to "develop youth players at defensive mid." He threw a fit at the end of the season despite me starting 15 and 16 year olds there every game, so I guess they didn't have enough development for his liking. He got over being angry pretty quickley however.

Haringey Borough - Review Season 2 We managed to stay up again, so can't complain even if we took a slight step back. In the beginning of the season, we were challenging for the playoff places. Once the goals dried up and we began our 21 game winless streak, things looked more dire. Luckily we we're able to bounce back against the relegation teams and secure our safety. Oddly enough, we managed to win away to league champions Southend, one of only 3 losses on the year for them. The youth from last year didn't really take steps forward, making me think it was just a lousy intake. In other news, a rough time for Worthing as they fail to go up despite putting up 107 points. I've never seen such a top heavy league with 5 teams over 100 points. Crashed out of the cups this year unfortunately. I'd say it gave us time to focus on the league, but we got to focus on the winless streak instead. Temi contiues to carry us, winning the league scoring title this year. Class of 2025 Update Callum Graham 01a played in 20(12) games this season and had 7 assists. He hasn't developed much and is still too short to really make an impact. I gave Rayon Messam 01j 16(10) matches despite his clear technical shortcomings. I figured a tall winger with pace can play regardless of the rest of the attributes and he repaid my faith with 3 goals and 5 assists and even a Player of the Match award. Kenneth John 01d was the primary cover in midfield and left back, and he didn't really perform well. Got 15(9) appearances and improved a little. The star of the bunch was actually the Class of 2024 youth who came through the intake in the holiday year. Brian Inglis made 38 appearances, mostly starts, and averaged a 6.83 rating while developing nicely and just turning 18. A better intake this time around, signed the tagged players and a few of them have the potential to break into the first team in a couple years. Managed to secure 2 more coaching courses, but no other upgrades. Finances look secure as our payroll is still relatively low and will only decrease next season. Nothing in, but star keeper Dillon Barnes left before the season ticked over to join Dag & Red, where he earned 16 shutouts in the VNL.

The good luck ran out. It turns out when you rely on an inconsistent striker who hates big matches, if his form drops so does the club's. We went all of November, December, January, and February without a win.

For sure, I appreciate all the work you put into it each year for little reward

Haringey Borough - Review Season 1 And we're off. First season in the VNS was pretty uneventful. We had some real talent in the squad despite not having any depth. Managed to have an even number of wins and losses and a 0 goal difference--the epitome of a mid table side. We managed solid cup runs as well. Made it to the 4th QR in the FA Cup and the Fifth round of the FA Trophy before losing to sides in leagues above us. Dillon Barnes refused to sign a part time deal, but never left us somehow. My assistant rates him as a good VNL player, so we're enjoying having him while we can. Part of the reason our defense was 5th best in the league. The rest of our success can be attributed to Temi Babalola, who scored 32 goals in all comps, including many headers off corners. He finished second in the league in scoring, 8th in average rating, but somehow won the VNS Player of the Season. Not a great intake, but I'm glad to increase the depth. Signed everyone. Managed to secure 2 coaching courses, and then 1 upgrade each in junior coaching and youh recruitment. The board needed to expand the stadium at the end of the season for league requirements, so that too a chunk out of the budget. I imagine our bank balance will begin to decrease as we have everyone signing part time contracts for wage and the cost of our youth setup increases. Nothing in, a few players left to go start in the VNL after refusing to sign new deals.

Exciting! I'm planning on abondoning my save and heading to the Carribean as soon as I can

I've done that with most of the team, unfortunately these two know they're too good for the team and won't sign new deals. I've managed to keep my VNL level GK for now however.

We have a pair of center mids who are rated as leading VNS players. Unfortunately, they're on non contracts and will likely be poached before the season starts. Other than that, we have only 2 centerbacks but good depth otherwise. The star from the youth intake in our holiday year has already scored and assisted in the first 2 matches of preseason.

Time to head into England for the first save of the year. I spent too much time reloading for the perfect team, but I'll settle for having a team based in London. Hopefully that is reflected in some fun intakes

Seeing everyone enjoy the new game will make me boot back up the Danish save and push through to try to complete it. Depending on how the save transfer feature works, I probably will end up buying FM24 and continue it

It's unclear whether or not it improves your intake in terms of quality, but it is the single most effective way to get foreign players in your intakes. And for a save like this, most people enjoy the diversity since you can't go buying players. I had affiliate clubs in Japan, Australia, and France for the past few seasons and I've gotten 3 or so Japanese players, a couple Australians, and a French youth.

You can post updates on this thread regardless of which version of FM you play on! From my experience, usually it's better to take your lumps for a couple of seasons while playing the youth that (typically) are not up to scratch for that level. So long as you won't get sacked, it's always better to focus on the youth since they have a chance at playing at top division level, whereas most of the legacy players are not up to that standard and won't improve further. Scouts don't make any difference to the intake, and the impact of staff (other than the HOYD) are minimal in terms of personality/ability of the intakes. The nationalities of youth coaches do affect the chances of getting foreign youth, but it's a small effect. Population doesn't affect your intakes in terms of personality/ability, but some people believe that you're more likely to get foreign nationals if your club is based in large cities. So the theory is that a club based in London will get more youth with dual nationalities/foreign nationalities than one based in rural Lincolnshire. This YouTube video actually looked at some of that stuff recently.

Brønshøj BK - Youth Intake Season 25 What an awful intake, the personalities are terrible and there's not much potential either. Not what we needed to get over the hump in the Champions League. At least our affiliates gave us some spice. Hamre 25a looks decent actually, so long as his potential holds up and he has some high professionalism or ambition behind the scenes.

Never seen poached players from different continents, that's exciting @WhiteCat33 If I remember right, I think I only ever had a St. Lucian poached from a Canadian side

Where did they find these 1485 "fans and experts," we drew the home leg and Barca are the defending champions

Got a new chairperson for the first time in forever and we had the option to upgrade our youth facilities again. Should be one tick below max now, I think it had been stuck at the current levels for at least 10 years

Brønshøj BK - Review Season 24 24th season in the books. First time ever we've won back-to-back titles, and we made it to the QF of the Champions League this year after a few R16 exits. Still have yet to bridge that final gap into having the quality to compete for the title. League looks closer than it was since we secured the title with 3 matches to go, then picked up 1 point out of a possible 9. It unfortunately looks like Egeris Paarup 13c is content running down his contract that expires at the end of next season. I'll keep him around since we don't need the money. Thankfully, we are deepest in the midfield spots, so we'll be able to replace him. Always had all the quality in the world, but he was always injury prone and lacking fitness and really needed to be managed, which hurt his performances. Right now, Fisker 19a still has 1.5 years left on his deal, but refuses to budge on a release clause of $110M. It seems like a lot, but I'm confident clubs would trigger it right away. We'll only end up signing that contract if he still won't budge near the end of next season. Would like to finish in that top 8 of the league phase next season, and truly feel like we belong. Losing out on head to head performance hurts. Key players: We cut ties with some of our deadweight affiliates, since we now have a high enough repuation to upgrade the quality of our affiliates. For example, a link with Sochaux should pay dividends in the future if we get higher quality French players through our intakes. Nothing in. A few out.