Jimbokav1971

I think that's a very fair point.

Personality impacting development to PA. A post that I've been interested to write, (even before this save), is how an average or poor personality, (not a good personality), impacts player development and creates a barrier stopping a player from reaching a high PA. I know in the past I have "gamed" personality via mentoring and tutoring, (and probably the best I have see at it is @_Ben_), but I've wondered how much of a barrier it is and if it's possible for player with an average/poor personality to reach the heady heights of Elite PA. The truth is that not everything is equal and while it absolutely makes it impossible for a Casual or a Slack player to reach any sort of decent level, (without their personality changing), it's not impossible for players with average/slightly poor personalities to reach great heights. I've personally gone to great lengths to make it a feature of this save that I will NOT mentor players to game their personality, and we will move on to my squad in a moment, but 1st I just want to look at the best players in my game World by Actual CA, (remember I have access to the Editor), and let's have a look at their personalities. These are the Top 20 players in my game rated by Actual CA. Perfectionist 1 Resolute 1234 Pro 12 Driven 12 F.Pro 1234 Amb 12 Resil 1 L.Hearted 1 Realist 12 Bal 1 I don't want to get bogged down in an argument as to whether a personality is positive, neutral or negative, (because it doesn't matter and the same personality can be all 3 in different circumstances). I have listed the personalities at to "my personal preference and I think you would agree that there are more decent personalities than there are bad personalities. 1-20 Let's look at the next 20 players now, but I just want you to take a quick scan down the personalities. I'm not going to bother tallying them up this time. 21-40 There is nothing particularly negative yet, (apart from the Balanced personality ranked 19th but more on him later), so let's look at the next group. 41-60 Are you starting to see a trend yet? Let's keep going. 61-80 Some of you might look at #63 Jimmy Gomez and his Merc personality and call that a negative personality, but it's important to remember exactly what a personality template is and that it sometimes/often doesn't have much linking it to the name it's been given. (Balanced for example is a name I absolutely hate for reasons which I will cover later). There is a template that I used to use from a bloke called Alexgoss7 on Steam and I haven't seen anything better than it since so I still use it now when I need to. It tells me that a Merc personality has the following template. We know the following. Loyal is 1-3. Amb is 16-20. Det is less than 18. Pro is less than 18. Leader is less than 19. In terms of player development we don't care about loyalty or leadership. We just care about Amb, Det & Pro, and a Merc player could have Amb 15 Det 17 & Pro 17. Do you see where I'm going with this? 1 of the 3 important attributes is already definitely good, and both the other 2 could also be good. Let's move on again. 81-100 You might notice that not only is player #86 a 2nd Balanced player, he is also a 2nd product of our Academy. We've looked at the best 100 players that I can scout in my game, (other than those at my own club), and only 2 of them are "Balanced" personalities and all the others are either positive or neutral personalities, (including the Merc for the purposes of Youth development I hope you would agree). So let's use the template provided by Mr Alexgoss7 again and look at what the game means by "Balanced". Well that's no good. I had forgotten he was too lazy to create this template, (but at least he could be bothered to do the others so fair play). Let's us have a look at the 2 Balanced players we have come across in the top 100 players by Actual CA in my game. #19 is Salvador Ramos. Amb 11 Det 13 Pro 14 #86 (50a) Amarante (POR)(CPV) 5'10. Amb 11 Det 12 Pro 14 The 3 key development attributes aren't great, but they're at least in double figures and the Pro importantly is decent at 14 on each player. What else does a player need for development? He needs facilities and he needs coaching and he needs playing time, so let's have a look at where each player was, (even though we know (50a) was with me at Belenenses). Salvador Ramos is 31 now which means that he was.... 17 in 2045/46 when he played 20 games in LaLiga for Valencia. That sort of exposure to that level of football is priceless. (50a) Amarante (POR)(CPV) 5'10 is 25 now which means that he was 16 years old when he made 31 appearances in Liga 2 SABSEG, and 17 years old when he made 25 appearances in Liga 2 SEBSAG. That's an astonishing level of football, (and number of games), for someone so young. This would have boosted his development enormously and we already know that his hidden attributes were not a barrier to his development, despite the fact that they had been given the label of "Balanced". Now let's look at the top 20 players, (by Actual CA), at my club and see what we find there. Now there is much more info here but you can ignore a lot of it. I just want you to look at the Personality column on the right hand side and then Actual CA column in the middle. (51a) Marinho (POR) *** is Balanced, and we already know that his Det is 12, but I can also tell you that his Amb is 12 and his Pro is also 12. He's already at 162 CA at the age of 24. He still has 10 PA points to develop and he will probably make it as his mentals improve over time. Once again, B Team football at a good level was enough to boost his development, (with his reasonable development attributes). (54a) Fati (GNB)(POR) 6'1" *** is Balanced and we already know that his Det is 13, but I can also tell you that his Amb is 13 and his Pro is 14. He's already at a CA of 160 at the age of 21 and is highly likely to reach his PA ceiling of 178 PA by the end of his development period. Again, he played 27 games at 16 and 31 more at 17. (48b) Teixeira (POR) 6'3" * is one that surprised me a little. For years we were told by the SI boffins that Det & Pro ruled all things Youth Development and then a few years ago the message changed and the advice being handed down was that Amb was also key to player development, and to an equal level as Det & Pro. I was ENORMOUSLY skeptical of this and I know people have run tests and this and that, but at the time I wasn't sold. I just didn't think that Amb was as powerful as either Det or Pro. Well already know that his Det is 16 and that his Amb is low, but I can also tell you that his Amb is 5 and his Pro is 14. He only played 2 games at 16, 7 at 17 but then 30 at 18. This together with his 2x positive development attributes was enough to make up for his shortfall in Amb. He's maxed out at 158 CA, (which is a very decent CA by the way. Don't me thinking that this doesn't count just because he's not a 180 or 190 PA player. So while we believe, (at least in part), what SI tell us about Amb, we also know that we can sort of force our way past it as a problem with good early game-time and decent Det/Pro. So there are no other negative personalities on the list to dissect, so let's try something else. If a player had good PA but had failed to develop for whatever reason, then listing the players by Actual CA wouldn't see him at the top. No. Instead we would have to look at players ranked by Actual PA, and then look for players with low CA and then check their age to see if they had been given time to develop. This time we have ranked my squad by Actual PA and as we go down the Actual PA column we're going to look for big gaps between Actual CA and Actual PA, and then we're going to check to see if they still have significant time to develop and then we're going to highlight anything that stands out and why. (58a) Flores (NED)(SLV) has a big gap of 83 between CA and PA, but he's 17 so let's ignore him. (56a) Juromito (POR) *** DR has a gap of 50 between CA and PA, but he's 18 so let's ignore him. (57a) Lima (CPV)(POR) 6'0" *** has a gap of 39 between CA and PA, but he's 17 so let's ignore him. (59e) Marques (POR) has a gap of 53 between CA and PA, but he's 15 so let's just ignore him. (51b) Oliveira (POR) ** has a gap of 34 between CA and PA, but he's 23 years old now and his development period is almost over. He's going to struggle to reach his PA at this rate. Amb 11 Det 10 Pro 12 He played 7 games for the B team as a 15 year old, but then made 0 appearances for the next 2 seasons as a 16 and 17 year old, and then just 5 and 11 appearances as an 18 and 19 year old. His starting CA was 77, (which is decent), and I think the problem here is that he was knocked down the pecking order by players in subsequent intakes....... Actually no. I have gone back and checked the next 2 intakes and he should still have been ahead of them in the pecking order so I must have dropped the ball at some point and it proved costly for him. He hasn't developed as he should have. (54h) Tavares (POR) (CPV) ** has a gap of 51 between CA and PA, but he's 21 years old now and although he has a few more years he going to struggle to reach his PA at this rate. Amb 13 Det 17 Pro 13 He didn't play regularly for the B Team until he was 18, (where as the previous players we have looked at who have developed well were playing senior football at 16 and 17), and this has stunted his development. It's also possible that this player started with a really low CA and this hindered his ability for me to play him in the B Team...... [checks intake for Mar 2054]...... and yes, he came through with a lowly CA of 59 so it was harder to get him a game in the B Team because he wasn't good enough at that age. Rather than stunting his development as 1st thought, it just started from a lower point. We've looked at World players ranked by CA and my club players ranked by CA and PA, so let's have a look at World players ranked by Actual PA, see if we can find some with big variances between PA and CA, (where the player isn't still developing), and then work backwards to see what the problem might have been. 1. Yacine Limouri has a CA of 133 and a PA of 182 so a gap of 49 at the age of 23 when his development period is almost over. Amb 18 Det 15 Pro 12 He made his Ligue 1 debut at 15, but the problem here is that where as my B Team is in the 2nd tier in Portugal, the PSG B Team is in the 4th tier in France and this just hasn't been a good enough standard to develop him. Although he's made 174 career appearances by age 23 only 12 of them have been in Ligue 1 and 162 of them have been in the French 4th tier. He needed to be loaned out to a higher level at some point and it never happened. 2. Oumar Carre. Here is another one with exactly the same thing. Even a M.Citizen personality wasn't enough to save him. He's 44 points off at 24 years old. Apologies for rambling and going off on a big tangent, but the thing I want to get across here is that it doesn't actually matter what the CA and the PA of your player is and what the personality of your player is, if you don't give them exposure to the 1st Team, (at a decent level), then all the mentoring/tutoring/training in the World isn't going to save them.

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. SC. We've got phenomenal depth in this position and it's really not east to work out who should play in what team. The swap last season from Simoes to Rosa reaped immediate dividends as he set new club scoring records and won the European Golden Boot. Why had I not done that before? (44a) Simões (POR) * has 2 years left on his contract and as he is valued at about £70M aged 30, I think I will look to cash in on him next season because I can't afford to pay him what he wants. 1st Team. (45c) Rosa (POR) * & (53a) Khwinana (ENG) (RSA) ***. (50l) Bartlett (ENG) * & (44a) Simões (POR) *. B Team. (51b) Oliveira (POR) ** & (53g) Lopes (POR). (54f) Sales (POR) *. U23's. U19's. Loan. (57c) Inácio (POR) & (53g) Lopes (POR). Sell.

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. ML & MR. We've got lots of depth in these areas and the key is to make through that we keep the pathway clear for new players coming through. ML. 1st Team. (53b) Espínola (POR) * & (49e) Madruga (POR). B Team. (58a) Flores (NED)(SLV) & (56l) Morais (CPV) (POR). U23's. U19's. Loan. Sell. (52a) Brito (POR) * SELL MR. 1st Team. (51a) Marinho (POR) *** & (55b) Cunha (BRA) *** MR. B Team. (54b) Soares (CPV)(POR) *** MR U23's. U19's. Loan. (52i) Simões (POR) * (52e) Oliveira (CPV) * Sell. (50b) Pablo (ESP) ML SELL

I've not got much experience in South America. I did a Youth Only save starting with a non-playable club a few years ago, but once we were successful I jumped ship and did a runner to France for some reason. I didn't finish it at all. I really need to go back and do a proper South American save properly. [Edit] There is enormous scope for both GK goals but also the Pele challenge because of the State Championship in Brazil. I really need to set a goal-scoring GK record at some point that will NEVER be beaten.

If I'm being completely honest with you, I thought it was every season until you just said this. It seems you're correct. It has been every season until now in real life but the last consecutive year it was played was 2022 and then it went to a 3 year gap to 2025 and then it's been at a 4 year gap ever since. It was won by PSG in 2057 so it will next be played in 2061. I must admit, it is a poxy competition, (but now we're meant to be in it it's obviously not poxy at all). (By the way, isn't "poxy an excellent word). (A pox on all your houses if you disagree with me!)

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. MC. I'm considering selling (44c) Ogbu (ENG) (NGA) * because his contract expires at the end of the season and he's worth about £50M and Real Madrid are interested. We would miss him, but I don't think I should be letting a player like that run his contract out now. We have a few other options available to play in the DLP role and while they aren't as good as him, they certainly aren't rubbish. Yeah, if someone want to give us £50M for him then they can have him. 1st Team. (44c) Ogbu (ENG) (NGA) * & (55a) Mavioso (POR) ***. (51j) Vicente (POR) * & (49a) Odhiambo (POR) (KEN) *. (47k) Tavares (CPV) *. B Team. (55c) Sousa (POR) * & (54h) Tavares (POR) (CPV) **. (59b) Cruz (POR) MC & (53f) Diogo (POR). U23's. U19's. Loan. (51f) Matias (POR) * Sell. (51e) Clayton (BRA), (51c) Alves (POR) *, (49f) Santos (POR) SELL, (57e) Rosado. (POR)

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. DC. I could do with some more centre-backs coming through the next few intakes because we have 2 of our 4 1st team centre-backs who are African and will go missing in January. 1st Team. (48b) Teixeira (POR) 6'3" * & (54a) Fati (GNB)(POR) 6'1" ***. (57a) Lima (CPV)(POR) 6'0" *** & (45e) The Gimp (ENG) 6'3" **. B Team. (56f) Modesto (POR) 6'4" & (53h) Alexandre (BRA) 5'11" *. (53k) Charrier (FRA) 6'2" & (52o) Rivas (VEN) 6'1". U23's. U19's. (59d) Coxi (ANG) 6'1" & (59l) Cassamá (GNB) (POR) 6'0". Loan. (51n) Varela (CPV)(POR) 6'1" * & (54g) Gomes (POR). Sell.

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. DR. We've got some good options here at varying ages so things are looking decent for the future. 1st Team. (48c) Bronze (POR) 6'0" & (41a) Gil (POR) *. B Team. (56a) Juromito (POR) *** DR & (59e) Marques (POR). U23's. (52c) Pinto (POR) DR U19's. (59c) Yufeng (CHN) 6'0" Loan. (47b) Santiago (POR) 6'0" & (55h) Filipe (POR). Sell. (56o) Sá (POR) DR SELL

£100M Bid. Jul 2059. I think he's the only player I wouldn't sell, (at any price). I put a price of £100M because I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to pay it. They are basically paying it because his match ratings suggest that he has been performing out of his skin, (and he has to be fair), but the match ratings are ridiculously skewed by the fact that he score 19 goals last season. I think I need to remove his asking price. [Done] I hope this doesn't make him unhappy though. Considering we w're league and Champions league Champions it shouldn't do. In other news though, putting the weakest member of the squad on pens and watching his price soar and then flogging him seems to be a pretty smart thing to do right now.

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. DL. We played so long with "righties" playing out of position on the left that it's good to have some proper "lefties". 1st Team. (52b) Martins (POR) * & (50g) Martins (POR) (FRA) DL *. B Team. (57b) Trindade (POR) * DL & (57d) Kravchuk (POR) (UKR) *. U23's. (52c) Pinto (POR) DR U19's. Loan. (57d) Kravchuk (POR) (UKR) *, (57o) Chana (POR) *, (55d) Trindade (POR), Sell.

Squad Depth. Jul 2059. GK. The save isn't going to go past the end of Ako's career and his 4+3 contract will take him to 2066, (when he will be 31), and I should be able to just throw money at him to get him to re-sign at some point. 1st Team. It's hard to comprehend that (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" has already scored 112 career goals and is only 24 years old. B Team. (52j) Candé (GNB) (POR) 6'2" U23's. (57f) Vercleyen (POR) (FRA) U19's. Loan. (50f) Loris (LUX) (FRA) 6'0" & (51k) Diniz (POR) 6'4" Sell.

I don't think that we have reached the point where we have achieved almost all we can, and in fact I think there is a fair way to go based on weaknesses in the squad and the young players we have coming through. If we win back to back titles then that would be decent, but also I think we need to be winning a clean sweep of trophies too. I do feel better about it today though. Thanks It just felt that we won it without too much effort simply because it wasn't my priority, but in actual fact it took an ENORMOUS amount of effort. What I go through in pre-season to ensure that each player is in the right squad and will get the required amount of football for their development is a hugely onerous task, and that's even before I set individual training and PPM's. I know I delegate loads of stuff that some of you do, (and of course I have the IR button), but bloody hell I have worked hard to get the save to this point. We will be competing in 7 senior competitions next season, (League, Cup(x2), Super-Cup(x2), Champions League, World Club Champs). I want to see us get close to winning all of them but priority will again be the league because I think it's the hardest to win. Next season is an AFCON year and we find it harder in those years, (so I have to keep that in mind), but I also have designs on an unbeaten league season, (although that will be tough). My plan is to keep this save going until Ako retires. That should give me a good tilt at something special in terms of GK goals, (250ish might be possible), and will hopefully coincide nicely with the release of FM23.

I think it's a few things actually. 1st it's because I was able to rest players for the last month and that has an enormous impact. The 2nd is that I only have the Portugese, Spanish & Brazilian leagues loaded, so generally speaking the contests against clubs from those Nations is harder, (in my opinion). Having said that, English clubs, Bayern, Juve & PSG have won 26 of the 37 Champions Leagues during this save, so how I "feel" doesn't seem to correspond to the actual data. That being said, I think we've been particularly unlucky in the Champions league draws for ages during this save. Not just in the Group Stage draws, but also in the early Knockout stages. This is who we have lost to in recent seasons. 2045/46 1st Knockout Round. PSG. 2046/47 1st Knockout Round. Juve. 2047/48 1st Knockout Round. PSG. 2048/49. Group Stage. Arsenal & Dortmund. 2049/50. Group Stage. Bayern & Inter. 2050/51. Quarter Finals. Real Madrid. 2051/52. 1st Knockout Round. Arsenal. 2052/53. Group Stage. Liverpool & Juve. 2053/54. Quarter Finals. PSG. 2054/55. 1st Knockout Round. Real Sociedad, (who are a HUGE club now). 2055/56. Quarter Finals. Bayern. 2056/57. 1st Knockout Round. Real Madrid. 2057/58. Semi Finals. PSG. 4 times in 13 seasons we were knocked out by PSG, (and I flippin HATE PSG). 3 more times we lost to Real Madrid or Real Sociedad, (who have usurped Barca). 3 times we didn't get out of the Group, (we were 3rd). I don't think we under-performed in any of these seasons. We were just beaten by bigger and better teams. I think we were due a little luck after all that. We certainly had an easier Group this season, (Ajax, Villarreal & Koln), but the knockout stages certainly weren't easy so I'm not sure why it feels hollow. I suppose it's because we avoided Benfica and Real Sociedad who are 2 of the best teams in the World at the moment, but beating Benfica in the league or League Cup doesn't feel hollow in the slightest.

Awards. Jun 2059. It's mental that I have now had 3 different GK's score 100+ career goals for me in this save. 167 Simoes 112 (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" 100 Valente (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" (52j) Candé (GNB) (POR) 6'2" (53a) Khwinana (ENG) (RSA) *** (45c) Rosa (POR) *, (51b) Oliveira (POR) **. (53g) Lopes (POR)

Thanks very much. Not completely sure why, but feels a little hollow.

Does it feel a little anti-climatic? It certainly does to me. Because Benfica imploded, I was able to completely rest the squad for the European games, (Semi & Final), and it made such a big difference. I didn't think we were capable of winning the Champions League so I would have prioritised the league had I needed to make a choice. We won the league by 11 points in the end and that's even with losing to them 1-0 in May.

I know it's silly, but I think I would have preferred a 20 goal season from my GK than winning the Champions League.

We were the 1st Portugese club to win the Champions League in the save, although Benfica were Runners Up in 2035/36. The Europa League was won by Juve and we will play them in the SuperCup. We won this back in 2042/43 and Porto(x2), Benfica(x2) & Sporting have also won it. Porto(x2), Sporting & PdF have all been Runners Up during the save. The Europa Conference was won by us back in 2034/35 and has been won by Guimaraes, Gil Vicente & Sporting, while we have also been Runners Up(x2), as have Gil Vicente.

Winning the league is brilliant, but winning the Champions League was really anti-climatic. I would have got more enjoyment out of Ako scoring 20 goals in a season I think.

May 2059. Liga Bwin. I fielded weakened teams in all the league games this month. With the league won it didn't matter if we won and I was just doing what I could to ensure that players were fit an available. It wasn't good enough to beat Benfica, but it was plenty good enough for the other games. While we have the top goal-scorer in the league in (45c) Rosa (POR) *, what's really worth highlighting is that not only is (42i) Edgar João (POR) (ANG) a product of our Academy, but our GK (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" sits in 4th on 15 league goals. UEFA Champions League. We had right back (41a) Gil (POR) * sent off at 0-0 after 22 mins in the Semi-Final but still managed to come through and overturn the 1 goal deficit from the 1st leg. We played really well after going down to 10 men. In the Final we were pretty dominant and should if anything have won by more. Part of me thinks that we got lucky in playing 3 English teams in the Quarters, Semi's and Final, but we can only beat who we are up against and if Benfica and Real Sociedad couldn't get past these English opponents then that's their problem. Goal-scoring GK's. I was really hoping to break the 20 goal barrier but (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" has been left stranded on 19 goals this season after failing to score in the last 10 games of the season. Finances.

Apr 2059. Liga Bwin. We won the league with 4 games still remaining, thanks largely to Benfica completely imploding and only winning 2 of their last 7 league games. UEFA Champions League. A big 1st leg lead set us up nicely to get past Arsenal and just a 1 goal deficit from the away leg at Liverpool gives us a good chance of reaching the Champions league Final for the 1st time. Goal-scoring GK's. Finances.

Mar 2059. Liga Bwin. We dropped 2 pts against Leixoes, but we're still 6 pts clear of Benfica because they drew away to CdP. With 7 games still to play we can afford to lose to Benfica and still have 3 pts to play. We meed 15 goals in 7 games at 2.14 goals per game to break the 100 goals scored mark. UEFA Champions League. Trailing Real Madrid 1-0 from the away leg, we put them to the sword pretty comfortably in the end with a hat-trick from (45c) Rosa (POR) * and a direct free-kick. Goal-scoring GK's. With a minimum of 9 games still to play, (50c) Ako (FRA) (GPE) 6'0" has already scored 17 goals this season, has failed from the spot on 4 occasions and when out with the flu his replacement scored 2 goals. He could theoretically be on 23 goals already had he stayed fit and healthy and converted at 100%, Finances.

NxGn 2059. Mar 2059.

Predictions challenge. If anyone is using the editor in the game, then feel free to post your Youth Intake in here and I will make some predictions about the intake and then you can check how accurate I am using the editor and report back. Alternatively, even if you don't have the editor, post your intakes in here and I will make some predictions about what I think. Please note that the responses will be in relation to the other members of your Youth Intake. I still can't tell you if anyone is going to be any good or not.